Warren Murphy: Fade to Black

"What?" Remo asked, annoyed.

"Ggggg ..." Tortilli begged.

"Oh. Save it for after the return trip," Remo advised.

Another swat to the shoulder. Tortilli felt himself spinning back in the opposite direction. The pressure at his neck lessened as the chains uncoiled. In less than thirty seconds, he'd twirled back to the starting point.

"Now," Remo said, dropping the reeling director to his feet, "same question as before. Cabbagehead's backers. And this time, try to limit gratuitous use of the F word."

Quintly's answer was distinctly nonverbal. Grabbing his stomach, the director doubled over. He promptly vomited the churning contents of his stomach onto the pavement. Bile and half-digested Cocoa Puffs splattered the outdoor set.

"Ew!" shrieked an appalled actress, whose naked torso was decorated with oozing rubber stab wounds. Quintly had discovered her behind the counter of a local pharmacy. Long legs smeared with artificial blood recoiled from the vomit.

"Darn," Remo complained. "I always forget the second part."

As Tortilli continued to heave, Remo reached out and pressed two fingers against a spot behind his left ear.

The director's throat froze in midvomit.

At Remo's touch, the retch caught in Tortilli's throat. He waited for a second, expecting it to come. It didn't. Not only that, but the desire to vomit was gone.

Panting, he looked around. The fuzzy world was beginning to take firmer shape. As he swallowed a gulp of sticky saliva, the bitter tang of bile burning in his mouth, one word croaked up his raw throat. "Schoenburg," Tortilli hissed.

"Huh?" Remo asked.

"Schoenburg's a Cabbagehead backer." Tortilli's voice grew stronger. "He's one of the biggest." He massaged his neck where the links from his chains had bitten into flesh. A flash of misplaced enthusiasm sparked in his bugging eyes. "Man, that was some trip."

"Stefan Schoenburg?" Remo asked. "The director?"

Tortilli nodded. "And George Locutus. Damn, you're strong. But you don't even look it. Can you do that thing again?" he asked hopefully. A long finger twirled the air.

Remo ignored him.

Stefan Schoenburg was arguably the most famous director in the history of film. And George Locutus was one of the most successful producers. Together, these two men nearly had a lock on the top-ten most profitable movies of all time. It didn't make sense that they'd have anything to do with a backwater company like Cabbagehead.

"Those two guys must be multimultimillionaires," Remo said. "What do they want with a dippy operation like this?"

"That's nothing," Tortilli boasted. "They're just the two biggest investors. There are dozens more." Tortilli quickly rattled off a few more names. If they weren't immediately familiar, most at least tweaked at the back of Remo's consciousness. Since he wasn't exactly up on all things Hollywood, they had to be famous. The Cabbagehead backers list was like a Who's Who of filmdom.

"Don't they make enough with their own bad movies without leeching off other people's?" Remo said. "What are they doing here?"

"Prestige," Tortilli explained. "Schoenburg was a box-office king for two decades but he wasn't happy till he finally got an Oscar. All of those guys are the same. Some want their first award, some want their tenth. That's Hollywood. It's all about the statue, baby."

Remo frowned. No matter how cutthroat the movie industry might be, he doubted that a man like Schoenburg would kill to extend his fame. That left few other options.

"Do you know of anybody who might have a grudge against the company? A fired employee? Maybe someone who actually paid good money to see one of your movies?"

"I don't handle that shi-" Quintly paused. After Remo's F word comment, he wasn't sure if another curse might incur his assailant's wrath. "That stuff. I'm creative."

"Tell that to somebody who didn't see your big hit."

Tortilli bristled. Then he remembered who he was talking to. "All the critics agreed Penny Dreadful was a great movie," Quintly pointed out meekly.

"It was a lot of great movies," Remo agreed. "I counted about ten before I pulled the tape out the VCR and heaved it out the window. And that was only in the first twenty minutes. You make a guy like Schoenburg look creative."

Skipping around the director, Remo headed back for his rental car. To Remo's great irritation, Tortilli hurried to keep pace with him.

"You've killed people, haven't you?" Tortilli ventured abruptly, bug eyes growing crafty.

"Not today," Remo replied sweetly.

"Wow! You're a real-life natural born killer!" Tortilli shouted, jumping with enthusiasm. "Man, that's so cool."

"I never said that," Remo said, glancing over his shoulder. The people back at the pathetic movie set hadn't heard. Most of the actors were already gone. Judging by their pupils, the apathetic attitude of those actors and crew that remained was chemical in nature.

"You didn't have to say it, man," Tortilli continued, his voice enthusiastic. "It's written on your face. In your eyes. Man, those are the deadest eyes I've ever seen."

As they walked, Tortilli began reaching toward Remo's face. Remo slapped the hands away. "Wowee! I didn't even see you move," Tortilli squealed, his tone a mixture of excitement and awe.

"Keep watching."

Remo doubled his pace. Tortilli jogged up beside him.

"You know, you never asked me if I, you know, actually knew the killers," the director said slyly from Remo's elbow.

Remo stopped dead. The killer's eyes that Tortilli had so admired a moment before became as frigid and menacing as the icy depths of space. "Talk fast," he said coldly.

Quintly registered his tone with some alarm. "I'm not sure I actually do," the director said quickly, raising his hands defensively. "I just hear talk sometimes. I didn't tell the cops, 'cause I don't trust them. But I trust you. Killers are always a lot more trustworthy than regular stiffs. It's a recurring theme in my movies. I can steer the way if you don't mind the most brilliant director in the history of film riding shotgun."

Remo considered this for a moment. He hated to admit it, but Tortilli could be helpful.

With a resigned sigh, he reached out and grabbed a cluster of Quintly Tortilli's chains. "If your voice gets any louder than your clothes, you're riding in the roof rack," he warned.

Pulling the director like a dog at the end of a leash, Remo headed for his rental car.

Chapter 4

His head was little more than a skull covered with a barren sheet of ancient parchment pulled taut. Gossamer tufts of yellowing-white hair above shelllike ears bobbed appreciatively with every birdlike movement of his neck.

Chiun, Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju, the most ancient house of assassins on the face of the planet, was being given a tour of his movie's soundstage.

The finishing touches had been put on the various sets weeks before. To the tiny Korean in his triumphant saffron kimono, they all looked authentic. And beautiful.

"All of the interiors are being shot on this stage," Hank Bindle said to the beaming figure at his side.

"What of locations?" Chiun asked, adding knowingly, "This is a term I have heard many times. It is when a movie goes outside. My film takes place largely in the province of New York in the filthy city of the same name."

"We've got a New York mock-up on a back lot here at Taurus," Bruce Marmelstein explained.

"We've already gotten some pretty good shots there."

"But we've shot in New York already, too," Hank Bindle said to his partner, the cochair of Taurus and the studio's business-affairs manager. Bindle was the creative member of the team. "That part of production wrapped two weeks ago."

"That's right," Marmelstein agreed. "We're all set there."