Hank Bindle, who was the creative arm of the Bindle-Marmelstein pairing, sat nervously before the Arab. Al Khobar regarded him with cold disdain.
Bindle cleared his throat. "Er, about the production schedule," he offered timidly. "I hate to say this-and, believe me, it usually isn't like me to stop a picture in preproduction or anything-but do we actually have a script? I mean, there wasn't one before and, well, you know..." He smiled weakly.
"I am writing the script," Assola al Khobar announced.
Bindle smiled, this time more sincerely than before.
"Really? I didn't know you were creative, Mr. Koala," he said, mispronouncing "Khobar" just as he and his partner had ever since their first meeting with the terrorist.
It was al Khobar's turn to smile. To the Hollywood mogul the row of half-rotted teeth the Arab displayed beneath his shaggy mustache was deeply disconcerting.
"When called upon, I can be quite creative," Assola al Khobar said. He seemed to enjoy some private joke.
Bindle chuckled supportively, even though he had no idea what it was he was chuckling at.
"Do you have any idea how much the movie industry grossed last year!" Bruce Marmelstein was screaming into his telephone headset at the adjacent desk. Veins bulged on his salon-tanned neck.
Bindle tried to tune him out.
"Now, how about a director?" Hank Bindle said. "I've been thinking maybe Cameron or Burton. Of course, Spielberg is always up there, but he's priggish to work with."
"I will direct, as well," the man Bindle knew as Mr. Koala said.
"Write and direct?" Bindle asked cautiously. The spark of hope he'd allowed to burn within him since preproduction fizzled instantly. "Are you sure you might not be stretching yourself too thin? After all, Streisand puts her fingers in everything, and her movies are pretty much all bombs."
He heard a snort from the neighboring desk. When he looked he saw that Bruce Marmelstein was glaring at him. Bindle sucked in a horrified gust of air. He had forgotten. He had spoken the name of the unmentionable one in the presence of Bruce Marmelstein. He shrugged apologetically to his partner. In another moment it no longer mattered. Marmelstein turned abruptly away from Bindle. "Do you like your job?" he screamed into the phone. "Do you want to keep working in this town?"
"We haven't discussed budget," Hank Bindle said to al Khobar, looking away from Marmelstein. "I only ask because you said we start shooting this week. Now that we've got the script and director ironed out, we should begin thinking about cost."
Before the terrorist could respond, there was a thin plastic click of a button being depressed. Bindle and al Khobar turned their attention to Bruce Marmelstein.
"I miss the days of those big, fat phones," Marmelstein complained to both men. "The ones you could really slam."
"Well?" Bindle pressed,
"All set," Marmelstein said. He grinned his best Betty Ford Clinic smile at Assola al Khobar. "They're unloading even as we speak. I don't know what the hell you want with all those tanks, though. Now, what were you two discussing? The budget?"
"Yes." Bindle nodded uncomfortably. "We should actually sort that out now."
But having gotten the word from Marmelstein, al Khobar was already standing.
"Three hundred million," he said indifferently. The words hung like silver snowflakes in the chilly air.
Mr. Koala had obviously misspoken. That was the only explanation. Bindle's and Marmelstein's eyes were flat.
"Excuse me?" they said in unison.
"The budget is three hundred million dollars. The sultan wishes an epic. Something that will be remembered long after he has gone the way of mortal men."
"Three hundred million? Does that include advertising?" Marmelstein asked.
"Would it ordinarily?" al Khobar asked.
"Not really," Marmelstein said, glancing at Bindle. "Production cost is first. Advertising comes after."
"Then it is production," al Khobar confirmed.
"I've got to get this in the trade papers," Bruce Marmelstein insisted. "This is huge. This is colossal. This is the biggest movie ever made." His voice rose to what was almost a girlish squeal with each breathless word.
Hank Bindle was thinking about what this would mean to his career. This was beyond Titanic proportions. For the moment he forget the fact that he would be working with a novice director-screenwriter-producer.
"This is bigger than big," Bindle said to Marmelstein. He shook his head numbly as he tried to envision ways to skim money from the production into his personal bank account.
"It will be the biggest thing in the history of this city," al Khobar promised.
As he turned, the smile returned. Again there was something beyond it. Something sinister. Something almost movie executive about it.
Bruce Marmelstein cleared his throat.
"Hey, would you like me to hook you up with my dentist?" he offered to the Arab's retreating back. "We can work it into production costs." He was thinking of those teeth on Entertainment Tonight. Marmelstein shivered at the thought.
Al Khobar wasn't listening. He was already across the office. Without so much as a goodbye, he was gone.
"Probably sensitive about them," Hank Bindle suggested.
"Wouldn't you be?" Bruce Marmelstein asked.
"Perish the thought," Hank Bindle replied.
Ian suddenly buzzed in on the intercom. He was sorry to report that Oscar Schindler was dead. "Talk to his estate," Hank Bindle commanded. "Maybe he left another list lying around."
Chapter 5
Remo took an early-morning flight west, arriving at Los Angeles International Airport just before noon. Renting a car at LAX, he took the San Diego Freeway north to west L.A. Santa Monica Boulevard deposited him into the heart of Hollywood.
He had been to the motion-picture capital of the world a few times in the past, and each successive time he was less impressed than the last. A rather remarkable feat, considering he'd hated it the first time he was there.
Asking directions from a pedestrian, Remo learned that Taurus Studios was located in Burbank. The man was sitting on a bench reading a copy of Variety. The headline boasted a revival at Taurus. The Bull Is Back! it proclaimed in letters more appropriate to the signing of an armistice or a political assassination. In smaller print it trumpeted the studio's new three-hundred-million-dollar motion picture.
Remo left the man to his paper and drove farther north.
Taurus Studios was located on several acres of prime real estate near Hollywood-Burbank Airport.
A single, virtually unbroken wall surrounded the entire complex. Remo recognized it as the same wall that was in the videotape he had viewed the day before.
He headed for the main Victory Boulevard entrance.
Even before he had driven up to the front gate, Remo could smell the powerful aroma of mustard and barley wafting over the wall. He was surprised to see dozens of men in long white robes wandering in and out of the small pedestrian gate beside the guard shack.
Remo drove his rented car up to the small speed bump at the main vehicle entrance. A red-faced guard in his late fifties leaned out of the shack.
"Name and business," he said in a bored voice. Remo showed the guard a badge that identified him as Remo Gates, a lieutenant with the LAPD. The guard studied the ID for a moment. "Is there a problem, Officer?" he asked, handing the laminated card back.
"We got a call downtown that someone was molesting a camel," Remo answered, matching the guard's uninterested tone.
The guard glanced at some of the men wandering back and forth on the other side of the shack. They looked like extras from Lawrence of Arabia.