Hollywood is an All Volunteer Army (34 page)

“Right. Here's the situation. Mr. Pinsker and I are doing business with an important person in this town. We are going to be this person's guests this weekend. Now when Mr. Pinsker and I do business with important people, especially when we take out time to socialize, we always like to document the proceedings.”

“How do you do that?” Mike asked in all innocence.

“Through our briefcases.”

Mike snorted out a laugh.

“Mike—you seem to be a fairly useless member of society. Laughter at your betters is not really in your purview.”

“Sorry, Mr. Henderson, I wasn't really laughing at you, I—”

“Remember the five thousand, Mike. Hold that in your puny little mind as a goal, then shut up and listen to me.”

“Yeah, right, okay.”

“Obviously these are not normal briefcases. We have gone to quite a bit of expense to improve them. Each one is a self-contained digital video camera and short range transmitter.”

“Really?” The boy in Mike popped up. “You're kidding?”

“Don't question me, Mike. I find it irritating. Go open up one of the briefcases.”

Mike got up awkwardly out of the plush, clutching his Corona, spilling a bit on the couch. “Oh, shit! Sorry.”

“Mike, maybe you're not the right man for this job.”

“No, no, look, whatever it is, I can do it. I'm just nervous, that's all.”

“What do you have to be nervous about?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Look, don't take this as an insult, but you're a scary bastard.”

I laughed a laugh tinged with as much evil as possible without lapsing into melodrama. This was calculated, of course, I was playing to the particular crowd of two I assumed was listening in, basing the direction of my performance on the old saw, “It takes one to know one.”

“Open the briefcase,” Pinsker re-instructed Mike with impatience.

Mike moved over to a small, round dining table on which the two briefcases stood. He opened one. Inside was nothing but the normal compliment of files, legal pads, an electronic notebook, pens, pencils, etc. “I'm sorry. I don't see it.” Mike said perplexed.

“That's the point, isn't it?” I said, “But I guarantee you that, built into the shell of the case are all the electronics that we need, laid out, by the way, in the same pattern as the tartan cloth that line the cases. It helps to confuse the X-ray machines. The unit is powered by super thin batteries.”

“But—but where's the camera?” Mike asked, inspecting the case closely.

“Mr. Pinsker?” Henderson said by way of instruction.

Pinsker walked over to the briefcases. He pointed to the small, rounded brass lock in the center of the unopened case. It was not a combination lock, or a digital lock, or anything high-tech at all, but a good, old-fashioned key lock, with two small holes, looking somewhat like the nostrils of a snake, sitting in anticipation of a small two-pronged key. Pinsker pulled out of his pocket the key for the unit and showed it to Mike, pointing out that, instead of two prongs, it had only one on one side, the other having obviously been removed. This was noticeable only if one took a good look. Pinsker then inserted the key in the lock and turned it. He removed the key and very subtly twisted the dome like lock, pointing the snake nostrils at Mike. He then pointed out a small monitor that sat on a side table.

“Oh my god!” Mike exclaimed as he looked at the very clear black & white image of himself on the monitor.

“It's a micro snorkel camera,” I said, “built into the lock with the lens positioned to view out of one of the holes of the lock. The other hole accepts the one pronged key. When you turn it, it not only unlocks the briefcase, it turns on the unit. The lock is on a swivel base, so you can position both the case and it to get exactly the shot you want. The images the digital camera is picking up are being transmitted to the receiver-monitor over there. The unit can transmit to a radius of five miles.

“Now your job is going to be to sit in a motel room just a few miles from where we are going to be and monitor our transmissions and record them on digital video tape. You will be getting two feeds from the two different briefcases, so you will have a double receiving unit. When we are all done, if all goes well, we will meet you at a prearranged location close to your motel, collect the equipment and pay you your five thousand. If, while you are monitoring you see either of us come to harm, or if we do not show up at the prearranged meeting place, you will have instructions of where to send the tapes. Within days a customer at the newsstand will buy a copy of Le Figaro from you for five thousand dollars and change. Do you understand all this?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Good. Mr. Pinsker will give you a short course in the operating of the receiver unit and the recorders, then you will aid him in packing it up. A bellhop will then take it out to your car. Tomorrow you will drive up to San Simeon. Do you know where that is?”

“Yeah, sure. Where the castle is.”

“That's right. You will drive up there immediately upon leaving us. You did pack a bag as instructed.”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Just south of where the castle is, there is a row of motels on Highway One. Check into one of them. I don't care which as long as it isn't the Cavalier. Set up your equipment then lie low. Do not—I repeat for emphasis—do not call attention to yourself while there. The transmissions will start coming in sometime on Saturday, so be at your post non-stop during that day. Lay in a store of food and drink. Nonalcoholic, I must insist. If late tomorrow you happen to see either Pinsker or me in the general area, do not acknowledge us. Is that understood?”

“Yeah, sure, but, but what about my upfront expenses? You know, gas, food, the room.”

I sighed. It was a wonderfully world-weary and piqued sigh. “I suppose a $250 per diem would be adequate?”

“A per what?”

“I will pay you $250 per day for three days to cover expenses.”

“Really? 750 bucks? You mean beyond the five grand?”

“Yes, beyond that.”

“Cool.”

~ * ~

Later, after we had left the hotel and snuck home, we celebrated our performance at a gathering of the troops: Mike, Lydia, the Captain, Petey, and Hamo on the speakerphone from London. Mike was laughing, somewhat uncontrollably, as he explained exactly how I had managed to really “scare the shit” out of him even though he knew I was just playing a part. Everybody else was smiling, enjoying Mike's nervous pleasure. I was not.

