“I can’t answer the happy part. They used to call her Dragon Lady. Everybody was afraid of her, because she knew Ted better than anyone.”

“Who’s everybody?” Zanne asked. “The staff?”

“There wasn’t really a staff then, just me and a guy who did the books. Nah, I’m talking about the crew, the guys in post. Ted wasn’t good at being in charge. He didn’t like to manage anyone, hated meetings, avoided confrontations until he eventually blew his top—same way he’d be if he didn’t have you guys to run interference for him now. Somebody had to crack the whip. That was Phoebe. She made sure things stayed on track. She had to act like Dragon Lady was a term of endearment, but, I mean, come on. She’s Korean. She was tough, yeah, but that’s not why they called her Dragon Lady. She’s making them money hand over fist and they don’t say thank you, ma’am, they say Dragon Lady has Ted wrapped around her little finger.”

“Did she?”

James sighed. “Let me ask you something. Who’s the King of Hollywood? And how many people have heard of Phoebe Lee?”

Ted hated the nickname—Jane’s team was charged with removing it from every approved piece—but the words attached themselves as effortlessly to him as they had once to Douglas Fairbanks and Clark Gable.

“So what? A lot of us are toiling in his shadow,” Zanne said. “Look at how many of us it takes.”

James shook his head. She wasn’t sure if that meant not me or don’t go there or something else.

“How’d she get mixed up with Jerry Silver?” Zanne pressed on.

James opened his mouth, then closed it.

“The reporter said something about her relationship with Jerry,” Zanne said.

James turned his head in surprise.

“I didn’t give her anything,” Zanne said. “I don’t have anything to give.”

“But you wish you did.”

“What?”

“I see that look in your eyes, Zanne.”

“What look?”

“The look you all get when you reach the inner circle. I’ve seen it happen before. You guys tell yourself you want to protect him, that’s why you start snooping—”

Zanne stopped in her tracks. “James, it is literally my job—”

“—but really you’re just feeding off his power, getting a little for yourself by holding on to his secrets. You don’t even know what you want to do with the power, you just want to feel it humming in your body.”

James kept walking. Zanne hurried to catch up.