Beverly Hills Dead (32 page)

"I have some news of my own."

"Oh?"

"I'm getting married again."

"Well, congratulations. Who's the lucky guy?"

"Alex Bronsky."

"How about that," Sid said, since he couldn't think of anything else to say. Alexander Bronsky had produced all his plays on the Broadway stage. "Alex is a good man. I hope you'll both be very happy."

"Thank you, Sid. The wedding's this weekend at Alex's place in Connecticut. Nothing big, just a few friends."

Sid knew the Connecticut house well; he and Alice had visited there a dozen times. "That will be a lovely setting."

"I know this won't have occurred to you yet, Sid, but my getting married again means you won't have to pay any more alimony."

"You're right; that didn't occur to me."

"My lawyers will send your lawyer a letter confirming that."

"Thank you. Oh, I have more news, too."

"Tell me."

He told her about the television show. "So I'll be spending a lot of time in New York. I'm sure I'll bump into you and Alex."

"That's wonderful, Sid. I'm so happy for you."

"Give Alex my best and congratulate him for me."

"I will. Bye-bye."

Sid fell asleep that night, feeling somehow whole.

59

Rick and Sid Brooks met in the studio commissary, where they took a table in the area reserved for executives.

"It's nice that we can meet in public now," Sid said.

Rick was embarrassed. "It feels better to me, too." They had hardly sat down, when people began dropping by the table to say hello to both of them.

"I think people are glad to see you back," Rick said.

"I'm glad to be back."

"Did you have a chance to go over the deal with Hy this morning?"

"Yes, we talked a couple of times. I know he spoke to you about revisions."

"Yes, the contract is being typed now, and they'll deliver it to us before our lunch is over. Sid, have you thought about what sort of staff you're going to need in New York?"

"A little. I'll need a secretary, maybe two; I won't know until we're under way. I'll need a couple of assistants to read scripts and reports and a couple of typists to produce final scripts. We'll need some equipment, too: mimeograph, furniture, et cetera."

"I think the office suite the network is providing is furnished, but if you need anything more or better, let us know."

"I'm going to need a personal assistant on the set, too, especially when I'm directing, but I may be able to use one of the script readers for that."

"Our New York office is small, but please lean on them for anything you need. They'll know the good personnel agencies and that sort of thing."

"Good."

"Eddie wants us to film simultaneously with the live performances. We'll get a lot more mileage out of the reruns over the years if we don't have to settle for Kinescope quality."

"Do you think that's technically feasible?"

"There are a lot of problems to solve, but I've got some of our people here working on it now. As it stands, it looks like the best way is to do two live performances, one for each coast, followed by a filmed performance. Still, there are SAG and craft union problems to deal with, and the economics of the situation may be harder to solve than the purely technical."

"I can see how that might be."

"We'll have an office for you here this afternoon. I think it's a good idea to have an office on each coast, and you're going to need an apartment in New York, of course. If you want to buy, instead of rent, we'll help with that. Also, Eddie has bought an apartment at the Carlyle for the studio, and you can stay there until you've found a permanent place."

"I don't think I want to buy until we're sure this thing is going to work," Sid said. "I don't want to dig in, only to find out after a few months that we're being cancelled."

"As you wish."

Someone had approached their table, and Rick looked up to see Tom Terry. "Hi, Tom. Have you met Sid Brooks?"

"No, I haven't."

"Sid, this is Tom Terry, our head of studio security. Tom, Sid is going to be running a new two-hour live drama TV show for us in New York, but he'll be out here some of the time, too."

"Welcome aboard," Tom said, handing Sid a card. "Let me know if there's anything I can do for you."

"Any news on the search for P. J. O'Toole?" Rick asked.

"Nothing new this morning, but..." Suddenly, Tom stopped talking and was staring across the room, looking stunned.

"Is something wrong, Tom?" Rick asked.

"My God," Tom said.

"Tom, what is it?"

"Everything just fell into place. Rick, please follow me; I may need you."

"What for?"

"To make an arrest." Tom strode off across the large room.

Rick excused himself and followed, wondering what the hell was going on. Tom seemed to be headed for a table where a lone man was just sitting down.

"Jerry!" Tom said. "How are you?"

Jerry, the driver, looked up. "Hi, Tom. I'm great, thanks."

"Jerry, have you met our head of production, Rick Barron?" Rick had just arrived at the table.

Jerry got to his feet and held out his hand.

"Rick this is Jerry...I'm sorry, Jerry, I don't know your last name." Jerry shook Rick's hand.

"O'Toole," Jerry said, shaking Rick's hand.

"Peter Jerome O'Toole?"

"Patrick Jerome." Jerry turned and offered Tom his hand.

"I thought something like that," Tom said, taking hold of Jerry's outstretched hand and pinning his wrist to the table.

Jerry looked alarmed, and then he suddenly understood what was happening. "Let me go," he said, trying to free his hand.

"You killed her, didn't you?"

Jerry's expression turned to panic.

"What are you talking about?"

"You drove her all week long, got to know her, got to want her, didn't you? You waited for her at the house on that Sunday, and when she arrived, you came on to her. When she resisted, you dragged her around behind the garage, where you beat her and raped her in the bed of ferns. When she tried to scream you strangled her. Rick, frisk Jerry, will you?"

Rick started around the table, but Jerry reached under his jacket with his left hand and produced a revolver. Before Rick could reach him he had fired twice at Tom and had started running.

Tom fell backward onto the floor, clutching his belly. Panic ensued in the commissary, women screamed, people ran from the building.

