City of Spies

by Nina Berry

  Pagan was one of the stars of this wretched movie, and she would be dancing and flirting through most of the upcoming scenes with her costars. But making a movie also involved a lot of waiting while the technical details were worked out, problems were solved or other actors got their close-ups. She might learn a lot about Von Albrecht or bond more closely with Emma in between shots.

  Later, during lunch break, thanks to Devin’s mysterious connections, Mercedes would be visiting. She’d stop by to say hello, of course, but she was primarily there to check out the college’s observatory, housed in a pretty cupola down a few hallways and up a lot of stairs from here.

  M had babbled on about the history of the observatory and the quality of the telescope inside, but frankly, Pagan hadn’t paid much attention. If Mercedes had her way, she’d get permission from some dusty professor to come back tonight and actually look through that telescope at the Southern Cross. And if that made her happy, Pagan was happy.

  If you could be happy and anxious at the same time. Even as she waited for word from Devin that a Von Albrecht, any Von Albrecht, was in the vicinity, she was also waiting to start a new movie and to meet Two to Tango’s director, Victor Anderson. She’d heard him shouting something at the director of photography earlier, and outbursts of loud male laughter, but he hadn’t bothered to come introduce himself during her long sit in the makeup chair, as was customary.

  This movie didn’t have the luxury of a table read or weeks of rehearsal at the filming location. They’d rehearsed the dance numbers on the soundstages at Warner Bros. for weeks, but Victor Anderson hadn’t visited once. Perhaps he’d been busy.

  Or perhaps he was as much of a self-absorbed jerk as the wardrobe mistress had implied.

  Pagan had glimpsed him this morning, a tall man with distinguished wings of gray decorating his dark hair, striding around, shouting orders all over the courtyard. But she knew better than to walk up and introduce herself. That would be seen as arrogance on her part, thinking she was important enough to interrupt his work. Directors were the dictators of their movie sets, and this one clearly enjoyed that role.

  Rada fluffed a section of tulle near the hem of the dress, pursing her lips sadly. “I told them white would get dirty too fast. Already there is some dust. By the end of the day, the hem will be black.”

  “Looks like they polished the floor,” Pagan said. “It’s pretty clean.”

  Rada gave her head a doleful nod. “Wax. I hope it’s not so slippery that you slip and fall. You could break something and the whole movie would be canceled.”

  Rada was not the best kind of person to have around when you were apprehensive. Pagan looked around for a chair, a bench, preferably far away from Queen Gloom.

  “It’s okay if I sit down in this dress, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Only if I put a towel down first, very carefully,” Rada said. “I’ll fetch one.”

  “Miss Jones!”

  The loud voice she’d been unconsciously following around the courtyard boomed through the archway at her. Boot heels clicked, and something smacked against fabric as Victor Anderson strode into view. “About time I came to say hello, isn’t it, little lady?”

  He showed his teeth under a narrow Clark Gable mustache in what passed for a smile. He was a vigorous man with an athletic build in his late forties, but Pagan had a hard time tearing her eyes from his jodhpurs and riding crop. Famous movie-maker Cecil B. DeMille had worn that type of outfit, back in the thirties, but now it was a movie director cliché. No other director Pagan had ever worked with had worn such things. Instead of lending him authority, the outfit made him look oddly out of place, as if he was about to hop on a horse with a braided mane to go foxhunting, rather than stand around a movie set all day.

  “You look better than I thought you would,” he said, and smacked his crop a few more times against the leather of one shiny black knee-high boot, as if eager to whip her into action.

  She felt sorry for anything he did ride.

  Pagan blinked hard to keep herself from saying exactly that to him and instead issued her most vacuous smile. “Thank you so much, Mr. Anderson. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

  She managed to keep the edge out of the word finally, but it hadn’t been easy.

  His eyes ran up and down her body. “Have you put on weight? Come here.”

  She forced herself to take two steps toward him. Make nice with the awful man, Pagan. He can make or break how the next few weeks of your life go, on set.

