Rebirth 1991: Keep the Fame, I'll Take the Royalties

The Red Carpet Hijack

Early November brought a crisp, electric chill to the Los Angeles evening. The neon marquee of the Fox Village Theater in Westwood burned bright against the dark sky, announcing the highly anticipated premiere of the independent film Reservoir Dogs.

The sidewalk was a chaotic battlefield of blinding paparazzi flashbulbs, shouting reporters from Entertainment Tonight, and barricades holding back throngs of curious onlookers.

Standing in the shadows of an adjacent alleyway, perfectly shielded from the media frenzy, Elias van Kempen was impeccably dressed. He wore his tailored Armani suit, layered effortlessly under his signature, scuffed vintage leather jacket. He looked like a European prince who had just crawled out of a grunge club.

Paul Rudd, however, looked like he was about to experience a catastrophic cardiac event.

Paul was clutching a crumpled fax document, his Anti-Awkwardness Sunglasses shoved into his breast pocket because he was sweating too profusely to wear them. At his feet sat a bulky, battery-powered portable PA system with a wired microphone—a piece of equipment Elias had just forced him to rent from a local AV shop.

”Elias, I am going to throw up on your shoes,” Paul gasped, waving the fax frantically. ”This just came from Miramax’s accounting department. It’s the preliminary financial disclosure for the premiere. They are claiming that the marketing costs, the P&A budget, and the ’executive distribution fees’ have completely wiped out the initial box office projections!”

Paul slammed the paper against his leg. ”They’re saying the movie is operating at a three-million-dollar deficit! We have a two-percent First-Dollar Gross contract, and they are using ’Hollywood Accounting’ to claim the gross doesn’t exist yet! We are getting zero dollars tonight! Zero!”

Elias didn’t flinch. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two crisp hundred-dollar bills to mentally log the cost of the PA system. The digital loan shark inside his head registered the expenditure with a sharp chime.

[DEDUCTING -$200.00 USD FOR COMEDIC THREAT LOGISTICS.]

Elias ignored the phantom pain in his chest. ”Hollywood Accounting is a fictional ledger designed to pacify weak agents, Paul,” Elias murmured smoothly, his baritone voice a dark, unbothered rumble. ”They inflate the overhead by paying their own subsidiary companies exorbitant fees for imaginary services. It is a shell game.”

”Then we lost!” Paul whimpered, grabbing the PA speaker by its handle. ”Harvey Weinstein won the shell game! Why did you make me rent a megaphone for two hundred dollars if we’re broke?!”

”Because, Paul, when a predator tries to hide the gold under a shell,” Elias smiled, a chilling, purely sociopathic expression spreading across his striking face, ”you do not guess which shell it is under. You simply smash the table with a hammer. Pick up the speaker. We are taking the red carpet.”

Elias strolled out of the alleyway, the suffocating, magnetic weight of his Playboy Alpha aura rolling off his shoulders. The sea of paparazzi at the edge of the barricades spotted him instantly. The flashes erupted in a blinding strobe effect, the photographers screaming his name. His face had recently dominated a fifty-foot Calvin Klein billboard in Times Square; he was no longer an unknown extra. He was a highly volatile cultural icon.

As Elias stepped onto the plush red carpet, a massive, stretched black limousine pulled up to the curb directly in front of the theater doors.

The rear door opened, and Harvey Weinstein stepped out.

The Miramax titan looked exactly like the corporate bully he was. He wore a rumpled tuxedo, his massive frame dominating the space as he aggressively barked orders at his sycophantic publicists.

Harvey’s eyes swept the red carpet. He spotted Quentin Tarantino and Steve Buscemi waving to the cameras, but then his gaze locked onto Elias.

Harvey’s face instantly twisted into a furious, arrogant scowl. He remembered the two-hundred-dollar lobster at Spago. He remembered the extortion.

Harvey marched directly toward Elias, intercepting him before he could reach the primary media wall.

”What the hell are you doing walking the prime carpet, van Kempen?” Harvey growled, stepping uncomfortably close, attempting to use his massive physical size to intimidate the teenager out of the camera’s sightline. ”You’re a supporting character with three lines. Get to the back of the line with the grips. And don’t bother checking your mail for a royalty check. The movie is a financial black hole. I told you I’d bury you if you played games with me.”

