Bloody River Blues

Either way, we’ll move on him.”
    They sat in Peterson’s office. The cops had noticed the toy collection and each seemed to be trying to think of something witty to say about it and came upblank. Peterson was oh so happy with their immense discomfort.
    “Keeping the pressure on Pellam. That’s good.” Peterson took a long moment to read a low-priority report that had nothing to do with this meeting. He dashed a note in the margin and dropped it on the desk. “You know Pellam did time.”
    “What?” Hagedorn laughed.
    “Manslaughter. San Quentin.”
    “Damn. San Quentin,” Gianno said. “Hard time. How ’bout that.”
    Peterson watched the local detectives stew a bit as they were poked by guilt that they themselves hadn’t unearthed this information. He asked, “Can you use that?” He himself had considered Pellam’s criminal record and concluded that local police couldn’t do much with it.
    Hagedorn and Gianno looked at each other. The blond, good-looking cop—more handsome than most of the FBI agents who worked for Peterson—lifted his hands and scrunched his lips together in reflection. Finally he said, “I don’t see how. Film permits are already issued. I mean, I don’t think a prior conviction has any bearing on that. But what about parole?”
    “Parole?”
    Hagedorn continued, “Did he break parole by leaving the state?”
    This was something Peterson had not thought of. A microscopic frown crossed his brow. Being outthought by this smarmy shit-town cop. Peterson decided that Nelson would twist in the wind a few revolutions for missing this. “Given the dates of the crime and his traveling-man career, I doubt that’s anissue but I’ll have my associate check into it. Now, I think we’ve agreed that Crimmins knows Pellam reported him for the assault on the girl, and—thanks to the clever thinking of our friends from Maddox here—he may make some overt move against Pellam. We’ll monitor that. But I think we need to step up the pressure too.”
    “Any ideas?” Gianno asked glumly, suspecting sarcasm but unable to identify it.
    Peterson responded, “I have one, yes. Two of my agents were on the movie set the other day and they found something interesting. I’d like to ask them to stop by and tell us about it.”
    MISSOURI RIVER BLUES
    SCENE 179E—EXTERIOR DAY—ROAD BETWEEN FIELD AND RIVER
    This is a narrow road between the field and the river. There is a small, one-story CHURCH on the river side road, surrounded by BUSHES and TREES. Past the bushes the road continues through the field, open space on either side.
    MEDIUM ANGLES of ROSS’S PACKARD parked fifty feet past the church. DEHLIA dabs FAKE BLOOD on her forehead and stretches out in the front seat of the car with the door open. Ross and the three GANG MEMBERS take their MACHINE GUNS and hide in the bushes, waiting for the armored truck. Ross stops and runs back to Dehlia. He gives her his FAVORITE PISTOL.
    ROSS
    In a half hour, little love, we’re gonna be across that river and we’re gonna be free.
    DEHLIA
    If anything happens . . .
    TWO SHOT of Ross touching his finger to her lips to shush her. They KISS long and then he stands up, cocks the MACHINE GUN, and runs to the bushes.
    “Finale time, everybody! Let’s try to bring it in under a hundred takes.” Tony Sloan took his position, standing in the shadow of a big thirteen-ton Chapman Titan motorized crane. He surveyed the battlefield to be.
    Sloan, the second-unit director, the DP, the ever-nervous ponytailed assistant director and the stunt coordinator had just finished trooping through the weeds and grass and scrabbling over the revetment of stone down to the yellowish water, blocking out the climax of the movie. This was the armored truck attack. The owners of the transport company, tipped that the truck would be hit by Ross’s gang, had replaced the shipment of cash with bags of cut-up newspaper and substituted Pinkerton agents for the regular guards. Dehlia would be reclining, supposedly injured, helpless and beautiful at the scene of the fake car accident, bringing the armored car to a stop.
    But before Ross could slip a smoke grenade into one of the truck’s gunports, the guards were to come out blazing. Pious citizens, just leaving a church at thewrong moment, became pious victims as they walked into the middle of the carnage. Ross and Dehlia would then escape. But they would drive only a half mile down the road before a young boy—whose father