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145 pages

English

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When Jane's partner goes missing she needs to find out if he's in danger while also contending with the politics of a large international film festival: Hollywood power brokers, Russian oil speculators, Chinese propagandists, and a board chair who seemingly has it out for her Jane has been appointed interim director of the Toronto International Film Festival after her boss has been removed for sexual harassment. Knives are out all around her, as factions within the community want to see her fail. At the same time, her partner, a fund manager, has disappeared, and strange women appear, uttering threats about misused funds. Yet the show must go on. As Jane struggles to juggle all the balls she's been handed and survive in one piece, she discovers unlikely allies and finds that she's stronger than she thinks.

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Publié par	Ecw Press
Date de parution	09 septembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781773057910
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0450€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Pull Focus A Novel
Helen Walsh

Contents Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Epilogue Acknowledgments About the Author Copyright

Dedication
For my mother, Jessica, and for Michael, with love.

Chapter One
Day 1: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
T minus four hours. I glanced nervously at the wall clock behind Jacob, as words slithered out between his thin lips, one coiled phrase after another.
He’d cast himself in the character of Dark Messiah, that much was evident in the words he used, the condescending politeness, the pained expression when someone disagreed. Mere civilians might cringe mid-apocalypse, but he’d stay on the horse, semiautomatic rifle in one hand, the burden of seeing the world for its shit-bucket self curled up in the scarred palm of the other. The baddies would quake, the babies would live, and if there was collateral damage of the slow-moving who couldn’t get out of the way, whoever said life was fair was a loser anyway.
Jacob Ray owned a successful crisis management firm, BFA, that made problems go away for people rich enough to buy salvation. He’d been recruited as board director of the Worldwide Toronto Film Festival the previous year because his client base brimmed with political leaders and sponsorship-rich corporations. Many of WTFF’s multi-year funding commitments were due to expire in the near term; cultivating powerful decision-makers of the kind who owed Jacob a favor, the reasoning went, would have significant upside for the festival.
I’d had little functional connection with him until six months earlier, when Paul DelGrotto, WTFF’s former CEO, was suspended amid allegations of sexual wrongdoing and the board chair abruptly resigned. Suddenly, I pole-vaulted from artistic director to acting CEO, and Jacob became my board chair. The organization was in crisis, and the board didn’t have to look further than one of its own directors for a seasoned pro in the reputational wars.
“Everyone knows Samantha is fomenting civil war among the staff,” I said. “I ask her to stop verbally attacking the veracity of the women involved. The next day she files a HR complaint against me. Doesn’t it seem likely that those two things are connected?”
“No need to be defensive, Jane,” Jacob said softly, forcing me to lean in to hear him.
“Samantha was Paul’s assistant for twenty years. She resents his firing —”
“He’s on administrative leave. We won’t be hasty in our judgments.”
“He sent photoshopped images of his penis to female staff,” I said, in exasperation. “From his own email account. There’s not a lot of room for ambiguity.”
After Lina Garcia, WTFF’s head of marketing and public relations, had gone to the human resources department with her complaint, the board originally chose to believe DelGrotto’s story of a consensual affair gone wrong, a disgruntled employee looking for revenge. They suspended Lina with pay and a gag order. Two days later, the photos of Paul’s genitalia appeared on TMZ, and four more women stepped forward with their own complaints.
Jacob’s eyes narrowed. “We don’t know for sure that it’s his body part.” He paused to stare at me pointedly. “Or who leaked the photos to the media. Regardless, Paul’s now at home pending investigation, and you’ve landed yourself in the top job. Temporarily, at least.”
The Dark Messiah is not above implicit threats.
It was the opening day of the festival, and a long line of people waited for me to troubleshoot the various firestorms. Jacob’s insistence on meeting in my office, despite the time crunch, was the latest in a series of power plays that began immediately upon his appointment as chair.
“I’ll talk to HR about transferring Samantha to another executive, at least until the end of the festival. I can make do with an intern as my EA for the next ten days,” I said slowly, not wanting to appear eager for an outcome I’d give my John Cassavetes collection to make happen.
