by Stuart Woods
Sandy smiled. “You are free to quit.”
“Hey, now. Don’t rat me out to the boss. I’d like to last longer than a day.”
“Don’t worry, you will. Unless you walk off.”
“I’m not going to walk off. But when do we have fun?”
Sandy grinned. “This is the fun.”
“What are you talking about?”
Sandy pointed at the dashboard. “Driving around in a brand-new convertible with the top down and a sign for CENTURION STUDIOS on the dash. If you want to impress the girls, this is the way to do it.”
Sandy didn’t really look like the type to get a girl’s heart racing, but Dylan let it go.
Sandy drove back to Centurion. The guard waved them through the main gate.
“They don’t check your ID?” Dylan said.
“They know me, and they know the car. Production car with a Centurion logo goes right in.”
Good to know, Dylan thought.
They dropped the toilet paper off at the maintenance closet, and put the beer in the cooler in the cafeteria kitchen.
“What now?” Dylan said.
“We report to the production office to see what Hal wants us to do.”
“If he had anything he was going to call. He must not have anything.”
“What’s your point?”
“No one wants us just now. Don’t you want to show me the layout?”
Sandy considered. “All right,” he said. “You’ve been a good boy. I’ll give you a treat.”
26
Peter held up his right hand and stopped the rehearsal. “Mark, rein it in some.”
Teddy frowned. “I’m overacting?”
“You’re fine,” Peter said. “But we’ve got Viveca now, playing your henchman. If we’re getting the same thing from both of you, it’s one-note. I need the contrast. If you pull your character back and make him slightly reasonable, she can be the one that’s going too far.”
“You want me to play that?”
“What?”
“That she’s exceeding my authority, and it annoys me?”
“Yes.” Peter nodded his head. “Play that. Tessa, same from you. Viveca is the true threat, so Mark is virtually the voice of reason.”
“Despite the fact he’s kidnapped me and is threatening to abduct my son,” Tessa said ironically.
“Exactly.”
Tessa grinned. “I like it.”
“Does that work for you, Viveca?”
Viveca cocked her head. “You want me to be a crazy bitch?”
“Well,” Peter said, “I don’t want to hurt your image, but—”
Viveca laughed. “Just yanking your chain. I love it. You want a crazy bitch, you got her.”
“Excellent,” Peter said. “Don’t be surprised if I make some slight changes in the script to reflect those attitudes.”
Peter was rehearsing on soundstage four with Teddy, Viveca, and Tessa. In the film, Tessa is abducted, thrown in the trunk of a car, and held captive in a trailer park while the robbers set up a bank heist. Tessa plays a bank president who’s being coerced into taking part in their plan. In the scene, Teddy and Viveca are programming her for what she has to do. For the purpose of the early rehearsal, aside from Peter, only Francine, the script supervisor, was on hand taking down notes.
Sandy and Dylan came in. They had been listening at the door during the scene, and only entered while notes were being given.
Peter looked around. “Hi, Sandy. You need something?”
Sandy put up his hand apologetically. “Don’t want to interrupt. I just wanted to let you know we have a new production assistant. This is Dylan. Anything you need, if I’m not around, he’s your man. Dylan, this is Peter Barrington, the director. Anything he wants trumps anything anybody else wants.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Peter said, shaking Dylan’s hand. He indicated the actors. “You probably recognize these guys. Mark Weldon, Viveca Rothschild, and Tessa Tweed. You may wind up doing things for them, too. But watch out for Mark. If he wants you to kill someone, check with me first.”
* * *
Dylan came out of the soundstage with a big grin on his face. “Now that’s a little more like it!”
“See?” Sandy said. “It’s not all beer and toilet paper. Are those girls hot, or what?”
“Girls?” Dylan said. “That’s Viveca fucking Rothschild! The Blonde Bombshell! Good thing I didn’t have to say anything, or I’d have been tripping all over my tongue.”
“You get used to it,” Sandy said. “By the end of the week she’ll be just another person who wants something done.”
“I don’t think so,” Dylan said. “So that’s the director. Who’s the producer?”
“Billy Barnett. He does most of Peter’s movies.”
“Is he around?”
“Haven’t seen him. He’ll be on the set once we start shooting. He’s the type of producer who shows up, jokes with the crew, and gets things done.”
“Doesn’t he help with the casting?”
“We’re all cast. Locations are all pinned down. We’ve got a start date and a shooting schedule. Trust me, we’re a well-oiled machine.”
“Sounds like we’ve got nothing to do. Do we get the rest of the day off?”
“As if.” Sandy checked his watch. “We have a little time. You want to stroll around, familiarize yourself with the place, meet me in the production office in a half an hour?”
“Will do.”
* * *
Dylan wandered around the studio, trying to look like he belonged there. He felt funny about it, since as a legitimate employee he did belong there. It was his secret mission that made him feel like an interloper.
He walked past the office of Ben Bacchetti, the head of the studio and Tessa Tweed’s husband. It was good he knew that. Tessa Tweed was young and beautiful, but taken. He’d keep his distance.
