"Smitty," Remo said, voice flat as a desert horizon.
"One moment," Smith insisted.
There was the sound of urgent typing coming over the line.
Remo found the remote control to the TV. He flipped quickly through the channels looking for more of Sultan Omay.
Nothing.
The image that had been broadcast was from a single pool camera that all of the news services were using. Omay apparently didn't want the press corps following him into the desert.
Smith's voice came back on a moment later. "I have booked Chiun on a flight to Greece," the CURE director said. He was struggling to control his anger.
"What are you talking about, Smitty?" Remo demanded. "Chiun's not going-I am."
"No, you are not," Smith said firmly. "Chiun is more familiar with that part of the world than you are. Frankly at this point an American would attract far too much attention. Chiun can take a flight from Greece to Jordan. From there he will have to improvise."
"This is nuts," Remo complained.
"Yes," Chiun echoed loudly. "I cannot leave my beloved Town of Tinsel. Send Remo." He passed a bored eye over the "Picks and Pans" column of his magazine.
"Chiun says he doesn't want to go," Remo objected.
"I know that you can hear me, Master Chiun," Smith said. "I will not remind you of the obligation of your contract."
The Master of Sinanju's head lifted. He craned it slowly around to look at his pupil. His expression blamed Remo, not Smith, for this latest turn of events. With a menacingly delicate hand he folded his magazine closed.
"I will do as you command, Smith," he said without enthusiasm.
"You get that, Smitty?" Remo asked.
"I did," Smith said. "Tell him that his tickets will be waiting at the Cross-World Airways desk at Los Angeles International Airport. He will have to find his own way out of Hollywood through the Ebla-U.S. military lines."
"He heard you, but he doesn't look happy," Remo said.
"Chiun's emotional well-being is the least of my worries at the moment."
"So while he's off zapping the bad guy I'm supposed to just sit here twiddling my thumbs?" Remo asked.
"Not at all. Remo, you have to stay in Hollywood," Smith argued. "The sultan has also threatened to destroy our cultural capital. Are you forgetting the boatload of missing supplies?"
"Smitty, you're keeping me here for some pig in a poke," Remo muttered. "We don't know if he has anything planned here at all. This whole Hollywood angle might just be an ego boost for that rotting old fossil."
"Listen to Remo, Emperor," Chiun called, irritated, from across the room. "This is one of those rare times when he makes sense."
"I do not believe so," Smith said. "Given what we have just witnessed, the sultan has obviously stepped up his campaign. His designs since the outset have included both the entertainment community and the situation he has created in the Mideast." Smith's voice sounded firmer, as if he were pleased to finally take some action. "CURE can no longer sit idly by and allow this crisis to go on indefinitely. It has finally escalated to the point that it has become necessary to split you and Chiun up in order to strike back in a two-pronged attack."
"What do you want us to do?"
There was urgency to Smith's tone. "This is the plan I had hesitated to use before," he said. "It requires a great deal of delicacy. More delicacy, perhaps, than you and Chiun are capable of."
"Lather us up, why don't you?" Remo said sarcastically.
"That is not an insult, but a statement of fact. Remo, I need you to remove Assola al Khobar in America at the precise moment Chiun dispatches Sultan Omay in Ebla."
Remo's face clouded. "What good will that do?" he asked. "You said yourself taking out Assola might be the trigger that starts everything going over here."
"Perhaps not," Smith said. "If the leaders of both Eblan factions are removed simultaneously, their larger scheme might collapse. One might not be able to act without the other there for guidance."
"'Perhaps Perhaps ... might ... might.' You don't sound too sure."
"I am not," Smith admitted. "But we have reached an impasse. Better to get whatever is to happen over with quickly than to allow it to go on any longer."
"If you say so." Remo didn't sound convinced. Remo's uncertainty did not deter Smith.
"There is a ten-hour difference from Los Angeles to Ebla. You and Chiun are to strike tomorrow at precisely 8:00 p.m. Pacific daylight time. That is 6:00 a.m. in Ebla. Chiun should be in place by then."
