The Fifth Witness - Michael Connelly [50]
“I appreciate that and I’ll make it quick.”
“Good. Now what the fuck is this about me being scammed? Nobody scams me!”
I looked at him and waited and said nothing. It only took McReynolds five more seconds to blow another gasket.
“Well, are you going to tell me or not? I don’t have all day here.”
I looked at his personal assistant and then back at him. He got the message.
“Uh-uh, I’m going to have a witness to anything that’s said here. The girl stays.”
I shrugged and pulled a compact recorder out of my pocket and turned it on. I held it up, its red light glowing.
“Then I’ll make sure I have a record, too.”
McReynolds looked down at the device and I could see the concern in his eyes. His voice, his words preserved on tape. That could be dangerous in a place like Hollywood. Visions of Mel Gibson danced in his head.
“Okay, turn that off and Jenny goes.”
“Clegg!” Jenny protested.
McReynolds reached down and spanked her hard on the rump.
“I said go.”
Humiliated, the young woman hurried off like a schoolgirl.
“Sometimes you have to treat ’em that way,” McReynolds explained.
“And I’m sure they learn from it.”
McReynolds nodded in agreement, not picking up on the sarcasm in my voice.
“So again, Haller, what’s this about?”
“It’s about you, Clegg, being played for a sucker by Herb Dahl, your partner on the Lisa Trammel deal.”
McReynolds emphatically shook his head.
“No way. Legal’s all over that deal. It’s squeaky clean. Even the woman signed off. Trammel. I could make her a three-hundred-pound whore who likes black dick in the movie and she couldn’t do a thing about it. That deal is perfect.”
“Yeah, well, what Legal’s missed is the part about neither one of them having the rights to the story to sell you in the first place. Those rights happen to reside here with me. Trammel signed them over to me before Dahl came along and took second position. He thought he could move up one by stealing the original contracts out of my files. Only that’s not going to work. I’ve got a witness to the theft and Dahl’s fingerprints. He’s going to go down on fraud and theft charges and your choice here is to decide whether you want to go down with him, Clegg.”
“Are you threatening me? Is this some sort of shakedown? Nobody shakes me down.”
“No, no shakedown. I just want what’s mine. So you can either stick with Dahl as your partner or you can have the same deal with me.”
“It’s too late. I signed. We all signed. The deal is done.”
He turned to walk away.
“Have you paid him?”
He turned back to me.
“Are you kidding? This is Hollywood.”
“And you probably only signed deal memos, right?”
“That’s right. Contracts in four weeks.”
“Then your deal is announced but not done. That’s how you do it in Hollywood. But if you want to make a change, you can. If you want to find a deal killer, you can.”
“I don’t want to do any of that. I like the project. Dahl brought it to me. I made the deal with him.”
I nodded like I understood his dilemma.
“Suit yourself. But I go to the police tomorrow morning and file the suit in the afternoon. You’ll be named as a defendant. As someone who colluded in the perpetration of the fraud.”
“I did no such thing! I didn’t even know about all of this until you told me.”
“That’s right. I told you and you did nothing. You chose to move forward with a thief despite knowing the facts. That’s collusion and that makes my case.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled the tape recorder out. I held it up so he could see the red light was still on.
“I’m going to tie this movie up so long, the girl whose ass you just slapped will be running this place by the time it’s done.”
This time I walked away and he called me back.
“Wait a minute, Haller.”
I turned around. He looked off to the north, toward the sign high on the mountain that drew everybody here.
“What do I need to do?” he asked.
“You need to make the same deal with me. I’ll take care of