After forty-five minutes of rah-rahs, she figured she’d given Laryea plenty of time to make his escape, and was ready to wind it up. She let Wilder finish the story about Laryea’s amazingly generous presents for the crew members when the show wrapped, then said, “This has been great. I really appreciate your candor, Mr. Wilder.”
“Call me Hugh!” he said. “Or Quasit.” He looked around and winked conspiratorially. “If the lawyers aren’t listening, you can even call me Posit.”
“You bet.”
“Did you want to get some pictures?”
“Absolutely,” she lied, and took more shots of him than she would ever want, with and without the Quasit head. Then she accepted the hug Wilder was determined to give her.
“Maybe I should go inside and check in on Johnny,” Wilder said.
“I got the idea he was going to go straight to bed, and keep quiet for the rest of the evening. He’s got some prep work for tomorrow.”
“That’s Johnny,” Wilder said fondly. “Always a professional. I’ll call him tomorrow.”
He headed out to the parking lot while Tilda packed her notebook and other odds and ends into the black leather messenger bag she used to carry far too much stuff. Then she pulled out her phone to make a quick e-mail check, and replied to a couple of messages.
She was about to go inside when she saw that Wilder was still in the parking lot, talking to somebody. She moved close enough to recognize the other person as Pete, the limo driver.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” she murmured to herself, and on a whim, snapped a couple of pictures of the two men. Of course, if Pete really was Spencer Marshall, it made all kinds of sense. But the fact that he’d waited for Wilder out there rather than joining them on the veranda made for a bit of a mystery, and an intriguing one at that.
Chapter 5
In Issue 4, the mermaid Melusine is washed up on the shore near the lighthouse. While nursing her back to health, Dylan O’Taine falls in love with her, but while she seems to return his feelings, she reveals that her father is the chieftain of his enemies, the Blue Men of the Minch. Melusine refuses to choose between them, and instead goes to live alone in an underwater cavern, halfway between her father and her lover, and maintains relationships with both.
—TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA ARTISTS:
THE BEST OF INDIE COMICS BY JERRY FRAZEE
SINCE it was off-season, Tilda had expected the inn’s lobby to be relatively quiet, but she’d forgotten just how many bodies a film unit required. The place was hopping with people who looked as if they’d be more comfortable in a Days Inn than a refined New England hotel, and the staff members had a slightly dazed look. Perhaps the managers hadn’t known just what they were getting themselves into.
As Tilda walked in the door, she was approached by a man with an earpiece wearing a royal blue polo shirt with TOLOMEO PERSONAL PROTECTION and the name Hoover embroidered in white thread. “Excuse me, ma’am, are you a guest here at the hotel?”
“No, but I came in from Boston with Mr. Laryea’s party.” Hoover looked doubtful until she added, “Either Dom or Nick can vouch for me.”
He immediately mumbled into his mouthpiece, waited a few seconds, then replied.
“Mr. Tolomeo will be here in a moment.”
Tilda expected him to go about his business, but instead he stayed on alert until Dom showed up and said, “Tilda! You are a lifesaver!” Only then did Hoover discreetly step away and go back to guarding the door.
Dom went on. “The way you handled that guy in the costume was brilliant. Joni and Edwina told me to tell you that they would like to pay for your dinner here at the inn, and if you’ve got time, they’d like to talk to you a little later. Pete is going to hang around until we’re done, and then he’ll drive you back home. How’s that sound?”
“It sounds great, but what do they—?”
“They’ll explain it themselves.” He bustled her toward the dining room, and after he had a quiet word with the hostess, Tilda found herself at a table with a menu in front of her. “Order anything you want,” Dom said. “They know to put it on the Pharos tab. I’ll come back down to get you after you eat.” He was gone before she could question him further.
