Hollywood Tough

Chapter 22

The interior of Ciro's Pompadoro was right out of the assassination scene from The Godfather: wine casks hanging from nets on exposed ceiling beams, red-and-whitecheckered tablecloths, straight-backed wooden chairs, and the pungent smell of garlic. The only thing out of place were the Mexican waiters, but this was true in French and Italian restaurants all over L. A. The maitre d' made up for it with greased black hair, a heavy Sicilian accent, and the traditional five o'clock shadow.

"Ah, Signor Parelli, benvenuto. Accogliere a Ciro's Pompadoro," he purred, then led Shane and Gino to a booth in the back. The restaurant was only half-full, but it was just slightly after seven, so it was still early.

This time, Champagne Dennis Valentine was sitting in the best booth along the back wall. No postage-stamp loser's table for the Don's nephew at Ciro's Pompadoro. At this watering hole Mr. Valentine was a person of value, a made guy-a caporegime. He was wearing tan slacks, a blue cashmere blazer, and a silk shirt. Expensive getup.

Valentine was sipping from a champagne glass while an open bottle of Taittinger was icing in a bucket nearby. Shane slid into the booth as Gino went to his attack dog position at another table not far away, never taking his eyes off of them. Shane started to shake hands, but Valentine pulled away. He was going to have to break himself of that habit if he stayed in showbiz much longer.

"I'm glad you were smart and came," Valentine said, smiling.

"It was a nicely worded invitation and in my favorite color." Shane glanced around the restaurant. "This is nice. Never been here before."

"It's okay. That guy on the desk is new. He looks good but he's about as Italian as Danny Glover. He's just an actor doing the accent-you can't fool a real goomba. But it's okay. They treat me good here. Everything is prepared special for me. Great vegetarian lasagna, everything healthy."

"Do they have a good veal piccata?"

"You wanna put meat in your system, Mr. Scully, you go right ahead. With all that's been written about cholesterol and animal enzymes, it amazes me how people eat these days. McDonald's? You might as well open a vein and pour in a quart a grease."

"Right. But you gotta admit, the Beanie Babies in those Happy Meals were a classic." Shane was just fucking with him now.

Valentine didn't say anything for a second, then shook out of it, and moved on. "With me, it's healthy all the way," he said. "Taittinger has a twenty percent alcohol level, which on the surface is sorts bad, but it lowers stress and the vitamin and mineral contents are primo, so I figure, on balance, it's a big plus. I try and preserve my body; cut down on oxidants and free radicals, but I'm like almost alone in this, y' know. Everywhere people eat, I see problems. Take that guy over there with the plate a spaghetti and meatballs, the fusilli and ravioli…"

Shane turned to look, then nodded.

"Y' know what I see when I spot a guy eating shit like that?"

Shane shook his head.

"I see a giant digestive problem. Me? My furnace burns clean, run five miles a day, work out, take a cold swim. Back in Jersey, I'd run along the river, then when I was done, I'd dive into the water, right there by the George Washington Bridge. In the winter the water was forty fucking degrees, but after a run, you're hot, and the icy water makes your epidermis contract, forces the oil outta your pores. Real good for your skin and circulation. Healthy… y'know?" He smiled at Shane. "What d' you do to stay in shape?"

"Well, recently I've been trying not to jack off as much as I used to. Other than that, not much."

Valentine took a sip of his champagne. "I know you're just foolin' with me, and that's okay, Mr. Scully, 'cause I gotta sense of humor. But don't waste your shots."

"Always good advice."

They sat looking at each other. Shane decided to wait him out, and finally Valentine spoke.

"I already ate, but you wanna order the veal piccata?" Shane nodded and Valentine waved the maitre d' over. "Watch this guy. Lemme show you something."

"Si, Signor Valentine," the maitre d' said as he approached the table smiling.

"Carlo, per favore ci serva presto, abbiarno fretta." Valentine rattled this in perfect Italian and Carlo blanched. "Let me get Paolo over here to help."

Valentine smiled as the maitre d' hit reverse and backed out of there.

"Fuckin' phony," Valentine said softly. "I can't stand phonies."

"Then you better get out of Hollywood," Shane deadpanned. "What'd you ask him?"

