The Movie Ranch Murders

By W.H. Wheeler

Harry Logan is a producer of modest Hollywood films. When, against all likelihood of box office success, he decides to make a Western, he strikes a deal with old-time producer Louie Pannetti to rent part of Louie’s ranch and its ghost town in the Mojave desert for the location shooting.
There turns out to be a lot more shooting than just on film. People get killed, and the question is why, and Harry finds himself, his friends, and his movie in the middle of mobsters and spies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: W.H. Wheeler
• Release date: Feb 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301350162

W.H. Wheeler

Stories and language are my passion. In elementary school, I asked my 8th grade teacher what language I should take in high school. She said, "Take Latin. It's a great foundation." Uh huh. I took it and found out it was, shall we say, challenging. I took four years of it and added French and Spanish in the last two years. In college, I got a degree in French language and literature, and had a couple of years each of Russian and Arabic. I've picked up a few other languages over the years, operated an international marketing services and translation business, and done tech writing in aerospace companies. Besides my current mysteries and thrillers, a long time ago I had two "hi-lo" novellas published, high-interest low vocabulary level books for teens with reading problems. They were "Wet Fire" and "Counterfeit!". The publishing company was sold and bought a number of times, and both of the books are still around in various editions. Originally from Detroit, Michigan, I have lived in the Los Angeles, California, area for many years. And, no, I was never a hippie. Probably just as well.

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202

The MOVIE RANCH MURDERS

by

W.H. WHEELER

Copyright 2013 William H. Wheeler

Smashwords edition, February 2013

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters and events are imaginary, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

CHAPTER 1

"You’re going to make a WHAT?"

I sipped my glass of smooth Paso Robles merlot. The voice yelling at me from across the dining room table belonged to Jack Silverman, a years-long friend who is also vice-president of the bonding company that insures all my modest films. Jack is in his fifties with thinning hair and a growing paunch. Hey, I should talk; my hair is half-gray, although still there thankfully. My stomach is flat… well, sort of. We had just finished a fine roast beef dinner prepared by his wife, Sarah, a handsome woman, plump in the right places, with black hair streaked with silver.

A western, I replied.

Jack picked up his half-full glass and drained it in one swallow. That got a glare from Sarah, who, despite her sweet heart and good nature, always has this faint suspicion lurking in the back of her mind that I am a bad influence on Jack, particularly when it comes to alcoholic beverages. Not true, of course. We never overdo it.

A western, Jack repeated flatly. "That’s a meshugganah idea. Nobody makes westerns anymore."

He refilled his glass from the Central Coast merlot bottle. There was maybe half a glass left in it.

Enough, Jack, Sarah chided.

Meshuggah, crazy, totally nuts, bonkers, Jack said, shaking his head slowly. Judy, what do you think about this? he asked, turning to the lovely lady sitting next to me. Judy is my ex-wife, eternal friend, and frequent lover. We learned we couldn’t live together, but we also learned we couldn’t live without each other. Judy is 5 feet 8 with a perfect figure and long chestnut brown hair with some silver streaks. At 47, she turns the head of every male over the age of 15. Maybe 12. She also has a master’s degree in art history and owns a successful art gallery on Melrose in Los Angeles. She lives in our old house in Encino in the San Fernando Valley. I bought a modest house in Beverly Hills. But we’re frequently at one or the other, together for a night or two.

Maybe old is the new new, Judy said philosophically, pretty much trying to stay out of the argument.

Jack, it’ll be cheap, funny, romantic, and a financial success, I said. No Oscars, just good box office.

What’s the budget? Jack asked.

Ten million.

That’s what... two mill more than student film budgets nowadays? he asked sarcastically.

I can bump it to fifteen, if I need to.

Who’s the nut case funding this future fiasco?

Jack, Jack. It’s a good script. The money’s Chinese. And a million from a Russian friend in the diamond business.

Jack’s shoulders slumped.

Oh, God, Chinese and Russians. What ever happened to the old Jewish studio moguls?

You know what happened to them, Jack. They’ve all died or retired and been replaced by M.B.A.s who think the only good bet is a remake of a film that made money ten years ago.

Jack sighed. Yeah, and it’s gotta cost $250 million and be in 3D.

It’ll be fun, Jack, Sarah said with a wink at Judy.

