They were going to be paid for every slug of the .357 ammunition that they put into his body. Each of the gunmen was sure that the skinny guy in the black T-shirt was going to end up with eighteen Magnum slugs in him. They wondered if the last bullets would have to be fired at bone fragments because that would be all that was left.
They were so intent on firing all six slugs into the skinny guy that they didn't realize none of them got off the second shot.
Out came the guns, level went the sights, squeeze went the trigger fingers and away went the heads of the gunmen. The guns exploded. To Remo it looked as if the three had blown themselves up. He looked around. The bodies were pieces of trunks. Their heads were off somewhere, in fragments across the rolling prairie. He heard the whir of the cameras. Some women were still screaming.
Remo thought he knew what was happening. "Everyone," he yelled. "Get out of here. Get out of here. It's going to blow. Get out of here." He immediately faded back to the entrance to the underground storage of the gas drums.
But the only ones there were the guards, lying on the ground covering their heads, their bodies in the way of the door. No one could have entered. It was not a diversion to get into the doors and shoot at the drums and explode them. The purpose of the snipers blowing themselves up had to be blowing themselves up. And there wasn't a bomb inside. Or outside. Just a bunch of people running around terrified now because he had told them to run for their lives.
And they were running. Cars were starting up. Ladies were scrambling through the grass with their shoes flying off their feet. Cameramen were diving into their vans and taking off and Remo was standing there, feeling very foolish as the two guards got up and brushed themselves off.
"What's going to blow?" asked the guards, who knew no one had entered the underground storage area.
"Nothing," said Remo.
"You shouldn't scare people like that, mister, after all the shooting and everything."
"You bastard," came the shriek of a woman's voice. It was Kim Kiley running at him. Her face was twisted, her teeth bared, and she raised a fist and then slickly moved into a nice smooth groin kick. Remo moved aside as the leg went by and caught her as she lost her balance. She had put her whole body into the kick and when her toe did not meet designated tender parts of the victim, her back headed for the ground.
Remo stopped the fall and set her right. She scratched at his face. He caught her nails in his palms and pressed them back to her sides. She spat. He ducked. She swung. He stepped aside. "Will you stay still?" she screamed.
"Okay," said Remo and she punched his chest. He let his chest muscles receive her knuckles and she let out a yell.
"Ooooh, that was weird. It was like punching air." She wiped her punching hand off on her dress as if it had encountered something slimy.
"Ooooh," she said again and shivered. "That was awful."
"I'm sorry I made punching me unpleasant, Ms. Kiley," said Remo. He had seen one of her films and wondered at her great ability to look innocent. He had never seen her with this ferocious anger.
She punched again, this time at the head. Remo kissed the knuckles coming at him. She didn't wipe it off, just looked at her hand wondering what had gone wrong. He should have had bloody lips by now. Her agent always bled when she punched him there and he knew karate and kung fu.
"How could you do this to me? How could you do it?"
"Do what?" asked Remo.
"Ruin my demonstration. How could you do it? I'm Kim Kiley out here among these smellies, a full day's drive with major networks, all three, and the cable network, and you stage that shootout. Really, how could you?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Those men you had shoot at you to get all the publicity. I think they're dead. With three dead men, you could have gotten the same publicity on Hollywood and Vine. You didn't have to come out here. I came out here. I had to use the poison gas in there. I had to use this stinking reservation. Don't these people ever wash? I'm for Indian rights, but there are limits."
The guards, who were Indians, glowered at Kim Kiley. Kim waved them away as if their glowers were uncalled for.
"Ms. Kiley, this may come as a shock to you but I did not get myself shot at for publicity," Remo said.
"Really? Then why did you have that highspeed camera trained on you? It wasn't network and it wasn't cable because they always have those symbols on their cameras to prove they were there. No symbols, and trained on you."
"I did notice a camera," Remo said.
"Oh, really now. You noticed it, eh? You suddenly noticed the camera focusing on you all the time?"
"I noticed it focused on me. How did you know it was a high-speed camera?"
"Didn't you look? The film magazine. It's three times as big as the networks'. They use more film because of the high speed. Don't tell me you don't know that with a high-speed camera you can get a finer image of yourself?"
"Makes sense," said Remo. "But no, I didn't know that."
"And it was my bad side too. Who are you going to deal the footage through?"
"I'm not dealing any footage, whatever that is," Remo said.
"C'mon. When's your movie coming out?"
"I don't have a movie."
"With your looks? What are you doing here then?"
"I am," said Remo, remembering his identification, "with the Bureau of Indian Affairs."
"Those cameramen weren't from a government firm. They were a commercial company. I saw their truck."
"Did you see if the gunmen came from that truck?"
"I just saw the dust kick up and heard noise. One network got me out of focus at that point but everyone else just turned away. I think they were using zoom lenses on you. You got close-ups, maybe four, four and a half seconds. It's going network."
His face would be seen across the country. No matter, Remo thought. It would just be another face of someone being shot at. People saw so many faces, who would take note of his?
"How can you fraction seconds of camera time while everyone else is running for their lives?" Remo asked.
"I'm an actress. Are there any gunmen left where you hired those? It was a good move. It's going network. Getting shot at is network, prime time."
"I didn't hire them. In fact, they were trying to kill me," Remo said.
"Dead?"
"Yes. That sort of thing."
"Well, at least they didn't hurt your face." Kim Kiley caressed his cheeks with her palms, turning the head like a craftsman examining his work, then gave his cheek a friendly little pat. "Fine. A lovely face. Do you do anything with it?"
"I see through it, eat through it, talk through it and breathe through it."
"No, I mean anything important. I mean, are you doing any feature work? Television?"
"I'm not an actor."
"My Lord," gasped Kim Kiley, covering her mouth with a palm. "They were shooting at you."