Sid Brooks had run across the room and joined Rick, who was kneeling over Tom. "Sid," Rick said, "do what you can to help Tom." He grabbed a waitress who was running by. "You call the doctor at our infirmary, then call an ambulance and the police. Hurry! Sid, I'll be back as soon as I can."

Rick ran from the building and looked up and down the studio street. Two blocks down, he saw Jerry O'Toole sprinting down the street, then taking a right turn. Rick grabbed a passing man in cowboy gear. "I'm Rick Barron. Find a phone, call the front gate and tell them to seal it. Nobody gets out, got it?"

"Okay," the man said.

"And be quick about it." Rick ran after Jerry. A block down he passed the studio doctor and a nurse in an electric cart headed toward the commissary. Rick turned right, where Jerry had turned, and suddenly found himself on a New York City street, the studio's most-used standing set.

Jerry was nowhere in sight.

60

Rick rounded a corner and began to limp. He wasn't used to running without his knee brace, and his old war wound was starting to hurt. Halfway down the block a crew was setting up a street shot. Two police cars were blocking the street, and actors in cop uniforms were standing around, leaning against the cars and waiting for shooting to start.

Rick limped up to them. "Did you see a man run into this street?" he asked the group.

"Who are you?" an assistant director asked.

"I'm Rick Barron, and I run this studio. Answer my question."

"I didn't see anybody," the AD said.

One of the actor/cops spoke up. "I saw a guy down at the end of the block where you just came from, but I looked away, and when I looked back he was gone."

"Give me your gun," Rick said.

The actor pulled his .38 from his holster and handed it to Rick. Rick opened the cylinder and extracted a cartridge, a blank, as he had expected. "Where's the armorer?" he asked.

The actor turned and shouted at a man on the other side of his police car. "Hey, Frankie! The boss wants to talk to you."

A man trotted over to the car. "Yeah?"

"Have you got any live ammo?" Rick asked.

The man shook his head. "Not here. I'd have to go back to the armory."

"Go," Rick said. "I need a box of .38 specials and fast, and call the studio police and tell them to get some armed men over here."

The man hopped into an electric cart and raced away.

Rick could hear a siren from the direction of the main gate, then other sirens. That would be the ambulance and the cops. "You," he said to the AD, "grab a cart, get to the main gate and lead the cops back here, and be quick."

The AD drove away.

"What's going on?" one of the actors asked.

"There was just a shooting at the commissary," Rick said. "The shooter ran this way, and he's got to be found."

"Can we help?"

"The man is armed, and you've only got blanks."

"I'm an off-duty cop," one of the men said. "I work as an extra sometimes. What do you need?"

"Live ammo," Rick said.

"Here comes the armorer," somebody shouted.

The man screeched to a halt in his cart and handed Rick a box of ammunition. He gave some to the off-duty cop. "Okay, load up and let's start searching. Remember, this guy has already shot one man, so be careful."

"Okay. I'm with you."

"You take the shopfronts on the right; I'll take the brownstones on the left." Rick ran down the street as best he could and started checking doors on the brownstone mock-ups. The first three were locked.

"Everything over here is locked!" the off-duty cop yelled.

"Keep trying, and be careful."

There was only one brownstone left at the end of the row. Rick got up the stairs, turned the doorknob and pushed. The knob turned, but the door was stuck at the bottom. Rick leaned against it and pushed; it swung open. Rick simultaneously stepped over the threshold and found nothing but air on the other side.

He clung to the doorknob with his left hand and looked down into a large hole in the ground, perhaps twenty feet below. Rick had a loud taxi whistle, and he used it. "Help me!" he yelled. He stuck the .38 into his belt and tried to swing the door shut, but it was stuck, and there was no room on the doorknob for two hands. He swung his body toward the door opening and got one foot on it, then swung back. He was starting to lose his grip on the knob.

Then the off-duty cop appeared in the doorway, grabbed Rick's trouser leg and pulled him in until he could get a hand on Rick's belt, then on Rick's right hand. He braced himself against the doorway. "Let go!" he yelled. "I've got you."

Rick's hand slipped off the doorknob, and the man took all his weight, pulling him into the doorway. A second later he was safe but out of breath.

"Is that your guy?" the off-duty cop asked, pointing down.

Rick looked into the abyss and saw a man, lying face down, at the bottom, his revolver nearby. "That's the guy," he puffed.

Real police cars turned into the street, and cops began spilling out.

"Go around," Rick directed from the top of the brownstone's steps. "The guy is in a construction hole on the other side, and he seems to be unconscious, but his gun is there, too, so be careful."

A sergeant directed his men toward the rear of the set, then trotted up the stairs and looked down. "Jesus," he said, "did the guy run up here and through the door?"

"That seems to be it," Rick said. "He shot our head of security twice in the commissary, then ran here."

"Tom Terry?" the man asked.

"That's right." Rick heard the ambulance heading back toward the main gate, and he knew Tom was on his way to the hospital.

"You look a little winded," the cop said. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm all right."

The cop took the .38 from Rick's belt. "Can I have this, then?"

"Yeah. It belongs to the studio, but you can unload it."

The off-duty cop opened the cylinder of his gun and emptied the live ammunition into his hand. "I'm on the job," he said to the other cop, "just moonlighting here a little." He turned to Rick. "You used to be on the job, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Rick said. "I did, and I'm glad I'm not anymore. Will you call the front gate and tell them they can open up again?" The man left, and Rick looked down into the pit where the cops had reached Jerry O'Toole. "Is he alive?" Rick yelled.