Elias didn’t back away. He didn’t blink. He casually slipped his hands into the pockets of his vintage leather jacket.

”Kau tidak akan pernah bekerja di Hollywood lagi, van Kempen!” Harvey hissed, his voice a venomous whisper meant only for Elias’s ears. ”Minggir dari karpet merahku!” (You will never work in Hollywood again, van Kempen! Get off my red carpet!)

Elias offered a slow, impossibly charismatic smile that completely shattered Harvey’s attempt at dominance. He reached out with terrifying, aristocratic grace and casually smoothed the wrinkled lapel of Harvey’s tuxedo.

”Ini bukan karpet merahmu, Harvey,” Elias purred, his voice a silken, lethal blade. (This is not your red carpet, Harvey.) ”Ini adalah lokasi penyanderaan finansial.” (This is a financial hostage location.)

Harvey frowned, genuinely confused by the sheer lack of fear. ”What are you talking about?”

Elias didn’t whisper. He took a half-step back and snapped his fingers.

Paul Rudd, sweating profusely and visibly trembling, scrambled forward, lugging the rented PA system. He slammed it down on the red carpet right next to Elias and shoved the wired microphone into Elias’s hand.

Elias casually flipped the microphone switch. A sharp squeal of feedback echoed over the red carpet, instantly drawing the attention of every single journalist, photographer, and actor in the vicinity.

”Kau melaporkan kerugian tiga juta dolar pada IRS, Harvey,” Elias spoke into the microphone, his amplified baritone booming across the premiere. (You reported a three-million-dollar loss to the IRS, Harvey.)

Harvey Weinstein’s face instantly drained of all blood, turning the color of wet ash. A massive, cartoonish sweatdrop materialized on his forehead.

”Tapi aku memiliki salinan faktur distributor luar negerimu di saku jas asistenku,” Elias continued smoothly, deploying the Paper Trail Bluff with absolute, merciless precision. (But I have a copy of your foreign distributor invoices in my assistant’s jacket pocket.)

The crowd went dead silent. The cameras stopped flashing. Quentin Tarantino, standing near the theater doors, actually lowered his sunglasses, a massive grin breaking across his face. Quentin hated the studio executives; watching Elias publicly humiliate the biggest bully in town was better than watching his own movie.

”You’re... you’re insane,” Harvey choked out, stepping forward to try and rip the microphone from Elias’s hand. ”Turn that off!”

Elias effortlessly sidestepped the grasping producer.

”Bayar uang muka persentase backend-ku sekarang secara tunai,” Elias commanded, his voice echoing off the surrounding buildings, transforming the glamorous premiere into a public execution. (Pay the advance on my backend percentage right now in cash,) ”Atau aku akan menyuruh Quentin Tarantino membacakan faktur penipuanmu ke mikrofon Entertainment Tonight.” (Or I will have Quentin Tarantino read your fraudulent invoices into the Entertainment Tonight microphone.)

Elias gestured toward Quentin.

Quentin Tarantino, ever the chaotic cinematic wildcard, cheerfully gave Harvey a thumbs-up and started jogging toward the PA system, looking entirely eager to read the fake invoices on national television.

”No! No, Quentin, stay there!” Harvey shrieked, completely losing his mind. He looked at the Entertainment Tonight cameras, which were now zoomed directly onto his sweating, panicked face.

The Miramax titan was trapped. He knew Elias didn’t really have the physical invoices—it was impossible. But the IRS was a completely different beast. If the IRS heard a public accusation of international tax fraud broadcasted on syndicated television, they would launch a full forensic audit by Monday morning. Harvey’s entire shadow-accounting empire would be dismantled, and he would go to federal prison.

The sixteen-year-old kid in the leather jacket was holding a live grenade, and he had just pulled the pin on live TV.

”What do you want?!” Harvey hissed in a desperate, frantic whisper, completely abandoning his power-broker facade. ”I don’t carry royalty checks in my tuxedo, you psychotic punk!”

