It was to make a point.
CHAPTER8
That was it for the open mic, and some stragglers—the people who didn’t have to go to work the next day, or had no place else to go that was particularly appealing at the moment—migrated into the poolroom to join the people already there. All those faces were cast into strange shadows by the lurid light of a dozen or so vintage beer signs. A chalkboard on the wall was apparently for sign-ups and keeping score. Right now it saidMoses and Truck.
“Thought I’d take you up on that offer of a pool game, Truck.”
The murmured conversation stopped and the people in the room—about seven of them, two couples, the guys J. T. had come to think of as Truck’s henchmen—stared at him in awe.
A beat of silence later, Truck said, “Moses.”
Moses abandoned the game in progress and Truck racked the balls.
J. T. took the pool cue Moses proffered as if he was being handed a dueling pistol.
“You go ahead and break,” Truck said magnanimously. And somewhat sinisterly. He apparently had a lot of faith in his skill at pool.
It was pretty clear that those in the room saw Truck as some sort of authority.
But J. T. was John Tennessee McCord; charisma was in his DNA, and all eyes were on him, and everyone could nearly feel the molecules in the room re-aligning behind J. T.
Truck was going to need to fight for supremacy.
“You got a new show coming up I hear, Mr.McCord?” A blonde girl asked this shyly.
“Yep. CalledThe Rush. Set right here in Gold Country. It’s going to befantastic. Best script I ever read. Thrilling and hot and funny. On AMC.”
Part of his job as an actor was to never, never stop selling.
And everything he’d just said was true, as far as he was concerned.The Rushwas going to be a freaking triumph, or his name wasn’t John Tennessee McCord.
“Don’t about ten people watch that channel?” Truck asked.
This got a couple of snickers.
J. T. took his shot. The green 6 rocketed into the side pocket.
“Twelve. Thirteen if you count that guy in Omaha who lost his remote and is too lazy to get up to change the channel.”
Everyone laughed.
The answer would likely be more like 2 million at least, when you factored in DVR viewing and the like. A drop in the network bucket. It could, of course, explode into much bigger numbers, the wayThe Walking Deadhad. It didn’t pay to wonder and it didn’t pay to project.
Anything could happen. In fact, J. T. often thought there should be a giant asterisk next to the Hollywood sign, and at its foot the wordsAnything Can Happenshould be erected.
J. T. pointed to the corner pocket and shot the three ball in.
Truck was looking pretty tense now. He was holding his cue the way a Beefeater at Buckingham Palace holds his rifle.
“Mr.McCord...” A shy girl presented a napkin and what appeared to be a purple eyeshadow pencil. “I lovedBlood Brothers. I’m sorry to interrupt, this is all I have to sign, but would you...”
Her boyfriend was wearing a strained smile, and he kept a loose grip on her, as if McCord were a magnet and she were an iron filing in danger of being sucked into him.
“You’ll loveThe Rush, too, darlin’.” She would never forget the “darlin’.”
He scrawledJohn Tennessee McCord.The pencil proved no challenge. He’d written his name with any number of implements, from lipstick to erotic lubricant, and across any number of things over the years, from Maserati dashboards to cleavage.
He handed it back to her. She clutched it happily, beaming up at her boyfriend.