Oy, Jack said with a sigh, rolling his eyes upward. Your lips to God’s ears. He took another swig of wine. So where you gonna shoot this thing? A studio lot? That won’t be cheap.

No, I’ve got way better. You remember old Louie Pannetti?

Jack thought for a minute, muttering Pannetti... Pannetti... Yeah, I think I heard of him. Made some B-movies in the 60s and 70s, didn’t he?

That’s him.

What ever happened to him?

Well, I said, taking a swallow from my own glass, he retired, and since then he’s busied himself managing the rental properties he bought from his film profits.

Judy pushed her chair back and got up.

While you boys talk business, I’m going to help Sarah clear the table.

Sarah got up and started collecting the serving dishes. Judy picked up the dinner plates and stacked them. Sarah went into the kitchen, followed by Judy.

So what about Louie Pannetti? Jack asked.

Well, back when he was making money in his studio days, he bought a ranch out in the desert north of Baker.

A ranch?

He was going to use it as a movie ranch. It even has a ghost town.

Sweet.

He never shot any movies there himself, but he did rent it out a couple of times. And the production companies even did some restoration work on a couple of the buildings for some interior shots.

What kind of buildings? Jack asked.

Mainly an old two-story hotel and a small house. Plus he’s got a larger ranch house that he built and lives in.

Hunh. And how’d you get onto this?

Somebody told him he saw a bit in the trade magazines that I was going to shoot a western. He called me.

You make a deal with him yet?

Not yet. We talked on the phone a couple of days ago. I’m sure nobody’s standing in line to rent the place. I’ll make a deal when I’ve got the shooting schedule nailed down with the director.

Jack leaned back in his chair and drained the last of his glass. He eyed the wine bottle, then after a moment’s thought set his empty glass down on the table. He reached forward for the bottle and poured the last of the wine into my glass.

Who’s directing?

I’m using Mel Yamamoto again, I answered.

Good choice. Saved your tukhus on ‘The Versailles Plot’.

That he did, I agreed.

Jack sighed. So send us the paper work, Harry. We’ll bond it.

Thanks.

A western, he said, shaking his head.

I worked out the shooting schedule with Mel Yamamoto. Mel is pushing 50 but still has a full head of black hair with gray streaks in it now, probably caused by working with me. He is slender, with steel muscles, and never seems to get tired. And he has a fine director’s vision. A week later, on a Wednesday, Judy and I drove out to Pannetti’s ranch. Things were slack at Judy’s gallery, and she has a perfectly capable assistant, so she came along for the ride. It was January, so the trip through the desert up toward Baker was pleasant. Baker is in a low valley on the road from L.A. to Las Vegas. In the dead of summer, the temperature gets to 120° or more, faithfully announced by the 134-foot tall thermometer sticking up in the middle of the town. They say it’s the world’s biggest thermometer. The builders picked 134 feet because that was the highest temperature ever recorded in Baker, in 1913.

One of the town’s other oddities is a large Greek restaurant, The Mad Greek. Why somebody from temperate and ocean-surrounded Greece would want to set up a restaurant in the middle of a parched American desert is beyond me. But the gyros and souvlaki sandwiches are very good, and we stopped there to eat lunch. The decor is a mix of 1960s Formica and chrome tables, reproduction classical statues, and big, faded travel posters from Greece.

Since it was the middle of the week, there weren’t many people in there. The Vegas crowd is mainly on the weekends. Judy and I slipped into a booth, and a pretty Latina waitress named Marisol promptly showed up with menus, which she set down in front of us. Marisol was amply endowed and evidently favored low-cut blouses.

I’ll come back in a few minutes to take your orders, she said. Would you like something to drink first?

Just some water, Judy said.

I’d like a lemonade, I said, smiling at Marisol.

Regular or pink?

Regular.

OK, I’ll bring them right away, she said, jotting the order down on her pad. I watched her as she turned and went back across the restaurant and behind the case displaying dozens of different Greek pastries.

Marisol seems very nice, I commented. Mistake number one.

Judy’s eyes narrowed.

And how do you know her name?

Well... from her name tag, I answered. Mistake number two.

Which just happens to be pinned over her left boob.

The best I could come up with was a lame I hadn’t noticed that.

Uh huh, Judy said, giving me ‘the stare’.

I pointed to a travel poster of white domed buildings under an impossibly blue sky overlooking the sea.

