Agent to the Stars | Page 4

script had been written, the casting completed, and the
pre-production was rolling along under a full head of steam. Stopping now to recast or
rewrite was not an option. They were over a barrel -- they knew it and I knew it. What we
were arguing about now was the size of the barrel.
Miranda's head popped through the door again. I glared at her. She shook her head. Not
her, she mouthed. Carl.
I set the ball down. When? I mouthed.
Three minutes, she mouthed.
"Brad, listen," I said. "I've got to get -- I've just been told I have a meeting with Carl. He's
going to want to know where we stand on this. Hard Memories has about wrapped up its
casting. We have to tell them one thing or another. I have to tell Carl one thing or
another."
I could hear Brad counting in his head. "Fuck," he said, finally. "Ten million and ten
percent."
I glanced down at my watch "Brad, it's been a pleasure talking to you. I hope that my
client can work with you again some at some point in the future. In the meantime, I wish
you and the other Murdered Earth producers the best of success. We're going to miss
being a part of that family."
"You bastard," Brad said. "Twelve five, salary and percentage. That's it. Take it or don't."
"And you hire her hair and makeup people."

Brad sighed. "Fine. Why the hell not. Allen's bringing his people. It'll be one big party.
We'll all put on pancake together and then get a weave."
"Well, then, we have a deal. Courier over the contract and we'll start picking at it. And
remember we still need to wrangle about merchandising."
"You know, Tom," Brad said, "I remember when you were a nice kid."
"I'm still a nice kid, Brad," I said. "It's just now I've got clients that you need. Chat with
you soon." I hit the phone button and looked at my watch.
I just closed the biggest deal of the year to date, earned one and a quarter million for my
company and myself, and still had 90 seconds before the meeting with Carl. More than
enough time to pee.
When you're good, you're good.


Chapter Two
I came out of the bathroom with 30 seconds left on the ticker, and started walking briskly
towards the conference room. Miranda was trotting immediately behind.
"What's the meeting about?" I asked, nodding to Drew Roberts as I passed his office.
"He didn't say," Miranda said.
"Do we know who else is in the meeting?"
"He didn't say," Miranda said.
The second-floor conference room sits adjacent to Carl's office, which is at the smaller
end of our agency's vaguely egg-shaped building. The building itself has been written up
in Architectural Digest, which described it as a "Four-way collision between Frank Gehry,
Le Corbousier, Jay Ward and the salmonella bacteria." It's unfair to the salmonella
bacteria. My office is stacked on the larger arc of the egg on the first floor, along with the
offices of all the other junior agents. After today, a second-floor, little-arc office was
looking somewhat more probable in the future. I was humming the theme to "The
Jeffersons" as Miranda and I got to the door of the conference room and walked through.
In the conference room sat Carl, an aquarium, and a lot of empty chairs.
"Tom," said Carl. "Good of you to come."
"Thanks, Carl," I said, "Good of you to have the meeting." I then turned to the table to

consider probably the most important decision of the meeting: Where to sit.
If you sit too close to Carl, you will be pegged as an obsequious, toadying suck-up.
Which is not all that bad. But it will also mean you run the risk of depriving a more
senior agent his rightful position at the table. Which is very bad. Promising agency
careers had been brutally derailed for such casual disregard of one's station.
On the other hand, if you sit too far away, it's a signal that you want to hide, that you
haven't been getting your clients the good roles and the good money; thus you've become
a drag on the agency. Agents smell fear like sharks smell wounded sea otter pups. Soon
your clients will be poached from you. You'll then have nothing to do but stare at your
office walls and drink antifreeze until you go blind.
I sat about halfway down the table, slightly closer to Carl than not. What the hell. I
earned it.
"Why are you sitting so far away?" Carl asked.
I blinked.
"I'm just saving space for the other folks in the meeting," I said. Had he heard about the
Michelle Beck deal already? How