The Final Reel td-116

by Warren Murphy

  "Smith who?" the Master of Sinanju said slyly.

  "It's me, Chiun." Smith's lemony voice was more tart than usual. "Your employer."

  "Ah, Emperor Smith. Forgive my suspicious nature, but we have had a rash of nuisance calls of late. Remo usually deals with them but he is not here, he having eaten all the rice in the house and doubtless gone off in search of more."

  "Chiun, please," Smith stressed. "An urgent situation has arisen."

  "Alas, I am quite busy at the moment, O Emperor. Though my soul eternally soars on the wings of eagles to carry out your immediate bidding, I toil now to bring future glory to your throne. All hail Smith the Omnipotent!"

  He hung up the phone.

  It rang before Chiun had reached the table. "Speak, unworthy one," Chiun announced into the phone.

  "Chiun, don't hang up," Smith pleaded.

  "Sorry, wrong number," Chiun said, hanging up the phone.

  It rang instantly. When Chiun again lifted the receiver to his ear, he did not speak.

  "This concerns Remo," Smith blurted out to the empty air. He prayed Chiun did not hang up on him again.

  "What of my son, the rice eater?"

  "The assignment he is on has taken a critical turn. I need you to stop him from following through on it."

  "As I have explained, I am quite busy," Chiun said. His tone was flat, bordering on perturbed.

  "It is imperative that Remo be stopped," Smith emphasized. "There is an immediate threat to the Middle East, as well as to our own West Coast."

  "I assure you that the west coast of Korea is secure," Chiun said blandly. "There is no other 'our.' "

  He was in the process of hanging up once more when Smith finally said something that sparked his interest.

  "Hollywood could go up in flames," Smith asserted.

  The phone returned woodenly to the Master of Sinanju's shell-like ear.

  "Explain," he declared evenly.

  "There is not time," Smith said. "Suffice it to say that Hollywood is in danger. Remo, as well."

  "How can this be?" Chiun said. "Remo is in the province of Detroit."

  "Detroit?" Smith asked, confused. "Remo is nowhere near Detroit. He flew out to Los Angeles this morning."

  Chiun's voice was bland. Menace sparked the depths of his hazel eyes. "He informed me that you had sent him on a trifling errand to the land of grime and autos," he said.

  "No matter what Remo told you, I assure you that he is in either Hollywood or Burbank. Taurus Studios has facilities in both places. That is where you need to look for him. I have booked you on a flight out of Logan. It leaves in half an hour. A cab is already on the way. You must stop Remo before he succeeds in his assignment. Have him contact me the minute you locate him."

  It was Smith's turn to sever the connection. Chiun's face was dull as he replaced the receiver in the wall hook, but hints of anger were visible in the recesses of his slivered eyes.

  Outside, a horn suddenly honked loudly. Smith's cab.

  Chiun glanced around the kitchen. There was no time to eat. No time to even pack properly.

  No need. There was only one thing he needed to pack.

  Leaving his meager bowl of rice untouched, the Master of Sinanju hustled down to the living room.

  Chapter 9

  The construction of Los Angeles Harbor began at the very end of the nineteenth century in order to accommodate the growing export of petroleum from southern California. It was to eventually become one of the largest completely artificial harbors in the world.

  Long Beach, where the harbor was built, was a suburban port city located nineteen miles south of the city of L.A. but still within greater Los Angeles County.

  Having never been to L.A. Harbor, it took Remo Williams an hour and a half of searching from Los Angeles the city through Los Angeles the county before he eventually found Los Angeles the harbor. That it was located in the city of Long Beach only heightened his sense of confusion.

  At the harbor a helpful merchant mariner pointed him in the direction of the latest ships bringing heavy equipment in for the Taurus Studios three-hundred-million-dollar production.

  "You look beat," the man said sympathetically after Remo had thanked him.

  "I just spent a year of my life this afternoon driving around L.A. looking for this place," Remo groused.

  "Why didn't you take the Harbor Freeway?" the man asked with a "what are you, stupid?" shrug before wandering off.

