by Rick Copp
When we reached Fort Lauderdale’s oceanfront, Bowie shut off the headlights as we rolled to a stop half a block from my rented Taurus. It was dark and windy with just one lone street lamp illuminating the quiet and deserted construction site. Bowie and I sat quietly scanning the area for any sign of Laurel and Hardy. They had obviously long given up on me returning to my car. It seemed pretty safe now.
“Thanks for everything, Bowie,” I said and reached for the door handle.
“You know where to reach me if you need anything,” he said, and then patted my knee with his hand. “I mean it. Anything.”
He let his hand linger a moment on my knee. I froze, having no idea what to say. So I giggled. Like a damn schoolgirl. God, I hated when I did that. It was a nervous response and I did it all the time. Some casting directors used to call me “Dr. Giggles” after an obscure horror flick starring the actor who played the retarded office boy on L.A. Law in the eighties. It was a humiliating name, and I learned fast to control my annoying little giggle fits during auditions. But during moments like this, when a hot-looking ex–Navy Seal had his hand on my knee, well, there was just no holding back. It was like a bad case of the hiccups.
“Good night,” I said, practically diving out of the car. He watched as I unlocked the Taurus and got behind the wheel. Before I turned the key, I imagined a stack of dynamite strapped to the bottom ready to blow me up at the turn of the ignition, but decided Martinez wouldn’t try something like that before he found out my connection to Juan Carlos. I took a chance. The car roared to life before settling into a steady hum. I waved to Bowie, who sat in his van watching me, and hastily peeled away, heading straight for the Ritz Plaza in South Beach.
When I arrived back in the Ritz’s “desperate to be as hip as its neighboring hotels” lobby, I took the elevator to my own floor, the same floor Juan Carlos was on. I marched down to his suite and rapped on the door. It was just after midnight. After a moment, I heard a familiar voice answer from inside.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, Juan Carlos, Jarrod. I’d like to talk to you.”
“It’s late. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
“No. I’d really like to say this now.”
I heard him unhook the safety latch and open the door halfway. He was naked except for a white cotton towel draped around his waist. He had a half-eaten green apple in his hand and a sharp pocketknife to slice it with.
“What?” he said huffily.
“I know who she is.”
“Who?”
“Dominique. I know she’s Javier Martinez’s daughter.”
I turned to go.
“Wait. Who’s Javier Martinez?” His face feigned innocence.
“Don’t,” I said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about. I know you have a history with Austin Teboe at the Nexxt Café. I know you had an affair with Dominique and broke her heart and pissed off her father, who unfortunately for you is a violence-prone mob boss. And I know you’re cheating on Laurette with both men and women.”
His face darkened. I was becoming more of a problem than he had anticipated. He took a big bite out of his apple and let the juice run down the corners of his mouth. Then he casually waved the pocketknife in front of me as he spoke.
“You think you know everything, don’t you?”
“No. I still don’t know why you killed Austin Teboe.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t kill anyone!” he said, gripping the handle of his knife so hard, I thought his knuckles would pop out of his skin.
“Well, then who did?”
“I don’t know. I’m as much in the dark as you.”
I nodded, not saying a word, wanting to let the deafening silence hang in the air. Juan Carlos, ever the actor, couldn’t let the silence go for too long. It might force him to reflect on his actions.
“I don’t know who is gossiping about who I may or may not be sleeping with, but it’s bullshit, you hear me? Bullshit!”
“I saw you at the Sand Drift Motel. He was a cutie.”
His face went pale.
“And I wasn’t the only one,” I said. “A couple of guys on Martinez’s payroll were there for the show too.”
I thought he was going to faint. He fell against the door, and grabbed the knob to steady himself.
“They . . . they saw me with ... him?”
“Yeah, they did,” I said with a twinge of insincere sympathy. “Bummer.”
Juan Carlos dropped the apple, and his hand shot out and grabbed my arm, pulling me closer to the door. In the other hand, the sharp tip of the pocketknife was a quarter of an inch from my belly.
“Don’t mention any of this to anybody, do you hear me?” Juan Carlos said, his voice full of desperation. “Promise me, Jarrod.”
“Laurette is my best friend,” I said as I kept my eyes focused on the knife’s blade. I now felt it straining against my skin just to the right of my belly button. It was about to puncture through and draw blood.
I looked up into his eyes. They were wild with fear. He was on the edge. And for a minute I was afraid I had overplayed my hand. As the knife pressed into my gut, I suddenly had the sick feeling I was about to befall the same fate as Austin Teboe.
Suddenly a woman’s voice came drifting out from the bathroom inside Juan Carlos’s room. “Darling, is it room service? Did you order more wine?”
It was Viveca. I caught just a glimpse of her as she strolled toward the door in a Victoria’s Secret red lace bra and panties. For a woman in her late forties, she still looked like she could easily grace the cover of their summer catalog. I was impressed.
Panicked, Juan Carlos withdrew the knife and seethed, “Good night, Jarrod.” He slammed the door in my face.
