Power Games

2

Los Angeles

Kevin Chase was watching his manager’s mouth. He noticed for the first time that it was a small mouth, the teeth crowded, and the jowly cheeks bolstering it brought to mind a yapping dog wedged between two cushions. The mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out. In the years since becoming America’s biggest solo artist—scratch that, the world’s—and the definitive pin-up for a squillion screeching tweenies (when was his fan base going to grow?), Kevin had honed the art of appearing to concentrate while actually not listening to a single word.

‘Kevin, are you paying attention? C’mon, buddy, this is serious.’

‘Yeh.’

‘Well, what have you got to say for yourself?’

Kevin slumped further into the squishy leather couch in Sketch Falkner’s downtown office and grudgingly lifted his shoulders.

‘Dunno,’ he grumbled. ‘One of those things, I guess.’

Sketch contained his exasperation and came to the front of the desk. He had been in this game thirty years. He had seen it all. As the industry’s top talent spotter and head of the board here at Cut N Dry Records, he knew how to handle his clients.

‘What in hell were you thinking?’ he encouraged.

Kevin folded his arms, stared ahead and refused to reply. His gold FNYC cap was wedged on sideways. His slouch jeans were massive, gangsta style despite his suburban upbringing, and strapped partway down his ass. He wore a white vest adorned by hefty chains, and on his feet were his cherished purple SUPRAs, one of which was jiggling up and down as if he needed the bathroom. Several tattoos were splashed self-consciously across his upper arms, the biggest depicting his ex-girlfriend, pop princess Sandi—and, as if having Sandi’s image branded onto his skin for all eternity wasn’t bad enough, the artist had given her some weird-ass dangly skirt that made it look like Kevin had a thing for chicks with dicks. His frame was slight despite rigorous gym sessions, and the wisps around his chin refused to mature beyond fuzz. The overall impression was one of a junior who had raided his big brother’s closet, or else a snowman that had melted in the sun, leaving only a jumble of clothes behind.

Eventually he said: ‘I want another Coke.’

‘Please,’ put in his mother Joan, seated at his shoulder like a parrot.

‘Please,’ Kevin grunted.

The truth was that a kid in Kevin’s position didn’t need to pay attention. Not really. Kevin Chase had three platinum albums to his name. He was the most talked about performer of his generation. He had scooped a raft of awards: Best Artist, Best Male, Best Single, Best Pop Act, Best Dance Act, Best Video, even Best Hair, which was only right because he took fucking good care of his hair, damn it. He was the ultimate twenty-first-century poster boy. He had close to sixty million followers on Twitter. His adoring fans, referred to as the Little Chasers, treated him like the Second Coming of Jesus. He blew up the media. He played sell-out gigs across the globe. He had his own fashion line, his own fragrance and produced his own movies. He had waxworks of his image in five major cities. He owned a chopper and a mega-yacht and so many properties that half the time he didn’t even know what countries they were in. He was a phenomenon, a philosopher (who could forget the profound opener to ‘Touch My Kiss’? Girl, this life can get so serious) and a poet (You make me so delirious; I’m on this like mysterious). He owned a dachshund named Trey.

At nineteen, Kevin Chase was the biggest superstar on the planet. He couldn’t go for a dump without Security producing the toilet roll.

The Coke was brought over. ‘Thank you …’ prompted Joan.

‘Whatever.’

Sketch nodded towards the paused plasma screen mounted above his desk. On it, Kevin’s image was frozen onstage at the Chicago United Center, mic to his lips, hips strutting, his metallic suit and dark shades part of the Raunchy Robot theme. In the front ranks, a sea of eager Little Chasers grasped for their hero.

‘Joanie,’ tried Sketch, who knew that bringing in Kevin’s mom usually achieved the desired result, ‘what do you think?’

‘Well, I—’

‘I can answer for myself, can’t I?’ Kevin scowled. ‘It’s a fucking hand gesture, what’s the big fucking deal anyhow?’

‘Kevin!’ admonished Joan. ‘Language!’

‘You have to understand that this isn’t what the fans expect.’ Sketch laid it out. ‘Kevin Chase is boyfriend material, OK? He’s about puppy dogs and first dates. He’s about Valentine’s cards. He’s about cookies. He’s about … abstinence.’

Kevin gulped. Recently, he had run an interview with a British tabloid, in which he had happily blasted sex before marriage. Ha! That was some laugh. At this rate he wouldn’t be getting sex until … well that was the fucking funny bit because he couldn’t even think of when. Christ! It wasn’t as if he was short of offers. He was Kevin Chase, for God’s sake; by rights he should be nailing any girl he wanted.

