She distracted herself by pursuing a new line of questioning. “Why don’t you tell me about some of the flops Aztec Sun has made?”
“Flops? We don’t make flops.”
“Never had a picture that lost money?”
“Never.”
She would have to do some research to see if that was true. “How do you explain your record of success?”
Diego’s stylish blazer rose and fell as he shrugged. “Hard work, brains—and recycling. We don’t waste money. We don’t pay anyone more than they’re worth.”
“Amazing how the major studios can’t seem to follow such a sensible strategy.”
“They don’t think like we do. They’re looking for awards. Aztec Sun will never win an Oscar, but so what? We aren’t artists here; we’re in business. Ah, there’s our star.” He leaned toward the glass pane separating the booth from the set. Melanie Greer had just stepped into the kitchen area.
Sandra leaned forward, too. She observed the young actress’s eyes, the angle of her head, the motions of her pale, slender fingers as she greeted the director with listless a handshake. No air-kisses between Melanie and John Rhee, Sandra observed.
John and Melanie hunched over the table on the set, with what appeared to be a bound copy of the script open between them. John was doing most of the talking.
“How is she working out?” Sandra asked Diego.
“She’s a princess.”
“Yesterday she seemed jittery.”
Diego glared at Sandra, his megawatt smile gone. “She’s still learning her way around, learning her marks. You know what that means?”
“Her marks?” Sandra shook her head.
“Where she’s supposed to stand, when she’s supposed to be there. When she’s supposed to move. These things get plotted very carefully. The cameras have to be coordinated, the lighting. It’s all new to her.”
“She’s an actress. She must know how to move around a set.”
“Not this set. Not the way we do things at Aztec Sun. But no, we’ve had no problems with her. She’s a doll.”
Was he protesting too much, or was Sandra viewing everything he said from a jaundiced perspective? She turned back to the window and watched as the director gesticulated, as the actress lowered her head, then tilted it, then grinned and shook it. She looked amused. John Rhee looked annoyed.
“He’s very talented, but he has a short fuse,” Diego remarked. “Please excuse me. I’ve got to smooth it out between them.”
“Go right ahead,” Sandra said. She heard a rush of noise from the sound stage as Diego opened the door, then a hiss and the silence of thick soundproofing as it whipped shut. Through the heavy glass she watched Diego march onto the set, position himself between John and Melanie, and mediate their squabble. She saw his brilliant smile, his glinting eyes. He slung one arm around Melanie and gave John a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Melanie seemed to lean against Diego, as if seeking protection.
Or maybe she just couldn’t stand up straight.
Sandra took a deep breath and tucked away her cynicism. It was one thing to want a big scoop, and quite another to invent one. She had to remain objective. If Melanie’s behavior was nothing more than a matter of her being confused about the Aztec Sun way of doing things—or perhaps simply a star’s way of reaping attention from a doting executive like Diego—Sandra couldn’t turn it into something else.
The door to the booth opened with another rush of noise, and a young man lugged a heavy coil of cable inside. He seemed startled to discover Sandra seated near the window.
“Hi,” she said, offering a reassuring smile. “I’m Sandra Garcia from the L.A. Post.”
“Are you supposed to be in here?”
“Diego Salazar brought me here.”
“Oh. I guess it’s okay, then.” The young man dropped the cable in a corner of the booth, then settled himself on a wheeled stool in front of a complicated array of switches.
“What’s that?” Sandra asked, genuinely curious.
“This? A lighting board. I gotta get that kitchen window full of sunset.” He fiddled with a couple of switches, adding red to the golden light that illuminated the window on the set. He lifted a headset from the lighting board and slid it into place on his head, spoke a few words into the attached microphone and then fussed with the switches some more.
Sandra fell silent, her gaze shuttling back and forth between the three-way conference on the set—Melanie clinging to Diego, John flinging his hands into the air, Diego smiling to beat the band—and the man beside her in the booth. Not much older than a teenager, he was wiry in build, a fact made evident by his snug-fitting black T-shirt and skintight jeans. The front of his shirt bore an advertisement for a brand of tequila, but the man was clearly sober. He operated the switches with deft precision, his fingers nimble, his body hunched over the board. His long, curly hair was pulled back into a ponytail, but numerous strands had escaped the elastic and dangled around his face like black springs.