I just stood there. The more I baited Juan Carlos, the more nervous he got. And with Juan Carlos ready to snap under the pressure, there was no telling whom he would take down with him. As I lifted my Hairspray T-shirt to see a trickle of blood slide down my belly and stain the elastic band of my Calvin Klein briefs, I was pretty sure I would be the first one on his list.
Chapter 20
After sticking a Band-Aid on my slight flesh wound in my room, I checked my messages on the cell. I only had one, from my parents. My mother cooed about how nice it was to see me if only briefly, and my father offered a few more well-thought-out theories in the Austin Teboe murder. I picked up the TV remote and started channel flipping. I was restless and couldn’t sleep, and finally after shelling out twelve bucks for a pay-per-view showing of the Martin Lawrence stinker Big Momma’s House, with Martin in drag, I was able to catch a couple of hours of sleep before the phone startled me awake. I reached out from under the covers, snatched the receiver from its cradle, and grunted.
“Good morning, Jarrod! Rise and shine!” a cheery voice chirped. It was Amy Joe, the perky production assistant.
I rubbed my eyes, shook my head, and tried focusing on the clock: 5:32 A.M.
“Amy Jo, it’s really early,” I said, trying to maintain my cool, even though I wanted to rip into her for waking me up after I had finally gotten to sleep.
“I know. We’re running late. I’m waiting for you downstairs in the van.”
“But I don’t shoot today.”
“Yes, you do. Today’s your big death scene.”
“No. I’m pretty sure that’s tomorrow,” I said.
“I think you better check your production schedule, Jarrod,” she said.
“Hold on.” I put the phone down, crawled out of bed, and crossed to the cheaply made acrylic desk near the window. I had laid out the week’s production schedule sheets. I picked up the first one and examined it. Just as I had thought. Today was a few simple exterior scenes with the extra they had hired to play the homicidal maniac. Underneath it was tomorrow’s schedule, which listed my last scene in the movie. A particularly bloody affair involving a meat cleaver and m
y skull.
I walked back over and picked up the phone off the night table. “I’m looking right at today’s call sheet, Amy Jo, and I’m not scheduled to work.”
“Check the date.”
“March fifteenth.”
“That’s tomorrow’s date, Jarrod. Look at the other page. The one where you are scheduled to work.”
“March fourteenth.”
“Bingo!”
My heart stopped. I had somehow inverted the pages when Amy Jo had slipped them under my door. Today was my most important day on the entire shoot, and I was operating on two hours’ sleep. Not to mention the fact I hadn’t even memorized any dialogue. I was screwed.
“Well, what do you know? You’re right. Um, I’m going to need a little time up here,” I said with a nervous giggle.
There was a long pause on the other end. And then, with just a hint of panic in her tone, Amy Jo said, “Are you trying to tell me you’re not ready? Your call time is in ten minutes and it’s a twenty-minute drive to the set.”
“I’ll be right down.”
I slammed down the phone and raced into the shower, suppressing a scream as the ice-cold torrent hit my bare skin. I washed as fast as I could with some cheap no-brand soap supplied by the Ritz Plaza, scrubbed a dollop of Nioxin Bionutrient Scalp Therapy into my locks (an aging actor in his thirties needs a good hair stimulant), and quickly dried off. As I bolted for my closet, I jammed my left foot into the sliding glass door and howled like a three-year-old at Disneyland who didn’t get his picture taken with Ariel. But I didn’t slow down. I pulled on some jeans, threw on my soiled Hairspray T-shirt, stepped into a pair of Docksiders, and was good to go.
When I bounded out of the lobby and spotted Amy Jo’s maroon van, I could tell from the look on her face that the hint of panic I had detected in her voice had now grown into a full-blown meltdown.
“Hurry up! Let’s go! Let’s go!” she barked.
I hopped into the passenger’s seat, and we squealed away before I had a chance to even buckle up.
“I’m really sorry, Amy Jo,” I said.
“No problem,” she lied. “But if I get fired over this, would you put in a good word for me on your next movie?”
“They’re not going to fire you. I’ll make sure they know this is my fault,” I said, knowing full well that at the bottom of the totem pole, she would bear the brunt of everybody’s wrath. I kept thinking, “They can’t fire her, because after this movie I’ll probably never work again so I won’t ever be able to give her any kind of recommendation.”
We broke speed records to reach the Coral Gables campground set. Amy Jo was impressive maneuvering expertly in and out of traffic. As we pulled up to the makeup and hair trailer, I noticed Stella standing outside, sucking on a Virginia Slim and tapping her foot angrily.
“You are so fucking late,” she bellowed.
“I know, I know. Don’t blame Amy Jo. I didn’t know I was shooting today,” I said.
She hauled me into the trailer and started slapping globs of base on my face as I picked up some sides off the counter and read them over. Luckily there wasn’t a lot of dialogue in my pivotal death scene. Just a lot of screaming and lines like, “Run, Joey, run!” as I sacrifice myself to save my son. I wondered if the “Run, Joey, run!” line was an homage to that old seventies ballad by David Geddes. That was before I realized there would actually have to be a modicum of depth required in the script, and depth was one thing this opus sorely lacked.
Amy Jo poked her head inside the trailer. “They’re ready for you on set, Jarrod,” she said.
