The Money Shot Read online

  BOOKS BY STUART WOODS

  FICTION

  Turbulence†

  Shoot First†

  Unbound†

  Quick & Dirty†

  Indecent Exposure†

  Fast & Loose†

  Below the Belt†

  Sex, Lies & Serious Money†

  Dishonorable Intentions†

  Family Jewels†

  Scandalous Behavior†

  Foreign Affairs†

  Naked Greed†

  Hot Pursuit†

  Insatiable Appetites†

  Paris Match†

  Cut and Thrust†

  Carnal Curiosity†

  Standup Guy†

  Doing Hard Time†

  Unintended Consequences†

  Collateral Damage†

  Severe Clear†

  Unnatural Acts†

  D.C. Dead†

  Son of Stone†

  Bel-Air Dead†

  Strategic Moves†

  Santa Fe Edge§

  Lucid Intervals†

  Kisser†

  Hothouse Orchid*

  Loitering with Intent†

  Mounting Fears‡

  Hot Mahogany†

  Santa Fe Dead§

  Beverly Hills Dead

  Shoot Him If He Runs†

  Fresh Disasters†

  Short Straw§

  Dark Harbor†

  Iron Orchid*

  Two-Dollar Bill†

  The Prince of Beverly Hills

  Reckless Abandon†

  Capital Crimes‡

  Dirty Work†

  Blood Orchid*

  The Short Forever†

  Orchid Blues*

  Cold Paradise†

  L.A. Dead†

  The Run‡

  Worst Fears Realized†

  Orchid Beach*

  Swimming to Catalina†

  Dead in the Water†

  Dirt†

  Choke

  Imperfect Strangers

  Heat

  Dead Eyes

  L.A. Times

  Santa Fe Rules§

  New York Dead†

  Palindrome

  Grass Roots‡

  White Cargo

  Deep Lie‡

  Under the Lake

  Run Before the Wind‡

  Chiefs‡

  COAUTHORED BOOKS

  The Money Shot** (with Parnell Hall)

  Barely Legal†† (with Parnell Hall)

  Smooth Operator** (with Parnell Hall)

  TRAVEL

  A Romantic’s Guide to the Country Inns of Britain and Ireland (1979)

  MEMOIR

  Blue Water, Green Skipper

  *A Holly Barker Novel

  †A Stone Barrington Novel

  ‡A Will Lee Novel

  §An Ed Eagle Novel

  **A Teddy Fay Novel

  ††A Herbie Fisher Novel

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2018 by Stuart Woods

  Excerpt from Desperate Measures copyright © 2018 by Stuart Woods

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Woods, Stuart, author. | Hall, Parnell, author.

  Title: The money shot / Stuart Woods, Parnell Hall.

  Description: New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2018. | Series: A Teddy Fay novel ; 2

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018000922 | ISBN 9780735218598 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780735218604 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Intelligence officers—United States—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Action & Adventure. | FICTION / Suspense. | FICTION / Thrillers. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3573.O642 M66 2018 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018000922

  p. cm.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  Books by Stuart Woods

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

&nbs
p; Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Author’s Note

  Excerpt of Desperate Measures

  About the Authors

  1

  Teddy Fay crouched behind the parked car and waited for the man to come out the door. He screwed the silencer onto his gun and checked the sight. He didn’t have to. Teddy had designed the gun himself, a silent killing machine that didn’t miss.

  The door creaked open, but it was a woman who emerged, an attractive woman in an evening gown. She came down the steps and walked off down the street.

  The door opened again. This time it was his quarry, the young man he’d seen in the window above. He came down the front steps, unaware of any danger.

  Teddy stepped up behind him and placed the muzzle of the silenced gun against his neck.

  The man froze. Young, handsome, clueless, he murmured, “Wait.”

  Three shots rang out.

  Teddy’s body jackknifed away. A river of crimson gushed from his chest. His gun, unfired, wavered and fell away from his target. He slumped to the pavement, his eyes registering shock and pain.

  A young woman stepped out of the shadows. She had a gun in her hand. A myriad of emotions registered on her face, from grim resolution to blessed relief coupled with an overwhelming loss of innocence. She swayed slightly, and the young man enfolded her in his arms.

  “Cut!” Peter Barrington said. After checking with camera and sound, he added, “And that’s a print. Okay, let’s get him cleaned up, we’re going again.”

  The crew began resetting the scene. A gofer and a second assistant director helped Teddy to his feet.

  Peter conferred with his actors. “Excellent, Tessa. I never get tired of seeing you shoot him.”

  “Thanks a bunch,” Teddy said.

  Peter turned to the young man Teddy was going to shoot. “Brad, wonderful work, but the line is ‘please,’ not ‘wait.’”

  Brad Hunter was a movie star. He could argue with a director. “I just can’t see Devon saying ‘please.’”

  “I hear what you’re saying, but we still need to see the fear. A split second. That cold, icy panic that surges through your veins as you know this is it. Your fans will still love you, they won’t think you a coward. They’ll think you’re a great actor. Plus they’ll love the character who masters his fear and is brave in the face of death. Trust me on this.”

  Peter always gave Teddy notes, too, so Brad wouldn’t think he was picking on him. “Nice job,” Peter told him, “but I can’t help feeling like you’re waiting to be shot.”

  “I am,” Teddy said. “If I were doing it, I’d have stepped up and shot him in the head. He wouldn’t have had time to say ‘please.’”

  “Yes, but you’re not you. You’re Leonard Kirk, a cold-blooded killer and a dangerous man, but not infallible. The type of man who might make a mistake through arrogance. He wants to hear his victims say please.”

  Teddy grinned. “You couldn’t just rewrite the script and let me shoot Brad?”

  “It might change the plot a little.”