Now that she had a chance to notice it, Tilda realized she was starving. The prices on the menu were about what she’d expected, which is to say that she was glad she wouldn’t be paying the bill. She ordered a green salad and the pan-seared haddock and, since she wasn’t going to be driving, let the waitress talk her into a glass of wine to accompany it. Then she leaned back to raid the bread basket and people-watch.
Normally Tilda wasn’t overly fond of eating alone in a restaurant, but the film crew milling and swilling provided enough of a floor show that this time she didn’t mind. Presumably the lower echelons were eating in town or at the hotel bar, but there were still plenty of people around spending their per diems. The folks at the table nearest her were apparently stuntmen and special effects people. Either that or they were kind of freaky because they were describing stunts gone wrong in loving detail.
When her salad came, she decided bleeding wounds no longer appealed, and switched her attention to the trio on her other side. From their analysis of the local weather and light quality, she guessed they were cinematographers or something along those lines. Eavesdropping on their concerns about a predicted rainstorm later in the week got her through that course.
She’d planned to discreetly change seats before the haddock arrived to try to guess what a foursome of well-dressed men did on the set, but then somebody stepped into her line of sight.
“Hey, Nick,” she said.
“Mind if I join you?”
“I’ve already ordered.”
“I’ll catch up.” He waved the waitress over and ordered scallops and a Coke.
Once the waitress left, Nick said, “So how’ve you been?”
“Since when? Since we last saw each other? Or since you broke up with me by e-mail?” She took a certain pleasure in watching him squirm.
“Yeah, that was a pretty shitty thing to do.”
“Kind of pointless, too. I mean we weren’t exclusive, were we? I assumed you were seeing other people—I was.”
“I know, but it was getting serious with Cynthia, and I thought I should tell you. It seemed like the decent thing to do.”
“Sure, that’s why you told me by e-mail. That gave it that personal touch.”
“You’re right, I should have called, and I would have, but I was still in Prague and with the time difference . . .”
“According to the time stamp, you sent that message at noon my time.”
“Really? I never can keep that straight.”
Tilda waved it away. “Don’t sweat it. It’s just as well you didn’t call. You would have caught me in bed and that would have been awkward.”
“At noon?”
“I didn’t say I was alone. Like I said, I was seeing other people, too.” She knew it was incredibly petty of her to enjoy the expression on his face, but it almost made being dumped by e-mail worthwhile. But since she’d had her fun, she was willing to let it go. “Anyway, we can still be friends, right? Sans benefits, of course.”
“You bet.” He offered his hand, and they shook on it.
The waitress, who must have been specially trained for perfect timing, showed up with their entrees, which gave them a moment to catch their breaths.
After a few bites, Tilda said, “So what’s your father got against your new gal pal?”
“You made that connection, too?”
“Please. He calls me up out of the blue, offers me a sweet opportunity to interview a high-profile star, and forgets to mention that you’re going to be here?”
“Not big on subtlety, is he? Funny thing is, he hasn’t even met Cynthia. He usually needs to spend at least a little time with a person before deciding if it’s thumbs-up or thumbs-down.”
Dom had an uncanny, almost scary knack for judging people, whi
ch was part of what made his personal security business so successful. Within minutes of meeting Tilda, he’d decided she would be perfect for Nick, and current circumstances suggested that he hadn’t given up.
“I’m surprised you haven’t brought her home for him to vet,” she said.
“There hasn’t been time. As soon as we wrapped in Prague, she had to head back to LA for postproduction. Did I tell you what she does?”
“Nope, and I’m good with that. I just wanted to know if she was going to be showing up anytime soon.”
“No, she’s not coming. What about your guy?”
“The guy from when you Dear John-ed me? Old news.” In fact, he’d been old news almost before she even read the e-mail from Nick. Being dumped by Nick and then dumping the other guy had not made for a gold star weekend—a day of videos and several shared pints of Toscanini’s ice cream with Cooper and his husband Jean-Paul had been required to cheer her up.
“Sorry to hear that. Should I throw out a few platitudes about there being plenty more fish in the sea?”
