Fade to Black td-119

by Warren Murphy

  Every man he had served under had been from the World War II generation. Smith's generation. Whether they were saints or sinners, he flattered himself to think that he had understood them all.

  But this new Chief Executive was cut from a different cloth. There were those who said this younger man represented a tidal shift in American politics. And if he was the future of America, then perhaps at no other time was it more obvious that Smith was part of its past.

  There was no doubt that the President's last words had been a cryptic threat to remove Smith from CURE. It didn't matter. Smith had known from the outset that that time would one day come. Lately, his aging body had been warning him that the time might nearly be at hand.

  When his last day finally came, Smith would leave willingly, knowing that he had made a difference. To ensure that any secrets he possessed died with him, he would swallow the coffin-shaped pill hidden in the pocket of his gray vest. And with his last breath, Harold W. Smith would pray not only for America's future, but also for the men who would lead the nation there.

  But all of that would come another day. Until then, he had work to do.

  Tearing his eyes away from the rolling black waves, Smith spun quietly back to his computer.

  Chapter 8

  Remo heard about the bombing in New York on his car radio while driving back to the Cabbagehead Productions offices. He pulled over at the first pay phone he saw. When he got out of the car, the air in the street was thick with the smell of freshly brewed coffee.

  Beside the booth, a street performer flailed away on an electric guitar. The screeching sounds emanating from the wobbling amplifier at his feet rattled windows five blocks away. To remove the noisy distraction, Remo punted the musician's amp half a mile down the street. It splintered into blessedly silent fragments in front of a coffee shop.

  The performer-who looked about nineteen-spun to Remo. Filthy blond bangs slapped against his pasty face.

  "That was Nirvana, dude," he snarled as Remo scooped up the telephone receiver.

  "No," Remo explained, pressing the multiple-1 code that would connect him to CURE's special line. "Nirvana is a transcendent state in Buddhism of pure peace and enlightenment, achieved by stuffing a guitar down someone's throat. Wanna help me get there?"

  The look in Remo's eyes cowed the sidewalk minstrel. Gibson guitar in hand, he beat a hasty retreat down the damp street in the direction of his smashed amp.

  Smith answered on the first ring.

  "What is it?" the CURE director asked tensely.

  "I just heard about the explosion in New York," Remo said. "You want me to fly back?"

  "There is nothing concrete yet," Smith said, voice flirting on the edge of exasperation, as if he'd already been through this with Remo.

  "Is something wrong, Smitty?" Remo said, brow furrowing. "You're not generally on the rag right out of the gate."

  The tension drained from Smith's voice. "I'm sorry," he sighed. "It's been a trying morning." He cleared his throat. "The explosion in Manhattan is barely forty-five minutes old. No useful information has yet been learned."

  "They're saying terrorists on the radio."

  "That is not known yet. And speculation is pointless and potentially dangerous at this juncture," Smith cautioned. "I need not remind you of the wild accusations that followed in the wake of the federal building bombing in Oklahoma City. I will continue to monitor the situation in New York and will decide on a course of action once the facts are known. Until then, do you have anything to report there?"

  "It's weirder than I thought," Remo began. "Turns out this is a profit-making scheme after all. I met some of the entrepreneurs this morning."

  "Explain."

  Remo provided a rapid rundown of what he had learned from Leaf Randolph, including the fact that he'd been hired over the phone and that he and his companions were responsible for only the two Florida murders.

  "I will have the apartment searched," Smith said once he was through, "in addition to checking phone records."

  "Start with calls from California," Remo suggested. "I know independent movies usually love being up to their ankles in corpses, but this plot's way too complicated for them. Which reminds me, you didn't tell me the Cabbagehead backers list reads like the Fortune 500."

  "What do you mean?" Smith asked.

  "I mean you can't fling a dead cat at their offices without it landing on a check from some slumming Hollywood moneybags. They've got millionaires up the wazoo up here."

  "Remo, according to my information, the studio is owned by one Shawn Allen Morris."

  "Don't believe everything you read," Remo advised.

  Smith hummed thoughtfully. "Give me some of the names, please," he said, his tone betraying mild intrigue.