After a while he spoke into the microphone: “Yeah, sure, I’m a genius. So tell my old lady that, hey?” With a laugh, he slid the headset down around his neck and settled back in his stool.
“They like your sunset,” Sandra guessed. Indeed, the kitchen window had taken on the believable glow of a coral dusk.
He grinned and shrugged. “It’s close enough.”
“Are you the resident genius at Aztec Sun?”
Still grinning, he shook his head. “Nah. That would be Rafael Perez.”
“Do you think he’s a genius?”
“He’s great. Taught me everything I know.”
“Is this a good place to work?”
“Hey, man, you think I’d get a job like this anywhere else? I had a chance to apprentice to this electrician, right? Wiring air conditioning in mini-malls, except no one’s building any mini-malls these days, so if I took that job I’d be on the unemployment line right now. Instead, here I am making sunsets like I’m God or something.” His genial smile undercut his boastfulness.
“Is Rafael Perez perfect?”
“What do you mean, perfect?”
“Nobody seems to have a single negative thing to say about him.”
The young man eyed Sandra’s pad, then shrugged. “Okay, you want negative? He’s a selfish bastard.”
“Is he?” Sandra perked up.
“Yeah. He’s got this machine, a ‘57 T-bird, mint condition, like a dream, man. Never gives anyone a ride in it. I been begging ever since I got here, and he always gives me this real slow smile, like, ‘Ask again and you’re dead meat.’ I mean, really, the man just won’t share. There’s a rumor if he finds your fingerprints on the chrome he deducts ten bucks from your paycheck.” He laughed.
Sandra joined his laughter. “Does he have any other faults?”
The man glanced at her notepad again. “You writing this down? Hey, don’t put that stuff in. I mean, about his being a selfish bastard. He really isn’t.”
“I’m writing a story about him for the Post. I’d like to have a well-rounded picture of who he is.”
The young man shrugged. “Nobody knows who he is, not really. I mean, he’s the boss. Keeps to himself, mostly. Doesn’t flirt with the ladies like Salazar. He’ll have a drink with you after work, but he doesn’t talk much. He mostly just listens.” He continued to stare at her notepad. “Put down that I’m real glad I work here.”
“Okay.” She dutifully wrote it down. “What’s your name?”
“Luis Rodriguez. How about you?”
“Sandra Garcia,” she reintroduced herself.
“You busy Saturday night?”
She smiled blandly. “I see you take after Diego when it comes to flirting.”
“Hey, I don’t flirt with just any lady. You’re a chica, though, you know? Muy bella.”
Sandra’s Spanish was rusty, but she understood muy bella. “And you’re muy loco,” she teased.
Luis chuckled appreciatively. His gaze fl
ickered toward the window overlooking the set, and she turned her attention there, too. John Rhee was standing at the edge of the kitchen area, obviously vexed. Diego had his hands planted on Melanie’s shoulders and appeared to be lecturing her.
“What do you think of her?” Sandra asked.
“Melanie Greer? Muy bella.”
“Does she act like a pampered star?”
“Hell, no. She’s nice. First day she was here, I got her autograph. Some of these big shots, you know, they wouldn’t give you the time of day. But she’s not like that.”
“Did Diego tell you to say only good things about working here?” Sandra asked, growing impatient with the relentlessly rosy picture she was getting of Aztec Sun.
“Salazar? Even if he did, I’d just tune him out. He’s the glad-hander, you know? Put on a happy face and all that. But no, it’s really nice here. Nicer than the streets, comprende? They treat a person with respect. My father, he weeds rich people’s gardens for a living. You know what I mean? It stinks. Here, I’m a real man. They pay me a real wage. And after work, the head of the company sits down with his people and has a couple of beers at Cesar’s. He’s a good boss.”
