“I’m not sure you are. Weasels like you always find a way. Some new sucker to befriend and fool. You’ve got a pretty smooth line. When I ruled out Licata, and played process of elimination, I got to thinking about who might have been able to provide a contract killer with a key to Stockwell’s hotel room…and you came to mind. You’re the producer, who booked all the rooms and pays for them. Just a little clue, but suggestive.”
Kaufmann said nothing.
“But here’s what I don’t get. The completion bond-that’s a risky proposition. It’s possible that before an insurance company paid off, another director would be brought in to finish the picture.”
He shrugged. “Possible. Not likely.”
“You used to be in insurance, Jimbo. What’s the rest of the scam? What else have you set up?”
His smile was small but oddly proud. “We’re business partners, Artie and me. He has a quarter million-dollar policy on my life, I have a quarter-million policy on his.”
“Double indemnity for accidental death?”
He nodded. His hands were in his lap. I don’t need no stinking duct tape.
“So…what? You’re in charge of the money, and you’ve embezzled? The director dies and the completion bond pays the bills. But wouldn’t what you took show up anyway?”
“Give me a little credit. I’m the accountant, too, Mr. Reynolds.”
“Please. We’re past that, Jimbo. Make it Jack. Hell, make it Jacko.”
“I only…only took what I had coming to me.”
“Explain.”
He shrugged. “Both Art and me, we took a very small part of our salaries up front. The rest is back-end. Paid only out of profits. But with a sequel to a hit picture, that should be lucrative. Only…we would run out of production money first, because of…you know.”
“Because of what you stole. How much back-end money was coming to you, Jimbo?”
“Two hundred thousand.”
“You were going to have your best friend killed, for two hundred thousand?”
He shook his head. “No. There’s the other policy.”
“That’s right! Half a million. Well, that’s different. Snuffing your best friend for seven-hundred thou. Who wouldn’t do that?”
He lowered his head. His eyes looked sleepy now. Defeated. “…Are you going to kill me?”
“Where did the money go, Jimbo?”
He snuffled. Then he tapped his nose.
And it finally made sense: drug addicts will sell anybody out for their needs. Mom, Dad, Sis. Best friends? In a heartbeat. An accelerated heartbeat.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said with a sigh, sliding off the stool, revolver in hand. “You have a busy afternoon ahead of you. You are going to go buy yourself a shovel, and some cleaning products, and you are going to clean up my mess. Which is to say, your mess.”
“I don’t…I…”
“A shovel, some Lysol, some Brillo pads and maybe some rubber gloves. Pretty much all you’ll need. Drive these dead assholes into the desert, dig a nice deep hole- you’ll need six feet, minimum, or the predators will make a buffet out of ’em, but still leaving enough behind to make it risky. These boys worked for you on your movie, and if even table scraps of them turn up, questions will be asked.”
He was astounded. Horrified. He almost had the nerve to get up out of the chair. “We’re going to bury the bodies?”
“No!” I had a good laugh at the thought of that. “No, you’re going to bury the bodies. And clean up the blood and the shit. The blood out back, on the ground-buckets of soapy water maybe? To dilute it down to nothing?”
“You’re…not to going to kill me?”
“Not unless your friend Art wants me to. I’m going to tell him you embezzled…two hundred K? Better come clean if it’s more.”
“No. That’s all.”
“Fine. I’m going to tell him you weren’t responsible for the hit team being sent in. That somebody you owed money did that, and that I have killed that somebody’s ass. He won’t want to know any more than that. That will satisfy him.”
Kaufmann almost smiled-he could hardly believe his good luck, running into a decent guy like me.
I opened the door for him. He zombie-walked out.
“You really gonna leave that open?” I asked, and he gave me a dazed look.
“What’s the term you movie people use?” I said. “It’s a hot set. We don’t need anybody blundering in and fucking with it, do we?”
He got my drift, and locked the diner door.
Couldn’t have any weary traveler stopping by thinking GAS amp; EATS was open for business, and stumble upon Skull in his booth, where the blood pooled on the playing cards was getting all black and crusty and nasty.
Kaufmann walked to his rental Lincoln, and I headed over to my lowly Nova. No wonder the production’s money was running through his fingers-a Lincoln!
But before he got in his car, he found the guts to turn and ask me something.
Called out, “Why…why would do this for me?”
“Not for you. For my client. For the director of this picture. Somebody he loved fucked him over. I been there. Now go buy yourself a shovel.”
TWELVE
By the time I got back to the Spur, it was late morning. I found Arthur Stockwell in his hotel room, spending his unexpected day off sitting at that table where I first saw him, again going over storyboards, also making notes off his script, which was in a hardshell notebook.
His wife was down at the pool, having a swim, he said, so the timing was good for a private talk.
Again he wore a t-shirt-this one black with a Good, the Bad and the Ugly image on it-and jeans. He looked like he’d had more sleep than had been his recent habit, and less puffy, the leading man appearance back, his general aura one of feeling better. But I would take care of that.
I sat at the table and told him the bullshit story as I’d outlined it to Kaufmann-his old friend had embezzled, someone bad who Jimbo owed money hired the hit team, and I took care of that someone. Pretty much that vague.
“So I’m finished here,” I said matter of factly. “Unless you’re mad enough at your old buddy to have me do something about him.”
Stockwell had been sitting there, hangdog, staring into nothing but disappointment and near despair, but my suggestion brought his face up sharply. “No! No. For Christ’s sake, no. I couldn’t live with that.”
“I could.”
“I couldn’t. ” He shook his head; his eyes were welling. “Jim’s my best friend. Or was my friend. I…I don’t know now. It’s not just childhood days together…or him standing up with me and Joni. It’s also…Jack, I’d have never made it in the independent movie business without his help…his support. He must have some terrible problem to sink so low.”
“Sure. He snorts coke.”
“Yes, but why does he snort coke? What demons drove him to it? What could make him betray his best friend?”
I would leave it to him to chase the cause and effect of that down whatever touchy-feely rabbit holes he chose.
We spoke briefly about how my payment would be made, and then I asked him, “Surely you’re going to fire his ass.”
But the director shook his head. “No. I’m going to sit down with him. I’m going to give him a chance to
