Bloody River Blues Page 10

  He touched the incredibly soft orange alpaca over her muscular arm. "The thing is, shootings almost over. All the extras have been cast and they don't make much money anyway."

  "No, no, no." Her face had turned pink "I wouldn't want to act. I don't even like movies. I think they're stupid."

  She doesn't like movies?

  "Oh." Everybody likes movies… "Well, what did you have in mind?"

  "I don't know. I see so many people in town from your company…"

  Thirty-seven cast members from Hollywood. Sixty-two local extras. Seventy-one L.A.-based crew members, sixty-seven from St. Louis, twelve stuntmen, eight drivers, two producers, two caterers, two animal wranglers, one stoolie from the Coast, one high-tech visionary director.

  One location scout.

  "Is there," Pellam asked, "anything you can do?"

  Nina considered this for a minute. The blush was gone and so was her bashfulness. He suspected that beneath the wan Julia Roberts face was a ball-buster of a school counselor. "I can't really do anything other than coach girls' gymnastics and talk to students."

  Pellam squeezed her arm again. "And," he said, "you can make yourself beautiful."

  She sniffed a laugh. "You're flirting."

  "No, I have something in mind," Pellam said. Then he added, "In addition to flirting."

  MISSOURI RIVER BLUES

  SCENE 180A-INTERIOR DAY,

  ROSS'S GETAWAY CAR, cont'd

  ROSS

  When 1 first saw you, you know, it was the night of the dance. It was-

  DEHLIA

  (holding wounded arm) I remember.

  ROSS

  It was hot as a in-line block. You were across the room under that Japanese lantern.

  ANGLE ON Dehlia, hair flying in the breeze. She looks back with LOVE in her eyes.

  DEHLIA

  (gasping) That lantern, it was the one that was busted.

  ROSS

  Sure it was busted and the bulb shone through that paper and covered you in light. That's when I knowed you was the girl for me.

  "Ouch. That's terrible. Don't read anymore, Pellam." Stile and Pellam sat on a river bluff overlooking the Missouri.

  Pellam was looking down at the revised script. He recited emotionally, " "You was the girl for me.'"

  "Pellam," Stile said, wincing. "Please."

  "That's what they say just before they skid into the river. Don't you think that's purty? The hole in the-lantern's a metaphor for freedom."

  "You know what's a metaphor? To keep the cows in. In this case-" Stile nodded toward the script "-it's where the bullshit is."

  "I'll bet in the final scene the cops find the car but not the bodies." Pellam flipped to the end and read. "Damn damn damn, I'm right. Gimme five."

  Stile and Pellam slapped palms and the stuntman limped over to the Yamaha. He had spent the afternoon getting shot with a.45 at close range and tumbling down a flight of stairs. Thirty gunshots and fifteen falls. Then Sloan had changed his mind and decided Stile should fall through a window after getting shot. But the stunt coordinator insisted they postpone the scene till tomorrow and gave Stile the rest of die day off. He had joined Pellam and together they spent the afternoon driving around on the cycle looking for Sloan's big field. "Who was that squeeze I saw you with?"

  "Nina Sassower." Pellam joined Stile at the cycle.

  "Well, that's a name and a half. I haven't seen her around."

  "That's because this is her first day on the set. I got her a job doing makeup. She's pretty good at it."

  "She's also pretty good at kissing and throwing her arms around you."

  It was true, she had been.

  "Casting couch is one thing, Pellam. If you get laid 'cause you got somebody a job as a makeup artist while I fall out of tall buildings and have to content myself with ring around the rosy at night there is no justice in this world."

  Pellam was not, however, thinking of Nina Sassower and her embracing arms. He was obsessed with getting the field. The houses and buildings for the film had been easy, Maddox's economic condition being what it was. The field was another story. It needed a border of dense trees, a road, a river, and a school in a stand of bushes. Also a small cliff for the dramatic crash.

  The best they had found was a small overhang beside a weedy pumpkin patch. To reach the bluff for its dramatic fall, Ross's Packard would have to crash through deep thickets of forsythia and juniper and maple saplings.

  "Very vegetative place, this Missouri," Pellam observed, "and oddly short on fields."

