Fade to Black td-119

by Warren Murphy

  "Congratulations," his employer had said delightedly the day after news of the slaying broke in the papers.

  "Just doing my job," Lee bragged. He was back in his New York apartment.

  "And you're good at it, man. There's a bonus already on its way. Enjoy it. Catch ya soon." True to his word, the bonus had come by special Taurus studio courier that afternoon. The bag was even adorned with the famous constellation insignia of Taurus.

  Lee found it all very strange. Strange enough to think something bigger than a simple multiple murder was going on.

  When the film Suburban Decay opened a few days after the events at the Anderson household, Lee Matson began to put two and two together.

  The other two similarly strange cases were listed in some of the Anderson articles. The box murder and the coed slayings were said by some to be part of a larger conspiracy. But the three movies that mirrored the real-life events were from a place called Cabbagehead Productions in Seattle. Lee's money had come from Taurus, in Hollywood.

  What was the connection? He found the answer in, of all places, a copy of Entertainment Weekly. Taurus was gearing up for the new Die Down film. In the article Lee read, studio cochair Bruce Marmelstein was crowing about the fact that they had snagged hotshot Quintly Tortilli to direct the latest entry in the film franchise.

  For Lee, it all clicked in that moment. That voice on the phone was the same one he'd heard on the Jay Leno, Charlie Rose shows and in a bunch of bit parts in a handful of really bad movies. Quintly Tortilli had hired him to murder an innocent family.

  He was even more certain when the caller phoned back.

  "Hey, Lee, baby. How the fuck are you with explosives?" the man Lee now knew to be Quintly Tortilli asked.

  Lee became the front man for Hollywood's hottest young director.

  Tortilli called Lee, and Lee called everybody else. Thanks to the Internet and the friendly folks at Radio Shack, Lee was able to construct a rabbit repeater box. With this, he managed to manipulate his phone line's ID just in case anyone got smart and tried to trace all this back to him. As far as he knew, it was unnecessary. It had been smooth sailing straight through hiring Reginald Hardwin-at Tortilli's urging, of course-to assembling the explosives and weapons necessary for the Regency and the White House operations. He had even had a hand in some of the grunt work in Operation Final Cut, the failed attempt to wipe out Taurus Studios.

  It was all pretty simple stuff. Tortilli would call Lee with instructions, sometimes send him orders, and Lee would regurgitate the pertinent information to the men in the field. Lee was the go-between that would allow Tortilli deniability if the shit ever hit the fan.

  To Lee Matson, it was all a great deal of fun. Plus if the time ever came that he grew bored with their arrangement, he could blackmail Torrilli. With what he had on the director, Lee could clean him out so completely the young Penny Dreadful genius would have to go back to his original job of ushering in a movie theater.

  The day of the assault on the White House, Lee was sitting at his old Smith-Corona in his crummy Queens apartment. On the nineteen-inch TV, reporters talked in serious tones about the ongoing crisis in the nation's capital. Lee wasn't really listening to them. As the nation watched with rapt attention, he was hunting and pecking at the old manual typewriter, tongue jutting between his lips in concentration.

  Lee was reaching for the Wite-Out when the phone rang.

  "Captain Kill," he said, swabbing at the S that should have been a D.

  "Hiya, Lee. Me again."

  Tortilli. Lee capped the Wite-Out.

  "What can I do for you?" he asked, bored. He sucked a bit of the steak he'd had for lunch from his bicuspids.

  "Another little job, man. Good press. Bigger than what's going on right now. Should get banner headlines."

  "What's the deal?"

  "I don't want to talk about it like this," Tortilli said. "I'll fly you to L.A. We'll talk then."

  Once the arrangements had been made and Tortilli had hung up, Lee quickly gathered up the pages of the screenplay he'd been working on. He was on the next flight to California.

  A Taurus jeep brought him from LAX to a fancy Beverly Hills hotel. The phone was ringing before he'd even given a fifty-cent tip to the bellboy.

  "Cap Kill here," Lee announced blandly, lying back on the soft bed.

  "How do you feel about assassination, Lee?" the voice of Quintly Tortilli asked.

  "In my business, that's just a fancy word for killing," Lee said confidently. "What do you got?"

