"I'm not in Bob Denver's league. So sue me. You're talking to a superstar, not some comedy reject. My films kept this industry afloat during the seventies."
"And we're about to turn the corner into the nineties," Kornflake said flatly. "The parade is marching on. You gotta get on the train or walk the tracks."
Bronzini jumped onto the table. "Look at these muscles!" he shouted, tearing off his jacket and shirt to expose the lean tigerish muscles that had sold fifty million posters. "Nobody has muscles like these! Nobody!"
The men in the room looked at Bartholomew Bronzini's physique, then at one another.
"Think about redoing the script, Bart," Bernie Kornflake said, flashing a good-riddance smile.
"Go piss down your leg and drink from your sneaker," Bronzini snarled, scooping up his script.
As he stormed down the corridor, Bartholomew Bronzini heard Kornflake call after him. He half-turned, his dark eyes smoldering.
Kornflake approached Bronzini fawningly and flashed him a capped-tooth smile. "Before you go, Bart, baby, could I get your autograph? It's for my mother."
When Bartholomew Bronzini kicked the stand down on his Harley again, he was in his ten-car Malibu garage. He walked into his living room. It looked like an art-deco church. One entire wall was covered with custom-made hunting knives. Three of them he had used as props in the Grundy movies. The others were for display. The opposite wall was covered in authentic Chagalls and Magrittes, purchased as tax shelters.
Nobody believed that Bartholomew Bronzini had selected them because he appreciated them too, but he did. Today, he didn't even notice them.
Bronzini sank into his Spanish leather couch, feeling like a man at the end of his rope. Movies were his life. And now the public laughed at the much-larger-than-life roles that a decade ago they had applauded him in. And when he did a comedy, no one laughed. And everyone wondered why this street-kid-turned-millionaire-actor was so unhappy.
Woodenly he noticed that his message-machine light was on. He flipped a switch. His agent's voice boomed out.
"Bart, baby, it's Shawn. I've been trying to get you all afternoon. I may have something for you. Call me soonest. Remember, you're loved."
"I'm fucking half your income, too," Bronzini growled. Bartholomew Bronzini came to life. He lunged for the phone and hit the speed-dial button marked "Agent."
"Yo! Got your message. What's the deal?"
"Someone wants to film your Christmas movie, Bart."
"Who?"
"Nishitsu."
"Nishitsu?"
"Yeah. They're Japanese."
"Hey, I may be having a bad streak, but I haven't sunk to doing cheap foreign films. Yet. You know better than that."
"These guys aren't cheap. They're big. The biggest."
"Never heard of them."
"Nishitsu is the biggest Japanese conglomerate in the entire world. They're into VCR's, home computers, cameras. They're the ones who landed the contract to produce the Japanese version of the F-16."
"The F-16!"
"That's what their representative told me. I think it's a camera."
"It's a fighter jet. Top-of-the-line Air Force combat model. "
"Wow! They are big."
"Damn straight," Bartholomew Bronzini said, noticing for the first time that his message machine had the word NISHITSU on the front.
"They have money to burn and they want to go into films. Yours will be the first. They want to take a meeting with you soonest."
"Set it up."
"It's already set up. You're on the red-eye to Tokyo." I am not going to Tokyo. Let them come to me."
"That's not how it's done over there. You know that. You did those ham commercials for Japanese TV."
"Don't remind me," Bronzini said, wincing. When his film career had started to slip, he accepted a deal to do food commercials for the Japanese market, on the understanding that they never appear on U. S. TV. The National Enquirer broke the story as "Bartholomew Bronzini Goes to Work in Slaughterhouse. "
"Well, that ham company is a Nishitsu subsidiary. They've got their hands in everything."
Bronzini hesitated. "They want to do my script, huh?"
"That's not the best part. They're offering you one hundred million to star. Can you believe it?"
"How many bucks equals one hundred million yen?"
"That's the beauty of it. They're paying in dollars. Are these Japs crazy, or what?"
Bartholomew Bronzini's first reaction was, "Nobody pays that much to any actor." His second was, "What about points?"
"They're offering points."
"Against net or gross?" Bronzini asked suspiciously. "Gross. I know it sounds insane."
"It is insane and you know it. I'm not going near this."
"But it gets better, Bart, baby. They lined up Kurosawa to direct."
"Akira Kurosawa? He's a fucking master. I'd kill to work with him. This can't be real."
"There are a few strings," Shawn admitted. "They want to make a few script changes. Tiny ones. I know you usually get complete creative control, but I gotta tell you, Bart, there may be a lot of fish out there, but this is the only one biting."
"Tell me about it. I just came back from Dwarf-Star."
"How'd it go?"
"It was a bad scene."
"You didn't tear off your shirt again, did you?"
"I lost my head. It happens."
"How many times do I gotta tell you, that won't work anymore. Muscles are eighties. But okay, done is done. So are you on that plane or what? And before you answer, I gotta tell you it's gonna be either this, or you'd better start thinking seriously about Ringo VI: Back from the Dead."
"Anything but that," Bronzini said with a rueful laugh. "He fought more rounds than Ali. Okay, I guess beggars can't be choosers."
"Great. I'll set it up. Ciao. You're loved." Bartholomew Bronzini hung up the phone. He noticed that although the phone said MANGA on it, the corporate symbol matched that of the Nishitsu symbol on his message machine.
He went to his personal computer and began typing in instructions to his flock of servants. He noticed the keyboard carried the Nishitsu brand name too.
Bartholomew Bronzini grunted an explosive laugh. "Good thing we won the war," he said, not realizing the irony of his own words.
Chapter 2
His name was Remo, and, he was going to kill Santa Claus if it was the last thing he ever did.
There was snow falling on College Hill, overlooking Providence, Rhode Island. Big puffy flakes of it. They fell with a faint hiss that only one possessing Remo s acute hearing could detect. The snow had just started, but already it formed a pristine blanket under his feet.
It remained pristine after Remo walked over it. His Italian loafers made no imprint. He walked deserted Benefit Street, as quietly and stealthily as a jungle cat. His T-shirt was so white that only his skinny arms with their unusually thick wrists showed against the falling flakes. Remo's chinos were gray. Snow clung to them in patches so that they too were predominantly white. The camouflage effect made Remo almost invisible.
Camouflage had nothing to do with not leaving footprints, however.
Remo paused in mid-stride and ran his eyes along the silent rows of well-preserved Colonial-style homes with their distinctive glass fanlights. There were no cars on Benefit Street. It was after eleven P.m. Providence goes to bed early. But this week, the week before Christmas, it was not the ordinary sleeping habits of this insular city that made its inhabitants retire early. It was fear-fear of Santa Claus.
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