  Peter Barrington was shooting a scene from his new film, Desperation at Dawn, on location on the streets of L.A. It was a night shoot, which was hard enough to light without all the special effects. If the blood from the blood bags wasn’t lit just right it appeared fake, which of course it was. And the moonlight had to reflect off the cold steel of Teddy’s gun. There was a huge difference between an adequate shot and a good shot. Some directors didn’t know it. They worked with the actors, and that was it. Peter Barrington was on top of everything. That’s why his films were so good.

  * * *

  —

  The second AD led Teddy back to the makeup and wardrobe trailer. Part of the second assistant director’s job was being in charge of the cast, keeping track of where the actors were at all times and seeing they made it to the set. Actors had a tendency to wander, hence they were escorted even to places they knew well. Teddy sat down at the makeup counter, where a swarm of crew members from props, special effects, makeup, hair, and wardrobe stripped off his shirt and removed the spent squibs and blood bags that provided the shooting effect.

  Marsha Quickly, the actress who came out of the door before the shooting, was touching up her makeup in the chair next to his. She smiled at Teddy. “How many times do I have to watch you get shot?”

  Teddy grinned. “You love it and you know it.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Turns you on, doesn’t it?”

  Teddy Fay, aka producer Billy Barnett, aka weapons expert and stuntman Mark Weldon, had evolved into a character actor as the man you loved to hate. His on-screen presence had tested so highly, Peter had begun using him regularly. Teddy had adopted the screen name Mark Weldon so as not to draw attention to the producer Billy Barnett. With Teddy’s facility for makeup, there was no danger of anyone recognizing him on-screen.

  A costume lady wiped the blood off Teddy’s chest and helped him into a clean white shirt. She left it unbuttoned so they could hang the fresh blood bags.

  “I haven’t seen you on the set before,” Teddy said to the actress. “Are you shooting tomorrow?”

  “I wish. I’m a Day Player, just in the one scene.”

  Day Player was a bit of an exaggeration. Marsha was actually a Silent Bit, an extra with no lines but a specific action. In Marsha’s case it involved walking out the door.

  Teddy nodded sympathetically.

  Iris, the makeup lady, tapped his cheek and gave him her patented if-you-wouldn’t-mind smile once she had his attention. Teddy shrugged helplessly to the actress, then sat up straight and faced the makeup mirror like a good boy while Iris touched him up.

  * * *

  —

  Marsha side-spied Mark Weldon and wondered if he was worth making a play for. He was certainly handsome enough, but could he help her career? Marsha hated to be so mercenary, but it was tough in L.A. for an actress, at least for one getting nothing but two-second, silent-bit parts. She decided he probably wasn’t worth pursuing. A name actor might help her, but a stuntman in the film just to get killed wouldn’t have much clout.

  The wig Mark had been using as a villain was askew, having slipped when he slid to the ground. As Iris adjusted it, Marsha was struck by the familiarity of the face underneath.

  She knew him. In her former life as Bambi, a cocktail waitress and shill at the New Desert Inn and Casino, a high-end casino in Las Vegas, she had known him as Billy Burnett, a high roller who had run off with one of casino boss Pete Genaro’s right-hand girls. The last she had heard, Genaro was moving heaven and earth to find her.

  Marsha smiled. What little extra work she’d been getting lately hadn’t been paying the rent. She wondered what this little tidbit of information might be worth.

  2

  Pete Genaro, the owner and operator of the New Desert Inn and Casino, answered the phone with his customary growl. “Genaro.”

  “Hey, Pete,” Marsha laughed. “Don’t bite my head off. I’m on your side.”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Marsha
Quickly.”

  “Who?”

  “Bambi. I used to work for you.”

  Genaro searched his memory for a Bambi and seemed to remember a cocktail waitress with blond hair and long legs.

  “Oh, yeah. What’s up? You want your job back?”

  “No, I’m an actress now out in Hollywood. I’m doing fine,” she lied. “Of course, one can always use some spare change. I have a tip for you. The high roller who ran off with one of your girls—Billy Burnett, wasn’t it? The guy who ran off with Charmaine?”

  “What about him?”

  “I just ran into him on a movie set. He’s changed his appearance, and he’s working as a stuntman.”

  “Are you sure it’s him?”

  “I saw them touching up his makeup.”

  “Oh? That’s interesting.”

  Genaro took down the information. He’d send Bambi, or whatever she was calling herself these days, a nice bonus to keep the contact open, but she was out of date with her news. Genaro had been trying to find Billy Burnett, had even hired a skip tracer to find him. Not because he cared about some high roller making off with a girl—the girls were a dime a dozen—but rather, at the insistence of one of his guests and board members, a Russian gentleman who proved so odious Genaro had him voted off the board of directors and ousted him from the hotel. He then warned Billy Burnett, whom the skip tracer had found working at Centurion Pictures under the name of Billy Barnett, that the Russian was coming. So Genaro had no intention of acting on Bambi’s hot tip. He just filed the information for future reference.

  At the moment, Genaro had other things on his mind. Sammy Candelosi had just purchased the casino next door. That couldn’t be good. Genaro didn’t know Sammy Candelosi, but the man was reputed to have mob connections, and was not to be trifled with. Genaro had no intention of trifling with him. He intended to give Sammy a wide berth.

  Genaro’s intercom buzzed.

  “What is it?” he growled irritably.

  “Sammy Candelosi is here to see you.”

  Genaro scowled. “Send him in.”

  3

  Sammy Candelosi looked like he’d just stepped out of a barbershop. His curly black hair was neatly trimmed, his cheeks razor-smooth. He gave the impression he was professionally shaved every day. His dark blue suit could have financed a small casino. His black leather shoes gleamed, and his steely gray eyes never blinked, giving the impression that they missed nothing.