  Remo could almost hear the CURE director's fingers poised over his keyboard. He decided to go for the bombshell first. "Try Stefan Schoenburg on for size," he suggested.

  The CURE director paused. "I have heard of him."

  "So's everyone else on the planet. He's been picking all our pockets for the last twenty years." Remo then mentioned a few of the other names he could recall. Even though the rest were celebrities in their own right, Schoenburg was the only one Smith recognized. When he checked the others, he found that all were millionaires. One was actually a billionaire.

  "One moment," Smith said, puzzled.

  A few minutes of rapid typing ensued. When Smith returned to the line, his confusion was unmistakable.

  "I believe I have found a partial list of investors," he said. "There are many more individuals than those you named. I have rarely encountered a more convoluted money trail. It is a veritable Gordian knot of finance."

  "Must have hired Gary Coleman's accountants," Remo said. "So what's the deal?"

  "I am looking at one producer's financial information now," Smith said. "He seems a typical Cabbagehead investor. Roughly half of the funds he invested in the Seattle film group seem to have been filtered through companies that distribute films of an, er, adult nature. The other half was routed circuitously through real-estate ventures."

  "Were they just fronts?" Remo asked.

  "No. The distributors and land transactions were legal. That some of the money was then siphoned to Seattle seems almost an afterthought during the normal course of business."

  "Hmm. I'd heard that everybody in Hollywood was into either land or porn," Remo mused.

  "Yes," Smith agreed uncomfortably. "Although knowing this does not answer the underlying question. Why would men who are successful in their own right seek to associate themselves with such a small-time film operation and then seem to act to cover up that association?"

  "They'll only cover up until Oscar night," Remo explained. "After that they'll be pushing each other into the orchestra pit trying to grab the gold."

  "I am being serious, Remo."

  "Me, too," Remo insisted. "I'm only telling you what I heard. And given our past experiences in Hollywood, I don't think it stretches credibility. These numbnuts already have all the money in the world. Now they want recognition."

  Smith mulled Remo's argument. "Perhaps," he admitted after a moment. "But what is the likelihood that Cabbagehead films could produce an award-winning movie?"

  "C'mon, Smitty. Get out of the office once in a while. The sort of junk they make wins awards all the time."

  The weary sigh of Harold Smith carried over the line.

  On the other side of the country, alone in his Folcroft office, Smith was thinking of his conversation with the President. Perhaps he was a relic of another age, too far behind the times to be useful in this new era.

  "If it is as you say, then it is possible the motivation here is egocentric," the CURE director admitted tiredly. "I will attempt to follow the money chain further. In the meantime, I would advise you to return to your source. He was helpful already-perhaps he knows something that could be of further use."

  Remo balked. "Oh, come on, Smitty," he complained. "There's
got to be some other way. Quintly Tortilli is a dingdong with a capital ding. You've got to stick him on the roof just to shut him up, and he dresses like a Latvian pimp. I got motion sickness just from looking at his shirt."

  "Please, Remo," Smith pressed.

  From his tone, he sounded too fatigued to argue. At the Seattle phone booth, Remo spun to face the road.

  Row after row of coffeehouses faced one another across the street as far as the eye could see. Too many, it seemed, for all of them to be sustainable. Yet people continually entered and exited shops at a pace so steady Remo was certain they had to be going out one door and into the next. He closed his eyes on the seemingly choreographed activity.

  "Fine, I'll track down Tortilli," Remo relented. "But if he isn't dead already, I just might kill him myself."

  Before Smith was able to ask if he was joking, Remo dropped the phone back into its cradle.

  WHEN THE SLACKER generation had first found a home in the independent-film industry, it seemed a match made in heaven. Every loafer with no job and an eight-millimeter camera could be a genius in his parents' basement without suffering through the mundaneness of everyday family, work or life responsibilities. But with the elevation of indie films beyond cult status, a new pressure was brought to bear on an industry not famous for its strong work ethic. The success of low-budget movies at Telluride, Cannes, Sundance and other film festivals had upped the ante even more. The Blair Witch Project only made matters worse. The urgency to be the studio to create the next Quintlyesque counterculture hit grew more intense with each season. At the moment, no one felt the pressure more than Shawn Allen Morris.