  "I'm going to make you the most famous killer of the new century." Tortilli giggled. "You'll be right up there with J. Harry Osmond and what's-his-name. The guy who killed Reagan." The director was beside himself with joy. Murder talk always sparked giddiness in the young auteur.

  "How much?" Lee Matson asked.

  "A million up front and a back-end million." Lee sat up, dropping his feet delicately to the floor. He had only gotten a hundred thousand for the Andersons.

  "Okay," he agreed slowly. "I'll accept the job on one condition."

  "What's that?" Tortilli asked suspiciously.

  "Well, I don't know exactly who you are," Lee lied, "but the Taurus jeep, the studio envelopes, the fact I'm here in L.A. I kinda gotta think you're in the movie business somehow."

  "And?" Tortilli asked, annoyance creeping into his tone.

  Lee cleared his throat. "Well," he began, "it's just that I've got this script I've been working on...."

  HOURS LATER, with the promise from Quintly Tortilli of a production deal and screenwriting credit plus executive-producer status, Lee Matson found himself at the loading dock behind the Burbank Bowl. Standing in his fatigues, he watched as the stagehands removed the heavy crates from the back of the Taurus Studios truck. They grunted under the weight.

  Tortilli had made all the arrangements on this one. All Lee had to do was flip the switch and watch the world dance.

  He'd learned upon his arrival that the day at the bowl had been a frantic one. Management wasn't certain if the unfortunate circumstances back east might keep their most famous guest away. But the crisis had ended abruptly. According to the advance people, he was on his way after all.

  Under pressure from the front office, the stage crew was being pushed to get everything perfect. Cursing management all the way, two stagehands struggled to get the first of Lee Matson's two equipment crates to the loading dock.

  Lee strolled alongside them, hands in his pockets. He chewed languidly at a thick wad of gum. "You really a musician?" one of them queried, straining to carry the crate. He was looking at Lee's hat.

  "At least till I get my screenplay produced," Lee replied. With one hand, he adjusted his green Girl Scout's beret. The sash he'd taken from the Anderson house had been folded lengthwise and slipped through his belt loops.

  "Yeah?" the man panted. "I got a script in turnaround. Hey, this thing weighs a ton. What's in this?"

  "You familiar with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture?" Lee Matson asked as they mounted the stairs. His wide eyes didn't blink.

  "That's the one that ends with the cannons, right?"

  Lee smiled. "Tonight we finish it, but good." Hauling the first of Lee Matson's cannons, the men ducked in the stage door of the Burbank Bowl. They moved quickly, for there was still much to do before the arrival that night of the President of the United States.

  Chapter 28

  The airports around Washington remained closed until late morning the day after the White House drama. Remo had forgotten all about Chiun's script until he sank into his first-class seat on the flight from Washington to L.A.

  Pulling the tightly rolled tube of paper from his back pocket, he laid it across his service tray. With a simple sweep of his hand, he returned the coil of papers to a flattened state. He had just begun reading the script when another passenger dropped into the seat next to his.

  "Can you believe this?" the man drawled. "I'm supposed to be flying my plane back to L.A. Here I
fly to Washington to discuss religious persecution with the President, and not only can't he see me because of some stupid terrorist thing he's scheduled for the same day, but they won't even let any private jets take off until they've searched them."

  Remo glanced over at the man. He found that he was staring into the vacant eyes of Jann Revolta. The actor had been a star in the 1970s only to become a has-been in the 1980s. If Quintly Tortilli hadn't resurrected him from box-office death by casting him in Penny Dreadful, the actor would have been relegated to B-movie sequels featuring talking babies for the rest of his inauspicious career. Thanks to Tortilli's retro mentality, Revolta was now in virtually every movie Hollywood produced.

  "What are you doing?" Revolta asked, curious. Half standing, Remo was craning his neck, trying to see if there were any vacant seats. Unfortunately, the cabin was full. Exhaling annoyance, he sat back down.

  "I'm trying to read," Remo muttered.

