Suckers. Part 29

"Nick Stryker is a rogue cop who doesn't play by the rules, he just makes 'em up as he goes along. He's an undercover cop who finally went so deep into the bowels of organized crime it took half the L.A. police force to get him out." Eddie was feeling good now, getting caught up in his own momentum, building his pitch. "And when the smoke clears, and the blood dries, there are seventeen corpses on the floor. Ten of 'em are mobsters, seven of 'em are cops. One of 'em is Nick."

Eddie's hands were moving now, as if grabbing ideas out of the air and thrusting them into the hungry maw of his voracious pitch. Crofoot watched with a poker face. Eddie didn't care whether Crofoot liked it or not; the pitch had a life of its own, it couldn't be stopped.

''Then a black Corvette pulls up and out steps Dr. Francine 'Frankie' Stein, a scientist with a badge, a black-belt beauty with more dangerous curves than Mulholland Drive. She picks up Nick's decapitated head and clutches it to her heaving bosom. He was her lover, the best she ever had, and d.a.m.n it, she's going to bring him back, somehow, someway." Eddie was feeling the rush, carried by the energy of his idea, of his vision, of what had to be the best f.u.c.king idea ever.

"She takes his head, and the corpses of the dead cops, back to her secret, high-tech, underground lab where, using the latest advances in surgical engineering, cybernetic organs, and computer imaging, she makes medical history." Eddie was in the homestretch, the finish line in sight, the prize money and the fame his for the taking. "She builds a man. He's got Nick's head, and the best body parts and healthiest organs from the seven other dead cops. He's also got a gun. And a badge. He's no ordinary man. And he's no ordinary cop. He's Frankencop, and he's serious about fighting crime. Dead serious."

Eddie stopped then, a broad smile on his face, waiting for the rousing applause. Crofoot nodded, taking it all in.

"Are we talking a two-hour pilot?" Crofoot asked.

Not exactly the enthusiastic response Eddie had hoped for, but at least he was showing an interest. "We can shoot some s.e.x scenes and sell it overseas as a big, wall-to-wall action movie-on the slim chance MBC is stupid enough to pa.s.s on a sure thing."

Crofoot tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair, adding up the figures on an imaginary calculator.

"It's going to cost two million dollars, and what's the network coughing up, maybe half?" Crofoot didn't need an answer, he could see it on Eddie's face. "So that leaves a million dollar deficit. How much is the studio kicking in?"

Eddie instantly plummeted from his postpitch high. "I think I'll have that drink now."

Crofoot motioned to the bar. "Help yourself." He knew where this conversation was going, but it wasn't fun unless Eddie squirmed.

Eddie took a handful of ice cubes and crammed them into a crystal gla.s.s, then liberally splashed them with Jim Beam. "I've worked with all the studios, and made each of 'em a fortune. We're talking millions on millions. But executives have no loyalty, no respect. You have a couple near misses, and they forget you exist." He gently shook the gla.s.s as he walked back to Crofoot, the tinkle of ice cubes making him feel like an important character in a meeting rife with human drama. Suddenly, he felt like he actually had some control over the situation. He sank into a leather chair.

"I did a half-dozen ambitious, high-concept series that were too innovative, ahead of their time kind of stuff. The networks didn't have the guts to stick with 'em. So the studios lost a few bucks, but not nearly as much as they've made off of me in my time." Eddie settled into a seat opposite Crofoot, who was staring impa.s.sively at him. "There's still a Saddlesore stage show on the Pinnacle Studios tour. But, can you believe this, no studio will give me a cent for this incredible pilot, just because they lost a couple dollars on a couple shows."

Crofoot smiled, but Eddie found it anything but rea.s.suring. For the first time in days, his bowels wanted to do aerobics.

"The shows were toilets, Eddie. Everyone s.h.i.t all over them and the studios had to flush twenty million bucks down the drain." Crofoot's fingers were doing their tap dance and so was Eddie's stomach. Crofoot's choice of metaphor verged horrifyingly close to mind reading. "No one can afford you. The big studios are too smart now, and the little ones are too poor."

