Until Proven Innocent (8 page)

“
Are you out of your frigging mind? What kind of pervert are you? I always knew you were a little kinky when we were married, but this is ridiculous. You’ve got one phone sex girl referring another phone-sex girl to you. There are two alleged extortion attempts, one for an apartment and another for some dirty talk. You amaze me. I never thought your practice would sink to such depths.”

“
Hey, wait a minute. What’s with that ‘kinky’ remark? I remember that when we were married you never complained when we played ‘the handyman and the housewife.’ And if my memory serves me correctly, you came up with a few new versions of that game yourself.”

Her face turns a deep red.

“
Okay, maybe I was a little harsh with you, but Peter, please, you can’t be serious about these cases can you? I know you can do better than turning these losers over to me. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this was all a ploy just to have dinner with me.”

“
That works for me. If you don’t want these cases, I’ll know that I at least tried. And because this satisfies parts of the kid’s plan to hook us up again, I also know that I’ll be reimbursed for this evening, so drink and enjoy.”

Our repartee is interrupted by the cell phone vibrating in my lap. I sneak a glance down at it and see that the text message display says: “Tony was fired.”

The rest of the evening’s conversation is taken up by our exchanging stories about Tony the cop. She’s heard more of them than me, but I actually witnessed two of them. We both decide that extortion cases or not, the evening didn’t turn out too bad. She buzzes her driver to bring the car around and I stumble back to our dock, to meet with the newly unemployed movie star.

As usual, Tony is sitting on the dock box next to my boat. I ask him only one question. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“
We disagreed about how a cop should testify. There was a bit of an argument, and he threw me off of the set.”

“
What’s the matter, didn’t he think you were authentic enough playing the part of a cop?”

“
He thought I was too authentic. He wanted me to tone it down. I tried to explain to him that after a judge makes liberal rulings like that for some shyster defense attorney, no real cop on the stand would act any different. He said he wanted realism and that’s what I gave him.”

“
Well, as long as he’s still alive, maybe there’s a chance. Did the ‘N’ word come up at all in your heated conversation with him?”

“
C’mon counselor, I’m not that bad, and you should know it by now.”

“
Okay, I’ll talk to him tomorrow. Maybe I can salvage something. Remember, Tony, this is not Court TV, this is a movie. It’s all make-believe. It’s not supposed to be too authentic. Do you think Arnold Schwarzenegger really came from the future, or that Sylvester Stallone can be a champion boxer? It’s a fantasy. That’s why they call it
acting
instead of reality. I’ll try to smooth things out, but if I can talk him into letting you continue as an actor, please follow the director’s instructions.”

I get his grumbling acceptance and decide to call it a night. I know that the kid will be waiting for me to report on my dinner with Myra, so I might as well get it over with. She’ll probably spend the rest of the evening on the phone with Myra, verifying everything I’m about to tell her now.

*****

The next morning Victor calls to let me know that he matched some of the prints on April’s manila envelope to the ones on Miller’s business card. No surprise there. Now that Myra’s decided not to do my heavy lifting, I’ll have to take care of Miller myself.

Jack Bibberman has been doing most of our investigation work for some time now and he’s pretty familiar with the Hall of Records, so I give him the assignment of finding out exactly who owns that apartment building where April lives. I may have to go over Miller’s head to get some satisfaction. I can’t imagine any property owners letting a jerk like that keep his job after they’ve been formally put on notice about how he’s been extorting apartments and money from present and future tenants. Once Miller’s been bounced from that job as manager, April should be in pretty good shape, figuratively speaking.

My only two loose ends now are Olive’s horny boyfriend Hershel, and trying to get Tony his job back as a movie star. No sense in stalling, so I might as well get over to the soundstage to deal with Joe Caulfield.

*****

I have to give him credit. His composure is professional, even when talking about a guy who allegedly almost ruined his film.

“
Peter, I know what you’re going to say, but I don’t think I can do it. He’s just too real, and he can’t let it go. I’m sorry to do this to a close friend of yours.”

“
First of all, he’s not a close friend of mine. Other than a certain dock in the Marina, the only thing we share is a common lack of affection for each other. But as for him being too real, I agree. It would probably be like having me in your movie, with the script calling for me to walk around in front of the counsel tables with a lit cigar in my hand. That just doesn’t happen in real life… at least not since Clarence Darrow retired. I’ve already told him that it’s make-believe, and I feel pretty sure he’ll go along with it. Whattaya say? Isn’t there some way you can give him another chance? You know, the film doesn’t even have to be rolling. You could just make it a rehearsal to see if he’ll go along with the program.”

Joe looks down at his desk. He’s thinking it over. That’s a good sign, because it’s much better than the quick ‘no’ that I got when this conversation started. He looks up at me, like he’s made a decision.

“
You know, I really do want to get him back with the company, because there’s another position we could definitely use him for. In addition to film production, we’re expanding by starting a bonded and licensed film courier company. There’s a big problem with motion picture piracy of newly released movies, and we intend to launch our new service along with the release of our film. Tony would be a good addition to that division, because we want to have armed people delivering major studio films for showing at sneak previews and premiers.”

“
That’s fine, but if you throw him out for his acting, I’m afraid that there’ll be too much permanent ego damage for him to accept a lesser position.”

“
It wouldn’t be a lesser position… we’re prepared to make him security supervisor of the whole operation. We’ll be offering an entirely new service to the motion picture industry, with a security guard present during all showings of the feature films we deliver. They can’t knock off the film onto a digital copy unless it’s being projected at the theater, and we’ll have one of our guys in the projection booth during all showings.

