Warren Murphy: Fade to Black

"Do you want me to call someone else?"

"No, no," Lee said hastily. "Tunnels are good. We dug lots of them in Nam."

Lee, who was born two years after the fall of Saigon and whose only knowledge of Vietnam came from his favorite John Wayne film, listened intently to the plan the caller outlined for him.

It sounded almost like a plot synopsis. So detailed-even down to the methods that were to be used for killing the two Anderson females-that Lee felt an involuntary chill.

His only question came at the end, after his would-be employer mentioned once more how important it was that the family be named Anderson. "Where do I find them?" Lee asked. "Anywhere. Try a Maryland phone book."

"Why Maryland?"

The caller was so happily casual it was almost unnerving. "Why not?" he suggested.

After two weeks of legwork, Lee found what he was looking for in his third randomly selected phone book.

It had taken a while to dig the tunnel, but once he was through, the rest worked like clockwork. The murders, stealing his precious Girl Scout beret and sash as trophies, his escape. It was like poetry.

"Congratulations," his employer had said delightedly the day after news of the slaying broke in the papers.

"Just doing my job," Lee bragged. He was back in his New York apartment.

"And you're good at it, man. There's a bonus already on its way. Enjoy it. Catch ya soon." True to his word, the bonus had come by special Taurus studio courier that afternoon. The bag was even adorned with the famous constellation insignia of Taurus.

Lee found it all very strange. Strange enough to think something bigger than a simple multiple murder was going on.

When the film Suburban Decay opened a few days after the events at the Anderson household, Lee Matson began to put two and two together.

The other two similarly strange cases were listed in some of the Anderson articles. The box murder and the coed slayings were said by some to be part of a larger conspiracy. But the three movies that mirrored the real-life events were from a place called Cabbagehead Productions in Seattle. Lee's money had come from Taurus, in Hollywood.

What was the connection? He found the answer in, of all places, a copy of Entertainment Weekly. Taurus was gearing up for the new Die Down film. In the article Lee read, studio cochair Bruce Marmelstein was crowing about the fact that they had snagged hotshot Quintly Tortilli to direct the latest entry in the film franchise.

For Lee, it all clicked in that moment. That voice on the phone was the same one he'd heard on the Jay Leno, Charlie Rose shows and in a bunch of bit parts in a handful of really bad movies. Quintly Tortilli had hired him to murder an innocent family.

He was even more certain when the caller phoned back.

"Hey, Lee, baby. How the fuck are you with explosives?" the man Lee now knew to be Quintly Tortilli asked.

Lee became the front man for Hollywood's hottest young director.

Tortilli called Lee, and Lee called everybody else. Thanks to the Internet and the friendly folks at Radio Shack, Lee was able to construct a rabbit repeater box. With this, he managed to manipulate his phone line's ID just in case anyone got smart and tried to trace all this back to him. As far as he knew, it was unnecessary. It had been smooth sailing straight through hiring Reginald Hardwin-at Tortilli's urging, of course-to assembling the explosives and weapons necessary for the Regency and the White House operations. He had even had a hand in some of the grunt work in Operation Final Cut, the failed attempt to wipe out Taurus Studios.

It was all pretty simple stuff. Tortilli would call Lee with instructions, sometimes send him orders, and Lee would regurgitate the pertinent information to the men in the field. Lee was the go-between that would allow Tortilli deniability if the shit ever hit the fan.

To Lee Matson, it was all a great deal of fun. Plus if the time ever came that he grew bored with their arrangement, he could blackmail Torrilli. With what he had on the director, Lee could clean him out so completely the young Penny Dreadful genius would have to go back to his original job of ushering in a movie theater.

The day of the assault on the White House, Lee was sitting at his old Smith-Corona in his crummy Queens apartment. On the nineteen-inch TV, reporters talked in serious tones about the ongoing crisis in the nation's capital. Lee wasn't really listening to them. As the nation watched with rapt attention, he was hunting and pecking at the old manual typewriter, tongue jutting between his lips in concentration.

Lee was reaching for the Wite-Out when the phone rang.

"Captain Kill," he said, swabbing at the S that should have been a D.

"Hiya, Lee. Me again."

Tortilli. Lee capped the Wite-Out.

"What can I do for you?" he asked, bored. He sucked a bit of the steak he'd had for lunch from his bicuspids.

"Another little job, man. Good press. Bigger than what's going on right now. Should get banner headlines."

"What's the deal?"

"I don't want to talk about it like this," Tortilli said. "I'll fly you to L.A. We'll talk then."

Once the arrangements had been made and Tortilli had hung up, Lee quickly gathered up the pages of the screenplay he'd been working on. He was on the next flight to California.

A Taurus jeep brought him from LAX to a fancy Beverly Hills hotel. The phone was ringing before he'd even given a fifty-cent tip to the bellboy.

"Cap Kill here," Lee announced blandly, lying back on the soft bed.

"How do you feel about assassination, Lee?" the voice of Quintly Tortilli asked.

"In my business, that's just a fancy word for killing," Lee said confidently. "What do you got?"

"I'm going to make you the most famous killer of the new century." Tortilli giggled. "You'll be right up there with J. Harry Osmond and what's-his-name. The guy who killed Reagan." The director was beside himself with joy. Murder talk always sparked giddiness in the young auteur.

"How much?" Lee Matson asked.

"A million up front and a back-end million." Lee sat up, dropping his feet delicately to the floor. He had only gotten a hundred thousand for the Andersons.

"Okay," he agreed slowly. "I'll accept the job on one condition."

"What's that?" Tortilli asked suspiciously.

"Well, I don't know exactly who you are," Lee lied, "but the Taurus jeep, the studio envelopes, the fact I'm here in L.A. I kinda gotta think you're in the movie business somehow."

"And?" Tortilli asked, annoyance creeping into his tone.

Lee cleared his throat. "Well," he began, "it's just that I've got this script I've been working on...."

HOURS LATER, with the promise from Quintly Tortilli of a production deal and screenwriting credit plus executive-producer status, Lee Matson found himself at the loading dock behind the Burbank Bowl. Standing in his fatigues, he watched as the stagehands removed the heavy crates from the back of the Taurus Studios truck. They grunted under the weight.

Tortilli had made all the arrangements on this one. All Lee had to do was flip the switch and watch the world dance.

He'd learned upon his arrival that the day at the bowl had been a frantic one. Management wasn't certain if the unfortunate circumstances back east might keep their most famous guest away. But the crisis had ended abruptly. According to the advance people, he was on his way after all.

Under pressure from the front office, the stage crew was being pushed to get everything perfect. Cursing management all the way, two stagehands struggled to get the first of Lee Matson's two equipment crates to the loading dock.

Lee strolled alongside them, hands in his pockets. He chewed languidly at a thick wad of gum. "You really a musician?" one of them queried, straining to carry the crate. He was looking at Lee's hat.