by Lee Winter
“Well, Mitch wanted…”
“Realism.” Alex sighed.
“Mmm.” Quincy nodded.
She exhaled. “Well, I’d rather have access. Can we fix it, please? And given the weather conditions, can we still make it as watertight as possible?”
Quincy nodded. “Of course.”
Alice wrote another note.
Gaze roaming, Alex pointed under the bed. “The screwdriver? Not a prop, I’m guessing?”
Alice rushed forward and grabbed it. “Sorry.”
“Can we talk about the animal heads?” Alex said, gazing at the hanging trophies.
“You’ve got to admit, he’d be into collecting these,” Quincy suggested.
“A giraffe, a zebra, and a…snow leopard. Care to tell me what’s wrong with this picture?”
Quincy squinted at them.
“Where do they live? Not in the same place, that’s for sure.”
“So he travels,” Quincy said. “These are from previous hunts.”
“He’s not going to haul that lot out with him here. He’d keep them at home. It’s not practical for a man on the move. Alice, find us some more believable local carnivores, please?”
“Um, which ones?”
“Scarier the better.”
“But…” Alice stopped, then shook her head. “Never mind.”
Alex paused. “No, go on.”
“Where is this film set exactly? There was nothing about it in the info pack we all got.”
“Wait, don’t you know?” Alex glanced at the executive producer. “Hasn’t this been figured out two directors ago?”
Alice and Quincy exchanged loaded looks.
“Yeah, about that, no one reached agreement,” Quincy scratched the back of his neck, “so we’re keeping it vague…just some make-believe time and place.”
“That won’t work. We need to unvague it. We need to be regionally consistent or we’ll be a laughingstock. Well, more of one. It’ll help our costume designer, too. Cultural authenticity will help elevate us from ‘toxic sludge.’”
Alice nodded, pen poised for a verdict.
“Surely we start with a country?” Alex said. “If there are Amazons, I’m guessing that narrows it down.”
“The Amazons thing is just a filler name,” Quincy said. “Any tribe will do.”
Alex glanced between them. “Seriously?”
Quincy shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter, does it? Deepest darkest jungles stuff?”
It mattered if he didn’t want some weird regional Frankenstein monster. “Okay then, new project. Alice, I want you to do some research and find me a forest that most closely matches the flora you see around here. Similar trees, bushes, and so on. Okay? And when you do, that’s where it’s set. After that, find me a predator from that forest, get me a fake trophy, and toss the rest of those.” She waved at the wall of trophies. “And on that note, a giraffe? How is any he-man proud to have bagged himself a skittish, vegetarian, bean pole of an animal that wouldn’t hurt a fly?”
“He is our bad guy for a reason,” Quincy suggested. “He does asshole things like that.”
Alex laughed. “Sure. Nice try. Alice, ditch the giraffe, would you?”
“Okay, what else?” Quincy asked.
“Dogs. A picture of his dog somewhere. Some big brute of a thing. He’s devoted.”
“He is?”
“Yes.” Alex grinned. “He loves his dog more than his daughter.”
“Bastard,” Quincy drawled.
This time even the mousy assistant tittered.
“Fix the rifles, too, will you?” Alex continued. “They look like props that fell out of a mail-order box last week. Make them look used but well-polished. Only thing the man loves more than his dog is his guns.” She clapped her hands. “Okay, that’s it for now.”
She left the tent and gave Alice the go-ahead to get started on the list.
“You have a keen eye,” Quincy said as Alice disappeared.
“Serves me well. Most of the time.” When I’m not running over stray motorcyclists. “What else is set up?”
“Around here? Only other thing we had was the ranger’s office, but like I said…”
“Halfway to Hawaii.” Alex sighed.
“Yes.” Quincy pointed to the sheer, green, ancient mountain behind them, pushing up into white, low-lying clouds. “Up there is what will make our picture beautiful. The falls have to be seen to be believed. I’ve wrangled one of New Zealand’s best cinematographers. He’s perfect. Knows how to get the most out of low and filtered light, which you get a lot of under foliage and on a rainforest floor.”
