Bishop as Pawn (22 page)

“Yes, but …”

“Hear me out, please. All I’m suggesting is that you consider filming your movie through the eyes of the police rather than the prosecutor.”

“But …”

“I can tell from the kinds of questions you were asking a few minutes ago that you want to talk to the police. This business about sex, for instance. From the police investigation of this case, I think you’re on the right track. But I’m not at all sure it’ll come up during the trial.”

Turner exuded triumph. “See? I told you, Teddy: It’s a
police
story. If I said it once, I said it a million times: It’s a police story.”

Good
, Kleimer thought. One of the idiots is happy. Now to make sure the other one doesn’t go away angry. “Actually, this approach may make your job easier. I suppose one of your problems is that the real life story isn’t over yet.”

Kleimer had not recovered from his initial amazement that they would attempt to portray an event whose conclusion was still unknown. He suspended disbelief for the moment. “You know your business far better than I, but it seems to me you’d be doing yourselves a favor by starting your film with the police work on this case. Then time would be on your side. You could work right into the trial. Like I said, you know your business better than I, but this procedure does seem logical.”

“You’re absolutely right.” Turner was enthusiastic. “It’s a police story.”

Kleimer was drawing the obvious conclusion that Walberg was a court nut while Turner loved police work.

“Well …” Walberg had lost an edge on his self-assurance. “… you
are
going to convict, aren’t you … the priest, I mean?”

“Put your bottom dollar on it.” Kleimer smirked.

Good-byes were said with promises to get back together as this venture proceeded. The odd couple left.

No sooner were they gone than Kleimer was on the phone.

“I know this isn’t the kind of return favor we talked about, Quirt, and we’re still in the ballpark of working on a promotion for you. But I’ve got something that will tide you over for a little. Are you alone?

“Well, then, find a place where you can be alone. You’re about to get some visitors who just might change your life. I’ll tell you all about it…”

With Kleimer’s forewarning, Quirt was preparing himself.

First he secured an interrogation room, guaranteeing privacy for himself and his prospective visitors.

Then he used his electric razor, patted down his thinning hair, and tightened his belt several notches until he had a real problem breathing comfortably. Finally, he made sure someone would greet the visitors and have them cool their heels for a while. He didn’t want to seem too eager.

All was ready. Quirt was prepared. At the last moment, he decided to let them wait just a little longer.

Armand Turner looked about with ill-concealed disgust. “This reminds me of the sign you’ve got on your desk.”

“Which—oh, you mean ‘This Mess Is a Place.’”

“Exactly.”

“You’re right, of course. But isn’t it perfect?”

“It doesn’t look like any police headquarters ever seen on TV. Most of them look as if someone has at least mopped within the previous five years.”

“Forget TV for a moment, Mondo. This quite obviously is reality.”

“Screw reality! Audiences will never accept such a tawdry scene. Our headquarters will have to measure up to what the audience expects.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Remember our budget. What if we can get them to let us film here? We’ve got to keep thinking economy. Already I’m thinking about that church … what was it?”

“Ste. Anne’s.”

“Ste. Anne’s, right. I’m sure they’ll let us use the interiors. Save us a wad not having to build those sets. Add a measure of reality, too. We can use this kind of stuff in the teasers: ‘The actual room where the bishop was clubbed to death,’ ‘Where he prayed before being martyred’ … that sort of stuff.”

“You’ve got a point, Teddy. I must admit I wouldn’t be unhappy losing these vomit-green walls.” His face brightened. “But hey, now that we’re talking budget, just what do we have? I mean, just to recapitulate. The event?”

“The cold-blooded murder of a Roman Catholic bishop by a Roman Catholic priest.”

“That does have a ring to it. The TV players?”

“Gold Coast Enterprises and a cable network.”

“Right. The reaction time?”

“A month or less. There’s a very definite limit to audience attention span when it comes to murder in Detroit. Even when both the victim and murderer are Catholic clergymen.”