  "I still don't see why you're working for Sloan. Even a whore's got principles. Sort of oil and water is what I'm saving."

  Pellam wiped beads of dew off the face of his Casio. Six P.M. He had to meet Marty Weller and Ahmed Telorian in two hours. "Let's have a beer, call it quits." He sat in the saddle of the Yamaha. Stile pocketed the Polaroid and climbed on behind.

  The wind rose up in sudden chill bursts. The rain had mostly stopped but the streets were flecked with its aftermath-bits of bark and branches-and the air was very damp. A dog with fur spiked by an earlier downpour walked up to them, sniffed belligerently then fled as Pellam kicked over the engine. They sped onto the asphalt.

  "I called Hank," Pellam shouted over the roar, referring to the card-playing attorney retained by the film company. "He said there's nothing I can do about it."

  "Those FBI guys, you mean?'

  "They can interview whoever they want, they can stop production, they can look at all our permits. They can go to Delaware and Sacramento and look at everything the company's ever filed."

  "Wooee, Tony's gonna roast your nuts, boy."

  "He'd just fire me is what he'd do," Pellam said.

  "I don't think he can fire you for not testifying. I'll bet you can sue him if he tries."

  "Yeah, right."

  Pellam motioned toward the river. A mule team of barges slapped through the water beside them. The wind was up and sailors were huddled on the pushing tug. Deckhands stood on the front of the barge, wearing orange vests and speaking into walkie-talkies- presumably to the captain, who stood, three football fields behind, in the pilot house. He wore a suit and tie.

  Stile watched it and shouted, "I love riverboats, yessir. Eighteen fifty-three. The Altona made the run from St. Louis to Alton in one hour and thirty-five minutes. See the lights? That's Alton."

  "How do you know this stuff?" Pellam shouted back over the rattle of the engine.

  "Nobody beat that record for a while. Well, the Robert E. Lee could've, of course. Or the Natchez. Watch the curve there."

  Pellam looked back at the road just in time to make the curve with a skid that didn't even make Stile flinch. They turned off River Road and shot toward downtown. The lights were gassy and brilliant in the mist. "See," he shouted to Stile, "glare everywhere. How could I see anything?"

  Pellam pulled into the discount package store and killed the engine.

  They walked into the green-neon-lit store, went to the cooler, and began fighting it out over Canadian or American beer. Pellam lost the toss and Stile snagged a six-pack of Bud, plunking it down into Pellam's hands. "Gotta take a leak."

  Pellam paid for the beer and wandered outside. He opened a can and sat on the Yamaha, sipping. He looked over at the flat black strip of the river.

  He softly whistled a few bars from "Across the Wide Missouri."

  The siren remained silent until the car was directly behind him, then it burst into an huge electronic howl. The spotlight came on simultaneously. Pellam was so startled, he dropped the beer, spilling a good portion on his jeans. "Goddamn!" He spun around and looked at the car. The doors were opening and two men were coming toward him like G-men about to gun down Dillinger.

  The WASP detective and the Italian detective. Oh, no____________________Them again.

  "Look what you did," Pellam lifted an arm, showing them the drenched Levi's.

  The Italian cop ignored the spill and grabbed Pellam's arm. He cuffed bi
s wrist.

  Pellam stared at the silver chain. "What-"

  The other wrist got cuffed, too.

  "-are you doing?" *

  "You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney." It was the Italian detective speaking.

  "If you can't afford one," his partner took over, "one will be appointed for you. If you waive your right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in court."

  "Do you understand each of these rights?"

  Pellam thought they somehow knew about the' unregistered.45 that was sitting below his butt in the toolbox of the Yamaha.

  "Do you understand these rights?"

  "Sure, I understand them. What am I being arrested for?"

  The WASP cop said, "Sir, we take drunk driving very seriously in our community."

  Pellam closed his eyes. He shook his head.

  "We'll have to give you a Breathalyzer test," the Italian detective said.

  The WASP said, "But I'm afraid we don't have it with us."

  The Italian said, on cue, "We better take him downtown."

  "What's going on here?" Stile, chewing on a piece of beef jerky, walked out of the store.

