"Yes, but be that as it may," Marmelstein continued. "If they make the West Coast connection, the person on this end most likely to be damaged is you. Everything filters through you. Mr. Vaggliosi will be pretty upset when he finds out you've been freelancing. Especially after taking you in from the Pubescio Family. I'd say you're looking at a .45-caliber enema."
Reggio's eyes narrowed. "How do you know so much about the business?" he asked.
Marmelstein shrugged. "I'm a movie executive." Reggio accepted the explanation. He settled farther down in his chair. His great bulk shifted out over the arms.
"Yeah, well, you guys ain't all rosy in this," he countered.
"We're safe," Hank Bindle boasted proudly. He withered visibly from the instant dirty looks of both Bruce Marmelstein and Reggio Cagliari.
"Let's just say we're protected," Marmelstein said, pulling his annoyed eyes away from his partner.
"What, you set someone else up to take the fall for you again?" Reggio snarled.
"Insurance is important, Reggio," Marmelstein replied noncommittally. "It could be for you, too," he added with sudden earnestness.
Reggio was still eating. He chewed for a full twenty seconds before speaking. "What do you got?"
Bruce Marmelstein knew in that instant that he had Cagliari. The fish was on the line. All he had to do was haul him in and whack him with the oar.
Marmelstein reached in his pocket and removed a small square of folded paper. He placed it on the desk between them, near a pastel-pink box of cannoli Reggio was planning to have for dessert. The paper blossomed of its own accord into a familiar rectangular shape.
"This is a check for 750,000 dollars," Marmelstein said. He licked his lips in nervous excitement. "We'd like you to perform a service for us."
"What kind of service?" Reggio asked. He poked at the check with his fork, making sure all the numbers were there. They were. Leaving the check, he returned to his plate.
"Have you seen what they call the 'news' on TV?" Marmelstein asked, making quotation marks in the air with his fingers. "It's usually on sometime between Ricki Lake and prime time."
"The news," Reggio said evenly, as if talking to an idiot. "Of course I seen the news."
"Excellent," Marmelstein said. "Then you know about what's going on out there." He pointed over his shoulder to where, presumably, "there" was. "All those Arabs and stuff?"
"Of course I do," Reggio said, now certain that he was talking to an idiot.
"They've got a leader. A fellow named Mr. Koala. He's our liaison with Sultan Omay, the new head of the studio."
"That's the guy what's threatenin' to invade Israel and kill our secretary of state." Reggio nodded.
"Could be," Marmelstein said with a shrug. "If it doesn't have to do with the Industry, I don't pay much attention. Sorry." He tapped the check with a tan index finger. "Hank and I were hoping you could have a little talk with our Mr. Koala. We need him to sign a few papers-legal nonsense. You know."
"Yeah, I know." Reggio stabbed the check with his plastic fork, dragging it toward him. He lifted it in his pudgy hand, scanning it carefully. "Hey, there ain't no signature on this check," Reggio accused.
Bruce Marmelstein's face grew uncomfortable. "That's where it gets a little complicated," he admitted.
"Complicated," Hank Bindle agreed.
"Yeah?" Reggio asked. He dropped his fork back into the remains of his fettucine. "Uncomplicate it."
"The Taurus coffers are our proprietary domain," Marmelstein explained. "Of course they are. We're cochairmen of the studio. We can legally sign the checks, no problem."
"No problem." Hank Bindle nodded.
"Shut up," Reggio snapped at Bindle.
"Absolutely," Bindle agreed. The eternal yes man, he wasn't even sure what Reggio had said. He got a pretty good idea when he had to duck out of the way of a hurled plate of cheese-drenched pasta.
"What we need is for you to get him to sign everything and then sort of disappear. That includes your check."
"Hey, genius," Reggio said. "If he signs the check, it will be a direct link back to me."
"Gee, I didn't think of that, Bruce," Hank Bindle said, his expression clouding.
Marmelstein shot him another dirty look. "Taurus will make the funds immediately available to you," Marmelstein promised Reggio. "A smart man would be out of the country long before anything, um, turned up here." He smiled uncomfortably.
Reggio looked at the check. The tiny stars of the Taurus symbol were embossed on the blue paper. They sparkled when angled to the light properly.
The union man moved much more quickly than his bulk would have indicated. With a gush of cheese-filled air from his great lungs, the check vanished into his pocket. He folded his huge hands on his desk.
"Where's these papers what you need the A-rab to sign?" Reggio "Lips" Cagliari asked.
Chapter 25
The end was very near. Omay sin-Khalam did not need a doctor to tell him. Yet he awaited the news. The Eblan doctor frowned as he removed the stethoscope from the ghastly gray flesh of Omay's chest. The short, yellowed chest hair was brittle to the touch.
"How long?" the sultan asked, recognizing the somber look of hopelessness on the man's face.
"Anytime, Sultan," the doctor said sadly. "We should return you to the palace at once."
"I am not some book from a lending library," Sultan Omay retorted hotly. His small fit of pique was not without cost. He coughed long and deeply, at last spitting a gob of deep mucus onto the sandy floor of the tent.
"Sama 'an wa ta'atan, O Sultan," said the doctor, bowing deferentially. He left the bedouin tent quickly, lest he inspire the wrath of the increasingly irritable monarch.
Attendants hurried over. Hastily they dressed the sultan in fine robes of flowing silk. The mantle of the sin-Khalam sultanate was placed atop his head.
A body-length mirror had been brought from the palace. Although it was frowned upon in the more strict corners of the Muslim world, a sultan had to have some privileges.
Omay admired his reflection in the long mirror. It was good to wear proper dress again. For too long he had been bound by the garb of the West. All was as it should be now. He only wished that he had not wasted so much time.
"We are ready. Get me the Saudi," he ordered a soldier. The man hurried to collect the cellular phone, which routed their calls through Akkadad to Hollywood. It would take him a few minutes to raise Assola al Khobar.
Leaving the breezeless heat of the large tent, Sultan Omay shuffled out into the scorching hot sun of the vast Eblan desert. He placed his hands on his wasted hips, surveying the wasteland that was his domain.
The fierce Mideast sun was directly above and impossible to gaze upon at this time of day. So brightly pervasive was it, it seemed as if the entire sky had been engulfed in white-hot flame. The heavenly fire washed down onto the land, turning the sand into a blanket of blistering crystalline granules.
Omay left the mouth of the tent. His silk slippers kicked puffs of hot powder into the oppressive desert air as he shuffled around the side of his tent.
He found the hostages where they had been left. More than three dozen of them.