The Master of Sinanju already suspected that Remo was jealous of his great movie deal. Remo didn't know how Chiun would react when he told him about Quintly Tortilli. And for the first time in a long time, Remo didn't give a damn how all this would affect Chiun's movie. After so many months of lies and secrecy and having to deal with the old Korean's ballooning ego, he wished he could savor the sensation.
His face was grim as he settled back in his seat for the long flight to California.
Chapter 29
Alone in his trailer on the Taurus lot, Quintly Tortilli studied himself in the long door mirror. His garish purple polyester tuxedo with its brazen green ruffled shirt, sequined maroon cummerbund and giant floppy yellow felt bow tie would have embarrassed a circus clown.
To the rose-colored eyes of Quintly Tortilli, the reflection staring back at him could have just stepped off the cover of GQ. It had been a long time since he'd had so much fun dressing up.
Die Down IV was nearly finished.
He'd finished the bulk of the film weeks before, wrapping up work with the principal actors just before flying to Seattle. In Washington, he used the Cabbagehead facilities to edit the Arlen Duggal-directed footage that was flown to him on a daily basis.
There was no doubt about it. In spite of what Bindle and Marmelstein and Duggal thought, although he seemed to take an unconcerned attitude with this film, it was his baby. Quintly Tortilli was in charge of the project from start to finish. And the finish line was in sight.
The special-effects house hired to complete the various miniature, matte and pyrotechnic shots would have their work back in less than a week. Die Down IV would make its pre-Memorial Day release date. And Tortilli would have a hit. Finally.
He'd had a hit before. But Penny Dreadful was more like an indie film that had somehow crossed over. Quintly Tortilli-the genius, the maverick, Hollywood's hottest young director since Stefan Schoenburg-had never been able to duplicate that early success.
In the mid-1990s, he was ubiquitous. He made all the talk-show rounds. He tried his hand at acting and producing. On a whim he'd even directed that episode of the highly rated television hospital drama, OR.
That was when Quintly Tortilli was at the top of his game. But the fire that he thought would never go out soon threatened to be extinguished. And with it, his career.
Without something to promote, the talk-show circuit eventually dried up. His acting was universally panned. The films he produced were all box-office bombs.
Actors could coast for years on just a little box-office success. The young genius of Penny Dreadful found that forgiveness didn't extend to directors.
The truth was Quintly Tortilli needed a hit. Badly. But few respectable offers came in.
As his bank account dwindled, Tortilli found that he needed something even more basic than a hit.
He needed a job. Of course, he always had his script-doctor income, but lately even the paychecks for that were shrinking. A high-profile directing job could pump his asking price back up into the stratosphere. When word came from Taurus Studios that Tortilli was wanted to direct the next Die Down sequel, he had accepted without hesitation.
There were troubles from the start.
First, Lance Wallace didn't want to do it. He claimed he had said everything he wanted to say with his lone-cop character in the first three films. A twenty-two-million-dollar paycheck and gross points changed the actor's tune, but his salary cut seriously into the film's budget.
The script offered Tortilli another challenge. The original Die Down formula had been copied so many times that the new chapter threatened to cover the same ground all over again. Quintly's harshest critics had always claimed he didn't have an original thought in his ego-swelled head. He had to do something different with his comeback film.
To this end, somewhere during their earliest script discussions, Hank Bindle and Bruce Marmelstein had brought Quintly a script by an unknown writer. The Taurus cochairs had insisted that their discovery was absolutely super-talented and that Quintly absolutely had to use his script even if he had to change everything in it to do so. As they sang the praises of their new screenwriter, the two men were sweating visibly.
When Quintly resisted, Bindle and Marmelstein had insisted. Since this was long before the Regency or the failed attempt to destroy Taurus Studios, and the blackmail opportunities they presented, Quintly, unable financially to walk away from the project, had accepted the novice screenwriter's story.
Over the course of the next few months, Tortilli changed so much in the original script that it was unrecognizable.
When the script changes were mentioned to the Taurus cochairs, both Bindle and Marmelstein were afraid that their screenwriter might object.
"You're worried about a writer?" Tortilli had asked.
"We're worried about this writer," Bindle replied.
"But he's a writer," Tortilli argued. "They're just ...well ...writers. No one in this town worries about writers."
"You've never met him," Marmelstein said uneasily.
"And I'm gonna keep it that way," Tortilli said. And he had. All through the rewrites, he avoided the crazy old man. In fact-much to Bindle's and Marmelstein's relief-the writer stayed away straight through the final change in which the stolen-ship ending was jettisoned. When Lance Wallace finished up his work on the film, Tortilli had booked it to Seattle, just in time to avoid meeting Mr. Chiun. He let Arlen Duggal take the heat from the famously ill-tempered screenwriter.
Once in Seattle, Tortilli not only began work on the independent film he was doing for Cabbagehead Productions, but he completed the behind-the-scenes arrangements that would ensure financial solvency for the rest of his life.
Tortilli was just one of the many well-known Hollywood backers of Cabbagehead. He had bought his interest in the studio back in his post-Penny Dreadful heyday, when it seemed the money would never run out.
No one else worried about the success of the studio. Indeed, most of the backers had probably forgotten all about it. It was only something that their accountants fretted over when tallying up their strategic losses at tax time. If Cabbagehead had a hit, great. If not, big deal. Tortilli was the only one who had genuine financial concerns. And he turned those concerns into action.
It was surprisingly easy for the director to segue from fictional murder to the real thing.
At first, his fan mail had pointed the way. Those who skulked beyond society's fringes seemed drawn to him. The mailbag had dropped Leaf Randolph and Chester Gecko into his lap. Lee Matson had been a godsend. The first classified ad Quintly had answered in a mercenary mag and he'd bagged a top-drawer psycho.
Everything came together once he'd assembled his cast. With his skills as a writer-director-producer, he was able to outline and orchestrate each scheme down to the slightest detail. And so far, everything had gone nothing but right.
After the Anderson case, he had netted a nice profit as a stealth producer of Suburban Decay. The same had been true for the other two Cabbagehead films.
Oh, there was the little matter of the Taurus bombing failure. But that only affected Bindle and Marmelstein.
He even had Die Down IV to look forward to. Now, that was the work of a genius. Formulaic crap, the movie that should have been a disaster at the box office was certain to be a hit thanks to his distinct but thorough ministrations.
The New York bombing, the White House siege and now this night. This night would feature the event that would put him over the top. A cool 125 million by Memorial Day weekend alone. The gravy train would chug straight through to the Fourth of July and on to Oscar night in March.
He would be brilliant. He would be prescient. He would be rich.