One of Us Is Wrong
- Автор: Holt Samuel
- Серия: Sam Holt #1
- Год: 1986
- Язык: английский
- Год: Tor Books
- ISBN: 978-0-312-93550-4
- Жанр: Иронические детективы
Электронная книга - «One of Us Is Wrong». Краткое содержание книги:
Suddenly, though, someone seems to have a new role for Holt: the role of Dead Body. Years of having watched stunt-drivers do their stuff help Holt avoid becoming a grease-spot on the San Diego Freeway, but his Volvo will never play the violin again. And if Holt can’t figure out where the screenwriters are going with this one, he’s not going to get a chance for a second take.
He sighed. “There’s no reason for this goddamn thing to get out of hand,” he said, more to himself than to me. “No reason to kill people.”
I could have mentioned Delia West, but there didn’t seem to be any point. “See you at eleven,” I said.
18
“This is Danny Silvermine,” Zack said.
Of course it was. Five foot eight, round and soft of body, dressed with expensive informality in shades of tan, ingratiating smile trying to distract attention from android eyes, Danny Silvermine stuck out a ring-laden hand and said, “You been outta work too long, Sam. I hope we can make a team here.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. This was the result of my having phoned Zack from Malibu to ask for the loan of one of his conference rooms. Clearly, he’d immediately called this guy to come right over, and I wouldn’t be astonished if it soon emerged that Danny Silvermine was also a client of the agency.
The corridor fluorescents gleamed off Zack’s bald head but were absorbed in his impeccable dark blue tailoring. A tall cadaverous man who combined courtly manners with a full range of agent jargon, he liked to present to this California world a kind of smoothed-down Savile Row facade. Now, he said, “I know you have to chat with this other fellow first, but Danny’s right here in the office, we could take a meeting when you’re done, Danny could open out his thinking on this.”
“Or lunch,” Danny said, and grinned as though he knew we shared already a lot of jokes and attitudes. “Not to be pushy,” he said. That was the joke, and the attitude.
Having a guy tell me, ten seconds after we’ve met, that he doesn’t intend to be pushy, makes me want to go away somewhere and think about something else. “I’m flying out this afternoon,” I said. “One o’clock, out of LAX.”
Danny looked downhearted at that news, but Zack smiled and said, “Perfect. We can ride out together, talk it over in the limo.”
“I have my car.”
“Leave it,” Zack said. “When are you coming back?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I’ll have you picked up. You know, Sam, the sooner we discuss this concept, the better.”
“But it’s at your convenience, Sam,” Danny said, waving his rings to show he wasn’t being pushy. “I am the handmaiden here.”
Essentially, Zack was right, of course; the sooner we got into the discussion of Danny Silvermine’s concept, the sooner I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. “Okay,” I said. “Just get me there by twelve-thirty.”
“Absolutely,” Zack said, and Danny said, “I really appreciate this, Sam.”
“See you in half an hour or so,” I said.
Zack said, “Sam, this other matter, you want me to sit in?”
“It’s not work,” I told him.
“I sure hope not,” Danny said, smiling all the way back to his ears, fidgeting with his rings. “I don’t want to lose ya before I getcha.”
I said to Zack, “It’s a personal thing, that’s all, we need neutral turf. You know the guy, he’s another client. Ross Ferguson.”
“Ex-client,” Zack said, but without bitterness. In this business people change agencies too often for anybody to get scars.
“I didn’t know that.”
Zack shrugged and grinned, above the fray. “It is in Ross’s nature to get divorced.”
All of a sudden Danny was a small round creature with antennae. “A writer?” he asked, looking extremely casual and extremely alert.
I decided to be mean. “A hyphenate,” I explained. “A writer-producer.” Let Danny think there might be competition.
Danny smiled and smiled, having nothing to say. Zack told me, “We’ll be in my office when you’re done. Cindy tell you where you are?”
Cindy was the receptionist. I said, “Yes, in the little yellow room at the end of the corridor.”
Zack shook his head with a sad but forgiving smile. “We like to think of it as gold,” he said.
On that note we went our separate ways, the smiling Danny following Zack back to his office, me heading down the corridor toward the little yellow/gold room. All around me hummed the morning activity of CNA. If clients like Ross Ferguson tend to change agents a lot, the agencies themselves are usually also in a state of flux, though CNA had been in its present configuration for almost eight years. Back when I’d first signed with Zack, he was part of a much smaller outfit called Novak-McCarthy, but shortly after I got the PACKARD job that agency merged with two others, Career Representatives Associates (CRA, then, with a home office in London) and Allied Management, to form Career-Novak-Allied. All over town people changed CRA to CNA on their Rolodexes.
Over these last years McCarthy and a couple of the Allied people have splintered off to form their own management group, CNA bought out its London parent’s interest, and another small agency called Tar-Gray was absorbed, but the essential CNA agency has remained more or less intact. They represent writers, actors, directors, producers, and a few composers; they put together talent packages for films and TV programs when they can; and on that inevitable day when a publicity-hungry Congressional committee starts to investigate the antitrust implications of the packager-agencies, I’m afraid CNA is going to be among the first under the microscope. I do smile sometimes at the mental picture of Zack Novak taking a meeting with a panel of unamused Congressmen on television, explaining to them that even though CNA gets a packaging fee only if it loads a project with its own clients, nevertheless there are no unfair trade practices involved. I’ve never mentioned the fancy to Zack; he wouldn’t smile.
The room was yellow, dammit, gold has more brown in it than that. The other color in the room, in the carpet and upholstery, was rust. The conference table was wood-grain Formica, but I think the chairs were actual wood, at least in part. Posters of forgotten movies and TV shows graced the windowless walls, though not yet PACKARD; that poster was still out in the corridor among the shows that might still be remembered.
A yellow phone — not gold — was the only thing on the table, down at the far end. Leaving the hall door open, I took the seat at that end of the table, in front of the phone and facing the doorway. Removing from my shirt pocket the slip of paper on which Deputy Ken’s phone number was written, I was smoothing it on the table when Ross himself appeared in the doorway, sunglasses on top of head, blinking, smiling on and off like a neon sign, and saying, “Don’t tell me I’m late.”
I looked at my watch: “Two minutes early.”
“And under budget. I always make deadlines.” Ross came in and shut the door behind himself. He was very nervous, covering it with panic. Glancing at the phone, and the piece of paper under my left hand, he said, “You really want to bring in the law, huh?”
“For both of us,” I told him. “Ross, there’s a difference between being overly imaginative and being stupid.”
“Not always.” His shirt, as usual, was open almost to the waist, showing tanned skin, gray hair, and gold chains. Fingering the chains, he came down the table, sat to my right, and said, “Sam, I’ve talked with the people. We understand each other now.”
“You probably thought you understood them yesterday.”
“They panicked, Sam,” he said, demonstrating a goodly amount of panic himself. “We had a deal, everything was going along fine, they thought they had total security. See, I never mentioned showing you the tape, telling you the story.”
“The truth will out,” I suggested.
“God, I hope not. Anyway, the point is, when you called the other day, you started talking about the tape—”