A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard (29 page)

“It's sort of a rule at our place,” I said. “Whoever is home looks after Joshua, does the cooking, and has the martinis waiting in the freezer.”

“I see. And when you're the one at home, you do all that.”

“Yeah.”

She drew circles with her finger in a bit of spilled beer on the bar between us, and her hand brushed mine. “When I first met your wife out in California, she told me
you were quite a guy. I can see why she thinks so.” Her smile was dazzling.

“I plan to keep on fooling her as long as I can,” I said. I finished my beer and slid off the stool.

“You're really leaving, then? Oh, dear. I can't charm you into having another drink so we can talk?”

The Scots have a word for it: glamour. It's a magic spell or charm, an elusive allure. When you
cast the glamour,
you cast an enchantment. Kate Ballinger could do it, and knew it.

Zee could do it, but didn't know it. I put her face in front of Kate Ballinger's. “I have places to go, things to do, and people to see,” I said as lightly as I could, and I walked away.

“See you tomorrow on the set, then,” said Kate Ballinger's voice.

I raised a hand in reply and went out the door. On Circuit Avenue the air felt clean. I got into the Land Cruiser and went home. Zee met me at the door. She had never looked better. I put my arms around her and gave her a kiss. Finally she pushed herself away and looked up at me, grinning.

“Wow! Maybe I'll stay home every day!”

“I'll stay with you.”

She studied me with her great, dark eyes. “The vodka is in the freezer, and the pâté and cheese and crackers are in the fridge. You grab them and I'll grab the man-child and we'll meet on the balcony and you can tell me all about your day on the set.”

We went up and sat drinking and looking out over the garden and the far waters, where the last of the evening sailboats were coming in on the falling wind.

I told her about my day, including the part about Kate Ballinger.

“She has her eye on you,” said Zee. “She likes conquests, and she's had a lot of them.”

“I can believe that last part,” I said.

“You can believe the first part, too,” said Zee in the silky voice she sometimes used when talking about other women.

“I've already been conquested,” I said. “By you. That's enough for me.”

“You probably don't have much say in this,” said Zee. “Women who seduce men don't ask their permission first.”

“Is that why you never asked me? No wonder I was so easy.”

She leaned over Joshua. “Is it all right with you if I give your father a kick? No? Well, okay. I won't.do it this time, but next time he might not be so lucky.”

Joshua blew a bubble. I owed him and he knew it. I decided it would be smart to change the subject, so I asked Zee about her day at home.

“I picked two acorn squash, did a clothes wash, had a chat with Toni Begay, and went shooting with Manny for an hour just before you got home. I put Joshua on his beach chair and put plugs in his ears and mufflers over the plugs and I let him watch, and he didn't cry at all.”

“Like mother, like son. Gunslinging is in his blood, just like in yours.”

“I don't know about that, but he was really good. Manny and I are going to be doing a lot of practice in the next few weeks, so it's good that the noise doesn't bother him.”

“After this movie business is over, I'll be home to take care of him, and you won't need to take him down to the range.”

“Another thing. You got some phone calls. One from Petunia Slocum down at Edgartown Travel, and one from Quinn. You're supposed to call them back. And Toni Begay told me that Joe wants you to call him. You're a really popular guy. What's going on?”

I told her what I knew and what I guessed about Lawrence Ingalls, and about my talk with the chief, and about what I'd asked of Petunia, Quinn, and Joe Begay.

“Well, well,” said nurse Zee, for whom few human
foibles were surprises, since she'd dealt with their consequences in more than one hospital.

“Well, well, indeed,” I agreed. “I'll be interested to hear what they've learned, if anything.”

“I'll get at supper, then,” said Zee, finishing her drink and getting up. “You can make phone calls while I finish the cooking. Come on, Joshua, we're headed downstairs.”

Petunia seemed most shocked by what she'd learned. Being in the travel business, she had, of course, heard rumors of very private resorts such as Playa de Plata, but until now she hadn't actually known they existed, or that they catered so particularly to the tastes of their clients.