  At the moment Remo found it impossible to argue with the conclusion of the man's body language. A few minutes later he parked his car in a small lot filled with well-maintained pickup trucks and walked out amid the rows of berthed ships.

  The sun was hot; the sky was coated with a film of vague grayish-white. The breeze that blew in at times from across Point Fermin and the Pacific beyond did nothing to cool the warm air.

  In spite of the broad sky above, a strange sense of claustrophobia hemmed in the docks on which Remo walked.

  He found the Taurus ships exactly where he had been told they would be. There were two of them. Large cargo ships loaded with huge metal shipping containers. The containers resembled 18-wheeler truck trailers that had been stripped of their wheel assemblies and stacked one atop another like massive building blocks.

  Dozens of towering stacks lined the vast space before the bridge of one of the ships. The other vessel was already half-empty. Trailer trucks on whose doors was stenciled the Taurus Studios logo waited in line on the docks.

  As Remo walked up to the ships, an industrial crane lowered a container to the first of the flatbed trucks. Men went quickly to work hooking the huge steel box in place. They were finished in moments. Once the load was secured, the truck drove off, only to be replaced by the next vehicle in line. The procedure began anew.

  The boxes atop the two vessels seemed certain to topple over at any minute. Of course, Remo knew that this would never be the case. The containers were designed to fit one atop the other. Like gigantic plastic milk crates.

  These stackable containers had helped revolutionize overseas shipping. Not only were they moved easily with the aid of huge cranes, but their innocuous shells also helped discourage piracy. Since each case was identical to the next, thieves could never know what was truly valuable and what was not. The contents were a mystery to everyone but the shipper.

  What seemed odd was that these containers were being sent away without being properly inspected. Remo assumed that the trucks were being stopped somewhere away from the docks so that the contents could be searched carefully before the containers were allowed to leave the shipyard.

  There was a great deal of activity on the dock in front of the pair of cargo ships. More Arabs were here, as well, just as they had been back at the Burbank studios of Taurus. The Arabs were mixed in this time with a variety of brash young Hollywood types and overweight Teamsters.

  The dark faces of the Arabs were clouded in looks of perpetual suspicion as they roamed amid the Teamsters and studio men, their flowing robes dragging in the coagulated pools of oil spilled long ago.

  The young men from Taurus could not have been long out of college. They had the earnest, peeved looks of spoiled rich kids who were used to getting their way. Manicured fingers pointed in every direction. To the ships, to the crates, to the crane, to the trucks.

  The Taurus men wore oversize suit jackets of blue, purple and green. Apparently the coats had been fashioned from the same material used to keep eggs from sticking to the bottom of frying pans, for they had a glossy Teflon sheen. Ponytails hung halfway down their jacket backs and bobbed in irate protest with every shouted word.

  For their part the Teamsters seemed to be ignoring every word uttered by the young men. They went about their jobs with the sort of infamous union sluggishness that would have put a giant sloth to shame on its most indolent day.

  As he came upon the bustling, shouting crowd, Remo was looking for only one individual in the sea of nearly three dozen men. But as he sca
nned the group, he didn't see Assola al Khobar's face.

  Unable to locate the terrorist, Remo singled out one of the studio types.

  "Hey," he said, tapping the young man on the shoulder, "is Mr. Koala around here somewhere?" He was embarrassed to use the name Bindle and Marmelstein had given the terrorist.

  The Taurus man turned his head slowly, disdainfully to Remo. His head was the only part of his body that moved. The studio man saw instantly that he was looking at a Nobody.

  The affronted studio executive looked down at Remo's hand where the offending finger that had had the temerity to touch his person had scurried off to join its four disreputable friends. His entire face puckered arrogantly.

  "I beg your pardon," the young man said through clenched teeth.

  His nose was so pinched it looked as if someone had sewn his nostrils shut. Indeed this was actually the case. He had instructed his plastic surgeon to make the two openings razor thin. Of course he had stressed that they not be so narrow as to preclude the insertion of a straw.

  "Koala," Remo repeated. "They told me at the studio he was here."

