Bloody River Blues

"I don't exactly know," Lombro said stridently.

"You're in the real estate business?"

Lombro reached toward his knee and picked a piece of lint from his slacks. "And I've been in that line long enough to understand when an offer is about to be made."

"You know," Pellam said, "they have this service in some states. It's called the crime victims' reparation fund or something like that. You ever hear about it?"

"No."

"When someone's mugged or raped they get some money. Somebody gets killed, the family gets it."

"And you're suggesting I pay you something." Pellam hesitated, then he laughed. "Yep. Exactly."

"How much?" Lombro opened his drawer. Then, perhaps deciding a check might not be the way to handle something like this, closed it again.

"I'm thinking mostly of the policeman that got shot."

"Whatever. How much did you have in mind?"

"He's paralyzed, the cop. He'll never walk again. Life's going to be pretty expensive for him. Housekeepers, special cars.

And by the way, I got fired thanks to you."

Lombro looked up from his shoes, which he now planted on the carpeting? "I am being very honest when I tell you that I didn't want you hurt and that I didn't want anyone to die except Gaudia. I hope you agree I had a… well, an honorable motive for doing what I did. I don't think you'll hurt me."

"No," Pellam said, "I don't have any intention of hurting you."

"You can, of course, go to the police and tell them what happened. But what it really comes down to is my word against your word. I've been involved in plenty of litigation. Lawyers call cases like this a liar's match. Who believes whom? I think I stand as good a chance of being believed as you do. I'm influential in this town. I'm one of the few businessmen still able to pay taxes, which I do in great abundance. I'm well known in the assessors office and in city hall, too. So, although I sympathize with you and your friend, you don't really have much leverage. I'd consider ten thousand for each of you."

"Nope, that's not enough." Pellam took a small cloth square from his pocket and dropped it on the desk. "Take a look." Lombro unfolded the handkerchief and looked at the business-card case inside. He opened it up, shrugged, and dropped it back on the handkerchief. Pellam scooped the case up and put it in his pocket.

"And who," Lombro asked, "is Special Agent Gilbert?'

"He's the man buried in the foundation of one of the buildings you're putting up. A project outside of St. Louis. Foxwood.

I get a kick out of those names for condominiums. Stonehenge. Windcrest. Do people really-"

"What? There's no one buried in-"

"And sad to say, he'd been shot with a gun that's buried in your yard at home."

"Impossible. I don't own a gun."

"I didn't say you own a gun. I just said the gun was buried on your property."

'This is nonsense."

Lombro's silver face flushed and his eyes darted. A distinguished man made common. A powerful man, impotent. "Your policeman friend. Is he helping-" Lombro stared at Pellam's jacket pocket. He whispered, "And I just put my fingerprints on his ID card, Didn't I?"

"Not to say they'd convict you. But Agent Gilbert was involved in the Gaudia murder. He threatened me and my friend."

Pellam added, "And I'd feel obligated to being a personal acquaintance of the U.S. Attorney. I'd feel it was my duty."

Philip Lombro looked out the window at the brick of the building across the way. He glanced down, licked his finger, and lifted a fleck of paper or dust off the heel of one of his shoes, black cherry, tasseled Ballys, polished like dark mirrors. Pellam started to speak but didn't. He paused, staring at the shoes, frowning as if he'd seen them somewhere before but was unable to remember exactly where.

Tony Sloan was still not, in general, speaking to Pellam using the strongest language Pellam had ever heard him but he made an exception to explain that because the machine guns had been released and the ending of the film was successfully in the can, half of Pellam's fee would be released. The rest Sloan was retaining to help defray the cost of the delay.

"You want to play it that way, Tony, then I'll see you in court."

Sloan had shrugged and taken up the vow of silence again, returning to the editing van, where close to five hundred thousand feet of film and an extremely discouraged editor, awaited the arrival of the director's artistic vision.

Pellam had gone directly downstairs to Marriott's Huck Fi

There he drank Sloan's champagne and ate the catfish tidbits and hush puppies while he chatted with the cast and crew, all of them exhausted from the trials of the final days of the shooting that they did not know, or care, if he was still an untouchable.

He looked over the crowd. He saw the make-up artists in the corner. Nina Sassower was not among them.

Pellam wandered over to Stace Stacey, as exhausted as anyone but still retaining his unflappable good spirits. Pellam handed over the unused wax bullets and the empty.45 casings Stace had loaned him. Pellam nodded at them. "Wouldn't mention this."

Stace pocketed the munitions and touched his lips with a forefinger.

Pellam told him about Sloans holding back his fee. Now on his third or fourth cuba libre Stace was pretty loose.

'Trying to squeeze you, is he? That man is a hundred percent son of a bitch," the arms master said, using the strongest language Pellam had ever heard him utter.

"But you'll work with him again."

"Oh, you betcha. And you'll be in line right behind me."

"Probably," Pellam said.

A woman appeared in the doorway of the banquet room. Pellam recognized her as one of Sloans secretaries. She urgently waved a slip of paper at him. He wondered if Sloan had changed his mind and was reluctantly releasing the rest of the money. Not that it truly mattered. Fifty thousand dollars had just been transferred from Philip Lombro's investment company into Pellam's account at a bank in Sherman Oaks.

"You got this fax, John. It's from Marty Weller in Budapest."

And was apparently just about to be transferred out again, to finance Central Standard Time.

She handed it to him and headed back toward a cluster of actors but got no farther than Stace Stacey, who encircled her waist and rose on tiptoe to whisper something in her ear. She giggled.

Pellam unfolded the fax. It took a whole page of producer-babble for Marty Weller to break the news to him that Tri-Star was going to be picking up Paramount's fallen standard and financing the terrorist script, which Weller would be producing in lieu of Central Standard Time. The Hungarians were going to Tri-Star with him. They asked Weller to say hello to Pellam, whom they felt they knew already and whom they had dubbed the American Auteur. They hoped that perhaps in the future they all might work together on a "clever-scripted, hey knock-em-dead cult film noir project."

Pellam folded the paper and slipped it into his back pocket. He lifted another champagne off a passing tray. He closed his eyes and rubbed the cold flute over his forehead.

Stace returned a moment later. He was without the secretary but the expression on the arms master's face was not that of a rejected man. He smiled agreeably and said to Pellam, Tomorrow morning, let's you and me go shooting, what do you say? We'll take the Charter Arms and the Dan Wesson and shoot up some cans. Maybe they even have rattlesnakes around here."

Pellam opened his mouth to make excuses, but then he said, "As long as I don't have to get up too early, Stace."

"Oh, no, sir. Film's over. We're on vacation now."