DARK THRILLERS-A Box Set of Suspense Novels (40 page)

The Body had once had a sister named Michelle. A long, long time ago. Chubby little dark girl with dimples in her cheeks and stars caught in the depths of her eyes. Michelle loved to change her clothes all the time, exasperating their mother. She would leave a string of clothes throughout the house, discarding them as she went, donning other ones that might suit her for only ten minutes or so.

Michelle dead. Floating face down, arms hanging loose, in the sky blue swimming pool, hauled in with the long pole used for scooping up vagrant leaves that sometimes dotted the pool when the wind blew hard over the cottonwoods.

The Body parked and unlocked the door to the house. It was too hard tonight to go into the nursery and write thoughts on the computer.

Best to go into the sensory deprivation chamber and sit in the leather chair and wipe away all those old memories of Michelle before going to bed.

Try to forget everything. Just for a while.

20

"Talk to them about things they don't know. Try to give them an inferiority complex. If the actress is beautiful, screw her. If she isn't, present her with a valuable painting she will not understand. If they insist on being boring, kick their asses or twist their noses. And that's about all there is to it."

John Huston,

Things I Did . . . and Things I Think I Did

Georgie couldn't get the shot and he couldn't believe in the first place that Cam was going to make him try. Cam, livid as Georgie had ever seen him, screamed, "Do it over again, goddamnit, you're not listening to what I'm saying to you."

The problem was one of safety. And one of expense. A camera cost a lot of money, a lot, and even though this camera wasn't rented, but owned by Georgie himself (with help from Cam on their last film together), why would he want to bust it up? Georgie would do anything for Cam, but he wasn't keen on breaking his camera or his nose. Pain wasn't his bailiwick.

"I break my camera, you buying me a new one?" he asked Cam, only half joking, trying to get Cam to settle down to a serious burn rather than a raging cyclone.

"Don't worry about the camera, we're not talking about the camera. I told you to do this shot this way and that's what I want you to fucking do. Olivia's character has gone wild and we're going to show it."

Georgie looked over at Robyn. The production company would be ponying up the costs if Cam got the cameras busted. She gave him a slight nod indicating it was all right, but he could see she was nervous about it by the way she fidgeted, rolling a pencil back and forth between the palms of her hands.

"Don't be staring off at Robyn," Cam said, almost in Georgie's face now. "Are you going to ram that wall or am I going to ram that fucking camera up your ass?"

The scene was set up on a soundstage. The day before they had filmed the location scene and it had come off pretty well. Now they were back on the studio lot and the scene involved Georgie, as first cameraman, being the point of view for Olivia as the stalker. He was her eyes while tearing up Landry's home. That took some skill, but Georgie had done point-of-view shots a hundred times and he knew how.

His camera told the tale. It took the viewer right into the madness of the character, showing all events as they happened through her eyes. Clothes ripped from hangers in a closet and sliced to shreds with a sharp, long-handled knife that flit in and out of the camera's eye, darting through the cloth, zippity-zip. Chairs overturned, tables pushed up against other furniture, cabinets flung open in the kitchen shot, and pans and dishes thrown around in a fury of breaking glass and banging metal.

It was cheesecake. All those scenes went fine. Georgie was huffing and puffing when he finished, but he got it right—or at least to Cam's satisfaction. But this. This was something else again.

This was where the character was supposed to fall into a state of frenzy heretofore never seen on screen before. After taking her anger out on the set, she was supposed to take it out on herself by running and slamming head-first into walls and doors, falling down, getting up again—with shots of Olivia doing just that before the camera took over again in her place to show the physical abuse the character heaped upon herself. Cam wanted her to throw her body around the set of the living room as if she had become unattached to the flesh and was using it as a bludgeon.

She was great. She was better than great. With her hair streaming across her face and something in her eyes so wild that the crowd standing around fell stone cold silent, Olivia insisted on doing all the shots herself, no body double, no stunt woman. She banged and threw herself and grunted and growled. She had done her part so well that when the cameras stopped rolling, the place exploded in applause as if she had done her act on a Broadway stage. She had now left for the dressing room.