“Right. The payoff?”

“We can look for a ceiling of about two seventy-five. So far we haven’t had to pay off anyone. But that’ll begin soon enough.”

“The problem is, everybody thinks TV pays like the big screen where six figures are what’s served for breakfast.”

“Let’s just hope our detective—what’s his name?… Quirt … doesn’t think he’s worth auctioning Disney Studios for.”

“Moving right along: the story spin?”

“How ’bout, ‘Changing Church explodes as priest kills bishop.’”

“Mmm … a little weak … but okay for beginners,” he concluded. “And, lastly, the problem?

“No ending.”

“The price you have to pay for being first on the scene.”

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Mondo, I just remembered something. It just dawned on me why I thought this place was so perfect.
Beverly Hills Cop!
Remember?”

“How could anyone forget
Beverly
—oh, I see: The opening was filmed in Detroit. Right here in these rooms, wasn’t it? Okay, so I guess if the movie had the ‘typical Detroit headquarters,’ viewers would wonder why Detroit had cleaned up its act. We almost have to use these interiors, for the simple reason that Eddie Murphy did.”

“And” —Walberg rubbed his hands together—” think of the savings!”

Quirt entered the hallway. Self-introductions were made. The lieutenant ushered the moviemakers into the small room ordinarily used for interrogations.

“We were admiring your decor.…” Walberg waved his arm in an encompassing way.

“Our
what?”

“The colors, the furnishings.” More gestures.

Quirt’s eyes popped. He leaned forward. “This shit?”

“We were thinking of it more in terms of vomit,” Turner said.

“Yeah,” Quirt agreed, “puke is more like it.”

“You must’ve been here when they filmed
Beverly Hills Cop
, weren’t you?” Walberg asked.

Quirt nodded.

“Did you have to vacate the premises while they filmed?”

“What?” Quirt looked mock-astonished. “They didn’t shoot here. They couldn’t. This is a pretty busy place. They had to build their own sets.” He nodded. “But they did manage to capture the pukey atmosphere all right.”

“Well, Teddy …” Turner turned to his partner in slime. “At least it won’t be very expensive to recreate this place. And it’ll be an appropriate setting for the language.”

“The language?” Quirt’s brows knotted questioningly. “You gonna have cops wandering around using the F word the way they did in
Beverly Hills Cop?
I gotta tell you guys, that ain’t real. I mean, our guys are not unfamiliar with the word. They just don’t talk like that … especially on the job.”

Turner sighed deeply. “We’re not in the business of teaching viewers about reality. We give them what they’re familiar with.”

“But” —Walberg changed the subject—” speaking of business, I guess Mr. Kleimer called and told you what we wanna do.”

Quirt nodded enthusiastically.

“We want,” Walberg continued, “to tell the tragic story of Bishop Diego’s murder, and help people understand why it happened.”

“Why it happened?” Quirt repeated. “Even we don’t know that for sure. We think Diego pushed the priest—Carleson—too hard.”

“Don’t worry,” Walberg said. “We’ll find more than one reason.”

“Was there any sex?” Turner asked.

“Sex?”

“Were either of them—or both—gay?”

“Gay! No, nothing like that.”

“A woman?” Turner persisted.

“A woman …?” That was one of the leads Tully had uncovered. Quirt couldn’t recall her name … but there was something about some broad who might have had it in for Diego.

Tully would know all the details, of course. But one of the last things Quirt wanted was for anyone else—especially not Tully—to get in on this. “A woman … yeah, there was something about a broad who might’ve been a suspect before we nailed Carleson.”

“A suspect? No. No,” Turner said. “We don’t want to confuse the issue. We’ll have the woman as a love interest. We can get explicit there. The bishop in mufti, sneaking up to her apartment. Climbing into bed among the shadows.”

Quirt’s mouth was open. “You guys don’t get real worked up about reality, do you?”

Walberg disregarded this. “I think we can get this show on the road. Do you have an agent, Lieutenant?”