“I really wish you wouldn’t. Though now that you mention it . . .” She realized this might be a good opportunity to discreetly check on Pete Ellis and see if she was right about him. “What’s the story on the new limo driver?”
“Pete? Dad met him on a job in Texas, I think. Five minutes afterward, he decided he would be great for us, and offered him a job. I haven’t spent much time with him, but if Dad trusts him, that’s good enough for me.” He took a bite of his scallops. “A little old for you, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know—older guys have a certain appeal,” she said. “But if it makes you uncomfortable, let’s talk about the movie instead. How’s Laryea to work with?”
“Who’s asking? Tilda my friend or Tilda the reporter?”
“I’d say this is Tilda the incurably nosy movie fan. But I trust you remember the magic words.”
He looked blank for a moment, then said, “Can we keep this off the record?”
“Done.”
“In that case, it’s not bad. I only met him last week, but he seems like a decent enough guy. The only unusual security problem has been that dude in the bathroom this afternoon.”
“No tantrums?”
“On the low end of the bell curve for a star of his stature. No more than one a day, and you already saw today’s.”
“He really didn’t want to see that Posit guy, did he? It reminds me of why I like to work with the formerly famous. They’re a lot more mellow.”
“Putting up with tantrums is part of my job.”
As they finished up their meals, Nick went on to describe more severe tantrums from other stars, including stories Tilda might have been tempted to use had it not been for the “off the record” rule. Dishing dirt wasn’t her usual thing, but she had to admit that it would be nice to have something to peddle to offset the loss of income from not being able to find two of her recent targets.
They’d just decided to pass on dessert when Nick’s cell phone rang. He took a look at the screen and said, “It’s Pop. Do you mind if I answer?”
“No problem.”
“Hi, Pop. . . . We’re just finishing dinner.... Yeah, I’ll bring her on up.” He put the phone back in his pocket and said, “Pop says they want to talk to you upstairs.”
“That’s what he told me before dinner. Any idea what that’s about?”
“Not a clue.”
They were nearly at the elevator in the lobby when Nick glanced toward the front door and said, “Son of a bitch!”
“What?”
“It’s that stalker!” He took off at a dead run, somehow managing not to mow anybody down.
Tilda hesitated, not sure if she should follow or not.
“Head up to the third floor,” Nick yelled over his shoulder. Tilda saw the inn’s front door open and somebody scoot out, and Nick was right on the guy’s tail. Then they both disappeared into the night.
Chapter 6
A comic book artist has to tell the story with the right emphasis and yet as efficiently as possible, because you only have so many frames on a page. That’s really intriguing to me because the director of a film also has the same problem. But a comic artist has to get everyone in the frame, as well as the dialogue and have there be a kind of logic to it all. It’s complex and I find it fascinating.
—WILLIAM SHATNER, WIZARDUNIVERSE.COM
NOT feeling a pressing need to watch Nick chase after a stalker, she left him to do what he did best and followed his instructions. Nobody had told her which room to go to, but when the elevator opened, Dom was standing outside an open door.
“Where’s Nick?”
“Pursuing a stalker—he thinks it’s that guy from the airport.”
“Persistent son of a gun,” Dom said. He spoke into his headset, and then said, “Gave us the slip again.”
“Both persistent and swift.”
“Nick and a couple of the men are going to make a circuit of the grounds and make sure he’s really gone. Come on in.” He courteously stepped aside to wave her into the room.
Correction, not a room. It was a suite, and a well-appointed one at that. Even the room the bride had used at that long-ago wedding hadn’t been as large as this one. The combined living room/dining room was as big as many Boston apartments, and there were two open doors leading to bedrooms that were comparably spacious. Maybe the nautical motif was a bit overdone for Tilda’s taste, but she wouldn’t have turned the room down just because of a few excess decorative anchors.
Joni and Edwina were seated on the couch in front of a coffee table they’d managed to completely cover with papers in the short time since they’d checked in. She saw two laptops, too, but they were nearly swallowed by the detritus.
