Made to Kill

by Adam Christopher

  “Anyway, we bought it, did it up. Turned it into this little joint.”

  I looked around again. “Why?”

  Fresco cocked his head. “Why?”

  “Why a nightclub?” I asked. “Hollywood must be full of them. Who needs another?”

  “Ah,” said Fresco. He rested his elbows on the table and brought his hands together in a triangle in front of his nose. “Absolutely right, Sparks. But what we needed was a place to call our own. See, those other places, you’re always someone’s guest, on someone’s list, have someone’s invite. And as soon as you arrive, people are all over you. All over you!” He chuckled to himself. “Okay, sure, so they’re just being nice and doing what they think they should be doing, keeping the rich and famous happy while extracting as much cash out of their wallets as possible. Which is fair enough. Business is business.”

  “Business is business,” I said. I thought Mr. Fresco Peterman and Ada would get along like a house on fire.

  Fresco made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Right. So. We opened this place. It’s still a club, but one where we control the guest list. It’s a place we can come and not worry about anything. We can come and have a drink and not be bothered.”

  “Or come and get an early dinner on the tab,” I said.

  Fresco made a pistol shape with his fingers and pointed it at me and mimed his imaginary gun going off.

  “There’s the detective,” he said, his grin picture perfect and worth a thousand bucks to the right buyer. “I knew I liked you. Sci-fi, I’m telling you. Sci-fi.” Then he went back to his food.

  “I’m here for a reason, Mr. Peterman. I’ve just been talking to Eva McLuckie.”

  Fresco pointed his chopsticks at me. “We can count on you for Friday, right?”

  I would have raised an eyebrow at that. Honestly, I gave it a good try but it didn’t work.

  “You’re going to need to tell me who ‘we’ are, and tell me quick.”

  Fresco nodded and chased noodles in his bowl. He waved his free hand at his jacket.

  “Inside pocket,” he said as he chewed. His hand kept waving.

  I sat and reached around the table and lifted his jacket. I flipped it over, felt a lump in one pocket, and pulled out a big, long wallet. The man watched me and nodded, so I opened the wallet. Inside was a driver’s license with his grinning mug shot and the name FRESCO PETERMAN.

  So that was his real name. Well I never.

  There was also five hundred dollars in hundred-dollar bills and a slim envelope that had already been torn open. I ignored the money and took out the envelope and looked inside.

  “Tickets to the Red Lucky premiere on Friday,” said Fresco. He paused in his mastication. “You can come, right? The world isn’t going to know what’s hit it, Sparks! You just gotta be there, okay?”

  Noodles tamed, Fresco laughed and knocked me on the shoulder with his knuckles. Then he winced and shook his hand and flexed his fingers. Then he laughed again.

  “You’re swell, Sparks,” he said. “Real swell.” He gestured across the table with his chopsticks. “You and me, we’re going to get on just fine. There’ll be some important folk there on Friday, too. They’re dying to meet you. Dying to.”

  “Does that include the late, lamented Chip Rockwell?”

  Fresco sat back with his chopsticks resting in the bowl and a faint glisten on his chiseled jaw. He ran his fingers through his hair but I didn’t see the hair move any and Fresco Peterman didn’t seem to notice, either.

  Then he nodded, then he clicked his fingers at me and returned his attention to the bowl of noodles.

  “So how long have you been a Soviet agent, Mr. Peterman?” I asked, using what we call in the business the direct approach. “And tell me, how much does the KGB have to pay to buy a movie star’s loyalty? Must be steep. You must be richer than your friend Charles David, and I’ve seen his house.”

  Fresco’s eyes narrowed a little as he looked at me over his bowl. His appetite seemed to be diminishing by the moment. I worked to diminish it further.

  “Did you know your buddy was working for the opposition? He was about to bust you wide open.”

  Fresco smiled a sickly smile and he spread his arms wide as he sat back in the booth. “I don’t see Charles David anywhere,” he said.

  “Charles David might not be here, but I am.”

