Upgunned (30 page)

“You mean they just blow
dirt
all over their high-priced actors?”

“Actually, it's peat moss,” she said. “Better ‘granularity' for dust. Healthier, too. For actual dirt, ground cork. Hey, be sure your mobile is off if you're in here.”

“No worries,” I said. Then a guy with a live vulture on his arm walked right past me.

“Vlad hates the dust storm, as it turns out,” said Spooky. “Animals are always a bitch to work with during physical effects.”

“Is that a
real
vulture?” I had never seen one up close. It looked like it wanted to kill everybody.

“Yeah, Hunnicutt has got three of 'em.”

“So the vulture has two … understudies?”

“Oh, yeah, if one won't work, you can't just stop.”

I got the clear impression that Spooky the Publicist was grateful to have somebody to talk to today, which meant that the main unit probably blew her off unless they needed something.

It did not take her long to fasten on her real interest.

“So,” she said, “Despite all the logistics, big scene and all, they're actually going to wrap on time today. And I hope you don't mind me asking, but…”

*   *   *

Recent personal history had it that Spooky Sellers had confessed an attraction for Garrett Torres, the second lead in
Vengeance Is
, who had been more interested in delving the girly parts of one Aspen DeLint, a clapper-loader, which itself just sounded like a dirty joke. Ms. DeLint had a
boyfriend
, she had lugubriously announced, slapping Mr. Torres's down harder than she had intended, in front of several other crew members. In retaliation, Mr. Torres had recently begun to impugn the professional abilities of Ms. DeLint in the hope that Tripp Bergin might fire her worthless, though hydraulic, ass. Now they had escalated to eye-daggering each other during every setup.

Some sets are all business, some are divertingly flirty, and some are downright horny. Spooky had flirted off and on with Torres, but he wasn't interested in a mere publicist, so he froze her out. Spooky admitted to me she had pointed the set videographer at Torres during the unfortunate makeup moment that turned up live on the Internet. Of course she had not intended for it to go
that
far, and still felt a bit guilty about it.

This was her version of budding intimacy; now I was supposed to tell her a secret, too.

Naked and randy, Spooky's nerves were all very close to the surface; she orgasmed easily and often, and was in fact so limber that she almost
could
put her heels behind her ears. Sexually she was hungry and grabby, moist and vocal, and she knew how to perform oral like an adult—no hands. Her skin temperature seemed to be redlining when she came and she exuded the scent of her coconut moisturizer, which was actually quite pleasant.

“I don't usually do this,” she said, gulping air as though famished, pinpoints of sweat dappling her upper lip.

“Call it animal attraction,” I said. It was better than saying “My last date was a corpse.”

Every daquiri had made her more chatty about the secret underpinnings of
Vengeance Is
. We landed at a dark Asian restaurant called Rain near Eighty-second and Columbus and I had stuck mostly to bracingly cold Thai beer, just listening. The bar mixtress here made 'em strong, and Spooky was a fountain of information just waiting for an excuse to gush.

Rain closed its doors not long after that.

I padded naked around Spooky's smallish room. She had picked the Hotel Beacon for reasons of budget, but it was smack on Broadway, strolling distance from the restaurant. Her accommodations were colorful and efficient. Not much of her work gear was here; it was just a temporary roost. No copies of the crew lists, for example—featuring names and contact info for a crowd of people, any one of whom might be Elias McCabe.

But now all I had to do in order to legitimatize myself on set was defer to Spooky. I supposed it had been too ripe to hope that I would just drop in and collide with McCabe, and my new inlet, in the form of this compact, sturdy blonde, would obviously reward cultivation.

Spooky was already snoring lightly.

I treated myself to a stingingly hot needle shower that scoured my senses and left me warm and dopey. A nap would not hurt. She did not budge when I crawled in next to her. About two hours later, I awoke with a start and found her going down on me.

Even more surprisingly, my penis was giving her every cooperation.

