Beating the Babushka Page 5

  “That’s kind of strange.”

  “What did I tell you?” said Grace. “They say it’s sociophobia—fear of people and normal social interaction. Greta Garbo had it. So did Howard Hughes. They say a lot of powerful people get it. But I think it’s just fucking strange.”

  “So Adam’s in charge,” said Cape. “Because he’s there, and his brother’s nuts.”

  Grace nodded. “So it would seem.”

  “Any chance either of them had anything to do with your colleague Tom’s murder?”

  Grace answered without hesitation. “No way.”

  “Convince me.”

  “Because Harry didn’t really know Tom,” she said. “Tom worked exclusively on the big action movies with Adam. And if something goes wrong with this picture, then Adam loses a lot of money for the studio.”

  “How much?”

  “Over $200 million in production alone,” said Grace. “And that’s not including the cost of screwing up the franchise.”

  “Okay,” said Cape. “But I might ask Harry and Adam what they think anyway.”

  “If you meet them,” said Grace. “Angelo may not even allow it.”

  “I can be very persuasive,” said Cape reassuringly.

  “I’m sure.”

  Cape noticed the crow’s-feet around her eyes as he met her gaze. They sat like that for a minute, not saying anything. It was a comfortable silence on the verge of getting awkward when Grace spoke up.

  “Just don’t get me fired, okay?”

  Cape stood up. “You’re the client.”

  Grace stood next to the desk for a moment as if she were going to say something else, then suddenly extended her hand.

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure.” Her grip was as he remembered, strong and firm. Cape walked her to the door and listened as she went down the hallway. He flipped on the overhead lights as he stepped back into his office. He blinked against the sudden glare as he sat down and idly moved some papers across the desk.

  When he heard the footsteps coming back down the hall, he felt a small knot forming in his stomach. Excitement, anxiety, or just the lack of dinner? Cape shook his head and smiled at his own stupidity, remembering Linda’s advice. Leave your white horse in the stable.

  As the footsteps came closer, Cape stopped smiling, discerning the staccato pattern of two sets of shoes.

  Klip-klop, klip-klop.

  Heavy shoes. Two men were coming down the hallway toward his office.

  Or a horse, Cape thought.

  It could be a white horse.

  Chapter Nine

  The first man into the office was bigger than a horse, even a Clydesdale. He actually ducked to clear the frame. The man who came second was average height but seemed as small as a child, as if Cape’s brain couldn’t comprehend the true size of the giant.

  The smaller man wore a dark overcoat, black leather gloves, and a fedora, the kind of hat you saw in gangster movies from the fifties. Cape had always wanted one but looked ridiculous every time he tried one on. Somehow his guest managed to pull it off—maybe it was the unnaturally high forehead. Cape noticed the butt of a medium-frame automatic sticking out from a shoulder holster as the man spread his arms as if in greeting. When the man smiled, the creases alongside his mouth became black crevasses. Cape was guessing this was the bad guy.

  “You are Cape Weathers,” said the man deliberately. “And you are working on movie case.” The accent sounded Russian or Eastern European, aggressive consonants stomping on slippery vowels.

  Cape shrugged, noncommittal.

  “This case,” the man continued, “will be dropped.”

  Cape looked the man in the eye.

  “Was that a question?” he asked. “Because, you know, with your accent it’s kind of hard to tell if there was a question mark at the end of that sentence.”

  “You will drop case.” It was a statement.

  Cape shifted his gaze from the man in the hat to the giant. Leaning back in his chair, he smiled broadly at both of them.

  “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

  Chapter Ten

  Angelo took a moment to adjust the athletic cup so it didn’t show under his trousers. The thing pinched like a lobster when he walked, but why take chances? Angelo believed in being prepared, even if he probably wouldn’t need it today. The boss couldn’t hit the side of a barn after two o’clock in the afternoon.