  "Oh." Revolta nodded. "I don't do much of that. I'm too busy making movies to read even half the scripts I do. Hey, is that a script?" he asked excitedly, leaning toward Remo's tray. His ample paunch made it a struggle. "Gimme twenty million and I'm in." As soon as he saw the main character's name, the actor's face grew deeply disappointed. "Ohhh, I can't be in that movie," he groaned. "It's a Lance Wallace vehicle."

  Remo had heard of the actor. But he couldn't be in Chiun's movie. Remo hadn't seen Wallace during any of his time on the Taurus lot. Revolta supplied the answer to a question Remo didn't have time to ask.

  "Lance is back as the hotshot cop, but I heard he finished his work a month ago," the actor said. "Of course, Quintly wanted me to star at first. Back then, it was this weird little story about assassins working for the government or something, but then the studio changed the focus and moved it the franchise route. Did I mention I have an airplane?" Remo had quickly lost interest in anything the actor had to say. He was focused back on the script. Hoping to shut Revolta up without having to deal with the questions a paralyzed voice box might bring, he went the Machiavellian route. "Horshack carried you," Remo said blandly. He didn't even glance at the actor.

  Revolta frowned. "I'm sensing coldness here," he said.

  "Think how much colder it'll be when I stick you out on the wing at thirty thousand feet."

  "Is this a test? If it is, you can't upset me with your hostility," Revolta insisted. "I'm a 40.0."

  "If that's your IQ, it's about twice what I expected."

  "Just what I'd expect from a 1.1," Revolta said firmly. "I'm talking about the Timbre Scale. It plots the descending spiral of life from full vitality all the way down to death. You're a 1.1. Someone who exhibits covert hostility."

  Remo was a little disappointed in himself. He thought he was being as overt in his hostility as possible.

  "I am a 40.0," the actor continued proudly. "Someone who experiences complete serenity." He fumbled in his carry-on bag, producing a thick paperback book. "If you want to change your life for the better..."

  With a lunatic's grin, he offered the book to Remo. On the cover, an ominous black tornado ravaged a desolate plain. The word Diarrhetics was printed at the top. "By Rubin Dolomo" was printed in smaller type at the bottom.

  Remo remembered hearing about this on TV. Revolta was one of the many celebrity members of the Poweressence cult. A few years before, he had even gotten the president to chastise Germany for its treatment of cult members in that country. In exchange, Revolta agreed to dull the sharper edges of his performance as the President in a film based on the Chief Executive's 1992 campaign.

  Remo accepted the Poweressence bible from the actor.

  "Here's a little trick the First Lady taught me," he said, smiling.

  His hands became chopping blurs. By the time he was finished four seconds later, Revolta's book had been transformed into a heap of confetti on the actor's lap. Revolta's eyes were wide as he stared, slack jawed at the mound of shredded paper. "Thanks," Remo said. "I feel better already." He returned to Chiun's script.

  Snapping his fingers, Revolta summoned a stewardess to remove the remnants of his bible. "You're mean," he proclaimed once the woman was gone. "I wouldn't be in your movie for all the twenty million dollars in the world." He tipped his head, considering. "Unless the back-end deal was sweet enough. Twenty million plus enough points to cover your meanness and maybe buy me a new airplane. Of course, I'm playing Poopsy-Woopsy in the TeeVee-Fatties movie that's coming up. Time is tight, but I could do your movie after that. I've got about a week. Okay, it's a deal," he exclaimed grandly. When he found that Remo was still engrossed in Chiun's script, he bit his lip. "Are they still calling that thing Assassin's Loves? I can't believe they didn't come up with a better working title after they rewrote it into Die Down IV."

  Remo had been doing his best to ignore Revolta. But at the mention of the movie title, a twinge of concern knotted small in his stomach.

  "What do you mean, Die Down IV?" he asked.

  "That's the latest Die Down movie," the actor said, pointing at Remo's script. "They do that with movies sometimes-retitle them during production. Especially franchise ones like this. Throws people off the scent. I don't know how good it works, though. Everybody in the industry knows Taurus got the rights to the series and that Tortilli is directing it."

  Remo looked down at the script with disturbed eyes. His thoughts turned to Reginald Hardwin and the White House siege. If what Revolta was saying was true...

  "But I know the guy who wrote this," Remo said. "I don't think he's ever even seen one of those movies."