“People!” I sharply called everybody to order. “It was a necessary charade. Part of a calculated subterfuge to send mixed signals to James and Hutton. Are we sincere? Or are we not? Are we—from their point of view—evil? Or are we not? If we are evil—is our evil contrary to theirs, or complementary, just good old-fashioned commercial evil, self-contained in our own desire for profit and power, therefore evil they can co-opt? Is it evil that would find their evil attractive? I am convinced that our original game of getting them to accept Lydia as a serious buyer of Olympic has been found out. They know something more than that is involved, but I'm just as convinced that they don't truly know what our game is. Therefore they continue to play. They can't afford not to. They have to know. Our advantage is, of course, they would never suspect that we would ever go to all this trouble just to avenge the death of Bea Cherbourg, an incident that has faded into insignificance for them, I'm sure. They would never expect a motive as pure as that, as—”

“Wait a minute,” Lydia interrupted, looking at me as a wife might if I had just inadvertently told her of a dalliance with another woman. “What happened to the filthy lucre you were going to realize from this?”

“Lydia, my sweet Greek, there is nothing so filthy as the coin of revenge.”

“You just said the motivation was pure.”

“Ah, well—”

“I hate pure motivations. I don't trust them. They lull people into the fantasy that they must win because their story must have a happy ending, so they don't stay on their guard, they don't work hard, they don't pay attention to what they are doing. You know, like fatalistic cultures that never learn how to properly drive cars, because, what the hell, their day and time is already set down anyway, so it's fucking
crash, bang, boom
, all fucking day long! I mean, have you ever taken a taxi in Taiwan?! Who was this fucking Bea to you anyway?”

“She was nobody to me,” I said calmly as Lydia fought the urge to hyperventilate. “She was Mike's special friend.”

Mike blushed and lowered his eyes.

Lydia gaped for a second. Then she said, “Aaa, you Americans! You're such fucking cowboys!”

“I told you!” Hamo's voice came over the speakerphone.

“So, where's your reward going to be? In heaven?” Lydia asked with some anger.

“What do you care? Yours will most decidedly be here on Earth.”

“If I'm not killed!”

“True. If you're not killed.”

Mike spoke up. “Look, Lydia—”

“Don't talk to me, you lovesick little man!”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better!” Petey loudly chimed in. “I'm doing it just for the filthy lucre!”

“Then you are to me like a god.” Lydia grabbed Petey's face and kissed it.

“Yeah, that fits!” Petey said, delighted after he had been let go.

“Lydia,” Roee said, dispassionately. “I fully expect the Fixxer to profit from this endeavor.”

“You do?” I asked, bemused and not a little confused.

“I took it upon myself, with the aid of Norton Macbeth, to contact Jim Duncan.”

“Use to be president of Universal.”

“Yeah, left during a shake up to ‘form his own production company.' He hates producing. He finds it too—too real, I suppose. It's very hard work, you know. Duncan misses the power of being a studio head, of dealing only with peppering out a few Yeses into a vast field of Nos; the fantasy of budgets; the evenings out with stars he's tried to take advantage of during the day. I asked him what it was worth to him if we could arrange Sara Hutton's fall from grace and his ascendancy to presidency of Olympic. We agreed on one and a half million. I figured it couldn't hurt to have a side game going.”

“Roee, that's a fine initiate, especially as Sara's fall is already in the works,” I said, “but Duncan's ascension?”

“Haven't quite got that figured out yet, but I assumed, you being such a clever boy, you would think of a way.”

“Your faith in me is awe inspiring.”

“Plus he's a Duncan. You know, like the yo-yo. Give him a little jerk, I'm sure he'll spin back up.”

“I'm not sure he actually isn't a little jerk, but I get your point. So, Lydia, I am rescued from do-goodness. Are you pleased?”

“Well....” She scowled. It's a look I had not previously seen on her. It would have been unattractive save for the tinge of little girl that was included. “Maybe on alternate Tuesdays.”

“Good. Then let's move on. Mike, I think you're all set. Any last questions?”

“No. I should leave. I was supposed to have left a couple of hours ago.”

“You didn't because you've already blown some of the $750.”

“I have?”

“Yes, on not inexpensive liquor.”

“And you'll show up late and a little drunk,” Roee said.

“No. A lot drunk, I think. At least apparently so. Not, I caution you Mike, in reality.”

“Okay.”

“Max's men will be on the outlook for you. They will just about have given up, when you pull in, very conspicuously. They won't be able to miss you.”

“What about George?” the Captain asked. “He might recognize Mike as the snooper at the air museum. Supposedly Mike's never been up there.”

“I doubt if George is the kind of talent Max would put on a simple surveillance. No, as you pointed out, George will be staying in the background. Mike, you know your motel?”

“The Silver Surf. Room 113.”

“All right. Good luck.”

Mike shook hands all around and left.

“Captain, you all set?” I asked.

“Yes, I've got personnel up there and down here.”

“And the replacements?”

“I got them.”

“Are they pilots?”

“You bet.”

“Good. Petey?”

“I'm as ready as a bitch in heat!”

The Captain, who always finds Petey amusing, chuckled. “Petey I've said it before, I'll say it again—you are one sick puppy.”

“I meant Joan Collins!”

“Hamo?”

“I've got the kids.”