“Is there much drinking at Aztec Sun?”
“You mean, like, on the lot? Not that I ever saw. We work here.”
“I know, but…” Sandra smiled knowingly. “The film industry has such a reputation for people overindulging. Liquor, drugs—”
“Drugs? Uh-uh. No way. Rafael would never put up with it.”
His emphatic tone surprised her. “What do you mean, he’d never put up with it?”
“He’s got a thing. He just won’t tolerate it. Period. Everybody’s got something they come down hard on, and that’s his thing. Drugs.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Evidently Luis had never given it much thought. He shrugged again; the motion pulled his shirt taut against his ribs. “I don’t know. It’s just the way he is. A couple o’ guys, set dressers, they came in stoned once, back in the beginning of the summer. Rafael kicked them out. No severance, no notice. They were gone.”
“Maybe he fired them because they were slacking off.”
“Not the way I heard it. Rafael, he knows that everyone’s gonna look at him twice as close on account of he’s Chicano, you know? The banks, the finance companies, the distributors, everyone. One slip-up, and there’s too many people ready to push him all the way down to the bottom. I don’t have to tell you, right?”
Sandra thought about Flannagan, about how hard she fought to get the assignments he blithely passed along to Russo, Joe LaRoix, Ella Connors and all the others. For Sandra, it was Hispanic human-interest stories, time after time after time. She understood what Luis meant.
Even so, whatever prejudice Rafael might encounter wasn’t necessarily a reason that drugs would be his “thing,” the vice he had no tolerance for. “What about the actors?” she pressed. “They’re artists, sensitive egos and all. Does he really come down hard on them about drugs?”
“I’m telling you. It’s something he won’t allow. He tells you when he hires you: no drugs. None. You do drugs, you’re history.” Luis glanced toward the window, but his thoughts were still on her question. “We all got something that pushes our button. With Rafael, it’s drugs. Maybe something happened to him, someone accused him of something, I don’t know. He doesn’t wear his soul in public, you know what I mean? All I know is, it doesn’t matter if you’re an artist or an electrician or the guy that empties the garbage pails at midnight. Around here, no drugs.”
Activity on the set drew her attention. John Rhee had grown infuriated about something. Sandra watched him move his mouth and pound his fist on the table in what appeared, through the soundproof glass, to be a silent, angry pantomime. He scooped up his script, shook his finger at Melanie and stormed off the set. Melanie slumped against Diego, who tightened his arm around her and escorted her away in the other direction.
“What’s going on?” Sandra asked.
Luis lifted the headset against his ear. He held up his hand to hush Sandra so he could hear, then grimaced and shook his head. “Lunatics,” he muttered. “They’re postponing the shoot till after lunch.”
“Why?”
“Melanie said she was too tense to get into character.”
“Does she act like a prima donna often?”
“Sometimes.” Luis eyed Sandra and grinned. “She’s an artist, hey? Sensitive ego.”
“What is Diego going to do about it?”
Luis shrugged and tossed down his headset. “Talk her down, I guess. Time is money, man. They gotta get this show on the road.” He glimpsed Sandra’s notebook and his expression grew tentative. “Don’t put this in your article, okay? Every movie has shit like this, people not ready when they’re supposed to be, people stressed out, whatever. This is normal.”
“I understand.”
“I mean, it ain’t exactly news, you know?”
“I understand,” she repeated, deliberately tucking her notebook into her tote and rising to her feet. “If they aren’t going to shoot the scene, I’ll mosey around and talk to some people. I’ll be back after lunch.”
“Yeah. Let’s hope Melanie Greer is. And John.”
Sandra smiled. “How can they not shoot the scene when you created such a magnificent sunset in the window?”
Luis beamed with pride.
She left the tech booth, ducked under some scaffolding and followed a meandering route to the door and outside. In truth, she was delighted by the delay in filming. It gave her a chance to roam the studio grounds without Diego hanging onto her arm and talking her ear off about how wonderful everything was.
Why, if everything was so wonderful, was Melanie having problems? Why had John Rhee blown a fuse? Why was filming being postponed?
