small Vietnamese bistro where they treated him like the king he felt hewas. He stepped outside to take the call from the director. Alan rarelytakes calls in restaurants—and even in L.A. where doing deals on thephone over a meal is just a regular extension of the office. Alan sees his business as one of discretion; he’s an old-school shark. Before stepping back in to his table, he paced some more outside and flipped open hisphone again to dial Howard, hoping he wouldn’t answer.“Howie, it’s Alan. You, uh, you, the picture, just call me,” he said in awhisper.Alan whispered when there was bad news. He didn’t even do it pur-posely. His demeanor was such a dead giveaway when he had bad newsto tell, that he frequently didn’t even have to explain the details, peopleknew immediately. Last week he called his wife from the deli to tell herthey were out of whitefish salad. In the hushed tones, like as if he wastelling her that the dog had cancer.Today he was broken up. He stepped inside, put some cash down onthe table and walked back to his car, thinking that this may just be the beginning of the end for both Howard and himself.Howard’s sprawling Malibu home was usually packed with people ona Friday afternoon. He, or his girlfriend at the time, would entertain bythe pool, play high-stakes card games, and show movies in his 50-seatcustom built home movie theater. He’s a movie star; they can do thingslike that. Today, though, the cavernous, sun-filled house was empty.Howard sensed that Alan’s call would be coming. It wasn’t the first timehe’d gotten bad news recently from his agent and his friend, but the firsttime that a deal had been actually signed and then broken. Howardknew that when this happened in Hollywood, it was a tactic used to pinhim as the bargaining chip for studios to get another actor with a higherprice tag. It happens all the time.This came right after a disastrous episode on the Stern radio show,when the interview didn’t go as planned and the wack pack ganged upon Howie about his recent, high-profile plea deal he cut with prosecutorson an indictment for his role in a high-net worth betting ring. Instead of joking his way out of it, he cursed and spit in his defense. The followingweek, media loudmouth Jon Hein’s commentary revealed his thoughtsabout Howard Kessler’s Hollywood status: jumped the shark. Howardknew that once you jump the shark, you weren’t jumping back in the bigpictures that the studios, once upon a time, would line up for hisinvolvement.The phone rang.
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