Cam began screaming. "You didn't get it! Georgie, are you listening to me? You slowed up just as you ran at the wall head-first. You've got the other shots right where you turn around, showing us the destruction of the room while Olivia's character slams a wall with her back, but you're not getting it head on! I want you to hit the wall."

Georgie was breathing hard and sweating. He moved back from the set's plaster wall and stared at it through his lens, lining it up. It wasn't going down easy, that wall. It wasn't going to fall over for him or explode apart with trickery. No zoom shots, no hydraulic tracks, no Steadicam. Not good enough for Cam. He wanted something else, something different. Oh lord god.

He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and clamped down on it with his teeth. Had to do it, had to try. Cam wouldn't let him off the hook on this thing.

He took off in a sprint and went into a dead run, the same as Olivia had done and been filmed as she ran across the same living room toward the same wall. He let his lip go and his mouth fell open and . . .

Just before hitting the wall, he hesitated, sliding forward until he was only two inches from smashing into it. He lowered the camera in defeat. He thought his heartbeat could be heard all over the soundstage. It drummed loud in his ears.

"Cut! Cut!" Cam came stomping over, screaming again. "Hit it! Hit it, hit the goddamn wall, Georgie! Run into that motherfucker. I got to paint a picture for you? I want you to slam into that wall."

Georgie wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief he kept in his back pocket. "Cam, I hit the wall and this camera's gonna be ruined. It's lunchmeat."

"I told you already, I don't give a goddamn if you break the fucking camera, I want you to slam into the fucking wall! Do it again. Do it now. Do it now."

Cam turned his back and moved out of range. He signaled for Georgie to begin. Georgie backed away, drew a breath, cursing the day he ever signed onto this project, then took off across the floor, aiming for the wall, the camera held steady as he could manage at eye level, his feet pounding the floor, his heart pumping hard, hard.

He saw the wall coming at him and something inside him cringed, yelling, No, don't hit it, no, don't, but he couldn't hesitate this time, he had to hit the damn thing running full blast, he had to . . .

The long front lens of the shouldered camera connected with the plaster with a sound so loud it hurt his ears. The sudden jolt rushed through his hands, arms, radiated through his shoulder blade and knocked him on his ass. He had broken his glasses. He sat with the camera in his lap and his glasses askew and cracked on the bridge of his nose. He should have taken them off. He didn't think. He hadn't given it a thought, nor had anyone else.

"Broke my glasses," he said, feeling the pain now in both shoulder and face. It was fire running through his bruised skin. If the insurance guys happened to walk onto the set and saw what he had done, they would have been aghast.

Cam ran over and grabbed the camera, checked the shot through the specially attached videocam that would not give him the proper frame or light, but would tell him if he got the shot he wanted. "No!"

Georgie heaved a sigh. He looked up. "I didn't get it?”

“Fuck no! It's all crooked, the impact isn't strong enough, it's not what I want. We have to do it again."

Georgie came to his knees and then to his feet, the glasses in one of his hands. He saw a knuckle was bleeding, droplets falling onto the floor. He must have scraped it against the rough plaster. He glanced over at the silent crew standing around the set. Everyone mesmerized. Olivia had returned to the set, legs crossed, the script lying open in her lap. Her look was impassive. Landry stood nearby, frowning. One of the extras, a girl, covered her face with shaking hands. Georgie knew before the day was out, she'd quit.

He looked up at Cam again. "I can't do this," he said calmly.

"What do you mean you can't do it? Of course you can do it.”

"I'm not doing it. Is my camera broke?"

Cam turned it around and looked at the lens. "It's got a crack. We'll get another one for you to use. I'll buy you new glasses. I want it shot again, okay, and this time you have to really do it."

Georgie reached out to take the camera as if he were willing to comply with Cam's wishes. Once he had it in his possession, he looked at Cam, his vision blurring without his glasses, and said, "Get someone else. You're crazy if you think I'm trying that stunt again."

"You're stalling on me, Georgie? All these years together and you're fucking walking off a set when I need you to do something for me?"

