by Stuart Woods
“Because the family has a controlling interest?”
“That’s one reason,” Kenny said. “But even if they didn’t, it couldn’t happen because there are some stockholders who simply would not sell.”
“For instance?”
“Vanessa Morgan, for one. She has a sizable chunk.” Kenny grinned. “That is a professional accounting number. ‘Sizable chunk.’ She wouldn’t sell under any circumstances. She was a classic movie star, you probably saw her in something. She was versatile—femme fatale, ingénue, comic relief, she’d play them all. She retired when she got older though, wanted people to remember her when she was young and beautiful. Since then she’s been basically a recluse. The public only gets to see her when they give her some award or other. She shows up for awards.”
“She’s the only one who might hold out?”
“What? Oh, the stock. No, there’re others. She’s the biggest and the best example. Anyway, rest assured, Vanessa Morgan isn’t going to sell.”
12
Gerard Cardigan dressed entirely in black. He wore tights and a leotard, as if he were a dancer, and surgical gloves, as if he were a doctor, and a black knit cap, as if he were a skier. He glided through the shadows on soft feet, barely touching the sidewalk, barely making a sound.
There was no one out at two in the morning, despite the neighborhood watch and the hired guard. The guard had a ten-block area to patrol, which was a lot of houses and a lot of streets, even if half of them were Hollywood houses with impossibly large lots. There was no way he could make a circuit in under half an hour, twenty-five minutes if he never broke stride. And a sixty-seven-year-old security guard with a fondness for tobacco was apt to break stride.
Gerard watched him go down the street and followed him from a distance, keeping him in sight until he came to the front of the house that was his target.
His path to the house was circuitous, avoiding the surveillance cameras he knew were there. He reached the vulnerable side window, the one that was wired to the security system and could be jiggled without actually disengaging the lock. He jiggled it, and faded silently into the darkness as the ear-splitting alarm woke the neighborhood.
* * *
—
By the third time Vanessa Morgan’s security alarm went off, the police had had it. They disconnected the damn thing and told Vanessa to call the service man in the morning, and they’d assign a car to her house for the night. Vanessa doubted that, but she was getting fed up with springing out of bed every half hour, and she wasn’t keen on meeting cops in her disheveled state. She reluctantly let them turn the system off and went back to bed.
The security guard, who’d run several blocks each time the alarm went off, was having trouble catching his breath. He parked himself on the front stoop, a valiant soldier defending the unarmed castle.
While the guard manned the front door, Gerard snuck up on the house from the back. He was cautious, not being sure if the surveillance cameras were on the same circuit and had been shut off with the alarm. He reached the back terrace. An ornate metal-and-glass double door, probably dating back to the age of silent films, was easy to manipulate. Gerard opened the door a crack and slipped in.
There were no security cameras inside. Gerard knew that for a fact. Vanessa Morgan would not allow herself to appear on video short of having done her full hair and makeup, even temporarily. The thought of such footage existing at the time of her death was more than she could bear. Cameras were to keep intruders out. The perimeter was all they needed to guard.
Gerard worked his way into the center of the house, a palatial room in period style. A curved oaken staircase might have served to film Gone with the Wind.
Gerard crept down the hall to the master bedroom. He eased the door open and waited, listening, in case the actress was still awake.
He needn’t have worried. Her adventures in the nighttime had worn her out. She was asleep by the time her head hit the pillow. Gerard stole quietly up to the bed, bent down, and clapped his hand over her mouth.
Vanessa awoke with a start. She blinked in fear and astonishment at the young man smiling down at her.
“Hello, Miss Morgan,” he said. “Are you ready for your close-up?”
13
Pete Genaro’s curvy secretary was flipping through the newspaper and wondering if he was going to want her to “relieve his tension,” as Pete phrased it. When he’d called Sherry into his office she’d assumed that was the task at hand, but he seemed to have lost interest. That was happening a lot lately.
“Vanessa Morgan died,” Sherry said. “I just saw the news headline.”
Genaro looked up irritably. Everything irritated him lately. Sammy Candelosi had become a major pain in the ass, and he still hadn’t figured out how to deal with him.
“Who?” Genaro said.
“Vanessa Morgan. She was a big-time classic film star. Won an Oscar.”
“When?”
“A while back.”
“How old was she?”
“Eighty something.”
“I’m surprised she lived that long. Those stars burn themselves out.”
“Not this one. She retired in her heyday, had a big contract with Centurion Pictures and just walked away.”
“You remember all that?”
Sherry pointed to the paper. “Says so here. Apparently she had a big fight with the studio and wound up having to give back half her stock options. Must have cost her a fortune, but she did it.”
“What was the studio?”
“Centurion Pictures. Why?”
Genaro shook his head, but the name rang a bell. He wasn’t sure, but he thought that was the studio where his skip tracer had once found Billy Burnett. “When’s the funeral?”
“Sunday. Were you thinking of going?” Thoughts of a trip to Hollywood danced in Sherry’s head.
