To Kill the Duke (26 page)

Dick Powell and Oscar Millard walked back to the car, laughing. Suddenly Dick grabbed Oscar’s arm and yanked him around.

“What the hell am I going to tell Hughes!” he yelled.

“The truth,” replied Millard.

“He’ll take the cost of those stupid trays out of my salary,” Dick moaned.

“No he won’t. Tell him they are being used and enjoyed by everyone on the set, because you know once everyone is up here, the thing to do when not filming will be sand skiing,” Millard said.

“Right… the truth. Of course,” Powell said as he wondered if anyone (including him) who worked in show business knew what the truth was, and if Howard Hughes even cared about the truth.

“Then again, with those boots he makes his staff wear, maybe I can get him to retrofit the boots to the trays and also help him market a whole new recreational sport. After all, Howard loves speed and those horses were pulling my stuntmen really fast,” Dick said to Millard.

Dick Powell was in his trailer, just about to fall asleep with the thought of Hughes buying the truth about the trays (and maybe the boots) in his mind. He heard a loud knock on his door.

Now what? Sand skiing at night and one of the horses has died? My best stuntmen killed in an accident?

“Dick, it’s me, Ed,” said the man from behind the door.

Ed was Ed Killy. A terrific second-unit director.

I was right… crap
, Powell thought.

“There’s a police escort for you out front. Duke is on the phone down at that general store in Podunk,” Killy said.

“What’s Podunk?!” Powell yelled as he started to dress. “What’s Duke doing on the phone at this hour? Why do I need a police escort?”

“Podunk is slang for the middle of nowhere,” replied Ed “I don’t know the answers to the other questions.”

“How come I didn’t know what Podunk meant?” Powell muttered to himself sarcastically, as he let out a big sigh of relief that the knock at the door wasn’t going to cost him any money or cast a spell of doom over the filming, something Dick had seen from time to time throughout his years in the movie business.

Or was it? What if Duke was backing out? What if something happened to him? Maybe he broke one of his legs doing one of those practical jokes of his? Maybe….

Dick Powell’s negative thinking was broken up by Ed Killy, who was still pounding on the door. A pound that any good actor like Dick Powell understood to mean ‘hurry up.’

“I’ll be right there Ed. Do you know how Wayne got a police escort for me at this hour?” Powell asked as he opened up the door.

“He didn’t. Howard did,” Killy replied.

Figures,
Powell thought as he tucked in his shirt and made his way to the car that was waiting for him.

“You know Dick, for a guy who just got out of bed, you look really great,” Ed commented as he followed Dick to the car.

“I used to be a movie star. You know what they say ‘once a movie star… always a movie star,’” Powell said with a bow.

“Then why did you become a producer and a director?” asked Ed.

“A bigger office,” Powell said with a sigh. “That, and I’m not put ‘on-hold’ as much as I was when I was an actor.”

The police escort turned out to be just one officer, and he wasn’t the type of cop that Dick was accustomed to. He was a deputy sheriff.

Is there a difference between being a cop and a deputy?”
Dick wondered as he gave the kid in the front seat the once-over.

They probably don’t have cops and detectives out here in the West. Only sheriffs and deputies
he mused, as the young kid put the sheriff’s cruiser into drive and in so doing, pressed a little too hard on the gas pedal and sprayed sand, dirt and pebbles all over the place.

“Trying to impress me?” Powell asked of his driver. “Because if you are, I don’t need stunt drivers for this movie.”

“I’m the one impressed, sir,” the young deputy answered. “But I’m nervous, so excuse me for the way I pulled out.”

“No problem, deputy,” Powell said. “This being the West, I assume that there are only sheriffs and deputies?”

“No sir. There are bad guys, or there wouldn’t be a need for sheriffs and deputies,” the young deputy answered.

Powell rolled his eyes, but the kid was right. “How would he know what I’m thinking,” he said under his breath.

“I mean there are no policemen or detectives like I see in Los Angeles,” Dick Powell said.

“This
is
the West Mr. Powell, so of course you’re not going to see a cop on a motorcycle… or a detective wearing a fedora,” the young deputy said.

“Do you guys still ride horses?”

“We have a mounted unit, if that’s what you mean.”

“Well, we have a mounted unit in Los Angeles, so there is at least one thing we have in common,” Powell pointed out.

Now the deputy sheriff rolled his eyes.
Boy, for a big-time movie person, is this guy boring. I better shut up
the deputy thought.

Boy, do I sound like someone pitching a boring product on the radio
Powell thought.

They drove in silence for a while. Dick believed he had at least another half hour to go. He had decided to offer the young man a job as a security guard when this night was all over and the deputy had returned him to his trailer. This made him feel good, and he relaxed. When he did this, he realized he had to take a piss and that he couldn’t hold it in for much longer.

And this embarrassed him.

