The Final Cut

by Bark, Jasper

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “She’s not going to pull a no show on us is she? Look what happened last time. We lost over a week off our schedule when the cast went awol.”

  “It wasn’t that bad, it was only one girl who blew us out. And you have to admit we treated her pretty rough. She thought it was gonna be all glamorous, fresh out of drama school, looking for her first film break. Instead she spent the day naked, covered in blood, being stabbed by a guy in a Justin Bieber mask.”

  “Yeah, and the time we lost recasting and reshooting is why we were so over budget. We can’t let that happen this time. We’ve only got these premises for a short while. We can’t afford any more if she disappears.”

  “She’s not going to disappear okay, don’t sweat it. She was just acting a bit intense and dramatic. You know what she’s like.”

  “Yeah,” said Sam, nodding but not really listening. He was concentrating on the camera and rewinding what he’d shot that day. Jimmy wondered if he should press Sam anymore about the weird coincidence and his memories of Jennie, but thought better of it. Sam was uptight and freaked out enough as it was.

  Then he remembered why he’d torn round there. “Listen, I went to see Alfie earlier today.”

  “I can tell.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, you’re a tiny bit nasal, and it’s too early in the year for your hay fever.”

  “Fuck you. Anyway, that’s not important. You know how Alfie likes to bust everyone’s balls, well he was trying to mug me off about this business with Ashkan, then he tells me something really weird.”

  “What was that then?”

  “Well it turns out Ashkan’s into Charlie McKenzie for a serious amount.”

  “What, the Charlie McKenzie?”

  “The very same, and his men have been looking for Ashkan all over.”

  “In all the wrong places.”

  “No, it turns out they went over every inch of the lock up. Tore the place apart. Didn’t find a trace of Ashkan, or his crew.”

  “What about all the minced up bodies.”

  “Gone, all of ’em.”

  “How’d that happen?”

  “You tell me.”

  “The guys who killed ’em, must’ve come back and cleared up. Do you think we’re in any danger.”

  “No, why should we be?”

  “What if those guys think we’re witnesses?”

  “Then they’d have killed us on the day. We obviously don’t count to ’em, we’re not part of that world.”

  “But we’ve got a film of them murdering three people.”

  “It’s probably not even them, it was someone else Ashkan pissed off. Besides, even if it was them, why would they care? That special effect they’ve used, the one you haven’t worked out yet, means they can’t be identified anyway, so it doesn’t matter. If it did, they’d have taken the footage before they left.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” said Sam, sitting down and breathing a long sigh. “But I still think we’re in over our heads.”

  Jimmy didn’t say anything. He knew Sam was thinking about the pools of blood and how they seemed to get smaller every time you glanced at them. He knew Sam thought something was amiss, so did Jimmy, and he knew that no amount of coke would freeze that out.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Right,” said Jimmy, bounding back into Sam’s living room. “Let’s get this script treatment sorted.”

  There were coke crumbs around his left nostril. Sam knew he thought the stuff made him more creative, but it also make him a bit of an arsehole. Especially if they were under pressure to finish something. It was already late, and they had to be up early tomorrow to prepare for another day of shooting.

  “What we really need to work out is how the whole story wraps up. Did find out how that myth ends?”

  “Not yet, I’ll get around to it later.”

  “I thought you said you were going to read up on how it ended before we started the script.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been a little busy of late.”

  “It’s just that it might help us come up with a conclusive ending,” said Sam. “Something that will tie up the whole plot.”

  Jimmy frowned. “Does it have to be totally conclusive?”

  “Yes, we don’t want to cheat the audience.”

  “We’re not cheating them if we leave the ending open. It’s okay to let them do some of the work themselves.”

  “You always want to leave the ending open. And what does that mean anyway, letting ‘the audience do some of the work themselves?’”

  “It means they piece the story together themselves. We don’t spoon feed it to them, they have to work out what happened from all the clues we leave them.”

  “But we’re not leaving them any clues and how can they work out what really happened if we don’t actually know ourselves.”

  “Look, it’s like Sacheverell Sitwell said . . . ”

  “Not this old quote again, you got that from Cold Hand in Mine. I read Aickman too you know.”

  “Good for you, doesn’t mean it doesn’t bear repeating. ‘In the end it is the mystery that lasts and not the explanation.’”

  “Why can’t we just have a proper ending for once?”

  “Neat endings kill the mystery. Explanations are for Scooby Doo. ‘Look kids don’t be scared, it wasn’t a zombie, it was just Mr Jones the janitor trying to scare people away from his goldmine.’ Once you explain something it stops being scary, because the biggest fear, like Lovecraft said, is fear of the unknown.”

  “But Lovecraft had great endings,” Sam said. “And none of them were open ended.”

  “You’re missing the point—again! If you tie things up neatly at the end you let your audience off. If you kill the monster at the end of the movie and restore the world to how it was, then Mr Moviegoer and his date leave the monster right there in the cinema. If you leave a bit of doubt in their mind, then they take the monster home with them. It’s still lurking out there in the car park, or under their bed, waiting to strike them at any moment.”