“I got enough shit to deal with.”
Genaro went back to brooding. Funny it would be Centurion Pictures. He was pretty sure that was where they’d found Billy Burnett. And that bar girl Bambi had seen him on a movie set. Was that a Centurion picture?
Genaro wondered if Billy Burnett was still there.
14
Tyrone Flynn cleaned himself up for the funeral. He still had a runny nose and watery eyes, but that was appropriate for a man mourning the loss of his mother. Only those closest to him would have known he was celebrating his inheritance with an ounce of Peruvian flake; though the truth was Tyrone had no close friends, just fellow cokeheads and people to whom he owed money. They’d all come crawling out of the woodwork now, hoping to cash in on his bounty. He’d have to lay low for a while.
But not today. Today he had to stand in the spotlight and murmur his thanks while a seemingly endless parade of Hollywood stars offered their condolences.
It was a Hollywood funeral in every sense of the word. Vanessa Morgan might have been a recluse alive, but dead she pulled out all the stops. The cathedral she’d booked would have seated six hundred, though fewer than fifty A-list celebrities made the cut. Their selection was rumored to have been specified in her will. The lesser stars milled around outside where tents had been set up for the reception, and TV crews vied with one another for the biggest remaining names to interview.
Peter and Ben were in the church. Ben Bacchetti was invited as the head of production at Centurion Pictures. The studio had long since buried the hatchet with Vanessa, honoring her with a lifetime achievement award on the occasion of her seventy-fifth birthday. Vanessa had accepted, on the condition that her age not be advertised as the reason for the award. Peter was invited as the stepson of Vance Calder, an Academy Award–winning actor in his own right, who had acted opposite Vanessa in two of her final films. Hattie and Tessa, discreetly gorgeous in black, accompanied their husbands.
Teddy could have attended as a Centurion producer, but
Billy Barnett was on vacation, and he couldn’t justify showing up as stuntman Mark Weldon. Still, he had taken note of the passing of one of Centurion’s largest stockholders, and, according to Kenny in Accounting, one of the least likely to sell. While the police were not treating her death as suspicious, Vanessa Morgan had not died from natural causes; she had drowned in her bathtub, and, according to the home aide who found her, her home security system had been turned off.
* * *
—
Gerard Cardigan watched it all from a distance. He saw Tessa Tweed Bacchetti arrive with her husband and friends and go into the church, and he saw her come out at the end of the service and climb into a limo. He was glad to see the Barringtons and Bacchettis go. He did not want to trip over them today.
Gerard mingled with the crowd until the A-list celebrities had gone and the TV crews were packing up. Then he snuck up on Tyrone Flynn, who had ducked furtively around the corner of the church. Tyrone had just unscrewed the top of a gram bottle of coke and was tapping a line out on the back of his hand. Gerard waited patiently until he snorted it and had the cap back on the bottle before he cleared his throat.
Tyrone jumped.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” Gerard said. “I’m sorry for your loss. Drowned in her bathtub, I understand. Terrible thing.”
Tyrone was wary, probably took him for a narc.
“I’m a big fan of your mother’s,” Gerard said. “Seen all her films. On Turner Classic Movies, of course. I’m much too young to have seen them on release.” He indicated the church. “Big turnout. Lavish event. Specified in the will, I suspect. Even the most devoted son would choke on the cost.”
Tyrone frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“I did my college dissertation on the deaths of movie stars,” Gerard said. He was, of course, making it up out of whole cloth. “Your mother hung around too long to make the cut, but I studied her at the time.”
Tyrone’s head was coming off. “Look, I need to get back.”
“Satisfy my curiosity first. A movie star of her age, richer than God. Usually they don’t leave it to family—they hold a grudge for some imagined slight, leave it to charity instead, usually with their name attached. The Vanessa Morgan Grant. The Vanessa Morgan Hospital for Special Surgery. And the cost of the funeral eats into what would be going to the heirs.”
Tyrone exhaled impatiently. “Do you have a point?”
“They usually leave the stock to the family, though. That’s the saving grace. Of course, it takes a while to convert stock into cash.” Gerard smiled. “I imagine you’ll be needing cash.”
15
Mason Kimble loaded the video into Final Cut Pro. It popped up in the directory as Untitled. He double-clicked on it, and the footage appeared in the preview screen.
“How much are you going to use?” Gerard Cardigan said.
“Just a clip, a teaser. Enough to prove we have footage she wouldn’t want going public. A good clip, though.”
Mason clicked Play and they watched the video of Tessa Tweed again. He stopped it on the money shot, backed up a few seconds, and marked the clip. Then he ran it forward a few seconds past the spot where he’d stopped before, and marked the clip again. He clicked on the section he’d marked, and that short segment jumped down into the timeline of the film. He clicked on that and played the segment in the viewer screen.
