Miner's Daughter (22 page)

Nevertheless, he was glad for the presence of
Martin and Tiny, because his senses were so on edge around Mari, he
wasn’t sure what he might do if left to his own devices. Deciding
if that idiotic dog could act smart, he could put on an act, too,
he joined in Martin’s query. “What is it, Mari?”

She held out her hand and showed him a wood
chip. It appeared to be freshly hewn. Frowning, Tony took it from
her “By God, it does look like there might be more to this affair
than dry rot.”

“What is it?” Now Martin sounded impatient.
Tiny let out a lusty whine, as if to spur Mari and Tony into some
kind of action, preferably involving him.

“I wonder if there are more of these under
the rubble,” Tony mused.

“I don’t know. Look at that.”

Tony followed the point of Mari’s finger and
got another jolt. “I’ll be darned. It looks as if someone tried to
sweep stuff up.”

“What? Somebody swept something up? What’s
going on in there?” Exasperated, Martin came to the door of the
shed, blocking out a good deal of the light. “Will one of you
please tell me what’s going on in, there?”

“Here, let me show him. I don’t think we’d
better muck around anymore in here.” Mari took her wood chip
back.

Tony figured that was fair, since she’d found
it. He grasped her arm, though, and helped her sidestep around the
wreckage. He figured this would be the last time he’d get to put
his hands on her unless he figured out something of a clever nature
to do soon.

Handing Martin the wood chip, Mari said,
“Here, Martin. It looks like the kinds of chips I get when I chop
wood for the stove.”

She chopped wood for her stove? As he
carefully skirted the remains of the two expensive cameras, Tony’s
mind boggled momentarily until he mentally smacked himself and
asked who the hell else would be chopping wood for her

“By gum, I think you’re right.” Staring hard
at the wood chip now residing in his own palm, Martin looked
worried.

Tony figured he’d start pulling at that lock
of hair next. He’d begun thinking of that particular tress as
Martin’s worry totem, sort of like the worry beads some Indian
tribes were said to use. He said, “I think we’d better lock this
place up again.”

“Right,” muttered Martin, clearly distracted.
“Right.” He glanced up and frowned at the shed. “I wish we had
someone to post as a guard. Now I’m worried about the rest of our
equipment.”

“Oh?” Mari lifted her eyebrows as she
attempted to subdue her ecstatic dog, who’d begun gamboling around
her as soon as she emerged from the shed. “What other kinds of
stuff do you have that might be vandalized?”

Tony felt a pang as he wondered how it would
feel to have another being be so happy to see him He’d prefer a
being like, say, Mari, to a dog like Tiny, but even a dog might be
nice.

“Oh, gosh,” Martin said. “There’s tons of
stuff. We’ve got all the backdrops and the set frames and—good
God.”

“What is it?” Mari gripped Martin’s arm.

Tony, too, was alarmed when Martin’s face
drained of color and he appeared stricken. “What’s wrong, Martin?”
He grabbed Martin’s other arm.

Martin shook them both off. “I’m okay. I just
happened to think of the cans of film. Good God, we already have a
whole reel made of the set shots.”

“Set shots?” Mari glanced up at Tony, who
shook his head. He knew more about the pictures than he had when he
came out to California, but he still knew very little.

“We always do at least a part-reel of scenery
shots before we begin shooting the feature. That’s why we shot
footage of the miners working yesterday. It’s good to have them in
case we need them when we begin putting the picture together.”

“I don’t think I understand, but it’s all
right. I don’t guess I need to,” Mari assured him.

“We’d better check it out,” Tony said. He
didn’t know set shots from a hole in the head, but he knew darmed
well his father would be unhappy if anything else happened to
interfere with the picture before it was finished. With a sigh, he
decided he’d really rather not work in the pictures, if this sort
of thing happened very often.

“Right,” said Martin, who instantly took off
for the inn. He stopped walking, wheeled around, tossed the key to
Tony, and hurried off again.

“I’ll just lock up,” Tony muttered. “Wait for
me.

Although he didn’t anticipate obedience from
Mari, he was gratified when she didn’t immediately hare off after
Martin. Tiny might have had something to do with her remaining in
Tony’s company, because he didn’t budge when Mari tugged at his
collar. Grinning at the dog, Tony wondered if he’d got himself an
ally. He hoped so.

