Costa had never done this before but there were lots of things he’d never done until San Francisco. He had the service revolver hard against Simon Harvey’s right temple. He was looking into the publicist’s terrified face, searching for something.
“Do you know what it feels like? To get shot? I do. It hurts. Not the way you think. It’s a big hurt. It aches and aches. Long after the blood’s gone. Long after the scars. It’s not like the movies. Life isn’t. It’s real and cold and hard. If you lose someone you love, the taste of it stays with you forever.”
“Don’t threaten me. I could make one phone call …”
Costa stood back, breathing hard. Then he holstered the weapon.
“Make the call. Didn’t you hear me? I know. I know you didn’t just cut yourself in on this deal. Somehow you got between Maggie and her agent and put some part of her fee into that grubby little scheme of yours. That’s why she’s wondering where the money is now. What’s she going to think when she finds she got robbed by some …” He waited to let the words have some power. “… old boyfriend? One who still won’t let go?”
“You’re remarkably out of your depth.”
“Maybe,” Costa admitted. “Doesn’t it bother you, though? The idea that this isn’t over?”
“Of course it’s over. The Carabinieri said so. Those creeps from Lukatmi did it. Jonah. Black.”
“The Carabinieri are wrong. What if someone gets to Maggie first? Would you even care?”
“What the hell are you talking about? Where’d you get this crap?”
“Maggie told me. About you two. And the money.”
Harvey stared at him, remembering something. “Big deal. She tell you anything else? About what it was like? What she did?”
“No …”
“You’ve got all that ahead of you, friend. Nothing I can do will warn you off it, either. Listen. I am not a thief.”
“What else do you call it?”
“I call it looking after people who can’t look after themselves. I call it keeping her alive, making sure the last movie she was ever going to get didn’t fold beneath her. That’s the truth. Maggie’s career has been on the skids for years. Inferno was her only chance to keep her name up there. If it never even made it to the screen …” There was a distant look of resignation and regret on his face. “You weren’t there. You can’t begin to understand. Some of us put in years for that movie and there it was, ready to fall apart. No fairy godmothers on the horizon. Everything was in hock. Our homes, our reputations. Everything.”
Costa waited.
“And if you tell anyone I said that, I’ll call you a liar to your face,” Harvey rasped. “In a police station. On the witness stand. Anywhere. This is America. We’ve got lawyers who could free the Devil if he got found eating babies on Main Street. Give it up. You can’t win. Not with me. Not with Maggie, either. You’re way out of your league. Cut your losses.” He nodded at the door. “Now get out.”
“Best I know my place,” Costa said, not moving.
“If that’s the way you want to see it.”
He took out the weapon again and lifted it. The barrel was inches from Harvey’s throat.
“You’re not listening to me,” Costa said. “Maggie knew nothing of all this. You made her a part of it. You put her in danger. Because of you, she nearly died.” The shadow of the weapon fell towards the window. “Whoever murdered Allan Prime is still out there. He murdered Martin Vogel and Josh Jonah. He shot Tom Black dead before the police could get to him.”
The blood drained from Harvey’s face. “What the hell are you talking about? The cops shot Tom.”
“No. He was killed by a single bullet from a distant gunman. They’ve recovered the shell. They know what kind of rifle he used. A hunting weapon. Like the crossbow that killed Allan Prime.”
“This is not possible, not possible. The Maggie thing … it had to be an accident. I couldn’t …” Harvey was shaking his head like a man on the brink.
“There are no accidents. None. Every time someone in this deal of yours dies, the rest of you get richer. I don’t care what this madman does to you. But … if it’s Maggie he finds this time …”
“Not going to happen, not going to happen.” Harvey’s eyes were closed, screwed tight shut. “It’s inconceivable …”
“If it does — it doesn’t matter where or when — I will find you. I will walk up to your dinner table in whatever fancy restaurant in New York or Cannes or L.A., anywhere …” He nudged the barrel of the gun back towards Harvey’s temple. “… and then in front of your Hollywood friends I will shoot you through the head.”
Costa lowered the weapon. He put it back in Gerald Kelly’s leather holster. Then he turned towards the door.
A hand touched his arm.
“Don’t go.”
Simon Harvey was slumped against the wall. He looked drained, lost, defeated.
Then he turned, picked up a bottle of Grey Goose from the cocktail cabinet by the window, poured himself a large glass, and said, “Sit down.”
8
“It was never supposed to turn out this way,” Harvey murmured, gripping the glass. “The whole thing was just something to get us through. Out of the mess.”
He sat on the sofa opposite Costa, staring at the mirror on the side wall, as if trying to convince himself. “Maggie wasn’t the only one with everything to lose. Roberto’s dying. There was never going to be another movie. I wasn’t sure he’d live long enough to complete this one.”
“I didn’t realise the movie business was so sentimental.”
“Don’t patronise me!” Harvey screeched. “I’ve worked with these people for years. They’re more to me than a paycheck. Even Roberto. Sure, he can be an asshole. They all can. But he’s an artist, too, one of the last. The people he worked with — Hitchcock, Rossellini, De Sica. We don’t see men like them anymore. Those days, when it was all about film, nothing but film, they’re over. When I looked at Roberto …”
His bleak eyes never left Costa’s face. “You won’t understand, Nic. I grew up with all those movies from the fifties. Roberto lived them. You could talk to him, about how Hitchcock would chase the light he wanted, how Rossellini could coax a performance from some two-bit actress who didn’t have the talent to speak her own name. Inferno was always going to be his last movie, and when he dies, that piece of history dies with him.” He gulped more vodka.
“When he dies, all we’ll have left are kids who think you can direct a movie with a computer and a mouse. Maybe Inferno’s a piece of shit. But there’s still some art in there somewhere. I see it, even if no one else does.”
Outside, the fog shrouded the Bay. Costa couldn’t even see the cops by the gate anymore.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen,” Harvey said flatly.
“But it did. Maybe it will again.”
“No. It won’t. I guarantee that. I’ll make sure of it. This has gone far enough.”
“You need to make a statement.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, waving Costa down. “And in return …?”
“I can’t negotiate on behalf of the SFPD. You need to talk to them direct.”
“Fine. But only after the premiere. Not before. Roberto’s owed his moment. Maggie, too. We all are.”
“Whose idea was it?” Costa asked.
“I said after—”
“I know. But I want to hear it. Just for me.”
“Just for you.” Harvey shook his head, bitterly amused by some internal thought. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to tell someone this?”
“I’m starting to,” Costa said honestly.