Life Blood Part 7

She seized the paper and endorsed it with a flourish.

My pulse was still in overdrive, but I hugged her, then signaled the crew that shooting was over for the day.

"Okay, everybody. Time to wrap."

The gang immediately began striking the lights and rolling up electrical cords. They would take the equipment back downtown and deliver the film to the lab, while I would head home. It had been a long day and lots of thinking was needed. Besides, it was starting to rain, a dismal spatter against Paula's grimy windows, as the gray spring afternoon had begun darkening toward sullen evening.

"Listen, I enjoyed this." Paula had taken Rachel in her arms and was stroking her blond hair. "I really love talking about her. She's changed my life."

I gave her another hug. "You're great. And you're going to be wonderful in the film." If I used her. The whole thing was getting unnerving.

"You have no idea how much you've helped." Then I said good-bye to Rachel, who responded with a perfect "Bye, bye" through her haze of spaghetti sauce.

Okay, get the superintendent. Crank up the freight elevator. Get out of here.

Scott Ventri, key grip, took charge of handling the gear, dictating which equipment got loaded on first. I watched long enough to make sure everything was going okay, and then I joined Arlene, old friend and queen of outrageous makeup, on the other elevator.

"You notice it?" she whispered. The door had just closed.

"Notice what?" I knew full well what she was talking about. But it just felt too bizarre.

"Those kids could almost be twins. That little boy last week, and this girl. They look just alike. It's spooky."

"Guess their parents couldn't figure out what was causing those pregnancies. So they just kept having more babies." I decided to try to insert some humor, deflect the conversation. "Maybe we should tell Paula and Carly."

"Very dumb." Arlene bit at a long, red, false fingernail, a perennial habit for as long as I'd known her. "We should mind our own business, that's what we should do."

"Works for me. But it also proves we were smart not to shoot any footage of the kids. The whole world would realize something's funny."

Then I had an idea. "Want to come downtown to my place after we unload?

Have some deep thoughts over what all this means?"

First the kids, then the call. What was this guy Alex G.o.ddard, whoever he was, up to? Definitely time to talk to somebody. . . .

"Gee, I'd love to," Arlene was saying, "but I can't. I gotta go out to Kew Gardens for my mom and dad's anniversary tonight. Their thirty-fifth, can you believe? Of course, I was a very late baby." She blinked her dark, languid eyes, as though rehearsing the line for a downtown club.

"A miracle of modern fertility science, right?" s.h.i.t. Arlene, I need you.

"Right." She giggled, then seemed to study the flashing lights on the elevator's control panel. "G.o.d, those kids, they're too good to be true. I'd love to have one like that." She impatiently pounded the number one a couple of times, perhaps hoping to speed our creaky descent. "I can get bonked every night of the week, but I can't get a serious boyfriend. New York's clubs aren't exactly br.i.m.m.i.n.g with the vine-covered-cottage-and-picket-fence type. And as for the pickings at work, given the kind of pictures David makes, forget it. Last thing I need is some twenty-year-old pothead who thinks with his w.a.n.g."

"I'm afraid I'm not helping you much with this one." I'd cast _Baby Love_ mostly with Off-Broadway unknowns. The actress Mary Gregg was a veteran of Joseph Papp's original Public Theater, the experimental enterprise downtown. The few male parts all went to guys who were either gay or married.

"Oy, what can you do, right? If it happens, it happens." Arlene watched the door begin to stutter open as we b.u.mped onto the lobby level. Then she zeroed in on me. "You really want a kid too, don't you? I mean, that's why you did this script, right? Which, by the way, is great. I mean the script."

"I think most women do, down deep."

She smiled. "Well, if I ever have one, it's going to be the old-fashioned way. It's a heck of a lot cheaper than adopting." She was heading out, into the front foyer. "Not to mention more fun getting there."

On that I definitely had to agree.

The lobby's prewar look was gray and dismal, and as we emerged onto the street, the rain had turned into a steady downpour. Lou was off again today, down at the hospital with Sarah, so I'd engaged a doorman from a new co-op across the street to keep an eye on our vans. A crisp twenty had extracted his solemn promise to do just that. At the moment, however, he was nowhere to be seen. Proving, I suppose, David's theory that we needed our own security guy at all location shoots.

Lou, I thought, I hope you're finally getting through to her.

"No limo, but at least we get first call on the vans," Arlene observed, her voice not hiding the sarcasm. "Just once I'd

like to work for somebody who had serious VIP transportation."

"David would walk before he'd get a limo."

We were headed down the street, me digging out my keys, when I noticed the man standing in the rain. He was just behind our lead van, a three-year-old gray Ford, waiting for us.

My first thought was he must be connected to Nicky Russo, David's wiseguy banker, here to bust my chops over the Teamster issue. Screw him. Just my luck he'd send somebody the very day Lou was not on hand.

But then I realized I'd guessed wrong. The man was more Hispanic than Italian. He also was short, solidly built, late fifties maybe, with intense eyes and gray hair that circled his balding pate like the dirty snow around a volcano's rim. As he moved toward us, I thought I detected something military in his bearing, not so much the crispness of a soldier but rather the authoritative swagger of an officer. Well, maybe a retired officer.

"The paper on your windshield says you are filming a movie," came a voice with a definite Spanish accent. No greetings, no hiya, how're you doin'? Just the blunt statement. Then, having established what was already clear to all at hand, he continued. "It says the t.i.tle is _Baby Love_. Why are you making this movie here?"

That was it. I glanced at Arlene, who'd turned white as a sheet. You get a lot of onlookers around a location shoot, but not too many who challenge your right to exist, which was exactly what was coming through in his menacing tone.

I handed Arlene the keys. "Here, go ahead and open up. I'll handle this."

Then I turned back to him. "What you saw in the windshield of the vans is a New York City Film Board permit. That's all the information we are required to provide. If you read it, you know everything I'm obliged to tell you." I returned his stare. "However, if people ask nicely, I'm happy to answer their questions."

"Are you making this movie about a person in this building? Your other films have been doc.u.mentaries."

G.o.d help me, I thought. Is this what my fans are like?

Then it hit me. I don't know how I'd missed the connection, but now it just leapt out. First the phone call, then this hood. Somebody was tracking me.

"I'm scouting locations," I lied, feeling a chill go through me. "We're second unit for an action film, shooting some prep footage for the producers. Does the name Arnold Schwarzenegger mean anything to you?"

"Then why is the film about babies?"

"That's meant to be a joke. Remember the movie _Twins_? It's a joke t.i.tle. Do you understand?"

At that moment, Paul Nulty came barging out the door with a huge klieg light, followed by several other members of the crew carrying sound gear. Our cordial tete-a-tete was about to be disrupted.

My new Hispanic friend saw them and abruptly drew up. That was when I noticed the shoulder holster under his jacket, containing some sort of snub-nosed pistol.

Jesus, I thought, this must be what some kind of hired killer looks like. That gun's not a prop.

"I think you are lying." He closed his jacket and, ignoring my crew, bored in relentlessly on me, his eyes dead and merciless. "That is a big mistake."

It was the first time in my life I'd ever stood next to a man who had a gun and was deeply ticked at me. He'd wanted me to see his piece, just to make sure I took him seriously. He wasn't threatening me, per se.

Rather he was letting me know how strongly he cared about what I was doing.

Well, d.a.m.n him, but I still was scared. I might have managed to bluff Nicky Russo, but he was a guy who operated by an age-old set of Sicilian rules. This thug didn't strike me as the rule-book type.

Hand shaking, I pulled out my cell phone, flicked it open, and punched in 911.