Soft Targets

Lunch was a set of informal choices between the NBN mobile lunch truck and a caterer's van, both parked outside the mammoth sound stage. Charlie insisted on buying. 'Don't worry about fitting in today,' he said around his mouthful of ham and cheese; 'just get the feel of the place. We're doing all my stuff on the bacidot these days. Find the head, the script girl, and the union steward, and then you'll know where all the power is.' He turned to Gina. 'That place you rented: does it suit you?'

'Three exits, one from the patio,' she nodded, 'and a video monitor to check visitors. Besides,' as though auditioning for Little Women, 'who could possibly be interested in us?'

'Autograph hunters,' Charlie said. 'You two make an imposing pair. I might get you both some walk-ons if you like, Maury.'

'Sy,' Everett said quickly.

'Shit,' Charlie hissed. 'Sy it is. Keep harping on it.' He became his imbecile bumpkin: 'I ain't the quickest study on the set.'

'As for going in front of cameras, we'll decline with thanks,' Everett said, explaining Gina's need to maintain a low profile. 'Face it, Charlie, union scale for bit players is a poor trade for the salary she rakes in now.'

Charlie studied the auburn-wigged Gina with new interest. 'Somehow I thought you had, uh, personal motives.'

Gina bit into an apple, chewed a moment before: 'Mr. Kenton is, as they say, my main man; no reservations on that, Charlie. But let me save you a lot of unasked questions: my client happens to be a very, very dear friend, and that's a bonus. Still, I am not independently wealthy.' She aimed a forefinger toward him to punctuate her next phrase: 'And I intend to be. That means I must think about other clients next year, and the next.'

Charlie blinked. 'You're very direct, Gina. In this business I tend to forget there are people like you.”

'There isn't anybody like her,' Everett chor­tled. 'She'll con you with a candid serve, but look out for her backhand.'

This reminded Charlie of the nearby tennis courts. Before returning to the set, he advised them to get familiar with the self-contained world of the backlot. NBN officials had assured Charlie George that the vast fenced area was secure, far better than a leased location and near corporate offices as well. They had not added that their own security chief disagreed and avoided mentioning the obvious: the backlot was relatively cheap. The new passes gave an added measure of security with their integral electronic ID. It was a measure that diminished geometrically with the issuance of every new pass.

Larry Farquar toyed with his drink after work on Friday evening and assessed the dark roman-nosed beauty through the bar mirror. He had spotted her the previous evening, her huge serious eyes studying a carpenter from Warner's as he tried for a one-nighter that simply was not in the cards. For one thing, the wood-butcher's line was a string of Industry names, dropped like pennies in a trail to his sack. None of those names had done much for the girl, who seemed more interested in the baggy-eyed old NBN guys in the back booth.

But then, the carpenter didn't have the confi­dence of a Farquar, the best damn' electrician on NBN's backlot with a profile just a trifle too three-dimensional to make it through a screen test. Well, Farquar was a star at what he did, and knew that a steady job was as good an aphro­disiac as most girls needed.

Farquar decided the slender, high-breasted girl was not the sort to reveal what turned her on, and this turned Farquar on like a quartz-iodine key light. Genuine or faked, impassivity in ex­otic women was a challenge to be overcome. In­ternally as Larry Farquar moved in, he was buz­zing like a housefly. Leah Talith saw him from the edge of her vision, and waited in the web of her secret smile.

Sunday, Farquar learned from an honest bartender in Burbank that his wallet had turned up minus cash, but with papers intact. He would never know whether he had simply passed out on the bed Friday night, or if the girl had spiked his drink; but whatthehell, she hadn't trashed his apartment or taken his stereo. He retrieved the wallet, saw that his licenses and the new NBN security pass were accounted for, and had a drink to bank the fires of his confidence. He vowed to forget the girl with the dark eyes and the Gioconda smile. If he reported the temporary loss to NBN it would only make trouble. Besides, he had the security pass. How could you copy its electronic ID?

Fat'ah could have told him.