  “And I suppose that’s supposed to frighten me, Sparks, is that it?” The smile stayed just where it was on Fresco’s face.

  My turn to shrug. “Can’t say I care one way or the other. But I’m going to take a look in your basement. That’s where you keep Rockwell, right? In fact, that’s why you and your friends bought this place, isn’t it? A private place to gather with a cellar just right for a good-sized secret or two.”

  Something strange happened to Fresco’s face. His smile froze and his expression became as solid as his hair. He clenched his hands and I could see his finger joints go white as he squeezed.

  I think he was thinking.

  “Fine, let’s talk,” he said, and he flicked his head like he was trying to shake it without shaking it. The smile was still fixed over all those Hollywood teeth. “Friday. Phase three. I need you to be ready.”

  I shook my head. “Tell me about Chip Rockwell. Last chance before I go take a look for myself.”

  Fresco didn’t say anything.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll just call the police and then we’re going to take a little look in your basement.”

  “Wait,” said Fresco. “Fine. You want to look in the basement, you look in the basement.” Fresco stood. “Hey! Rico! Get over here.”

  I turned on the seat as three men came out of a door by the bar. All three of them I recognized from the secret meeting, thanks to Ada’s helpful playback of my memory tape.

  Parker Silverwood. Bob Thatcher. And in front, Rico Spillane. Three actors, A-list movie stars.

  Three lieutenants of the Soviet cell.

  “Rico,” said Fresco. “Show Sparks around. Give him the tour.” He turned back to me. “You’re my guest. Just promise me you’ll be ready Friday. I need you to be there, okay?”

  I didn’t answer his question. Instead I looked Rico up and down and left and right.

  “You feeling better then, Mr. Spillane? Re-transfer good for the soul, right?”

  Rico Spillane said not a word. Instead he jerked his head sideways, which I took to be an invitation.

  I stood and walked toward the door by the bar. I didn’t wait to see if my escort was following.

  25

  Two hours later I stepped out onto Sunset Boulevard. The black door of the Temple of the Magenta Dragon closed behind me with barely a click.

  The basement was a bust, of course. Cleared out. Not even the big round table was down there. Rico and Parker and Bob had given me full access, opening any and every door. But they hadn’t spoken a word once.

  Which was fine by me because I was busy listening to my Geiger counter and it had quite the story to tell. Whatever had been in the basement—Chip Rockwell, or what was left of him—had left a hot trail, one that ended in a loading bay out of the back of the club. I had stood there with Rico and Parker and Bob and kept my thoughts to myself.

  When we got back up top, Fresco was gone. The nice Chinese lady let me out. I looked down the street and then I looked up it, and then I remembered my car was still up on a country lane several miles out of town.

  And Eva McLuckie? Who knew.

  I frowned on the inside and eyed the pay phone on the corner. I should have called Ada. Given her an update. Let her know what I was up to.

  But I wanted to move, and move fast. I wasn’t sure how long the heat of my new trail was going to last.

  So instead I looked around and got my bearings and turned my Geiger counter up. It began a steady tick and I began to follow the breadcrumbs.

  Radioactive breadcrumbs.

  I found my way around the block and followed the trail a few yard
s until I could see the back of the club and the roller door of its loading bay. Then I turned around and followed the trail back up the street the other way.

  Chip Rockwell was on the move.

  And I was on his tail.

  * * *

  I walked for a while. I ignored most people around me and most did the same. That was fine. More than fine. I wished them all happy lives in which they could ignore me at their leisure.

  I just hoped those happy lives extended beyond Friday night.

  At intersections cars came and went and some drivers slowed to look at me as they cruised around the corner and one, a young man in a tight white T-shirt, even leaned on the horn as he did so. But he gave me a cheery wave out the window as his tires squealed and I waved back and he seemed happy enough.

  I kept on walking and kept on following the crackle in my head. It came and went—they’d moved Chip in a vehicle from the loading dock, that much was obvious, and the trail they left went through peaks and troughs that probably matched the ebb and flow of traffic.