Viveca Rothschild, on the other hand . . .
Dylan smiled and walked down the hall.
He passed by Peter Barrington’s office. Peter was on the soundstage, but it was good to know where to look for him when he wasn’t. A thought crossed Dylan’s mind: Could he hit him up for a part? No one said he couldn’t. As long as he got his job done, what could it hurt?
The sign on the next door said BILLY BARNETT. Dylan took a breath and pushed his way in.
A woman was typing at a desk. She looked up when he came in.
“May I help you?”
“This is Billy Barnett’s office?”
“It’s his outer office. I’m Margaret, his secretary.”
“Pleased to meet you. I’m Dylan. I was just hired as a production assistant for Mr. Barrington’s movie. Mr. Barnett’s producing it, so I thought I should introduce myself. He is producing it, isn’t he? I’d hate to get everything wrong my first day.”
“Oh, he’s producing it, all right. He isn’t in today, but I’m sure you’ll run into him on the set. He’s a very busy man, always in and out. But don’t let that intimidate you, he’s really very nice.”
Dylan smiled and went out. He figured that was too bad, but it was too much to hope for, fulfilling his job on the first day. Then he’d be done with these penny-ante gangsters, and he’d still have a job in the motion-picture industry, the kind of job you couldn’t get without connections. It was perfect. If he could just get rid of his connections, he was all set.
27
Sandy took Dylan out to a bar where the production assistants hung out after work. It was a beer-and-buffalo-wings type of place, and reminded Dylan of college.
Sandy introduced Dylan around. All the production assistants seemed obsessed with movies. One of them, Roger, knew more than most, or at least he acted like he did. Dylan took an instant dislike to Roger, who was insolent a
nd condescending. He struck Dylan as one of those people who equate bad manners with genius.
The only other PA who stood out was a college-aged girl named Stacy. She was not beautiful in a movie-star way, but she was cute, with a button nose and a ponytail. She took an instant shine to Dylan, which would have been nice, but he saw immediately that it seemed to upset Sandy. Sandy clearly had feelings for her, and she just as clearly didn’t return them. The fact that she was interested in Dylan was an unfortunate complication he simply didn’t have time for, not with a bunch of goons expecting him to function as a secret agent.
Dylan sipped his beer and wondered how he was going to handle the situation.
Roger wouldn’t let up on him. “So, you want to get into production, do you?”
“Actually,” Dylan said, “I want to be an actor.”
“Oh, there’s a shock,” Roger said, and everybody laughed. “Everyone wants to be an actor. One of the first things you have to come to terms with when you start work here is you’re not going to be an actor. Resign yourself to that and you’ll get along fine.”
“Have you resigned yourself to that?”
“Oh, I am going to be an actor,” Roger said, and everyone laughed again. “I was talking about you. New kid, don’t know shit, haven’t had your dreams pounded out of you yet.”
“Hey, don’t sugarcoat it,” Sandy said, wryly. “Let the kid know what he’s in for.”
“Why couldn’t he make it?” Stacy said. “Nobody’s seen him yet.”
Roger scowled at being cut off in mid-flow. “What the hell does that mean?”
Sandy leapt to her defense. “Hey, take it easy, Roger.”
Stacy didn’t need help. She stuck to her guns. “We’ve all been around for a while. Anyone who could help us already knows us. If anyone was going to make one of us a star, they’ve had ample time to do it. But Dylan’s new. Maybe someone will see something in him they like.”
Dylan found the conversation uncomfortable on so many levels. He grinned, trying to diffuse the situation. “Hey, I know it’s a pipe dream. I’m a starstruck kid. I can’t wait till they start shooting.”
“If you’re around,” Roger said.
For the first time, Dylan lost his cool. His face darkened. “Are you saying I’ll be fired?”
“Relax. No one gets fired. You’d have to get drunk and crash a picture car the day before shooting.”
“Picture car?”
“A car that’s seen on-screen.” Roger cocked his head. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”
“Even so, don’t expect to be on the set,” Sandy said. “You’re just as likely to be in the studio.”
“Aren’t we shooting in the studio?” Dylan said.
“And the kid swings and misses. Strike two,” Roger said, and everyone laughed. “Sorry,” he said. He didn’t sound sorry. “But it’s rare for someone to demonstrate such a profound lack of knowledge. Movies never start shooting in the studio. You shoot the exteriors first, all the location shots. Why? So if it rains, you can move indoors to a cover set. That’s usually in the studio. If you shoot all the studio scenes first, when it rains you have no cover set as a contingency.”
“So where will we shoot?” Dylan said.
Roger was in full lecture mode. “The two main locations in this film are a bank and a trailer park. The interior of the trailer’s being built on the soundstage. The bank we’re shooting at is a bank. We’ve got other exterior scenes—the abduction, the car chase, the kid in school. Barring rain, we won’t see the inside of the studio for two weeks.”
“You’ve seen the shooting schedule?” Dylan asked.
“It’s posted outside the production office. You can only miss it if you’re daydreaming about being a movie star when you walk by. Anyway, the first day’s in downtown L.A. in the street outside the bank. Those of us that are working the set, that is.” Roger smirked. “Don’t expect to be.”