Eddie sat up so quickly some of his drink sloshed out of the gla.s.s onto the black leather. "Look at Saddlesore, look at Deputy Ghost, look at Beyond Earth-those shows made ten times what my other shows lost!"

"A decade ago, Eddie." Crofoot handed Eddie a napkin and motioned to the wet spot. "In Hollywood, that's the Stone Age. You're extinct. You've had to mortgage everything you own just to keep up the appearance that you're still alive."

Eddie wiped up the tiny puddle, then unconsciously dabbed his brow with the wet napkin. "This is your chance to get into the television business big time, to start as a player. You know how hard it is to sell a pilot? You don't let opportunities like this slip away. It's bra.s.s ring time. You understand what I'm saying? They don't come along every day."

And in Eddie's case, might not come along ever again. But Planet was right about one thing, it was the perfect opportunity for Crofoot to buy into the exclusive network television game and get a coveted seat at the high rollers' table.

"You're asking me for a million dollars just for the pilot, and maybe three hundred thousand an episode to cover the deficit if it goes to series." Crofoot said. "That's a big risk."

"Frankencop is gonna sell and it's gonna be a hit, I can feel it," Eddie said. "I'll stake my career on it."

"If I give you a million bucks, more than your career is going to be at stake. You do understand that, don't you, Eddie?"

Eddie swallowed some Jim Beam and mulled the implications. If he couldn't deliver on a pilot commitment, for Christ's sake, he was dead in the business anyway. What difference did it make if he was dead all the way around? Better to be six feet under than to face the humiliation of waiting for a table at Morton's.

"Sure," Eddie said.

No contract. No deal memo. No handshake. One tentative word was all it took for Eddie Planet to strike a coproduction deal with the mob, otherwise known as Pinstripe Productions International, Daddy Crofoot, president and head of production.

"I own the negative," Crofoot said, "and I call all the shots."

"I want the final card, at the end of the show, executive producer credit." Eddie hoped the bathroom was close by. He was going to need it.

"You can call yourself Grand Poobah of the Realm, I don't care, as long as you remember you work for me."

"Gotcha, Mr. Crofoot." Eddie downed the rest of his drink. "Could you point me toward the bathroom?"

"Call me Daddy." Crofoot walked to the desk, opened a drawer and pulled out a manila envelope. "I want you to meet the star of Frankencop. Flint Westwood."

"What's his TVQ?" Eddie had never heard of the guy, much less his popularity quotient with the public.

Crofoot opened up the envelope and tossed Eddie an eight-by-ten photo. Eddie looked down at a picture of the biggest hard-on he had ever seen. Crofoot grinned.

"That's his TVQ."

A stream of cold air was aimed at Sabrina Bishop's nipples, and eighty-three people were waiting around impatiently for them to get hard. But her nipples just weren't team players.

Maybe if she had spent all those years in all those acting cla.s.ses pretending to be erect nipples instead of a tree, or all old woman, or a dog, she wouldn't be sitting topless on a pool table, while a stringy haired makeup lady dabbed Sabrina's face and a gum-chomping special effects man wearily aimed a tiny air hose at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Her cinematic lover, Thad Paul, who had already managed to become a has-been TV star at age thirty-five, was huddling with the s.h.a.ggy young director, just out of USC. They were watching the video playback of Thad's close-up, taken while he lay on top of her and mimicked o.r.g.a.s.m.

Being a method actor, Thad had thought they should experience the o.r.g.a.s.m rather than act it, but she wouldn't go for it, despite his fervent protests. After all, he claimed, Mickey Rourke did it in Wild Orchid, so why couldn't they? She didn't care if Ronald Reagan did it in Bedtime for Bonzo, she wasn't going to prost.i.tute herself for a direct-to-video, erotic thriller-another Postman Always Rings Twice meets Double Indemnity.