  That traffic was particularly bad this evening, thanks to the lane closure right outside a red, green, and gold–colored fake temple that I soon found myself standing outside.

  Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Where the curtain would go up on the premiere of Red Lucky in about twenty-four hours.

  I checked the Geiger and checked it again.

  The theater was red hot.

  Chip Rockwell was inside.

  There was a phone booth a couple of doors down and it started to ring. I walked up to it and stood half-in, half-out of the booth. They weren’t made for mechanical men of my dimensions.

  “Enjoying the sights and sounds of Hollywood, Ray?”

  “Hello, Ada.”

  Ada took a sip of something she couldn’t possibly be drinking. “You know we still have two payments to go.”

  I pulled the phone’s heavy metal cord a little between two steel fingers and turned to look down the street back toward the theater.

  “Two payments on what?”

  Ada sighed. “The car, Ray. I sure hope you didn’t leave the keys in it.”

  I patted my pocket. They keys were there.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I’ll pick it up later. Listen to this.”

  I filled her in and when I was done she whistled.

  “Great,” said Ada. “So Charles David was working for the CIA and he wanted to kill you. Fresco Peterman works for the KGB and he wants you for the mysterious phases three and four. Hey, maybe I could hire you out? How much would you say the rental is on a robot like your good self?”

  “Ada!”

  She laughed inside my head. “Tuxedos. Vintage dresses. Killer robots. What’s the difference, Ray?”

  I ignored her and kept my optics on the theater. It was closed. It shone in the last light of sunset. It had had a fresh coat of paint.

  Ready for the premiere.

  “It’s all going down on Friday,” I said. “The movie premiere.”

  “Phase three.”

  I nodded. “And I’m phase four, apparently.”

  “Makes you wonder what phases one and two were.”

  I shrugged. “You and me both.” I stood there and listened to the hiss on the phone and the cars on the street. “What do you want me to do about Eva, in case I see her again?”

  “Well, we’ve been paid in full, Ray. I’d hate to have to give that money back.”

  “No luck with the client, then?”

  “Nope,” said Ada. “But I think you’re right and it’s the Russians wanting to take her out for stealing their gold.”

  “Couldn’t they have done that themselves? I would assume a simple hit on one of their own agents would be a pretty easy job.”

  “Why don’t you ask your old pal Chip when you see him? Anyway, she’d taken off. They needed someone to find her first.”

  “I don’t like the idea of working for the Soviet Union.”

  “Says Mr. Phase Four.”

  I shook my head. “Charles David said we had to stop phase three first. And I’m starting to feel that’s a pretty good idea.”

  “So what are you going to do about this feeling, Chief?”

  I looked at the theater. While I was looking it sounded like Ada put something down on the desk in the office. I wondered idly what I would find out if I did a reverse directory on the calls.

  I wondered idly if I did that every day and never remembered the answer.

  Then that sound was gone and all that was left was a ticking sound. It wasn’t the Geiger counter this time. This was the sound of a watch, a small pocket watch, the second hand racing ever onward.

  It was the sound of the computer room back at the office.

  The sound of Ada’s heartbeat.

  “Mission control to Raymond Electromatic, come in, please,” said Ada.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was just thinking.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It’s time I spoke to Chip Rockwell.”

  “Just don’t forget to buy a ticket before you go in, Ray.”

  I smiled on the inside. I hung up.

  I walked up the block to the Chinese Theatre.

  26

  The lights were on inside the theater but the main doors were locked. There was a sign on those locked doors with one arrow pointing to the box office and another pointing in the opposite direction suggesting that contractors use the tradesmen’s entrance. There was a second sign next to the first, hand-lettered on a big white card, to say the place would be closed until next week due to Friday’s “nationwide gala premiere of motion-picture history, Red Lucky.”

  I tried the doors again but they just rattled like they’d rattled the first time. Only now the noise had caught the attention of a man in a flat cap and denim overalls with a white T-shirt underneath the straps and a thick mustache under his nose. He was walking from my left across the theater lobby, carrying something long and wrapped in a painted-spattered cream cloth on his shoulder.