“Heavens to Betsy,” she said. “Who'd have thunk it? What an innocent little country girl I have been.”

“Maybe you should do some advertising in the
Times
and the
Gazette”
I said. “You might end up doing some very profitable business. There are probably a lot of rich, kinky people who come to this island, and they might like to do their travel business with a local, close-mouthed gal like yourself.”

“I'll give it some thought,” said Petunia, “as soon as I get my eyeballs pushed back in my head.”

Quinn and Joe Begay were not so astonished. Their inquiries had carried them to the same information, but it was not surprising to them. Their work, like Zee's, had put them in contact with such a variety of human activities that very little shocked them anymore.

“And now what?” asked Joe Begay, as Zee called that supper was ready. “We know that Larry Ingalls liked boys and that he took his vacations in places where he could find them. What else do you need to know?”

“If you can come up with the name of the guy who killed him, that would help.”

He laughed. “There are a lot of retired spooks living on this island. I know some of them. Shall I put out an SOS for bored agents willing to work for nothing?”

“Do that.”

“I'll give it some thought. But don't hold your breath, buddy. These guys all worked for Uncle Sam, remember. Fast solutions to problems weren't their specialty.”

“Nothing is simple anymore. Where's Holmes when we really need him?”

“I think he's still keeping bees on the Sussex Downs. But Sherlock is getting a little long in the tooth and may not want to pop over to the Vineyard. We'll probably have to handle this case ourselves.”

He hung up and I went into supper, where I told Zee what my phone calls had brought me. As I was washing up the dishes, thinking things over, the phone rang again, and Zee answered it in the living room. After a minute, she came back into the kitchen.

“It's Kevin Turner. He wants to know it we'll join him for a drink at the Harborview.”

“I think I'll pass,” I said.

“Kate Ballinger is there, too, he says. She must be barhopping.” Zee raised an eyebrow. “I think I'll stay passed.”

“Actually, I think he just wants me to join him,” said Zee.

Was my pause as long as it seemed? “It might be fun for you,” I said. “You've been home all day. If you'd like to go, go.”

She went back into the living room and I heard her say thanks, but not tonight. Later, maybe.

She came back into the kitchen. She was whistling. She took my arm and hugged it.

The next morning when I went to work, Drew Mondry had some news for me.

“Kate Ballinger's decided she needs a private driver. She's selected you for the job.”

“I thought I was working for you.”

“And I'm working for Cassiopeia Films and Kate's their star. Who do you think swings the most weight? Sorry, J.W.”

Drew wasn't happy. I wasn't sure whether I was happy or not, but unlike Drew, I had some choices.

I thought about all of the money that was being spent on
The Treasure Hunters,
and how much more was going to be spent.

“How long do you guys expect to be shooting down here?” I asked.

Drew cocked his head to one side. “Two weeks. Maybe three. Why?”

That was longer than I'd been in Vietnam. “What if I don't want to be Kate's private chauffeur?”

Drew was uneasy. “I hope you won't decide that, J.W.”

“What would happen?”

He took a deep breath. “You'd get fired.”

“By you?”

He shrugged and nodded. “I hired you, I'd fire you. I'm sorry. But if I didn't fire you, they'd fire me, and I can't afford that.”

“Star power, eh?”

“Yeah. Look, I don't blame you for being mad—” “I'm not mad,” I said. “Not at you, not at anybody. You don't owe me anything. You didn't have to give me this job, and I didn't have to take it. It was just a deal we both agreed to: you'd give me money and I'd work for you. Now the deal's over, that's all.” “I'm glad you feel that way. I—”

I interrupted him. “I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll drive Kate Ballinger around while she's here, but it'll cost you a
lot more money than I'm getting now.” I named an extravagant figure, and his eyes widened. “And a couple of other things: I won't drive her anywhere before seven in the morning or after five in the afternoon unless the shooting schedule makes it necessary} and I wear my own clothes and not those chauffeur clothes I see some of the other drivers wearing. That's the deal. If you take it, fine. If you don't, no hard feelings and I'm bound to East Beach to do some bonito fishing.”

