“Spence, I don’t think a city—even one with a good motive—could be behind these killings,” I said. “Some person has to be behind it all. Have you narrowed it down to a human suspect?”
“No. That’s your job. You and K-Mac,” he said. “The obvious places to start are the California Film Commission, the LA Chamber of Commerce—hell, it might go all the way up to city hall.”
“That’s an intriguing thought, Spence,” I said. For a TV show, maybe. But hard to believe in real life that the mayor of Los Angeles would put a contract out on three people in New York.
I thanked him, promised I’d talk to Kylie about it in the morning, and hung up. Thirty minutes later, I was still wide awake. Maybe because I was running all the events of the past twenty-four hours through my shit sorter. Maybe because I was trying to make sense of Spennington’s phone call.
Or maybe because I knew Cheryl Robinson was probably already at the diner on her second cup of coffee.
Chapter 32
ALT. SCENE:
INT. MICKEY PELTZ’S LOFT—LONG ISLAND CITY—NIGHT
The Chameleon enters. He seems genuinely happy to see MICKEY. They talk about the old days, about prison life, and finally Peltz gets to the point. He never says blackmail. He calls it “hush money”—a little something to help him get back on his feet. The Chameleon says he can pay part now and have the rest in a day. He reaches into his pocket for the money, pulls out a gun, and shoots Mickey between the eyes.
EXT. MICKEY PELTZ’S LOFT—LONG ISLAND CITY—NIGHT
The Chameleon is across the street from Mickey’s building. Suddenly the dark, quiet street lights up as the explosion blows out the windows, destroying the loft, and cremating everything in it.
“ARE YOU SURE he’ll have something you can use to blow the place up?” Lexi had asked when they finished.
Gabe shrugged. “He just got out of prison. He may not even have a quart of milk in the fridge.”
“Maybe you should just shoot him the second he opens the door.”
“No,” Gabe said. “I have to make sure he didn’t tell anyone. Mickey’s a nonstop talker. That’s how I met him. We were shooting some piece-of-crap terrorist-on-an-airplane movie. I was a passenger and Mickey had to blow off the cockpit doors. I asked if I could watch him set up, and before you know it, Mick is giving me a short course in special effects. I figured this guy is a gold mine of tech stuff I can use one day, and I struck up a friendship. By the time he went off to prison, I kind of liked the old guy. It’ll be nice to catch up with him.”
“Catch up. Find out what he knows. Then kill him,” Lexi said.
“Looks like you’ve been reading the script.”
Gabe took the number 7 train to Flushing, got off at 33rd Street, and walked to Skillman Avenue. He was glad he had a gun. A guy could get rolled in a neighborhood like this.
Nothing had changed since he had last been here. He wondered how Mickey managed to keep the place the whole time he was in jail. He’d have to ask him during the nice-to-see-you-again part of the conversation.
He rang the bell and identified himself over the intercom. Mickey buzzed him in.
The ground floor reeked of garbage and piss. He waited for Mickey to send the elevator down, then rode it up to the fifth floor, patting the compact Walther PPK tucked into the pocket of his windbreaker.
The door to the elevator opened directly into the loft, and Gabe walked in.
“Hey, I’m over here at my workbench,” Mickey called out from the opposite end of the space, forty feet away.
Gabe crossed the length of the room. Peltz was sitting on a wooden stool. He had aged at least ten years in the past four. His shoulders were stooped, and his hair and skin were both ashy gray.
“One thing’s for sure. You didn’t get too much sun,” Gabe said.
“Grab a seat,” Mickey said. “This is cool. You really got to see this.”
There was only one place to sit—a threadbare old armchair—and Gabe lowered himself into it and sat back. “What’s so cool that I got to see?”
“This,” Mickey said, holding up a chrome cylinder about the size of a penlight. “It’s a pressure-release trigger. Watch what happens when I click it.” He pressed the silver button at the top of the cylinder and held it in place with his thumb.