A third woman was in one of the armchairs across from them, typing furiously on an iPad while Edwina read aloud from a piece of paper.
They were so involved that Tilda didn’t think they even noticed her and Dom standing there until he cleared his throat. “Here’s Tilda, ladies.”
Joni came over immediately to take her hand. “Thanks so much for helping us with that costumed character this evening,” she said. “We really owe you one.”
“You’re certainly welcome, but dinner was more than enough of a thank-you.”
“I don’t think so, but it’s a start. Come on in and sit down. Would you like something to drink?”
“No, thank you, I’m good.”
Joni waved Tilda to a second armchair, covered with a delicate pattern of knots and of course more anchors, while Dom pulled over a chair from the dining room set.
“Tilda,” Joni said, “this is Dolores Goldin. She’s writing the screenplay for Pharos.”
“Yeah, right,” Dolores grumbled. “Me and anybody else who has ideas for me to stick in. Which is everybody.” She was a buxom woman with close-cropped flaming red curls and such fair skin that living in California must have been torture for her. “Pleased to meet you.”
Dom said, “Tilda, I guess you must have figured out that I had an ulterior motive for calling you to join us in the limo, right?”
“I’m not one for looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I did wonder,” Tilda said.
“The fact is, the ladies here could use your help.”
“Dolores,” Joni said, “can you show Tilda the blogs?”
“Oh yeah, I can’t wait to look at that crap again.” She fiddled with the iPad a moment, then shoved it in Tilda’s direction. “Read ’em while I weep.”
Dolores had brought up a bulletin board for comic book fans, and the top post was a screed about how horrible the adaptation of Pharos was bound to be. The next post was more of the same, with a tad more profanity. Ditto the third, and so on and so on. Apparently they were all convinced that Dolores’s screenplay was going to bring about the end of comic books and civilization, in that order.
“How did they get a copy of the script?” Tilda asked.
“Somebody l
eaked an early draft,” Joni said. “Dom is checking into that. The problem is that this early negative buzz is spreading all across the Web, on dozens of sites and blogs. And it’s not just comic book fans. Movie news sites are picking up on the story, too, and I don’t have to tell you how much that can hurt the film, even this long before it’s released.”
“They’ll be quiet once the movie comes out, right?”
“I hope so, but we need fan support before then. Part of the way we got backing was convincing the studio that Pharos has a cult following that will guarantee a good opening. We’re going to have a dog and pony show at Comic-Con next summer, which should help, but in the meantime, we want the bloggers on our side.”
Dolores grimaced. “As if we didn’t have enough people to suck up to already. Now we have to suck up to the bloggers. Once Peter Jackson let bloggers onto the set of Lord of the Rings, they realized they had clout.”
“So you want me to do what exactly?” Tilda asked. “Write positive comments about the screenplay and start spreading them around?” She was trying not to sound insulted, but if they wanted a PR flack, they needed to look elsewhere.
Fortunately Joni was shaking her head. “No, we’ve got people to do that—they’re already tweeting and blogging their fingers off. But I had another idea.” She tapped the iPad screen. “This stuff claims that we’re subverting the original text of Pharos, which we most definitely are not. I fell in love with that comic the first time I read it, and there’s no way I’d let it be ruined.”
From the conglomeration on the table, the director pulled out a book Tilda recognized as the graphic novel version of Pharos. “Not only have I worn out half a dozen copies of this, I have the original comic sealed in Mylar plus half a dozen reading copies of each issue.”
“Not to mention some of the original pages that we had to lug with us all the way from California,” Dolores grumbled. Sure enough, there was a stack of matted pages leaned up against one of the walls.
Joni ignored her. “I had to do a lot of work to get this movie green-lit—it took us three successful films to give us enough points to pick our own project. After all that, do you really think I’m going to screw it up?”
Blast from the Past Page 3