Why was were drugs Rafael’s “thing”?
It took Sandra a moment to adjust to the glaring sunshine after the artificial light of the sound stage. Near a neighboring building, she spotted a few men unloading a moving van, the contents of which could have come directly from the Salvation Army—old, serviceable furniture, dusty lamp shades, rug remnants with fraying edges. More recycled sets, she guessed, secretly pleased by the studio’s frugality. If she couldn’t find a better story in all this, perhaps she’d write about how one studio managed to put together movies on the cheap. The high-rolling producers of Hollywood could learn a thing or two from Rafael Perez, the genius with the dark skin and darker eyes and the adoration of everyone who worked for him—even if he wouldn’t share his T-bird.
*
THERE SHE WAS, ALONE.
Not alone, actually. She was talking to the guys Rafael called his scavengers, a trio of pack-rats who roamed the yard sales and flea markets of Los Angeles County, scrounging items that might come in handy in future projects. Rafael had hired the kids last year. They’d been on probation at the time, all of them convicted of disorderly conduct. They hadn’t had a run-in with the law since Rafael had taken them on.
Not that he had worked any miracles, turning their lives around and making them see the error of their ways. All he’d done was give them a job, a chance.
Exactly as someone had once given him a chance when he’d been young and lost.
He couldn’t imagine the scavengers telling Sandra Garcia anything he didn’t want her to know. Their police records notwithstanding, they were good kids, and they seemed happy to be working for him.
But Rafael didn’t like her wandering about the studio grounds unattended. He didn’t trust her.
He turned from the window and groaned. The truth was, he did trust her—to get people to open up, to talk. She wasn’t sneaky or underhanded. What she was was skilled at her job—digging and then going public with whatever she unearthed.
She was more than skilled. When she looked at a person, her eyes saw past the surface. Rafael had felt her x-raying his soul when she’d gazed at him across the table in Cesar’s yesterday evening. She�
�d gotten under his skin, way deep. Maybe it had nothing to do with her being a reporter, but rather was because she had such long black hair and smooth, silky skin. Maybe he’d been responding to her ability to maintain the upper hand, even as she’d pretended to yield to him.
Maybe it was the way she’d peered up at him from the driver’s seat of her car, her eyes shimmering with… what? Curiosity? Expectation? Hope?
Desire?
Or had he only been seeing his own desire reflected in her face?
Why wasn’t Diego with her now, orchestrating things? He had promised he would keep an eye on her. Whatever Rafael thought of her—and he didn’t want to analyze his thoughts to any great extent—he wouldn’t have her poking around the studio on her own. He trusted her too much to do exactly what she’d come to Aztec Sun to do: find a story worth writing about.
A story about the tensions on the set, about the inability of Melanie Greer to stay cool enough to get through her scenes despite Diego’s increasingly hollow-sounding reassurances that he had her on a short leash.
From the start Rafael had been aware of the rumors circling around the actress. She was young, naive, looking for fun. At times she reminded him of his own recklessness as a youth. He too had lived only for the present, for fun—until fate had crashed over him with its deadly undertow.
Would it take a similar tidal wave to wake Melanie up? Or was he worrying needlessly? Diego insisted that everything was under control, that Melanie was only suffering from nerves and that once the cameras began to roll in earnest she would be magnificent.
It would be bad enough if Diego turned out to be wrong. Far worse would be to a reporter from a major city daily on hand to witness the disaster and write it up for mass consumption.
Even stopping by his mother’s house last night hadn’t eased his mind. Usually such visits relaxed him, but last night all the woman had done was complain that he wasn’t eating right—”Too much gringo food,” she’d lamented. As she’d filled him a plate of leftover stewed pork and frijoles refritos, she’d told him he looked lousy, he wasn’t taking care of himself, a whole litany of maternal criticisms. Then she’d asked him to send Ricardo money for cigarettes. It wasn’t enough that Rafael was supporting Ricardo’s wife and children. No, he also had to support Ricardo, because without money, without cigarettes, maybe he wasn’t safe.
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