"Nothing. I just told him to serve you quickly. Guys like that ain't got it. You can't play an Italian if you haven't lived it. Capisce? The attitude's gotta come from the balls." Valentine reached out, grabbed the champagne bottle, and poured a glass of Taittinger for Shane.

"You probably wondered why I wanted to see you," he said as he dropped the bottle back into the bucket of ice. "Crossed my mind," Shane answered.

"You're partners with Nicky Marcella, but I've known Nicky for a long time, so I also know he couldn't make a meatball sandwich without spilling half of it on the floor. So when I see you two guys having breakfast with Michael Fallon, I know this is not his doing."

"Don't be so sure," Shane said.

Valentine shrugged. "After this morning, I checked you out with some of my sources, even read about you in the morning paper." He reached down on the seat beside him, grabbed a copy of the L. A. Times, then flipped it open and dropped it on the table. Right there, above the fold in the Metro section, was the article that the LAPD Press Relations officer had planted yesterday under the headline: UNREST AT PARKER CENTER. Shane's picture was off to one side, along with Alexa's. He picked up the paper and shrugged. He'd been so busy, he hadn't seen it yet, but he knew more or less what it said, so he threw it back onto the table.

"Sounds to me like you and the little woman are getting screwed," Valentine said.

"And believe me, when the LAPD does it, it hurts," Shane grumbled.

"It surprised me, when Gino showed me this. I think you're a movie producer, next thing I read, you're a cop."

"Was a cop. I quit. Last few years I've been meaning to pull the pin. Been optioning properties, getting some film deals lined up. I was looking to change careers anyway."

"Cop to movie producer… pretty big jump."

"Mr. Valentine, not that it matters, but a lot of ex-cops have become big players in entertainment. It's hardly unique."

Valentine didn't seem too impressed with this remark, so Shane named a few: "Joe Wambaugh, Eddie Egan, Steve Downing, Dennis Farina… the list is endless."

"I'm not convinced."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but who gives a shit? I didn't ask to meet with you. I'm still trying to figure out what you want."

"I have plans, okay? Big plans. And I think this Michael Fallon film you and Nicky are making could fit into my program."

"Really?" Shane smiled. "Trouble with that is, you aren't gonna have one damn thing to do with it."

"But we're gonna change that."

"No, we're not."

"If I want, Nicky will hand over his whole piece; all I gotta do is ask."

"No, he won't."

"Yeah? Why not?"

" 'Cause if he does, I'll kill the little prick."

They sat there, looking at each other over sparkling glasses of Taittinger.

"I'm not used to hearing no."

"Get used to it. No is the principal word in entertainment commerce."

"How so?"

"Film executives are in the 'no' business. You hear a lotta no's out here 'cause a no usually doesn't hurt a studio exec, while a yes can ruin the guy's career."

"That's ridiculous," Valentine said. "How's the studios gonna ever make a film if they say no to everything? Gotta be some yesses."

"Few and far between." Shane sipped his Taittinger. "You gotta understand how it works…" Shane was now recalling some of the crash course Nicky had given him yesterday. "You've got very young people of both sexes with very little experience in positions of great power at the studios. They've got money and Porsches; they get the best tables at restaurants, and the only thing that is gonna screw that up is if they say yes to a picture and the studio spends tens of millions to make and release it, and it bombs. If they say no, they won't be proved wrong, except once in a few thousand pitches, like the time some development exec at Paramount turned down Jaws and Universal made it and it grossed a few hundred mil. Some people lost their jobs over that, but it's a rare occurrence. The vast majority of films shot in this town tank. If you're a studio exec, your odds of not fucking up are a thousand times better if you say no rather than yes. Get it?"

Valentine nodded. The waiter came to the table to take Shane's order, but Valentine waved him off. He wanted to hear more.

"Then how do films get made?" he asked.

"They get green-lit when the elements are so tantalizing that only a fool would say no. For instance, let's say you have Nelson DeMille's or Michael Connelly's latest bestselling novel. You've got Spielberg to direct, Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise to star. Now if the film tanks, you've got a prepackaged excuse. You can tell your boss, 'How could I not make this picture with all these A-list people involved?' "

"I see." Valentine put down his glass and studied Shane. "You're a smart guy. Maybe you are a movie producer."

"I busted a buncha these A-list players for drugs when I was still in Vice. I cultivated contacts, did some favors. What goes around, comes around."

