“No. I’m staying with you,” Greer said.
“The hell you will,” Clint shot back. “I’ve done without you for thirty years, I guess I can do without you for another day or so.” He looked over at Eb. “You’re her fella, right? Maybe she’ll listen to you. Make her go back to work.”
“I can’t,” Greer said. “I got fired. Which is okay, because the producer/director is a royal pain in the ass. I should have quit a long time ago.”
Eb coughed discreetly, and both father and daughter turned to him in surprise.
“I don’t know if I should tell you this or not, but Bryce called me while I was on the way to meet you earlier. He wanted me to beg you to come back to work. Just to finish the shoot. He’s uh, offering you the equivalent of a signing bonus.”
“No way,” Greer said flatly. “I am done with Bryce Levy and Beach Town.”
“It’s ten thousand dollars,” Eb said. “For that kind of money, I’ll get a radio and go over there and tell people where to park.”
Greer’s eyes narrowed. “You think that’s all I do on my job?”
“No-o-o,” he said hastily. He glanced over at Clint. “Help a brother out here, will you?”
“The man is right,” Clint said. “Pride is one thing. Common sense is another. I’ve been in the movie business for fifty years. You quit a job and leave a director hanging and word will get out that you’re unreliable. Flighty, even. That’s your reputation, Greer girl. Ain’t nothing can fix that. Besides, Hennessys aren’t quitters. I know Lise didn’t raise you to quit, and Dearie sure didn’t, either.”
His eyelids fluttered, then he focused on her again. “Go on. Go back and do your job. I ain’t going nowhere. I just need some sleep.” He waved at them dismissively. “Shoo.”
Eb cleared his throat again. “Mr. Hennessy?”
“Clint.”
“Um, Clint, there’s just one more thing. I was wondering if it would be okay if I married your daughter.”
Clint’s eyes snapped open. He glanced over at Greer. “I’d say that’s up to her. Did you ask her already?”
Eb nodded.
“Did she say yes?”
It was Greer’s turn to speak up. “He didn’t really give me a chance.” She smiled at Eb, who was frowning now, and who seemed to be holding his breath.
Clint regarded Eb with new interest. “He seems like a presentable-enough guy. Well-spoken and all. What’d you say he does for a living?”
“This and that,” Greer said teasingly. “He owns a grocery store, and an old boathouse and marina, and half a crappy motel. He’s also the mayor of Cypress Key.”
“Don’t forget I also have a real estate business, too,” Eb said helpfully. “I was also, until very recently, city engineer.”
“Okay. Just as long as he’s not in the movie business,” Clint said.
“I can promise you, I have absolutely no interest in making movies,” Eb said. “Also, I love her beyond all reason.”
Greer let go of Clint’s hand and took Eb’s. “I love you, too.”
Clint leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes. Greer and Eb exchanged worried glances. Greer took her father’s hand. He opened his eyes again.
“Then I guess it’s okay with me,” Clint said.
“Okay with me, too,” Greer said. “I think I’m done with L.A. anyway. With all the film and television projects being done in the South these days, I can just as easily work from Cypress Key as anyplace else.”
Eb took her in his arms. She was damp and muddy and her blond curls were full of pine needles. But her kiss was warm and sweet and full of the promise of sunny skies, sandy beaches, and cookies. Lots of cookies.
When they finally pulled apart, Clint seemed to be sleeping.
“We’d better go,” Greer whispered.
Clint’s eyes opened again. He gave Eb a stern look. “There’s just one more thing I need from you.”
“Anything,” Eb said fervently.
“Seems like you’re a sort of jack-of-all-trades. You know anything about cars?”
“I know enough. I change my own oil and I tinker with boats some.”
“Good enough.” Clint pointed at a large plastic bag hanging from a hook on the back of the door. He took several wheezy breaths. “My billfold is in that bag. There’s three thousand dollars cash in there. You go see that fella with the Willys jeep over in Roberta. If that thing is anywhere near what it should be, I want you to buy it. Try to get the price down a little, but if you have to, pay him the money. I been looking for a World War II Willys for twenty years. You get me that jeep, I’ll throw in a daughter. Deal?”
