KW 09:Shot on Location (18 page)

45.

“Just read it,” Quentin Dole had said as he handed copies of his freshly-printed script to Claire and to Rob Stanton. “We’ll talk about it after.”

They were meeting in the producer’s suite at the Flagler House hotel. As of when his visitors arrived, Dole had not even taken time to unpack his small travel bag. He hadn’t taken time to shave that morning either. He’d caught a bit of sleep on the plane and his cream-colored silk shirt was rumpled. His skin sagged as though from a sudden weight loss on his already attenuated frame. The lenses of his glasses went darker and lighter, lighter and darker, as the sun moved in and out of clouds and burned at different angles through the half-drawn curtains of the sitting room. Once the scripts were handed out, he went into the bedroom and closed the door behind him.

There followed an extremely uncomfortable half hour for the director and the line producer. They sat diagonally across from one another, Stanton in a love seat, Claire nestled in a corner of a sofa. They read silently, now and then crossing or uncrossing their ankles, occasionally, surreptitiously, peeking up at one another, looking for clues about the other’s reaction. When they’d read roughly half the pages, Quentin reappeared. His hair was wet and he was wearing an oversized and luxuriously fluffy terry-cloth robe. He didn’t speak, didn’t sit, just padded around the living room and watched his colleagues read. There was something about him in those moments — maybe the fur-like robe, maybe the silence of his footfalls in the terry slippers — that gave him the aspect of a watchful cat.

Claire and Stanton, attuned to the rhythm of television scripts — the clipped cadences, the fraught set-ups for commercial breaks--finished reading at nearly the same instant. They both put their copies on a coffee table between them; neither wanting to speak first, they both fussed with the pages, squaring them up just so.

Finally, Quentin Dole said, “So?”

The director and the line producer glanced at one another. Claire succeeded in waiting out Rob Stanton.

“It’s brilliant,” he said. “Brilliant. But —”

“But what?” said Dole, ahead of the beat, teeth a little bit bared, as if he was trying to bite off the objection while it was just a nub.

“But … it’s pretty radical. Such a jolt.”

“Exactly! A radical jolt is just what we need.” Abruptly yet smoothly, the producer perched himself on the very edge of an armchair. “You know what’s death to a show like this? Comfort. People want comfort, let them watch
Cheers
reruns. Nice, soft nostalgic comfort. That’s not what we do. We do edgy. We let viewers relax, we’re toast. What we need is shock. Unpredictability. That sense that no one’s safe, anything can happen. Like it does in life.”

“Except it isn’t life,” said Claire. “It’s a television show. With things like viewer loyalty to consider. Loyalty to certain characters.”

“Viewer loyalty? How quaint. Come on, Claire. A crap show with buzz comes into our time slot and viewer loyalty is out the window. You know that as well as I do.”

Rob Stanton jumped back in, taking a different tack this time. “That scene,” he said, gesturing toward the stack of pages on the coffee table. “The tragedy, the climax. I’m not sure it’s even possible to prep for it without a bigger crew.”

“We’ve got a bigger crew,” the producer said.

“We do?”

“Construction guys. I hired some in Miami this afternoon.”

“Way ahead of me as usual,” Stanton conceded.

“And later on they’ll be digging out a perfect imitation of a Florida sinkhole. The kind that open up all the time where water eats at coral. Perfectly believable. Perfectly shocking if someone were to vanish into it.”

Claire said, “Quentin, are you really sure you want to do this?”

Without hesitation, he said, “Yes. And I want it shot tonight. Before there’s any chance of spoilers leaking out.”

“Tonight? But —”

“The cast will get their scripts at six. We’ll prep the set at eight, take a break, start shooting the lead-in stuff at midnight. Candace comes on for her big scene right at sunrise.”

More sharply than she meant to, Claire said, “That’s a terrible idea. It’ll be a mess. Everyone’ll be exhausted.”

“Precisely,” Quentin said. “As people often are when a real disaster hits. Exhausted and raw, emotions stripped bare. Messy I don’t mind. But I want it raw. I want it real. This is not open to discussion. That’s the schedule.”

There was a silence. Rob Stanton’s fingers twitched as if he was already counting scenes, allotting crew and cameras. Quentin Dole finally let himself settle partway into his armchair. Very softly Claire said, “Who’ll tell Candace?”

The producer seemed surprised by the question. “Tell her? What’s the need to tell her? She’ll find out when she reads the script.”

Rising from her corner of the sofa, Claire said, “That’s horrible, Quentin. That’s really horrible. I’ll go talk to her. See you at the set.”

46.