  Victor took her chin between his fingers firmly, and turned her face to the right and left as he scrutinized it. “Left side’s a bit better. We’ll have to light carefully around that nose. Eddie!”

  He released her so suddenly she tottered on her heels, and he strode back out into the courtyard as if forgetting her existence. He beckoned the director of photography, no doubt to discuss the problems posed by her nose and her possible weight gain.

  Pagan had heard critical things about her figure and her features all her life. That was part of being an actress. But according to Mama, Pagan was beautiful, no matter what others said. Eva Jones had been a tough taskmistress, pushing her daughter every day to work harder on her dancing, her singing, her line reading, but thank goodness for her pragmatic German views on eating and exercise. Eat well to stay strong, keep your body flexible and fit and pay attention only to your mother’s criticism. No one else’s opinion mattered.

  Not even your own.

  And Mama had been very critical. But in this, at least, she’d served Pagan well. So many of the actresses Pagan knew were always on some strange diet of watercress or celery, or taking uppers or laxatives to shed pounds they didn’t really need to lose. Mama had made Pagan promise never to take those “terrible pills” or starve herself. She’d needed Pagan hearty enough to keep earning money to pay the mortgage.

  All of which meant that nasty men like Victor Anderson, who saw Pagan as an object that wasn’t pretty or thin enough, could get bent. Mama would have gone over Victor Anderson’s head and spoken firmly with the head of the studio if she’d heard him say that kind of thing to Pagan. And the studio head would have privately warned Victor to tone it down or else Eva Jones would make their lives a living hell.

  Now Pagan had to navigate this nonsense without her bulldog mother to shield her. The words didn’t hurt, but they were just the beginning. Days, weeks, of this would wear her down. Victor Anderson was the last thing she needed while working an important, anxiety-producing case with Devin.

  “Places!” shouted the second assistant director. “Extras—places, please! Pagan, David, places, please!”

  Already? No one had warned her. Usually a production assistant came to give you a heads-up before they called places for the first shot of the day. And before that, the director or the AD showed you where your place was and walked you through the scene as it would be shot. Apparently there was no such courtesy on Victor Anderson’s set.

  Pagan walked out into the courtyard as dozens of extras emerged from the other archways. The black-and-white floor was covered with men in tuxedoes and women in long, big-skirted dresses, each a slightly less fluffy version of her own, although no one else was in white. She’d stand out among a sea of red and blue dresses, during this fictional ball thrown by the American embassy in Buenos Aires. It was clever if you liked things obvious.

  She smiled at several of her fellow dancers as they took their places. But no one had told her where to stand. So she headed toward the camera, lodged for now in one corner of the courtyard. She spotted the choreographer, Jared, talking to some of the dancers nearby, and her other costar, handsome sandy-haired Dave McKinney, was standing there in a tuxedo tight enough to show every bulge in his biceps. A makeup lady was giving his tan cheeks one last pat-down of powder.

  “Tell me you’re not going to make a hab
it of being this late,” Victor Anderson demanded as Pagan clicked over the marble toward them in her heels. He was slapping his riding crop impatiently against his calf. “It’s gonna be a tough shoot if this keeps up, won’t it, Dave?”

  Dave shot him a frowning look and did not reply as Pagan’s stomach dropped. She took a deep breath and hoped her breasts wouldn’t pop out of her neckline. Ever since she’d stopped drinking she’d made doubly sure she was never late, to always know her lines and her blocking backward and forward. An accusation of lack of professionalism when it wasn’t her fault was much tougher for her to take than random jabs at her looks.

  “But nobody told me...” Pagan began. Then she closed her mouth and gave him a sickly sweet smile instead. Weeks of working with this man lay ahead. Sugar drew more flies than vinegar and all that crap. Although vinegar was getting more tempting all the time.

  “Hi, Dave,” Pagan began again, favoring her costar with a genuine smile, and then beamed that smile like a spotlight at the director. “Mr. Anderson. Your powers of telepathy don’t appear to be working, so if you’ll kindly speak aloud the place you’d like me to be when the shot begins, I’ll be delighted to oblige.”