Eb clasped Clint’s hands in both of his “Deal.”
65
She called Bryce on the way back to Cypress Key. Greer’s tone was businesslike and direct.
“I’ll come back to work tomorrow and finish up the shoot and everything else you need before Wednesday,” she said.
“Great. That’s great. I knew I could count on you,” Bryce said.
“Just a couple of things. I don’t know how you’re planning on paying me that signing bonus you mentioned to Eb, with the studio breathing down your neck about budgets. That said, this bonus doesn’t go through studio channels. It comes from you, personally.”
“I can’t do that. My own money? You know it doesn’t work that way.”
“It works that way this time or it doesn’t work at all,” Greer said. “I’ll expect a check from you, tomorrow, when I show up for call time. For the full amount. And just so you know I’m serious, when the banks on the coast open tomorrow, I’ll be on the phone with them, making sure the funds are in your account.”
“What? You don’t trust me?”
“Not especially,” Greer said. “Also, with Zena gone, I’m going to need an assistant. Allie Thibadeaux’s uncle has agreed to let her come back to work, on one condition. Kregg is not to speak to Allie. He is not to look at her. She’ll be paid the same salary Zena was making, for the next three days.”
“She’s a kid! You want me to pay a kid that kind of dough?”
“Yes. She’s twice as hard working as Zena ever was, plus she has a brain. So. Do we have an understanding?”
“Yeah. See you in the morning.”
* * *
Greer’s radio crackled. She switched on the mike. “How’s it looking over there, Allie?”
Her new assistant was on a golf cart, troubleshooting between the boathouse, where the morning’s shoot would begin, and the pier, where the plan was to move later in the day.
“Bathrooms are here, the tents are going up, and we’ve got the pier barricaded,” Allie said. “The catering guys want to know if you want full hot lunch or if sandwiches and salads and stuff are okay.”
“Light lunch,” Greer said. “Tell them to make sure we’ve got plenty of energy drinks and water and fruit.” She was running over a mental list, wondering if she’d forgotten anything. She’d been so distracted over the weekend, she was uneasy about her preparations.
“Anything else?” Allie asked.
“That’s it. Just remind the security guys over there we need them on the water no later than ten. I don’t want any boatloads of reporters and fans zooming in and out of camera range.”
“Got it,” Allie said.
* * *
It had been a tense morning. Bryce had to coax Adelyn Davis to join Nate, who was playing the sheriff, in the cigarette boat for establishing shots, but when he announced that Nate would actually pilot the boat for a few hundred yards away from the boathouse, she flatly refused.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t do boats. It wasn’t in the script and it’s not in my contract. No boats.”
“He won’t go very fast,” Bryce pleaded. “After this, Courtney will take over for you. But I’ve got to have you and Nate in that boat for about fifteen minutes.”
Adelyn shot daggers at Bryce. “I hate you, dude. I really, really hate you.”
Despite his promises to the contrary, as soon as Bryce called “Action” the cigarettes roared away from the dock at full throttle.
The action was repeated six more times, each time with Bryce calling directions over a megaphone.
An hour and a half later, the cigarette boats returned. Adelyn climbed out and promptly vomited all over the dock.
“Cut,” Bryce said wearily.
The fight scene between Kregg and the sheriff was shot next. Again and again, the actors and their stand-ins ran through their paces. Adelyn screamed on cue, Kregg and the sheriff cursed and issued threats. Bryce had the cameras repositioned a dozen times.
Greer wandered over to the air-conditioned tent where CeeJay was packing up her equipment to move to the pier for the afternoon’s shoot.
“How’s your dad?” CeeJay asked.
“Seems to be okay,” Greer said. “I talked to him briefly a while ago. He was bitching about being hungry, so I guess that’s a good sign.” She looked over her shoulder and saw that the tech crews were loading their equipment into the vans. “Hey, um, what’s your schedule going to be like in the next few weeks or so?”