That was the last thing Dylan wanted to hear. He didn’t just want to be on the set.
He had to be.
28
Teddy had no one to be other than Mark Weldon that night, so he elected to stay at Mark’s apartment just to keep up the illusion that he was living there. He even gave the super a thrill, sitting out on the stoop with him drinking beer and telling Hollywood war stories, only some of which were apocryphal.
“How’d you make your break?” Paco Alvarez wanted to know. “You’re working as a stuntman, suddenly you’re winning awards. That doesn’t happen. It’s like winning the lottery, am I right?”
“Exactly right,” Teddy said. “Just being in the right place at the right time.”
“And having talent.”
“Everybody’s got talent or they wouldn’t be there. Getting a chance to show it is something else.”
“So what happened?”
“I’m working as a stunt double for a well-known character actor. I’m not going to say which one, for reasons that will be obvious. The guy was one of those actors everyone loves, whatever he’s in. So the director’s delighted to get him in this part.
“Only the guy’s a fall-down drunk. He goes off the wagon the night before shooting and gets in a bar fight, and the studio has to pull strings just to keep him out of jail. They manage to hush it up, but the guy’s a mess. He’s so hungover he can hardly stand. He’s lost a tooth, and one eye’s swollen shut.
“They’ve got me in costume ready to step in for the stunt sequence, so they just roll the scene and shoot me, figuring some of the footage will be usable if it’s from an angle where you can’t see my face. But they watched the footage they shot, liked it, and decided it made more sense to go on shooting without a drunk pain in the ass. Which they do, only his agent threatens to sue and they wind up paying his salary anyway. So the guy winds up making a hundred times what I do for not playing the part.”
“Son of a bitch,” the super said. He laughed heartily and pounded Teddy on the back. “Son of a bitch!”
Teddy finally escaped the super’s clutches. He went to bed a little tipsy, and resolved never to get caught on the front stoop again.
29
Teddy’s cell phone vibrated mid-rehearsal. He finished the scene and let Peter get through his notes before requesting a bathroom break.
He went out in the hall, pulled out his phone, and saw his secretary had called. Teddy ducked into his dressing room, closed the door, and called her back. “Hi, Margaret, what’s up?”
“You have a meeting you didn’t tell me about.”
“Oh?”
“I cleared your schedule of everything on it, but Philip Manheim just called to confirm that you were still on for your luncheon at one o’clock at the Polo Lounge?”
“Oh, hell,” Teddy said. “That’s my fault. He caught me in the middle of something else and I said yes and then forgot about it.”
“That’s what I figured,” Margaret said. “Any particular excuse you’d like me to use when I cancel?”
“Like I got hit by a truck?”
“That would work.”
“He’ll just want to reschedule. Look, tell him I’m really sorry but I’m tied up at the studio and can’t get away, and would it be a terrible imposition for him to meet me here for lunch?”
“At the same time?”
“Yeah, the same time. Actually, this will be a good barometer of his interest. If he’s willing to pass up the Polo Lounge for cafeteria food, it’s a pretty good indication he’s serious about the project.”
“Will do.”
* * *
Things worked out well for Teddy. Philip was happy to come to the studio, and Peter was working with Viveca and Tessa before lunch, so Teddy was able to get away and become Billy Barnett.
No one was looking when he went down the corridor and ducked into Billy Barnett’s office.
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Margaret’s face lit up in a smile. “Why, Mark Weldon. Delighted to see you.” Her eyes twinkled. “Would it surprise you very much to find that Mr. Barnett is not in?”
“He will be in a minute,” Teddy said. “He’s gotta get ready for this damn lunch. When Philip shows up, stall him.”
Teddy went into his inner office and closed the door. He went to his closet and selected a suit, tie, belt, shoes, and socks.
He took his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the reinforced closet in which he kept a few special items, including a complete makeup kit. Then he went in the bathroom and transformed his appearance from Mark Weldon to Billy Barnett.
He hung up Mark Weldon’s slacks and T-shirt, put the makeup kit back, and locked the closet.
He came out the door to find Margaret talking to a young corporate type.
Teddy smiled warmly, shaking his hand. “Philip. Thanks for helping me out.”
30
Dylan dropped so many hints about wanting to be on the shooting set that Hal finally called him on it.
“Look, kid, I get it. That’s where the glamour is. But these things go by merit and seniority. You haven’t been around long enough to merit anything, and what does that say for your seniority? If I can get you on the set, I will, but don’t count on it. Meanwhile, I don’t want to hear about it. I got other things to do with my life.”
Dylan knocked off for lunch feeling discouraged. Nothing was going his way. He’d spent the whole morning running errands, never got near the set, and he had no idea what was really going on at Centurion Studios.
Hanging over his head was the fact that this might not be conducive to his health. Gino Patelli’s goons were apt to pull him in and squeeze him again, just for the pleasure of hearing his bones break.
Dylan wandered down to the cafeteria. Stacy was in line, holding a tray. She waved him over.