The Bequest by [email protected] Read Free Book Online

it
is—it is bad, isn’t it?”
“I haven’t read it.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ll get one of our writers to do a rewrite then
we’ll have the studios begging us for it. It’ll be a bidding war to end all
bidding wars. The buzz’ll freaking blow up the box office.”
He turned away from Teri and started shuffling through the scripts
again.
“Stop,” Teri said.
“What?”
She grabbed his arm again. “I said stop.”
“What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“Somebody died, Mike.”
Mike straightened, bowed his head, and put his hand over his heart.
“Yes, let’s have a moment of silence for the dearly departed.”
After two seconds, he went back to shuffling the scripts. So far, he
had failed to notice the screenplays on the floor by the sliding glass door.
“Now let’s see if we can’t save your career before it dies, too,” he
said.
She grabbed his arm again and yanked hard, spinning him around. His
eyebrows shot up in surprise. He looked at her hand on his arm, fingers
white with tension from her grip on his bicep. She let go.
“Get out,” she said.
“You’re kidding, right? Just still a little pissed?”
“I’ve never been more serious.”
“You’ve been pissin’ and moanin’ about something to put you back
on the map, and now it’s dropped right into your lap. And what do you
do? You want to ignore it.”
“I don’t want to take advantage of someone’s death.”
“You didn’t kill him,” Mike said. “This guy killed himself, and he gave
it to you in his will. He knew what he was doing.”
“You just said it, Mike: He killed himself. Does that sound like
someone who knew what he was doing?”
“Look, Babe, he was looking for a way to get his script in your hands.
He also had to know what a firestorm this would kick up. Dead man wills
famous actress his screenplay. Yeah, I think he knew exactly what he was
doing.”
“But he’s dead, so what good does all this do him now?” she asked.
“It’s like a posthumous medal of honor. Or like John Kennedy
Toole’s Pulitzer for A Confederacy of Dunces . That only got published
because he killed himself. Maybe this guy was a Toole fan.”
“It just doesn’t feel right.”
“As your agent—”
“You’re not my agent anymore. Remember?”
“Did you ever get a formal termination letter from the agency?”
“No.”
“Read your contract. We’re still your agents until that happens. And
as your agent—”
Teri walked to the front door. Opening it, she said, “I want you to
leave.”
“And I want that script.”
He tossed the last script on the couch and scanned the room. His eyes
fell on the scripts scattered on the floor. He took one step that way, but
Teri ran across the room. She snatched up the scattered scripts and held
them to her chest.
“Get out, Mike. Now.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“What was your first clue? Maybe when I told you I was serious?”
“Come on, Babe, don’t be an idiot.”
She marched back to the front door and stood silently. After a
moment, Mike headed that way, refusing to make eye contact with her. As
he brushed past and out the door, he said, “Better read your contract.”
She slammed the door after him. She tried to blink the tears away but
with no success. She looked at the scripts she held. The top one was The
Precipice. She dropped the others on the entryway floor and stared at it.
Maybe she should read it. Just a few pages, anyway. Didn’t she owe at
least that much to the man who bequeathed it to her? Her fingers flicked at
the cover. She tried to will them to open it, to reveal the first page, but it
was as if they had a mind of their own.
She carried the script to the fireplace and tossed it inside. Ashes
puffed and fluttered from the last fire she had started months earlier on a
winter’s day when the temperatures had plummeted into the 50s. Okay,
so maybe it wasn’t Texas, with its freezing winter days, but she always
loved a crackling fire, and any excuse