Heartland (34 page)

“If I show this to Fox, this one clip, I'll have worldwide rights sewn up in about two seconds.”

Martin drew a pair of sunglasses from his jacket pocket and settled them on his nose. He did not need them for the light, as the smaze had been building all week and now blanketed the valley in shades of putrid gray. He simply did not want any prying eyes to see how close he was to letting loose the screaming ninnies.

“Scratch that,” Milo said. “If Disney sees this and gets a single solitary whiff that the studio is available for purchase, they'll be camping at the old man's front gates with a blank check in hand.”

Martin lit another cigarillo. He wanted to feel something. Even if it was the acrid bite of smoke at the back of his throat.

Milo looked at his partner. “That's not so bad, is it? Being able to write your ticket to one of the majors?”

“It is,” Martin said with his smoke. “If the original aim had been to own the studio outright.”

Milo kicked the grass at his feet. “So what happens now?”

“I want you to go on vacation. Vanish completely. No phone, fax, e-mail, nothing. Make a big deal of it, talk it up, let everybody know I approve. You've been working too hard, need a complete break, and since you're gone your secretary and PA can take off as well. Shut your office down entirely. There won't be anyone for the sniffers to approach. Officially, everything will have to wait. Call when you get wherever you're going and let me know how to make contact.”

“What about you?”

“I'll think of something,” Martin replied. “I always do.”

The woman was stylishly dressed, but about twenty years out of date. Yet her crystal clear gaze and her calm expression said she could not have cared less. She rose from her chair on the other side of the screening camera and straightened her jacket. She wore an original Balenciaga she had pulled from the trunk of a junk dealer's car. She had found it one weekend in La Jolla, just before her husband had gone down with cancer. Probably the last great weekend they had shared together. That was how she liked to dress. In memories as fine as the clothes.

“You're a prince, Chuckie,” she said to the projectionist.

“No problem. And you'll do what you said, right?”

“The next opening we get in editing is yours.” She walked to the door. “I was never here, okay?”

“Just so you don't forget.”

“That's my boy.” She started to open the door, then turned back and said, “Strange response from our two top dogs over their latest smash hit, wouldn't you say?”

“Looked to me like they were both kicked in the teeth. But hey, I'm just the projectionist, right?”

She opened the door, checked to make sure the hall was empty, and replied, “Not for long.”

Chapter 36

F
or a day and a half, Britt worked JayJay with the second team. That was the name he had given Kip and the steadicam. Kip had responded with genuine disbelief at the news, so shocked the featherweight flapping was stilled entirely. Britt had told them both together. Just, go out there and do it. No further instructions, no embellishments, no nothing. Typical Britt.

They shot half a dozen fifteen-second mini-scenes. They started with JayJay standing on a hay bale or the back end of his own truck, which had been adopted into the cinematic fold. Both the hay and his truck now sported bunting straight from a local printer. Red, white, and blue banners that proclaimed in starry letters, “JayJay Parsons for Mayor.”

The same bunting that had suddenly sprouted up all over town.

Running JayJay for mayor being the surprise Peter had worked up and to which Miller had agreed.

The steadicam guy was a solid human brick. With his equipment he measured about five feet square. He wore a biking singlet stretched to bursting by his muscular build. He did not speak. Ever.

Britt had booked a vanload of extras. But they proved unnecessary. Wherever they pulled up, people appeared. The third time it happened, JayJay said to the steadicam guy, “We oughtta try this in the middle of the Mojave. Just hop out and see who pops outta the sand.”

The steadicam wore his blond hair cut in a big-city buzz cut. He pushed his bug-eyed shades up on top of his head and rubbed at the sweat.

“Nice talking with you,” JayJay said.

The steadicam guy nodded and slipped his shades back into place.

Kip flickered about, setting up shots and then shrilling them to a last-minute halt, wanting a different backdrop, or another face up close to where JayJay stood. The AD was clearly terrified over his first big chance. He bit his nails to the quick as JayJay delivered the same lines over and over, a couple of paragraphs from the same speech he had used in the hall. When he had enough footage, Kip made his hands dance, which was the prearranged signal for the crowd to applaud.

