The Chancellor Manuscript by Robert Ludlum Page A

was more to say.
    “Peter?”
    “Yes?”
    “Suppose Josh can work things out. I mean with your studio contract.”
    “There’s nothing to work out,” interrupted Chancellor again. “They don’t need me; they don’t want me.”
    “They may want your name. They’re paying for it.”
    “They can’t have it. Not the way they’re doing the film. I’m telling you, it’s the opposite of what I said.”
    “Is it that important to you?”
    “As literature—hell, no. As my own personal statement—hell, yes. Nobody else seems to be making it.”
    “I just wondered. I thought you might be ready to start the Nuremberg book.”
    Peter stared at the ceiling. “Not yet, Tony. Soon, not yet. I’ll talk to you later.”
    He hung up the phone, the apology gone from his mind. He was thinking about Morgan’s question and his own answer.
    If only the pain would disappear. And the numbness. Both had lessened, but they were still there, and when he felt either or both, the memories returned. The shattering glass, the blinding light, the crunching metal. The screams. And his hatred of a man high up in a truck who had disappeared in the storm. Leaving one dead, one almost dead.
    Chancellor swung his legs over the edge of the bed onto the floor. He stood up naked and looked around for his bathing suit. He was late for his morning swim; the dawn had turned into day. He felt guilty somehow, as if he had broken an important ritual. Worse, he understood that the ritual took the place of work.
    He saw his bathing suit draped over a chair and started toward it. The telephone rang again. He reversed direction and answered it.
    “It’s Joshua, Peter. I’ve just spent an hour talking with Aaron Sheffield.”
    “He’s a winner. Incidentally, sorry about last night.”
    “This morning,” corrected the agent, not unkindly. “Don’t worry about it. You were overwrought.”
    “I was drunk.”
    “That, too. Let’s
get to
Sheffield.”
    “I suppose we have to. I gather you got the drift of what I told you last night.”
    “I’m sure most of Malibu Beach could repeat the better phrases word for word.”
    “What’s his position? I won’t budge.”
    “Legally that doesn’t make any difference to him. You have no case. You have no script approval.”
    “I understand that. But I can talk. I can give interviews. I can demand that my name be removed. I might even try to get the courts to change the title. I’ll bet a case can be made for that.”
    “It’s unlikely.”
    “Josh, they’ve changed the whole meaning!”
    “The courts might see the money you’ve been paid and not be impressed.”
    Chancellor blinked again and rubbed his eyes. He exhaled wearily. “I think you’re saying they wouldn’t be impressed. Period. I’m not Solzhenitsyn with the Siberian camps or Dickens on the death of children in the sweatshops. All right, what can I do?”
    “Do you want it put plainly?”
    “When you begin like that, the news isn’t good.”
    “Some good can come out of it.”
    “Now I know it’s terrible. Go ahead.”
    “Sheffield wants to avoid discord; so does the studio. They don’t want you giving those interviews or going on talk shows. They know you can do that, and they don’t want the embarrassment.”
    “I see. We reach the heart of the matter: gross receipts at the box office. Their essential pride, their manhood.”
    Harris was silent for a moment. When he continued, it was in a soft voice. “Peter, that kind of controversy wouldn’t affect gross receipts one iota of a percentage point. If anything, it would hype them.”
    “Then, why are they concerned?”
    “They really want to avoid embarrassment.”
    “They live in a perpetual state of embarrassment out here. They can’t even recognize it I don’t believe that”
    “They’re willing to pay your contract in full, remove your name from the screen credits if you wish—not the title, of course—and deliver a bonus equal to fifty percent of the book