“Me? An agent? You kidding?”

“Then we’ll have our lawyer get in touch. About compensation. We’ll be telling this story through the eyes of the detective … through
your
eyes.”

“No shit! Who you gonna have … who you gonna get to play me?”

“We’ve been negotiating with a bit player you wouldn’t recognize. But now that Mr. Kleimer has changed our direction, we’re thinking of Chris Noth … you know, one of the detectives on ‘Law and Order.’”

“No kidding!” Quirt was delighted. “Hey, he’s a good-lookin’ guy!” He paused. “Chris Noth as me! Oh, yeah; I forgot about you guys and reality.”

Quirt was being paged. He left the room to take a phone call.

“Just wanted to check: How’re things going?” Brad Kleimer asked.

“Great, just great. This could be a lot of fun,” Quirt said.

“Fun?”

“Guess who they got playing me in this movie? Forget it, you’d never guess. Chris Noth!”

“Chris Who?”

“The guy who plays one of the detectives on ‘Law and Order.’ And guess what else? I’m gonna get paid! This is movie money. Big bucks! They wanna tell this story through my eyes. I’ll probably have my name up there in the whatchamacallits—the credits. This is a
gas.
I gotta thank you, Brad. Wait’ll I tell the wife.”

“Slow down, George—”

“Say, Brad, do you remember anything about that dame Tully came up with? The one who might’ve had a motive for offing Diego?”

“No. Forget her, George. What about all that follow-up on Carleson I asked for? You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”

“Don’t worry, Brad; I’ll get someone on it.”

“Dammit, I don’t want ‘someone’; I want the best you’ve got!”

“Don’t worry. I’ll get you somebody good. Listen, Brad, I gotta get back to the movie guys. I’ll talk to you later.”

Slowly, thoughtfully, Kleimer lowered the receiver until it rested on the base.

Christ! He hoped he hadn’t outsmarted himself.

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

It was disastrous. the only excuse Brad Kleimer could dredge up for his blunder in introducing George Quirt to the movie people was that he’d been caught off guard. Chalk it up to shortsightedness.

Kleimer had not foreseen in any way the advent of Hollywood. Once he had determined that his involvement in a movie would be counterproductive, he should simply have washed his hands of the matter and left Walberg and Turner to their own devices. Instead, he had to be too clever by half and bring Quirt into it.

He shouldn’t have done that. He now realized that if an airtight case was to be built against Carleson, he himself would have to personally take care of the nitty-gritty.

Kleimer was miserable.

News from the Thirty-sixth District Court, where Carleson had been arraigned a short time ago, didn’t help. Oh, the priest had been indicted on a charge of first-degree murder all right. But the judge had set bail at only $25,000. It could have been—should have been—much higher.

The special problem was that the archdiocese of Detroit had gotten into the act.

They—Cardinal Boyle actually—had put up $2,500, the 10 percent bond needed for Carleson to be freed on bail. On top of that, Boyle had retained Avery Cone, one of the area’s top trial attorneys, to defend Carleson.

Thus, with Carleson free to come and go, Kleimer was deprived of the luxury of checking into the priest’s past while he was confined. Now Kleimer would have to get more deeply involved and take care of the pavement work that he’d expected to delegate to Quirt.

In addition, no matter how capable Kleimer was, Cone was a most worthy opponent. This was no walk in the park to begin with. It was becoming more of a challenge by the minute.

Kleimer was about to consider his next move when the phone rang. This might still be the long-awaited national news media. Masking his beleaguered mood, he greeted the caller in as upbeat a manner as he could muster. “Brad Kleimer. How can I help you?”

There was a silence, as if the caller had gotten the wrong number. Then a decidedly female voice said, “My, aren’t we being sweet today. I didn’t expect that.”

“What? Who is this?”

“How soon they forget.”

It was Kleimer’s turn to pause.
“Audrey?
Is that you?”