What do I do?
Dick Powell pondered as he squeezed his penis between his inner thighs as a way of fighting off the urge. It didn’t work. It made him have to go even harder and quicker than he had first realized.

He tried thinking about others things to take his mind off the need to urinate. This only made him realize how bad he had to go, and he cursed this urge under his breath.

“Did you say something sir?” the young deputy asked him

“You’re not going to believe this deputy, but I have to go to the bathroom,” Dick said rather reluctantly.

“There’s a rest stop right around the bend. Can you hold it?” the deputy asked. “By the way Mr. Powell, why wouldn’t I believe that?”

“As long as around the bend means around the bend, I can hold it. Many times ‘around the bend’ means ten more miles,” Powell said.

The deputy sheriff rolled his eyes again and smiled.

Looking to make conversation, as well as to stop appearing foolish — not to mention keeping his mind off his need to go — Powell asked the only question that seemed appropriate.

“Do you have to stop and take pisses when patrolling these roads?”

“You’re not going to believe
this
Mr. Powell, but only when I have to take a leak,” replied the deputy. “See that light up a ways. There’s your relief.”

The deputy floored the car and within seconds, Dick Powell was out of the car, emptying his bladder. He couldn’t believe how much it hurt in and around the inside of his piping, and he made a mental note to have a doctor flown up for tests. He hoped it was nothing more than holding in a full bladder for too long of a time.

He got a good glimpse of the deputy sheriff, and realized that the kid looked like he had come straight out of central casting for a young, deputy sheriff who is the first one killed in a B-Movie film noir. He thanked the driver for being attentive towards his needs, and offered him the job as a security officer on the set.

“I’d rather touch it,” the deputy shyly replied.

This is not good
, Powell thought as he stopped dead in his tracks and cringed.

“The phone… after you talk to John Wayne on it. Can I touch it?”

Dick Powell sighed like he had never sighed before.

“Kiddo, get me there quick and I’ll let you talk to the Duke,” promised Dick Powell.

And the deputy fainted.

And I hired this guy to be a security guard on a movie set!?

Dick Powell wasn’t in bad shape. “So how come I can’t lug this light weight into the car?” he asked the dark sky as he dragged the deputy to the passenger side of the police car. Being from Hollywood, Dick Powell knew about fainters. After all, he had not only played a doctor, he had known many other actors who had portrayed doctors as well as nurses.

He just didn’t have a clue as to how much a body weighed when it was considered ‘dead weight,’ which was what the deputy’s body was as Dick strained to put him in the passenger seat.

“I talked to doctors to learn about fainters for when I played a doctor,” Dick said to the deputy, when he’d come to during the drive down to the general store, and had asked what had happened.

“So, if you play a deputy sheriff in the future, you’ll ask me about my experiences?” the deputy asked.

“No question about that,” lied Dick, who was suddenly having fun driving the deputy’s law-enforcement vehicle.
If Duke could see me now
, he mused as he switched on the car’s flashing lights and pressed down on the gas pedal.

“How long was I out?” the deputy sheriff asked the man that
he
was supposed to be driving.

“Not long… a few minutes at most. I have seen fans faint at premieres and at public places. They’re usually only out a few seconds,” Powell said. “Of course actors and actresses faint on sets sometimes, too, but that’s another discussion for another time. You don’t mind me driving fast and flashing the lights, do you kid?” Powell asked the deputy.

“Will I still have the job as security guard?” the deputy asked.

“Of course,” said Dick, knowing that he could still have his joyride in the car, for the job.

“Speed and flash away, Mr. Powell,” said the deputy. A moment passed in silence. “But if I was only out for a few minutes, how did I get into the car? Surely, it had to take you longer to drag me inside,” the deputy reasoned.

“You might still make detective and get to wear a fedora. I think you hit your head when you fainted or when I labored to drag you along the roadside. You might have a slight concussion,” guessed Powell.

“You sure know your doctoring business,” the deputy said.

“The concussion thing I know from being on movie sets. You would be amazed at how many people get hit on the head by falling scenery, a swinging camera, a stunt gone badly or an attempted pass at a married person,” Dick Powell said.

“This isn’t going to affect my job on your set, is it?” the deputy asked, not wanting to comment on what Dick Powell just said, because he wanted that job.

“No way, kiddo. I gave you my word,” Powell said as he eased the car into the soft dirt in the parking lot of the general store. “Aren’t you interested in asking me about the ‘married person’ comment?”

“No way, Mr. Powell. I’m not into gossip,” the deputy replied.

“I like you kid. I can see I used great judgment in hiring you,” said Powell, happy that there was at least one other person in the world besides himself who hated gossip. “Think you can make it, deputy?”

“I can make it,” the deputy told Powell.

“I’d feel better if you’d let me guide you,” Powell said.

“No sir,” replied the deputy as he opened up the car door, stepped out onto the parking lot and immediately fell to the ground in a heap.