Six stops, six different crowds, and they were into what played for rush hour in Salton City. JayJay asked, “You know what I think?”

Kip did not look up from his rumpled script pages. “Actors can get arrested for thinking on location. It's part of the California penal code.”

“I'm thinking you ought to film me walking down Main Street.”

Kip dropped the pages into his lap.

“Have the steadicam guy walk beside me. Use that feller with the whatchamadingie—”

“Reflector.”

“Right. Have him do his job on the light. Let's just see if the folks keep coming up to say hello.”

“No sound,” Kip mused. “Just get some footage of you playing actor.”

“Politician.”

“Same thing.” Kip grinned. “This is fun.”

“I wouldn't go that far,” JayJay said, climbing from the truck. “But it sure beats digging fence holes for a living.”

When they showed up at the fair, an extra dressed as a cop directed them down a dusty field into a long line of waiting vehicles. They knew he was an extra soon as Kip rolled down his window and yelled, “We're filming here.”

“Sorry, Mr. Denderhoff, sir! I didn't recognize you. Right over there, sir! Park behind the sound truck, please!”

Kip settled back into his seat and said, “Offer them a line of decent dialogue, and an extra will suck up to the exhaust pipe of a cross-country bus.”

“Thank you for that Hollywood news flash,” JayJay said.

“Hey. You want to survive in the jungle, you got to learn the code.”

“Anytime I need a dose of wisdom, I sure know where to come,” JayJay agreed.

“What did the crowd say the other night? Amen?” But Kip was smiling. “Unless you wise up, next time you hear that will be at your funeral.”

They didn't need to talk it through. They both saw the crowd turning and thought the same thing, which was, why waste the moment? So JayJay let the makeup lady do another touch-up and the lighting guy settle into place with the reflector, and the steadicam get situated by Kip, and he made his entrance. Getting applauded through the fair gates and down the carnival midway. A dusk-streaked sky competed with the carnie lights, splashing the crowd with happy colors.

When Kip spotted Britt watching them, he went back to his splayfooted nervousness. But all Britt said was, “We need to move straight into the first take.”

JayJay caught the director's edge. “Is Kelly okay?”

“Kelly's not the problem.” Britt's expression was grim. “Kip, they need help settling the crowd down by the stage.”

“I'm on it.”

“Tell Derek we go in five.” Britt turned to JayJay. “Kelly's handling it okay. But it's still her first time singing for a camera. You know what that's like.”

“Not the singing part, which is a good thing for everybody. But I can imagine.”

“Go help her get ready.”

“What's the matter, Britt?”

Britt seemed tempted to tell him. But the director merely shook his head and said, “It has to wait.”

They had pulled a trailer up behind the stage. JayJay waved to the roadies working on the musical equipment and knocked on the trailer door. A voice said something he missed because the sound guys started testing the mikes. He entered and said, “Kelly?”

“The lady's in back.” The band's leader got up from the sofa and handed his guitar to a buddy. “Mister, I don't even know your name. But I got to tell you, we owe you big-time for this break.”

“All I did was tell the folks in the front office what I heard you giving on the stage, which was quality. And you can call me JayJay.”

“That's your for-real name?” The guy took a double-fisted lock on JayJay's hand. “We been waiting eight years for this. The head honcho out there says maybe they'll use one of our original songs on the sound track. If that happens, Arista is talking a two-album deal. Anytime, anywhere, you hear what I'm saying?”

JayJay slipped by the band and knocked on the rear door. He heard Kelly say, “Is it time?”

“Not quite.” He opened the door a fraction. “Can I come in?”

“Sure thing, Slim. Watch a girl go into full-frontal meltdown.”

There wasn't really room for her to pace. But Kelly was giving it a solid try. JayJay shut the door and asked, “Are you mad with me for telling them?”

“I should be. But seeing as how my mother gave you her version of verbal branding, I'm kinda stuck at my own need to apologize.” She wrung her hands. “That is, I would be. But right now I can't get my mind past what's about to happen.”