"Did you get that, Chiun?" Remo asked.
"I am annoyed, not deaf," the Master of Sinanju answered. His wrinkled face was bunched into a scowl.
Remo knew he was thinking about the precious screenplay he'd left in the hands of Bindle and Marmelstein.
"In the interim, Remo, stick close to al Khobar. Even an inadvertent slip could give us a clue as to what he has done with the mysterious missing shipment of cargo."
"Not very bloody likely," Remo muttered.
"Irrespective, when the eleventh hour is upon us you may, er, persuade him to give you the information before his ultimate removal."
"'Ultimate removal.' Geez, Smitty, you make it sound like I'm taking out the freaking trash," Remo complained.
The CURE director did not miss a beat. "You are."
Chapter 22
Hank Bindle was beginning to think he didn't like directing. Nothing was going right for him.
The Arabs were no longer cooperating as they had been. He could thank Mr. Koala for that. The Eblan executive had pulled all the extras away from the production after that minor unpleasantness in Beverly Hills. Every available man was now out patrolling the streets with an enthusiasm that, frankly, Hank Bindle thought was bordering on nutty.
His new "Arabs" consisted of anyone he could find and wrap in a bedsheet. None of them looked convincingly like Middle Eastern terrorists. Particularly the female office workers he had conscripted. Their silicone- or saline-enhanced chests kept bouncing out all over the place in a very nonterroristic way. On top of that their false mustaches kept getting gunked to their lip gloss.
The shoot had gone on for barely two days and already it was an unqualified disaster.
Now on top of it all, he'd lost the sun. "Shit!" Hank Bindle screamed.
He waved a menacing fist at the heavens. "Shit, shit, shit!" he screamed more loudly.
The sun remained behind a smear of thin white clouds. Even the sky itself mocked him.
Bindle flung his megaphone away.
"I can't believe this!" he screamed. "Cut!" Bindle wheeled around. "Get that sun out here, pronto!" he yelled at his alarmed assistant.
"I'll get right on it, H.B.," the assistant said gulping. She ran off to call the Griffith Park Observatory. Bindle stormed around his exterior set. He wore a bright green ascot and a red beret tipped at a rakish angle. The sleeves of his red sweater were draped lazily across his shoulders and were tied at his chest. In his clashing reds and greens he looked like a Louis B. Mayer-era director dressed up for the studio Christmas party.
A group of men in T-shirts and shorts was working on a strange mechanical creature behind one of the cameras. It was the first of the eight dozen animatronic camels Bindle had ordered. The hastily constructed prototype cost thirty-seven million dollars and looked as if someone had flung a hairy rug over a tall chain-link fence.
"Have you got that thing working yet?" Bindle demanded.
"Some sand got inside the gizmo. Shorted it out," an electrician said. "Do they have to actually walk in the desert?"
"No," Bindle said sarcastically. "Why don't you strap a pair of mechanical wings to them and we can fly them around like frigging Aladdin's magic carpet?"
"Gee, I'm not sure about the aerodynamics of this design." The electrician frowned seriously.
Before Bindle could explain to him that he'd been joking, a voice broke in behind them. "How's it going?"
The men returned to their work as Ha
nk Bindle turned around. Bruce Marmelstein stood near the cameras, a tight smile on his face.
"Rotten," Bindle grumbled to his partner. "Nothing is working right. This whole production is a mess."
"Have you found a script yet?" Marmelstein asked. He appeared nervous. Sweat beads dotted his tan forehead.
Hank Bindle was surprised. They were only two days into production. Too early for a finished script. And Bruce Marmelstein had never expressed an interest in the creative end of the business before. He was only concerned with money. For Marmelstein everything was ultimately affected by the bottom line.
Bindle took Marmelstein by the arm. He quickly guided him away from the crew's prying ears. "What's wrong?" Bindle whispered.
"I was just checking on our finances," Marmelstein said anxiously. "We're heading onto shaky ground vis-A-vis the Omay situation."
"For this production?"
"For the entire studio. The Movie is sinking us into a quagmire of red ink. It's gone way over budget."
