What no one could figure was what had caused the accident. “Something hit the engine,” the pilot ventured. “At least that’s the way it felt.” But he had no idea what it was. No one had seen any birds, but there was still the chance that one had been sucked into the air intake. They hadn’t felt that they were being hit by any of the debris from the explosions, but it was nevertheless possible that a rock, blasted into the air, had pierced the skin and gone into the engine compressor. Or perhaps the engine had destroyed itself. Gas turbines were known to throw compressor blades right through the side of the craft they were powering.
Padraig thought of another possibility when he saw Peter Barnes’s car pull into the parking area. “Could a rifle shot have done it?” he asked.
The pilot looked confused. “No one was firing rifles, were they?”
“None of our people,” Padraig said. “But could you bring down a helicopter with a rifle?”
“Sure! A shot into the rotor control mechanism might cut one of the linkages. Or a bullet into the compressor could cause all kinds of damage.”
Catherine saw Padraig’s eyes on Peter, who was walking up the hill, gradually showing awareness that something must have gone wrong. “Padraig, don’t even think about it. Peter wouldn’t know how to fire a rifle. I don’t think he even owns one.”
“There better be someone who knows where he’s been all morning.”
“How could he hit a moving target? He’s not a marksman. He probably doesn’t even know how to aim.”
“Well, he could hire a marksman, damn it. He’s already hired an auto mechanic and an intruder. The man is a psychopath.”
Peter came close enough to understand the gist of what had happened. “Is everything all right?” he asked to no one in particular. Then he focused in on Catherine. “Was anyone hurt?”
“One of the cameramen,” she answered. “But it’s not serious.”
“Padraig, are you all right?” Peter asked when he noticed O’Connell’s torn and stained clothes.
“Peachy,” the actor answered. “Couldn’t be better. My heart is flooded with gratitude that no one was killed. I’m not even thinking of the millions lost in the shoot and the price of the helicopter.”
Peter sat down next to Catherine, across from Padraig. “What caused it? Does anyone know?”
“Just what we were discussing,” Padraig said.
“Something hit the engine,” the pilot filled in. “The investigators will tear the wreck apart and put it back together again. They’ll have some answers.”
“Perhaps it was a bullet,” Padraig interjected, “fired from over there on the hillside by one of my enemies. You haven’t noticed anyone around here who isn’t particularly fond of me, have you?”
Peter grinned. “No one besides me. And I couldn’t hit that helicopter from twenty feet away, much less than from up there on the hill.”
“And I suppose you spent the entire morning in the quiet of your room?”
“Not at all,” Peter answered cheerfully, knowing exactly where Padraig was leading. “I drove down to New Ross to see about chartering a boat.”
Padraig, too, was enjoying the game of cat and mouse. “And did you find a suitable craft?”
“Sadly, no. I looked around the harbor, but there was nothing that I would enjoy. So I think I’ll just call it a vacation and get myself back to New York.”
Padraig had to cancel the rest of the day’s shooting schedule and thought that they might lose as much as a week. His director was still in shock, unable to speak, much less create, and there were police and government officials all over the place. The crash of any commercial aircraft required a scrupulous investigation. The cast of extras had been recruited by the authorities to walk shoulder to shoulder over the entire field, retrieving even the most minute pieces of the helicopter. The manufacturer had set up a large tent where the parts would be reassembled. Policemen were pulling members of Padraig’s staff aside for questioning.
That night, in his and Catherine’s tower bedroom, Padraig broke even more bad news. They hadn’t gotten all the footage they needed of the boy running through the field. The panorama was fine, but all the angles shot from the downed helicopter had been lost when it hit the tree; the camera had fallen out and broken open on the ground.
“What are we going to do?” Catherine asked, stopped cold in the middle of dressing for bed.
“Restage it and reshoot it,” he answered grimly. Then he went on with a litany of problems. It would take several days to get back to their shooting schedule, and they would lose more than $100,000 each day in fixed costs. Some of the cast members had deadlines before other commitments. He would pay dearly for the privilege of holding the actors and actresses over. “We’re going to need at least another five million,” he calculated, “maybe as much as ten.”
Catherine’s eyes widened and breath escaped from her lips. “My God, that much,” was the best she could manage.
“We won’t need it until the end of the month,” he allowed,
“but you might want to prepare your associates for the shock.”
