Read Online Dante's Numbers by David Hewson - Free Book Online Page B

means we can finally reach people direct, any way we want, without getting screwed by the distributors or anyone else.” He cast a sour glance at the Americans. They saw it, as the Italian producer intended. “Except them.”
    Quattrocchi massaged his temples. There was a persistent, low ache there and had been ever since the shooting. An internal investigation team was now overseeing that, following the procedures after the deaths of civilians at the hands of a Carabinieri team. He wasn't looking forward to having to face the investigators. He'd been absent from the Casa del Cinema when the killing took place on highly spurious grounds, a call of a personal nature. That was one more secret to keep under wraps.
    “Who'd want to watch a movie on a phone?” he demanded, unable to take his eyes off the screen beyond the room. It seemed to be on fire. The flames of Hell licked everywhere, and through them burst the faces of grinning, leering demons, their green and purple mouths babbling profanities and obscenities at the stricken, cowering figure of Dante, who shrank back at the horrific sight, the beautiful Beatrice at his side.
    “Millions of suckers everywhere,” Bonetti crowed. “A dollar a clip. A monthly subscription for twenty. And then they go to see it in the theatre anyway. And buy the DVD. Then the director's edition. Then the collector's…” The Italian producer's fleshy face beamed. “It's a dream. You sell the same old junk over and over again.”
    “With absolute efficiency,” the skinny one, Josh Jonah, emphasised. “Not a wasted piece of celluloid. Not a single cassette or DVD in inventory. And this”—he patted the silver box streaming light into the theatre beyond—”is ours. Every last piece gets streamed straight here for less money than it costs to produce a single cinema print. The crap the masses turn out gets fed from PC to PC for free. The people that junk brings in become the movie audience of the future, and we serve them direct, same price they'd pay in a theatre, but at a fraction of the delivery cost.” He clicked his fingers. “Voilà. Big money.”
    “Big money,” Bonetti insisted.
    Quattrocchi shook his head and grumbled, “So much for art. Also…”
    This had bothered him all along. The picture on the screen didn't look right. It wasn't as sharp, as detailed, as engaging, as he'd expect of a movie like this. It felt wrong, however smart the toys these kids used to fool Bonetti and anyone else throwing their hats into this particular ring.
    He stopped, unable to believe what he was seeing.
    “What on earth is that?”
    The scene was dissolving in front of their eyes. The flames faded. The faces of the demons, Dante shrinking in terror before them, now gave way to something else. Quattrocchi had seen Roberto Tonti's movie that afternoon, at the private screening. He knew for sure that what was now emerging on the screen in front of a selected audience of some two hundred international VIPs, politicians, and hangers-on had never been there before.
    It was Dante again, still terrified, his face frozen in dread. Or rather, it was Allan Prime. In close-up, grainy, as if from some CCTV camera.
    An open-faced black metal mask, ancient, medieval looking, enclosed his head, one band gripping his mouth. Behind its bars, the man's horrified features seemed exaggerated. His eyes were locked and rigid with terror.
    There was utter silence in the projection room and in the theatre beyond. Then, nervously, someone in the crowd laughed, and another coughed. A voice rose. Quattrocchi recognised it: the furious, coarse bark of Roberto Tonti complaining about something yet again.
    Josh Jonah wiped his skeletal forearm over his eyes. “Was this an outtake or something?” he asked no one in particular. “I don't recall seeing it. Tom. Tom?”
    The other American was staring at his silver machine, punching keys, watching numbers fly up on the monitor.
    “This isn't coming from us.” Sweat