by Zack
Mike sidestepped the implication. “Clean …?”
Wolfgang made a blowing up gesture with fingers against lips. “Perfuu, after the film is in the can, I don’t care so long as he can do his voice loops … ah, unless of course there is a sequel, but I’m thinking this is a brücke we cross later.”
Mike hurried back to the star apartments block, worrying at the director’s unstated reference to Nathan taking drugs. I hope the little bastard’s got himself together.
The morning hadn’t begun well when Lewis the Drive delivered his charge fresh from the gym, only sandwiched between Lewis and the burly minder Mike knew only as Greg, Nathan looked less like a kid who’d just done a workout than some thicko swimming up from a session with a plastic bag and a tube of glue. When he’d questioned the chauffeur he just got a shrug and a surly muttered, “Not my problem. I just drive him.” Greg, it seemed, didn’t talk.
Steph arrived at that moment with a sheaf of script pages, some yellow ones inserted. “Today’s changes,” she snapped. “Where is … oh. Right, Nathan, come on, we’ve work to do.” She threw Mike a what-now? look and dragged Nathan off into the make-up area.
Mike turned on Lewis. “You’re paid by his management to bring him from home to the studio and back again. So where’s he been in between?” He glowered at both men.
Lewis inclined his head as though he had a crick in his neck, then straightened and pressed Mike up against the wall beside the door with heavy hands. Mike’s eyes flew wide in surprise, but Lewis’s narrowed. “I’m retained by the studio, dipshit. That Kraut director didn’t want no one from the brat’s ‘family’ involved. It’s part of the deal with First Met. So.”
He stood back. His last short word carried a freight of meaning, like: lay off; mind your own business; don’t blame me for anything; and—Mike thought significantly—don’t get in over your head. But Mike knew it was his business. It’s what he got paid for.
“So …” he said, dragging it out, “exactly who hired you if not Nathan’s management?”
Lewis tucked his chin in tightly. “We’ll be in the commissary, as usual, when he’s ready to go back.”
As Lewis the Drive sidled off down the corridor, Greg gazed blankly at Mike for a second, and then scowled ferociously before he turned and followed the chauffeur. A nasty suspicion crossed Mike’s mind—in fact a certainty. He went through to where Steph was doing her best with an uncooperative Nathan.
“Thank goodness you’re only in background shots this morning, kiddo. I’ll have another go at you after the lunch break for the close-up work. Tell you what, Michael, I’ll come back when you guarantee me he’ll be helpful.”
Mike waited until the make-up artist had gone out. He leaned on the boy’s shoulders and fixed him with a glare in the mirror. Nathan smiled lazily and leaned his head back against Mike’s chest.
“Hiya, Mike. Any new lines to learn this morning?”
“What are you taking and where are you getting it?”
“Aw, don’t be mean.”
“You’re out of your box, Nate—”
“Cos I’m in lurve …” he fluttered his part made-up eyes at Mike in the mirror. The naked lamps around its perimeter showed clearly the pin-point pupils.
“Why?”
“Why’m I in lurve … Cos you’re so …”
“It’s coke, isn’t it? Do you snort the stuff when you’re on tour, singing?”
An element of acuity flickered across Nathan’s face. “You kidding! You think Mister and Missus Leviathan let me anywhere near candy? My loving, caring, dear parentals promote the rock’n’roll but don’t let me live the lifestyle. No way, man. Nathan Cliffe, he’s a clean-living boy, is Nathan Cliffe.”
“So why now?” Mike persisted.
In the mirror, Nathan lifted his gaze to Mike, struggled to make sense of his thoughts, and mumbled, “I’s the stress.”
Mike realized he was rubbing Nathan’s ears and stopped. “When you’re on a stage, singing in front of thousands, surely that’s stress?”
