by Stuart Woods
“Producer Billy Barnett, in town for a board meeting, nearly paid with his life. Mr. Barnett woke up in the middle of the night and smelled smoke. He was lucky he did. His house was gone minutes later.”
Jake looked up to find Sammy glaring at him.
“This is the out-of-town hitter you warned me about?”
“That’s his name.”
“I know it’s his name. Is it him?”
“Of course it’s him. Who else would it be? Billy Barnett, movie producer.”
“What studio was he with?”
“Oh, Christ, I don’t remember.”
“Centurion Pictures?”
“That’s the one! Centurion Pictures!”
“Who told you that?”
“Bambi.”
“Bambi?”
“One of Pete’s bar girls. Said she saw him on the set of a movie. She was an extra, he was a stuntman.”
“Stuntman? I thought he was a producer.”
“She said he’s working as a stuntman. She could have been wrong.”
“About seeing him or about what he was doing?”
“I don’t know. Could be either one. Could have been both.”
“How could it be both?” Slythe said scathingly.
Sammy put up his hand. “This is kind of important information. When did she see him?”
“I don’t know. It was before Pete hired him, because she gave him the idea.”
“And when was that?”
“Just last week.”
Sammy got up from his chair and came around the desk. Jake flinched, but Sammy got him to his feet and put his arm around him. “This is where you need to shine. You need to find out if Pete’s still counting on this Billy Barnett to come help him. If an assassin is coming to kill me, this is information I need to know. You understand that. I need to know if the hit is still on, if this Billy Barnett is still a danger. According to the studio, he is on vacation. This is very bad news, particularly since they won’t say where. So find out if the guy is here. Find out if Pete is expecting him.”
“If I try to find out all that, Pete is going to know something’s up.”
“Pete thinks you’re spying on me, right? So tell him I got a lot of firepower. Tell him you think he doesn’t have enough. See if he reassures you he’s taken steps to even the odds. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah. Sure, Sammy.”
Sammy smiled, and stuck a finger in his face. “I’ve got big plans for you, Jake, you know that. As soon as Pete’s out of the way, you will have a crucial role in running his casino. So you see how important this is.”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“Good man.” Sammy practically shoved him out the door.
“Well,” Slythe said, “you think he can find anything out?”
Sammy grimaced. “Not a prayer.”
54
Pete Genaro was at the end of his rope. A delivery truck servicing the casino restaurants had broken down, and six hundred pounds of prime meat, bought and paid for, had spoiled on the highway when the refrigeration unit also proved to have failed. Truly frustrating was that none of these “accidents” could be traced back to Sammy Candelosi, but everyone knew who was responsible. On top of everything else, Pete Genaro was becoming a laughingstock.
Pete called in Luke Fritz. He didn’t want to do it. Luke was a scuzzy son of a bitch, the type of guy you didn’t want to be seen with. Genaro didn’t bring Luke into his office, lest he be spotted. He met him at an out-of-the-way diner where nobody he knew ever went.
Luke didn’t want to be wined and dined at a fine restaurant, he just wanted the job. He ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. It was all he ever had.
“What you got?” Luke said.
“What do you charge these days?”
“Twenty-five grand, ten up front. No guarantees.”
“Are you shitting me?”
Luke shrugged. “What can I tell you? Inflation.”
“How soon can you do the job?”
“That depends what it is.”
“Sammy Candelosi.”
“No way.”
“I figure it should be easy. It’s not like it’s out of town.”
“Easy to say no,” Luke said. “You know who Sammy Candelosi is?”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be talking to you.”
“If you did, you wouldn’t be talking to me. Sammy Candelosi’s connected. And when I say connected, I mean horse-head-in-your-bed connected. No way I mess with those guys.”
“He’s just one man.”
“Bullshit. He never goes anywhere without his bodyguard, and he is one sick motherfucker. The type of guy whose pulse never rises while he cuts your throat.”
“Are you trying to drive the price up?”
“Hell, no. All this meeting’s costin’ you is one sandwich. If Sammy Candelosi’s buggin’ you, just ignore him and hope he goes away. Because I won’t mess with him, and I can’t think of anyone who will.”
Luke stood up. “Thanks for the sandwich.”
* * *
—
Pete got back to his office in a foul mood. His curvy secretary tried to soothe him, but he was having none of it. She gave up and went back to manning the desk.
When Jake came in, she headed him off. “I don’t think he wants to see you.”
It was the type of response Jake had been getting lately, which was making it easier for him to shift his loyalties to Sammy Candelosi. Sammy had promised him big things, a role in running the casino—the kind of gig Jake had long since earned from Pete Genaro, as far as he was concerned. Unfortunately Sammy wanted information, and Pete didn’t want to give him any. At least that was the way it seemed. Pete never came out and said he didn’t want to bring Jake into the loop. Jake was just nervous about asking, and his broad hints were often so oblique as to go unnoticed.
Jake bit the bullet. “He sent for me,” he said, and pushed his way in.