A few minutes later, Martin stood in the
small parlor, hugging a can full of film to his chest, and said,
“God, I hope it’s still all right.”

“Don’t we all.” Tony’s mind, which he’d
reluctantly dragged from concentrating solely on Mari Pottersby’s
trim form and elegant features, was troubled. “Say, Martin, if
someone is trying to undermine the picture, do you have any idea
who it is?”

Martin, who didn’t need help with very many
things pertaining to his life and his profession, had opened the
can and was now threading the celluloid film onto a projector. He
and Tony had set up the projector in the small parlor, as they’d
done when they’d viewed Mari’s screen test. He shook his head.
“Haven’t the foggiest.”

“Does anybody have it in for you or Mr.
Lovejoy?” Mari asked. She’d taken the chance of letting Tiny enter
the hotel with her. To everyone’s surprise, the dog was being
obedient. At the moment, Tiny looked rather like a lumpy floor rug;
he’d sprawled himself out in front of an electrical fan that was
buzzing away and stirring the hot air.

Martin looked up from feeding film through
the projector to gaze at her in astonishment. “Have it in for us?
Do you mean does somebody hold a grudge or something?”

She shrugged. “I guess so.”

Pausing for a moment with film dripping
through his fingers, Martin let his gaze drift into a middle,
ambiguous distance as he thought about her question. After a couple
of seconds, he shook his head. “Can’t think of a single person
who’d want to interfere with a Peerless production.”

Tony added his two cents. “When I started
studying the pictures prior to coming out to this coast, I found
Peerless to have an almost spotless reputation among the various
production companies.”

“Almost?” Martin peered at him sharply. “What
do you mean,
almost
? As far as I know, Phin and I have never
done a single unscrupulous thing. Where does that
almost
come in?”

Tony grinned. “Cancel the almost. Peerless’s
reputation is spotless. Absolutely.” He liked it that Martin took
so much pride in the honorable reputation of his company. So few
men did. Take his father, for example.

But Tony didn’t want to think about his old
man now. “So, if it’s not a disgruntled competitor, who might it
be?”

“Oh, well . . .” Martin finished his task and
stepped back from the projector. “As to disgruntlement, I don’t
suppose Peerless has any control over what anybody else thinks of
us. We’re doing very well, and without resorting to the underhanded
tactics practiced by some of the other companies.”

Tony was pretty sure Martin’s comment was an
unvoiced dig at Edison’s operation. Made sense to him. Edison was a
tough customer. Still, Tony had never heard of him sinking to these
types of tactics.

Martin went on, “I suppose it’s possible that
some lunatic might try to subvert one of our productions.”

“You don’t look as though you believe it,”
Mari observed.

She was right. Tony, too, detected a note of
disbelief in Martin’s speech and attitude. He heaved a sigh. “Let’s
look at the film and see if it’s been tampered with. We can go into
a huddle later and talk about everything.

“Right” Martin walked to the wall switch,
pressed the button, and the room went dark.

Deciding to take advantage of the low light,
Tony sought a chair next to Mari. In doing so, he barely missed
stepping on Tiny, who let him know it with a deep, rumbling growl.
“Say, Tiny, I didn’t mean it.” He turned to Mari. “He wouldn’t bite
a guy just for stepping on his paw, would he?”

Mari laughed softly. The sound curled through
Tony like fine brandy fumes. “I don’t think so, but you can’t blame
a dog for asking people not to step on him.”

“I suppose not.” He wanted to take her hand
in his. To kiss it. To caress it.

He didn’t, of, course. Mari knew how to do
lots of things with those hands of hers, and he wouldn’t be at all
surprised to find out she could slap a fellow’s face with them.

Back at the projector, Martin turned on the
switch and began cranking. Tony could feel Mari stiffen at his
side, as he did the same. He hoped the film was all right, for his
father’s money’s sake, but mainly for Martin’s. Tony didn’t want
Martin to suffer. He was too fine a person. An attack on Peerless
would be an attack on Martin Tafft, and that would be wrong. If it
was an attack and not an accident.