A grin wriggled its way onto Drew's face. “You've got a lot of gall! So you'd quit, eh?”

“Here on the Vineyard, if somebody isn't on a job anymore, we say he got through. Nobody gets blamed; the guy didn't quit, and he didn't get fired, he just got through. I'll get through working for Cassiopeia Films if your bosses don't like the deal I just offered.”

His grin got bigger. “You'll just get through, eh? I like it. Stay right here. I'll talk to some people.”

He went away and I watched things happening for a pretty long time. We were at John and Mattie's place, and the crew was setting up a scene by the front door.

After a while Drew came back.

“You're not through yet,” he said, smiling. “Come on, I'll show you Kate's personal car.”

We strolled toward a clump of parked cars parked in a meadow beside the driveway.

“You have to do any serious arguing?” I asked.

“I did until Kate said it was a deal. After that, it was no problem.” He pointed to twin, fair-sized house trailers parked by the barn. “That's Kevin's dressing room and that's Kate's. They had to get identical ones so neither nose would be out of joint. Kate's in hers right now, waiting for you.”

“I'm just her driver. I'll wait with the car.”

“You're a hard case.” He laughed.

The car was a new Ford Explorer. I was surprised, because I'd expected a Porsche or BMW or something
sporty like Kevin drove. The keys were in the ignition. Maybe they didn't have thieves in Hollywood.

Drew shook my hand, said he was glad I was still around, and went away. I got into the Explorer and spent some time figuring how everything worked. It was the newest vehicle I'd been in for several years, including the Range Rover I'd driven for Drew. Four-by-fours are a lot plusher these days than they were when my old Land Cruiser had come off the line.

“Hi,” said a feminine voice. The face that went with it was Kate Ballinger's. I got out of the car, and she put her hand in mine and left it there a moment. “I'm really pleased that you've agreed to be my driver, Jeff,” said Kate, looking at me with her magic eyes. “I want to go everywhere on the island and see everything. Do you mind if I call you Jeff?”

“Most people call me J.W., but Jeff's okay.”

Her eyes moved down over me, then came back up. “I thought maybe your wife was the only person who called you that. I wouldn't want to intrude.”

“You won't be intruding,” I said.

“I have to be here all morning. After that I should be free. Would you care to have lunch with me? I thought you might know a good place for us to eat, and that afterward you could take me on a tour.”

“I can take you wherever you want to go,” I said.

“I'll bet that you can, at that.” Her smile was feline. “I'll meet you at my trailer when I'm through here.”

“How will I know when you're through?”

“The guys will all stop work and start eating lunch out of boxes. Ciao.”

“Isn't that some kind of pug-faced dog?”

She laughed and walked away. She had great hips, and knew it.

Since I was getting paid for doing nothing, I watched the scene in front of the house being shot and then shot a couple more times. Kate, the heroine, and Kevin, the hero,
approached the house when suddenly the door was thrown open in front of them and Martin Paisley, the actor playing Neville Black, the brains behind the caper, displayed excitement on his face and waved his arms, encouraging them to hurry. Kate and Kevin exchanged looks and hustled into the house. Obviously Martin had some important news.

Then Jack Slade, the director, had the greensman and his assistant move a bush, and the light guys change some lights, even though the sun was bright, and shot the whole thing again.

Then a camera was moved and there were, more adjustments, and the scene was shot a third time, which apparently was the charm, since Slade was satisfied.

The actors' mouths had moved, so I knew there was dialogue, but I was too far away to hear it. When I considered the time and the cost of the talent it took to shoot that one insignificant shot, I began to realize why it took so much money to make a movie, and why my new salary was really no big deal, except on principle.

Just before one o'clock, work stopped and people went over to where the caterers had lunch boxes and soft prinks waiting. Kevin and Kate headed for their house trailers, and I followed Kate. She looked back and waved, then went into the trailer.