“Nothing,” Gabe said. “Nothing happened.”
“Exactly. But guess what happens when I lift my thumb off the button?”
Gabe didn’t have to guess. He knew. He started to stand.
“Don’t move,” Mickey said. “The seat cushion is lined with C4. The instant I release this button, your ass will be blown to kingdom come.”
Chapter 33
“MICK, ARE YOU serious?” Gabe said.
Mickey sat motionless. “Serious as a body bag.”
“What the hell is going on? Why would you want to blow me up?”
“I don’t want to blow you up,” Peltz said. “I’d rather talk business.”
“No problem,” Gabe said. “Talk.”
“First, get rid of the gun. Wherever it is, reach for it, and set it down on the floor. If you shoot me, you’re dead a half second after I am.”
“Okay, relax,” Gabe said. “I mean, don’t relax. Just keep pressing hard on that button.”
He reached inside his windbreaker pocket, took out the Walther, and slid it across the floor. Peltz picked it up and put it on top of his workbench.
“We good?” Gabe said.
“So far.”
“Okay, so talk business.”
“I didn’t call you so I could blackmail you, Gabe. That’s what you’re thinking, but that’s not my style.”
The Chameleon just nodded.
“I got a memory like a steel trap,” Peltz said. “Eight years ago we did a bunch of Sopranos episodes together. I remember we were on location in Jersey, just hanging out, and you told me you had an idea for a movie about a guy who starts killing off a bunch of assholes in the film business.”
“Half the people who work in this business come up with that idea,” Gabe said.
“I didn’t get much sun in prison, Gabe, but I didn’t get stupid. That day, you and me talked about a bunch of cool ways to kill people off. One of them was swapping blanks for real bullets in a prop gun. Funny that you should be on the set today when Ian Stewart gets killed exactly that way.”
“It doesn’t mean I had anything to do with it.”
Peltz just grunted. “It’s also funny that the Molotov that got tossed at Brad Schuck tonight was a wickless. The same one my father taught me to make. The same one I taught you. Now that I see you again in person, you look about the same size as the guy who tossed it.”
“I’m average height, average weight, along with a million other guys.”
“But I’ll bet you’re the one guy behind those three pricks getting offed today.”
“I’m not, Mick. I swear.”
“Then why were you so quick to come running over here in the middle of the night? And why’d you bring the gun? I told you—I didn’t ask you over here so I could blackmail you.”
“Then why did you ask me?”
“Because I want in,” Peltz said. “Remember the ending I pitched for your movie idea? Get about a hundred of those dickwads all together in one place and blow them up. You loved it. You going to do it?”
“Even if I was the guy behind all these killings, I could never afford to put something like that together. You of all people ought to know, Mickey. Explosives cost an arm and a leg.”
“An arm and a leg. Ba-da-bump. That’s why I like you, Gabe. You got a bomb under your balls, and you’re not afraid to crack wise with the guy who’s got his finger on the button.”
“Jokes aside, Mickey, C4 is cheap if you got a license to buy it legal. But once you’re out there on the black market, it’s hard to find, and even if you can, the prices are through the roof.”
“Not if you know where to shop. Listen to me, Gabe; if you’re
looking for the big bang, I’m your powder monkey. I not only know where to get what you need, I know how to rig it, and where to put the charges for the best body count.”
Sweat dripped down Gabe’s face as he stared at the chrome cylinder in Peltz’s hand. Mickey might kill him, but he didn’t seem bent on blackmail.
“Why would you even want to get involved?” Gabe asked. “Why risk going back to jail?”
“Because I could buy shit cheap, mark it up, make a few bucks, and still save you a bundle. And because I’ve spent the past twelve hundred and eighty-three nights laying in a prison cell thinking how I could get even with the system that put me there. So either tell me what’s on your wish list and I’ll make it happen, or just go home. I’m not going to blow the whistle on you. I’ll be glued to the TV rooting for you.”