  Michael Angelo took a lot of shit for his name when he was growing up. Other kids would ask him to paint their ceilings, do their portraits, that sort of thing. What made it worse, years later, was learning that his mother didn’t even name him after the famous painter—she just adored Charlton Heston. She’d seen The Agony and the Ecstasy the night before going into labor and thought Charlton was just dreamy, so the next thing you know, her baby boy is named after some dead painter she’d never heard of until that fucking movie. She briefly considered naming him Moses but thought that might be a little odd, their family being Italian and all.

  These days Michael just went by his last name. His mom—the dumb bitch, God rest her soul—had passed on a few years back, so why put up with the aggravation? And it was very Hollywood. All the big stars were known by a single name, even if they had two to begin with. Arnold. De Niro. Spielberg. Why not Angelo? It was just a matter of time.

  He knocked lightly on the massive oak door and let himself in.

  Adam Berman, co-chairman of Empire Studios, sat behind his desk talking on the phone. He was maybe five-six, with a waistline that reflected his success and a neck that rolled past the collar of his black shirt. When he saw Angelo, he hung up in mid-sentence, grabbed the stapler off his desk, and hurled it across the room. Before Angelo could duck, it slammed against the door behind him and broke in half, staples flying like shrapnel around his head.

  Adam stood and snatched a silver letter opener from a base made of crystal, a gift from a screenwriter. With a snap of the wrist he sent it flying. It stuck in the door, vibrating back and forth like a tuning fork next to Angelo’s ear. He managed not to flinch as his thighs tightened involuntarily around the cup.

  If you show fear it only encourages him, Angelo repeated silently. He’s just like a dog that way. Hold your ground.

  Adam was panting, eyes gleaming with malice. He reached for the nearest thing on his desk, which happened to be an Oscar statue, then hesitated. He reached for the next item, which was a Golden Globe Award, then looked at Angelo standing stone-faced against the door. Glancing at his desk, Adam moved his hand and grabbed an Emmy, cupping it in his palm to test its weight.

  The wings of the Emmy snapped like the tail section off a crashing plane as it hit the door. Angelo winced despite his mantra.

  “You wanted to see me, Mr. Berman?” he asked.

  Adam breathed through his nose, sweat trickling down his forehead. When he spoke, it was a dry rasp, cigars and bourbon mixed with rage.

  “What the fuck is going on?” yelled Adam, the veins in his neck bulging. “I open the paper today and the headline says one of my producers was murdered. Is that correct?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You saying I didn’t read that?” Adam asked, picking the newspaper off the desk and flinging it at Angelo. The pages scattered across the room before they reached him.

  “No—I mean, yes,” said Angelo. “You did read that. But no, that’s not right.”

  Adam was scanning for the next projectile.

  “He jumped,” stammered Angelo. “You remember—Tom jumped off the bridge.”

  “What an irresponsible little shit,” muttered Adam. “Guy kills himself in the middle of a movie—it’s unprofessional.”

  “I never thought of it that way.”

  “If he wasn’t already dead I’d sue the bastard.”

  “He’s definitely dead,” said Angelo in a tone meant to imply this topic had come up before.

  “So this whole movie is riding on Grace?” asked Adam, rubbing the back of his n
eck.

  “Pretty much,” nodded Angelo.

  “So what the fuck is she doing?”

  “Being questioned by the police, apparently.”

  “Why?” snapped Adam. “Did she kill Tom?”

  “Not that I know of—she told me they just wanted to ask her a few questions.”

  Adam sat down heavily, reaching for the glass on his desk. His eyes looked dull, as if he was suddenly bored with the conversation.

  “But we’re still on schedule?” he asked in a tired voice.

  “Well, we might have a problem.”

  Adam swiveled around slowly in his chair, and when he looked at Angelo all the menace had returned to his gaze.

  “We don’t have problems, Angelo,” he rasped. “You have problems to solve. That’s what I fucking pay you for, remember? To solve problems.”

  “Right,” said Angelo, nodding.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “A detective.” Angelo looked at his hands. “Grace has hired a detective.”