”I am a fiduciary, Harvey. I accept liquid deposits,” Elias smiled shamelessly, lowering the microphone. He pointed an elegant finger at the hood of Harvey’s stretched limousine. ”One hundred thousand dollars. As a non-refundable cash advance against my Gross Backend. Write the check. Now.”

Harvey’s chest was heaving. He looked at the paparazzi. He looked at Elias’s dark, uncompromising eyes.

With a tragic, pathetic groan of a man whose ego had just been publicly atomized, Harvey reached into his breast pocket. He pulled out a leather-bound personal checkbook and a gold Montblanc pen.

Harvey stumbled over to the hood of his own limousine. He slapped the checkbook down onto the polished black metal, his hands shaking so violently he could barely hold the pen.

The paparazzi, seeing the legendary producer writing a check for the young, rising star on the hood of a limo, completely misunderstood the context.

”Harvey! Look over here!” a photographer yelled. ”Is Miramax donating to Elias’s new charity foundation?! What a beautiful gesture! Smile, guys!”

Elias smoothly walked over to the limousine. He stood next to the broken, sweating producer, wrapped an arm casually around Harvey’s stiff shoulders, and flashed a devastating, million-dollar smile for the cameras.

Harvey practically growled like a wounded animal as he signed his name on the one-hundred-thousand-dollar check. He violently ripped it from the ledger and shoved it into Elias’s hand.

”Take it,” Harvey spat, his eyes burning with pure hatred. ”But mark my words, van Kempen. You’re dead in this town.”

”I look forward to the funeral, Harvey,” Elias murmured politely.

Elias took the check. He didn’t just trust the signature. He mentally engaged the loan shark in his head to verify the asset.

[SYSTEM SHOP ACCESSED.][ACTIVATING: CORPORATE X-RAY SCAN][COST: -10 CP][CURRENT BALANCE: 80 CP]

[CHA-CHING!]

A red, glowing grid snapped over the piece of paper in Elias’s hand. The system rapidly verified the bank routing numbers and the account liquidity.

[SCAN COMPLETE. THREAT ANALYSIS: CLEAR.] [FUNDS VERIFIED. ACCOUNT IS HIGHLY SOLVENT. CHECK WILL CLEAR UPON DEPOSIT.]

Elias let the overlay fade. He carefully folded the $100,000 check and slipped it into his inner jacket pocket, right next to his heart.

”Paul,” Elias called out, abandoning the PA system on the red carpet. ”We are finished here. Let’s go watch a masterpiece.”

Paul Rudd practically sprinted away from the speaker, grabbing Elias’s arm and dragging him toward the theater doors. ”You just blackmailed Harvey Weinstein on live television. We are moving to Switzerland. Tomorrow.”

Elias ignored him, walking through the theater doors as the digital loan shark erupted in a glorious, golden symphony of triumph.

[CHA-CHING!][SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: THE RED CARPET HOSTAGE MISSION COMPLETED WITH MAXIMUM SOCIOPATHY!][EVALUATION: YOU HIJACKED A MULTI-MILLION-DOLLAR PREMIERE, RENTED A MEGAPHONE FOR POCKET CHANGE, AND EXTORTED A HUNDRED GRAND FROM THE MOST DANGEROUS PRODUCER IN HOLLYWOOD. YOUR SHAMELESSNESS IS A WORK OF ART.][REWARD: +25 SHAMELESS POINTS (CP) DEPOSITED.]

Elias felt his CP surge to a comfortable 105. He was heavily armed and wildly liquid.

However, the system never let him forget his ultimate reality.

[SYSTEM WARNING: DAILY MAINTENANCE FEE DEDUCTION INITIATED.][DEDUCTING -$50.00 USD FROM LIQUID CASH RESERVE.]

Elias took his seat in the VIP row of the theater, pulling out his ledger to mentally balance his books. His liquid cash, infused by the ransom check and slightly dinged by the rental fee and tax, now sat at a highly powerful $2,204,688.00.

The lights in the cinema dimmed. The screen flared to life.

Elias van Kempen sat back, unbothered, crossing his legs. He didn’t care about the movie. He only cared about the math. And tonight, the math belonged entirely to Sovereign Media.