Pellam nodded at the papers. “Who’s this Father James Daly? He’s the director?”

“I called him an hour ago – he was out finding emergency housing for the tenants of the building. I’ll let you know when he calls back.”

Pellam then asked, “Can you get the name of the insurance agent Ettie talked to.”

“Sure, I can.”

Can. It was turning into the most expensive verb in the English language.

Pellam slid another two hundred, in stiff twenties, toward the lawyer. He sometimes thought ATMs should flash a message that read, “Are you going to spend this money wisely?”

He nodded out the window toward the high-rise. Bailey’s office was only two doors from Ettie’s burnt tenement and a haze of lingering smoke still obscured his view of the glitzy place. “Roger McKennah,” he said slowly. “Ettie said some of his workers from across the street were in the alley behind her building the night of the fire. Why’d they be there?”

But Bailey was nodding as if he wasn’t surprised at this news. “They’re doing some work here.”

“Here? In your building?”

“Right. He’s part-owner of this place. That’s the work going on outside. That you hear.” He nodded toward the sound of hammering in a hallway upstairs. “The new Donald Trump himself – renovating my building.”

“Why?”

“That’s a source of some speculation but we think, we think he’s fixing up a hideaway for his mistress on the second floor. But you know rumors. You don’t suspect him, do you?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

Bailey glanced toward his wine bottle but forewent another glass. “I can’t believe he’d do anything illegal. Developers like McKennah steer clear of shenanigans. Why bother with small potatoes like burning an old tenement? He’s got hotels and offices all over the northeast. That new casino of his on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City just opened last month… You don’t look convinced.”

“A rule in Hollywood thriller scriptwriting is that if you don’t want to spend a lot of time developing your villain’s character just make him real estate developer or oil company executive.”

Bailey shook his head. “McKennah’s too top-drawer to do anything illegal.”

“Let me make a call.” Pellam took the phone.

The lawyer apparently changed his mind about the wine and graciously poured himself another. Pellam declined with a shake of his head as he punched in a long series of numbers. “Alan Lefkowitz, please.” After several clicks and long moments on hold, cheerful voice came on the phone.

“Pellam? The John Pellam? Shit. Where you be?”

Hating himself for it, Pellam slipped into producer-speak. “Big Apple. What’s cooking, Lefty?”

“Doing that thing with Polygram. You know. The Costner one. On the way to the set right now.”

Pellam couldn’t recall whether he owed multimillion-dollar producer Lefkowitz anything at the moment or whether Lefkowitz owed him. But Pellam took on a the creditor’s attitude one when he said, “I need some help here, Lefty.”

“You bet, Johnny. Talk to me.”

“You know all the big boys out here on the Right Coast.”

“Some.”

“Roger McKennah.”

“We rub elbows. He’s on the film board at Columbia. A trustee. Or NYU. I don’t remember.”

“I want to get in to see him. Or let’s say I want to look at him. Socially. His crib. Not the battlefields.”

Silence from the other coast. Then: “So… Why’d you be interested in that?”

“Research.”

“Ha. Research. Poking around. Gimme a minute.” Lefty remained on the line but grunted, somewhat breathlessly – as if he was making love though Pellam knew he was leaning across a massive desk and flipping through his address book. “Well, how’s this?”

“How’s what, Lefty?”

“You wanta go to a party. You live to party, right?”

The last party Pellam could recall attending had been two or three years ago. He said, “I’m party animal, Lefty.”

“McKennah pokes the social beast all the time. Drop my name and you’ll get in. I’ll make some calls. Find out where and when. I’ll call Spielberg.” (Spielberg’s assistant, he meant. And the call would finally end up with an assistant’s assistant located in an entirely different town than the chief raider of the lost ark was in.)

“My undying gratitude, Lefty. I mean it.”

“So,” the producer said coyly, “research, huh, John?”

“Research.”

Silence while the signals of ambition bounced off a satellite somewhere in cold space and shot back down to earth. “I’ve been hearing things, John.”

“What? That Oakland’s losing and the Cardinals’re winning?”

“Somebody in some post-pro house out here was telling somebody I know you’ve booked editing time.”

“That’s a lot of somebodies,” Pellam observed.

“And that’s not the only thing I’ve heard.”

“Isn’t it?”

“A couple studios’ve tried to get you to scout for them but the word is you’re out of the scouting business.”

Somebody told somebody about something.

The Word in Hollywood was as quick as the Word on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen.

“Naw, naw, I’m just on vacation.”

“Oh. Sure. Got it. And you need a good editor to clean up that footage you took of Mickey and Goofy when you were at Epcot. Sure.”

“Something like that.”

“Come on, John. I always had faith in you.”

A safe way of saying that whatever had gone down, however bad it looked for Pellam (and it’d looked pretty bad at one time), Lefkowitz hadn’t abandoned him. Which was, with some creative recasting, slightly true.

“It’s always warmed my heart knowing that.”

“So? You’re trying to get something on, aren’t you?”

“It’s a little thing, Lefty. A small project. You wouldn’t be interested. All I need at this point is domestic distribution.”

“You got financing? And I didn’t hear about it?” He whispered this.

“It’s a very small project.”

“Your Palm D’or and your L.A. Film Critics award were for small projects too, you’ll recall.”

“Distribution, I was saying.”

Producers love distribution-only deals because if the film bombs they don’t lose millions. It’s a percentage arrangement. The execs don’t get the Academy awards and they don’t get as rich but they don’t get as poor either and hence don’t get fired as soon.

“My ears’re turned your way, Pellam. Talk to me.”

“I’m in a meeting now-”

“Yeah, with who?”

“A lawyer. Can’t really go into it.” Pellam winked at Bailey.

“Wall Street? Which firm?”

“Hush, hush,” Pellam whispered.

“What’s going on, John? This could be big. A new Pellam feature.”

If Lefkowitz found out he was slavering over a documentary he’d hang up the phone in an instant and the Pellam he had always been behind one hundred per cent would cease to exist. Distribution for the art-house circuit meant selling the film to a total of about one hundred screens around the country, like the Film Forum in New York and the Biograph in Chicago. Feature films went to thousands of multiplexes.

Pellam, deciding he didn’t feel guilty, said, “You get me in to see McKennah and I’ll have my lawyer here give you a call.” There was a pause that screenwriters call a beat. “I may have to burn some bridges but I’d do it. For you.”

“Love you, Johnny. I mean that. Sincerely. Oh, about McKennah, you know he’s an unchained shit, don’t you?”

“I just want to crash his party, Lefty. I don’t want to sleep with him.”

“You have that lawyer call me.”

They hung up.

“Was that,” Bailey asked, “a Hollywood person?”

“To the core.”

“Do you really want me to call him?”

“I wouldn’t do that to you, Louis. But I do have a legal question.”

Bailey tipped the jug of wine into his cup once more.

Pellam asked, “What’s the sentence for carrying an unlicensed pistol in New York City?”

There were probably some questions that gave the lawyer pause and some that surprised him. This wasn’t in either of those categories. He answered as if Pellam had asked him about the weather. “Not good here. It’s technically a mandatory sentence but the judge has some discretion. Unless of course you’re a felon. Then it’s a year mandatory. Riker’s Island. And the sentence comes with several large boyfriends, whether you want them or not. You’re not talking about yourself, are you?”