  “But there aren’t any monsters in this movie.”

  “Stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Taking everything I say literally. The monster is a metaphor okay, a metaphor for horror. I want the audience to bring the horror home with them.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m just not buying it. I’ve seen too many arty horror films and read too many short stories that ended inconclusively. They don’t scare me, they just leave me dissatisfied and annoyed that I’ve wasted time and money on them, when they couldn’t be bothered to tie up all the loose ends.”

  “But the best work being done in the genre, the really important stuff that’s getting proper critical acclaim, all of it gets the audience to do the work for themselves. That’s how you know it’s clever and not just some pulpy, exploitation piece.”

  “That’s just a current fad, it’s not a sign of quality. What’s so clever about letting someone else do all the work for you. You don’t get conductors at the proms passing the baton over to the audience. When did Hendrix ever invite someone else up to play his guitar solo for him? When someone starts asking me to do some of the work for them I want some of my money back. If I want to do the work myself, I may as well write my own story. That’s why I got into films in the first place.”

  “Now you’re just being an arse.”

  “I’m being an arse?”

  “Yes, quite frankly, you are mate.”

  Sam sighed. ‘Okay, sorry, you’re probably right. We’ve neither of us had much sleep lately, and we’ve both got stuff to do tonight. Like tomorrow’s dialogue for one.”

  “Leave that with me.”

  “Okay, can we strike a compromise? How about we find a way to tie up the loose ends without actually ending the story?

  “I
’d like to see you try,” said Jimmy. “If you can do that, I’ll move into the story myself and become the lead character.”

  “Careful what you wish for.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’ve seen enough horror movies, you know what happens when you say things like that.”

  “Ooh, going all meta on me now, are you?”

  “Maybe,” Sam rubbed his eyes, they were sore and tired. “Look, I’ll see you tomorrow early, okay?”

  “Okay, I’ll just phone for a taxi.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The next morning they waited for Melissa. They got in early, as planned, and re-dressed the set so it would now work as a living room. Jimmy had stayed up all night writing dialogue and Sam had edited it that morning.

  By midday there was still no sign of her. “She’s not coming,” said Sam, obsessively retying his man bun. “I fucking knew it!”

  “Relax,” said Jimmy. “She’ll turn up.”

  But she didn’t, not that day, nor the next.

  “We’re fucked,” said Sam, on the third day. His eyes were red and his chin unshaven. Sleep had evaded them both the past few nights. Sam had even dipped into Jimmy’s coke stash, something he rarely did these days. “We haven’t got an ending, we haven’t got a cast and we haven’t got our leading lady anymore.”

  “We can fix this,” said Jimmy. “It’s alright, I’ll find her.”

  “It’s not her you should be worried about, it’s our whole fucking film.”

  “But I am worried about her,” said Jimmy. “I am.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Jimmy’s phone buzzed as he turned off Oxford Circus into Berwick Street. It was Sam.

  “Any sign of her?” said Jimmy, hopefully.

  “Nope, this is the fourth day she hasn’t shown up. I told you she’s not coming back. We’re pissing away money here, money we don’t have. We need to regroup, come up with a new plan and hold some more auditions. And we need to do it now. No more wild goose chases.”

  “Just let me chase down this one last lead.”

  “Listen to you, when did you become Sam Spade?”

  “Fuck off, I think I’m finally on to something.”

  “We can’t find her, just admit it. We’ve been through every single headshot on spotlight.com, contacted all the agents we can think of, looked at every actor’s directory there is. There aren’t any other leads. We need to start focusing on the project otherwise it’s gonna go tits up.”

  “Look I know you’re right, but let me do this one last thing. I got out some old copies of Spotlight from the local reference library this morning, from before they put it all online. I found her mate, I finally found her.”

  Sam sounded cautious. “Okay, well done, but did you get any contact info? I’m guessing most of it will be out of date by now.”

  “I got her old agent’s number.”

  “Did you call?”

  “I did, but they’ve moved since. I left a couple of voicemail messages on their new number but they haven’t gotten back to me, so I’m going to doorstep them.”

  “You know, even if you do track her down, there’s no guarantee it’ll help us. There’s a reason she pulled a no show and most likely it’s because she doesn’t want to be involved anymore. That’s just a fact we need to face now.”

  “I know, I know, but just let me do this one last thing okay?”

  “What is it with you and this girl?”

  “I think she might be in trouble, I think she wants me to help her that’s all.”

  “Well, I hope you know what you’re doing. I hope you’re not going to jeopardise the whole project because of this.”

  “Of course not, you know what this film means to me.”

  “I do, I hope. I’ll make a start on editing down that footage until you’re back. In the meantime I’ll wait for your call shall I?”

  “Definitely, I’ll phone you in a couple of hours, see you.”

  “See you.”

  Sam rang off first. He hadn’t sounded too pleased with Jimmy, but then he hadn’t been pleased with much the last three days.

