The Remake (23 page)

“It wouldn’t be
As Time Goes By,
would it?”

“Oh, but it would be, R.J. It definitely would. And if you think you wanted to shit a Buick when you heard about the remake, you should read what Minch has had to say about it.” Angelo waved a large hand at about half the room. “Threatens everybody. Wishes pain, suffering, and gooey death on anybody remotely connected to the thing.” He pointed at R.J. “Including you, you traitorous, pig-nosed, dollar-sucking, fame-hungry whore.”

“He called me that?”

Bertelli nodded, beaming. “Yup. And then he
really
warmed up on you. But the important thing is, he wanted Janine Wright dead, the director and stars dead, the writer dead—everybody.”

“And,” said Portillo, “it looks like he is getting his wish.”

“And you really think he may have been acting as his own fairy godmother?”

“Who knows?” Bertelli shrugged. “Point is, nobody checked. And what they got on him is just as strong as what they got on you, buddy.”

Portillo, looking down again at the folder, whistled. “I would say, stronger. Listen: ‘This goes beyond box-office crime, the kind of remake madness that has made contemporary film such a contemptible hodgepodge of vulgarity, violence, and stupidity. This is desecration, pure and simple, and should be treated the way true cultures have treated desecration down through the ages. With ritual murder. Decapitate the writer. Disembowel the director. Crucify the stars. And for Janine Wright, mega-mongoloid producer of this sick travesty—suspend her over a hot fire by fish hooks, and slowly cook her…’”

“Good stuff, huh?” said Bertelli, arching his eyebrow.

“Well, I can see that I have a lot in common with this guy,” R.J. said. “What has he got against me?”

“He thinks you didn’t yell loud enough,” Bertelli said. “You
were supposed to use the authority of your august lineage to bring down the temple around the bastards’ ears.”

“I can see how it might bother somebody when I didn’t do that,” R.J. said. “And what made Lieutenant Kates decide that this guy was not a suspect?”

Bertelli grinned. “Freedom of the press, R.J. Pure and simple. Gotta keep us thugs from coming down hard on a guy just for speaking his mind,
capish
?”

“Yeah, I
capish
that. Where is this Minch person?”

Bertelli shrugged. “Someplace called La Crescenta. Know where that is?”

Portillo nodded. “It is not far from Glendale. We can be there in half an hour.”

R.J. turned sideways and reached for his shoes. “Let’s be there,” he said.

But as R.J. got one foot into a shoe, there was a trilling sound.

“My beeper,” Portillo said. “Wait here for one minute.” He slid into his own tasseled
l
oafers
and headed for the telephone at the far end of the hall.

R.J. looked at Angelo, who shrugged and swallowed the last half glass of water, fanning his face with his other hand.

Portillo didn’t keep them waiting long. Before R.J. even had his second shoe on, Portillo was back looking pale and grim. “There’s another note,” he said. “And this time it threatens Janine Wright’s assistant.”

R.J. felt all the blood slosh down to his feet. “Casey,” he said hoarsely.

Portillo held out a hand and pulled R.J. to his feet. “That’s right,” he said. “Casey.”

CHAPTER 27

I said stop it, you said no sir

Now I’m getting plenty closer.

If you’d like a Hollywood laugh

try shooting the remake without any staff.

Stop the remake—don’t say no

or your assistant is next to go.

No matter how many times R.J. read the damned thing, it still said that. “Your assistant is next to go.” He read the photocopy Henry had given him again anyway, trying to keep his hand from shaking.

It didn’t change. The bright, cartoony cut-out letters. The goofy rhymes that didn’t quite work. If there weren’t already a couple of bodies lying around it would be hard to take it seriously.

But he took it plenty seriously. “Your assistant.” This was Casey they were talking about.

Casey.

They’d made it to the studio in about five minutes, siren wailing. Portillo had agreed to let R.J. talk to Casey first. He needed a few minutes to call in reinforcements and talk to studio security.

Angelo Bertelli had taken off at a run for the main gate and then a check of the perimeter. He would call in by radio to have men posted at weak spots.

R.J. hurried along the hallway from Janine Wright’s office, where he’d gotten the copy of the note, and then out into the sun. That bright California sun that made the whole movie business possible and made the rest of the country seem like a day job to a junkie. It made R.J. start a sweat as he ran across the lot, looking for Casey.

He found her coming out of the soundstage. She was talking on a cellular phone and scrabbling in her purse for a pen. She glanced at R.J. and turned her back, still talking.

R.J. reached around her and plucked the phone from her hand. “Ms. Wingate will have to call you back,” he said into the receiver. He pushed the Stop button.

Casey was glaring at him, her hands on her hips. “You son-of-a-bitch,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for that call for three days.”

He handed her the note. “Let’s hope you’re still waiting in three more days,” he said.

Still furious, she glanced at the note, opened her mouth. Looked up at him, then down at the note and read it quickly.

“Oh,” she said.

“That’s right,” R.J. agreed.

“And this is for real?”

“Uncle Hank thinks it is.”

She nodded. “All right. What do you want me to do?”

R.J. blinked, astonished. He had come expecting a fight, thinking he’d have to force her to accept protection whether she wanted it or not. And instead she accepted the whole situation calmly.

It must have shown on his face. She shook her head at him. “I’m not stupid, R.J.,” she said. “And I’m not going to die for the glory of Andromeda Studios. If Henry Portillo says my life is in danger, I believe him. So what do I do?”

“Come with me,” he said. “We’re setting up a secured room for you. With a telephone and a fax, so you can work.” She started walking toward the main office building. R.J. followed, trying to watch everywhere at once.