In this epic, Scorching Pa.s.sion, she was playing a s.e.xually frustrated woman in a bad marriage who falls for a mysterious loner-and then becomes the target of her murderously jealous husband. This time she was a frustrated s.e.x therapist, last time she was a frustrated city councilwoman. Sometimes she killed the hubby and framed the lover for it-but it always ended up with her writhing around naked with William Katt, or Andrew Stevens, or Jack Scalia, or Thad Paul, or some other refugee of series television.

Sabrina was born with genuine acting talent, but she was also born with perfect b.r.e.a.s.t.s-the kind women bought for themselves and men dreamed of groping. Big without being large, well defined and firm, sloping into soft, smooth curves that led the eye down to her flat, taut stomach and narrow waist.

They were terrific, she had to admit. And combined with her long blond hair, blue eyes, quick wit, and vivacious personality, they had gotten her far. She was momentarily a journalism major at the University of Chicago (where she had successively been an art major, French major, communications major, and English major) when Playboy offered her five grand to take off her shirt in their "Stop the Presses" spread on collegiate cub reporters. She found a new major. Playboy Centerfold. And then she graduated. To Playmate of the Year.

That got her $50,000 and a red Corvette convertible. And it got her noticed in Hollywood. First by sleazy p.o.r.n producers, whom she ignored, and then by television casting agents looking for something pretty to sizzle up the hundredth episode of their tired detective shows. It wasn't much, but her brief bounces across the screen got her into the Screen Actors Guild, and gave her enough money when her Playboy prize ran thin to keep her nice little Venice house, maintain her gas-guzzling Corvette, and enroll in all the major acting courses.

She eventually graduated from TV bit player to a guest shot as a bikini-clad Baywatch lifeguard killed by a ferociously h.o.r.n.y jellyfish. And that led to her first direct-to-video thriller, Torrid Embrace, and that led to another, and another, and now, if she wasn't careful, she was on her way to being the next Shannon Tweed or, worse, Tanya Roberts.

It's a living, she told herself. And she was the star. But deep down she knew that if it were at all possible, she would get second billing behind her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. All she wanted to be was a serious actress. And all anybody else seemed to want from her was a stiff pair of nipples.

The director, in desperation, had already dropped the temperature in the soundstage to near freezing, but complaints from the crew and the foggy breath of the actors made him reluctantly give up on that approach.

Satisfied that his writhing and wincing were Oscar caliber, Thad Paul tore himself away from his celluloid o.r.g.a.s.m and looked up from the monitor. "Are you ready yet?"

Sabrina glared at him, a man she detested, a man who would soon be nuzzling her cleavage like a baby and getting paid for it. Is doing p.o.r.no any different? The writing is much better, she told herself, and she's working with real actors.

She glanced at Thad again. Okay, the writing is better.

The special effects man studied her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "The soldiers are still at ease."

"We need 'em hard enough to cut diamonds," the director said. "The audience has to know she's hot and bothered, and spraying her cleavage with sweat isn't enough."

She closed her eyes. I'm not doing p.o.r.no. This is an erotic thriller. p.o.r.no is all about the s.e.x. These movies have a plot. There's murder, there's pa.s.sion, there's angst. Even the big studios are doing movies like this, so it can't be p.o.r.n, right? Look at Basic Instinct. Was that p.o.r.no? h.e.l.l no, it was an erotic thriller. Like this. It's not just about s.e.x. Click your heels together, Dorothy, and repeat after me: It's not just about s.e.x. It's not just about s.e.x.

"How about I stick an ice cube in my mouth and caress her b.o.o.bs with it," Paul asked the director. "We could even work it into the scene."

"It's been done," the director said. "9 Weeks."

"How about a frozen Tater Tot," Paul suggested. "I've never seen that."

Sabrina opened her eyes and came to a realization. Tater Tots weren't going to do it. Neither were Eskimo pies, frozen peas, or a couple of waffles. Her nipples were trying to tell her something.

She abruptly got up from the pool table, startling the effects man, and grabbed her shirt, pulling it over her chest.

"It's a wrap," she said.

"But we haven't done the close-up of your heaving b.r.e.a.s.t.s," the director said.

"Steal a shot from Pa.s.sion Play, no one will know the difference," she said, heading for the exit and the safety of her trailer.