Except he couldn’t … Physically.

That was why Sandi had called it off. The label had tried to salvage it, but Sandi had a fire in her knickers and Kevin’s hose was officially out of order.

Kevin started picking the skin around his thumb. Loneliness swept over him in a silent tsunami. His management had control over every other aspect of his life, so he sure wasn’t about to hit Sketch with a confessional on his sexual problems.

Sexual problems! Him! It was enough to make him throw up.

‘What Kevin Chase isn’t about is this.’ Sketch gestured once more at the still. ‘Pelvic thrusting. Cursing. Rubbing his crotch like a … I don’t know, like a dog with his balls in a knot. Telling girls he wants to,’ Sketch consulted his iPad and inhaled sharply, ‘grind you up against the wall where your mom and dad can’t see.’

‘That was part of the song.’

‘It wasn’t.’

‘It should’ve been. It’s not my fault I’ve got to sing like a pussy. I told them I wanted the lyrics to reflect my personality.’

Sketch put down his pad. He assumed his I’m listening face, tempered by a twinge of fatherly concern. When all was said and done, he was the closest thing Kevin had to a father—hell, maybe that was where it had gone so wrong.

Abandonment issues: oldest fuck-up in the book.

Of course the record company was doing little to alleviate it.

Forget it. It’s for the kid’s own good.

Sketch contained a gruesome shiver. You just keep telling yourself that.

He straightened. ‘What would reflect your personality, Kevin? Tell me.’

But Kevin didn’t know, or else he couldn’t articulate it. He didn’t even know if he had a personality, outside of what everyone else told him it was. Lately he had started gazing in the mirror and not recognising the person looking back, half expecting the other Kevin to do something he hadn’t asked it to, like stick its tongue out, or burst out laughing at the punchline his life had become. He might laugh too, if he could remember the joke. Instead, every day was a circus of grabbing bankrollers, snatching and pawing at his fame like rabid dogs. He had no real friends.

He scratched at a mark on the knee of his jeans and tried not to cry.

‘Listen to Sketch, honey,’ Joan crooned, leaning forward in her chair. She wore ill-fitting Prada and too much make-up. ‘He knows what he’s talking about.’

‘Yeah right,’ mumbled Kevin. Sometimes he wanted to throttle his mom. She was happy to tag along for the ride but she didn’t appreciate how much work he had to put in, what this job took out of you, how much stress he was under. She should try being Kevin Chase for a day and see how she liked it!

‘Not good enough.’ Sketch ran a hand through his hair. ‘If this was an isolated incident, buddy, then maybe I’d buy it, but the fact is it’s not. You want me to lay it out for you? Turning up three hours late to the Seattle concert. Telling an audience of schoolkids that if they didn’t like it, they could bite me. Flicking the bird to that pap outside your crib. Rocking up drunk to that book signing and breathing vodka fumes in a nine-year-old’s face—it was a treat to see that splashed across USay the next morning, let me tell you. Trying to get that pregnant ape at the California Zoo Convention to drink a can of Kool beer. Forgetting what song you’re meant to be singing. Messing up your routines. Speeding. Swearing. Trashing hotel rooms … and don’t get me started on taking a leak in that plant pot at Il Cielo—’

‘All right, all right, I get it,’ Kevin supplied bitterly.

‘And what’s with the attitude? That dance troupe you worked with on the last video said you gave them hell. Cursing at reporters, telling press where to go, slamming out at that photographer in Berlin. I mean Jesus H., Kevin—’

‘I never trashed any hotel room. I told you. The sound system exploded.’

Sketch took a breath.

‘And I needed a leak! What do you want me to do, pee in my fucking pants?’

‘You could visit the toilet like everyone else.’

‘I’m not everyone else, though, am I?’

‘Think about it,’ Sketch said. ‘You’ve got a reputation to uphold.’

‘I’m sick of having a reputation.’

Joan put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Honey …’

He shrugged her off.

‘I’ve cancelled your commitments this afternoon,’ offered Sketch. ‘Go home, rest up, get looked after; watch some cartoons—’

‘Cartoons?’ Kevin flared. ‘What am I, five?’

‘Relax.’ Sketch put his hands out. ‘You’ve been under a lot of strain and it’s starting to show. My job is to look after you, and this is what I’m prescribing.’

Along with the rest.

Sketch swallowed his conscience like a bad oyster.