The director’s mysterious illness occurred to
him, and he frowned into the darkness. Had that been an accident,
too, or had it been caused by something sinister? Or had it perhaps
been staged?

Good God, he was turning into one of those
fellows who saw conspiracies around every corner. Pretty soon he’d
be blaming all these happenings on the Communists or Anarchists. He
told himself to get a handle on his imagination, sat back, tried to
ignore Mari, which was impossible, and stared at the wall.

After a moment or two of grinding noises, a
spray of light shot out of the projector and hit the wall. Several
frames of test patterns flickered, and then the town of Mojave
Wells hove into view. Tony, Mari, and Martin all sighed with
relief.

“Thank God,” Martin whispered.

“Amen,” said Mari.

Tony’s thanks were as heartfelt as those of
the others. “Better keep that can in your room from now on,” he
suggested.

“You bet I will,” Martin agreed.

“Is there anything else that’s vulnerable?
Any other equipment?” If, of course, this wasn’t all coincidental.”
Tony, who had no problem with coincidences in, say, Dickens’s
novels, wasn’t much of a believer in them on an everyday basis.

“I can keep the projector in my room,
too.”

“What about the sets and so forth?”

Martin flicked off the projector. “I don’t
know. That’s something we’ll have to talk about.”

“Right” Tony turned to Mari. “Say, why don’t
you stay for dinner, Mari, and we can go over all of this stuff
right now?”

She hesitated. “Well, I’ve got Tiny with
me.”

“Pshaw.” Tony had never said
pshaw
in
his life. “Tiny won’t mind. He can . . .” He could what? Again
inspiration sprang to his assistance. “He can stay in my room!”
Brilliant. He was proud of himself.

“Well . . . All right.”

So they hauled Tiny upstairs and stuck him in
Tony’s room. Tony guessed he wouldn’t mind a few black dog hairs on
his bedspread, should Tiny decide to take a nap. He’d rather have
Mari there, but at least he’d be able to enjoy her company for a
few more hours today.

Halfway through dinner, Mari realized she’d
come feel absolutely comfortable in the company of these two men.
What a change this was. At first, she’d not only mistrusted them,
she’d felt like an unwelcome, interfering insect in their presence,
kind of like an ant a picnic. She’d felt as though they were merely
tolerating her for the sake of her mine.

Not any longer. Now both Tony and Martin
talked her as if she mattered, and they included her in their
discussions as if they cared about her opinion. The sensation of
belonging was a new one to Mari, and she cherished it.

She feared she was also coming to cherish
Tony, and that worried her. She didn’t need another complication in
her life, and falling in love with a millionaire from New York
would be a definite complication. For her. She was pretty sure she
wasn’t important enough to Tony to count as a complication, even if
they were getting along together much better since their trip to
Los Angeles. He was being very nice about imparting social lessons
to her, which she appreciated.

Maybe they could at least be friends. The
notion gave her a chilly sensation around her heart that she chose
not to think about.

Martin drew Ben, the cameraman, and George,
the set designer, into their security discussions after dinner.
They met at a table Mr. Nelson had set up in the parlor. Mari felt
like an interloper in a political meeting, only they weren’t in a
smoke-filled room because none of the men smoked. That was
something of a miracle, and one for which she was glad.

She was terribly impressed when Martin
divulged that George was Brenda Fitzpatrick’s brother-in-law.
Brenda Fitzpatrick was one of the most famous actresses in the
whole world. Mari had never stood close to royalty until the
Peerless folks came to town. Now she knew both a millionaire and
the relative-by-marriage of one of the nation’s most beloved
actresses. Brenda had retired from stage and celluloid a year or so
ago, but Mari still had trouble containing her awe. She wanted to
press George for details about her. She didn’t, though, because
even though she didn’t know squat about society manners, she knew
better than to pry into another person’s business.

George said, “You don’t know for certain that
anything’s amiss, Martin.”

“You don’t consider the destruction of two
state-of-the-art cameras as something amiss?” Ben glared at George
as if he’d just denied the existence of God.

George, an amiable lad of twenty or so,
grinned. “I didn’t mean that, Ben. Of course, it’s something. It’s
a disaster. What I meant was that we don’t know if a person’s
behind it. Maybe it was an accident.”