No Footprints (5 page)

Macomber Dale pulled open the passenger door and plopped himself in, primed for battle.

I just laughed. ‟What're you doing?”

‟Auditing my investment.”

‟Good you're sitting, 'cause you're going to be bored to death.”

‟Oh, no, not me.”

Outside the camera crew was adjusting the tracks for the dolly camera that would parallel the action. My first run would be almost slo-mo, that camera chugging beside me. There was another on the sidewalk near the corner hidden behind a plant and an overhead at the corner to get the spin, plus one mounted on the dashboard giving the driver's-eye view. After those were in the can we'd set up the speed shot, cameras in place to catch the car vrooming around the corner, smacking a flower or taco or fruit stand and screeching off. The whole sequence would be woven into shots of the actress in the driver's seat pretending to drive her unmoving car.

I turned off the engine.

Dale shot me a look. ‟What're you doing?”

‟Waiting.”

‟Why?”

‟That's what movie making is. For me. You, you can leave any time.”

But he didn't. He settled back against the window and said, ‟So, just how long've you been a stunt girl?”

I filed away the ‟girl.” ‟Professionally? Since college.”

‟You been doing car tricks all that time?”

Car tricks? Girl?
Did the guy think I'd never been goaded? Me, with three older brothers? Me, who'd spent twenty years in a testosterone job. I wasn't going to lose it again. Let him try. ‟I've done this, high falls, burn work. You have to have the whole package.”

‟Just what is your package?”

The camera slid back three yards and Jed signaled me forward. Except for momentary glee at the end of a saved gag, he always looked like a desiccated lemon worried about life on the compost heap. But now he seemed more unnerved than normal and the cause of that distress was Macomber here in the car with me. Jed was hoping for peace, hoping I'd get that. I did.

I eased off the clutch so smoothly we were halfway there before we felt the car moving.

‟How's this baby been modified?”

‟Shop in Berkeley.”

He started to reply and caught himself.

‟You done driving like in
Matrix?
You pancaked cars?”

The camera on the dolly slid forward. I peered around the dashboard mount that would give the driver's-eye view, and followed.

‟How many bones you break?”

Where did this guy come from? He was like ultimate groupie meets Mr. Snide! Money was tight, but . . .

Money was tight. I played the clutch against the gas and inched forward.

‟How many times—”

‟Macomber—”

‟Mac. It's Mac. And don't tell me to stop with the questions. People've been saying that all my life—”

‟Slow learner?”

‟Want to know why? 'Cause I got questions. That's how come I'm where I am and—”

‟My turn. You ready to answer?”

‟Fire away.”

I turned to him. If he'd been a dog he'd've been one of those little yappers. But he wouldn't have been bad looking if he'd ever been still enough to judge. Dark brown eyes, black hair cut short, obligatory jeans and black T-shirt, three of those colored bracelets for charity. His fingers were on the dashboard camera. In a minute he'd be messing with the lens.

I said, ‟Have you ever tried suicide?” It just came out.

For an instant he was still. ‟No.”

‟You're lying, aren't you?”

‟No.”

‟But you've considered it.”

‟Hell, who hasn't? I bet you have, haven't you? Am I right?”

‟I'll tell you if you answer me this.”

He gave a sharp nod.

‟What is life?”

‟Huh?”

‟You decided you didn't want to die. What is it you don't want to give up? What is ‛life'?”

‟What kind of question—”

‟This is how stunt doubles talk while we're waiting.”
As if!
‟So?” I'd asked to unnerve him, with luck to get rid of him. But now I was curious what he'd say.

He started to speak but didn't. He felt for the lever and pushed the seat back. He glanced at the door, reached for the handle, and hesitated. He was wavering between options, both of which were going to reduce him in my mind and maybe his own. If he could come up with a good exit line, he'd be home free. But that kind of thing, either you've got it or you don't. There's no crafting it.

Clearly, he was in the
don't
column.