‘I’ll call you in the morning. Sound good, bud?’

Kevin allowed himself to be ushered through the door. Joan was fussing over him, picking threads from his back. ‘Ugh, Mom, piss off, will you?’

They took the elevator in silence. Kevin knew he was being an asshole. He wanted to say sorry but he didn’t know how. He just couldn’t help how angry he felt the whole time. That was the only word. He felt like a bomb about to blow off. The slightest word sent him plummeting into a rage. A throwaway comment made him fly off the handle. Right now he hated everyone and everything and he didn’t, for the life of him, know why. All he knew was that he couldn’t sustain it much longer.

Kevin was going to snap, and it was going to be soon. He couldn’t say what would happen when he did, but one thing was certain: it was going to be bad.

3

London

Regardless of how many celebrities she interviewed, Eve Harley would always be amazed at the scale of their egos. Supermodels were the worst.

‘I guess I kinda always knew I was beautiful,’ Tawny Lascelles was saying from her position in the make-up girl’s chair, angling her face as the blusher brush swept across a pair of immaculate cheekbones. Tawny had a lilting, Texan drawl, and a flush of softness to her voice that betrayed what Eve was beginning to suspect was a core of gritty ambition. She was the magazine favourite of the moment, sweet as candy but sharp enough to be interesting, with a well-publicised streak of rebellion.

‘Can you remember your first shoot?’ Eve asked, adjusting her position on the uncomfortable stool alongside Tawny’s cushioned throne. In the portrait awarded by the bulb-lined mirror she accepted the uncrossable distance between prettiness and beauty. Eve was attractive enough, with her neatly cut shoulder-length brown hair, green almond eyes and petite, bright features, but next to Tawny’s Cara Delevingne vibe anyone was going to look like a sack of potatoes.

‘Oh, yes,’ Tawny’s blue eyes widened, ‘a girl never forgets.’ She pouted to permit a rose-pink liner to caress the contours of her perfect, bee-stung lips. Ravishing wasn’t nearly enough for tonight’s parade: she had to be flawless. ‘I was so nervous. I mean, I’m actually totally uncomfortable with this whole “look at me” thing.’

I bet you are, thought Eve, tapping keynotes into her tablet.

‘So, lucky for me,’ Tawny went on, ‘it was on this paradise beach … and d’you know what the really weird thing was? Like, totally surreal?’

Eve took the question as rhetorical, but when Tawny’s sapphire eyes at last deigned to meet hers in their joint reflection, she shook her head.

‘I’d been there before! On vacation.’ The make-up girl tilted Tawny’s chin, lifting it like a petal so she could add a hint of gloss. ‘And as soon as I walked out on that sand,’ Tawny managed to keep her mouth totally still while she spoke, ‘I was, like, Whoa, this is cosmic, y’know? Like it was meant to happen that way. I was meant to do this. I was meant to be a model—and no one was going to stop me!’

Eve highlighted the section on her pad. She had it all on Dictaphone but, when it came to revisiting a piece, she liked to know which bits had jumped out at the time. This was one of them. Tawny’s tone had slipped. An edge of bitterness had crept in, of having earned her place in the celebrity tree through more than a few strokes of luck.

‘So you believe this is your calling?’

Tawny’s eyes were closed against the delicate application of mascara. ‘Oh, absolutely,’ she said. ‘I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.’

‘Don’t you think it’s an empty sort of profession?’

There was a pause. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Well, good as you might be at it, it’s not really changing the world.’

‘It depends which way you look at it.’

‘Which way do you look at it?’

‘I’m helping people feel better about themselves.’

‘How?’

‘Modelling gives regular people something to aim for.’

‘Even if it’s not attainable?’

Tawny’s eyes opened a fraction, snake-like. ‘What?’

‘The impossible dream, for most women: size 6 and wearing Karl Lagerfeld.’

Tawny batted the make-up girl off. ‘So I should leave them to stew in their fat, sad little lives watching re-runs of America’s Got Talent and stuffing potato chips in their pie-holes?’ Catching herself, she clarified somewhat more demurely, ‘What I mean is, I’m giving them something to aspire to. Beauty … Well, it inspires.’

‘Are you an inspiration?’

‘Yes. In a way.’

‘What way?’

‘Girls want to grow up to be just like me.’

‘Even if they can’t?’

‘Why can’t they?’

Eve thought it was a joke, but Tawny appeared serious.

