Night had fallen, yet the bedroom of a penthouse apartment on Lexington Avenue remained unlit.
Dim city light filtered through the windows onto the messy, rumpled bed. In the dusky glow, a faint, dreamy aftertaste still seemed to linger in the air, but the bed was empty.
In the corner by the window, a woman wrapped in nothing but a bath towel was curled limply into a single armchair. Her fluffy, slightly damp, tousled hair covered half of her flushed face. Her head tilted to one side, one hand braced at her lips. She did not dare look at the man sitting cross-legged on the carpet, carefully and patiently rubbing and stretching her calf.
It was his fault.
After a moment, she stole another cautious glance.
He had his head lowered, earnest and attentive. So she lightly tapped the tip of her foot against his knee, hinting that she was fine now.
Simon looked up and asked softly, "Do you want me to rub the other side too?"
No!
She screamed it in her head, still avoiding his eyes, and murmured instead, "My left leg is fine. You should go back to Greenwich."
Simon nodded. "I'll have someone bring some food over first."
The woman froze.
And then what.
Then he would leave.
She did not want to, and did not dare, to fight Janet for anything, but after what had just happened with this young man, her first time with him, even if he pushed her away a little, even if he pretended and lied to her for a moment, that would have been enough.
A wave of self-pity rose up.
She pulled her leg back from his hands and curled deeper into the chair.
When Simon saw Sophia like that, he reached out. Feeling his touch, she flinched away, even turning her back slightly to face away from him.
But his hand did not give up. It slid under her and tugged with a small, firm pull. Sophia yelped as she was dragged down onto the carpet, and the towel fell open.
Her body lay bared across the floor.
She twisted, trying to get farther from him, but she could not resist that large hand catching her again as if it were nothing.
So she looked over with a wronged, helpless gaze, her eyes wet. She fought hard not to let tears fall.
Seeing that she had stopped trying to run, Simon stroked her cheek and said softly, "I can't give you much. What I can give, I will."
She knew he had only said half.
What he could not give, no amount of fighting or grabbing would change.
She held his gaze in a small standoff for a moment, and when she realized he was waiting for her answer, she finally gave in with a quiet, obedient, "Mm."
Once she let that go, she suddenly felt her little mood earlier had been wrong. Afraid he would think her response lacked sincerity, she leaned her cheek into his palm and said, "I brought food this afternoon. It's in the kitchen. Just heat it up."
Simon lifted her and placed her on the bed, lowered his head and kissed her lips once. "Then wait a moment."
After they ate a simple dinner together, Simon returned to Greenwich.
Sophia had already been staying in Manhattan these past few days. And in her state tonight, there was no way she was going back to Greenwich to see the children.
The next day was Saturday.
That night, Simon and Janet attended Gucci's party at the Gramercy Hotel in Manhattan. After spending the weekend on the East Coast, they returned to Los Angeles again.
At Daenerys Entertainment, October brought three releases: Jane Campion's An Angel at My Table on October 12, Ju Dou on October 19, acquired from Cannes, and the Halloween slot on October 26, Ten Days of Peril.
An Angel at My Table and Ju Dou were both distributed by Highgate Pictures, and neither had big box office ambitions. Still, Ira Deutchman had already submitted the latter for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The real focus was Ten Days of Peril, in cooperation with Universal.
In the summer, Sleeping with the Enemy, partnered with Fox, and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, partnered with Disney, had both posted excellent box office results. So Universal was full of confidence in Ten Days of Peril, another crime thriller.
Ten Days of Peril was adapted from an original novel by famous horror writer Stephen King, and in terms of name recognition it was even bigger than the previous two. The leads, Don Johnson and Susan Sarandon, were both household names in Hollywood.
Simon had already watched the cut of this version more than once and had even participated in making the trailer.
Compared to the version starring Kathy Bates, Simon preferred the new one.
Both were performances worthy of an Oscar. Susan Sarandon's acting was no weaker than Kathy Bates's. And because of her looks, the obvious sexual tension between the two leads added a sharper, stranger contrast to the film's suspense and dread.
When Simon returned to Los Angeles, Ten Days of Peril was already entering the final, intensive stage of trailer placements.