“He’s available? For Shezan? If he’s that good, why isn’t he doing something…” Worthwhile? Excellent? “…else?”
“He’s newly retired. I convinced him to do one more flick. Got lucky he was already bored out of his brain after two months at home.”
“Ah.”
“So the last issue is, we have an occasional tourist problem because we’re shooting in a public national park. Our permit allows us to shoo away any tourists. They go away grumbling, and we have Sid for when they don’t.”
“Sid?”
“The man mountain you passed on the way in?”
“Okay. So how are we on the schedule? How badly behind?”
“It’s bad but not atrocious. I’ll leave you some of my notes. Hoping we can pick up some time now you’re on deck.”
“Script status?”
“Not signed off yet. Our new writer’s been working on it back home. Goes by the name of Max K.”
Sounded like an energy drink. And Alex didn’t trust people without surnames. She’d side-eyed Cher plenty for years. “How far advanced is he?”
“That’s…a tricky question.”
At that moment, Alice scampered up. “I’ve let Props and Set Design have your notes. Oh, and the new Lighting PA, Kevin, managed to break a light.”
“Damn it!” Quincy scowled. “Fire him.”
“Over a dropped light?” Alex shook her head. “How new is he?”
“It’s his first week,” Alice said. “He’s never done a movie before. He was learning how to connect it, and it slipped from the rigging.”
Quincy muttered. “Figures. Look, you may as well know, the best film crews in New Zealand either passed on this production or are working on the new Peter Jackson flick in Wellington. We got what’s left over, the C-team. Truth is, I only hired Kevin because he had a forklift license and we don’t have anyone else with one.”
Well. Alex could hardly blame the top Kiwi crews for avoiding Shezan. They read Variety, too. “Look, Quincy, don’t fire the kid for one mistake. Maybe get his boss to impress on him how expensive those lights are and that if he makes a habit of it, we’ll be canning his ass. Okay?”
Alice eyed Quincy, who finally sighed and nodded his approval. Alice departed to deliver the good news.
“You’re too kind,” Quincy said. “Although I suppose we do still need a forklift driver. All right, come on, let’s sit and talk properly. The script is giving me a bug up my ass.”
Yours, mine, and the universe’s.
Quincy led her to Craft Services, which comprised a gleaming trailer, a bunch of trestle tables and chairs, and an awning that covered the seating and serving area. He waved her to a seat. “Coffee? Tea? Anything else?”
Glancing at her watch, which read 5:09, she joked, “I’d kill for a beer.”
“I hear ya. But we don’t have catered alcohol on set. We’re hitting the pub a little later, though, so you can grab one then.”
“The pub? Any good?” She hadn’t found a decent boozer in LA. One thing she’d really missed about home.
“Te Wharariki Hotel is an acquired taste. It’s a bit tired, stuck in another time period, a
nd the only game in town. Good chow, though. Cheap, too. So much so, we pick up the tab for the non-local cast and crew to eat there nightly rather than contract Craft Services to provide our dinners.” He paused and reached into a folder. “So, the script. It still needs more work.”
No kidding.
He slid a copy across the table. “I’ve highlighted the main issue everyone has with it. And there’s a reason we can’t fix it.”
Alex flicked to a yellow Post-It note and read the page underneath.
Exactly what she’d first thought. Why would anyone want the heroine falling in love with the creepy poacher and leaving her forest to go be with him? “Hate it.” Alex dropped the script back on the table. “Both her romantic interest in him and her leaving her animals and forest to be with him.”
“Agreed. Max K’s giving himself an ulcer over it.”
“My other issue is her leaving traps for the poacher all over the forest. And not just because it reads like Home Alone in the Jungle.”
“That might be a catchier title,” Quincy muttered.
“Because wouldn’t she catch her own animals?”