‘Beauty is a construct,’ she pointed out, ‘right? It’s subjective, prone to change, evolution? In twenty years’ time, will girls want to look like someone else?’

Tawny’s expression was blank.

‘Do you see modelling as philanthropic?’

‘I’m sorry,’ answered Tawny, ‘I don’t know what that means.’

But Eve suspected she did. ‘To enhance the world, to make it a better place.’

‘Then, yes, I suppose I do.’

‘Why?’

Tawny’s eyes opened, flashing danger. The make-up girl’s brush stumbled. ‘Where exactly is this going?’ she demanded. ‘Why, why, why? How, how, how?’

‘It’s an interview.’

‘Well, it sucks.’ Tawny gestured for her assistant. ‘Jean-Paul! Here!’

‘You’ll admit not much is known about how you arrived on the circuit,’ Eve threw out. ‘Maybe something from your childhood made you feel this way?’

‘What, like making the world a better place?’

‘Allegedly you’ve said of your family that—’

‘I’ll stop you there,’ Jean-Paul intervened, ‘I think that’s time. Did you get everything you need?’ But he turned away, not bothering to hang around for an answer. Tawny’s hair crew were next to descend, rattling bottles of spray and cooing over their darling’s fragrant mane as if it were the last head of hair on earth.

‘Get me my grapes,’ came a bad-tempered bark from somewhere inside the melee. ‘I need sugar, JP. I’m dizzy.’

Jean-Paul scurried off to obey.

Eve Harley was frozen out. The interview was over.

The evening was a showcase of upcoming designers, each teamed with an established name in a kind of haute-glitz mentorship programme. Opposite Eve in the ranks sat a prim arrangement of fashionistas, editors, rock musicians and royalty, anyone whose image was regularly splashed across the London society pages—a colourful tableau of elaborate hairstyles, sharp suits and sleekly crossed legs, all with that slightly self-conscious way of sitting, as if these VIPs’ entire lives had become a public display and a lurking photographer could be about to jump out at any moment.

A new collection spilled onto the runway. Tawny Lascelles strutted down the walk, glossily gorgeous and all too aware of that fact, in a Japanese-flavoured drape dress courtesy of a breakthrough artist. But for someone who was all too happy to disclose the finer points of her colonic irrigation regime, or how many egg whites she consumed for breakfast, Tawny was ferociously private about her past.

Eve would get the story, no matter what it took. She always did. She would hunt down the facts and she would hunt them her way. She didn’t do failure and she didn’t do backing out. Her column in the UK’s biggest tabloid relied on it.

The show over, she made a swift exit. January in London was bracing and chill, shining red buses sliding past, their windows clouded with condensation. The River Thames glittered beneath a chain of bridges, snaking down to the golden crust of Westminster, whose peaks were obscured by shifting mist.

Eve checked her phone. It was the usual address, the one he used whenever he visited town. Hailing a taxi, she climbed in. The city rushed past, a blur of lights and sounds, and she spritzed perfume onto her wrists and between her legs.

She couldn’t suppress the wave of butterflies that came with the inevitability of their meeting. It wasn’t as if there were feelings involved—just sex, always sex—and the cold, efficient transaction of it somehow made it more of a thrill.

The cab dropped her at Marble Arch and she walked the rest of the way. Down a moon-frosted lane, away from the crowds, she arrived at his townhouse.

Tapping in the security code, the gates parted, a fairytale twist of black iron.

Orlando Silvers was already on the porch. The door was open, spilling yellow light.

They didn’t say a word. He drew her into the warm and pushed her against the kitchen counter. She went to speak and he crushed her with a kiss, hooking her knee and flipping her round, strong thumbs tearing down her knickers. She felt them rip and he spread her wide and in a second he was inside, hot and deep and thick, her face pressed against the cool steel surface as he pounded, his hand snaking beneath her blouse and freeing her tits.

Eve let him drive against her, her skirt up over her back, one shoe kicked off, her hair pulled and grabbed and her lipstick smudged, until the calm, composed journalist of thirty minutes ago was all but obliterated. Only when Orlando was ready to come did she ease off and draw him to the floor. He was flat on his back, his dick straining beneath the crisp white fabric of his shirt. Slowly she mounted him, unbuttoning her top with tantalising leisure, and he groaned and reached for her as she backed away, peeling off her bra and watching his eyes feast. Making him wait, she finally sank onto him, feeling him fill her up, easing him in and out, right to his tip and down to his base, wetter and wetter each time as his cock became stiffer.