“What’s wrong with my office?” she asked.

“We have to assume he knows it’s your office. And there’s a window. He could have it staked out. Site a sniper rifle through it from a hundred yards away. Toss a Molotov cocktail through it. Plant a bomb on the outside. Throw—”

“All right, R.J., I get the idea. Windows are bad,” she said. But she did not say it like the old Casey would have, with acid amusement. This was all acid. “Let me just get a few things from my office.”

“No,” R.J. said. “He could have something already set up—the other times he didn’t send the note until he was ready to make his move.”

“So I just sit in this converted broom closet and it’s business as usual?”

“That’s right.”

They came to the front door of the office building. “And you’re going to be lurking around the whole time?” she asked. R.J. couldn’t quite read her tone, but it wasn’t playful and it wasn’t grateful. Maybe closer to scorn. And in spite of the way his heart was hammering and his whole mind was screaming at him to keep her alive, keep her safe no matter what, her tone hurt.

“That’s right,” he said. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“I’ve worked under worse conditions,” she said.

R.J. had never gone in for being a bodyguard. The real problem with it, as far as he was concerned, was that he didn’t like a job where you only got one mistake in your whole career. Because when you make that one small goof as a bodyguard, your client is dead and probably you are, too. R.J. didn’t like to fail. Not with those stakes.

Besides, it didn’t really even take a mistake. If somebody
wants to kill you and they don’t care what it costs, they’re going to kill you. It was just that simple. You couldn’t stop somebody who really meant business.

The only thing that gave R.J. any hope at all was that he didn’t think Casey was the main target. The killer wanted to stay in business long enough to get the remake off track. And that meant he wouldn’t go all out to get Casey. So there was some chance of saving her.

So R.J. stuck with Casey, playing bodyguard. He sat in her small, improvised office, watching her make calls, get calls, send faxes, get faxes. He didn’t think it looked as exciting as it sounded. Assistant producer. Whoopee. Sit in a closet, talk on the phone.

On the other hand, being a detective wasn’t too exciting right now, either. Scary, yes. But damned little adventure to it. Sitting. Watching. Wondering where the hammer would fall. Wondering what else he might be doing that he wasn’t.

Outside in the hall a couple of uniforms sat on folding chairs. One of them got up and patrolled
th
e hall at random intervals.

There were two more cops at the front door and more outside sweeping the lot.

There were even a couple of SWAT guys on the roof, flicking their cold eyes back and forth over what they would probably think of as their Field of Fire.

Casey was about as safe as they could make her.

And it wasn’t enough. R.J. still felt the hair rise on his neck every time he heard a footstep in the hall. He was sure he was forgetting some basic precaution and it was making him nuts.

He sat there until seven o’clock at night like that, trying to figure what he’d forgotten and knowing he would never remember until it was too late. Somebody brought him a sandwich and some coffee. It still sat under his chair, untouched. The cops in the hall went home, replaced by the next shift. And R.J. sat.

Somewhere a pipe gurgled. A door opened and R.J. could
hear lush, romantic music. It was rising hysterically, the strings screaming something and the flutes yodeling back. The door slammed and he could only hear the pipe again.

He glanced over at Casey and felt an electric jolt as he saw that she was looking at him. Her head was tilted slightly to one side and her perfect eyebrows pulled together in a puzzled frown.

“What,” he said, wondering what he’d done wrong.

“You,” she said.

“What about me?”

She shook her head, left, then right, very slowly. “I can’t figure you out,” she said.

R.J. snorted. “I have the same problem.”

“I mean it, R.J. You sit there with no expression on your face, like you could be waiting for a train or sitting at a funeral. And I watch you and wonder what you’re feeling, or even
if
you’re feeling.”

“Oh, hell, Casey—” R.J. started, but she cut him off.

“But then every time there’s a sound anywhere in the building your whole body gets tense, like you’re about to grab a grizzly bear by the throat or something. And when that cop brought in the sandwich, you were in between me and him before the door even opened.”

“I didn’t know who was opening the door,” R J. said, confused. Where the hell was she going with this?

“You’re protecting me,” she said.

“Jesus H. Christ, Casey. What did you think I was doing?”

She smiled. There was still a hint of mean in it, but it was playful mean, and it was the nicest smile R.J. had seen in a long time. “I thought you were playing cops and robbers,” she said. “I thought you were running some bullshit macho power trip on me. But if terrorists with Uzis and hand grenades had kicked in the door, you were ready to keep them away from me.”

“I was ready to go down trying,” R.J. said. “What the hell, Casey—”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It was just something that occurred to me. You know.”

He didn’t know, but he nodded like he did.

“Could you shut the door tight, R.J.? I think I’d feel a lot safer.”

Still totally baffled, R.J. got up and pushed the door tightly shut. When he turned around Casey was standing, kicking off her skirt behind the small desk.

“Uh…Casey—”

She shook her head and began to unbutton her blouse. “At least I know what you’re thinking now,” she said.

He started to ask her why that should be so important, but as the last wisp of her clothing hit the floor he realized the question could probably wait.

R.J. had shared wild passion with Casey plenty of times. But this time was different; gentle, almost introspective. Of course, the telephone still hit the floor, along with three file folders, as R.J. and Casey slid across the surface of the desk, joined together.

And afterward, it seemed to him that she held onto him just a little longer than usual, maybe with a trace more tenderness, a softness he had not seen from her before.

But once they had shrugged their clothes back on, she was quickly back to being all business. She straightened the desk, retrieved the telephone, and with one last smile for R.J., Casey dialed the phone and once more disappeared back into Mother Bell’s Invisible Empire.