  "I'm-" Pellam began.

  "Just stay out of this, mister," the WASP cop said ominously to Stile.

  "-being arrested."

  "For what?"

  "For bullshit," Pellam called. He looked at his watch. It was six-twenty. "Look, I have a very important meeting at eight.

  I can't-".,

  "Quiet."

  "No, look, I've got to meet a man in St. Louis-"

  They roughly dragged him to the squad car and, with a furry Italian hand on his head, pushed him inside.

  Pellam called, "Stile, you gotta make a call for me. You gotta call Marty-"

  "All right, that's enough out of you." The door slammed shut. Pellam kicked the front seat furiously.

  "He's a hairsbreadth away from resisting," the Italian cop said to nobody.

  "Where's the station?" Stile asked. "I'm coming down there."

  The cops climbed into the front seat. One of them said, "It's in the phone book. Look it up."

  They drove off leisurely, leaving Stile with a strip of beef jerky in one hand and five cans of beer in the other.

  NINE

  "Listen," said Ralph Bales.

  Stevie Flom was listening.

  "Okay, the man is not happy."

  They sat in a chain restaurant on Big Bend Boulevard in St. Louis. Stevie drank decaf. Ralph Bales was drinking tea, bleached by two wedges of lemon. It was All You Can Eat Don't Be Shy Spaghetti Night. Around them, fat families sat hunched over mounds of food.

  "Not very happy at all."

  Stevie was a punk and rarely gave a shit who was happy and who was not, except that this particular unhappy person owed him a lot of money.

  "So it's my fault?" Stevie said, his voice shrill. The table rocked as he leaned forward and he whispered, "What, I was supposed to let a cop take you out?"

  Ralph Bales held a finger to his lips. "I'm not complaining. Lombro isn't, you know, rational. He thought you should've shot the cop in the leg or something so they wouldn't be so concerned about it. Not the back."

  "Yeah, right, shot him in the leg. Like it's night and I've got a pussy gun and I shoot him in the leg and he feels a little bee sting and turns around and explodes my head with hollow points. Bullshit. I mean, bullshit!"

  The men did not know each other well. They moved in different circles. Ralph Bales was older, fifteen years. He was well connected on the riverfront and probably could have been more of a mover except he ran into some trouble in Chicago, working for the Giancana family. Some money that was supposed to find its way from Cicero up to Oak Park had not made that short journey. Ralph Bales remained alive to pay it back, out of his salary, but his name was suspect in Chicago ever after. So he returned broke to his hometown of St. Louis and found his way into riverfront services and cargo and trucking and finally became a consultant.

  Ralph Bales had in fact been doing some security consulting when he met Stevie Flom. A mutual friend needed some partners to help some expensive Scotch fall off a truck and to move the cases after they touched down. The job went smoothly, though Ralph Bales had been irritated by arrogant Stevie. He found, however, that another person resided inside the young man- Desperate Stevie, who had worked up such incredibly large debts giving his money to casinos and to poker players and to the skirts he humped (nightly, it seemed) that he would do whatever he was told to, provided he was paid for it.

  "Its my fault, you're saying. Suddenly it's all my fault!"

  "You're not listening," Ralph Bales said. "I'm just telling you."

  The weather was cold and wet but Stevie wore a sleeveless tank top. He had good muscles; he liked to show them off.

  "We've got to handle Lombro-"

  "Handle him," Stevie exploded again, though the detonations were softer because he was lifting his coffee to his lips.

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "First, what it means is we don't get paid."

  "Don't get paid?" Back to the high decibels. "Lombro was in the audience too! He should've been looking out for heat, he shoulda honked the horn or something. Fuck!"

  Several parents, worried about their chubby offspring, glanced ominously toward the table.

  Ralph Bales leaned forward. "Look…"

  " 'Listen, look.' You sound like a crossing guard."

  "This man is nobody to fool around with."

  "Well, you look. I'm out five thousand dollars. Which-I've been asking around, all right?-and I find is pretty on the low side for a hit."

  Ralph Bales had told Stevie that Lombro was paying them ten thousand-not twenty-five-to split between them. He looked at the young man with steely eyes. "Who've you been talking to?" he asked in a menacing voice.

