Vigilante

CHAPTER 22

I ran into Nix just as I was exiting the control truck. He was standing in front of the open elephant doors of Stage One just outside the warehouse, dressed again in his blue velour running suit.

“What did you think?” he asked, gesturing with his soft-drink can.

“Good start,” I said, “but I haven’t been up to the plate yet.”

“I don’t think your turn at bat is going to help much,” he said, a knowing smile lighting his cherubic face and twinkling in his blue eyes.

“Put a bat in a cop’s hands and anything can happen. Isn’t that your theme?”

He walked toward me. “Gee, don’t be like this. My deal is still on the table. Come on; let’s talk this over.”

“What’s to talk about? You shot show one. I’ve already been marked for evisceration.”

“That’s the nice thing about shooting these shows live to tape. We’re still a week from air. We can always edit, change, and reshoot.”

“So it’s not just you against the system, speaking truth to power. You can massage troublesome corrupt facts if you want to.”

“It’s not corrupt to make a deal to advance a cause.”

“Yes, it is,” I said.

“In that case, here.” He handed me a DVD. “That’s a copy of Janice Santiago’s cell-phone video.”

“What shooting gallery did you dig her out of?”

“Not important. Her film doesn’t lie,” he said. “You’ll need that video to clear the Sanchezes. I’m sure you’ll finally want to release them now.”

I took the DVD, said nothing, and started toward my car.

“I suggest you make note of this time and place,” he said. “’Cause your life just took a big turn for the worse.”

I looked back. He was adrenalized and grinning, happy to be standing there in his Cuban-heeled boots and blue velour running suit. As he turned and reentered the warehouse, I promised myself before this was over I was going to flip that goofy smile of his upside down.

When I got to the Acura there was an older man and woman walking away from the car next to mine. They’d parked too close, making it hard for me to squeeze in.

“Sorry, can you make it?” the man asked.

He was one of those skinny older guys with only a few gray hairs left, but he kept them long, slicked back over his shiny pate, unwilling to surrender to total baldness. The woman was his same age and pleasant looking, if a bit plump.

“I can make it,” I assured him as I squeezed between our two cars.

The man said, “We’re here to see Mr. Nash. We have an appointment. Could you direct us? I’m Russ Trumbull and this is my wife, Gloria.”

“Really,” I said, stopping to look at him more carefully. Then I pointed at Stage One. “I think you can find him just inside that warehouse.”

Trumbull and his wife hurried off.

I levered myself into the driver’s seat, pulled out of the commercial park, and drove up Pico. With each block the knot in my stomach got tighter and harder. I finally called Hitch on my cell phone.

“Yo,” he answered. I could hear laughter in the background.

“You in a bar?”

“Party. I’m at Joel Silver’s. He’s still trying to horn his way in on Prostitutes’ Ball and keeps inviting me to these private Hollywood screenings at his house. Jamie says I should string him along. Joel’s producing deal is at Warner’s and we still might need their distribution. What’s up?”

“We need to get together.”

“You mean now?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s wrong? You sound different.”

“I am different. Listen, Hitch, I wouldn’t pull you away from your Hollywood friends unless-”

“Shit, dawg. Put a sock in it. These aren’t friends; they’re business associates. Where do you want to meet?”

“How about your place?” I said. “It’s closer than the office.”

“See you in twenty.”

“It’s gonna take me about thirty. I’m all the way out in Century City.”

“What’re you doing there?”

“Nix Nash invited me to his studio. It’s out on Pico.”

“Why’d he do that?”

“He wanted me to see the taping of the first L.A. show. I just left.”

“So how’d it go?”

“We’re fucked,” I told him.