Bishop as Pawn

“That does have a ring to it. The TV players?”

“Gold Coast Enterprises and a cable network.”

“Right. The reaction time?”

“A month or less. There’s a very definite limit to audience attention span when it comes to murder in Detroit. Even when both the victim and murderer are Catholic clergymen.”

“Right. The payoff?”

“We can look for a ceiling of about two seventy-five. So far we haven’t had to pay off anyone. But that’ll begin soon enough.”

“The problem is, everybody thinks TV pays like the big screen where six figures are what’s served for breakfast.”

“Let’s just hope our detective-what’s his name?… Quirt … doesn’t think he’s worth auctioning Disney Studios for.”

“Moving right along: the story spin?”

“How ’bout, ‘Changing Church explodes as priest kills bishop.’”

“Mmm … a little weak … but okay for beginners,” he concluded. “And, lastly, the problem?

“No ending.”

“The price you have to pay for being first on the scene.”

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Mondo, I just remembered something. It just dawned on me why I thought this place was so perfect. Beverly Hills Cop! Remember?”

“How could anyone forget Beverly-oh, I see: The opening was filmed in Detroit. Right here in these rooms, wasn’t it? Okay, so I guess if the movie had the ‘typical Detroit headquarters,’ viewers would wonder why Detroit had cleaned up its act. We almost have to use these interiors, for the simple reason that Eddie Murphy did.”

“And” — Walberg rubbed his hands together-” think of the savings!”

Quirt entered the hallway. Self-introductions were made. The lieutenant ushered the moviemakers into the small room ordinarily used for interrogations.

“We were admiring your decor.…” Walberg waved his arm in an encompassing way.

“Our what?”

“The colors, the furnishings.” More gestures.

Quirt’s eyes popped. He leaned forward. “This shit?”

“We were thinking of it more in terms of vomit,” Turner said.

“Yeah,” Quirt agreed, “puke is more like it.”

“You must’ve been here when they filmed Beverly Hills Cop, weren’t you?” Walberg asked.

Quirt nodded.

“Did you have to vacate the premises while they filmed?”

“What?” Quirt looked mock-astonished. “They didn’t shoot here. They couldn’t. This is a pretty busy place. They had to build their own sets.” He nodded. “But they did manage to capture the pukey atmosphere all right.”

“Well, Teddy …” Turner turned to his partner in slime. “At least it won’t be very expensive to recreate this place. And it’ll be an appropriate setting for the language.”

“The language?” Quirt’s brows knotted questioningly. “You gonna have cops wandering around using the F word the way they did in Beverly Hills Cop? I gotta tell you guys, that ain’t real. I mean, our guys are not unfamiliar with the word. They just don’t talk like that … especially on the job.”

Turner sighed deeply. “We’re not in the business of teaching viewers about reality. We give them what they’re familiar with.”

“But” — Walberg changed the subject-” speaking of business, I guess Mr. Kleimer called and told you what we wanna do.”

Quirt nodded enthusiastically.

“We want,” Walberg continued, “to tell the tragic story of Bishop Diego’s murder, and help people understand why it happened.”

“Why it happened?” Quirt repeated. “Even we don’t know that for sure. We think Diego pushed the priest- Carleson-too hard.”

“Don’t worry,” Walberg said. “We’ll find more than one reason.”

“Was there any sex?” Turner asked.

“Sex?”

“Were either of them-or both-gay?”

“Gay! No, nothing like that.”

“A woman?” Turner persisted.

“A woman …?” That was one of the leads Tully had uncovered. Quirt couldn’t recall her name … but there was something about some broad who might have had it in for Diego.

Tully would know all the details, of course. But one of the last things Quirt wanted was for anyone else- especially not Tully-to get in on this. “A woman … yeah, there was something about a broad who might’ve been a suspect before we nailed Carleson.”

“A suspect? No. No,” Turner said. “We don’t want to confuse the issue. We’ll have the woman as a love interest. We can get explicit there. The bishop in mufti, sneaking up to her apartment. Climbing into bed among the shadows.”

Quirt’s mouth was open. “You guys don’t get real worked up about reality, do you?”

Walberg disregarded this. “I think we can get this show on the road. Do you have an agent, Lieutenant?”

“Me? An agent? You kidding?”

“Then we’ll have our lawyer get in touch. About compensation. We’ll be telling this story through the eyes of the detective … through your eyes.”

“No shit! Who you gonna have … who you gonna get to play me?”

“We’ve been negotiating with a bit player you wouldn’t recognize. But now that Mr. Kleimer has changed our direction, we’re thinking of Chris Noth … you know, one of the detectives on ‘Law and Order.’”

“No kidding!” Quirt was delighted. “Hey, he’s a good-lookin’ guy!” He paused. “Chris Noth as me! Oh, yeah; I forgot about you guys and reality.”

Quirt was being paged. He left the room to take a phone call.

“Just wanted to check: How’re things going?” Brad Kleimer asked.

“Great, just great. This could be a lot of fun,” Quirt said.

“Fun?”

“Guess who they got playing me in this movie? Forget it, you’d never guess. Chris Noth!”

“Chris Who?”

“The guy who plays one of the detectives on ‘Law and Order.’ And guess what else? I’m gonna get paid! This is movie money. Big bucks! They wanna tell this story through my eyes. I’ll probably have my name up there in the whatchamacallits-the credits. This is a gas. I gotta thank you, Brad. Wait’ll I tell the wife.”

“Slow down, George-”

“Say, Brad, do you remember anything about that dame Tully came up with? The one who might’ve had a motive for offing Diego?”

“No. Forget her, George. What about all that follow-up on Carleson I asked for? You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”

“Don’t worry, Brad; I’ll get someone on it.”

“Dammit, I don’t want ‘someone’; I want the best you’ve got!”

“Don’t worry. I’ll get you somebody good. Listen, Brad, I gotta get back to the movie guys. I’ll talk to you later.”

Slowly, thoughtfully, Kleimer lowered the receiver until it rested on the base.

Christ! He hoped he hadn’t outsmarted himself.