Warren Murphy: The Final Reel

"There is a great deal of money to be made in video piracy," Smith admitted after Remo was through. "In any event that is beside the point. The symbol is that of Taurus Studios. It is a Hollywood film company that has been floundering for many years."

Remo knew there'd be trouble the moment Smith said the name. Halfway through the word Hollywood, Chiun's ears pricked up. His bald head shot up from his writing, twisting to the phone like a dog on a scent. The twin tufts of gossamer hair above each ear quivered in anticipation.

Remo pressed the receiver firmly against his ear, using suction to block out any further chance of Smith's words reaching the Master of Sinanju.

"Holly Madison." Remo nodded seriously. "Good first lady. Bad cupcakes."

From the corner of his eye he gauged Chiun's reaction. The old man was watching him suspiciously.

"I never really liked them myself," Remo babbled. "Was always sort of partial to Twinkies. Course, all that stuff's like strychnine to me now. You know a single strip of beef jerky'd put me in the hospital for a month?"

As he spoke, he continued to eye the Master of Sinanju. He was grateful when, with agonizing slowness, Chiun lowered his head. Inwardly Remo breathed a sigh of relief.

Smith seemed grateful to simply get a word in edgewise.

"What are you talking about, Remo?" the CURE director asked.

"Don't ask me," Remo said. "You brought it up."

He could almost hear Smith's frown. The CURE director didn't press the issue.

"As I was saying," Smith continued, "Taurus was a failed Hollywood enterprise. Until recently it was thought that it would quietly die out, its film library having already been sold off to the highest bidder. However the studio was purchased by Sultan Omay sin-Khatam a few months ago. There is word now that he has plans to reinvigorate Taurus by making the most expensive film in the history of motion pictures. Although no budget plans have yet been released, he is calling it the greatest epic in the history of film."

Something suddenly clicked in Remo's brain. "Smitty, are you telling me Assola is-" he caught himself, not wanting to alert Chiun "-here?"

"The footage you saw was of Assola al Khobar entering the gates of Sultan Omay sin-Khalam's Taurus Studios."

"So much for old Omay going straight," Remo said.

"That is part of your assignment," Smith told him. "Before removing al Khobar, I would be curious to learn what Sultan Omay's connection is to the terrorist. I have already arranged a flight for you and Chiun."

Remo glanced at the Master of Sinanju.

"Um, it'll be my pleasure to whack this Assholey guy, Smitty, but I think Chiun is going to have to give this one a miss. He's kind of busy right now."

Smith was surprised that Remo would refuse the company. "Very well," the CURE director said. "You should have no trouble handling this alone."

"Piece of cake, Smitty," Remo said confidently. Their conversation done, both men hung up without exchanging goodbyes. When Remo turned away from the phone, he found the Master of Sinanju's hard hazel eyes trained on him.

"There is no such person as Holly Madison," Chiun said, eyes slivers of suspicion.

"Hmm. I wonder whose cupcakes I was eating, then?" Remo mused. "Oh, well, speaking of food, you wanna eat? I'm starving."

Chiun placed his quill delicately across a single sheet of parchment. "We will eat," he said, rising to his feet. "If only to see if you choke out of guilt for lying to the one you call Father."

In a cloud of silent suspicion Chiun padded before Remo out of the room.

Alone, Remo heaved a sigh of relief. He'd jumped the first hurdle. And in spite of what the Master of Sinanju might think, he wouldn't crack. He would absolutely not tell Chiun where he was really going. He was saving them all a lot of grief. After all, it would be impossible to get any work done in California with Chiun hawking his latest screenplay to every waiter and cabana boy in L.A.

As he was leaving the room the pirated videotape atop the television caught his eye. The Taurus Studios logo stared out at him from the spine of the box. It was stupidity on a level he had never encountered before.

"What kind of idiots would use their own company logo on a shipment of illegal merchandise?" he wondered aloud.

This thought on his mind, he slowly trailed the Master of Sinanju down to the kitchen.

Chapter 4

"They were this close," lisped the effete male secretary. He held up a thin, pale hand-index finger and thumb a hair apart. A pointless gesture since the person he was talking to was on the other end of the telephone line. "This close to getting their little bronzed fannies tossed out onto Wilshire without so much as a toodle-oo."

He paused as he listened to his manicurist drone on. Sometimes the man could be such a bore. He adjusted the wire headset on his delicate, bleachedwhite coif as he let the man prate on for more than three whole seconds.

"Well, Nishitsu is the one that put them in charge," the secretary said conspiratorially. "You should have seen it when the studio went eye deep in a pool of red ink. Little Jappos in their tiny little Chairman Mao pajamas running around bowing and screeching at everyone in sight."

The manicurist asked another question.

"I thought so, too, love. But before you could say 'Give my regards to Broadway,' in swoops Sultan Omay with some sort of grandiose scheme to resurrect Taurus. He actually hired them both back."

The secretary listened for a moment before snorting loudly at a remark the manicurist made about the Taurus bull and one of his employers at the studio.

"Too true, too true," agreed the secretary with a girlish giggle. "Only his tailor and a thousand Sunset whores know for sure."

The office door suddenly swung open, and the secretary stiffened in his seat as a pair of men at the fringe of early middle age entered the foyer. "So, five o'clock, then?" he said into the phone. His voice dropped low. "Yes, it's them." His voice rose again. "Perfect, love. See you then."

With a careful stab of a perfectly buffed fingernail he severed the connection. The secretary folded his hands neatly atop his desk as the two men strode past him.

"Any calls?" one of them asked gruffly.

The secretary shook his head. "Uh-uh." He smiled.

The man who asked the question seemed displeased with the response. "What about press? We get any press today?"

"Not in Variety," the secretary replied. With every syllable he spoke it sounded as if he were about to burst into song. He tapped a copy of the trade paper, which was the only other item on the neat desk save his slender high-tech phone.

The unchanged ill humor of the two men clearly indicated that there was no place other than Variety they thought of as legitimate press. They pushed open the glossy glass-and-silver door beside their secretary's desk. Etched into the glass was the legend Hank Bindle And Bruce Marmelstein: Magic Makers. Beneath these words was the logo of Taurus Studios. A small reference to the Nishitsu Corporation had been scratched over by the business end of a set of Porsche keys.

Inside the huge office was as sterile as an operating room. Two gleaming chrome-and-glass desks with matching chrome chairs were positioned on either side of the room so that each was the precise mirror image of the other. The desks faced the glass doors and had been set up beneath a long picture window. The enormous blind that hung before the window was drawn tightly.

A half-dozen framed movie posters were lined up on the wall beside the right desk. The same six posters also adorned the left wall. In this weird mirror image the mates of each poster stared across the room at one another like wallflowers at a highschool dance.

Aside from the desks, chairs and artwork, there was nothing else in the large, empty office. The whole room seemed to be a sort of modern vision of an old sitcom episode where the two stars were fighting. Visitors to Bindle and Marmelstein's Taurus offices half expected to see a line of masking tape running up the middle of the room. In fact, at the end of the Japanese Nishitsu reign and before the Sultan Omay acquisition, there had been.