“Padraig, they might not go along with this. What do you think Peter was doing here? He came to tell me in no uncertain terms that enough was enough.”
“Dammit, girl, it’s your company. Who the hell is Peter to tell you that enough is enough?”
Catherine sat down on the edge of the bed. “Peter is nothing. But Peter and Jennifer together are a voting majority. I can’t fire him if Jennifer doesn’t go along, and I can’t get any more money from him if he and Jennifer don’t agree.”
He bounded out of the bed and stormed in circles around the medieval room like an ancient prince whose will had been thwarted. “So what does he want me to do? Shut down the production? They’ve got fifty million sunk into our company, and they won’t get ten cents on the dollar unless we finish this picture. There’s nothing to discuss. Either they put up more money or they lose everything. It’s just good business.”
Softly, Catherine reminded him that it might not be just a business decision. “Peter won’t lift a finger to save you, and Jennifer has good reason to get even with the both of us.”
“Damn them!” he shouted. “What do they want to do? Destroy us just because we hurt their feelings? This is a great film that they’ll be throwing into the trash bin.”
He vented his rage for another half hour, calling on all the saints in heaven to rescue him from his enemies. He compared Peter and Jennifer to religious fundamentalists who thought nothing of smashing works of art. Most chilling, he stoked up his case for charging Peter with attempted murder. “It was me he was after. Probably hired some sharpshooter to put a few rounds in the engine.”
“Padraig, please,” Catherine begged.
“Where do you think he was this morning? Looking for a boat, my arse! He had a boat. He was off hiring his assassins.”
Even after calming a bit, Padraig insisted that Peter had brought him down. “He’d do anything to keep me from moving in on his turf. Arrange Jennifer’s accident. Hire a second-story
man to take care of you. And now this! A gunshot through the engine. Do you know that the pilot told me there are usually no survivors in a helicopter crash?”
Catherine reminded him that charging Peter with murder was hardly the way to win his support for a $10 million advance. “Peter wouldn’t do that,” she insisted. “You’re blaming the wrong person. The crash was an accident and nothing more. Now, will you stop screaming bloody murder and help me figure out how to get the money.”
It was then Padraig suggested offhandedly that she might tap in to her own funds. An added interest in this one picture, or perhaps a straight loan that would earn her a fast return at good interest.
“It’s not that easy,” she said.
“Catherine, darlin’, with all the money you have in your mattress, we’re talking about pocket change.”
“My own money, right now, is paying for a huge exhibition at the Met, and an air-freight service that’s flying food to East Africa. I also have a batch of loans out to dance companies and orchestras. I don’t keep my spare millions in a bank.”
“You’re … broke?” His voice cracked at the absurdity of the idea.
“Of course not. But I don’t have an idle five million to lend to a project that my sister might throttle. Without their go-ahead, I wouldn’t even borrow the money.”
He winced in pain.
“Face it, Padraig, either Jennifer agrees to back us or Peter can shut us down. We’re past the point where we can just walk away and do the movie on our own.”
He was ashen. In the yellow light of the torches, it seemed almost as if he were laid out at his funeral.
CATHERINE AND Peter flew back from Ireland together, with drinks between them. As the plane climbed to altitude, Catherine described the scope of the film and gushed over its artistic content. “Setbacks happen,” she said of the helicopter crash, “and cost overruns are part of the business.” Staying within a fixed budget might please the accountants and some of the inexperienced investors. But it robbed the director of his artistic insight. “You could shoot the whole thing on a soundstage,” she said in a tone that dismissed the idea even as she offered it. “But it would die on a big screen.”
She praised the realism of the work. “We show the daily rushes to the townspeople, and some of them have actually cried. They tell us they’re seeing the countryside they knew in their childhood. The village we’ve created is so authentic, one woman remembered exactly what was in the bakery window when she was a little girl.” And the story line! “These people had won. They got their country back. And then they took to fighting among themselves.”
During the meal service, she told Peter how effective all this was when seen through the eyes of a boy. “All he lost, and then even his hopes were dashed.”
It was during dessert that Peter raised the problem of money. None of the major screen owners were committed to fixed payments. Pegasus had planned to land the film right at theaters with a satellite dish. They would show it only as long as people
came to see it, so the payback was completely uncertain.
“We were going to keep cost down to minimize the financial risk,” he reminded her. “Now, with all that’s been spent, we’re awfully vulnerable.”