Nathan puffed out a short breath. Mike could see him trying to put his thoughts in order, but what came out surprised Mike with its coherent strength. “They’re out there in the dark, can’t really see them. And there’s the band around me and the monitors throwing the sound back at me. I dunno … when the stage lighting’s whirling, the amps shouting and I’m dancing over my mic … I get lost in it. But that thing out there, that huge thing with a lens on the front, it’s seeing right into me. Right through me. If’n I fuck up on a gig, the fans are screaming so loud they can’t hear anything wrong. Out there, in the studio, it all has to be … fuckin brilliant. Everything. Every time. And if I get it wrong, I can see Wolfie’s look when he says with that weary voice to go for another take. And the actors … they’re all looking at me and I know what they’re thinking. ‘Little dipshit,’ that’s what they’re thinking.” He put on a posh lah-di-dah voice. “‘All the hard work we put in at drama school and repertory theater and he just marches in and gets the lead part. Thinks he’s an actor, hah!’ I see it in their eyes.”
That was when Mike checked the time. “Please, Nate. Get your shit together, and be ready in a few minutes. I’ll go and stall Wolfgang for you, but only for a few minutes. Got it?”
“I don’t know …”
Mike laid his head alongside the starling’s. “I’m no Orson Welles or a Stan Kubrick, but if you want my humble opinion, when you’re out there in front of that thing, you act the socks off the others. So, for me? Please?”
Nathan smiled slowly. “Anything for you, Mikey, s’long as you take me home with you tonight.”
After Henze’s lambasting, when he returned from smoothing the director—at least, he hoped he’d eased his ire—Mike found Nathan looking like he might manage to get out on set. “Nathan, does Mundy mean anything to you?”
The boy tried for a small grin, but his teeth got in the way. “Day before Tuesday?”
“Gerald Mundy.”
“Oh … him.”
“It’s him you’re buying the cocaine from, isn’t it?”
Nathan looked puzzled for a second. “I’m not buying anything.”
It was Mike’s turn to look baffled. “Don’t lie to me. I can tell you’re high.”
“Hmm, but I’ve been getting some for free. Not much, just a bit.”
Nathan’s words froze Mike. He couldn’t believe Mundy ever gave anyone anything without a payment … of some sort. “Why would Mundy do that?”
Nathan shrugged. “Hadn’t I better get out on set? I don’t know. He just called me into that office of his a couple of weeks ago, kind of chatted about the weather and this and that, and then gave me a little packet of stuff to see how I got on with it.”
Mike’s mind boggled at the thought of Mundy discussing the weather. The man has an angle. Has to. But what? What’s the nasty piece of work up to now? Feeding the kid drugs was tantamount to destroying the production. The world at large might see in Nathan Cliffe, boy wonder, a sophisticated performer who was presumed to get up to everything rock’n’roll traditionally involved, including almost certainly every consciousness-heightening substance available. But Mike had discovered Nathan barely touched alcohol and had clearly hit nothing stronger than a schoolboy spliff before running into … Mundy. In truth, Nathan was immaculate (sex apart …) and, according to his own description which Mike believed, totally wrapped up by his parents in hand-picked security details, not even allowed to socialize with his own band members beyond a few snatched moments before and after a gig. A totally spoiled-rotten brat who demanded whatever he wanted and got it—but innocent nonetheless.
And Mike realized that he wanted to save Nathan for a lot more than that it was his job, perhaps his career, on the line—the impudent punk had gotten under his skin. He cast his mind back over the few visits he’d had to make to Mundy’s office. For such a suspicious bastard, Mike recalled, the fixer was pretty careless with his keys, which he us
ually dumped on the assistant’s desk in the outer office. Mike wondered if there was any chance he might get hold of them and have a good look around one night when Mundy had gone to whatever den he lived in. See if he kept any stashes there that would be a serious embarrassment if the police were tipped off. No … it’s a mad idea.
“Mike tells me you’re an expert on Thunderbirds.”
Trevor turned his green searchlights in a sweep from the Nagra he was monitoring across the Rex Sound Facilities transfer suite until they came to rest on Gil. He stood to one side, leaning on the receiving counter. They were alone, the boss out and the other engineer making a delivery. “This is apropos Falcon Fury? What are you after?” Satisfied the tape transfer to magnetic film was running smoothly, Trevor stood and went over to lean next to Gil.
“Just a feel for the kind of plot setting they like. I’ve been using modeling … Plasticine, I mean, to make miniature sets so I can get a spatial feel for the scenes.”
“Kind of appropriate,” Trevor interrupted. “For a puppet show, I mean, making models?”