“Jesus, I haven’t even done your hair,” Stella said. “Forget it. I’ll do it in final touchups. You better go, Jarrod, before Larry starts yelling.”
I dashed out of the trailer and over to the campground set, where the crew waited for me. Viveca, in a flattering yellow sundress, flirted with the crew as I said my good mornings and walked over to my mark. The lighting technician and a couple of his assistants immediately buzzed around me to make sure I was lit properly.
Viveca turned and offered me a bright smile. “Good morning, Jarrod.”
I was sure this was the first time she had ever deigned to speak to me. “Good morning.”
“Sleep well?” she cooed.
“Not really, no.”
“Me neither. I was up all night,” she said with a playful wink. We both knew where she was last night, and she seemed mighty proud of it. I guess it was our little secret. I didn’t know much about Viveca, nor was I anxious to find out more. She struck me as too flighty and girlish for a woman in her late forties or early fifties. Her behavior annoyed me, and it took every last ounce of self-control not to offer her my opinion. But I wasn’t about to start yet another feud with a costar. I was in enough trouble already.
So I plastered a conspiratorial smile on my face. “That’s too bad you didn’t get any sleep. Must have been something you ate,” I said, returning her wink. “You go, girl.”
She erupted in laughter. “You’re so naughty. I love you.” I had called her a “girl” so in her mind we were now the best of friends.
Larry ambled onto the set, gave me the once-over, and then turned his head and yelled, “Stella, get over here and do something with his hair! And can we get some drops for his eyes? They’re all bloodshot. He looks like shit.” Larry looked back at me suspiciously. “What’s the matter? You just get up?”
“Of course not. I just thought after the turmoil and trauma my son and I have been through up to this point in the story, I would be looking awfully run-down and exhausted.”
“Christ, don’t tell me you’re one of those method actors,” Larry said, making a big show of rolling his eyes. Stella was all over me now with her eyeliner pencil and a wooden brush that she wrenched through my hair.
“No,” I said, “I just want to be truthful.”
“Okay. Whatever. Let’s shoot this.” Larry left momentarily to inspect the shot.
Stella gently placed her hand above my eyes and let loose with a shot of Alberto VO5 hairspray to hold my freshly combed locks in place. “You sure pulled that one out of your ass,” she said, smirking.
“Do you think he bought it?”
“For him not to, he’d have to stop thinking about himself for one second. And we both know that’s never going to happen.”
Stella stepped back and nodded, satisfied with her handiwork.
We were ready to roll. I looked around for the tiny terror playing my son, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Simon?”
Larry shuffled back over to me. “We don’t need him for this scene. We’ll have Maggie, the script coordinator, read his dialogue off camera. This is all about you and the killer, finally face to face.” Larry glanced around the set. “Where is he, by the way?”
A grip pointed to a large man sitting in a spare director’s chair. He wore a red and black plaid hunting jacket, Army-issue green pants, and a pair of black boots. A cartoon mask of Elmer Fudd covered his face. That was a last-minute touch added by Larry. He didn’t want the killer’s identity to be revealed until the end, but he didn’t want the headache of hiding his face throughout the movie. So in the tradition of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street (a couple of Larry’s childhood favorites), he gave the killer a mask. And Elmer, in Larry’s mind, was an inspired choice. After all, Elmer Fudd was a hunter who spent most of his time chasing after Bugs Bunny. But he was never able to catch him. Larry explained to us all in the hotel bar one night early on in the production that all of our characters represented all the other rabbits in the woods, and Elmer Fudd, who had spent years unsuccessfully hunting Bugs, was now going to take his frustration out on all of us. He’d kill and kill again, skin a whole slew of bunnies, but he would never be satisfied because none of us was truly Bugs Bunny, the elusive prey he could never beat. Larry saw the mask as the perfect symbol for the story he wanted to tell. I saw it as too many Jell-O shots after a long day of shooting.
&nb
sp; “You ready to do this, big guy?” Larry called to the masked actor.
He nodded, stood up, and lumbered over to us. He carried a machete made of rubber. Larry turned quickly and whispered frantically in my ear, “The guy we hired in LA went AWOL on us, and we just hired this guy yesterday locally, but I can’t remember his name, so I just call him big guy, okay?”
“Okay,” I said as I reached out to shake Elmer Fudd’s hand. “Hi, I’m Jarrod. Nice to meet you.”
“I’m Elmer Fudd,” he said in a deep, scratchy voice. Everyone laughed appreciatively. Larry slapped him on the back.
“You feeling confident about what we’re going to do here?”
Elmer nodded. Larry clasped his hands together and addressed us both. “Good. Now, your son’s been lost in the woods for almost a day. The whole campground has risked their lives searching the area, knowing a maniac is loose somewhere out there. You finally find him. Kneel down to hug him. Big reunion. Blah, blah, blah. The kid screams bloody murder. You turn to see Elmer standing over you. You tell the kid to run. He does. Elmer pushes you down on the ground with his boot. You do your “No, please, no!” line, and then he starts whacking chunks off your face with the machete. Everybody cool with that?”