Smoke and Ashes (8 page)

“What?”

“RKO movie with Howard Keel and Janette Scott. Although I think it was a meteor shower that actually blinded people. They mention it in the
Rocky Horror Picture Show.
” Frowning, he reached for a plastic six-legged octopus and got his hand slapped.

“So there are no new ideas in television. Quel surprise. Not.” She moved the octopus out of his reach. “No one will notice we stole it.”

“I'll notice.”

“Yeah, and if you spent more time learning wizard shit and less time watching Movie Central, you might be useful.”

“For what?”

“That's the question, isn't it?” Leaning back in her chair, she laced her fingers over the line of skulls embroidered onto her raw cotton shirt and smiled. Tony mistrusted the smile. “So, an afternoon off with the new boyfriend?”

And that was why. “You're delusional.”

“I just want you to be happy.”

“We were at the morgue.”

“Cool. Why?”

“He wanted me to look at a body.”

“Kinky. Pre-or post-autopsy?”

Tony couldn't remember any stitching, so he guessed. “Pre.”

“Kinkier.”

Before the conversation could devolve further, they were distracted by a young woman fighting to get a Dutch windmill through the front doors and into the office. She looked familiar.

“This is the last one they have,” she gasped over the noise of balsa wood and canvas hitting the floor, “so it better be the right one.”

“They?” Tony asked, ducking a flimsy-looking blade. “Windmills R Us?”

“Prop shop over at Bridge,” Amy explained. “We borrowed it. And before you ask, I suspect it was part of some bucolic alien landscape.”

“I was actually going to ask if they know we plan on burning it down in a blatant
Frankenstein
rip-off.”

“With any luck, that would be a big fat no and, according to the writers, it's not a rip-off, it's an homage. Krista, this is Tony, our TAD. Tony, this is Krista, the new office PA.”

“Hey!” Krista waved a hand in Tony's general direction. “I don't suppose you could help me get this onto the soundstage.”

“Through there?” He glanced toward the scuffed door that led to the hall that led to the soundstage that led to the show that CB built. Lined with racks of extra costumes, the hall was barely wide enough for one and not even remotely wide enough for one and a windmill.

“Well, duh.”

“Not possible. You'll have to take it outside and go around to the carpenter's door.”

Krista looked at the windmill and then at the bloody knuckles she'd acquired getting it into the office. “You're fucking kidding me.”

“He really isn't,” Amy told her cheerfully.

The new PA's brows drew in, stretching the blue crescent moon on the left side of her forehead. “This is a test, isn't it?”

As Amy shook her head, Tony leaned close and murmured, “You're lucky. The last two got sent to Starbucks.”

“Bad?”

“One of them's still there.”

“Right.” She took a deep breath and began to force the windmill back outside.

“Need some help?”

“No, thanks. I've got it.”

Tony backed toward Amy's desk as something cracked. His view blocked by the base of the windmill, so it was impossible to tell what.

“Get out of my way, you fucking asshat,” Krista's voice snapped out like a whip.

Or who.

“I think I'm starting to like her,” Amy said, grabbing for the phone. “She has a way with words. CB Productions.”

“I definitely like her,” Tony growled as Kevin Groves came into the office cradling his left arm. Anyone who recognized Groves for the fucking asshat he truly was, was a person worth knowing. “Hey,” he waved a hand in front of Amy's face. “I'm out of here.”

She nodded at him and began explaining the company policy regarding their actors and reality shows. As far as Tony knew, CB didn't actually have a company policy. Amy just enjoyed maligning the intelligence of reality show producers on CB's dime.

“Tony Foster.” Groves' voice matched his looks: thin and unmemorable.

“Can't talk.” Tony spun on one heel, rubber squealing against tile, and headed for the exit. “Have to work.”

“Just a few minutes of your time.”

“No.”

“Why were you out riding with RCMP Constable Jack Elson?”

“Ask him.”

“Is it true you're lovers?”

Tony turned in the open doorway and laughed in Groves' face. “You know, you should ask Constable Elson that—but wait until I'm there so I can watch you get your ass kicked.”

“I just intended to get your attention.” Groves took a step closer. His jaw worked at a wad of gum. Spearmint from the smell. He was holding up his PDA, the record icon flashing. “Were you with him today because of the construction worker who was killed last night by your location shoot?”

“
My
location shoot?”

“Fine. By the show's location shoot. By the location being used by the television program known as
Darkest Night
. Whatever. Do the police believe that supernatural forces are responsible for the removal of the man's arm?”

Groves knowing the arm had been removed was better than him knowing it had been bitten off, Tony supposed. Over one of the reporter's polyester-clad shoulders, he saw Amy stick her head in Mason's office. “Are you on cheap drugs?” he asked conversationally.

“Do you use drugs to heighten your senses?” Groves asked in turn.

Tony smiled as Jennifer, Mason's personal assistant, emerged. Part of Jennifer's job was to protect Mason from unwanted press attention. When she was in a good mood, she extended that protection to the rest of the studio. His smile widened as one set of impeccably manicured fingers clamped down on Groves' shoulder and the other reached low to give the wedgie to end all wedgies.

He joined in Amy's applause as Jennifer frog-marched the reporter across the office by the grip she maintained on the waistband of his tighty whiteys—which was now considerably higher than his waist.

“Foster!” Not surprisingly, Groves' voice sounded shriller than usual. “Does this have anything to do with the Demonic Convergence?”