As one of Daenerys Entertainment's ten-film plan, and with the two previous releases already drawing strong box office and attention, this new film naturally attracted a great deal of media coverage. Indirectly, it saved Universal several million dollars in marketing costs.
Beyond that, the promotional work for the year-end slate had long since begun.
For Thanksgiving and Christmas, Daenerys Entertainment's year-end focus was four films.
They were Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves on November 2, A League of Their Own on November 23 in cooperation with Columbia, Robert Altman's Crossroads of Life on December 7, and Home Alone on December 21.
Strictly speaking, Dances with Wolves, which had already earned strong internal word of mouth through several test screenings, would become Daenerys Entertainment's main Oscar campaign this year. By rights, a December date would have been better.
But Simon also had box office ambitions for it. In his memory, Dances with Wolves was a major hit with North American box office over $180 million. So, to avoid clashing with Home Alone, he still placed it in November.
As for December's Crossroads of Life, this film would naturally aim for Oscar nominations too. However, as everyone knew, Robert Altman's work rarely pleased the Academy. He had already won the Golden Lion at Venice, which was success enough. The film's goal was simply to use awards-season heat to build long-run box office, without expecting much from the Oscars.
The two commercial films, A League of Their Own, distributed by Columbia, and Home Alone, produced in-house by Daenerys Entertainment, each occupied the two major holiday slots. Their marketing proceeded steadily and needed no further comment.
October 11, Thursday.
By mid-October, far away in Australia, filming for Batman: The Dark Knight had entered its final wrap-up stage. It would finish next week. Simon planned to fly to Melbourne next week to review footage with the core team and decide whether reshoots were needed.
A little after five in the afternoon, Simon, who as usual did not leave work on time, was at the studio post-production center discussing the post plan for The Silence of the Lambs with the creative team when his assistant came in and leaned close to whisper a few words.
After listening, Simon thought for a moment and said, "Forget the cocktail party. Tomorrow morning. I'll go to Burbank."
Janet had just told Simon that Lew Wasserman had finally run out of patience and invited Simon to attend a cocktail event tonight, so they could talk about the MCA acquisition that was already common knowledge across Hollywood.
After days of nonstop work, Simon only wanted to go home after he got off. He had no desire to become the kind of social creature who attended two hundred parties a year, so he refused.
His assistant turned and left.
When Simon finished his discussion with The Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme, his assistant appeared again and confirmed the meeting time for tomorrow.
The next day, Simon went to Daenerys Studios first, switched to an ordinary, unremarkable car, and drove quietly to Burbank.
Lew Wasserman was waiting for him in an office building at the northwest corner of Universal Studios.
After they met and exchanged a few basic pleasantries, Wasserman went straight to the point. "Simon, everyone knows you're interested in Universal now. A friend of mine at Citibank told me you've already signed a two-billion-dollar loan letter of intent with them. So I don't understand what you're still waiting for."
In normal circumstances, a seller actively courting a buyer was never a wise move. It meant handing the initiative to the other party.
But Simon had been too steady. He had dragged it out until Wasserman lost patience.
At seventy-seven, this old man should have been the one with more patience. But with MCA's stock price stuck at a not-very-high level because Daenerys Entertainment refused to make its position clear, and with pressure from Matsushita, he had to become more proactive.
What Simon was waiting for, of course, was the New York side finishing preparations for the Bell Atlantic acquisition.
Because news kept leaking about Matsushita's MCA acquisition and Daenerys Entertainment's possible entry into the bidding, MCA's stock had recently climbed close to sixty dollars.
If he made everything public now, Simon believed the stock would charge straight toward seventy. Once MCA's market price crossed his ceiling, it would become a serious headache. Getting it back down would be extremely difficult.
At that point, MCA would not be likely to accept an acquisition offer from Daenerys Entertainment that was even lower than the market price.
By comparison, if he could launch two acquisitions at once and posture as if he might abandon one of them, the market's reaction would not be quite so feverish.
Sitting across from Lew Wasserman, Simon naturally would not speak that truth. Instead, he looked candid and sincere as he said, "Lew, I'm not even sure now whether I should join the bidding for MCA. You know, Daenerys Entertainment is developing very well. I feel that even without acquiring another Hollywood studio, if we just keep building patiently for a few years, Daenerys will become strong enough."