“That would be a demotion, and demotion without cause is grounds for a constructive dismissal case. You should know the intricacies of employment law, if you’re going to manage an organization this size,” Jacob said, making a deliberate motion of looking down at his manicured hands, so as to avoid bearing witness to my management faux pas. “A hundred million in assets; we’re a target.”
Neutral face, Jane , I told myself, as I swallowed the “fuck you” lump of bile in my throat. “Well, you felt the need to bring this conversation up today,” I said finally. “Is there a particular short-term solution you’re driving toward?”
“It’s not up to me to tell you how to do your job. I’m just alerting you to the situation, and letting you know that the board is watching,” he said, rising to his feet. “And to offer any assistance to you, of course,” he added, reaching out to shake my hand. His flesh was as cold as I imagined it would be, although also sweaty, which was an unwelcome surprise.
As soon as Jacob left, I dialed my partner Bob’s cell, then his direct office line, surprised when both went straight to voicemail. “Hi, it’s me. Please call back. Darth Vader made an appearance. I could use that strategic mind of yours. Otherwise, no later than six forty tonight, black tie.”
Our COO’s booming Scottish accent rounded the corner of my office before Burt himself did. “We need to cancel tomorrow’s screening of State . An emergency injunction has been issued after someone filed a complaint that it’s hate speech. No great surprise who will be behind that one,” he growled, refusing to look back at Victoria, our VP of development, who hustled in behind him.
She barely made it to his shoulder, but was twice as tough. Victoria used boxing lessons as a relaxation tool. “Finally, someone’s shown some leadership.”
“Hate speech,” I said, incredulous. “How?”
“Detestation and vilification that will expose a target group to abuse or delegitimization thus rendering them lawless, unworthy, or unacceptable in the eyes of the audience,” Burt said, reading from his phone.
I shook my head. “The Chinese government is going to be delegitimized by a film screening in Toronto?”
“Sounds about right,” Victoria said. “That settles the matter.”
This argument had eaten its own tail for months. “I honored the pledge you and Paul made to exclude State from the special showcase,” I said. “But you know I never agreed to ban the film altogether.”
“You understand, right, that it takes fifty million dollars a year to run this fucker?”
Victoria was gearing up for a fight. I admired her tenacity to do whatever necessary to get her job done; at the same time, I objected to some of her tactics. But she and Burt were diametrically opposed to each other’s position on this issue, and a blowout would serve no one well. “You and your team do an amazing job fundraising the yearly budget.”
“Cut the shit, Jane. You want the art-house directors like Yin Lee to love you, great. Have as many non-fat green tea lattes with them as you want. Hell, program State every day for a year after the festival closes for all I care. I agree, the film’s a punch in the gut. Chinese corruption sucks the motherlode. Yin Lee will win an Oscar. But the Chinese government gave us ten million for this showcase, and they don’t want a film highly critical of them to screen while they’re in town. It took us five years to make this sponsorship happen and if you fuck with it, I’ll fucking hang you.”
“How much wood would a wood fuck fuck, if a wood fuck could fuck wood?” Burt’s scorching tone bounced off Victoria’s hide, without making a dent.
I signaled for a time-out just as Samantha scurried in. “I didn’t realize there was a meeting in here. What’d I miss?” she said, notebook at the ready.
Samantha’s simmering hostility seemed even more apparent now I knew she’d made a HR complaint against me. Was she a conduit of information back to Jacob? “Have you connected with Devlin Ross’s people today?” I said, diverting the conversation. “Did she arrive? Have you gone over the donor stewardship sequence for tonight?”
“I need two more spots,” Victoria said, switching complaints without missing a beat. “I can cut them down to thirty seconds each, forty-five tops, but Devlin has got to give some face time with key targets of mine.”
We’d negotiated precise deal terms with Devlin Ross, the lead actress of Shifting Dragon , this year’s opening night film. She’d consented to one circuit of the VIP room at the after-party, sprinkling a little magic dust on the five biggest sponsors, but no single sponsor would receive more than three minutes of conversation. There would be no redistribution of unused minutes to other potential donors if one target was too starstruck to use their entire allotted time, a highly possible outcome given how mesmerizing she was.
“There’s no way Devlin’s people will agree to a last-minute change in terms,” I said. “If the three targets are critical, then I’ll lean on a friendly agent or manager tomorrow to get us an opportunity with another A-lister. Samantha, would you please go make sure Devlin has everything she needs?”
Samantha reluctantly left, while Burt began to pace his inner Braveheart up and down the short length of my office. “I’m working with the lawyers. We need to get that injunction lifted if we have any hope of screening before the festival ends.”