Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [41]
“Tomorrow Officer Sapian will call and tell you the body couldn’t be identified. Because there is no probable cause that a crime has been committed, we’d like you to suggest that he close the case as an accidental death.”
“That’s easy enough to do,” Kerney said. “What else?”
“Bratton here is going to join the film crew as an apprentice employee vetted by a theatrical stage employees’ union. He’ll be a gofer for the set decorator, or something like that. You’ll be his contact. What he tells you, you’ll pass on to me.”
“What purpose does putting Bratton undercover serve?”
“We’re after a network here, Kerney,” Fidel answered. “One that has been way too successful at not getting caught. The coyote on the Mexican side is a former corrupt cop. Mendoza is a cop. There may be other officers involved that we don’t know about. Maybe some Border Patrol officers are on the pad, looking the other way. Or some of the good citizens of Playas could be supplementing their incomes. I lost a nice young kid who was doing his job, and now it’s personal. Somebody blew his cover, and I want the son of a bitch who did it, and the other son of a bitch who killed him.”
“And Mendoza?” Kerney asked.
“He’s under surveillance twenty-four/seven starting now,” Bratton said, “as are some of our own people.”
Kerney walked to the door and opened it. “Did you roust me because you thought I might be a dirty cop involved in this scheme?”
“Think of it as a reality check,” Fidel replied.
“It’s your show.”
“You’ll do it?” Fidel asked, as he and Bratton stepped outside.
“Yeah, I’ll help,” Kerney said, “in spite of your bad manners.”
Johnny Jordan and Malcolm Usher didn’t finish working on the new scenes until after midnight. It was all good stuff, and Johnny had to admit to himself that the changes totally outdid the rodeo in terms of high-octane action. He watched as Usher sent the new material by e-mail to the screenwriter in California so some fresh dialogue could be worked up.
“I still think we could use the rodeo scenes,” Johnny said, when Usher closed the lid to his laptop. “Maybe in a slightly different way.”
“How so?” Usher asked, looking at Johnny over the rim of his reading glasses.
Johnny leaned back against the couch. “You’ve been talking about plot points all night long. How the film has to move the action along. So, I’ve been thinking about the opening scenes. Except for when the rancher chases the BLM officer and the sheriff’s deputies off the land, there’s not a lot of drama.”
“The tension builds nicely,” Usher retorted.
“Yeah, but where’s the impact? The rancher stands down the cops, who go off to get a court order to force him off the federal land. Meanwhile, the rancher’s daughter goes looking for her brother, who’s on the pro rodeo circuit, and doesn’t come back with him until the day before the cattle drive.”
“How in the hell does a rodeo fit into any of that?” Usher asked.
“We do a scene where the daughter finds her brother competing at a rodeo,” Johnny said. “Maybe he gets thrown and busted up at bit. He’s short of cash and down on his luck. So is his buddy.”
Usher raised an eyebrow. “You’re talking Steve McQueen in Junior Bonner.”
“Yeah, a great movie. Anyway, the brother and his buddy agree to help out, because they don’t have enough cash between them to pay their expenses and enter the next rodeo.”
“And the rancher has issues with his son,” Usher added, “because he never came back to take over the ranch.”
“Just like it’s in the script,” Johnny said. “Except now the son comes home because he’s broke, not because he wants to make amends with his old man.”
“We’d need a real rodeo grounds to film it.”
“There’s a nice one just over the state line in Duncan, Arizona, a little more than a hour’s drive from here.”
“It might work,” Usher said, “if we used tight shoots to film your boys, Tyler and Clint, saddle bronc riding, and edit in some crowd background noise and a booth announcer’s voice to set the scene. We could put the girl at the arena railing with your Hispanic