  "We can't survive this," Shawn wailed to the gray, mist-filled sky. "How can we have a Quintly Tortilli film without Quintly Tortilli?"

  "Everyone else does," pointed out a soundman who worked part-time bagging groceries at a local supermarket.

  "They are producing knockoff shit. We had the real Tortilli. A Tortilli original out of Cabbagehead would have gone all the way to March."

  "The studio has had a few hits lately."

  Shawn waved a dismissive hand. "Flukes. Arthouse hits. We could have had a box-office bonanza here."

  He was sitting on a plastic milk crate on the parking-lot set of The Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestick Maker. The blood machines were idle. The cast and crew of locals hired for the production sat glumly on crates around the roped-off area.

  The ropes were just for show. In a week of shooting, the only thing that had dropped by the set was a single stray dog. It had wandered away from a pack that stalked the woods around the nearby reservoir. At the moment it was sleeping at Shawn's feet. The filthy reservoir dog snored loudly, unconcerned for Shawn Allen Morris or his studio's plight.

  As Shawn sat bemoaning his fate, an engine purred to a stop beyond the string of ropes. When he glanced up, his dispirited gaze alighted on a familiar car. The Cabbagehead executive watched glumly as Remo Williams got out.

  The dog at Shawn's feet lifted its nose. After sniffing the air, it laid its head back down to the damp asphalt.

  Remo's expression was sour as he crossed to Shawn.

  "Where's Tortilli?" Remo asked, glancing around.

  Shawn wanted to snort derisively, but the ache beneath his new wrist cast warned him against it. Instead, he settled on a self-pitying sigh.

  "In jail," Shawn said morosely from his milkcrate seat.

  "Grand theft plot?" Remo frowned, unsure whether or not he should be pleased that Tortilli was even alive.

  "No. Something about killing people or something." Shawn waved, uninterested. "I didn't talk to him. And who cares about that now? How am I going to finish this picture? I need a genius that rivals Quintly Tortilli."

  Rerno pointed to the sleeping dog. "Give him a beret and megaphone," he suggested. He bit the inside of his cheek.

  It was bad enough to have to ask the director for more help; he didn't want to have to spring Tortilli from jail.

  Remo was considering leaving Tortilli to take the rap for the murders of Leaf Randolph and his friends when a new engine's roar overwhelmed the parking-lot background noise.

  When he turned, he saw a yellow cab speeding quickly across the lot. It hadn't even rocked to a stop behind Remo's rental car before the rear door popped open. A familiar purple leisure suit sprang into view.

  "Veni, vidi, vici!" Quintly Tortilli announced grandly.

  Whirling to the cab, he flung a fistful of crumpled bills at the driver.

  Shawn clambered to his feet, face ecstatic. "Thank God!" he proclaimed. He spun to the cast and crew. "Quintly's back!" he shouted. "Places, everybody! Let's go!"

  With grunts and groans, the set began to come alive.

  Beaming joyfully, Shawn hurried to meet up with Tortilli as the cab headed back to the street. "Quintly, I didn't think you-"

  Tortilli marched past Shawn and straight to Remo.

  "It was great!" he enthused. "What a rush! And I owe it all to you. Dead bodies. Blood, heads and brains everywhere. The whole Starsky and Hutch and Baretta jail thing. Man, what a high-flying, hightailing, highfalutin trip!"

  He tried to shake Remo's hand. Somehow, it was never where it seemed to be. Tortilli kept clutching air.

  "Damn, how do you do that?" the director gushed.

  "Let's go, dummy," Remo replied, peeved. Shawn had hurried up behind Tortilli. At Remo's suggestion, he shrieked. The Cabbagehead executive quickly inserted himself between them.

  "I thought they said they'd booked you or something," Shawn said through clenched teeth. As he spoke, he leaned toward the set, trying through body language to guide Quintly back to work.