  She draped the words in so much honey, and swept her lashes down over her cheeks so demurely, that he read her tone instead of listening carefully to her words and puffed out his chest.

  “Movie’s like a marriage, sweetheart,” he said. “As long as you promise to honor and obey, we’ll get along great. Come on over here.”

  He walked her to her position in the line of dancers, and pointed to the camera, which sat on a metal track that had been laid over the black-and-white marble floor.

  “The camera’s over there, getting your left profile when the shot begins,” he said in a tone so condescending she couldn’t help a look of surprise. “See it?” he added, mistaking her look for confusion. “We’ll dolly—that means move the camera—around this way. See where the metal track goes? As you and Dave speak your lines. We’ll rehearse it a few times before we roll, so don’t worry. You’ve got a few tries before it has to be perfect. Makeup!” He bellowed for the makeup lady so loud Pagan flinched. The woman who’d been dusting Dave hustled over to dab at Pagan’s cheeks with a powder puff.

  Victor turned on her. “Where the hell have you been?”

  The woman frowned, puzzled. “I’m sorry, Mr. Anderson. I was finishing up with Mr. McKinney...”

  “If I see her nose shine like this again before a shot I’m going to fire you, okay?” Victor gave her a tight smile. “Okay, then. Do we all understand what’s going on here, girls?” He favored them both with raised eyebrows and widespread hands of an exasperated man. The makeup woman didn’t look at him, but kept pressing powder carefully onto Pagan’s face. Pagan made her eyes round and innocent, and nodded.

  “Good,” he said, nodding. “Don’t make me have to explain it again.” As he stalked away, he muttered, “Women!” loud enough for everyone nearby to hear.

  “What an ass,” Pagan said under her breath as he strode away. “I won’t let him fire you. What’s your name?”

  “Janet,” the woman replied. “Thanks, but don’t worry about me. Save yourself.”

  Lips pressed together tight, eyes lit with warning, Janet threw Pagan a look and jogged off.

  Dave walked up, smiling at Pagan. “Sorry about that. What is his problem?”

  “Nobody told me where to go, or that the shot was coming up.” Pagan couldn’t help defending herself. Thank God Dave was funny and sane. They’d gotten along swimmingly during rehearsals.

  Dave made a face. “That’s weird. A nice PA came and got me ten minutes ago.”

  “Well, I’ll be making best friends with that PA today, that’s for sure!” Pagan said.

  “Don’t worry about it. You’re the biggest star on the movie and you look gorgeous.”

  Good old Dave. His wife was a lucky woman. “Thanks, Dave. Gotta say, that’s a hell of a tux they put you in.”

  “Tell me about it.” Dave put his weight on his left foot and shook out his right leg. “They made the crotch too high to give me a bigger bulge, so if you see me wincing while we dance, it’s not your fault.”

  Pagan’s eyes couldn’t help traveling down Dave’s lean torso to the area in question, which did indeed show a clear outline of his anatomy.

  “I mean, look at this!” With a lifelong actor’s complete lack of modesty, Dave shook his hips like a go-go dancer. The bulge at his crotch didn’t budge. “It’s really jammed in there. I don’t care, but my character is kind of a decent guy, so you’d think he’d tell his tailor to be more subtle, you know?”

  Pagan laughed, some tension in her shoulders easing. The dancers around them were tittering. “I think the same tailor made my bra.”

  “Romance!” Victor shouted from behind the camera. “This isn’t comedy, it’s romance. Hand me that.” He twitched a megaphone from the hand of an assistant and put it up to his mouth, although they were only about twenty feet away from him. “This is a ball thrown by the American embassy, and it’s the greatest night of your lives! Romance! Happiness! Sex! That’s what this scene’s about, so let me see it. Actors—you know when to say your lines as the dance progresses. Let’s rehearse. Sound!”

  The soundman switched on the Nagra recorder and watched the tape wind into the plastic spools. The boom man hoisted the pole holding the microphone that would pick up their dialogue, although, because the music was playing, that would also be rerecorded later and dubbed back in. “Speed.”

