Teddy went out to the long-term parking garage where he kept the Buick he used as stuntman Mark Weldon.
“I’m going to be gone for a while,” Teddy told the garage man on duty. “Keep the space for me.”
“As long as you keep paying for it.”
Teddy took the car out. It looked exactly like what it was, a rough-and-ready secondhand jalopy, just good enough to get you there.
The car was filthy after months of disuse. Teddy drove it through a car wash on the way home.
Teddy pulled up his driveway and opened the middle door on the garage with the zapper in the glove compartment. He drove the car into the garage, locked it up, and went into the house, punching in the numbers to turn off the alarm.
Teddy got a suitcase out of storage, and brought it to his home office on the first floor. He pulled back the wooden double doors on the large closet, revealing the massive floor safe Mike Freeman had installed for him. Teddy didn’t need to check if it had been tampered with. The slightest attempt would have triggered a dozen alarms. There weren’t half a dozen people in the world who could have opened that safe.
Teddy was one of them. He was out of practice, so it might have taken him as much as ten minutes to pick the lock. Of course, he didn’t have to. He had the combination.
Teddy swung the door open. Inside was a treasure trove of espionage equipment. He chose a handgun and shoulder holster; a sniper rifle, not the custom-made one he’d designed and handcrafted himself, but a perfectly serviceable CIA issue in a compact carrying case; a few burner phones, always useful; ten thousand in cash; and an assortment of credit cards, passports, credentials, and driver’s licenses, along with the hair and makeup necessary to depict the men in the ID photos.
When he was done he locked the safe, went upstairs, and changed his appearance from producer Billy Barnett to stuntman Mark Weldon. He packed a few basic outfits to support his various identities, lugged the suitcase out to the car, and locked it in the trunk.
He backed out of the garage, zapping the door closed behind him. He pulled out of the driveway, keeping a sharp eye on the rearview mirror. No one seemed to be following him. He made a couple of figure eights just to be sure, then drove into town and parked around the corner from the apartment he’d rented in the name of Mark Weldon.
Paco Alvarez was out on the front stoop. As usual, the super wore a sleeveless T-shirt and was holding a beer in a paper bag.
His eyes lit up when he saw Teddy. “Hey, look who it is!” he said, saluting him with his beer. “Big-time movie star. I see you on TV, I say: Look who that is. You tell me you’re a stuntman, like it’s nothing, like you take any job you can get. Next thing I know you’re on TV winning awards. So that’s where you been, huh? That’s why you can afford to keep your rent paid and not come around. You here for a while, now?”
“In and out,” Teddy said.
He escaped from the super’s clutches and lugged the suitcase up the stairs to his apartment. He unlocked the door, went in, and threw the suitcase on the bed.
Teddy wasn’t happy. Mark Weldon’s apartment was only useful as long as no one gave a damn about him. As just another stuntman he could come and go virtually unnoticed. He could pop into Mark Weldon’s apartment, change his appearance, and pop out again; and if anyone noticed at all, they’d see just a small-time actor dressing up for a part. But as Oscar-nominated Mark Weldon, whose comings and goings would be trumpeted by a starstruck super and a brass band, he couldn’t get out the door in another outfit without being asked what part he’d landed in what new movie.
Teddy had heard the phrase “success is fatal.” He’d never really appreciated what it meant until now.
Teddy waited ten minutes, took the suitcase, and went back out the door.
The super was shocked to see him go. “Leaving so soon? I thought you were coming back.”
“Just stopped by to pick up a few things. Like I said, I may be in and out for a while. We’re gearing up to shoot a new movie.”
“Really? What is it?”
“I can’t really say until the studio announces it. I’ll tell you when I can.”
Teddy lugged the suitcase to the car, drove into downtown L.A., and checked into the Hyatt Regency under the name Fredrick Sabbit, whose driver’s license photo looked enough like Mark Weldon to get by the hotel clerk.
Teddy went up to his room and unpacked the clothes and hair and makeup items. He locked the IDs, cell phones, and cash in the hotel room safe. He locked the handgun and the sniper rifle in the suitcase, brought it back to the front desk, and asked them to put it in the hotel safe.
He went back up to his room, opened the safe, sorted through his credentials, and selected those of a Santa Monica police officer named Glen Hanson.