“Oh, yeah. Hmm. Yeah.” Gil frowned. “Funny that, Mike asked if he could take a wad of the stuff with him this morning. Must be something he’s trying out at the studio. Anyway, I got my first script sort of together, but that was based on a spec. I want to try some synopses, some program ideas. I watched a couple episodes of Thunderbirds, and I know this’ll be different from Thunderbirds, but what were the vehicles like?”
Trevor slipped a hand into Gil’s donkey jacket pocket and pushed down to cup his crotch. Gil smiled and let him have a feel. “Oookaay … Thunderbird 1 is a hypersonic rocket plane with variable-sweep wings. Makes a mobile control base and gets to disasters fast. It’s piloted by Scott Tracy, and if you’re into puppets, he’s one hot property with a hard-on for disaster … mmm. Next there’s Thunderbird 2, piloted by Virgil Tracy. That’s a vertical take-off and landing supersonic carrier, a sort of toolbox, which transports the rescue equipment. Thunderbird 3, piloted by Alan Tracy, is a phallic spacecraft which travels between the base and Thunderbird 5, the geostationary space station from which John Tracy monitors Earth for SOS transmissions. And Thunderbird 4, controlled by Gordon Tracy (bit of a bore, him), is an amphibious craft for underwater rescues, carried in Thunderbird 2.”
Gil was astounded. He tried to recall ever having heard Trevor utter more than a single sentence before and failed. One thing he’d said puzzled Gil. “In what way is Gordon Tracy a bore?”
Trevor kept a straight face as he worked Gil’s dick. “His acting is wooden.”
It took Gil a second and then he snorted with laughter. “You are what Mike would call ‘a caution,’ Trev. So the characters are pretty much defined by the vehicles they control?”
“You’re hard. Can I give you a head job?”
Gil swallowed, but whatever he might have said, it went by the board when the entry door clicked open and Nola stuck her head in.
“Oops, sorry boys. Am I interrupting?” She strode in, a slender tower of tight denim, with every obvious intention of seeing what they were up to. She came around their side of the receiving counter.
Trevor huffed slowly. “I was in the process of warming him up, actually.” He removed his hand from Gil’s pocket and brazenly pulled apart the jacket at the front before Gil realized what he was up to. Nola gave an admiring laugh as Trevor grabbed Gil’s hard dick in his jeans and showed it off.
“Sorry about that, guys. Unfortunately, my dear editor is desperate for that transfer you promised this morning.”
Gil had nothing to say in his blushing state. Trevor released him and went across to the Nagra. Gil hurriedly covered himself up. Nola winked at him conspiratorially.
“It’s cooking. Should be about another … four or five minutes. Oh …” he swiveled on his heel. “Weren’t you looking for another assistant?”
Nola nodded. “Mmm, they’re a bit behind schedule and the producer wants to speed up. Why?”
Trevor indicated Gil, whose cheeks had subsided to a becoming flush. He cocked an eye.
“What?”
“There’s your man. Gil could do with the work.”
Nola raised an eyebrow. “I can certainly ask, if you can handle a Pic-sync and a Steenbeck … and have an orderly mind for trim filing.”
“Oh, er, sure, I can do that, but what about the union? Won’t they have something to say about an American getting a British job?”
Nola waved an airy hand. “It’s the BBC, dear boy. Well, actually it’s a production company working for the Beeb, so ACTT rules don’t apply. Besides, trust me, they’re not paying union rates, so it won’t make you rich. It’s down to my editor fella. I’ll ask him. If he says yes, you’ll go on the production company freelance payroll for however long we have left. A few weeks, anyway.”
Gil looked taken aback. The work wouldn’t prevent him writing evenings and weekends, and at least he’d be contributing something to the household income. “Gee, thanks. Yeah, I’m up for it.”
Trevor sidled back and smiled slyly. “And you’ll be just next door, so you can always pop in to have your lunch with me.”
Nola guffawed and slapped her thigh. “Just as long as you keep your hands off his lunchbox, Trev.”
Gerald Mundy sat back in his swivel-swing chair and pursed his podgy lips. To Mike he resembled a fat toad and reminded him of a pre-production still he’d seen in a magazine for the Return of the Jedi horror, Jabba the Hutt. “I know you,” he growled, and narrowed his eyes to a squint. “Yeah, Rosen’s last fuck-puppet. I remember. Smith, isn’t it? I saw your name on the Terry Blood crew list, but it’s such a stupid common name, I didn’t link it to you. What do you want?”