Gabe reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and put it in Mickey’s free hand.
Mickey scanned it for less than thirty seconds. “I’d make a few adjustments, but not bad for an amateur. I guess I taught you pretty good.”
“How much would I need?”
“Sixty pounds of C4 should do it,” Mickey said. “It’s big enough to do the job and light enough to carry around in a backpack.”
“Can you get it?” Gabe asked.
“Piece of cake.”
“Fast?”
Mickey coughed up a raspy laugh. “You want cheap and fast? Maybe if it was a blow job outside the Lincoln Tunnel, but we’re living in a post-9/11 world, Gabe. Speedy delivery jacks up the price.”
“How much to get it by tomorrow?”
Mickey took a beat. “Twenty-five thousand plus another five for my connections and my expertise.”
“Thirty total,” Gabe said.
“If this were a film production doing it on the up-and-up, the sixty pounds along with my services would be double, maybe triple,” Mickey said. “Thirty thousand is the friends-and-family price.”
“Take another look at that diagram I gave you. Does it make sense? Are the charges in the best places to do the most damage?”
“Like I said, I’d have to finesse it, but that’s why I tacked on the extra five thousand. I get paid for blowing shit up, not for blackmailing. It’s thirty thousand, all in, and if you want the plastic by tomorrow, I need the cash today. Do you have it?”
“No,” The Chameleon said. “But I know where to get it.”
“Then go get it.”
“It’s a two-man job,” The Chameleon said. “You interested?”
“It would have to be me and my parole officer. Son of a bitch is tracking me 24/7. Can’t you find somebody else?”
“Probably.”
“Then do it. I’ll be right here waiting for you.”
“I’m going to need my gun back,” Gabe said.
“You going to shoot me with it?”
“Hell no, but I hate walking along Skillman Ave. without it.”
Mickey picked up the Walther and passed it back to Gabe. “See how much I trust you?” he said.
“It probably doesn’t hurt that you got your finger on the pressure-release trigger,” Gabe said.
“You mean this?” Mickey said.
He lifted his thumb off the cylinder and the silver button popped up.
Gabriel leaped from the chair.
“Boom,” Mickey said.
“You bastard,” Gabe said. “It was all bullshit.”
“You call it bullshit,” Mickey said, letting loose one of his signature croaky laughs. “I call it special effects.”
Chapter 34
“I TEXTED YOU twenty times,” Lexi said.
“I texted you back on the first one,” Gabe said.
“God, Gabe—if I write ‘what happened?’ you can’t just text back ‘we’ll talk when I get home.’ It’s not a real answer.”
“Sometimes real answers don’t translate to typing on a telephone.”
“Whatever. Did he try to blackmail you?”
“Just the opposite. He wants to help.”
“Help? What kind of help?”
“Remember the original ending I had for this movie?” Gabe said.
“Kaboom!” she yelled, flinging her arms into the air. “That ending?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“It’s the best. I loved it. But you said we didn’t have that kind of money in the production budget, and I said how come Wile E. Coyote can afford to buy all that TNT from the Acme Dynamite Company, and we can’t?”
“I got good news,” Gabe said. “I found Mr. Coyote. It’s Mickey Peltz. He can get us what we need. Cheap.”
“How do you know we can trust him?”
“Lex, I know him. I’ve worked with him before. He’s not going to screw us, and he can get his hands on everything we need. Think of him as part of the production team.”
“How much does he want?”
“Around thirty thousand. But only five of it’s for him. The rest is for the C4.”
“I don’t know why you’re so excited,” Lexi said. “It’s still thirty thousand more than we’ve got.”
“It’s too good to pass up,” he said. “I can get the money.”
“What are you going to do? Stick up a bank?”
“No. A production company.”
Lexi gave him the frowning-schoolmarm look that always cracked him up. Head down, lips tightly pursed, chin tucked to her chest, and her index finger drawn across the bridge of her nose so she could look at him over fake granny glasses.