  Adam threw back his drink and swallowed in one gulp, baring his teeth as he exhaled.

  “A detective,” he repeated dully.

  “She wrote him a check on the studio’s account,” said Angelo. “So technically we hired him.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Grace insisted,” said Angelo, anxious to deflect heat onto someone else. “Said she won’t be able to focus on the picture if Tom’s death isn’t getting the attention it deserves. She also said she might not be able to keep the production on schedule if we don’t let her do this.”

  Adam sat up in his chair, his eyes wide with disbelief.

  “She said that?” he asked, his voice rising with each word. “She said she might not make the schedule?”

  “Yes.”

  Adam stood, glass still in his hand. Before Angelo could say anything it sailed across the room and caught him square between the legs. There was the sound of glass hitting plastic and Angelo grunting, followed by glass shattering on the hardwood floor.

  Adam raised his arms above his head. “Is she threatening me?”

  “Sure sounds like it,” gasped Angelo, his hands on his knees. The cup had shifted from the impact and was pinching like a motherfucker.

  “That fucking cunt,” barked Adam, pacing behind his desk. “Can we fire her?”

  “Not without paying her contract,” replied Angelo. “I already had legal check into that. Besides, we won’t make the schedule if we change producers at this stage.”

  At the sound of the word schedule Adam stopped pacing.

  “Fuck it,” he said. “Let Grace do whatever she wants. The schedule stays the same.”

  “You sure?” asked Angelo.

  Adam looked at him as if he were a cockroach.

  “Am I sure?” he asked sarcastically. “Do you know what it means if we’re behind schedule?”

  “Money.”

  “Money,” said Adam, smiling. “Do you know how much money?”

  “A lot,” replied Angelo, thinking it was a safe guess.

  “No, asswipe,” snarled Adam. “Not just a lot of money—all the money.”

  Angelo nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “You know what the movie business is, Angelo?” asked Adam.

  Angelo looked questioningly at Adam but declined to comment.

  “The movie business is a game of chess,” Adam continued. “You probably don’t play chess.”

  “Actually—”

  Adam cut him off. “In chess, timing is everything. You move a piece to a position on the board, and it might be genius one moment, but it might cost you the game on your next turn. It all depends on what your opponent is doing. You understand what I’m saying?”

  “I think so,” said Angelo, hoping it wasn’t too obvious he was lying.

  “Let me put it this way,” said Adam, pressing his hands together. “We’re making a summer movie. Do you remember a few summers back—that movie about the talking dog that solved mysteries?”

  Angelo nodded, pleased to finally know the answer to one of his boss’s questions. “Based on an old cartoon.”

  “Right, a movie about a talking dog that solves mysteries, based on an old television cartoon.”

  Angelo laughed. “Pretty stupid.”

  “Stupid?” said Adam incredulously. “You think that was stupid? It was fucking brilliant!”

  Angelo retreated to the safety of silence.

  “You know why it was brilliant?”

  Angelo shook his head mutely.

  “Because of timing,” replied Adam. “They launched that movie during the lull between The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. A dead zone for summer movies, because all the studios were afraid to compete with those two blockbusters. So along comes the talking dog when those shows are all sold out, and it gets every ticket sale for two weeks straight, with no competition.” Adam paused for effect, adding “And it made seventy million dollars.”

  “Wow,” said Angelo.

  “Fuckin-A right, wow,” said Adam. “But you launch that movie two weeks later in the same markets and the same theaters, and you know what happens?”

  “What?”

  “You get crushed. Annihilated. If a movie doesn’t dominate its first week out, you never pick up the slack, because something better comes along to take your place. So all that production cost, all that advertising money, and all the salaries you paid to the actors disappears right down the fucking toilet, just because you screwed up the timing. And you know what you are then?”

  Angelo raised his eyebrows expectantly.