  Stevie stopped exploding. He looked down at his cup and poured more cream into it. "Nobody. I mean, I was just asking around, you know. But I didn't mention anything specific."

  Ralph Bales sighed. "Jesus. Don't say anything to anyone ever. Anything. Anyone. Ever. Lombro has connections you wouldn't believe."

  "Deals… connections." Stevie rolled his eyes. He was speaking softly now, though. The look in Ralph Bales's eyes had spooked him.

  "Okay, here's the arrangement. We take care of the witness and Lombro'll pay us everything, plus twenty-five percent."

  "Well, why didn't you just finish it the other day? By the river? We could've waited."

  "Okay, think about it," Ralph Bales said slowly.

  "Well…"

  "Think about it."

  Stevie was too cool and too much of a punk to show admiration, but his smile blossomed. "I get it. You wanted to, like, goose Lombro for more money."

  "You just, you know, go ahead and do things," Ralph Bales lectured. "I thought it out."

  "Twenty-five percent?" Stevie tried to figure the, numbers. What was one quarter of five thousand? Fifty percent is twenty-five hundred. Then half of that? He got lost.

  Ralph Bales said, "Means you walk away with close to seven thousand bucks. Not bad for two days' work."

  Close to seven? Stevie smiled. He didn't want to but he grinned.

  Ralph Bales smiled, too. "Hey, does your buddy Ralph take care of you right? Okay?"

  Stevie said, "I guess it's all right. When?"

  "When what?"

  "When do we do it?"

  "Well, I was thinking about that. I think we ought to wait a day or two. Make Lombro think that we're earning the money.

  I'll call him from time to time and tell him we're close. Like, we've almost found him but we aren't sure."

  Another grin of near admiration on Stevie's face, aimed down into the beige coffee. Then it faded and Stevie said, "But what if, you know, the asshole decides to talk to the rucking cops, what if-"

  "Excuse me, gentlemen." A shadow loomed over them. A large man, his gray hair close-cropp
ed, muscular shoulders in a starched plaid shirt, gazed somberly at the men. He looked exactly like an undercover detective. Ralph Bales's doughy face burned and he felt the exact spot where his Colt rested on his hip. His hand eased toward it as he scanned the three or four dozen families surrounding them. His heart began to pound and it pounded faster when he saw Stevie Flom looking up at the man with a belligerent grin on his face.

  Oh, man…

  Grim-faced, the man said, "Like to ask you a question."

  "Would you now?" Stevie tossed the words at the tall figure. "What'd that be?"

  Don't do anything stupid, Stevie.…

  "I got my children over there." He nodded toward a nearby table. "Would you mind watching your language a bit. I don't know where you're from but we don't talk hat way around here."

  Stevie's grin vanished and his eyes flared. His hand disappeared under the table, where he undoubtedly lad his.25.

  Oh, Jesus, Lord…

  Ralph Bales's face popped out in sweat. He leaned brward suddenly, reaching for Stevie's arm.

  But the young man's hand emerged with his napkin. He wiped his mouth carefully and said, "I'm mighty sorry, mister. Been a hard day. Terrible trouble on the job."

  "That's all right now. For myself, I don't care. It's the kids I was thinking of."

  He turned away. To his back Stevie commanded, "Wait."

  The man turned.

  Stevie paused a moment, then said, "My friend, he'll apologize to you, too." Grinning, he looked at Ralph Bales, who held Stevie's eyes for a minute, then said to the gray-haired man, "Accept my apologies."

  "Surely do."

  ***

  The swing of the car door. The reflection of a streetlight hitting him in the face. The momentum of the case of beer as he tried to grab it. The heavy crash of glass on glass. The grimacing face of the half-bald guy, saying, "Fuck you." Bending down and looking in the car, seeing himself in the window of the car, the beer hemorrhaging at his feet… The Lincoln pulling away.

  That's what Pellam told the detectives.

  One thing he couldn't tell them was the one thing that could have gotten him sprung instantly and on the way to the meeting with Marty Weller and their potential partner-the description of the driver of the Lincoln.