She rode him hard. Only through sex could Eve feel this way—like all the anger and hurt was set free, existing in some separate universe, and all she had here, now, was the intensity and blaze of their combat.

She collapsed against him, their explosions colliding.

Afterwards, Orlando lit a cigarette. They spilled onto the couch, naked and spent. Eve leaned on his chest, running her fingers across his torso, the skin olive-brown and scattered with dark hair. Orlando was the opposite of what she normally went for, serious-faced journos who smoked roll-ups and read satire. He was a cocky Wall Street boy, a glossy Starbucks American—not to mention one of the richest men on the planet. She felt him inhale, heard the crackle of cigarette paper.

‘Is it true your father’s retiring?’ she asked.

Orlando laughed. ‘That was a record.’

‘What?’

‘Fifteen seconds before you went for the story.’

Playfully, she smacked him. He grabbed her, kissed her again.

He was right, though. Eve had worked in this business ten years, yet she never tired of the buzz; what it was to chase a scandal. Today, millions across the globe read her work. Her biting appraisals were infamous. She took no prisoners, she refused to sugarcoat and her allegiance couldn’t be bought—she wrote what she thought and she was faithful to her instinct, whether her subject liked it or not. Over the years she had gained a fearsome reputation. Eve wasn’t out to hurt these celebrities, or to sabotage them, but she believed that if you were going to put yourself up for scrutiny, to use the media to your own ends, then you had to be prepared for it to use you back. Stars who crowed on about privacy didn’t seem to mind so much when they were summoning paparazzi to the opening of their new perfume, or when they had a hot date on their arm or a radical new look to unveil.

Teen superstar Kevin Chase was a prime example. His success was so closely entwined with his courtship of the press that it was impossible to separate the two, yet when Eve had challenged him on the issue of sex (Kevin’s stance had, until recently, been emphatically chaste), he had fumbled his way through a confused, tetchy, half-baked response before barking at her to fuck off because it was none of her business.

None of her business … It was a red rag to a bull. Eve intended to make it her business, whatever it was, and she would stop at nothing until she got there.

‘So?’ she tried again.

Orlando ground out his smoke.

‘Don’t want to talk about it,’ he said. ‘It’s complicated.’

‘Come on,’ she urged, ‘give me something.’

‘I’m forever giving you something.’

‘And I’m not?’ She raised herself up on one elbow. ‘What about that exclusive I kept back on the Mitzlar Brothers—?’

‘You were planning to hold fire anyway.’

‘I wasn’t. My editor would kill me if she knew—sex dens, strippers, a world-class banking family …’

‘We needed their sponsorship. This story would have ruined them.’

‘Exactly.’ Eve trailed her fingers down his stomach, felt him harden once more. ‘So what do I get in return? I did it because you asked me …’

‘You don’t do anything you’re asked.’

‘That depends who’s asking.’

He threw her off the scent. ‘Tawny Lascelles just signed for my sister’s label.’

Eve leaned over, reached into her bag and pulled out her pad. ‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘D’you know Tawny?’

‘She was at the launch a couple of weeks back.’

‘Yeah, I figured that part out. Who was she with?’

‘No one, I don’t think.’

‘Does Angela run checks on models before she employs them?’

‘Why?’ he scoffed.

‘Tawny’s press people are like Rottweilers, she’s giving nothing away—but I know, I just know there’s something there, if I could just …’

Orlando touched the end of her nose. ‘You never let up, do you?’

‘I came from the gala,’ she explained. ‘Tawny and I chatted.’

‘Why didn’t you ask her?’

‘Don’t be facetious.’

‘Don’t use long words.’

She stuck up her finger. ‘That short enough for you?’

‘Cute.’

Eve got up. She fixed herself a drink, raised the carafe in question. He nodded.

‘Come on,’ she said, leaning back against the mahogany dresser, ‘I already had it in the bag about Tawny and Fit for NYC. What else?’

Orlando narrowed his eyes. ‘What if I just wanted to see you?’

‘Crap. I know you see other women.’

‘Do you see other men?’

‘What’s it to you?’ But she didn’t see other men. She didn’t have time.

And I don’t want to.

He pulled her back to the couch.

‘For chasing other people’s secrets, Harley,’ he murmured, ‘you’ve sure got some mysteries of your own.’

Orlando held her down, his tongue tracing its practised route down her neck and across her breasts. She didn’t answer, but then he didn’t require it.

Suffice to say, there was a good reason why Eve did this job, and she wasn’t about to compromise for anyone. Not even for him.