Bloody River Blues

during which she assured him she was fine. She simply wanted rest. Could he call the head of Makeup and explain? . . . Of course he would. Was there anything else he could do? Did she want company? No, she’d visited her mother at the hospital and asked thewoman’s doctor for a couple of Valium for herself. Pellam could hear the slurred words and he hung up to let her get some sleep.
    He had just now replaced the phone when a very distraught Tony Sloan called and said the final shoot was about to go down. Pellam knew this and had planned on attending. What was ominous was that Sloan had summoned him so adamantly. He couldn’t possibly be thinking of new locations, could he? The key grip had let slip the information that Sloan had fifteen straight days of film—that was twenty-four-hour days of celluloid—to boil down into a 125-minute movie. Pellam, thanking the Lord he was not Sloan’s film editor, promised he would be there before the last blank gun shot was fired. He stood up and adjusted his Abel Gance Napoleon poster, the only decoration in the camper. He slipped the Colt into the inside pocket of his bomber jacket and was about to leave when his phone buzzed again.
    “Nina?” he asked.
    “Are you sitting down?” The voice was a man’s.
    “Hello?”
    “Sitting down?”
    “I can hardly hear you, Marty. Where are you?”
    “I’m in Berlin.”
    Pellam pressed the cellular phone hard into his ear, as if that might improve the connection from the state of Missouri, in which Winston Churchill coined the term Iron Curtain, to the place that had once been behind it.
    “I tried to get you in London and Paris,” Pellam shouted. “Look, I’m sorry about the other night.”
    “You don’t have to shout. You break up when you shout. I can hear you fine. What?”
    “I’m sorry I missed you. I had an accident.”
    “Well, it was a damn expensive accident. Telorian was interested but he got pissed because you blew him off a second time. What’s the trouble, John, some Freudian thing against Iranians? Excuse me, Persians. You should’ve called. Are you sitting down?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’ve got some Hungarian money lined up.”
    “What?”
    “I know. It’s weird. Paramount balked at the last minute on the terrorist script. It’s totally cratered. So it’s a green light for Central Standard Time. This guy in London put me in touch with these investors in Budapest. They’re a real East Village duo. Young guys. I pitched you sort of as a Jarmusch.”
    Hungarians financing a cult film noir flick set in Wisconsin. So this was the New World Order.
    “Well, I’m happy about that, Marty. What do we do now?”
    “You can get a hundred fifty?”
    “If I hustle.”
    Before the feds start tap-dancing on my accounts.
    “Well, hustle, boy.”
    “They understand I’m directing?”
    “They’re all for it. They know all about you, John . . . It’s not a problem.” His voice filled with transatlantic sincerity. “You know what I’m saying?”
    The death of Tommy Bernstein was what he was saying.
    “They like your work. They like you. Or who they think you are. Don’t disappoint them.”
    “Who are these guys?”
    “Their names, you mean? Unpronounceable. Funny marks over the letters. Who cares? Get your money. I’m having my shyster in New York put together the partnership agreement. Let’s try to sign it up by the first of the month. Is it doable?”
    “It’s doable. It’s very doable . . . Listen, Marty . . . thanks. You know what this means to me.”
    The broken connection mercifully cut short the gratitude and Pellam found the conversation was over.
    Outside he kicked a piece of dried mud off his Noconas and walked to the Yamaha.

Chapter 16
    “WE SAW YOUR advisory about the assault on that Sassower woman.”
    Ronald Peterson cocked an eyebrow at Bob Gianno. And?
    “We talked to Crimmins.”
    Neither of the Maddox cops noticed Peterson’s eyes flick with minute satisfaction toward Nelson, who could not restrain the less subtle smile.
    Hagedorn continued, “He denied having anything to do with the assault, of course. What did you expect?”
    What indeed?
    “But naturally we didn’t care about that. We just wanted to flush him. We mentioned Pellam’s name. We pretended it was a slip. You should have seen his eyes.”
    Peterson said, “That was a clever move.”
    “We thought so. He’ll do something now. Either try to hit Pellam directly or just spook him.