In her small but airy bedroom, in front of slanting Bahama shutters that sliced and softened the reddish light of late afternoon, Donna was doing some very slow and very careful stretches. It felt odd to her to be so cautious with the body she had always taken for granted and in fact been entirely fearless with. But now even the slightest flexings called for prudence, each movement demanded deliberation and restraint. If there was frustration in this forced heedfulness, there was tenderness as well — a tenderness for her physical self that she hadn’t felt before. Knowing that she could be hurt, she cherished her bones and sinews and felt gratitude for the miracle of healing, this amazing ability for broken things to fix themselves.

She bent and leaned to the rhythm of measured breathing, and Ace was watching her the whole time, silently encouraging, his breaths unconsciously tracking hers. She was wearing a pale yellow slip. It clung to her breasts and hips but when she moved in certain ways the fabric fell away from her skin and light shone through it, dimly tracing arcs and hollows. She felt Ace’s eyes and enjoyed the feeling.

At some point she said, “Honey, will you help me off with this thing?”

Ace’s mouth went instantly dry. He’d been missing her badly. On tingling legs he crossed the small space between them and gently reached down toward the hem of her slip.

“No,” she said. “I meant the sling. I want to try out my arm.”

“Oh.”

Reading his face, she said, “You thought I meant my slinky little undergarment? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to tease.”

Teasing back, Ace said, “I think maybe you did.”

“Maybe just a little,” she admitted, and she kissed him on the cheek. “We’re gonna have amazing times, you know. Amazing.”

“You’re killin’ me here,” he said.

“Myself too. Come on, help me get this off.”

He reached out and, with fingers that trembled slightly with thwarted desire, he undid the clasp that held the sling in place. The cloth fell away and he cupped her elbow in one giant palm, her wrist in the other. Slowly, carefully he lowered her hand to her side. At first the dangling arm did not seem to belong to her; it was just a weight that hung there. Then, not without surprise, she found that she could move it. Little by little she tested it out: elbow bent, elbow straight; fist clenched, fingers splayed; wincing now and then, she raised the damaged limb a little higher, a little higher, and every inch she raised it was a victory.

Seeing the effort that it cost her, Ace said, “Maybe that’s enough for now.”

For Donna it wasn’t quite enough. She gritted her teeth and pushed for one more centimeter, then exhaled through pursed lips. “It’s gonna be okay,” she said. “I’m gonna get it back.”

---

At Nellie’s, Candace was sitting at the quiet bar, an unpeopled frontier of randomly swiveled stools on either side of her. Her head was tilted down in a sulk and her elbows were planted on either side of her glass of wine, held in close together as if defending against body blows. She barely looked up when Claire approached and said a cautious hello.

“Oh, hi,” she answered without enthusiasm.

“May I sit a minute? I owe you an apology.”

“No you don’t.”

“I was pretty harsh before.”

Candace shrugged. “You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. Have a glass of wine?”

Claire nodded and a bartender suavely appeared out of nowhere.

“I’m the one who should apologize,” the diva went on. “To you. To everyone. I’ve been awful. I know it. And I can’t stop. Why am I so awful?”

Soothingly, Claire said, “The show’s been crazy. So much pressure.”

Candace shook her head. “Thanks for the good excuse. And I could find others, I guess. But they’re just excuses. The truth is that I’ve handled things badly. Everything.”

Claire gestured as though to disagree but found that she couldn’t.

“You know what it is?” the actress continued. “It’s this fantasy I’ve had forever and now I’m stuck with. Being famous. Being a star. In the fantasy it’s very simple, all one-sided. Never what I’d give, only what I’d get. Never what I’d owe anybody else, only what they’d owe me. Then the fantasy becomes reality, and all this other stuff — being nice, being gracious — is just a big fat fucking mystery. I’ve never practiced it. I don’t know how to do it.”

“Maybe just takes time,” said Claire. “Time and feeling secure.”

Candace drank some wine then gave a rough quick laugh and almost choked on it. “Feeling secure. That’s a good one. Well, I’m going to work at it. Being nicer, I mean. Giving back. I’ve promised myself I will. I’ll use my standing on the show —”

“Um, Candace, we need to talk about that.”

---

The crazy blonde with the gladiator sandals had not seemed panicked by the boatload of gawkers who’d shown up at her marina, nor even by the mismatched pair of men who’d appeared to be pursuing her up the dock. True, she’d fled; but there had been a goading insouciance in how she did it. She didn’t run. She’d never once looked back to track the progress of the chase. She merely walked away at a brisk though hardly desperate tempo, using the dockside bustle and brightly dressed crowd to hide her.