TUESDAY, 20 JANUARY, 1981:

It was midmorning, a week after Guerrero first drove into the backlot to test his forged pass, before Charlie George and his writers were mol­lified with the script. It was a tepid takeoff on an attempted prison break by Raza terrorists the previous week.

The skit had two things going for it: Charlie's Chicano accent was uproarious, and he could do pantomimic wonders as a terrorist sapper trying to wire a bomb and chew gum at the same time. They threw out the line identifying the leader as Irish. It was faithful to the new connections be­tween terrorist gangs, but it was also confusingly unfunny. Charlie fumed inside, wishing Rhone were around to bandage the wounded script. But Rhone Althouse was now ABC. He was also scared shitless.

The caterer's van left Glendale on time as usual, on its normal route. The driver noticed nothing unusual until a few minutes after some idiot girl swerved into the space ahead of him on Glenoaks Boulevard. He heard several metallic impacts as he started away from the stoplight but was not worried until his engine started to overheat.

He managed to coast safely to a stop when the engine seized, the girl in the little sedan now all but forgotten as she extended her lead and dis­appeared into Burbank traffic. He did not see the sedan pass him again, this time with a scarfaced youth at the wheel; he was wondering how his radiator had suffered so many punctures. Neither he nor anyone else had seen Chaim Mar­dor, prone and peering from a slot in the trunk of the little sedan, empty the clip of his small si­lenced target pistol into the radiator of the van.

By low-static FM citizen's band radio, Talith informed Hakim that the baby was sleeping soundly and without complication. She dropped Chaim where his rig was parked in the north end of Burbank, radioed again when they were in sight of the access road that lay between the NBN acreage and a freeway.

Bernal Guerrero replied from the inside of the backlot. All was well at home; the front door had not stuck and the side door would open.

Talith signaled to Chaim with her arm, and both moved over to the shoulder of the road. They took a small calculated risk in stopping, but far greater chances were being taken across the heavy chain-link fence.

The Charlie George crew managed a half-dozen takes before noon and, as lunch vans began their setups at unobtrusive locations away from the exterior set, Charlie's nose directed his eyes toward the new van which advertised hot Mexican food. Charlie's mania for Mexican food had been duly noted by news magazines.

'Okay, it's a wrap,' the unit director called. 'Eat it!' Charlie threw off his prop raincoat, ignoring the free spread by NBN. He drifted instead, with Everett and Gina Vercours, toward the menudo and its vendor, Bernal Guerrero.

Only one side panel of the van was raised, for the excellent reason that one side was rigged for lunch, the other for Charlie and one of his crew.

The comedian awaited his turn. The latino appeared to recognize his patron only at second glance, bestowed a grave smile on Charlie and said, 'For you, Senor Carlito, something special. Bring a friend; there is enough for only two.'

Charlie motioned with his head to his tall blond companion. 'Rank hath its privileges,' Everett muttered to Gina. 'If you're nice, I'll share with you.' She made a face and turned back to study the unfamiliar food. Somewhere in the far recesses of her mind, an alarm chittered for attention. But it was only something about the food, which did not tally with the Mexican dishes she knew. They were, in fact, Panama­nian. Prepared by Guerrero, mercury- poisoned by Hakim. Not that mercury was so lethal; it was really a matter of tradition.

Had Charlie not followed Guerrero to the hidden side of the van, Hakim could have shot him with the veterinarian's tranquilizer gun from inside the van, through one of the thin silvered mylar panels. Guerrero would then have been obliged to take their second hostage, preferably one known to the comedian, with the hypoder­mic. The second hostage was to be, in Hakim's wry parlance, the `demonstrator model'. But the tranquilizer was a recent fast-acting drug, and its dosage was determined by guesswork. Sometimes the target animal died within minutes. Hakim, peering closely through the mylar, poised himself to choose whichever target Guer­rero left him.

Gina turned, started to follow the men, then was rediverted by one of Hakim's deft touches as entire racks of warm lunch items began to spill from the display racks onto the macadam. She rushed instinctively to help minimize