  He stopped and looked at me. Then he rebalanced the object on his shoulder and walked up to the doors. He looked at me some more. I looked back, and touched the brim of my hat in greeting. The man jerked to life and leaned his cargo against the wall and then fussed with the door from his side. There was a hearty thunk as he twisted the lock and a squeak as he pulled the door open just a crack.

  He nodded at me through the crack, his eyes seeming to rest on my hat rather than my optics. The mustache didn’t suit him. It made him look older than he probably was. And he needed a haircut. I kept these thoughts to myself.

  “Hi,” he said, in a tone that suggested saying hello to a robot had brightened his day a little. “Can I help you, man? Just the theater is closed, y’know, for the premiere.”

  I reached into my jacket, took out the wallet with the badge in it, and opened it to show him. He nodded as he looked at it and straightened up. With one hand he adjusted the cloth-covered object he’d leaned against the wall and with the other he opened the door a little wider. I wasn’t just anyone walking in off the street, after all. I was a robot detective on a case. He seemed real eager to cooperate.

  “Oh, so, man, what’s up? Anything I can do to help”—he slapped his thigh—“I’m your man. Name is Jake, but you can call me Sparks.”

  I smiled at this. He didn’t see it, of course.

  “Electrician, huh?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Listen Sparks, I’m working for Mr. Fresco Peterman,” I said. That wasn’t true but Sparks seemed to like what I was saying so I kept on saying it. “I was just in the neighborhood, thought I’d take a look at the theater. Just a preliminary check, you know how it is. A quick sweep and I’ll be out of your hair.”

  Sparks nodded. Then he looked over his shoulder. The theater lobby was covered in as much gold and green and red as the outside of the place. I thought then I knew where Fresco had got his interior design ideas from.

  Sparks turned
back and nodded again. “Okay, you wanna come in and wait, man, no problem, no problem at all.” He jerked a thumb over one shoulder. “I’d better just go get Walter. He’s the manager. He’ll be looking after everyone, y’know, on Friday, too. Wait here, I’ll go get him.”

  I nodded and lifted my hat and Sparks jogged away from me. Then he stopped and turned and clicked his fingers in my direction. “Fresco Peterman?” Then he slapped a leg and said, “Wow-whee!” in a way that sounded like he meant it, and then he was gone.

  I turned back to the doors. I looked out of them. Then I twisted the big lock home. Didn’t want just anyone wandering in, after all.

  I heard footsteps and a telephone rang somewhere and some people called out somewhere else. The lobby might have been empty but it sounded like Friday’s crew was still prepping the theater.

  I turned my Geiger counter up and used it like a compass to get a nuclear-powered bearing.

  I waited a few minutes. Walter was clearly a busy man. I stood there and thought about what I would say and what I would ask and then I thought I probably didn’t want to speak to him at all, seeing as I didn’t work for Fresco Peterman and I wasn’t here to check on security arrangements for Friday. Every A-lister in town would be standing in this lobby in just over twenty-four hours and chances were Walter knew exactly what the security arrangements were—and how they most certainly didn’t involve a robot pretending to be a PI.

  The telephone kept ringing and the people kept calling out and I slipped over to the doors to the main auditorium, cracked them open, and slipped inside.

  * * *

  I wasn’t sure what I expected to find inside the auditorium. I was standing at the back, looking out over a sea of red velvet seats with gold woodwork, the whole thing sloping gently toward the stage. I didn’t know how many people could worship the silver screen in one sitting but it looked like an awful lot.

  The walls were gold and red as well and I had to admit they were something else. They showed friezes of woodland scenes separated by great gold columns. The ceiling right over my head was the floor of the circle above and from it hung great gold chandeliers shaped like Chinese lanterns. Beyond, the ceiling vanished into the stratosphere in order for the auditorium to accommodate what was clearly a very large screen indeed, hidden behind the red curtains that continued the Oriental forest theme in elaborate gold embroidery.