But for all her infuriating casualness, Marguerite Bouchard was deeply distressed to realize that people were finally on to her. Her concern was not for herself — in the grip of her obsession she really didn’t care if she was caught, arrested, put away--but for the success of her mission. She’d dreamed so fervently of avenging her brother; she’d plotted her campaign with passion and care. And what had she really accomplished so far? She’d caused her enemy some stabs of pain, some moments of paranoid anxiety. It wasn’t nearly enough. There was much more to be done and she couldn’t let herself be caught just yet, couldn’t let herself run out of time.

One thing was clear. If people knew about her speedboat, she couldn’t leave it just sitting where it was — not right downtown where anyone could find it. She needed to be moving now; she no longer had the luxury of staying still, watching and waiting. At sunset she returned to the Brigantine Marina. She scouted for snoops and gawkers then slipped aboard the
Quickie.
The engines roared and clattered to life and she plowed a deep wake through the harbor before heading south then east toward the open water and nameless islets of the Keys.

47.

Jake was sitting poolside, savoring the small and valedictory pleasures of dusk — the sudden quiet of the birds, the soft and spinning fall, one by one, of that day’s hibiscus blooms — when he recognized Claire’s number on his silenced phone. Feeling for the moment blithe, playful and fleetingly confident, he picked it up and said, “Just can’t stay away, huh?”

Claire was not in the mood for repartee. She said simply, “I need to see you. I’m really worried.”

Nonplussed by her tone, Jake fumbled. “Well, sure. Where? When?”

“I’m heading to the set. Can I pick you up?”

Five minutes later he was standing in front of the compound gate when her limousine came crunching over the gravel. He slid in close to her but she seemed too agitated to be sociable, still less romantic. She got right down to business. “Lulu’s getting killed tonight. Tomorrow at sunrise to be exact.”

“What?”

“Lulu. Candace. She’s being written out of the show. Quentin wrote her out.”

“But —”

“His crazy script. He wants it shot tonight. All very rush-rush-hush-hush. It’s weird.”

Jake pondered that but before he could answer Claire went on.

“And of course I’m the one who had to tell Candace. She was right in the middle of one of her new leaf speeches. You know, how she’s going to be a better person from now on. That went out the window as soon as she got the news. She’s probably back in her room screaming at her agent, doing pills and vodka. I just hope she doesn’t slur through her big sayonara scene.”

The limo turned north on U.S. 1. The pastels and gingerbread of Old Town yielded to the jangly neon of the strip malls and motels.

Jake said, “But why the sayonara scene at all? Why kill her off after making her the center of the show?”

“An excellent question,” said Claire. “One possibility is that Quentin’s way smarter than any of us, way better at staying one step ahead of the fans. Another possibility is that he’s totally flipping out.”

Jake considered that but came away doubting it. “Seems a little too dramatic. I mean, he’s obsessive, he’s controlling —”

“Right. And where does obsessive and controlling cross over into loony?” The question hung for a moment, then Claire added, “I called the publicist.”

“You what?”

“Jacqueline. I called her. I’m sorry but I had to. I’ve worked with her for months. It just didn’t sit right that you were suspecting her.”

“So you casually rang her up and asked if she’d conspired in any murder attempts lately?”

“I just asked her how she happened to be on that early flight. Just casually asked.”

“And?”

“Quentin booked her on it. The night before. Said there’d be an important advertiser meeting in Miami. Conveniently, that meeting got canceled. And by then there was the Donna story to deal with.”

“Maybe just coincidence,” said Jake. “Meetings do get canceled.”

“All the time,” Claire agreed. “But then there was the powwow in Jacqueline’s room. The one that got me so ticked off, where they decided on the spin. I’ve been thinking back to that meeting. It was Jacqueline who ran with the mistaken identity angle. She ran with it so hard that it seemed like it was her idea. But it wasn’t. It was Quentin’s. He put it out there very quietly and then backed off, knowing that she’d do the rest. He even gave her credit for the concept. Vintage Quentin. Use people and let them feel good about it.”

“Okay, okay,” said Jake, “so he’s good at pushing buttons, manipulating people. We already know that. That’s his job. I still don’t see —”

“Why I’m scared stiff?” Claire cut in. Her voice was pinched and her jaw tense in a way Jake had never seen before “I’ll tell you why. It’s because I think Quentin has lost the line between real life and his precious show. He keeps weaving like a drunk driver between the two, like he can’t tell a story line from a real person getting through the day. I’m not sure he sees any difference between a dead character and a dead actress.”

“Now wait a second —”

But the limo was turning onto the side road for Big Sandy Key, and Claire didn’t wait a second.

“Maybe it’s just me,” she said. “My nerves are shot. I’m on overload. I admit it. That’s why I wanted you along. Do a gut check for me. See what you think. Tell me I’m wrong. Please. Because I just have the feeling that if we don’t do something someone’s going to die tonight and it won’t just be a television death.”