His eyes grew hard; you wouldn’t want to be the cause of him looking like that. ‘If you need any help to round him up, I’ve got a small army here.’
‘Man, you’re a large army in your own right. Thanks for the offer; I’ll bear it in mind if I need help, but I’m looking forward to crucifying this guy myself.’
He led me into the suite; it wasn’t as big as mine. The table was set for lunch, four places, and the other two were occupied by my friend Liam Matthews, who had the lead role in Serious Impact. . although he’d be billed below me … and the director, Santiago Temple. I’d never met him but I recognised him from the pages of Empire magazine. A couple of waiters were hovering in the background, ready to go to work.
‘Hi, slugger,’ said Liam, in his light Irish accent. He looked at my patched-up ear. ‘What the hell did that?’
‘A soft-nosed point three eight bullet, according to what was in the rest of the chamber. That’s what you get when you’re an all-action movie star, sunshine.’
‘On this movie, when I shoot you, I’ll be using blanks, I promise.’
‘I may not take you on trust.’ Liam and I weren’t always pals. In fact, the first time we met I took a punch at him for chatting up my wife; I was married to Jan then.
‘I will check every round personally,’ said Temple.
I shook my head. ‘I’ve never met you before,’ I told him. ‘You may not know the difference between a dummy and the real thing. I think I’d rather the armourer did it.’ I was grinning when I said it, but I wasn’t kidding. There have been accidents in the past: take a look at the end of the short career of Brandon Lee.
He glanced at the plaster. ‘What’s under that?’ he asked me.
‘Some very neat stitching; makeup should be able to hide it, if you’re worried.’
‘As it happens, I’m not. The rescheduling will give you time to recover.’
I looked at Everett as we took our seats and the waiters moved in. ‘Come again?’
He smiled. ‘Something I’ve been holding out on you. You’ll have noted that the majority of your scenes involve Jerry.’ I had; I was to play the smooth bad guy, and Jerry Gradi was to play my muscle. ‘Well, we’ve had a little problem.’ Jerry’s nearly as big as Everett; I couldn’t imagine any of his problems being little, but I was wrong. ‘He’s caught chickenpox from his little boy,’ said Daze with a huge smile, ‘and he’s been quarantined.’
I had to grin too, at the thought of the mighty Behemoth being flattened by a few spots.
‘He’ll be out of action for another week,’ Everett went on. ‘However, Santiago’s managed to move things around. If it’s okay with you, we’ll switch your scenes with Liam to this week and compress your action with Jerry into the week following, but with the best will in the world, we can’t get you into action before Wednesday, at the earliest, and maybe even Thursday.’
I found myself wondering whether that would give me time to fly home to see Susie, but I realised pretty quickly that if I did I’d be lucky to be able to spend more than half an hour with her, and that wouldn’t be nearly enough. Still, hopefully it would give me a window to get Prim’s thing done.
‘It’s okay with me,’ I said.
That was the only piece of business we had to do, and it was over in a couple of seconds. The main purpose of the get-together was to give me a chance to get to know Santiago, or Santi, as he insisted I call him. He was an earnest young guy, still in his twenties; he’d done fewer movies than I had, and he’d only directed two of them. However, I knew that Everett wouldn’t have hired him if he’d had any doubts about his ability to deliver a good product, so I felt comfortable with him from the start.
We spent the next couple of hours just catching up. Liam and Everett spent a good chunk of the time pulling my chain about the San Francisco incident. After all, they were the professional athletes, and I was supposed to be the dilettante, the pretender; they thought the whole thing was a great laugh.
Eventually, though, the joke was played out and so were the black grapes and Stilton. Santi gave me a copy of the revised shooting schedule, and I promised to look in on the set before Wednesday to get to know the rest of the cast and the key crew members. I’d enjoyed the break, but the overriding problems hadn’t gone away. For all I knew, Susie might have called me while I was away, or sent me another e-mail, or Prim might have had a call from Wallinger about the completion of their business.
I put the two together and came up with the scenario of Susie calling and Prim answering. That sent a shiver through me, so I said, ‘So long,’ to the guys and headed back to my, our, suite.
I was halfway along the corridor when my mobile sounded. I tore it from my pocket, in the hope that it might be my wife wanting to kiss and make up, but the incoming number read-out showed me at once that it wasn’t. My caller was American, but it wasn’t anyone in my phone book. I pressed the receive button and muttered a noncommittal, ‘Yes,’ in case it was a wrong number.
‘Mr Blackstone?’ a man’s voice rumbled; a voice I thought I knew.
‘It is.’
‘This is John Wallinger.’ I’d been right. ‘Can you speak? Are you alone?’
‘Yes to both. What is it?’
‘Mr Blackstone, I want you to meet with me.’
I joined up a number of mental dots, to form an ugly picture. ‘Has this become a family enterprise all of a sudden?’ I asked him. ‘Or was it all along?’
‘I don’t know what you mean by that. I repeat, I’d like you to meet with me. It’s of vital importance to me that you do, and I believe it will be to you also.’
‘Lieutenant, I’m in Las Vegas, and I’m here to work. I can’t just hop on a plane and go to Minneapolis.’
‘I’m not in Minneapolis. I’m in Santa Fe, New Mexico. There’s someone here I’d like you to meet.’
‘John, I can trust you, can I? If I go there I will be coming back, yes?’
‘I promise you, Mr Blackstone, I wish you no harm; the opposite in fact.’
‘Okay, I’ll be there. But tell me, man, what the hell’s it about?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. It’s best that you see for yourself. And one other thing, sir: don’t tell anyone about this, anyone at all.’
‘However you want it. What’s another mystery to me? Where do I meet you, and when?’
‘Midday tomorrow, at a restaurant called the Cowgirl Hall of Fame. I’ll be waiting in the bar.’
I must be crazy, I thought. By that stage in the enterprise, I probably was, so without a second thought I headed down to the lobby and to the concierge. ‘You do travel bookings?’ I asked.
‘We do, sir,’ said yet another of the stunning women who seemed to populate the place.
‘Can you get me a flight to Santa Fe? I have to be there, in the city, by midday tomorrow, returning later in the day.’
She shook her perfectly coiffured head. ‘By schedule, sir, that’s impossible. All the flights from McCarron go via Denver.’
‘Could I drive?’
‘Sir, it’s seven hundred miles. You’d need to leave now.’
‘What do I do, then?’
‘Private charter is your only option. I can probably find you a Lear jet for tomorrow. How many passengers will there be?’
‘Just me. Do it.’
I waited while she called someone. Whoever it was they were on first-name terms; she was Anita, and he was Troy. When the conversation was over. . it involved a lot of nodding, as if they could see each other. . she came back to me. ‘That’s a reservation, sir. Your pilot’s name is Troy Hawkins, and he asks that you be at the Hawkins Air reception desk at McCarron airport by eight thirty tomorrow. It’ll be a two-hour flight, departing at around nine. That will give you time to make your meeting in the city. I’ve taken the liberty of asking Troy to have a car and driver at your disposal at Santa Fe.’
‘No liberty at all, Anita, that’s fine.’
I paid for the charter there and then. Her smile grew even toothier when she saw the name on the credit card. Mine almost disappeared when I saw the cost, but I kept it fixed on, and signed on the dotted line.