Black

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Morning light streamed through the designer blinds into the lavishly appointed offices from which Freddie Sypes operated his celebrity gossip empire, the heady aroma of freshly brewed dark-roast Costa Rican coffee pervading the suite like ambrosia. Freddie's assistant Daniela, a severe brunette Italian beauty who stood six one in her stocking feet, lightly rapped on his Honduran mahogany door with her carefully sculpted nails.

Freddie looked up from the pile of publications he was poring through, a daily ritual that started each of his days before anyone else but Daniela was in the office, her hours of 6:50 to whenever long ago tacitly agreed to as part of her continued employment.

FSA was a twenty-four-hour shop, but for the executive offices, the business day began when Freddie appeared precisely at seven each morning and ended when he left, which was usually ten to twelve hours after he arrived, six days a week, and sometimes on Sundays. One of his favorite sayings was that bad news didn't sleep, and if you didn't like the grueling treadmill that was part and parcel of his empire, you were free to go find work elsewhere.

Freddie eyed Daniela's cutting-edge outfit and cocked a carefully groomed eyebrow, his salon-tanned face looking every day of his forty-nine years.

"Yes, Daniela?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you, but we just got a tip that I knew you'd want to look at."

Freddie had a long list of celebrities whose names would generate an instant alert so he could personally decide how to handle the tip. He waved a manicured hand and pursed his lips, impatient with her. He still had a faint buzz of hangover from the party at one of his favorite haunts the night before, a casual soirée with twenty of his closest right-now friends that had gone on a little too late, as had the ensuing encounter with a twenty-something cameraman with a body like Adonis and a face to match.

Daniela placed the slip of paper on his desk and stepped away. Freddie peered through his designer tortoiseshell reading glasses at the brief message and sat bolt upright with a sharp intake of breath.

"Who have we got available?" he demanded.

"Simon and Rick are both on deck."

"Get them out to the place, but it has to be discreet. Total stealth. Maybe we can catch the old fool with his gut hanging out and a few days' growth. We can run anything they get this afternoon with the piece about him being picked up for questioning by the police. It would be nice if we could paint a picture of him being totally out of control."

Freddie was particularly pleased about the scoop from one of his contacts at LAPD headquarters. He'd had someone call Hunter's press contact about it, but all he'd gotten was the expected 'no comment,' the arrogant bastard's standard response to FSA on any topic at all. Hunter remained convinced that Freddie had somehow contrived to have his slut daughter run down, which couldn't have been less true. It still tasted like bile in Freddie's throat that he'd been forced to shell out millions to Hunter over the alleged actions of one of his lowest-end stringers, but the attorneys hadn't wanted to take it to a jury, cautioning that the public perceived his profession as ranking slightly below call girl or congressman in terms of integrity.

Not that the impression bothered him, or was necessarily wrong. He'd created an incredible entity with FSA, but its currency was dirt and innuendo and scandal, and Freddie had long ago learned that it was better to get the scoop without questioning the ethics behind the way it was obtained or who might be hurt as a result. He was in the titillation business, and fornication, overdoses, drunk driving, rehab, adultery, and scandal were his stock in trade. Nobody paid big advertising dollars to feature front and center on a site that had countless dog-bites-man articles. He needed a constant stream of juicy tidbits, star sightings, ugly mishaps, and tall tales to draw the numbers that kept him at the top of the rankings.

"I'll call them right now," she said, and gently pulled his door closed, leaving him to consider the slush pile of folly that had collected on his desk overnight to be trawled for anything tasty enough for the consumption of the idle masses.

Freddie rose, walked to his picture window, and activated the blinds. As they rotated open, slowly and obediently revealing a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean from his penthouse suite, he was reminded that the trappings of his lifestyle didn't make him feel as potent as they should. Sure, he had the inevitable canary-yellow convertible Porsche, invitations to all the best functions, designer drugs and clothes, unlimited sexual adventures...but in his gut, he always felt like an employee, not fully in control of his destiny. He'd had to sell majority interest in FSA to a group of investors who were professional money jockeys, and they expected performance out of him like any other hired gun - he was only as good as his next quarter. The pressure was constant, and more irritating than anything else. He hadn't changed his approach, which was charging hard 24/7, but now he felt like he had no choice in the matter, which made a huge difference in his motivation level.

And all because of that bastard Hunter.

He could trace a hundred percent of his recriminations back to the settlement.

The blackest day of his life.

Freddie turned from the view and plopped back into his Herman Miller chair and studied the pile of pubs on his desk. Years of clawing, cutting throats, backstabbing, and conniving and plotting had gotten him where he had been, and then it had all come crashing down. True, he was still a multi-millionaire, but he should have been far richer. And he lived in a town where talentless deadheads pocketed twenty million a film for showing up and phoning it in, so his money looked meager by comparison.

No, he was still an outsider, nose pressed against the glass, watching the privileged and the pretty leading dream lives while he shivered in the figurative cold. A necessary irritant to most of them, to be pandered to when it suited their purpose and ignored when it didn't.

Freddie viewed himself as one level above the reality TV stars he stalked with regularity, feeding the public's endless appetite for twaddle. Not quite legit, but known enough to get a decent table at a good restaurant on a Saturday night. In Hollywood, that was often how one could determine the pecking order - who could walk into Nobu and command a prime spot without a reservation.

He wasn't an A player, or even a B, he knew. He existed in a kind of celebrity purgatory where he was a known quantity, but despised for how he made his living. Paparazzi were like insects, swarming over the still-warm carcass of whatever object of fascination had attracted the public's interest. And he was the king roach. He didn't kid himself, and there was no self-loathing. Freddie was accepting of his station. But he'd gone from owner to towel boy overnight, and there wasn't a day that went by that he didn't curse Hunter and his bitch of a daughter for ruining his good thing.

An icon on his flat screen monitor blinked, signaling that his first virtual meeting of the day was about to start. He sighed and took a swig of coffee, then pushed his pile aside and reached for the mouse, an acrimonious aftertaste lingering as he swallowed, thoughts of Hunter having ruined even that for him.

But not for much longer.

Hunter needed this film to be big, and Freddie was putting every ounce of muscle into subtly denigrating the man and his work, planting seeds of doubt in his audience's mind.

In this business, that could be enough.

Freddie would have the last laugh.

He'd make sure of it.