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.He couldn t stand listening to Jason rolling around with his play pal.He rootedout his cell phone and sent the guy a text. I need my house.Gotta work.His cell phone registered a call.He checked the readout.He was surprised to see it wasthe office number for Longshore Films. Stand by for Jack Kilgrove, the male voice said, without so much as a hello.Stand by and do what& catch him?www.total-e-bound.comIF COME A.J.Llewellyn 89 Hey, Zam, Jack said, picking up the call,  I ve been thinking& I haven t read yourpilot episode yet& Actually, have you finished it? No, I m halfway through, Zam lied. That s cool. Cause I d kinda wanted to talk to you& you know, go over some ideas Ihave for the beats in the storyline.Here we go&  No problem, he said aloud. Great!Zam knew from bitter experience to agree with everything producers, executives andeven their wives had to say about a screenplay.He would say yes to everything and thenwrite what he wanted to write.None of them could ever agree with each other anyway. Your agent emailed me the treatment and it s pretty good.I like the balance of humourand mystery, Jack said.Uh-oh, this is a bad sign.He s complimenting me.They always start with a compliment.He sabout to drop a bloody hammer on me. So, I was wondering& Do you have time for a breakfast meeting tomorrow? Sure. Zam had plenty of time for meetings.He d typed exactly seventeen words ofthe pilot. How about Lenny s Deli in the Palisades? Jack asked. Let s say, nine o clock?Before Zam could respond, Jack s voice dropped. Since I am meeting you on a personalbusiness matter on company time, I m going to tell them I m going to an AA meeting. Are you in AA? Of course not.See you at nine. Jack ended the call.Anxiety started creeping through Zam s system.It bothered him that he was workingwith an executive who was lying to his bosses.How secure was an If Come deal, anyway?He called his attorney, Michael Bluestein, who took his call and barked,  Is this apersonal call or business? Er& business, I guess.Michael sighed. I ll give you two free minutes.What s up?Zam didn t skip a beat. My agent just got me an If Come deal with Jack Kilgrove, anexecutive at Longshore Films. With the executive himself or the company?www.total-e-bound.comIF COME A.J.Llewellyn 90 The executive. Go on. Well, I just was wondering if you ve heard of those and if I should be excited andofficially climb out of my pit of despair or should I, er& linger here a while? I ve heard of them and they are potentially very lucrative for the writer.It s a goodsign if he s willing to put his name to it and shop it around, but, of course, I d have to see thedeal memo. Sure. Zam swallowed down the tense lump in his throat.Michael was expensive.Onthe other hand, he d received a foreign sales residual cheque a few days ago he hadn t beenexpecting for Snakes and Ladders.It would cover six months of car payments, healthinsurance coverage and an hour of Michael s time. I ll contact that goofball Lucy, Michael said,  and have her send me the deal memo.Isthere a contract yet? Not that I know of. In Hollywood, a deal memo was any written piece of paper viafax, snail mail or even email discussing terms for a contract.It always surprised Zam thatmany deals went forth on these memos alone before anything was officially signed.Theywere considered legally binding. Fantastic, Zam said. It won t take you more than an hour to read the contract willit? Not unless something calamitous happens, Michael said and ended the call.Nobodysaid goodbye to him anymore.Zam tried not to worry about the future.He tried not to fretabout Jason using his bed, bizarre as it was.He stared into his empty coffee cup.Nope, noinspiration there.He thought back to the night he and Jason had first met.He d answeredJason s ad in the personals.Voicemail was the hot new thing in LA back then and it had beennovel to call and listen to the man s voice.He d hung up and called back three times beforestriking up the courage to actually leave a message.Jason had returned his call within the hour.Two hours later they had met for drinks atthe now defunct Red Onion in Beverly Hills.Two hours after that they had been in Jason sbed having scorching-hot monkey sex.Zam felt a pang of nostalgia for those days.It had allseemed so much simpler then.He d kept some of their answering machine and voicemailmessages for months [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]