"Hmm," Hank Bindle considered. "I forget, how much was the original budget?"
"Three hundred million."
"And how much have we spent?"
Marmelstein checked a wrinkled sheet of paper clutched in his hand. It was damp with sweat. "Two and a half billion," Marmelstein said sickly.
"Is that a lot?" asked Bindle, who, after all, was creative and not a money cruncher.
"A billion is a number followed by nine zeros."
"Wow." Hank Bindle almost sounded impressed at their ability to spend.
"We've gone from being in the black to being in the red in one day. They haven't picked up on it in Ebla yet, but it's only a matter of time. I think they're busy with something else right now. A war, maybe."
"That's politics," Bindle said dismissively. He pitched his voice low. "We've still got other ways to finance. What about our video-distribution company?" he asked.
"I think we might have hit a snag there," Marmelstein said. "Apparently Jimmy Fitzsimmons turned up dead at some kind of rally in Boston. When the cops investigated, they checked his warehouse. The videos were all seized."
Bindle's voice got even lower. "The drugs?"
Marmelstein shook his head. "That was funneled back here through his contacts in the Patriconne Family in Rhode Island. There's been nothing since the raid. I don't know if it's shut off completely or if the Patriconnes are just laying low."
"That shouldn't matter," Hank Bindle said. "No matter how much we spend, we'll make it back on The Movie. Look at Titanic's world gross in relation to cost. After all, we're going to be the only movie out next summer."
Bruce Marmelstein's sick look intensified. "About that," he said uncertainly. "There were a lot of other productions going on away from here when the invasion started. They're still going on. East Coast facilities are taking up the slack. All the other major studios have promised they won't let this alter their summer-release schedules one bit."
Hank Bindle began to get the same queasy feeling as his longtime partner.
"We're not going to be alone?" he gasped. His voice was small.
Marmelstein shook his head. "There are at least two probable blockbusters set to open before Memorial Day. We've got to make The Movie deliver the goods. Otherwise forget The Avengers or Batman and Robin, we are going to have the most expensive bomb in the history of movies to our names."
Hank Bindle's head was spinning. His stomach clenched madly. He grabbed the shoulder of his partner for support. When he looked at Marmelstein, his eyes were watering.
Bindle looked for a moment as if he wished to speak. But he suddenly twisted away, doubling up at the waist. With a loud heaving noise he vomited up the veal Parmesan lunch he'd had flown in special from his favorite Venice restaurant on one of the new Taurus jets.
"I don't know any other way to make a living!" Bindle said desperately through the retching. Wheeling, he grabbed for his partner, gripping Marmelstein's arms so tightly he could feel bone. "What will I do?"
"You?" Bruce Marmelstein whimpered. "I can't go back to styling hair. My scissors are hanging on the wall at Planet Hollywood."
"So what can we do?" Bindle asked.
"I don't know," Marmelstein said. He was nearly crying. "Maybe we should think like executives think. I mean, what would the President do in our shoes?"
A thought suddenly occurred to both of them. Their panicked eyes locked.
"Scapegoat," they said in unison.
"Ian?" Bindle asked.
"Not for two and a half billion."
Bindle snapped his fingers. "Koala was supposed to direct this white elephant. We can say it was all him." His eyes were filled with eager hope.
Thinking aloud, Marmelstein took up the thread. "He is the middleman between the studio and the sultan. If we can get him to sign the okays for the money I've gotten from Ebla, we could pin this whole disaster on him."
Hank Bindle knew the problem they were presented with. How could they possibly get Mr. Koala to sign away more than two billion dollars of Sultan Omay sin-Khalam's personal wealth? "Blackmail?" Bindle suggested.
"We don't have anything on him."
"Bribe?"
"With what?"
"Oh, yeah,"
"Besides, he's a millionaire or something already."
The solution came in a sudden instant. "Kidnap him and torture him until he signs?"
"Bingo." Bruce Marmelstein smiled, as if they'd just decided on the proper shade of mauve for their office.
"And afterward?" Bindle asked.