"You've asked a lot of me, Cam, but this is too much. I'm not doing it."

Georgie squared his shoulders and lugged his camera with him as he walked away. Mutters ran through the others on the set and he decided he wouldn't look them in the eyes. He was right on this one. He didn't have to be bullied into half killing himself. Not for one lousy shot.

Behind him an ominous silence issued from Cam. By the time Georgie got to the bathroom to wash his hand and check out the damage to his face, he heard Cam's loud voice raised, calling for the second cameraman to take over. Fine. Let Masters get his face shoved in.

After he had cleaned his hand and found a Band-Aid to slap over it, he returned to the set to watch from the sidelines. If Cam didn't see him, he'd be all right. He had to watch this scene shot. He wanted to see someone dumb enough to run into the freaking wall with a heavy camera worth thousands of dollars.

Cam stood in a huddle with Masters, giving instructions. He was animated, moving his hands around, pointing, grimacing. He was talking low now, not shouting. Maybe he thought he should use a new method on the troops. He did that for contrast. He did anything to get what he wanted. Shout one moment, hug you the next. It might make him a genius, but it was also manipulative and sometimes cruel.

Georgie had been with Cam for years and he had accepted Cam's rages until now. It was the first time he'd crossed him and he didn't care if he got canned for it. He wasn't going to pull a crazy stunt like that.

Cam walked away from the cameraman, turned, put his hands on his hips. Masters shouldered the new camera with the rigged video so Cam could check the shot. Georgie couldn't see his face without glasses, but he knew Masters must be making some kind of fierce face, trying to muster up the courage to do what he had to do. The crowd watching took a collective breath and no one moved a muscle. Movie making was supposed to be high art and illusion. People weren't called on to risk themselves this way. The very thought put everyone into a grip of silence and worry.

Masters started running across the set. He ran faster and there was the wall right there, right there, and wham! Masters hit it full throttle. The concussion of camera against plaster sounded like a thunderclap. Masters bounced back and landed in one direction while his camera flew out of his hands in another.

Cam ran over to the camera first and checked the shot. He turned around, grinning, and put out one hand to help Masters up off the floor. Georgie heard Masters say, "I think I broke my hand. I can't move my fingers. Jesus Christ, my fingers are broken."

Cam patted him on the back, still grinning like a crazy-in-love baboon. "It's great. You got it. You got the shot I wanted. You're a good man, Masters, you're a most excellent man."

Cam gestured someone over. "Take him to see the doctor, get his hand looked after."

Georgie stood in awe of the other cameraman as he was led away. He'd actually done it, actually run right into the wall with the camera to his face like some suicidal air pilot taking out a tanker. It was amazing what Cam could inspire people to do for him.

The crowd began to talk and Cam went on setting up the next shot. He was on the third cameraman now and none of it had slowed him down for a minute.

Despite himself and his personal feelings about how he'd been hurt trying to get what Cam wanted on film, Georgie had to admit a grudging admiration for both the director and the cameraman. Cam might be relentless, but he was right about how that shot would look on screen. It would make an audience suck in their gut in pure wondrous shock.

It was going to be one hell of a movie. "Pure and Uncut" described it correctly, no false advertising there.

21

"Where does one go from a world of insanity? Somewhere on the other side of despair."

T. S. Eliot, "Harry, Lord Monchensey"

Go slow, go easy, baby, take it easy. Slip in, destroy everything not nailed down, slip out. Don't let it get away from you.

That's what The Body tried as a control mechanism, knowing with one part of the mind that advice to the self wasn't going to work.

Karl LaRosa wasn't home yet from his office in Burbank. There were two free hours before he could be expected back.

Two hours to mangle and crush.

The scene filmed by Cam was brilliant, nothing short of brilliant. If The Body could create the same kind of massive devastation, Karl would come into his home, take one look, and have a heart attack.

First the kitchen, make it methodical. Neighbors weren't going to hear anything. Karl's house was set too far away from neighbors, all the wealthy on Malibu Beach believing that privacy was of the utmost importance. Stupid overpaid fuckers.