  "Was is the operative word, isn't it?" the man said caustically. Wind whistled from his slitlike nostrils.

  "Don't tell me he's gone." Remo complained.

  "I believe I already have."

  With that the man turned away. He rolled his eyes histrionically to a pair of his ponytailed colleagues who stood nearby.

  Remo exhaled in frustration. "Where did he go?" he asked.

  "I think he went to the Hollywood lot," one of the other young men offered. "He's supposed to be working with the stunt teams today."

  The expression on the face of Remo's young executive became horrified. He could not believe that his associate didn't have sense enough not to talk to a Nobody. The kid was only six months out of college. He obviously did not have the life experience that came with eighteen whole months working for a major movie studio.

  The junior executive's misbegotten notions of courtesy had the precise effect that that sort of thing invariably had. As the more senior of the young executives shot a withering glare at his companion, Mr. Nobody became even more emboldened.

  "What's all this stuff for?" Remo asked, crinkling his nose. He pointed over at the ships and their cargo.

  The older of the young men raised a staying hand to his junior, lest the other executive inspire further conversation in the Nobody. He then turned his withering eye on Remo.

  "Excuse me," the man said with a deep, impatient sigh, "but are you anybody I should care about?"

  Clearly he thought Remo was not. Before the question had passed his lips, he was turning back to his companions. He nodded to the younger Taurus executive, silently informing the man that this was how one dealt with Nobodies.

  It was the attitude that did it. The ponytail bobbed smugly over the shiny blue suit jacket. The face was aimed deliberately, snidely away.

  Remo had already had a bad enough day without having some preening Hollywood type copping an attitude with him. Before he even knew it, he was reaching out. His hand curled around a fistful of ponytail.

  The young Taurus executive knew he was in trouble the minute his Tony Lamas began rising slowly and inexplicably from the oil-stained dock. As he began to sense the odd phenomenon of his body levitating, he also became aware of a horrible wrenching sensation at the back of his head. The pain worsened as his floating body turned slowly in place. He found himself-hovering in air-face-to-face with the same Nobody he had just brushed off. The Nobody's hand disappeared beside his head.

  The Teamsters seemed to enjoy the arrogant young man's predicament. They pretended not to notice Ponytail Man dangling in midair even while slanting satisfied glances at the confrontation. For their part the Arabs stayed away, too, their suspicion deepening at the sight of Remo.

  "I am really a very nice man," Remo explained calmly to the executive.

  "I'm sure you are," gasped Ponytail Man. He stretched his toes to the ground. They missed by inches.

  Remo frowned. "But you've been behaving in a not nice way to me. Now, I asked a polite question. Where I come from, polite questions are responded to with polite answers."

  "A film!" Ponytail Man cried. The pain in the back of his head was white-hot. Explosive. "You must've read about it! The biggest ever!"

  "All this junk is for one movie?" Remo asked, surprised.

  "Mr. Koala demands realism," Ponytail Man said. "With our budget we can afford to have realism shipped in."

  "Koala?" Remo said. "Isn't this stuff up to Bindle and Marmelstein?"

  "Yes, yes!" Ponytail begged. His eyes were tearing. As was his scalp. "But Mr. Koala is their superior."

  "Polypeptide strings are superior to those two," Remo commented aridly. "So Koala's in on this movie?"

  "Yes!" the man pleaded. He was weeping openly now. "It's his baby."

  Remo was rapidly losing interest in the whole movie angle of this assignment. He tipped his head as he examined the artificially constructed face of the young executive.

  "Did anyone ever tell you your nose looks like a wall socket?" Remo asked.

  He dropped the man to his feet.

  Back on solid ground, the ponytailed executive instantly began inspecting the back of his head with sensitive fingertips. He was surprised when they came back blood free.

  "So where in Hollywood did Koala go?"

  One of the other executives quickly told Remo the location of Taurus's Hollywood lot.

  "Great," Remo complained. "More bumper-to-bumper driving. I hope I have an easier time getting out of here than I had getting in."

  Turning, he walked away from the small crowd. "You should have taken the Harbor Freeway," the younger, more courteous Taurus executive offered to his departing back.

