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capital of world finance, he read all of the papers every morning before most of the city was even awake.
    Regardless of his morning ritual, he would have been up early today anyway. In fact, he hadn’t been able to sleep very well. He was waiting for an important phone call.
    Someone, to put it in vulgar street terminology, had fucked with the wrong guy. That “wrong guy” being James Standing. And the someone who had fucked with the wrong guy was about to be taught a very painful and very permanent lesson.
    In fact, it would be the ultimate lesson and would stand as a subtle reminder to the rest of his enemies that there were certain people who were not to be crossed. Not that Standing would take credit for what was going to happen. That would be incredibly foolish. Better to simply let people assume. The mystery of whether he’d been involved or not would only add to the aura of his considerable power.
    Though he’d gotten to where he was by breaking all of the rules, he still needed to appear to be playing by them—at least for a little while longer.
    Soon, though, like an old hotel on the Las Vegas strip, America was going to be brought down in a controlled demolition. And when that happened, the rules would no longer apply to James Standing.

CHAPTER 3

     
    C OLDWATER C ANYON
     
    L OS A NGELES , C ALIFORNIA
     
    T he red Porsche 911 GT3 pulled to the top of the cobblestone driveway and stopped. “Are you going to be okay?”
    The man in the passenger seat said nothing. In the middle of the motor court, a verdigris Poseidon watched over a group of nymphs carrying golden seashells. As water tumbled from one shell to another, the sound cascaded through the car’s open windows.
    The two men sat in silence for several moments. The night air was heavy, damp from the marine layer moving in from the coast. The estate’s wrinkled oaks and towering pines swayed like sleeping horses in a neatly manicured pasture.
    Behind a long row of brushed aluminum garage doors were several million dollars’ worth of high-end luxury automobiles. In the glass-and-steel house next to it were other expensive toys and priceless pieces of art. Behind the home was a hand-laid mosaic swimming pool, a three-hole golf course, and exotic gardens that would have rivaled anything in ancient Babylon. To most outside observers, the man in the passenger seat had it all, and then some.
    Larry Salomon, a handsome fifty-two-year-old movie producer, was the man with the Midas touch, or so said those with short memories who seemed not to recall or not to care about how hard he had worked to get to where he was.
    Even the politicians Salomon had hosted at his home for fund-raisers, back before he stopped doing fund-raisers, loved to smile and tell him how easy he had it. Hollywood, they would say, is a petting zoo, compared to the jungles of D.C.
    None of them knew what they were talking about. Hollywood was a lot like a Charles Dickens novel. It could be the best of places; it could be the worst of places. Machiavelli, Dante, Shakespeare … all would have felt at home here. Tinseltown was a bustling contradiction.
    It was a modern-day Zanzibar; a slave market where souls were bartered, sold, and stolen seemingly on the hour, every hour. It was also a place of incredible genius and beauty, where dreams still came true.
    Hollywood was where some of man’s most endearing and compelling stories were told and retold. It was home to a globe-spanning industry that could frighten and terrify, but more important, could uplift and inspire.
    Hollywood was a place where one creative mind could join with others to craft something with the ability to affect the lives of millions upon millions of people. It was a place, for most people, where magic was still alive. Unfortunately, and despite his success, Larry Salomon was no longer one of those people.
    In his mind, magic was for the woefully naïve. “Happily ever after” existed only in fairy tales and of