'Then why does Michael Fallon want to make it?'
'Fallon's also some kinda Grand Pooh-bah in the Singh Church of Meditation and Herbal Healing. He's a minister and a true believer. He worships Rajindi Singh. They go on retreats together. He's as nuts as the writer. Are you getting the picture, bubee? This is lose-lose. The script is uglier than a hemorrhoid cluster.'
'Cine-Roma is going to option it.'
Nicky groaned.
'If Michael Fallon wants to make The Neural Surfer, he'll work for us on the cheap. Dennis Valentine worships Michael Fallon, ergo, if we control the material, we get Michael Fallon, and Michael Fallon gets us Dennis Valentine. It's perfect. Valentine will come to us. He'll solicit us, not the other way around.'
'Why does that matter?'
'If we solicit him, he'll be suspicious. He's gonna have his guard up. However, if it's his idea to go into business with us, we gotta new ball game. He's ours.'
'How are we gonna get the two hundred K to option this thing?'
'We're gonna sell your Bentley.' Shane smiled.
'Puck you, it's rented,' Nicky snarled. 'Everything I have is rented, right down to this.' He went to the shelves and took down a gold statuette, turned it over, and read the tag aloud. 'Property of The Hand Prop Room, Hollywood, California.' He glared at Shane. 'See, no money.'
'I'll get the money,' Shane said, and got to his feet. 'I want you to set up an appointment with Rajindi Singh's agent and then I want to meet Dennis Valentine, but it's gotta be casual. It can't look planned. That party you mentioned you're throwing for him sounds perfect.'
'Shane, this is off my scale. I hate to admit this, but I'm something of a coward.'
'Nicky, you'd better not wobble on me, guy. I'm looking for backup.'
'Shane, I'll…'
'Do it for Carol.'
Then Nicky surprised him again. He lowered his eyes and spoke softly. 'You know, when we were kids, when everybody picked on me, Carol always made 'em stop.' He smiled at the memory. 'She was such great-looking quiff, the guys at my school all wanted to please her. 'Don't tease Nicky the Pooh,' she would say. Nicky is my friend.' ' Then he looked up and again Shane saw tears in the little grifter's eyes. 'God, I'm so sad she ended up a junkie and a prostitute. I should have known. If I had, maybe I could have stopped it. I'm so sad she died that way.'
Nicky Marcella was a complicated guy.
Chapter 16
Shane was fifteen minutes late for his two o'clock meeting with Chief Filosiani because he had stopped by the LAPD computer center in the Valley to collect more research. Alexa was waiting for him on the sixth floor of Parker Center as he came off the elevator, lugging his newly filled briefcase. His wife had an armload of gang folders crammed with yellow sheets; she seemed irritated and tired. Shane couldn't ever remember her looking so stressed.
'Jesus, where've you been?' she asked.
'Alexa, I need to talk to you before I talk to the chief.'
'Not now. We're already a quarter of an hour late. The chief is scheduled on half-hour intervals. He's asked me to attend the meeting.'
'Okay, good. Then you can back me up.'
They hurried down the hall and stopped before the large double doors that led to Filosiani's office. Alexa walked him in and Shane found himself in the chief of police's outer office.
Filosiani's secretary was a hawk-faced woman named Bea; she looked like Whistler's mother in a blue pantsuit but had a heart the size of Texas. She knew they were late and showed them right in.
Filosiani's office was huge. The Day-Glo Dago had taken the antique furniture and expensive wall art that had filled the office of ex-chief Burl Brewer and sold them at auction, using the money to buy state-of-the-art Ultima flack vests for the SWAT teams. He was a no-frills guy from Brooklyn who, in the wake of Brewer's corruption, had proven to be just what the LAPD needed. The office was now furnished like a Xerox room. A long metal table sat next to one wall under a bulletin board with pushpins holding up each division's crime stat sheets. In counterpoint to all this was a breathtaking view of the Financial District through the huge plate-glass windows. Chief Tony Filosiani was standing in the center of the room grinning as Shane and Alexa came through the door.
'How'sa guy?' he caroled. He was a shade under fivefoot-five and his fat, round pie-pan of a face framed piercing blue eyes that sparkled under a pate of shiny pink skin. Chief Filosiani would have been perfectly typecast to play the butcher at your corner market, but he hardly looked like he should be running one of the largest and most complex law enforcement agencies in the world.
'We're finally getting you back on the job.' Filosiani beamed. 'Alexa told me you want Special Crimes, so if dat's what you want, dat's where we're gonna put ya.' All of this in his trademark Brooklynese.
'It's what I want, Chief, but I have something I need to tell you and Alexa about first.'
'Okay.' Filosiani glanced at his watch.
'Last coupla days, I think I may have inadvertently stumbled into something, and if it's what I think it is, it could be big, and it needs to be worked immediately.'
This was all news to Alexa. A frown appeared on her sculpted face. Of course, for the last two days she'd been practically living at Parker Center, so she and Shane hadn't had much chance to talk.
'Let's hear,' Filosiani said.
So Shane launched into the story, first telling the chief about finding Nicky Marcella at Farrell's party. He went on to recount Nicky's criminal past, and his request that Shane find a missing actress named Carol White so Nicky could cast her in a movie he was producing. He told them how he had found Carol and that she had become a hooker, that he'd left his card with her. Then Shane told them about the call from Sergeant DePass, and the meeting with Ruta at the house on 11th Street, leaving out his distressing evaluation of Ruta's demeanor and police skills. He went on to explain that he'd gone to Nicky's apartment later that night, and how he'd forced the little grifter to admit that he'd been trying to find Carol for a New Jersey mobster named Dennis Valente who had changed his name to Valentine.
Here Shane opened his briefcase and pulled out the research he'd been doing on Valentine and the DeCesare family. He handed it to Tony Filosiani, who scanned it quickly.
'This guy's a made DeCesare soldier. I know him,' Filosiani said. 'Some of these Jersey mob guys did business on my old beat back East. I know the whole family. A buncha mouth-breathers.'
'Then you know that if Don Carlo is trying to locate a branch of his crime family in L. A., we don't want to ignore him.'
Filosiani nodded and handed the pages back.
Shane explained about Valentine's plan to organize the below-the-line show business unions.
By this time, the chief's next meeting was waiting in his outer office, but Filosiani was hooked. He buzzed Bea and asked her to reschedule it, then turned back to Shane.
'Is that possible? To get entertainment unions t'kick back money?'
'I don't know,' Shane admitted. 'I'm just telling you what Nicky told me. It sounded plausible, but I guess all that really counts is that Valentine believes it.'
Filosiani nodded and Shane continued. He explained Valentine's fascination with Michael Fallon and how Shane wanted to option a script called The Neural Surfer so Fallon would, hopefully, agree to star in it.
'Who's gonna pay for the script?'
'You are. At least that's what I was hoping. I thought we could run it off the Organized Crime Bureau's budget.' 'How much?'
'Two hundred thousand,' Shane said, and heard Alexa gasp from someplace behind him.
Now Filosiani was frowning, too.