“Not sure,” CeeJay said. “I gotta find a new place to live when we get back to L.A. I’ve got some music videos lined up, and then my agent says he’s had some other inquiries. Why?”
“Greer!” Bryce bellowed.
“Coming,” she yelled over her shoulder. “I gotta go. I was just wondering how you feel about bridesmaid’s dresses.”
“Depends.” CeeJay’s eyes widened. “Don’t tell me! You and Eb? When?”
“Soon,” Greer said.
“Greer! Dammit, these generators better be over there in ten minutes,” Bryce yelled.
“Talk later,” Greer said, giving her friend the briefest suggestion of a hug.
* * *
As she was climbing onto her golf cart, she saw Kregg and Jared Thibadeaux walking off rapidly in the direction of the Ritzy Rest-Stops. Jared had been hanging around the set all day, and she had a strong conviction that he and the Beach Town male lead were taking a detour on the way over to the pier location in order to “mellow themselves out,” as Jared would have put it.
Her radio crackled again and she felt thankful that Addie was still several blocks away.
“Greer?” It was Bobo, the transportation captain. “Hey, uh, Kregg just came over and told me that he and his bodyguard are supposed to drive the cigarettes over to the pier. Is that what Bryce told you?”
“That’s crazy. Why wouldn’t the stunt guys drive the boats over there?”
“I don’t know, but the stunt guys already went over to the pier in one of the earlier vans,” Bobo said.
“Bryce never said a word about it to me,” Greer said. “And I don’t think that’s such a hot idea. Why don’t you call Bryce and see what he says?”
“I tried, but my call went straight to voice mail,” Bobo said. “I’ll call again. I don’t like the idea of those two clowns playing around with nearly half a million dollars’ worth of equipment. I’ll call my van guy and tell him to bring the stunt guys back. If Kregg and his buddy want to hitch a ride, I guess that’s okay.”
Greer was poised to pull out of the boathouse parking lot when she heard the roar of the cigarette boats. She shrugged. Not her circus, not her monkeys. She had a location to prep, three miles down the road.
* * *
Word had gotten out around town that the Beach Town shoot was almost complete. The crowds of bystanders lining the barricades across Pier Street were the largest Greer had seen. Hundreds, if not thousands, stood in the withering heat, hoping for a glimpse of something, or somebody, connected with the film’s stars.
Bryce greeted her outside the casino. His eyes darted around the set, at the air-conditioned tents, the catering truck, and all the equipment vans. “All set?” he asked.
“I am if you are,” she said. She pointed toward the roof of the casino, where scaffolding and a platform had been set up for one of the camera crews. “All good up there?”
“All good up there, and the camera boats are getting ready to go out too. Thank God the water’s not as choppy as the weather report predicted.”
“How’s Addie?” Greer asked.
“Green. And very, very pissed,” Bryce said with a chuckle. “She’ll get over it. CeeJay’s got her in makeup right now. And as soon as she’s done with Kregg, we’ll get started.”
“Kregg’s in the boat,” Greer said.
“What boat?”
“The cigarette. He told Bobo you okayed it for him and Jared to drive the cigarettes over here from the boathouse. They were leaving there when I did, about ten minutes ago.”
“What the hell? Kregg is full of shit. That’s why we’ve got stuntmen. We don’t have liability insurance for that. Jesus H.! If those two idiots fuck up those boats…”
He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped an icon. “Come on, Kregg,” he muttered. “Pick up the phone. Pick it up, you idiot.”
They heard the distant roar of two motors and turned to look. Two long, sleek cigarette boats, one white, one orange, raced into view.
“Son of a bitch!” Bryce yelled. He took off running toward the casino. Greer ran along behind him.
* * *
Cameramen, sound techs, production assistants, grips, even the chefs from the catering truck were drawn to the pier that ran along the side of the casino to watch the spectacle unfolding before them.