Their mutual conclusion was obvious. It was the only alternative, considering the corner they'd painted themselves and their studio into. But unbeknownst to Hank Bindle and Bruce Marmelstein, their obvious conclusion would spark a crisis in the Mideast and create a near disaster in their own backyard.
"Kill him," Bindle and Marmelstein concluded happily.
Behind them, their animatronic camel chugged to life. Smoke poured from its mechanical bottom.
Chapter 23
Tom Roberts was this close to bolting from this halfassed production. He didn't need these headaches. Tom was sitting alone in his trailer on the Taurus lot. Empty wine bottles and marijuana roaches littered the table in the small kitchen. His moon face was resting morosely in his hands as he considered what he'd gotten himself into.
Tom had been nominated for Academy Awards for both Dead Guy Strolling and for starring in the prison film The Hairlip Salvation. His career didn't need a bona fide disaster like Taurus Studios' The Movie. The problem was, he and his agent had bought into Bindle and Marmelstein's early hype that The Movie would be the only movie out next summer. He'd signed on before any of them had thought the whole project through clearly. Now he and his common-law wife, Susan Saranrap, were hopelessly entangled in a project that seemed destined for the discount-bargain basket of video stores across America. Assuming this bomb even made it to video.
He wondered if this would be the movie that sank his career. Hollywood was more forgiving now than it had once been when it came to disasters. After all George Clooney could still find work, for God's sake. He might survive this great gobbling turkey of a film. Then again he might not.
He couldn't risk it. If he lost his movie career, all he'd have to look forward to day after day was his common-law wife and the ten screaming brats they'd had together before menopause had driven into her like a runaway concrete truck.
He had to get out.
Tom lifted his head from his hands. Through boozy eyes he took in the interior of the trailer. He'd have to get off the Taurus lot somehow. But how? There were Arabs everywhere.
And once he got off, what would he do? There were more Arabs out in the streets. Not as many as were clustered around the studio, but still enough to make slipping away unseen difficult.
As he scanned the junk lying around the room, his bleary eyes settled on a piece of wardrobe that he'd tossed aside. His assistants hadn't put it away yet. It was the robe he was s
upposed to wear in his starring role in the as yet unscripted movie.
Looking at the rumpled cloth, an idea suddenly occurred to him. An event rare indeed.
Tom got uncertainly to his feet, knocking the bottles and joints to the floor in the process. Staggering, he pushed away from the table and over to the robe.
FOR THE THIRD TIME Remo entered the Taurus lot. The guard at the booth waved him through. By this point the old man recognized Remo.
He parked his rented car in the space marked Hank Bindle: Park Here And You'll Never Park In This Town Again and headed for the door.
When he pulled the building's main door open, Susan Saranrap nearly barreled into him as she stormed outside. She stopped short, eyeing Remo accusingly. She seemed suddenly to remember him from before.
"Are you an assistant to Bindle and Marmelstein?" she demanded without so much as a hello.
"Me?" Remo asked, surprised. "No, I have my sanity."
Huge, furious eyes glanced around the parking lot. "Well, do you know where they are?"
"They're not in their office?"
"No," she said. "And that faggot Ian has no idea where they're hiding. Neither do any of the workmen." She groaned loudly. "You know, I might quit this movie and go off and have another baby," she threatened, blowing a clump of stringy hair from her haggard face.
"Are you insane?" Remo asked. "You're 150 years old."
Susan appeared shocked. "I'm only thirty-eight," she insisted hotly.
"You were already thirty-eight back when Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton owned this town," Remo replied.
She sucked in an angry hiss of air. "You think you're so smart?" she challenged. "I can have an embryo implanted." She jutted out her chin. There were wrinkles on it.
"Yeah, I heard they can do that now." Remo nodded. "Why not see if they'll stick in a brain while they're at it?"
He sidestepped the spluttering actress and went inside.
UPSTAIRS, REMO DISCOVERED that Bindle and Marmelstein were indeed nowhere to be found. Their office wasn't empty, however. Carpenters and plasterers were working feverishly around the room creating an all-new retro art-deco look.
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