Pete Genaro clearly didn’t want to see him. “What do you want?” he snarled.
“I thought you wanted to see me.”
“Who told you that?”
Jake shrugged. “Got a message.”
“Aw, fuck.”
“What’s the matter?” Jake said.
Pete leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “I’ve been running this place for fifteen years. I do a good job, everything’s going great. And then some asshole moves in and blows it all to hell.”
“What are you gonna do?” Jake said.
“I’m working on it. There will be a brief delay.” That was the euphemism Pete had come up with to explain the fact that he was in over his head and didn’t know what to do. “What’s Sammy up to?” Pete asked.
Jake realized he was supposed to be spying on Sammy for Pete. He often lost sight of that in the shuffle. “Oh,” Jake said, “he sabotaged your meat truck.” Sammy had told Jake to reveal that to Pete.
“No shit,” Pete said. “I could have told you that myself.”
“Now you know for sure.” Jake fidgeted. He had to push for information. “I thought you were bringing in outside help.”
Pete glared up at him. “I told you there will be a delay.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Jake muttered.
Pete’s blood pressure was boiling over. “Get out of here, willya?” It occurred to him he was particularly stressed. He called after Jake, “Send in Sherry.”
55
Billy Barnett was not in Las Vegas plotting to kill Sammy Candelosi, nor did he have any intention of going. Billy Barnett, aka Mark Weldon, aka Teddy Fay, had enough on his plate. He was, temporarily, a man with three identities and no house.
While he could stay on at Stone Barrington’s, at least until Stone returned for the next stockholders’
meeting, the logistics of living so close to the studio and to the Arrington Hotel raised problems when it came to juggling identities. Just who was living at Stone Barrington’s house? Billy Barnett, who was supposedly away on vacation? Mark Weldon, who had no connection to Stone Barrington whatsoever? Or Teddy Fay, who didn’t exist?
The fact that people were trying to kill him merely complicated the problem.
Teddy didn’t have time to shop around. He bought a house on Mulholland Drive, sight unseen—a modern three-story split-level built into the hillside, with a terrace and swimming pool. It was a little conspicuous for someone on the run, but for a producer as successful as Billy Barnett had recently become, a modest address would also stand out, so there was no reason for Teddy not to make himself comfortable.
Teddy had more than enough money in his offshore accounts to cover the purchase, though he had to be judicious about flaunting it. Teddy updated Billy Barnett’s credit rating to arrange for the purchase.
Through Peter Barrington, Teddy hired renowned set dresser Marvin Kurtz to furnish it. Kurtz was given carte blanche, since Billy Barnett was on vacation at an undisclosed location and could not be reached.
Teddy also rented a one-bedroom apartment for stuntman Mark Weldon. From habit, he didn’t rent it under Mark’s name. No one knew where Mark Weldon lived, and Teddy saw no reason to change the situation. He didn’t need to get mail there, and it never hurt to have another safe house. And that didn’t stop him from being Mark Weldon as far as the tenants in the building were concerned.
Teddy ordered furniture and furnishings, and paid extra for rush delivery. He introduced himself to the super, Paco Alvarez, who lived in the basement apartment, explained that he was a stuntman on a movie and would be gone all day, and gave him a generous tip to accept delivery. He also ordered a computer delivered, and Internet service installed.
All this would take time, and Teddy needed a private place to lie low now.
Teddy drove back to Stone Barrington’s house and changed his look from Mark Weldon to Billy Barnett. Then he drove out to the Santa Monica airport. Peter Barrington’s hangar came with a small one-bedroom apartment. Teddy and his wife had lived there before moving into their house.
The pilot in charge of the hangar was working on the engine of Peter’s plane when Teddy arrived.
“You don’t have to look like you’re busy every time someone walks in,” Teddy said.
The pilot’s eyes widened. “Mr. Barnett!”
“Billy.”
“How are you?”
“Fine. How are you?”
“Your house burned down.”
“That’s why I’m here. I’d like to stay in the apartment a few days, if it’s all right.”
“It’s your apartment.”
“I assume it’s undisturbed?”
“It’s been cleaned once a week. Aside from that, no one’s been in.”
Teddy went upstairs and checked out the apartment. It felt like he’d been gone for ages, though actually it had been just a couple of years. The apartment was virtually bare. There were some shirts and pants, a sports jacket, and a pair of sneakers with no laces.
There were a few basic toiletries in the bathroom, like a toothbrush and toothpaste. There was of course no food. The computer was gone, and the Internet connection was disconnected.
Teddy made sure the water was running and the electricity was on.
Then he checked out the safe.
The safe in the airport apartment was neither as secure nor as large as the one in his house; still, it was a good quality product and virtually tamperproof. For most safecrackers nothing short of dynamite would have moved it.
