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“Maybe we should talk business first,” Bailey said.
“Whatever I can do to help,” he said.
“It’s about Lucinda Arceneaux,” she said.
The light went out of his face.
“We’re pretty sure she knew people among your group,” I said. That was a lie, but that’s the way it works. You stretch the spider web across the doorway and hope the right person will walk through it.
“Like who in our group?” he said, looking around.
“She was young, idealistic, and naive,” I said. “A country girl full of dreams about Hollywood. Think any of these guys would latch on to a girl like that?”
“You’re tarring everybody with the same brush, Dave,” he said. “You put me in mind of those guys back in the fifties. Joe McCarthy and Nixon and the like.”
“Nothing so grandiose,” I said. “There’s a Texas convict on the ground here. His name is Tillinger. He’s a convicted killer. He believed Lucinda Arceneaux knew movie people who could help him get off death row. He headed here, to the place where she lived and where you’re making a film.”
“This is over my head,” Desmond said.
In the background I saw Antoine Butterworth and Lou Wexler arguing. Wexler was wearing white slacks. He had flattened his hands and stuck both of them into his back pockets, like a baseball manager giving it to an umpire. He stepped away from Butterworth and came toward us, flicking his fingers as though looking for a towel. “You’ve got to get that bloody sod off my back before I shove his head in one of these crawfish holes,” he said to Desmond.
“No more of this, Lou,” Desmond said.
“Very sorry to bring a problem to you,” Wexler said. “I thought you were the director.”
“What’s the issue?” Desmond said.
“I told him you wanted to pick it up at oh-six-hundred tomorrow,” Wexler said. “The weather forecast is perfect. We’ll have clouds across a pink sky, the shadows on the salt grass. The tide will be out, the sand slick, and driftwood sticking up like bones. The bastard doesn’t get it. He says the union will complain.”
“I’ll talk to him. We shoot at oh-six,” Desmond said. “No more spit fights.”
“I knew him in Africa, Des,” Wexler said. “He was afraid of the wogs and afraid of his own shadow. You ever meet a coward who wasn’t a backstabbing shit?”
“We don’t have that language on the set,” Desmond said.
Wexler looked at Bailey and me as though seeing us for the first time. “Sorry, all.”
“Forget it,” Desmond said. He put his arms over both Bailey’s shoulders and mine. “Let’s have something to eat.”
“We’ll pass on the food,” I said. “What’s that stuff about the wogs?”
“Lou likes to throw around mercenary references,” Desmond said. “Actually, he and Antoine made their money in video games.”
“What kind of video games?” I said.
“Urban guerrilla themes. Blowing things apart. A bit like Grand Theft Auto,” he replied.
“Themes?” I said.
“Come on, Dave,” he said. “Be a sport and enjoy life. Have some fun on the set. It’s like Burt Reynolds once told me: ‘Why grow up when you can make movies?’?”
“Is that why you make them?” I said.
The sun was like a giant ruby nestled in a clump of purple clouds on the tip of the wetlands. He looked at me, his eyes full of thoughts I couldn’t read. “No, that’s not why I make them. Not at all.”
“So tell us why,” Bailey said.
“They allow you to place your hand inside eternity. It’s the one experience we share with the Creator. That’s what making films is about.”