  "I told you. Things change in development. Like when I was making I'm Talking to You, Too. Originally, there was only supposed to be one craft-services truck. But my leading lady had gotten so fat by the sequel they were bringing pizzas in by the..."

  Remo was no longer listening. Hands flashing, he skipped rapidly ahead in the script.

  He found what he was looking for on page forty-two. In a detailed action scene, a group of armed terrorists invaded the White House and took the First Family hostage. Skipping back, he located another long section where the same terrorists blew up a floor in a Manhattan office building.

  "Damn," he muttered.

  "...the Jaws of Life to get her out the door," Revolta finished. Glancing over, he noted the look on Remo's face. "Oh," he said, looking down at the script. "Does it still end with the big gun battle at LAX? When Quintly mentioned that to me, I told him it reminded me too much of Die Down II."

  Remo hadn't even thought to see how the screenplay ended. He was still trying to digest the fact that for much of the day he had been holding a virtual blueprint of the White House siege in his back pocket.

  Remo had been ready to blame Bindle and Marmelstein. But now he realized Quintly Tortilli was a better actor than he'd thought. The director had been faking it back in Seattle. And in Hollywood, he'd neglected to mention that the movie that would benefit most from the recent news events Die Down IV-was his.

  In an instant, it was all clear. Tortilli was the mastermind.

  Remo skipped to the end of the script. He could see nothing of a battle at Los Angeles International Airport.

  "It looks like it's on a boat," he said aloud.

  "Must have rewritten it again." Revolta nodded.

  "Definitely a boat," Remo said, talking more to himself than to the actor. He was riffling through the script. "Terrorists steal a mothballed battleship from Long Beach."

  "Isn't that closed?" Revolta said. "Anyway, I don't like it. Too much like Under Siege. Although that was a Die Down I rip-off." He glanced around, annoyed. "Are they going to feed us or what? I haven't eaten since the airport."

  Only now were they taxiing for takeoff.

  Remo wasn't paying attention to the actor. He was thinking about how Chiun's screenplay ended. It seemed anticlimactic after invading the White House. The theft of a retired battleship was mild compared with what had already gone on. But here it was in Remo's hands.

  The
Master of Sinanju already suspected that Remo was jealous of his great movie deal. Remo didn't know how Chiun would react when he told him about Quintly Tortilli. And for the first time in a long time, Remo didn't give a damn how all this would affect Chiun's movie. After so many months of lies and secrecy and having to deal with the old Korean's ballooning ego, he wished he could savor the sensation.

  His face was grim as he settled back in his seat for the long flight to California.

  Chapter 29

  Alone in his trailer on the Taurus lot, Quintly Tortilli studied himself in the long door mirror. His garish purple polyester tuxedo with its brazen green ruffled shirt, sequined maroon cummerbund and giant floppy yellow felt bow tie would have embarrassed a circus clown.

  To the rose-colored eyes of Quintly Tortilli, the reflection staring back at him could have just stepped off the cover of GQ. It had been a long time since he'd had so much fun dressing up.

  Die Down IV was nearly finished.

  He'd finished the bulk of the film weeks before, wrapping up work with the principal actors just before flying to Seattle. In Washington, he used the Cabbagehead facilities to edit the Arlen Duggal-directed footage that was flown to him on a daily basis.

  There was no doubt about it. In spite of what Bindle and Marmelstein and Duggal thought, although he seemed to take an unconcerned attitude with this film, it was his baby. Quintly Tortilli was in charge of the project from start to finish. And the finish line was in sight.

  The special-effects house hired to complete the various miniature, matte and pyrotechnic shots would have their work back in less than a week. Die Down IV would make its pre-Memorial Day release date. And Tortilli would have a hit. Finally.

  He'd had a hit before. But Penny Dreadful was more like an indie film that had somehow crossed over. Quintly Tortilli-the genius, the maverick, Hollywood's hottest young director since Stefan Schoenburg-had never been able to duplicate that early success.

  In the mid-1990s, he was ubiquitous. He made all the talk-show rounds. He tried his hand at acting and producing. On a whim he'd even directed that episode of the highly rated television hospital drama, OR.