The next day, in their afternoon meeting, the movie venture was the first item on the agenda. The accountants tallied the amount already plowed into the company and its two films, then added in the budgeted amounts still left till completion. The smaller film would pay for itself and recover about half of what had been invested in Leprechaun Productions. The Irish film didn’t have a prayer.
The recommendation was brutal. Finish the movie quickly with no further investments in sets, costumes, or special effects, then sell it to normal distribution channels for whatever it would fetch. Adding in video and television revenues, a studio could make money, and Padraig’s production company might escape with a $20 million loss. According to the accountants’ best projections, completing the film risked a $50 million loss. Going on with the project would make sense only if the movie took in better than $180 million.
Catherine tore into the projections, arguing that the loss would be smaller and would really be an investment in developing the new satellite-distribution business. Jennifer countered that the smaller film would give them all the information they needed about satellite distribution of movies. Peter sat in judgment until all sides of the argument were exhausted. Then his glasses came off and his fingers squeezed into the bridge of his nose.
“Personally,” he said, revealing his thinking, “I wouldn’t invest another dollar with Padraig O’Connell. As to the choices we’ve been offered, it’s really a case of making a very big bet on a long shot or a much more modest bet on a contender. The latter is a better idea.”
“Meaning?” Catherine said.
“Meaning that we complete the picture at minimal cost and
try to sell it. But that we bring in a new line producer to replace Padraig. Otherwise, I have no confidence that he’ll complete the picture at any cost.”
Catherine raged. She and Padraig would never vote to replace him, so Peter might just as well forget that idea. And she wouldn’t vote for bare-bones completion. They should invest in the best picture they could make and then bet that the public would come in droves.
“That’s the long shot,” Peter said.
“And that’s the way Padraig and I are voting.”
Peter nodded. “Then my vote is that Pegasus advance no more money to Leprechaun. Which will mean scrapping the picture and swallowing the loss.”
Peter and Catherine were suddenly locked in a power play. Catherine could outvote Peter on Padraig’s role. But Peter, along with Jennifer, could kill the entire project. Which did Catherine want? The truncated movie without Padraig, or no movie at all?
She snatched up her things and stormed out of the office. None of the heads at the meeting dared to turn and look after her.
Peter thanked the accounting group and saw them to the door. Then he turned back and dropped into the chair next to Jennifer.
“Why not let Padraig finish it up?” Jennifer asked.
“Because I think he’ll go through whatever amount we give him and be back in three weeks for more.”
They were silent for a few seconds. Then Jennifer asked, “Is that the only reason? Is it just profit and loss?”
“No,” he answered without an instant’s hesitation. “I’d be lying if I said it was only dollars and cents. I hate the man because he tried to kill you. And if that wasn’t enough, he tried to have Catherine killed.”
“I don’t think he did,” Jennifer said.
Peter turned to face her. “You’re not still trying to convince yourself that your crash was an accident?”
“No, it wasn’t an accident. Someone tampered with the brakes. And the Italian police caught the guy.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “The police? How do you know?”
“I had to know. Was it an accident or was someone trying to kill me? I called the police inspector in Positano every day for the first week, and then a few times a week for the next several months. He never had anything to report, so eventually I gave up. But, last week he called me. They had caught a burglar trying to blow his way into a vault. The man made a deal and turned in all his associates for a lighter sentence.”
Peter’s eyes were narrow. He didn’t understand where Jennifer was leading.
“The crook mentioned that he had cut the brakes on a car at the San Pietro Hotel. The inspector remembered me and called back to tell me that it had been no accident.”
“Which is what I’ve been saying all along,” Peter reminded her.
“Yes, but you said Padraig had hired the guy while we were traveling on the Amalfi Coast. The safecracker said that the arrangements had been made from New York.”
“So what?” Peter asked. “Padraig was here in New York with us when we raised the issue of the marital agreement. That’s when he made the arrangements.”
“Not likely,” Jennifer said. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. He couldn’t have told the man where the car would be while we were in New York because we didn’t know where we would be staying in Italy. How do you a hire a person to do something when you can’t tell him where or when?”
Peter thought. “Maybe you just tell him what to look for. Padraig O’Connell driving a red Ferrari shouldn’t be too difficult to spot. Then all the guy would have to do was follow the car to see where you were staying.”