She mounted me, her face shadowed in the semidarkness (the bathroom light was still on), and we slowly melded through a bout of that hypnotic, half-awake, sleepy sex that can totally divorce you from your senses. It can't stop time, though, no matter how healthy it is. In four hours or so she was going to bound forth to report for duty and I wondered where she got the energy; I certainly had not spotted any speed in the bathroom or in the contents of her shoulder bag, although I did find most of the more popular prescription antidepressants—Lexapro (twenty milligrams, about three bucks per tablet), Wellbutrin, Cymbalta, no generics, all from different doctors.

She even kissed me on the head when she took off in the morning, radiant with scented soap and light perfume. Rather, she kissed Jack Vickers, quaintly believing him to be asleep. Her speedy trust was depressing; it meant that nothing of value was left behind in her hotel room.

I wondered if I might wind up slitting her throat, just to be thorough.

That day I met the production videographer, a doughy, perpetually flop-sweated kid named Arly, who acted more harried than he was and lent every distracting task a bogus air of do-or-die dedication. He was next to useless. The unit photographer, somebody named Julian Hightower for whom I could find no contact information on the call sheets, was either playing hooky or out for the day. Arly described him as a clean-cut, blond-haired guy—“you know, a guy.” Like I said, next to useless.

Hightower's desk was locked—file that one for later investigation, when nobody was looking—and the detritus left in his corner of the office bespoke nothing about him, except that all of his gear seemed to be brand-new.

But this guy was the
photographer
. Righ-to.

Spooky had asked Tripp Bergin, though, and gotten the story that Hightower was from Chicago, off the books because of some union thing. The gloss-over was vague enough to suggest it had been invented.

That was when I saw the baseball-type hat on Arly's messy coat rack.
Panavision
. Same as worn by Char's briefly glimpsed stalker.

If Julian Hightower was Elias McCabe, why wasn't he here?

Answer:
because he knows you're here too, stupid
.

I should have just left Charlene Glades in a Dumpster. I had to lose control for that one little moment, and show off, and refuck my shot at Elias. God, maybe I
was
past my prime in this game.

Having no other true virtues, I reminded myself that patience was a good one. I lost most of the day in waiting but consoled myself with thoughts of the hunt. Skilled woodsmen knew the least breath of wind could expose your presence and blow your hide to creatures who could smell your anticipation. A twig snap, an eyeblink at the wrong time, and you were made. You had to be able to squat or statue up in a single position for hours, until your fingertips got numb and your feet froze and your legs fell into tingly sleep. You had to be able to consume the discomfort like snack food, and process it into resolve. The best snipers know this pain, and embrace it, because the kill is worth every sacrifice. After all,
easy
tasks can be done by anyone.

All I had to do was be patient, and wait for that motherfucker to waltz right into my sight picture.

That evening I got the use of Spooky Sellers again. She claimed not to have gotten laid for the better part of the year, and sexual stress was the
worst
thing to hoard, didn't I think so? I said it was easy for work to take precedence and overwhelm other considerations. She said, yes, that was true, but most human beings were designed to have sex a
lot
, and if you didn't, well, that was just like pulling a random wire out of your distributor and expecting your car to function. It just wasn't
optimal
, she said.

“I tried that post-relationship flameout thing,” she told me as we demolished a pretty good chophouse spread. “You know, where you just
don't
, because you're so full of resentment and don't want to feel cheap? Where you convince yourself you're waiting for something better? Well, there's waiting and there's
negligence
, if you ask me.”

But wait—there was more.

“I mean, these bitches, these fucking twenty-five-year-old cunts on set,” she said, her tone sharpening. “They all so goddamned predatory and act like they're saving themselves for somebody in a cape and tights. Why? So they can pick his bones, like maggots. They think they've got a million years to dither and choose some rom-com idea of Mister Right, while they're constantly scanning the room for something better.”

Spooky was still obviously upset over her perceived rejection by Garrett Torres.

“I mean, I don't come on like a whore or anything. Do I?”

“No,” I said. “You come on like a man, and I mean that as a compliment. You know what you want and you're not afraid to ask for it.”

“Damned straight, amigo.”