“Kelly, I got so many things I want to say I can't hardly get a single thing out.” JayJay wanted to reach out, sweep the lady up, give her a hug big enough to rob them both of air. But he couldn't, not without a sign of welcome. So he leaned on the wall behind the door and said, “But I got to tell you, you look about a hundred kinds of fine right now.”

She wore a Hollywood version of country cool. Silk top one shade darker than her hair and knotted across her middle. Silk pants made to look like denim, tucked into pale high-heeled boots so soft JayJay reckoned he could roll them up like socks. Her hair flowed across one shoulder, the way he liked best, and tonight there were little sparkly jewels woven into her tresses. Her top and her hair glittered as she turned.

“Kelly.”

“What?”

“You want to pray?”

“You say the words, Slim. I'll do my best to pay attention.”

“Can I hold your hands?”

She made two more crossings before she finally got within reach. Her hands were cold as ice. JayJay said the words, hardly hearing them himself, just willing his strength into her.

Whatever he'd said, it touched her enough for her to finally look at him. “I've missed you so.”

The metal bands that had been wrapped about his heart for over a week loosened somewhat. “You don't know, you can't, how much that means.”

She whispered, “I'm so scared.”

“I know, and it hurts me to think I'm the cause. But I got to tell you, what you did up there on the stage at Goody's, it was the finest thing I've ever heard.”

“This is a totally different animal, Slim. One that's gnawing me right down to the bones.”

He had a thought. “One thing Claire's told me is, try and find someone in the crowd to reach through your lines.”

Her gaze sharpened. “You been spending time with Claire?”

“Just listen to what I'm saying, okay? I haven't been searching those crowds for just any old face. I looked for
you
.”

“Oh, JayJay.”

“What I'm thinking is, did your grandmother like your singing?”

Her eyes bloomed with sorrow. “She taught me almost everything I know.”

“Well, maybe you ought to try and find her with your voice. Forget the camera and the mess out there behind the lights. Do this for her.” When she didn't speak, he said, “That sounds crazy, don't it.”

She touched his face. For the very first time. With a hand that was warming rapidly. To match the look she gave him. “There's nothing more dangerous in this whole wide world than a good-looking man who knows the right words to tell a lady.”

They took a step apart at the knock on the door. Britt poked his head inside, inspected them both, and said, “It's time.”

Britt stepped to the mike while the band limbered up. “Folks, we're so grateful for your helping us out like this. In case some of you missed it, the carnival is on us. Our way of saying thanks to the greatest community it's ever been my pleasure to work with.” He waited through their applause and whistles, then went on, “My assistant, Kip Denderhoff, raise your hand, Kip, see him over there? Kip is going to wave his hands when it's time for you to make noise. He'll wave them again and you need to stop right then. But try not to look directly at him, or the cameraman on the platform who'll be aiming at you, see him? Don't look at either of them because we want to get some close-ups of you. Now what we're going to do is have Kelly Channing—”

The applause caught everybody by surprise. No one more than Kelly. JayJay stood beside her just behind the large stack of speakers. The makeup lady was still working on Kelly when they started shouting and whistling. JayJay saw her eyes go wide, and whispered, “Looks like you got some friends out there.”

She asked, “Did you set this up?”

“I would have if I'd thought of it, but I been busy wrangling my own bronco.” JayJay looked to the makeup lady. “You're my only alibi.”

The lady said with a smile, “He's been out on a shoot all day.”

Britt finally broke the crowd off and continued, “Kelly is going to do three songs. She'll do them several times. We ask you to please, please be patient with us, and stay in close and try to enjoy what she is giving.”

The director hesitated, then added, “Because it feels like we're among friends, I . . .” He had to stop again for the applause to fade. “I want to share one thing with you. Kelly has never sung for the camera before. And nothing can help a new actor more than feeling like the audience is on her side. So when she comes out, let her know what you think of her. That's all. Have a great time. And once again, thank you. Not just tonight. For everything. You are great, great people.”