“Due to the wonders of movies, she doesn’t.”
“Mmm. And so she snares the poacher, drags his ass back to his tent to give him an excruciating moralizing sermon, and then…she falls for his seductive, middle-aged charms… Finally, she becomes the stepmother of his bratty daughter, who’s almost the same age as her.”
“Yes.” He ran his fingers through his balding hair. “That’s essentially it.”
“So the moral is, what? Poachers win in the end? Might is right?”
“I think it’s supposed to be love conquers all, but yes, it’s problematic.”
“And the Amazons, her distant allies, throw her a going-away party. That was lovely, wasn’t it?” Alex tapped the script in annoyance.
Quincy coughed.
“So tell me, why can’t we change the whole sodding ending?”
“One of the studio’s VPs, Richard Howard, is insisting we keep it. He won’t budge on it. And he’s the reason this film is even being made in the first place. He’s the only one behind it.”
“He knows what year it is, right? Audiences will destroy this.”
“His daughter, Melody, is a budding actress and has her first role in Shezan. But her talent’s a little too thin to be the star, even if she did have the right look, which she doesn’t. So she’s playing Poacher’s Daughter.”
Alex recalled the photo in the poacher’s tent of the angelic blond.
“So if you slash most of the poacher plot, especially the bad ending, it automatically downsizes the daughter plot,” Quincy finished. “Since most of her lines come from welcoming Shezan into her father’s life, we can’t cut any of them without the studio VP kicking up a major storm.”
“So recast her as someone else. An Amazon?”
“Can’t. Melody refuses point blank to play an Amazon—something about the ‘objectification of women’—so there’s no way around our bad ending.”
“The woman has standards, and yet she’s doing this movie?”
“I gather it’s the only one that’ll have her.” He lowered his voice. “More wooden than a pier, the casting director’s notes said.”
“I want to meet her. Check out her range and see what she can do. Maybe I’ll get an idea?”
“Set your bar low. And remember, Melody and her father are ninety percent why this script can’t be fixed and also why it’s green-lit in the first place.”
“This is bollocks. Keeping that atrocious ending will hurt his daughter more by making her movie a joke.”
“I know. We all know.” He blew out a breath. “But now you understand all of it—the reason the film’s been approved, and the reason everyone keeps heading for the hills. Directors and writers blow in, think they can rewrite that ending and the film will be saved. When they find out it can’t be fixed, they bolt out again.”
“Why didn’t you bolt, too?”
“Alimony. Three ex-wives. Expensive business, marriage. Stay single; there’s good advice for you.” He gave her a rueful look. “This is one club it’s better off not being a member of.”
She chuckled at his expression. “Well, I’m not planning on ever getting a husband.”
“Well, no wives, either. Same deal.”
Ah, so he had done his research.
“So, your turn?” Quincy prodded. “Why are you involved in this Shezan sludge? Your credits are excellent. Better than we deserve, to be honest.”
“Thanks,” Alex murmured, suddenly doubting herself all over again. “I wanted to make a name for myself as the person who turned the most slammed movie into something decent. A lot of eyes are on this. Imagine pulling off the unthinkable.”
Quincy blinked in surprise.
Oh. Right. A little too optimistic. “And I have a tax debt,” she admitted.
“Ah. Thank God.” He smiled and raised his coffee in salute. “Now it all becomes clear. I thought you were nuts for a second.” He chuckled. “It’s ambitious what you’re planning. Most of the LA people are here for the pay day and don’t care too much about the end result. And, aside from the cinematographer, the locals comprise mainly people with enthusiasm but not much experience. So we have that, a bad script, a low budget, and we can’t write out the daughter plot. Thank God we have a Shezan who can act.”
“Chloe’s good?” That was a relief. Alex had had a sudden nightmare thought on the flight over: What if Chloe was dreadful and she had to fire a woman so close to all Alex’s friends?