  Tortilli didn't budge. "Booked, fingerprinted and stuck in a cell with Otis the freaking town drunk," he enthused. "My lawyers did the whole Clarence Darrow/L.A. Law thing. Bidda-boom, bidda-bing, I'm back on the street. Christ Almighty, how I love the revolving-door prison system."

  "That's great," Shawn said, with a total lack of conviction. "See, the thing is, Quintly, it's Tuesday. A lot of our cast skipped school for this..."

  "He's leaving," Remo said. Grabbing Tortilli by the arm, he began bouncing the director toward his rental car.

  "I am?" Tortilli asked. "Cool!"

  "He's not," Shawn begged, running alongside them. "Quintly, you've got a movie to finish here."

  "You don't get it, Shawn," the director announced, his balled-fist face red with excitement. "This is the man. I mean, there are men. And there are men who are the man. But this is, like, the man." Beside the rental car now, he turned to Remo. "You are protoman. You are like the first monkey to swim up out of the primordial ooze. I prostate myself at your feet."

  "Prostrate," Remo corrected, opening the passenger's-side door. "Prostate is where your head's gonna be if you don't shut up." He tossed the director inside, slamming the door.

  As Shawn stomped impotently on the pavement, Remo rounded to the driver's side.

  Inside the car, Remo turned to Tortilli. "A-shut up. B-your last lead was a bust. You think you can find another?"

  Tortilli was torn by the conflicting commands. His worried eyes darted left and right. "I guess so," he ventured at last. He threw his hands protectively in front of his face. His ferret eyes squinted, awaiting the blow.

  None came.

  All he heard was the car engine turning over. Tortilli opened one cautious eye. They were driving across the parking lot. The director's shoulders relaxed.

  "There were five of them," he enthused, his voice a conspiratorial whisper. "You knocked off five at one time!"

  "Think how easy one would be," Remo cautioned.

  Tortilli nodded in understanding.

  He still had one more question. Since Remo seemed to be in a more agreeable mood than normal, he decided to risk it.

  "How long you gonna leave Shawn up there?" he asked.

  He nodded to the hood. Shawn Allen Morris lay plastered to the wet surface, his legs dangling out over the grille.

&nb
sp; "Please, Quintly!" Shawn's muffled voice shouted.

  Remo's response was nonverbal.

  At the supermarket entrance, Remo cut the wheel sharply. Shawn flew off the hood into a cluster of shopping carts.

  Over the rattle of the carts, Quintly Tortilli swore he heard the sound of crunching bones. Just like in the movies.

  The rented car tore off down the street.

  Chapter 9

  "I don't think we can last much longer under these conditions," the assistant director pleaded. "He's got us all walking on eggshells. He screams at us. Bullies us. He's never happy with anything I'm doing. I've never been on a set where the tension level was this high. And I spent six months on the Rosie O'Donnell Show."

  Arlen Duggal was in the Taurus Studios office of Bindle and Marmelstein. The studio cochairs sat behind a gleaming pair of matching stainless-steel desks.

  "Are you sure this isn't just a personality conflict?" Bruce Marmelstein asked calmly.

  The assistant director shook his head frantically. "When I told him I wanted to break for the day yesterday, he threatened to eviscerate me if I didn't get back to work," Arlen said pleadingly.

  "That doesn't sound so bad," Hank Bindle suggested.

  "Oh, no? I looked it up. It means 'disembowel.' He's a maniac. He's completely out of control. You've got to do something."

  Bruce Marmelstein was leaning back in his swivel chair, salon-tanned hands steepled beneath the nose he'd ordered from his plastic surgeon's summer catalog.

  "Bottom line," Marmelstein said. "This production was twenty-three days behind schedule before he got here. He's only been here forty-eight hours and we're already through twelve of those lost days. Even at this rate, Assassin's Loves will be finished just barely on schedule."

  "Can't we change the working title?" Bindle asked, his face pinched in displeasure. "That was just to cover Lance during location shooting. I mean, Assassin's Loves? Pee-yew."

  "It's already on the crew jackets, hats and script binders," Marmelstein said. "Belt-tightening time. Remember?"

  "Have you seen what we've shot in the past two days?" the assistant director begged, steering them back to the topic at hand. "It's crap."