  When he was certain Remo wasn't looking, Ponytail Man smacked his young colleague in the head, even as he continued to probe gingerly at the aching portion of his own scalp.

  The punk was too polite. He'd never in a million years make it in the movie business.

  Kids these days just didn't have a clue.

  Chapter 10

  This was Waterworid, Heaven's Gate and Bonfire of the Vanities all rolled into one. An epic disaster on a scale grander than anything in the history of motion pictures. With no script, no A-list stars and an AWOL director, the latest, greatest Taurus Studios film was in danger of becoming a career-crushing cataclysm. And no one was feeling the pressure more strongly than the cochairman of Taurus, Hank Bindle.

  In the back of his chauffeur-driven jeep, Bindle was touring the Hollywood lot of the old Summit Studios complex. Summit had been around since the earliest days of Tinseltown, but like most of the big old companies it had fallen on hard times of late. It was forced to lease out much of the lot space it had employed during its moviemaking heyday. With the funds generated by the rent, the former feature-film company was able to concentrate on its more lucrative television enterprises. Right now Summit had turned over every lot and soundstage to the new Taurus war epic.

  Bindle looked at the rows of tanks and jeeps. They were much more organized here. Lined up in perfect order as if ready for an actual invasion.

  Throwing themselves into their roles, the Arab extras Mr. Koala had brought with him from Ebla were seeing to it that the war vehicles were in perfect operating condition.

  Hank Bindle had to admit it. At least on some level the dedication of these extras was to be lauded. But not being creative, they couldn't possibly know what they were really in store for.

  Bindle was being driven past what seemed like the two hundredth desert-camouflaged tank and was rounding a cluster of curving palm trees when he spotted his partner walking toward him from the abandoned Summit office complex.

  Ordering his driver to stop, Bindle got out of the cherry-red, open-topped studio jeep. He walked over to meet Bruce Marmelstein.

  "Cutthroat Island, anyone?" Hank Bindle wailed to a passing Arab, loud enough for Marmels
tein to hear. The man was oblivious. "Geena Davis in a pirate movie! And Matthew Modine. Who in the hell is Matthew Modine? Gawd, this is a disaster waiting to happen. For three hundred million we might as well dig up Irwin Allen."

  He and Marmelstein met in front of a brown-and-tan-painted tank. The Arab tank crew labored diligently around what looked like an actual working machine gun.

  "Um, it's not quite three hundred million anymore," Bruce Marmelstein said to his partner. The financial expert at Taurus appeared sheepish. "What are you talking about?" Bindle asked. "Well, you knew those new desks weren't free. And you know we couldn't bring in new furniture without remodeling the whole office."

  "Tell me something I don't know," Bindle snarled.

  "For one thing we've gone through almost fifty million so far," Marmelstein said.

  Bindle scrunched up his face. "How long ago did Koala unfreeze the sultan's account for us?" Marmelstein looked at his brand-new, solid-gold, diamond-encrusted wristwatch. His own smiling face replaced that of Mickey Mouse. He had dispatched one of his assistants to Switzerland to have the watch created to his specifications the previous day.

  "Twenty-two hours if I read my hands correctly," he said.

  Bindle frowned. "Obviously this project is going to be more expensive than originally budgeted," he said somberly. He waved a hand at the nearby tank crew. A new gold charm bracelet clattered against his bronzed wrist. "I can't possibly create with these insane limitations. We're going to have to tell Koala to loosen the sultan's purse strings."

  Marmelsteut glanced at the nearby Arabs. They weren't so close that they could hear the two studio executives. Still the financial expert pitched his voice low.

  "Actually Koala seems to have made a slight error with the business accounts. Either that or it's a mistake on the Ebla end."

  "What sort of mistake?" Bindle asked. A horrible thought suddenly struck him. "Don't tell me I have to bring this in under three hundred million!" he demanded angrily. "I couldn't possibly. I will not compromise the artistic integrity of this film studio because some old skinflint can't be understood through a mouthful of dentures and couscous-"

  "Hank," Bruce Marmelstein interrupted.