“Could be, but that’s not what the safecracker told the inspector in Positano. You see, the man is actually French. And his first instructions were to get to the car in Ireland. You remember Padraig and I were in Ireland. But then we left there suddenly to come back to the States. Then, when we decided to
go to Amalfi, the man was told to get to the car in Italy.”
“So what?” Peter asked. He still didn’t understand.
“Well, it was Padraig’s idea that we go to Ireland. So why would he tell someone to kill me in Ireland, then suddenly leave Ireland before the hit man got there? Isn’t it pretty obvious that whoever hired the man didn’t know about our travel plans? And, of course, the one person who certainly knew was Padraig. He was making the plans.”
Peter was once again massaging his nose. “Then who?”
Jennifer shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe someone who works for me. Or one of our competitors. Or maybe Catherine, or maybe even you. I have to tell you, Peter, you moved up the list when Padraig had a near-fatal accident the day after you arrived.”
He nodded. There was nothing wrong with Jennifer’s analysis. “Do you really believe that I would try to kill you?”
“No,” she answered instantly. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here with you now. No, I think whoever cut the brakes on the Ferrari was after Padraig. He was supposed to be the one driving the car that afternoon. My shopping trip was just a spur-of-the-moment thing. In fact, he had called the garage to tell them precisely when he would need the car. He even wanted it washed. No one could have known that I would be the first to drive it.”
“So then the attack on Catherine?”
“If there’s a connection, you’d have to look for someone who wanted to get rid of Padraig, and once Catherine joined with him, decided to get rid of her.”
“And that would be me?” Peter challenged.
“Maybe,” Jennifer answered. “As I said, Padraig’s helicopter crash makes you a prime suspect. But it could also be someone out in Hollywood who has it in for Padraig. His enemies are a cast of thousands. Or I could be the one who went after Catherine and then Padraig. No matter who cut the brakes on the Ferrari, I would certainly have reason to get back at my dear sister and my soon-to-be ex-husband.”
“Well, you can put your mind at ease,” Peter said. “I didn’t try to kill anyone.”
Jennifer laughed. “That’s what you’d have to say. I didn’t try to kill anyone, either, but of course that’s what I would have to say. So it all gets pretty confusing. The one thing I’m sure of is that Padraig didn’t cut the brakes on the car. He didn’t try to kill me.”
“I still don’t trust him,” Peter answered.
“I know,” Jennifer said. “But in this decision I’m going to side with my sister. We’ll go for the smaller budget and then try to sell the project. But I’m not going to kick Padraig out. Not when the only thing he might be guilty of is trying to make a great movie.”
Padraig went to work immediately, not cutting his budget but trying to build a case for all the money he would need. He would cancel the reshoot of the helicopter scene immediately to show Peter and Jennifer that he had gotten the message. With more close cuts to the boy and the dog, he could make do with the footage from the other two helicopters.
But he had no intention of compromising anywhere else. Within a few days he had revised shooting schedules for the rest of his story. Then, with all the film in the can, he would go back to Peter and Jennifer with a simple choice. They could let it die or put up the additional costs for editing, sound, and the rest of the postproduction.
Catherine, who had returned to Ireland with the company’s decision, balked at his plan. “They’re not stupid,” she reminded Padraig. “Peter will see exactly what you’re doing and will cut you off at the knees. And this time Jennifer won’t bail us out. She’ll feel lied to and betrayed.”
“I told you to fire the bastard. Without him, there wouldn’t be any problem.”
“Firing Peter would change nothing. It would still leave Jennifer
and me equal partners. She’d still be able to vote us out of existence just by withholding funding.”
“Well then, darlin’,” he said, patting her backside, “I suggest you get back to New York and go to work on your sister. Because she’s going to get a bill in less than thirty days, and she damn well better be ready to pay it.”
“Padraig, nothing would give Jennifer greater pleasure than to have me beg her, except the joy of turning me down afterward. Jennifer hates me.”
He rolled his eyes. “How could she hate you when you said yourself it was her vote that saved us?”
“She didn’t save us, Padraig. She saved you. She agreed with Peter about getting out and cutting losses but wouldn’t go along with firing you on the spot.”
“Ah, then she still has a soft spot for me.”
Now it was Catherine who rolled her eyes. “All she was doing was apologizing for having accused you of murder.”
“True,” he admitted. “But who does she suspect now? Our dear friend Peter?”
“Maybe, but it’s much more likely that she suspects me. So if you’re going to need more money, you’re going to need another plan.”