“She’s solid. Not great, not yet, but it’s her first big role. For a former model, she’s pretty good. Camera loves her, too. Might even make a decent career out of acting if this film doesn’t sink her for life.”
“Is Chloe here yet?”
“She was, but while we’ve been prepping, I cleared her to visit her family for a few days in Auckland. She’ll be back tomorrow. You know her, don’t you? Didn’t you say that in our Skype call?”
“Met her a few times. She’s cool. Should be easy to work with.”
“Good. I think we’ll have our hands full placating the high-strung Melody Howard.”
“Right.” Alex yawned, and hid it behind her hand.
“Sorry. Forgot you’ve had a long day.” Quincy stood. “Let me show you to your trailer. Maybe you’d like a rest before dinner and that beer you’re holding out for.”
“Good idea.” Now that he said it, the fatigue started sliding in behind Alex’s eyeballs.
He led the way to a bank of gleaming silver trailers and pointed. “Yours is that one. Over there’s mine. Production over there, Costumes and Wardrobe there.”
“Is Skye on set?”
“Yes. She’s been redesigning the Amazon outfits while muttering about them being ‘preposterous eye sores unfit for a porn film.’” He smiled. “It was our second director, Bud, who had the idea to give the Amazons costumes so skimpy. He argued that if we can’t fix the script, why not make it so full of eye candy that people will go in spite of it?”
“There’s a progressive point of view.”
Quincy shrugged. “Well, he’s gone, and he took his designer with him. Skye’s going to fix it, so we’re back on track with that, right?”
He had a point. Although the widely mocked exploitation of the Amazons had done more to harm the movie than anything else.
“And here you are.” Quincy brought her up to her trailer and passed her a note. “Your pin code.” He tapped the numbers in for her and opened the door.
“Right, it’s just a standard-issue, film-hire trailer,” he said, waving her up the stairs in front of him. “Big bed, tiny bathroom, tinier kitchenette with microwave, bar fridge down there, and tea and coffee supplies in the cupboards up there.” He waved above the kitchen si
nk. “Also you get TV, a sofa, fold-out table, and the lasting smell of eau de luxury trailer.” He snorted. “I’ll get Sid to bring your bags in from your car so you can decompress for a bit.”
“Right.” Alex dragged the car keys from her pocket and tossed them to Quincy.
She looked around. It was actually far nicer accommodation than she’d become accustomed to hiring for her own movies. What a difference a studio budget makes, even a smaller one than usual.
“Bring your appetite to Te Wharariki Hotel,” Quincy said. “The serving sizes are insane, even by American standards.” His eyes slid down her sparse frame. “Though I’d be happy to have your leftovers,” he joked, and patted his stomach. “They think everyone’s in training for some rugby team. Actually half their customers look like it: huge bastards, no necks, and they blot out the sun when they walk.”
Alex wondered what this movie would do to her diet. “Right,” she said, her whole body flagging with exhaustion.
He gave her a wave. “I’ll see about setting you up with some time with Melody tomorrow.”
“Great.” She watched him leave, and then stood at the top of the stairs, taking in the chaotic set in its various states of readiness.
And so it begins.
CHAPTER 4
Hounds of Hell
Senior Constable Samantha Keegan tossed her backpack into the rear of her patrol car and zipped her fleece-lined black jacket higher up her neck. Five a.m. and freezing. Everything ached down her left side, thanks to her close encounter with the asphalt yesterday, and the biting temperature just made everything worse. Still, it didn’t feel like anything too permanent had been done in the damage department, beyond what had happened to Tiger.
She slid inside the police vehicle with a wince, pushed the heater slider up to full, and turned on the car’s ignition. As she reached for her seatbelt, a white-and-tan-colored blur outside the passenger side caught her eye.
It disappeared.
Then a plaintive yip sounded.
Bruce, her neighbor’s small, old-as-the-hills Jack Russell terrier, often requested a ride-along. He enjoyed the scenery when she did her rounds. Or, more likely, he could smell the contents of her backpack.