"So we work together. Your knowledge and Hollywood contacts, my East Coast relationships and ancillary toughness."

"By that, are we talking about muscle?"

"I have valuable things I can offer."

"You can't have a piece of my movie," Shane repeated. "This piece blends neo-impressionistic heroism with gut-wrenching social commentary. It's ferae naturae, which is a term we use, meaning full of untamed nature. Obviously I'm in no hurry to sell off pieces." Stealing the better part of Jerry Wireman's riff in these few sentences.

"I'm not used to being turned down."

"Lucky you."

"According to this news article, your wife runs the LAPD Detective Services division."

Shane nodded.

"If what I read in this paper is true, that may not last much longer."

"She's as pissed off about the way they run things down there as I am," Shane snapped.

"Maybe there's a way I can help both of you. From what I see, and from where you're living, you must be in way over your head; either that or you're already selling police favors to people with money. Maybe I can help you get more of what you want. While this is an offer, you should also think of it as a demand."

"Am I supposed to get all shook up 'cause you're a mobster?" Shane said softly. "I should agree to anything so you won't unleash Gino on me?" Shane leaned forward. "This isn't New Jersey. We aren't too scared of the mob out here. We've had a few cheeseball Mafia families over the years, but they have never been a problem for us 'cause they couldn't buy any influence. Being a mobster in L. A. is kinda like being an admiral in the Swiss navy. It's all protocol and no boats."

Valentine also leaned forward. "What if I was to tell you that's all about to change?"

"I wouldn't believe it. In order for you guys to get any foothold here, you've gotta have cops and politicians on the pad, and that's never happened in L. A."

The mobster leaned back. He seemed to change his mind, or pick a new direction. He studied Shane carefully, like he was an intricate puzzle that needed solving. "I don't wanna argue with you. You're a smart guy, but one way or another, I intend to get a piece of the Fallon movie. Gotta be a way that can happen without a lot of pain and suffering."

"It's not for sale."

"Okay. Before I give you the fist, here's the carrot. How much you figure this movie is gonna cost?"

"It's a film, and we're still budgeting it, so I don't have a clue. Michael has some very expensive codicils in his talent agreement with us, but we can get bank financing off his box-office power, so it's really a moot point.

"Okay, let's say, just for the hell of it, that it's gonna costyou fifty mil below-the-line. That sound reasonable?"

"All right, let's say." Shane tried to sound bored. He had a fair grasp of how the movie industry worked from Nicky and friends in the business, and of course, everywhere you went in L. A., people talked about film production, so you couldn't help picking some of it up. But he was far from an expert. He decided if he got in over his head with Valentine, he would just be vague.

"What if I can cut the cost of production to around half that?" Dennis was saying. "What if I can get it made for twenty-five mil instead of fifty? How many points is that worth?"

" 'Cept you can't. It's a union film. We're gonna be stuck with union rate cards, union overtime, meal penalties, force calls. No way it gets made for half-cost."

"But let's just say I can. What does that buy me?"

Shane decided on the spot that a dollar-for-dollar formula probably made sense, so he cleared his throat and said, "Okay. If you could do that, and I know you can't, but if you could, it might be worth a percentage equal to the percentage saved, less maybe, ten points."

"There, you see? We got us the start of a negotiation."

"We got shit, because nobody can cut the cost of a union shoot," Shane said. "I. A. unions don't deal on their rate cards."

"What if I put it on paper that you don't pay for it if you don't get it… what then?"

"I'm not negotiating with you, okay?"

The waiter returned. Valentine looked up, and the glower in his eyes was so fierce that it froze the man, who spun and left quickly.

"You ever heard of an Italian Alka-Seltzer treatment?" Valentine said softly.

"What's that, three goombas bubbling in a hot tub?"

"You're a funny guy, but now you're pissing me off. An Italian Alka-Seltzer is made of Semtex. It goes under your car. When it pops, you fizz. I could take you out hard, like that, or I got guys I can import who do vehicular hitand-runs; turn you into a sack a crosswalk vegetables, separate your brain stem from your spinal column. Let you finish your tour down here sucking oxygen out of an iron lung. Or I can go easy and just put you in a body cast for half a year. These guys I got do surgical bumper and fender hits. The victims all get booked as traffic accidents. I got a guy works for me we named Thirteen Weeks. He's so good on crosswalk jobs, I once told him to put a guy in the hospital for thirteen weeks and he did it to the day."