  Jimmy negotiated the maze of backstreets that led to the agency’s office. Soho had seemed like such a dangerous, exciting place when Jimmy was a teen.

  Back then it was filled with strip joints, porn shops and back street brothels. Now it was luxury apartments for Russian and Chinese billionaires. He guessed the mini cab driver would have said the old Soho was still there underneath all the new developments, you just needed to know where to look. Funny how a random conversation with a total stranger can stay with you sometimes.

  After a few wrong turns he found the address. The agency’s name, BTSD Talent, was next to one of the buzzers on the intercom. Jimmy pressed it.

  “Hello,” said a female voice.

  “Yeah, I’d like to see Janice Strang, please,” said Jimmy. The person he was speaking to hung up on him.

  Jimmy buzzed again. “Err . . . hello . . . I’m here to see Janice Strang.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No.”

  “You need to ring and make one.”

  “I did ring several times but you never got . . . ” She hung up on him again.

  Jimmy swore, took a walk down the small street then back up again. He pushed the buzzer again. When the receptionist answered this time, he put on a deeper voice and said: “Got a package for Janice Strang, needs a signature.” The receptionist buzzed him in and he walked up to the tiny fourth floor office.

  “Look,” Jimmy said, as the receptionist, a bored girl with bright red, hair, looked for the package. “I’m not a courier, I’m actually a director and I need to speak to your boss.”

  “If you’re really a director, what are you doing here?”

  “Well now, this may sound a bit novel to you, seeing as you handle actors and all, but I need to speak to your boss about someone she represents. Someone I’ve employed in my current film.”

  “Why didn’t you make an appointment?”

  “Well I would have made an appointment if you’d actually answered your phone or returned my calls, instead of forcing me to come see you.”

  The receptionist looked at Jimmy with blank expression. He could see that she didn’t believe him. He looked about the cramped office. It contained two other desks, both empty, but piled with papers. At the back was a wooden door that probably led into another space. On the wall, next to the girl’s desk, a series of head shots had been tacked up under the heading ‘AWARD WINNERS.’ Jimmy recognised one of them.

  “Look,” he said. “That’s the actor David H. Church right? The only award he’s ever won is a Damnie, that’s a Best Damn Horror Award, and he won that for his part in My Brother’s Creeper,’ a film I directed.” The receptionist continued to stare at him. “If you don’t believe me, pull up his file on your computer.”

  The girl tapped at her keyboard for a minute then looked up. “It says here ‘My Brother’s Creeper’ was directed by James Walden.”

  “That’s me,” said Jimmy showing her his driver’s license and hoping at the last minute she wouldn’t see the coke crumbs down one edge of it. She did, but weirdly that was probably what convinced her he was telling the truth.

  She got up grudgingly and popped her head around the door at the back of the office. After a brief but muffled exchange she came back to her desk. “Ms Strang says she can spare you five minutes, but no more.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The back office was even smaller than the front one, with just enough room for a small desk and two chairs. Jimmy had to close the door before he could sit down. Janice Strang was a hard bitten, middle aged woman with dyed, brunette hair, an expensive manicure, and just the right amount of make-up.

  “I wasn’t aware I’d placed anyone with your project, Mr Walden.”

  “Call me Jimmy. And I’m not actually here to talk about an actor you currently handle. It’s one you u
sed to manage.”

  “Oh,” said Janice, already losing interest.

  “Her name is Melissa Scott.”

  Janice looked up from the papers she was sorting with a shocked frown. “Mr Walden, if that’s who you really are, I don’t know what your reason for coming is, but I find that in very poor taste and I don’t wish to continue this conversation. Kindly see yourself out.”

  Jimmy was so surprised by this response he got out of his chair, then sat down again and said, “Wait, did you have some sort of problem with Melissa. Does she owe you money?”

  “Mr Walden, you know full well what happened to Melissa.”

  “No, no I don’t. Please, if something has happened to her you’ve got to tell me. It could be important. We’ve got a very tight schedule and she hasn’t turned up for the past three days. We’re haemorrhaging money we don’t have from the budget.”

  “Melissa Scott disappeared over two years ago under very suspicious circumstances. I can’t see how she could possibly be in your film.”

  “But she is, she turned up to the audition like she already had the part and started making all these conditions before we’d even offered it to her.”

  Janice removed her Armani spectacles and massaged the bridge of her nose. “What sort of conditions?”

  “She said she’d only work with one other person on the set, no cast or crew, just her and the DP, that’s the director of photography.”

  “I know what DP stands for.”

  “And she wouldn’t give us any contact details. She’d set her own calls, turn up when she wanted.”

  “That certainly sounds like Melissa. She wasn’t a particularly gifted performer, but she had a certain look that you directors seem to like. She could have worked continually if she didn’t keep making all these demands. It made her impossible to manage and I had to let her go in the end.”

  “You mentioned something suspicious about her disappearance?”

  “Nothing was ever proven, but there were a lot of unsavoury rumours.”

  “What sort of rumours?”