In fact, MCA's revenue last fiscal year was $3.3 billion, with net profit of $296 million. This year, because Back to the Future Part III underperformed in the summer, revenue and profit would be worse. By comparison, even ignoring net profit that was projected to exceed one billion, Daenerys Entertainment's revenue alone could surpass MCA this year.
The gap between them was essentially only legacy.
If one looked closely, Simon's excuse was not wrong at all. With a few years of patient operation, Daenerys Entertainment could absolutely reach a level that matched, or even surpassed, the Seven.
But that still required time.
And Universal Studios and the record label MCA owned were not things time alone could replicate.
Universal Studios' history was nearly as long as Hollywood itself. Even if Daenerys Entertainment invested now to build a theme park, money was not the issue, and the company had enough IP to support such a park. But a newly built studio park could never have the deep-rooted, accumulated cultural weight of Universal or Disneyland.
A record label was the same.
Even setting everything else aside, Universal Music's massive catalog of rights was not something that could be built through short-term accumulation.
What was more, MCA could strongly complement Daenerys Entertainment in distribution channels, theater networks, film libraries, and more. Simon absolutely needed to buy this company.
Lew Wasserman had been in Hollywood for over half a century. Of course he could see all that. He said, "Simon, last week I spoke with Akio Tanii from Matsushita. If you truly don't intend to get involved, then at the latest next week, MCA will submit Matsushita's offer to the board for review, and then proceed to a shareholder vote. I know many corporate bidders like to enter right before a shareholder vote, like Paramount last year, because it lets them see their rival's bottom line and leverage. But I don't think you need to do that at all."
Simon calculated silently.
Before this meeting, he had worried that MCA and Matsushita might reach a preliminary agreement this week and move quickly into a shareholder vote.
Now, based on Wasserman's words, MCA would discuss Matsushita's proposal at the board next week, and then there would be at least another week before a shareholder vote. Without realizing it, that would put them at the end of October, perfectly aligned with Simon's planned schedule.
With that, Simon fully relaxed.
Still, after a moment's consideration, he said, "Alright, Lew. I am interested in MCA. But I don't intend to get dragged into an uncontrolled bidding war with Matsushita. If you agree, I want Daenerys Entertainment and MCA to sign a confidential letter of intent, and if the acquisition fails, Daenerys Entertainment will not pay a breakup fee."
In a typical acquisition, because of the disruption an attempted purchase causes to the target's operations and stock price, the acquiring party usually promises a breakup fee if the acquisition fails, often between one percent and five percent of the target's market value.
That meant that, based on MCA's $6.6 billion deal price in the original timeline, if the buyer wanted to back out, it would have to pay between $66 million and $330 million in breakup fees.
But nothing was absolute.
If both sides negotiated properly, that fee could be waived.
Back when Warren Buffett and Tom Murphy's Metropolis Corporation acquired ABC, Buffett, who handled the deal, proposed that if the acquisition failed, Metropolis would not pay a huge breakup fee, and ABC's executives agreed.
Of course, that acquisition ultimately succeeded.
Hearing Simon's condition, Lew Wasserman's expression turned uncertain.
He understood that Simon's demand was mainly meant to restrain the market's excessive hype around MCA stock. If investors knew Daenerys Entertainment could walk away without paying any price, they would be more cautious when buying MCA shares.
But it posed a massive risk for MCA.
In a situation where two companies were bidding, the party that lost on price did not need to pay a fee when exiting. Going further, even the party that won the bidding would only need to pay a breakup fee if, later on during negotiations, or under policy and regulatory pressure, it could not complete the acquisition and chose to abandon it.
If he agreed to Simon's terms now, then if Daenerys Entertainment pushed Matsushita out, and later abandoned the acquisition for some reason, without paying anything at all, MCA would be left to suffer.
Because once an acquisition failed outright, the first thing that would happen was a steep crash in MCA's stock price, dropping back to pre-acquisition levels. Countless shareholders sitting on heavy paper losses would inevitably push their anger onto management.
And beyond that, after being tossed around by an acquisition attempt, the company's operations would take a serious hit.
Just like MGM. If it had not been bought and sold repeatedly in the eighties, and instead had been run patiently, that old studio would not be half-dead the way it was now.