Shane slowly stood and looked down at Valentine. "Guess I'll pass on dinner. Nice knowing ya."

"Why don't you let it percolate for twenty-four hours?" the mobster suggested. "Why don't you ask Nicky the Pooh about me? Ask him what kinda guy Dennis Valentine is. Then maybe we revisit this in a day or so." Dennis stood up and Shane rose with him.

"Anything you want. But the answer is still gonna be no."

A Mexican busboy came up to Shane. "You have telephone call," he said.

"Nobody knows I'm here," Shane said.

"You Scully?" the busboy asked.

Shane nodded, now wondering if something had happened to Chooch and they'd somehow tracked him down here. Valentine was opening his wallet.

"Let's get outta here," he said to Parelli, who had magically appeared at the table.

Shane watched Valentine throw a couple of hundreds down on the table to cover his vegetarian lasagna and the champagne. The busboy led Shane to the back of the restaurant near the kitchen, then pointed to a pay phone in the corner. The receiver was off the hook and balanced on top of the box. Shane picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Shane Scully?" a voice with a Mexican accent said. "Yeah, who is this?"

"Momentito."

Then Shane was put on hold… for almost a minute. As he waited, he was looking into the brightly lit kitchen when the busboy who had led him to the phone took off his white coat, revealing a wife-beater tank-T underneath. On the back of his neck Shane could see interlocking M and 13 tattoos. La Eme.

Shane held the dead receiver to his ear, still trying to make sense of it when the busboy with the gang tatts exited the kitchen through a side door.

The penny dropped. Shane knew what was going on.

"Shit." He dropped the phone and sprinted back through the restaurant. Valentine was not there. He had already walked out through the main entrance. Shane reached down and clawed his ankle gun from its holster as he ran, then he exploded out into the street.

A few yards away he could see Valentine's white-andtan Rolls-Royce convertible pulling up to the curb. Valentine paid the valet and was moving around to get behind the wheel. Gino was standing nearby, waiting for his rental.

Shane heard it before he saw it. The low rumble of blown mufflers. "Get down! A hit!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. Everyone dove for cover just as an Eme work car peeled around the corner and four auto mags opened up.

Bullets ripped into the Rolls and chipped brick dust off the building behind him. Shane landed on his stomach behind the Rolls and maneuvered into a prone firing position, then started squeezing off rounds under the car in the general direction of the low-rider. He heard a taillight break as more automatic gunfire ripped the night. Somebody screamed from behind the Rolls. Then suddenly rubber squealed and the carload of Emes was gone.

As Shane stood, Valentine was just pulling himself up from the wheel-well where he had ducked. He had a little cut on his forehead from a piece of windshield shrapnel. Blood was leaking down into his eye. Sprawled in a sitting position against the restaurant wall, his shirt soaked crimson, was Gino Parelli.

Valentine ran over to him. "How bad is it?!"

"How the fuck do I know?" Parelli croaked. "Fucking beaners. How'd they know where we were?"

Then they could hear the wail of a siren in the distance.

"Gimme a hand!" Valentine yelled at Shane. The two of them pulled Parelli to his feet, dragged him to the bullet-riddled Rolls, and laid him across the backseat.

Valentine got in the car and turned the ignition key. Miraculously, nothing had hit the engine and it started. Precious blood was pumping dangerously out of the bullet wound in Parelli's chest. Valentine took off his expensive cashmere coat, reached back and put it over Gino's wound. "Hold it there, tight… Compress it," he ordered his gunsel. "Let's get the fuck outta here. I don't wanna try to explain this to the cops." He turned to Shane. "You saved my life. This sure as shit complicates our negotiation."

"We don't have a negotiation," Shane said.

"That's what you think. Get your car and follow me."

So Shane grabbed the keys off the valet board and sprinted into the parking lot next door. The street-savvy Mexicans had all magically disappeared.

The sirens were only a block away as Shane bounced his Acura out onto Fairfax, leaving a trail of bumper sparks on the asphalt. He hit the gas and hung a right, then followed Dennis Valentine's Rolls out of West Hollywood.