"Coldheart Canyon (preview edition)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barker Clive - Coldheart Canyon)

He was buried in Las Vegas, according to the instructions in his will. He's
been happiest there, he'd always said, with everything to win and everything to
lose.
This remark was twice quoted at the memorial service, and hearing it, Todd
felt a cold trickle of apprehension pass down his spine. What Smotherman had known,
and been at peace with, was the fact that all of Tinseltown was a gameуand it could
be lost in a heartbeat. Smotherman had been a gambling man. He'd taken pleasure in
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Barker, Clive - Coldheart Canyon
the possibility of failure and it had sweetened his success. Todd, on the other
hand, had never even played the slots, much less a game of poker or roulette.
Sitting there listening to the hypocritesуmost of whom had despised Smothermanуstand
up and extol the dead man, he realized that Keever's passing cast a pall over his
future. The golden days were over. His place in the sun would very soon belong to
others; if it didn't already.
The day after the memorial service he poured his fears out to Maxine. She
was all reassurance.
"Smotherman was a dinosaur," she said as she sipped her vodka. "The only
reason people put up with his bullshit all those years was because he made everybody
a lot of money. But let's be honest: he was a low-life. You're a class act. You've
got nothing to worry about."
"I don't know," Todd said, his head throbbing from one too many drinks. "I
look at myself sometimes..."
"And what?"
"I'm not the guy I was when I made Gunner."
"Damn right you're not. You were nobody then. Now you're one of the most
successful actors in history."
"There's others coming up."
"So what?" Maxine said, waving his concerns away.
"Don't do that!" Todd said, slamming his palm down on the table. "Don't try
and placate me! Okay? We have a problem. Smotherman was going to put me back on top,
and now the son of a bitch is dead!"
"All right. Calm down. All I'm saying is that we don't need Smotherman.
We'll hire somebody to rework the script, if that's what you want. Then we'll find
somebody hip to direct it. Somebody with a contemporary style. Smotherman was an
old-fashioned guy. Everything had to be big. Big explosion. Big tits. Big guns.
Audiences don't care about any of that any more. You need to be part of what's
coming up, not what happened yesterday. You know, I hate to say it, but perhaps
Keever's dying is the best thing that could have happened. We need a new look for
you. A new Todd Pickett."
"You think it's as simple as that?" Todd said. He wanted so much to believed
that Maxine had the problem solved.
"How difficult can it be?" Maxine said. "You're a great star. We just need
to get people focused on you again." She pondered for a moment. "You know what? We
should set up a lunch with Gary Eppstadt."
"Oh Jesus, why? You know how I hate that ugly little fuck"
мAn ugly little fuck he may be. But he is going to pay for Warrior. And if
he's going put twenty million and a slice of the back-end on the table for your
services to art, you can make nice with the son of a bitch for an hour."
THREE