The Turning by Davis Bunn Page A

accounts with all the tight pleasures of that kind of living. He knew they flamed hard and went down harder. He also knew there was no chance of that happening to him. He had few friends, and none of them so close as to turn needy if and when success struck. He allowed himself pleasures on a carefully distilled basis. He had fought too hard to get here. He wanted it too much.
    But that still did not guarantee anything.
    They turned onto Wilshire Boulevard, and Trent spent a few moments gaping at the tall palm trees and the polished buildings and the cinematic billboards. A pair of LA honeys waited by the Rodeo Drive traffic light, skintight jeans and the oversized sunglasses and the fancy shopping bags all part of the Hollywood dream. Their heads swiveled as they watched his limo pass. Trent smiled briefly at the thought that
they
were watching
him
. Then he turned away, consumed by his hunger to climb the ladder, rung after precious rung.
    He would do anything to make it happen. Whatever it took.
    Their destination was a chrome-and-glass structure on Wilshire Boulevard across from the Ferrari dealership. Trent watched an F500 emerge from the lot, roar through the next light, and smoke two black strips down a full block and a half. When he and Gayle climbed from the limo, the air tasted of burned rubber.
    The sign by the building’s front door announced simply: Mundrose. They were greeted by a cheerful staffer. Trent assumed she had been alerted by one of Gayle’s phone calls. The woman led them straight to the executive elevator. The building had only five floors, and still the directors had their own lift.
    They were shown to seats in the penthouse reception area. The atmosphere sparked with the tense energy of making things happen, California-style. Trent waited for the staffer to depart, then asked, “Is there anything you can tell me about what I should expect?”
    Gayle was elegantly beautiful in a discreet pearl grey dress and matching pumps. “You have researched Colin Tomlin?”
    Tomlin was the head of the LA advertising group and the man they were scheduled to meet. “Of course.”
    She nodded, as though his response confirmed something she needed to know. She would not waste her time with someone who did not bother to prepare. “Barry acquired this management agency four years ago. He added to this an advertising firm connected to every major network and studio. Then he acquired a marketing and promotion group. He paid over the odds for all three.”
    “But their combined value is now much more,” Trent guessed.
    “Correct. The former head of the agency is now president of the LA group. He makes more than the division chief, who was at the meeting in New York.” She eyed him coolly. “Do you understand what I am saying?”
    “The guy on the other side of those doors thinks he should have been at the meeting.”
    “Tomlin considers himself the head of his own division. He thinks the director in New York should be answering to him. Selling his group to Barry Mundrose made Colin Tomlin a very rich man. But he wants more. He wants access to the inner sanctum.”
    “So to get a call from New York telling him to meet with me …”
    Gayle nodded to the secretary who was headed their way. “He is not your friend. If he can knife his boss by stabbing you, he will do so.”
    Colin Tomlin neither rose nor offered his hand as together they crossed the broad expanse of his office. Trent suspected the man had positioned his desk so as to make the visitor feel both uncertain and under inspection, as though approaching a throne. Trent’s research had described an incredibly vain man, born to money and title in England, product of Eton and Cambridge. Tomlin had begun his career acting in British television, but when it faltered he reinvented himself as a representative of other actors. This took him to Hollywood, where he showed a remarkable talent for using his urbane British polish to hide the unseen