His eyes had drawn back as if into a picture he didn't want to see. He looked like ending his life was a reasonable option. My question had been serious, but I'd never intended this grim a reaction. He said, ‟Life? It's better than death. At least with life you know what you've got.”

‟The devil you know? That's all?”

‟Yeah. Now you? When did you think about suicide?”

He hadn't answered me, not really, but I hadn't expected him to. What he had done was stop jerking around. That was worth an answer. ‟At the end of college.”

‟Why didn't you do it?”

‟I wanted to go to New Orleans first. I figured that meant I wasn't real serious.”

‟You're lying.”

‟You don't know the lure of the Big Easy. I went as soon as I graduated, had the time of my life.”

‟I still say you're lying.”

Suddenly, I felt bad about my not-exactly-truth. ‟I came upon a jumper on the bridge yesterday and pulled her back.”

‟So that's it?”

I couldn't tell what he meant by that. But I didn't have time to worry about it. The cameraman signaled. I was twenty feet from the corner. I checked the street. All clear. Tomorrow there'd be a mocked-up wagon on the cross street. Today there was a big cardboard X. I hit the gas, made speed, punched the emergency brake, and pulled the wheel a quarter turn to the left. The car screeched into a controlled skid, the bread and butter of stunt drivers. We spun wide at the corner. Tomorrow I'd make the brake squeal loud enough to wake the dead. Right before I was headed onto the cross street I let out the brake. The tires caught. I gave the wheel a flutter, knocked down the X, and pulled up.

Before it came to a stop, Mac leaned and hit the horn. He shot me a gotcha grin.

‟Stop! What're you—” I shoved him into the door. He bounced against it, hit the horn again.

‟Are you crazy?”

‟Yeah! So?” He flung open the door, stumbled out, and stalked off the set.

The entire crew stood dead still, staring.

My phone vibrated.

I hesitated. Jed was charging after him. The phone shivered again.

Suddenly Jed was on his own phone. Dale kept on moving around the corner and was gone. With huge relief I pulled out my cell. The voicemail came from a number I didn't recognize, but the voice I sure did.

Mike. ‟Two possibles. One's a resale shop in the Women's Building on 17th. But the other is L Young on Filbert.” He paused and for a moment I thought he was gone. But he added the Filbert address and cross street.

Since he'd been back, it'd been a thrill just to hear his voice. But this time I wished he'd shown up here in person, with a car. It was after seven o'clock. If she was a government employee, L Young could be leaving for work any minute. If her job was at the stock exchange she was already there. Would I have to wait till evening to find out? Evening, when she could be back on the bridge?

Filbert was across town. I needed to think about how I was going to get there. But now, suddenly, there was plenty to occupy me in this second run-through of the gag.

Jed had managed to convince the police rep to extend our permit time. But the negotiations took a
kalpa
—in Sanskrit, the time during which water might, drop by drop, reduce Mt. Everest to Lake Everest—and though I didn't see money changing hands, I heard the name Declan Serrano mentioned. I knew he did nothing for free.

Meanwhile, everything that had not gone wrong on the first run now began to. The drive on the camera cart locked. The light shifted, bounced off a shiny metal sign into my eyes and, more importantly, into the dashboard lens. It took a minor
kalpa
to roust the building owner and get the sign covered. And so on. By the time we finished it was almost nine o'clock and the chances of finding L Young at home had plummeted. Still, you don't try to kill yourself and trot into work the next morning. With luck, she was in bed, still stunned by her close call with death.

Right after Mike disappeared, twenty years ago when I was in high school, food lost any flavor, every step was a trudge, and any word of comfort an intrusion. I'd never made a suicide plan, but Macomber Dale was right—I'd thought about it.

Now, for the first time, I wondered if my brothers and sisters, if Mom herself, had had that seductive urge to just end the pain of missing him, of picturing him dead—of wondering what they might have done to cause it.

