The Hotel Hassler.

Still Tuesday, July 7. 10:00 p.m.

'Great! Great! I love it!… Has he called in?… No, I didn't think he would. He's where?… Hiding?'

Harry stood in his room and laughed out loud. Telephone in hand, his shirt open at the neck, sleeves rolled up, shoes off, he turned to lean against the edge of the antique desk near the window.

'Hey, he's twenty-four, he's a star, let him do what he wants.'

Signing off, Harry hung up and set the phone on the desk among the pile of legal pads, faxes, pencil stubs, half-eaten sandwich, and crumbled notes. When was the last time he'd laughed, or even felt like laughing? But just now he'd laughed, and it felt good.

Dog on the Moon was a monster hit. Fifty-eight million dollars for the three-day holiday weekend, sixteen million more than Warner Brothers' highest estimates. Studio number crunchers were projecting a total domestic gross of upward of two hundred and fifty million. And as for its writer-director, Jesus Arroyo, the twenty-four-year-old barrio kid from East L.A. Harry had found six years ago in a special writing program for troubled inner-city teenagers and had mentored ever since, his career was blasting off the planet. In little more than three days he had become the new enfant terrible, his golden future assured. Multi-picture contracts worth millions were being overtured to him. So were demands for guest appearances on every major television talk show. And where was baby Jesus in all this? Partying in Vail or Aspen or up the coast looking at Montecito real estate? No? He was – hiding!

Harry laughed again at the purity of it. Intelligent, mature, and forceful as Jesus was as a filmmaker, at heart he was really a shy little boy who, following the biggest weekend of his career, could not be found. Not by the media, not by his friends, his latest girlfriend, or even his agent – whom Harry had been on the phone with. No one.