Hells Kitchen

read, “Are you going to spend this money wisely?”
    He nodded out the window toward the high-rise. Bailey’s office was only two doors from Ettie’s burnt tenement and a haze of lingering smoke still obscured his view of the glitzy place. “Roger McKennah,” he said slowly. “Ettie said some of his workers from across the street were in the alley behind her building the night of the fire. Why’d they be there?”
    But Bailey was nodding as if he wasn’t surprised at this news. “They’re doing some work here.”
    “Here? In your building?”
    “Right. He’s part-owner of this place. That’s the work going on outside. That you hear.” He nodded toward the sound of hammering in a hallway upstairs. “The new Donald Trump himself—renovating my building.”
    “Why?”
    “That’s a source of some speculation but we think, we think he’s fixing up a hideaway for his mistress on the second floor. But you know rumors. You don’t suspect him, do you?”
    “Why shouldn’t I?”
    Bailey glanced toward his wine bottle but forewent another glass. “I can’t believe he’d do anything illegal. Developers like McKennah steer clear of shenanigans. Why bother with small potatoes like burning an old tenement? He’s got hotels and offices all over the northeast. That new casino of his on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City just opened last month. . . . You don’t look convinced.”
    “A rule in Hollywood thriller scriptwriting is that if you don’t want to spend a lot of time developing yourvillain’s character just make him a real estate developer or oil company executive.”
    Bailey shook his head. “McKennah’s too top-drawer to do anything illegal.”
    “Let me make a call.” Pellam took the phone.
    The lawyer apparently changed his mind about the wine and graciously poured himself another. Pellam declined with a shake of his head as he punched in a long series of numbers. “Alan Lefkowitz, please.” After several clicks and long moments on hold, a cheerful voice came on the phone.
    “Pellam? The John Pellam? Shit. Where you be?”
    Hating himself for it, Pellam slipped into producer-speak. “Big Apple. What’s cooking, Lefty?”
    “Doing that thing with Polygram. You know. The Costner one. On the way to the set right now.”
    Pellam couldn’t recall whether he owed multimillion-dollar producer Lefkowitz anything at the moment or whether Lefkowitz owed him. But Pellam took on a the creditor’s attitude one when he said, “I need some help here, Lefty.”
    “You bet, Johnny. Talk to me.”
    “You know all the big boys out here on the Right Coast.”
    “Some.”
    “Roger McKennah.”
    “We rub elbows. He’s on the film board at Columbia. A trustee. Or NYU. I don’t remember.”
    “I want to get in to see him. Or let’s say I want to look at him. Socially. His crib. Not the battlefields.”
    Silence from the other coast. Then: “So . . . Why’d you be interested in that?”
    “Research.”
    “Ha. Research. Poking around. Gimme a minute.”Lefty remained on the line but grunted, somewhat breathlessly—as if he was making love though Pellam knew he was leaning across a massive desk and flipping through his address book. “Well, how’s this?”
    “How’s what, Lefty?”
    “You wanta go to a party. You live to party, right?”
    The last party Pellam could recall attending had been two or three years ago. He said, “I’m a party animal, Lefty.”
    “McKennah pokes the social beast all the time. Drop my name and you’ll get in. I’ll make some calls. Find out where and when. I’ll call Spielberg.” (Spielberg’s assistant, he meant. And the call would finally end up with an assistant’s assistant located in an entirely different town than the chief raider of the lost ark was in.)
    “My undying gratitude, Lefty. I mean it.”
    “So,” the producer said coyly, “research, huh, John?”
    “Research.”
    Silence while the signals of ambition bounced off a satellite somewhere in cold space and shot back down to earth. “I’ve been hearing things, John.”
    “What? That Oakland’s losing and the Cardinals’re winning?”
    “Somebody in some post-pro house out here was telling somebody I know you’ve booked editing time.”
    “That’s a lot of somebodies,” Pellam observed.
    “And that’s not the only thing I’ve heard.”
    “Isn’t it?”
    “A couple studios’ve tried to get you to scout for them but the word is you’re out of the scouting