  “Then you’re the asshole that thought it was a good idea to make a movie about a talking dog that solves mysteries,” spat Adam vehemently. “Which has got to be the stupidest fucking idea anyone ever had since the invention of the motion picture.” Adam shook his fists at the ceiling, angered at the gods of entertainment over the injustice of it all. “And your only defense is umm, well, gee—it seemed like a good idea at the time. You’ll never get funding for another movie, and you’ll probably need plastic surgery to avoid being ridiculed every time you go out to dinner. Just because you missed your launch date.”

  Angelo suddenly understood the chess metaphor. “I’ll make sure we stay on schedule.”

  “And make sure that fucking detective keeps his nose where it belongs,” said Adam. “Away from my business and away from my movie. I don’t care who jumped or who got murdered—if someone gets in the way of this picture, I’ll kill them myself.”

  Angelo nodded.

  “Anything else, Mr. Berman?”

  Adam blinked slowly, looking almost reptilian.

  “Fuck off,” he said, dismissing Angelo with a wave of his hand.

  Outside in the hall, Angelo clenched and unclenched his fists for almost a full minute before exhaling. He hated that son of a bitch, but no way was he going to quit this job. He’d worked too damned hard to get this far inside a major studio.

  Taking a deep breath, he walked slowly toward the massive door at the far end of the hall. He may have to eat shit, but no one—not even Adam Berman—could stop him from spreading it around.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I am Major Yuri Sokoll.”

  The man in the black coat took off his hat and held it lightly in front of him. Cape could still see the bulge under his coat, but the gun was no longer visible. The giant had moved to stand directly in front of the door, making it clear that the only exit was no longer available.

  The man in the coat nodded at his companion. “And this is Ursa.”

  Cape grimaced involuntarily as Ursa smiled. He was almost seven feet tall and as wide as the door behind him, his massive head covered in black stubble. Running diagonally from the left side of his scalp to the right side of his chin were three parallel scars, livid tracts of raised flesh maybe two inches apart. The bottom scar crossed Ursa’s lips, giving the first impression that he was swallowing an albino worm. The next broke
his nose in half, compressing the cartilage just above his nostrils. The top and final scar bisected his right eye, which had turned a milky blue, the pupil faded and indistinct. It moved in perfect sync with his left eye, which was black. They followed Cape’s movements the way a shark tracks a seal.

  Cape looked from the giant to the man in the coat, nodding at each in turn.

  “Ursa…Major.”

  Ursa continued to smile, a malevolent grin promising a future of pain. His teeth were perfect, almost blindingly white. Cape smiled back at the giant.

  “Do you floss every day?” he asked. “Or do you use those whitening strips?” Ursa leaned forward, but the Major waved his right hand in a gesture that was part wave and part Nazi salute, and the giant stopped in his tracks.

  “Ursa spent fifteen years in gulag,” said the Major proudly. “Every bone in his body broken.”

  “Congratulations,” said Cape.

  “Then after many years in prison, Ursa is released in Siberia with no shoes, no coat. He begins the long walk home. Two thousand kilometers.”

  Cape glanced at Ursa but didn’t say anything.

  “One night he is attacked by bear—Siberian grizzly, very dangerous.” The Major paused for effect, then splayed his fingers and ran them gently across Ursa’s ruined face. “Ursa kills bear and eats it.”

  Cape had to ask. “Did it taste like chicken?”

  Ursa had no comment.

  Cape figured as long as the Major kept talking, Ursa was less likely to start doing whatever it was that Ursa did, which Cape suspected wasn’t anything nice. “So you guys are Russian?”

  “Of course,” replied the Major, as if the question itself was insulting.

  “How’d you fellas meet?”

  “I am ex-KGB,” said the Major proudly. “It was me who put Ursa in gulag.”

  Cape didn’t know what to say to that. Ursa was smiling again, clenching and unclenching his hands in anticipation.

  “This case you are working on,” said the Major. “It is dangerous.”

  “For whom?”

  “It is dangerous,” repeated the Major, enunciating each word carefully.