Five hundred yards out, the cigarettes skimmed across the bay at high speeds. They jumped each other’s wakes, and each time a boat hit a wake it went airborne for heart-catching seconds before planing out again with a bang and a spume of water.
One of the production assistants looked over at Greer. “Who is that? Are we rolling?”
“It’s Kregg and his bodyguard,” Greer said grimly. “And no, this is not part of the script.”
But Bryce was having second thoughts. “Get a camera on that,” he screamed. He turned to an assistant. “Get the second unit on the roof. Tell them to roll and don’t quit rolling. Then radio the unit on the boats, tell ’em to get as close to the cigarettes as they can. I want tight shots on Kregg’s face. Keep that camera on his face. Got it?”
The boats raced back and forth, jumping wakes, turning around in tight circles, and then heading toward each other again. Each time, they came closer to the casino. Greer felt her pulse quickening. Kregg and Jared were coming dangerously close. Their wake sent waves splashing over the edge of the pier. She looked around for Allie, hoping the girl was busy someplace else, but then her eyes were irresistibly drawn back to the bay.
The roar of the boats’ engines was deafening. The cigarettes headed back toward the casino, closing in again, now a hundred yards off, then closer, fifty yards now, this time on an apparent collision course. Now the white cigarette cut in front of the orange boat, and the driver, apparently realizing he was perilously close to broadsiding the pier, veered away. The driver of the orange boat’s instinctive reaction was to veer away from the oncoming boat. He cut the cigarette toward the pier, then made a doomed last-minute attempt to swing away. She was holding her breath, until she saw the cigarette’s driver jump free.
A second later the boat slid into the pier’s concrete pilings with a sickening, high-pitched scream. Greer realized her own scream echoed that of the boat, and that the crowd around her was screaming, too.
She stared at the pier and at the wreckage of the boat for only a moment before running toward the pier. “Get out! Everybody get out!” she screeched.
Cameramen stood, too stunned to move.
“Get the fuck out!” Bryce screamed. “Move the equipment. Now!”
He pulled the radio from hi
s pocket. “Get those guys off the roof. Get ’em off!”
Greer pulled out her own radio as she ran. “Allie? Where are you?”
“I’m at the catering truck. What was that crash?”
“Stay where you are,” Greer said. “Whatever you do, don’t move.”
CeeJay appeared at her side, out of breath. “We gotta run,” she said, grabbing her friend’s arm. “C’mon, Greer. I smell gas.”
They heard sirens and then, a second later, an ear-shattering explosion.
66
Greer stared in horror at the end of the pier. Where was Jared? Was he in the white cigarette? And Kregg? Was he in the orange boat that had crashed? She’d seen somebody jump free of the boat, moments before the collision. People were shouting, screaming, running. She smelled the gas fumes and understood. She started to run toward the end of the pier, but her legs felt like rubber.
CeeJay appeared at her side, out of breath. “We gotta run,” she said, grabbing her friend’s arm. “C’mon, Greer. I smell gas.” She sped away. Now Greer was running, glancing backward over her shoulder. Eb appeared out of nowhere. He grabbed her hand, started dragging her away.
“Come on, come on. It’s going to blow.”
“Jared’s back there. And Kregg,” Greer protested.
“Dammit, Greer—”
The boom was deafening. Eb dove for the concrete and pulled her down with him, covering her body with his. They heard a second explosion, louder than the first, and debris began to rain down around them. Chunks of plaster, roofing tile, wood. Eb was up on his knees, crawling, dragging her with him. “Come on, baby, we gotta get away.”
He pulled her toward one of the large metal city trash barrels that had been knocked over by the force of the explosion, upended it, and placed it over their huddled forms as a makeshift shield.
In a matter of minutes, it was over. They heard two, three, four different sirens racing toward the pier. Eb stood up and pulled Greer to her feet. Her knees and hands were bleeding. He was bleeding from a cut near his eye. They stood among the piles of wood and metal and glass and stared at the pier. Acrid black smoke billowed and obscured everything from sight.
Beach Town Page 42