“Oh, really, young man,” she said in a high-pitched but stern voice that was a cross between Bea Arthur and Lisa Simpson. “Do you actually think you can walk into Paramount, or Fox, or MGM, point a gun at them, and single-handedly walk out with a bag full of money?”
“No, ma’am,” he answered, laying on his Arkansas schoolboy accent. “’Twouldn’t be none of them big-ass studios. It’d be much smaller. And ’twouldn’t be just me by my lonesome neither. I got me a partner in crime.”
Lexi’s face changed, and she slipped out of character. She sat down on the edge of the bed, hurt, deflated. “You and Mickey?” she said, her eyes watery. “He’s your partner now?”
“No, dummy,” Gabe said. “I’m talking about me and you.”
Chapter 35
LEXI JUMPED FROM the bed. “You and me? Really? Are you serious?”
“I told you that you’d be getting a scene to play. This is it.”
“Give me the details. Tell me everything.”
“Remember last week when I was an extra in that courtroom movie? I was Juror Number Seven. We shot it on location down on Chambers Street.”
“I remember,” she said.
“I got friendly with the line producer, Jimmy Fitzhugh. We hung out. Talked motorcycles. He’s got a Zook—a brand-new Boulevard. Great wheels. I’m thinking, since I had to get rid of the Kawasaki, maybe when this is over, I’ll get me one too.”
“Anyway…,” Lexi said.
“Anyway, they’re shooting uptown this week at Fordham University, and the production trailer is parked on West Sixty-second. Every morning Jimmy gets on his bike early so he can cruise in from Rockaway and beat the traffic.”
“Where’s the money, Gabe?”
“He keeps it in the trailer.”
She shook her head. “Not thirty thousand. They don’t keep a shitload of cash around to pay the union guys on payday anymore. Now they write checks, and a check cashing service comes in with bags of money and a couple of armed guards.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I’m not still playing the dumb hillbilly schoolboy, Lexi. I’m not saying we should go up against a couple of trigger-happy rent-a-cops. Jimmy Fitzhugh has cash in his trailer, and it’s not there to pay the union guys.”
“Then what’s it for?”
“Coke.”
“Get out of here.”
“Jimmy’s boss has money up the wazoo,” Gabe said. “He also likes to party hearty, and nose candy is always on the men
u. But the boss man is too high-profile to risk getting caught doing a transaction, so if a line producer wants to work for him, part of his job is to score the dope. Jimmy told me he’s been doing it three years now. Never a problem, and the big guy always gives him hazard pay.”
“Pretty sweet setup. How do we get the money?”
“Jimmy shows up at the trailer. I stick a gun to his head. And I know for sure he won’t put up a fight. It’s not his money, and if it gets stolen, I bet the boss doesn’t even report it to the cops, because they might figure out what he was using it for.”
“What do I do?”
“It’s your big break, kid,” Gabe said. “You get a speaking part. Jimmy knows me, which means he could easily recognize my voice. So I can’t say a word. You just tell him to hand over the money, then you play lookout while he fills up the bag. Once we have the cash, I pay Mickey, and I guess you know what happens after that.”
Lexi grinned. “Yeah. Kaboom.”
Chapter 36
I GOT TO GERRI’S DINER a few minutes after 5:00. Business was brisk, but they weren’t so busy that I couldn’t eyeball every booth, every table, and every counter stool. Cheryl wasn’t in, at, or on any of them.
“You want some breakfast, Zach?”
It was Gerri Gomperts herself. Gerri is a Force of Nature—tiny enough to fit into a twenty-gallon soup pot and tough enough to single-handedly take on a junkie who was so strung out that he tried to rob a diner around the corner from a police precinct. Turned out Gerri didn’t need a cop. She whacked him across the forehead with a hot spatula. The poor guy needed forty stitches before they could even book him.
“No thanks, Gerri,” I said. “Just a large coffee to go.”
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