“And that’s it,” he said. He loaded a blank disc into the computer and copied the clip. “Now we play that back to make sure it transferred.” He ejected the disc, fed it into a DVD player, and played it back. “Beautiful.”
He ejected the disc, wiped any fingerprints off it, and slipped it into a white paper sleeve.
“Now we delete this entire project from Final Cut Pro without saving it, and it’s as if it’s never been here.”
Mason deleted the project. He picked up the disc. “And we are left with this marvelous preview of coming attractions.” He slipped the disc sleeve into a padded manila envelope. Then from a plastic shopping bag on his desk, he removed a brand-new cell phone, wiped it clean, and put it in, too. “Now, there’s a pretty package.” Mason extended it to Gerard. “Would you be so good as to see that the young lady gets it?”
“Do you want to put her name on it?”
Mason smiled. “Oh, she’ll know who it’s for.”
16
Tessa Tweed was feeling good. The scene she’d just filmed with Brad had gone superbly. It was sensational, an emotionally charged tour de force that was the spine of the picture. The type of scene that makes or breaks a movie.
Brad, for once, had stepped up. He’d forgotten he was acting, and let her lead him along. The result was one of the finest scenes shot on a soundstage in a long, long time. The crew had actually applauded.
Tessa skipped up the steps of her trailer, giddy in the elation of the moment.
Just inside the door was a padded manila envelope. There was nothing written on it, so it might have been dropped there by a production assistant, but Tessa didn’t think so.
Tessa snatched up the envelope and found it heavier than she expected. She sat in a chair in her kitchen nook and dumped the contents of the envelope out on the tabletop.
It was a cell phone and a DVD.
Tessa picked up the cell phone.
It rang.
Tessa was so startled she dropped it. She reached out to grab it, but hesitated.
Whoever had sent the phone was watching.
She ducked down out of view and approached the window. She carefully flicked the curtain to the side and peeked out, but could see nothing suspicious, just the typical activity on the lot. Nobody who seemed out of place or who appeared to be watching her trailer, but with so many people milling around in a constant flurry of activity, it was hard to tell.
The phone rang again. She snatched it up and pressed the green icon accepting the call. “Hello?”
“Hello, Tessa.”
“Who is this?”
“You know who this is, and you know what I want.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I’m the man who sent you the phone.”
“Yes, but . . . ”
“But what? That’s all you need to know. I sent you the phone, and you’re going to do exactly what I say.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Don’t be hasty. Play the video,” Mason said, and hung up.
* * *
—
Tessa had a flat-screen TV mounted to her wall, connected to a Blu-ray player concealed in a cabinet.
She opened the tray on the player, put in the disc, and pressed Close.
The player roared to life, and an arrow filled the screen. Tessa picked up the remote and pressed Play.
It was worse than she’d thought. Tessa sank down in her chair and buried her head in her hands.
17
Tessa pulled Teddy into her trailer. One look at her face told him all he needed to know.
“Another letter?”
“Worse.”
“In what way?”
“A cell phone and a DVD.”
“How were they delivered?”
“A padded manila envelope left inside my trailer door.”
“Anything written on it?”
“No.”
“Any note inside?”
“No, but the cell phone rang as soon as I took it out.”
“Really?” Teddy said casually, but that concerned him. The man would have had to be watching the trailer to know when to call. A blackmailer was bad enough, but a stalker was something else. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘I’m the man who sent you the phone and you’re going to do exactly what I say.’ I told him I wasn’t, and he told me to ‘play the video.’ So I did. It was awful. The photo was almost benign, just a hint of
what they might have. But the video . . .”
“Did they send the whole tape?”
“Just a few seconds, but that was enough. It was so . . . revealing.” Tessa shivered. “I felt violated.”
“Well, there’s a silver lining. The man was a potential danger, but you didn’t know how much. Now he’s shot his bolt and revealed his leverage. He’s got nothing more.”
“Are you crazy? He can make it public.”
“He’s not going to do that. Where’s the cell phone?”
Tessa pointed to the kitchen table. “That’s it.”
Teddy slipped it into his pocket.
“What if he tries to call me again?”
“He won’t, at least not on that phone. He still hasn’t asked you for anything. At the moment he’s just getting off on scaring you, manipulating you, making you think you’re in his power. That’s all this is about. Dominance.”
Tessa shuddered again. She took a breath. “At least . . .”
“At least what?”
“It wasn’t Nigel.”
“What?”
“Now I’ve heard his voice. And it wasn’t Nigel.”
“Right,” Teddy said, but he didn’t buy it for a moment. Nigel might not be the voice on the phone, but he could still be behind this. In any case, he was the source of the video.
Despite what Tessa might think, Teddy planned to set his sights on Nigel.
18
Teddy called Mike Freeman at Strategic Services. Mike knew Teddy’s background and had once offered him a job. The offer was always open.
“Hi, Mike. It’s Billy Barnett.”
“Oh, is it now?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I understand you’re a movie star these days.”
“How do you understand that?”