“
Tony can be put into a position to do all the hiring and training of the security guards. It’ll be his show from day one.”

“
I don’t know, Joe. There’s still a chance that he can get reinstated with the police department, and I know that’s the job he’d prefer over anything else.”

“
Peter, he’s already been on the force for over twenty years. His pension is vested. If he retires now, he gets a full pension and can still take the job with us. It’ll be like a double income, and there’ll be no one shooting at him.”

“
I’ll talk to him. Maybe if he sees the whole picture, he’ll be more inclined to go along with the acting directions. I think that the loss of the acting job hurt him more than anything else, because he probably told everyone he knows about his being in a movie. When the picture comes out and he’s not in it, it’ll be a big letdown for a macho guy.”

“
Okay Peter. You win. First, you let him know about the courier service and get him to agree to go along with the acting direction. Then have him come back to the stage, and we’ll do a run-through of his scenes. Maybe we can talk about that other position some time in the future… after he’s appeared in the movie.”

Mission accomplished.

*****

I’ve heard of motion picture piracy before, but never knew how serious it was until I did some research on the internet and discovered that a recently released report from the International Intellectual Property Alliance found that the U.S. economy lost an estimated 9.2 billion dollars in 2002 as a result of unlawful copy and sales of our movies. In China, approximately 91% of all movies sold and shown are pirated, and Brazil isn’t even a close second, with a piracy rate of only about 50%.

Methods of the crimes range from theft of a print from a theater, tapping into cable TV, and individual VCR copying, to bringing a camcorder into a theater and capturing the movie right off of the screen. And the almost ten billion will certainly grow exponentially when there is enough broadband access to allow peer-to-peer exchange of movies on the internet. I’ve also heard that some theaters are using special spy devices to detect when someone in the audience is using a video camera to tape a movie while it’s being shown on the theater’s screen.

Now I’m beginning to understand why Joe Caulfield’s company wants to have armed security guards stay with those first-run prints while they’re being projected in theaters. There are some reports of bootlegged movies being sold on the streets of China and Brazil before they even reach the movie houses in the U.S. I guess that if the studios can save a couple of billion bucks, it’s worth it for them to pay Joe Caulfield’s new service to guard their deliveries of prints to theaters for sneak previews and premieres.

It would be almost impossible to guard up to 3,000 prints of a film that goes into wide distribution, but it sure would be nice if they could keep copies of the film off of the streets of China and Brazil until the movie at least has a chance to get to those 3,000 theaters.

Back at the boat, I tell Tony about my meeting with Joe Caulfield, how he can get a second chance at the acting job, and about the new security position available to him.

“
I don’t know, counselor. It would mean putting in my papers and leaving the force.”

“
Here’s my suggestion, Tony. Why not just go to the stage, meet with Joe, get the acting gig back, and tell him you’ll think over his offer about the courier job. That way you can see if your continuing on the police force is an option at all. If it is, then you’ll have a decision to make. If it isn’t, well, let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.”

He agrees with my logic and promises to behave himself on the second go-around. Strangely enough, he seems to have made some friends during the short period of time he spent with the film company. He told me that one or two of the production crew also frequent the same target range in Agoura that he shoots at. I guess that shooters share the same mind-set. It’s them against all those ‘pinkos’ who want to stomp on their Second Amendment rights to own a private arsenal.

I remember seeing an old actor named Charlton Heston when he was president of the National Rifle Association. In one rabble-rousing speech before his group, he held a weapon up over his head and declared that if they want his gun, they’ll have to take it out of his cold, dead hand. I wonder exactly who he was referring to as ‘they?’ I certainly never wanted his gun, but I think that when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, he should have voluntarily given it up. If you’ve got a gun in your house that’s not for target practice, it’s probably to protect against any intrusion by strangers, and to a person with Alzheimer’s, even a close friend or relative might be mistaken for a stranger, due to loss of a patient’s ability to recognize people. Can you imagine some old guy with Alzheimer’s sitting in his room with a loaded weapon on his lap? That’s a disaster waiting to happen.

Personally, I have nothing against guns. It’s the bullets that scare me.

* * * * * *

Chapter 6

Olive has been calling. She’s really upset because ‘Hal’ has been bugging her to get together, and now he’s offering her money to model for him. What a perv.

I return Olive’s phone call and give her some instructions. First, she’s not to call Hal’s cell phone under any circumstances, unless I tell her to. Second, the next time he calls, she’s to agree to model for him, but it’ll have to be a special way, and she’ll call him back with the details.

Olive wants to know what I’ve got in mind, but I think it’s best that she stay out of the loop on this one, because she might not appreciate my method.

I’ve had Jack B. checking out this Hershel Belsky, and it just hit me: he’s got the biggest car dealership in Beverly Hills and does a tremendous amount of television advertising. His commercials are usually shown very late at night, when they run all the old ‘B’ movies.

I stayed up late a couple of nights ago watching him make a fool out of himself, and he keeps mentioning that pretty soon his dealership will have a ‘dream girl’ that will act as his spokesperson for the ‘dream deals’ he makes on his cars. I hope he’s thinking what I think he’s thinking. That confuses me a little, but I’m calling Olive anyway.

“
Hi Mister Sharp, what’s up?”

“
Olive, I want you to call your friend Hal and tell him that you’ve been thinking about what he wants you to do. If my guess is right, I think he wants to hire you as the spokesperson for his car dealership.”

“
You mean you want me to go to work for this creep?”

“
No Olive, I don’t want you to work for him, I just want you to find out if he’ll hire you sight unseen, based on how you describe yourself to him.”