Not many things frightened Mike. He’d come up through the school of hard knocks on the street, though he tried to keep his past in a separate compartment of memories. Meeting Gil and falling head over heels in love with the American had been Mike’s redemption. It had also precipitated the open break with James Rosen. No, Mike could stand his ground against most people, but James Rosen frightened him, and his former associate Gerald “Fixer” Mundy terrified him. Rosen, terminated by a Miami drug cartel, no longer posed a threat, but Mundy did. Still, Mike felt driven to do something toward protecting Nathan, if he could.
“Mr. Mundy, sir. What’s with Nathan Cliffe?”
Mundy’s chair creaked in protest as he rocked slightly forward. “Who says there’s anything with him and what’s it to you anyway?”
“He’s getting hold of … drugs. And he’s my charge. I have to get him on set and make sure he’s in a position to act his part.”
Mundy pushed back until the chair banged against the wall behind and somewhere deep in its cushioning it wheezed in resignation. The wide slit of his lipless mouth grew even wider. “I’ll have to keep an eye on the boy. Make sure no nasty person on my pitch is feeding him illegal substances.” His eyes almost disappeared in the creases of orbital flesh. “And I’ll be keeping an eye on you, too, Mister Smith. You’ve been bothering the boy’s chauffeur. You’re an interfering kind of guy. I don’t like busybodies. Now fuck off. I’ve work to do.” He looked beyond Mike and raised his voice. “Fenton, get in here.”
Mike wasn’t really sure why he’d confronted the bastard, other than it seemed like a good idea when he thought of it. And anything further he might have said, Mundy cut off by sweeping up his phone and punching numbers. A hand grasped Mike by the elbow. He turned and let Mundy’s assistant tug him from the office, swiveling on his heel to remonstrate and unhand the man. Fenton pushed the inner door shut in Mike’s face. Not for the first time he wondered what on earth it was Mundy actually did at the studio complex. One thing he was sure of, Gerald Mundy had set up the conditions for Rosen’s murder, so he was capable of anything.
And that’s when he saw the ring of several keys lying on Fenton’s desk.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In the Cock Pit
“Darling, I really had
no idea that Luton actually existed! I thought it was a figment of fevered imagination.” Aiden Parnell gave a perky smile of defiance at them all. “And trust me, if it didn’t have an airport and a cheap connection to Amsterdam, I never would have known … or wanted to.”
“You need to get out a bit more, Aiden,” Mike said, patting the porn publisher on the shoulder.
Aiden gave a theatrical shudder and blew out a stream of Dunhill smoke into the cool air of busy Warmoesstraat. “I am extremely happy wrapped up in London, thank you … and New York, and yes, Amsterdam. Preferably wrapped around someone. I have never held that the provinces are much use to anybody, apart from pig farmers, maybe.” He gave a nervous chuckle and gripped Peter’s thick body builder’s arm.
It had been Aiden’s idea to ask Mike and Gil if they would go with him and Peter for a weekend break in the Dutch capital. Aiden had some work connections for one of his magazines and felt like the company. It worked for Mike because Rupert Kinder and Sam Styles had given cast and crew a long weekend after a strenuous schedule, which incredibly had put them a few shooting days ahead, and Gil didn’t start his assistant film editing job the next Tuesday. Besides, as he’d joked, it would be a good opportunity to show off some of the newly acquired t-shirt replacements for those left behind in Marrakesh—at least once they were indoors and out of Amsterdam’s canal-damp cold.
“I hope this club is going to be a success, darling.” Aiden looked severely at Peter, who just shrugged. Aiden lit another Dunhill with his right hand while Peter deftly removed from his left hand the one he’d been smoking and tossed it down a drain covering. Aiden turned to address Gil as Mike was out of his sight on the other side of Peter. “It’s the trouble with these naughty bisexual boys …” he tugged Peter’s arm. “They feel more comfortable if there are a few women around. I can’t see it myself, but there you go.”
“I read about it in one of those ‘underground’ newspapers. It sounded like fun.”