In twenty-four hours I had become Spooky's new best friend. She was no siren and she knew it, but she worked what she knew she had. A decade ahead of her avowed competition, she still worried that her years were nothing more than age. Fragile egos came under ceaseless assault by media images of what was desirable—Elias McCabe's former specialty. Today's centerfold or smoking hotness was tomorrow's baggy breeder or burned-out bundle of neuroses, yesterday's wastrel. Once you got Spooky's clothes off, you were dealing not with transient hotness, but genuine fire. Like all of us, she too had been badly used in the past, but instead of whining about how the world had fucked her over, she bootstrapped up and got on with the business of being alive.

“
Whoo
, you're fun,” was how she summed it up. “You're not going to go all gummy on me in five days, are you? Tell me you're not.”

“What do you mean?” I stroked her thigh absently. She craved the tactile.

“End of the week.” She was glazed and cat-happy. “We've got to pull stakes, rally up, and go, lover. Arizona awaits. Period shoot, Western town, setups, showdowns, all the rest of the movie.”

I still had not gotten so much as a positive ID, phone number, or make on Elias McCabe.

“Publicists, too?” I said. “The video guy, that Arly Whats-his-name, the dumpling that walked like a dork?”

She snickered. She was the realization of Arly's desperate late-night pud-pounding sessions, and the poor fool would never suspect it.

“What about the photographer, High-britches—?”

“Hightower.”

“Does he go, too?”

She focused on me.
Bad omen
. “That's like the third time you've asked about him. What's the deal?”

I would not be able to sluice her off with “just curious”; that would no longer play.
Really bad omen
. I dissembled through a diversionary ramble about wondering
how much
of the crew had to relocate, but it was lame and she knew it.

“Yeah. You want to know about craft services, too? C'mon, I'm not going to tell anybody. What's your deal with Julian?”

Well, I need to put him down like a sick animal, and I've just wasted another whole day without finding him
. That was a no-play.

“He owe you money or something?”

I could have kissed her. In fact, I did. “No, actually, he owes me some photographs.” Beautiful save, that. The rest I needed to confect in a big smooth hurry.
Open file on Elias McCabe; activate falsehood lobe of brain; hose the room with untruth; and hurry because hesitation will hitch your voice, and her alarms will sound even louder
. It had to seem casual, not freighted.

“He shot some fashion spreads, in Chicago, with an old acquaintance of mine—”

Spooky ribbed me. “You mean like a
girlfriend
?”

That was exactly the detour by which I'd hoped Spooky would be misdirected. Her flaw, from what I had observed, was rising too quickly to ready bait. Now I had to gild the story just so.

“Sister of a buddy of mine. He's getting married in October and he can't find her.”

“And you want to find her for your friend in time for the wedding,” she said. “That is so sweet, Jack. That is the biggest bullshit story I've heard this week, and I've dealt with some whoppers. Sis is your old paramour, right? And Julian did the nasty with her, something like that? He's some kind of romantic rival, is that your biz?” She grabbed my penis to ensure veracity.

“Yipes,” I said, then sighed. “Okay … busted.”

“What are you going to do? Beat him up? Because you certainly don't talk about him with the warm fuzzies. I notice shit like that.”

“I just want to talk to him.”

“Lie. You just want to punch his face in, all knightly. What did he do?”

Let Spooky write the story in her own mind
.

“Got her pregnant and blew town; no forwarding.”

“Wow.” She kept her grip and did the cat-stretch on the bed. “That is pathetic. What century is this, again? Oops, I'm pregnant; gee, how'd
that
happen? God,
people
. Fucking ordinary people. Oops, I'm pregnant, golly, there goes my whole life, bye-bye. I had my tubes tied as soon as I could; do you know how
liberating
that was? Half the states in the union, doctors won't allow it until you've pooted out a couple of fetuses. That's terrorism. We've got, what, how many
billion
extra people already? Make more! Because when you can keep people focused on breeding, make it attractive, give tax incentives for family, you can keep their minds off evolving, or making anything of themselves, except more selves.”