‟Darcy!”

When I looked up, Jed was almost at the window. ‟The city shut us down!”

‟I thought we had a permit?”

‟We did—until you leaned on the horn and woke up the neighborhood. How many calls d'you think it takes to the cops—”

‟Hey, wait! That wasn't me hitting the horn. That was that ass Macomber Dale.”

‟But you—”

‟Me nothing!”

‟You—”

‟Stop! Just stop it now. Just—” I was inhaling, focusing on it for the length of that breath. If I were the second unit director—‟Who the hell is Macomber Dale anyway? And why are we stuck with him on the set?”

Jed looked about to snap at me, then he just sighed. ‟He's . . . what he seems—a loose cannon. He's been on the fringes for years trying to get a foothold in production.”

‟I can see why he failed, but how come we—?”

‟He got enough money from Aaron Adamé's wife—”

‟Oh.” No need to ask if that mover-and-shaker loot was what was keeping us afloat. ‟So, then, what do we need to pay—
give
—Serrano?”

‟Zip. If it was just one call, he could ignore it. A couple, he could drag out the response till the weekend. But not the whole fucking neighborhood.”

‟He can do what he wants; that's what I've heard.”

‟He doesn't want. It's already been a big hassle; makes him look bad in the neighborhood and downtown, too. We're not getting any favors from him, now, thanks to you—thanks to the horn. You know if you'd—”

‟Yeah well I didn't, and neither did you. The next time you see that jerk you can tell him he's screwing us. What about Berkeley?”

Jed stared. ‟Berkeley?”

‟The marina. We could do this scene there.”

‟And redo half the story line?”

I took another deep breath. And in that time I missed my turn in the argument.

Jed was so into the flow he picked up the other side. ‟We haven't shot the lead up. It'd take some adjusting, but it's not impossible.”

‟This week? Just the negotiations—”

‟But if we're clear and crisp on the parameters—”

‟We don't have parameters.”

‟We can get them.” He paused. ‟
You
can get them. I'll call you with the contact in Berkeley. Get me the stats today.”

‟By three. I don't want to be calling over there when the only people picking up the phone are on their way home.”

Impossible!
I stuck out my hand and said, ‟Done.” Stunt work was scarce and getting more so. No way could I blow off this job, or Jed Elliot, not if I ever planned to be stunt coordinator.

In less than an hour Macomber Dale had managed to piss off everyone on the set, residents all around, and the main cop in the Mission district. Amazing.

As for me, I was livid and, at the same time, desperate to get to Filbert and talk to L Young. Still, I could scoot over the bridge now and scope out
the site enough for the paperwork. I'd lived in Berkeley all through college. I knew the marina. It'd be less than two hours before I swung back by Filbert Street. Two hours really wouldn't make any difference, I told myself, and I could not just ignore my job.
Why do you even care about her now?
my oldest brother'd demand.
You saved her, isn't that enough? Let it go!

But I couldn't, not yet, anyway. I couldn't even explain why. But it didn't matter because soon I'd be face to face with her—or at least someone she'd intended to phone—and, maybe, I'd see that she was okay.

‟Okay, I'm off,” I said to Jed.

‟Not so fast. Nellen needs to do some work on the car.” He nodded at the camera crew guy over by the lunch wagon.

‟How long?”

‟Hour, he says.”

I didn't bother to ask what that meant in real time. Filbert now; Berkeley Marina after.

I passed Nellen the key and the garage location, snagged a donut from the lunch wagon, considered another coffee and, sadly, admitted that the point of no return had already come. Normally, I'd've bemoaned the rest of the day spent in the bland and arid land of no coffee, but right now I didn't have time.

Cabs do exist in San Francisco, but you wouldn't know it unless you're at a hotel. I turned to Nellen. ‟Did you drive here?”

A couple minutes later I was saying I owed him, sliding into his Jeep Cherokee, and thinking luck was with me.