"You walk out of here, babe, you'll never work again," Thad called after her. "You'll be finished in this biz."

She should be so lucky. She didn't know what tomorrow would bring, but it wouldn't be more of this.

Sabrina Bishop was going to change her life. But she had no way of knowing that if she wasn't extremely careful, she stood a good chance of losing it.

One Adam-12, a 211 in progress... One Adam-12, a 415 man with a gun... One Adam-12, a 415 fight group with chains and knives.

Twelve years as a cop, and Sergeant Charlie Willis still thought of Officers Reed and Malloy when he saw a black and white. Even when it was his own. That's what you get growing up in front of a television set.

He could also thank his mother. Married four or five times (the validity of the Tijuana ceremony was still being hotly debated), and each new hubby was a bigger deadbeat than the last. If they weren't beating on his mother, they were making moves on Zoe, his early-blooming younger sister. So Charlie found himself unwillingly cast in the role of family cop. By the time he was eighteen, he had subdued so many drunken stepfathers, wife beaters, and would-be child molesters, it seemed like a natural career move to actually make it a profession.

Besides, it looked pretty good to him. At least from what he saw on TV. When he wasn't defending the family from predatory stepfathers, he found solace observing the orderly world of television. Everything made sense, and good was always noticeably different from evil. And the people who seemed to have the most control over this orderly world, who led the happiest lives and had all the answers, were the kind-hearted, clean-cut police officers.

Boy, did TV have it wrong.

Charlie zipped up his fly and stepped out from behind the large bush he was using as a combination speed trap and urinal. The sweltering Santa Ana winds were sweeping through Los Angeles on this sunny afternoon, kicking up lungfuls of hot-baked, free-floating muck. Which made his throat dry and sore. Which made him drink about a quart of cola every hour. Which made him make a pit stop five times a shift.

The clean-cut officers of Adam-12 never parked for hours at a stretch on Coldwater Canyon, keeping the homeowners of the $4-million-plus mansions safe from the evils of loud m.u.f.flers, casually flung fast-food wrappers, and the occasional speeding European car. And not once did Reed and Malloy ever have to take a leak, Charlie thought, as he slipped back into his trusty black and white Impala cruiser. Come to think of it, they never sweated, had a runny nose, or stomach cramps-each a particular joy he had experienced during this all-around rotten day. Then again, Reed and Malloy never got laid, either. Reality occasionally had its advantages.

Not that Charlie was notching his bedpost into sawdust. He was obeying a self-imposed oath of celibacy since Connie ended their six years of blissful cohabitation. She cut out his heart, and his libido, when she packed up and ran away with the gardener. If Charlie was a better detective, he would have suspected something when she started taking Spanish courses and waxing poetic on the virtues of Atilano's green thumb. At least she dumped him right away. Another three months and he would have been stuck untangling himself from a common-law marriage. This way, at least he got to keep his gym set, his collection of John D. MacDonald paperbacks, and all his NFL gla.s.ses.

Thank G.o.d for small victories.

Charlie was making a mental note to check on Atilano's immigration status when he heard a screech of tires, followed by the sight of a white Rolls-Royce convertible whipsawing around the turn and charging past him.

He flicked on the lights and siren and pulled out, shredding an ice plant in a spray of gravel. His car skidded onto the street right behind the Rolls. If the driver noticed, he didn't give a d.a.m.n. The Rolls sped downhill, closing in tight on a Range Rover and, just shy of ramming it, swerved into oncoming traffic, forcing a cellular-toting boytoy in a Jeep to make a sudden right, jumping the curb onto a front lawn and plowing through the Statue of Liberty and Michelangelo's David.

The Rolls returned to the proper lane, cutting off the Range Rover which skidded to a sudden stop, eating about a thousand bucks worth of brake-pad. Charlie swerved to the right, deftly avoiding a rear-end collision with the Rover, choosing instead to mow over a perfectly manicured juniper and a mailbox with a wood-shake roof.

He bounced back onto the road behind the Rolls as it barrelled toward the intersection, making a right-hand turn, south toward Wilshire. Charlie surged into the opposite lane, overtaking the Rolls and cutting it off as it rounded the corner.

