country. Your Fifth Avenue posters alone rake in two million a year. Every damned adolescent girl in this country and Europe has got that frigging photograph over her bed. Women will be throwing themselves off of buildings."
Johnny laughed and crossed his legs.
"Don't laugh." Jack shook his head. "I'm serious. They buy your jeans for their boyfriends just so they can imagine they are peeling them off of you."
"Marriage didn't hurt Elvis or McCartney. Hasn't tarnished Cruise."
"They will build effigies in Leah's image and burn them. Every wacko fan out there will be after her."
"Besides all of that," Edwin interjected. "You spring this a week after Dolores is killed. How is that going to look? You bury one fiancée, then turn right around and marry someone else?"
"I wasn't in love with Dolores. That bullshit that she was my fiancée was her doing, not mine. It would have been a cold day in hell before I married her."
Laying aside his notepad and tape recorder, Robert asked, "Have you informed Doctor Starr that you intend to accuse her father of attempted murder, and that you had in your hands the proof that you needed that he's heavily involved with Formation Media? Just how and when do you intend to break the news to her that you have every intention of putting her father in prison? On your wedding night?"
"That's it." Edwin shook his head and rubbed the lenses a second time. "You're going to marry the woman before the shit hits the fan, aren't you? Because you know that as soon as you accuse her father of corruption—"
"Don't forget murder," Jack said.
"—she's history. For God's sake, Johnny, what are you doing? All these years you've kept your nose clean; you move back to Ruidoso and all hell breaks loose. The most desirable women in the world are banging on your door and you up and marry some woman who smells like horse shit and has a retarded kid."
Johnny left the chair so fast Edwin had no time to react. Johnny grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and flung him partially over a desk, sending Edwin's glasses flying against the wall and scattering paperweights and magazines over the floor.
"I don't think I like your attitude, Ed. Need I remind you that I pay you fifteen percent of every cent I make to kiss my ass?"
Jack and Robert moved up behind him, their faces almost as white as Edwin's.
"Sorry," Ed managed, doing his best to remain calm.
"You're about to be even sorrier, you greedy son-of-a-bitch. Now take your goddamn BMW and Rolex watch that I bought you and get the hell out of my sight. You're fired."
His green eyes widening and his face totally colorless, Edwin gave Johnny a weak smile. "You don't mean that, J. W. Sheesh, I didn't mean—"
Johnny dragged him off the desk and shoved him toward the door. "You're finished. Get out."
Edwin swept up his glasses and, hands trembling, situated them on his face. He stared at Johnny through two broken lenses. "We'll talk later, after you've calmed down a little."
"Out!"
As Ed pivoted on his heels and left the room, Johnny turned back to the others. "Either of you have anything else to say about my decision?"
Anderson picked up his briefcase and popped open the locks, tucked the yellow legal pads into a side pouch, situated his recorder into a pocket, then gently closed the case, locking it with a double snap and a click of the combination dial. Only then did he look at Johnny.
"It's your call, Johnny. It's none of my business who you marry. I will, however, have my associate contact you as soon as possible. His name is Joe Conrad. He's smart and as lethal in a courtroom as they come. He's handled some of the nastiest divorce cases in L.A. I suspect that as soon as Leah discovers what you intend to do to her father, you're going to need the likes of Joe, because by the time the new Mrs. Whitehorse gets through with you you'll be lucky to have your worshipped testicles intact."
NINETEEN
« ^ »
Dressed in a white terry bathrobe, a towel wrapped around her wet hair, Shamika shook her head as if clearing it of cobwebs. "Obviously I'm still hung over from last night and didn't hear you correctly. Johnny Whitehorse asked you to marry him and you said you'd think about it?" Dragging a chair back from the kitchen table, Shamika sat down and watched Leah steady Val's hand as