It would be nice if we could go to the Greek islands some day, don’t you think? I asked. There must be lots of beautiful sights to see.

And I’m sure lots of pretty girls to ogle, Judy said coldly.

Aw, come on, Judy. A guy can’t help looking. It’s genetic.

At that point, Judy’s icy stare started to turn into a slight – and sly – smile. I realized I’d been had.

As long as you look at me in the same way, she said, in a tone somewhere between merry and menacing.

Oh, I do, darling. I always do. And so does every guy who isn’t legally blind.

I was about to lay it on thicker, when Marisol came back with our drinks. I made a point of not looking anywhere near her chest.

Are you ready to order? she asked.

We each ordered a souvlaki sandwich on a bed of rice pilaf with a side of feta cheese salad. Marisol wrote it down and walked away.

Well done, Harry. Good eye control, Judy jabbed.

Humph, I muttered and proceeded to suck as much lemonade into my mouth as I could.

OK, lover, I’m done, Judy said. You’re off the hook.

How much farther to Louie’s ranch? Judy asked, as we walked out of The Mad Greek.

Maybe 20, 30 miles. From here, we take Death Valley Road north. A ways up, we’ll turn right on Halloran Springs Road. Louie told me the road to his ranch is up there off to the left. He said he stuck a sign at the entrance saying ‘Pannetti Ranch Boulevard’.

Boulevard?

His little joke. He said it’s dirt, narrow, rutted, and watch out for low sandy spots. Get in ‘em, you won’t get out.

Wonderful. He’s expecting us, right?

Of course. I’ll phone him when we get to his road.

We got in the car and easily found Death Valley Road, a.k.a. California state route 127. There are only a couple of ways out of Baker. The road was well maintained.

There is not a lot to see from a car driving through desert. There are 300 different species of animals in the Mojave desert, but from a car all the little signs of a complex ecosystem are invisible. You don’t see the snakes slithering about their business, the odd tortoise plodding along, the thousands of beetles, centipedes, ants, flies, and other bugs trying to earn a living. Nor the lizards and birds big and small looking to eat them. And higher up the food chain, a variety of rodents and a few coyotes.

What you do see is a lot of brown and tan dirt and rocks, punctuated here and there by round 4-foot diameter tumbleweeds, firmly anchored and a dark green in the winter, dry and rolling along in the wind in the summer. And a scattering of other weeds. Off in the distance, at the edge of the valley, some low mountains that vary in color from tan to dirty purple, depending on the angle of the sun. If the road takes you up into those mountains, the vegetation gradually changes to tall Joshua Tree cacti and then scrubby little pine trees.

After a slow trip up ‘Pannetti Ranch Boulevard’ which probably took a year off the life the shocks in my Toyota sedan, we came to the ghost town. A weathered old sign said this was ‘Herbertsville’, what was left of it anyway. In front of us was ‘Main Street’, unpaved and full of weeds. To the west on the left and right sides were the skeletons of a number of gray wooden buildings. Most had at least partial roofs of curled wood shingles. Across the street, facing us, was a large two-story building in good condition with a fancy sign over the entrance, its black-framed gilt letters proclaiming ‘Grand Hotel Paris’. Somebody in the late-1800s had delusions of grandeur. Next to it to the east was a small house of apparently similar age, also restored to decent condition, despite peeling paint on the curlicues decorating the eves. On the other side of the hotel was a simple one-story building in fair condition with a sign saying just ‘Stable’. From what we could see, there was a second street behind the hotel running parallel to Main Street, with some ruined wooden buildings.

Lovely, Judy said. How do we get to where Mr. Pannetti is?

He said turn left on Main Street and go to the second street on the right. That goes a bit out of town to his house.

I turned the car onto Main Street, and we bounced along slowly past the hotel and stable and past the first street, announced by a twisted little sign as ‘James Street.’ The second street, with no visible name, was maybe 100 yards farther along. This street had apparently been graded recently and was free of ruts and weeds.

Around a gentle curve, we came to Louie’s house. It was a one-story Spanish-style cement block and stucco house with a red tile roof, fairly large, probably 2,400 or 2,500 square feet. In front was a circular drive lined with drought-resistant native bushes, their slender silvery leaves moving slightly in the gentle breeze that had come up a while before. We pulled into the drive and parked in front of the house. As I turned off