He took a deep breath and glanced into his rear-view mirror to catch his first glimpse of his adversary. She was in her sixties, her face tight with plastic surgery and anger, a string of pearls around her neck the size of gumb.a.l.l.s. Not exactly what he had expected. If he factored in senility, old age, respect for elders, maybe he could cut grandma some slack. That's when she leaned on her horn.

"This is a street," she yelled, sticking her head out of the window, "not a doughnut shop parking lot."

So much for Officer Friendly. Charlie got out of his car and strode to the driver's side of the Rolls. "Let's see your license and registration."

"I don't have time for this nonsense," she said. "We just wrapped an hour ago and Neiman Marcus closes in fifteen minutes."

Charlie sighed. Without knowing a thing about her, he knew everything. For one, she obviously lived in the Beverly Hills zip code, which meant she was not of this earth.

"License and registration, now." Reed and Malloy would have added a "ma'am," but Charlie figured he was doing her a favor by not dragging her out of the car, slapping her into consciousness and, perhaps, returning her to our world.

She reached into her purse and thrust her license out at him. He took it from her and glanced at it. Her name was Esther Radcliffe, and old Esther had sc.r.a.ped her birth date off with an Exacto knife and replaced it in ball point with a new one that would make her forty-seven.

"Now that you know who I am, move that boat," she said firmly, "or I'll have your badge on my charm bracelet."

Enough of this s.h.i.t. Charlie opened the door and motioned to the street. "Step out of the car."

She glared at him, her eyes flashing with fury. "Perhaps you don't understand the severity of the situation. The Neiman Marcus once-a-year sale ends at five P.M. If I don't leave now, I will miss it. Do you get it now? Is any of this sinking in?"

Oh yeah, Broom Hilda, it sure is.

"You can get out yourself, or I can remove you," Charlie said. "Your call."

"No one talks to me like that," she seethed, turning her back to him as she reached for her purse on the pa.s.senger seat.

''Then you'll get a real thrill when I read you your rights," said Charlie, who was preparing to do just that when she turned around, aimed a .38 Special squarely at his stomach, and fired.

Charlie felt as if he'd been impaled by a ballistic missile and carried into the stratosphere. His last thought, in that split second before blackness completely overtook him, was that there had to be a better way to make a living.

Esther Radcliffe tossed the gun on the pa.s.senger seat, drove around the police car, and managed to make it to Neiman Marcus before they closed the doors. The only thing on her mind when she left the store forty minutes later with her $11,000 in purchases was whether to tip the two salesmen helping her to the car in cash, or to put it on her charge.

The whole incident on Coldwater Canyon didn't cross her mind again until later that evening, when two plainclothes detectives drove up to her gate with a warrant for her arrest. She didn't let them in, of course. She made a telephone call instead.

The first thing Charlie Willis saw when he opened his eyes at the UCLA medical center were two men in tailored Armani suits standing at the foot of his bed. One was a William Morris agent. The other was a network executive.

Compilation copyright 2009 Joe Konrath & Jeff Strand.

Interview copyright 2009 Joe Konrath & Jeff Strand All stories and excerpts copyright 2009 Joe Konrath & Jeff Strand My Gun Has Bullets excerpt copyright 2009 by Lee Goldberg.

Cover art copyright by Carl Graves "Suckers" 2008, originally appeared as Delirium hardcover chapbook #6 "The Necro File" 2008, originally appeared in Like A Chinese Tattoo.

"Whelp Wanted" 2004, originally appeared in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, winter "Taken To The Cleaners" 2005, originally appeared in The Strand Magazine #16 "Poor Career Choice" 2006, originally appeared in These Guns For Hire.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the authors' imagination or used fict.i.tiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Joe Konrath & Jeff Strand.

The formatting and interior design of this ebook was done by Rob Siders at http://www.52Novels.com.

The cover art was done by Carl Graves at http://extendedimagery.blogspot.com.

Print and audiobook versions of Jack Daniels Stories are also available.