The Lioness(19)

The two Land Rovers were starting away from the camp in a small convoy. Behind them, the camp was being ransacked. The attackers didn’t seem to be disassembling it; they were just taking the things they wanted or needed. His first morning in the Serengeti, Felix had supposed tearing down the camp would be a monumental task, but Patton had told him that with a good crew, the village could be created and taken apart in a couple of hours. (This was, Patton had implied, a good crew.) Three or four of the crazies from Russia or Romania or wherever had been ordering Patton’s African team around when the Land Rovers were leaving, and he had no idea whether the interlopers had the slightest idea what they were doing, but it probably didn’t matter: by lunchtime, they would have stripped the camp of its assets.

Reggie had started to say something to Carmen as the car had begun accelerating over the grass, but the guy behind them had swatted the back of the publicist’s head (and swatted it hard) and told him to shut up. None of them were to speak. None of them were to say a word.

Felix gazed out the window and saw that the giraffes that had been at the watering hole moments ago had vanished, but the wildebeest and zebras and a couple of elegant impalas had returned.

Assuming, of course, they had ever even left.



* * *



.?.?.

Felix Demeter knew that he would never be mistaken for one of those Horatio Alger pluck-and-luck sorts of Hollywood success stories. He wasn’t even sure he viewed himself as successful—or as successful as he should have been by now, at thirty-five, given the reverence the community had for his father. He vacillated wildly between seeing himself as a serious A-list screenwriter who was asked to work on very good projects, and as a hack already flirting with middle age who had one solo credit and three co-credits to his résumé. Of those four movies, one had been a box office grand slam, two had been mediocre in every imaginable way (the grosses and the reviews), and one an absolute bust. His solo credit had not been the big winner. His father, who had three little gold men in his screening room in the family home in the Canyon, two for directing and one an honest-to-God, can’t-make-this-up Best Picture Oscar, was still working, and his films, invariably, utterly destroyed everything Felix touched. If he died anytime soon, Felix supposed, his obit—if anyone even bothered to write one—would be more a biography of his father than a litany of his own accomplishments. His life, so far, was largely one of proximity to one human’s success (his father, Rex) and another’s tragic death (his sister, Olivia).

Felix had nothing lined up after they returned from this ridiculous odyssey into Africa, and he would have preferred to have remained behind in Los Angeles to try to prospect for work.

Still, he took comfort that even here in the Serengeti he was surrounded by people who could further his career. Carmen alone wasn’t ever going to be the catalyst that got something made, but her best friend, Katie, sure as hell was. And her agent, Peter Merrick, wasn’t a bad ally to have. Neither was Reggie Stout, both Katie’s and Carmen’s publicist. God, Reggie knew everyone in Hollywood and, despite the whispers that sometimes trailed him, was venerated. The man was a fixture and, for a person who owned a public relations agency, considered scrupulously honest. Perhaps it was that war hero vibe. Perhaps he really was the last genuine man in L.A.

Felix saw Peter Merrick having breakfast alone at the hotel their first morning in Nairobi, before they started south into the Serengeti, and descended upon him like a hawk on a chipmunk. He had seen him at the wedding and then a week later at the airport and then on the plane, but he had managed absolutely zero solo face time with him. Or, for that matter, with the bride or with Reggie. God, Peter and Reggie were like Katie’s bodyguards. But the agent was alone now with his eggs Benedict and a pot of coffee, and so Felix sat himself down across from Peter, grabbing one of the three empty seats at the table. Carmen was still upstairs in their hotel room, savoring what she knew would be her last brush for a week and a half with indoor plumbing, a porcelain tub, and a decent mirror to put on her face. Only after Felix had unfolded the napkin and planted his flag on this coveted spot of ground did he excuse himself to pile cheese and fruit on his plate from the buffet and order an omelet from the waiter in the white coat and red fez who was easily as punctilious and proper as a Buckingham Palace butler. When he had returned to his seat, he worried that he had grabbed too much food and looked like the sort of traveler who’d never seen a hotel spread this lavish, and quickly—reflexively—dropped the dad card, telling Peter how highly his father thought of the agent. It was a complete lie. His father, as far as Felix knew, had never even crossed paths with Peter Merrick.

The agent sipped his coffee and seemed to be looking past Felix. His eyebrows, bushy and silver, hung like strands of Christmas tree garland over his eyes. “Have your father and I even met?” he asked. “Your father is repped by Ted Hoffman at DKM and has been forever. Since the dawn of time.”

“Maybe you met at a gala or a premiere or something,” Felix replied, hoping vagueness made him sound more truthful. “But he speaks very highly of you.”

“That’s very nice. When we get back, I’ll be sure and tell Ted that and ruin his day.” Peter was wearing a white polo shirt, and the shoulders were stretched tight. He was tan and his hair, though entirely white, was thick. He was in his early sixties and his face was suitably lined, but he still had the aura of a much younger man. His response was meant to make Felix shiver ever so slightly and it did. Inadvertently, either Felix had implied to this super agent that his father was looking for new representation (which sure as hell wasn’t the case), or his pathetic attempt to suck up to Peter had been agonizingly clear. He considered backtracking right now but took comfort in the reality that they would be together in the middle of nowhere for the next eleven days, and he would have plenty of chances to straighten this out if, it seemed, he needed to. And so, for the moment, he simply skewered some kind of fruit he had never seen before and hoped to God it wasn’t going to give him the trots.