Teddy spun the combination and swung open the door. The selection of handguns was meager but adequate. The lone sniper rifle was not handcrafted, merely a CIA-issued weapon in a case. And the collection of IDs and credentials was skimpy. It would do in a pinch, but not if a specific ID was needed. In this case, that was Billy Barnett. That ID was not there, because it was the one he always carried.
His duplicates had been in his house.
Well, that was something he would have to deal with. For now he was just happy to have a credit card. He chose James Haskell’s American Express because his driver’s license photo looked enough like either Billy Barnett or Mark Weldon that he wouldn’t need to change his appearance to use it.
Teddy took out a shoulder holster and slipped it on.
He smiled.
It was nice to have a gun he didn’t have to carry in a paper bag.
56
Peter was filming on location at the Merryweather Hotel in downtown L.A. when the cell phone was delivered. They were shooting stuntman Mark Weldon’s perilous climb up the side of the building to the ledge outside the fourteenth-floor hotel room window, the companion piece to the scene they had already filmed on the soundstage at Centurion where Teddy could occasionally be seen in the background as he eavesdrops on Tessa and Brad. In this instance they were in the background, seen only briefly through the window as Teddy climbs up onto the ledge.
Unlike most sequences of this nature, where the shot of Teddy climbing up the building would later be intercut with a shot from the soundstage mock-up of him arriving on the ledge, Peter was shooting it for real. He had rigged a camera on a mechanical arm in an adjacent window that would catch the last flight of Teddy’s climb, with the side of the building and the street below in the shot, and then extended out as the camera panned down and around to catch Teddy’s arrival on the ledge from behind with the hotel room in the background.
It was a million-dollar shot for a big studio production, and Peter was bringing it in for next to nothing. The only downside was it required several takes to make sure the camera was aimed correctly.
Tessa was relaxing in her trailer while they filmed Teddy’s climb when a production assistant knocked on the door to deliver a package that had just arrived by messenger.
Tessa knew it would be a cell phone, and managed to get rid of the production assistant before it rang.
“Yes?”
“Hello, Tessa. Have you been a good girl?”
“What do you want now?”
“Temper, temper.” The voice was mocking. “You wouldn’t want to make me mad.”
“Why did you call?”
“Where’s Billy Barnett?”
“You ought to know. You burned down his house.”
“I didn’t burn down his house.”
“Then you had it done.”
“I didn’t do that either. I don’t know why you have such a bad opinion of me.”
“As if you care.”
“Oh, I do care. If we’re going to deal with each other, it’s important that we’re honest with each other. I’m honest with you. I said I have the video, and I have it. And I proved it. You say you don’t know where Billy Barnett is. Can you prove it?”
“Obviously not. Start making sense or I’m hanging up.”
“Oh, no, no, no, no. You don’t tell me what to do. I tell you what to do. Now, here’s the deal. I need to know where Billy Barnett is so I can tell what he plans to do. If he’s away on vacation, that’s fine, as long as he stays there. But if he heads for L.A., I will hold you personally responsible. If he shows up at the meeting, it will mean you’re not cooperating and the game is over. We will post the video.”
“I can’t control what he does.”
“Why not? I never knew a woman who couldn’t get a man to do something if she wanted to. Offer whatever inducements you need, but make it happen.”
The line clicked dead.
57
Tessa waited impatiently down below while Teddy scrambled up the side of the building. He was quick about it; still, it seemed to take forever. Finally he reached the window ledge and Peter yelled, “Cut.” Peter was down in the street,
talking over a bullhorn.
“Come on down, we’re going again,” Peter called. He lowered the bullhorn. “Tessa, after the next take we’ll probably need you and Brad up there. It’s a new setup, we’ll tell you when.”
Tessa nodded and moved off toward the catering cart to avoid getting into a conversation with Peter. She was too keyed up to talk about the scene.
When Teddy came out she waved him over.
“He called me again.”
“What did he say?”
“Wanted to know where you are.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him I didn’t know.”
“How’d that go over?”
“He didn’t believe me.”
“I don’t blame him. What else did he want?”
“He said he didn’t burn down your house.”
“How did that come up? Did he just volunteer it?”
“No, I accused him of doing it. He said he didn’t.”
“Interesting.”
“You think he didn’t do it?”
“I think he’s very good at playing the game. If I wanted to claim I didn’t do it, that’s what I’d say.”
“Who else could it be?”
“Who burned down my house?”
“Yes.”
“Any number of people might want to, but it had to be someone who knew I was there.”
“And no one did?”
“I wouldn’t say no one. I cover my tracks as best I can. There’s always something you don’t plan for.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can. But you lost everything in the fire. I’d feel better if you were armed.”
Teddy pulled his jacket back and showed his shoulder holster.
“Ta-da!”
Tessa’s eyes widened. “Where did you get that?”
“I’m a bad guy. Guns seem to find me.”
“Is that a prop?”
“Of course it’s a prop. Lighten up, will you, we gotta make a movie. This gun’s a prop, but I actually have a gun. Believe it or not, it’s the only thing I saved from the fire.”