  “Roll camera,” Victor shouted. He seemed to grow taller and more pleased with himself with every command.

  “Rolling,” said the cameraman.

  “Begin playback!”

  “Playback!” shouted the assistant director.

  Someone switched on a second recording device attached to a speaker behind the camera. A slow Southern reel swam blearily up to speed. Its very American strains sounded out of place here in an Argentine courtyard.

  “Action!” Victor announced.

  “Five, six, seven, eight!” Jared’s voice shouted the count from somewhere beyond the fluffy dresses of the dancers.

  In perfect unison, the line of female dancers, with Pagan near one end, walked forward in time to the music toward the line of male dancers. Dave lifted his hand at the right moment, and Pagan took it. They swayed, circled and swayed again.

  “Why, Daisy,” Dave said to Pagan in character, his voice half an octave lower than his normal tones. “You dance divinely. I had no idea.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised, Billy,” Pagan replied in Daisy’s playful tone. “You’re not the first man I’ve ever danced with.”

  A cloud settled on Dave’s handsome brow as the lines of dancers parted and then came back together. He wrapped his arm around her waist and they spun, looking into each other’s eyes. “You dance quite...expertly, in fact. How many others have there been?”

  Pagan fought off a feeling of revulsion at that line. Why did men care so much if a girl had been with other men? Daisy was a caricature of virginity, but if she had fooled around—so what?

  She wished her character could throw the accusation back into Dave’s character’s face. “How many others have you been with?” Let’s see how boys liked being judged that way, too.

  Instead, as Daisy, Pagan pushed his arm off her waist and glared. “What are you implying?”

  Dave kept circling her, even though they were no longer touching. “You just seemed so sweet, so innocent, when I saw you at the races yesterday. Tonight... You’re different tonight.”

  Again with the sweet and innocent. No wonder she hated the script. “Dancing’s not illegal, last time I checked,” Pagan said, a fond smile taking over her face as her character remembered the tango she’d danced the night before with that seductive
Argentine man named Juan. “Are you afraid of a little competition?”

  “Cut!”

  The music and dancers kept swaying for two awkward beats, and then came to an uneven halt.

  Dresses and tuxedoes parted as Victor strode toward Pagan and Dave. “You were terribly offbeat during that last line, sweetheart,” he said.

  My favorite thing in the world is to have a ridiculous egotistical jackass erroneously criticize me while calling me sweetheart.

  That’s what she wanted to say. Or better yet, she wanted to kick him. In the shin. Or the crotch.

  It hurt to rein in her natural reaction, but she was a decent actress, damn it, and she would get through this day without killing Victor Anderson even if it gave her an ulcer. He was a minor distraction in the dance she was dancing right now. She would have more difficult steps to get through today.

  Victor went on. “You bobbled the steps when you said ‘little competition,’ and that’s when you should be the most confident, the most on beat. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Oh, she understood. But she hadn’t been off beat. She’d bet a hundred dollars she’d been precisely on beat. But if she told Victor that...

  Choreographer Jared had walked up to consult, and began, diplomatically, “I’m not so sure she was offbeat there, Victor...”

  He said it in the softest, most conciliatory tone possible, but Victor rounded on him.

  “No fairy’s going to tell me when someone’s off the beat.”

  Jared went pale, eyes wide. But Victor had no time for that. He turned on Pagan again. “Stay. On. Beat. Get me?”

  “I will,” she said, her throat tight, hand itching to smack him, just once, for Jared.

  “Again!” Victor shouted, and stomped back to the camera, smacking his whip against his boot.

  And so it went for hours as the temperature rose under the blazing lights and the humidity forced the makeup assistants to run around dabbing at foreheads and cheeks between every shot.

  Victor had nothing to say when Dave stepped on Pagan’s foot during the seventh take, or when the camera operator forgot to change out the mag and they ran out of film midshot. But Rada received sneering remarks as she sewed up a rip in Pagan’s hem, and Pagan endured a steady stream of condescending eye rolls, angry corrections and one very loud declaration that teenage actresses would one day be the death of them all.