He stopped applauding and ducked quickly through the door, closing it behind him before Groves could see his face.

“Demonic Convergence?”

Too late to hide his expression from Lee, who'd apparently been lurking in the hall, one arm draped nonchalantly over a rack of faux Gypsy-wear.

“Tabloid reporter.” Tony shrugged, hoping he sounded a lot more dismissive than he felt. “That sort of shit's his stock in trade.”

“Like haunted houses.”

“Sure.” Shit. Not sure. The last thing he wanted was for Lee, who knew damned well haunted houses were real, to start thinking they were about to be involved in an actual Demonic Convergence. Which they were. Tony worked his way past a pair of gorilla suits wondering how the hell Groves had known about the DC. Had Leah spoken to him? And if she had, why? And if she hadn't, how else…?

“Tony!”

He turned just far enough to see that Lee had followed him. Given his ongoing obsession with the actor, not noticing that kind of proximity had to be healthy. Healthier had he not been distracted by the thought of Leah taking Kevin Groves, of all people, into her confidence, but lately he'd take any emotional stability he could get.

“Well?”

From Lee's tone of voice, he'd missed half of an entire conversation. “Sorry. I wasn't listening.”

“Yeah. I noticed.” And Lee wasn't happy about it. Another time, a time when Tony didn't have an immortal stuntwoman, a gung ho RCMP constable, and a Demonic Convergence to deal with—
and let's not forget there's also something out there that reduced a grown man to snack food
—Lee's unhappiness at his lack of attention would be bringing on a case of the warm fuzzies.

Another time.

Right now, he had rather a lot on his plate. Did Jack expect him to go hunting the snack-food-reducing monster? Because that so wasn't going to happen.

“Tony!”

“Right. Sorry. Distracted.”

Lee sighed and ran a hand up through his hair. “I was just asking if there was anything in what Groves said. That you were out with Constable Elson because a construction worker got killed.”

He wanted to be a part of it—whatever it turned out to be. It was obvious in his voice, in his expression, in his body language. Everything said:
Let me help you.

Oh, yeah, like Tony was going to let
that
happen. In the last six months, Lee had been possessed three times and there was no way in hell—any hell—that he was going to add to that list.

Let me help you.

Why?

Because I seem to have a deep-seated metaphysical death wish I'm not even aware of. Maybe it stems from my repressed sexual identity, but since that's tied up with you, too, I guess I'm in the right place.

No fucking way. He was not going to be responsible for Lee getting whammied yet again. Tony managed a near approximation of a smutty grin and flashed it in the actor's general direction. “Hate to admit it, but Groves was right. I was with Constable Elson because we were having hot Mountie sex in the cab of his truck.”

Long pause.

Lee stared.

Tony kept grinning.

Finally, Lee sighed again, the exhalation a type of surrender. “CB let you off work for that?”

“Yeah, the boss is all about keeping the cops happy.” He started walking again. Once in the soundstage, Peter'd have them both back at work and this conversation would be over. “Just be thankful Jack's not interested in your ass, or he'd pimp you out, too.”

“You call him Jack?”

“When I call him other things, he reminds me he's armed.”

“Tony…”

Tony sped up just enough to keep Lee's hand from landing on his shoulder.
Goddamn it!
The red light was on, and they were stuck together at the end of the hall, waiting for the camera to stop rolling in a space barely a meter square. They were
not
going to talk about the Demonic Convergence. He was not going to give Lee the chance to talk him into changing his mind, then somehow put himself in danger, and confuse the hell out of both of them when Tony had to ride to the rescue. Again. “So, how's the blonde?”

Lee frowned. “Which blonde?”

“You can't keep track?”

“Sure, but…”

“The one you took to the latest premiere.” Hands curved out in front of his chest indicated her dominant features. “Nice picture of the two of you in
TV Week
.”

“Ah, yeah…Judith. She's fine. Great.”

“Rented?”

“Jesus, Tony.” Lee rolled his eyes. “No, she was not fucking rented.”

“Borrowed?”

“Where do you go to borrow a blonde?”

Tony snorted. “Probably not the same place you do. So how was the movie?”

“What movie?”

“The one you went to with the borrowed blonde.”

“Obviously, not great; I don't remember it. How was the morgue?”

Nice try. “What morgue?”

“The one you went to with
your
borrowed blond.”

“Before or after the hot Mountie sex?”

“Look, Tony, if you don't want me to have any part of this—whatever this is—all you have to do is say so.”

A long moment passed, and it was as if all that guy banter hadn't happened. They were back at the Demonic Convergence part of the conversation.

Tony'd never noticed before that the red light made a noise when it went off. Sort of a faint
plock.
“I don't want you to have any part of this,” he said, yanked open the door, and stepped out onto the soundstage.

 

He hadn't expected to be done with work by sunset let alone have time to get from the studio to VanTerm before Leah finished her stunt. But at 5:50, almost an hour before the sun actually went down, he was in his car and heading west on Hastings, squinting behind the shield of his dark glasses.

VanTerm was a container terminal up on Burrard Inlet. Eventually, everyone shooting any kind of shipping scene in the Vancouver area ended up there because its layout made it easy to crop the shot. For the short time Tony'd been paying attention, it had stood in for San Francisco, New York, New Jersey, Singapore, Gotham City, and at least two alien planets, not to mention the half-dozen times it had actually played itself. It was the UBC of shipping locations.