Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 15:33:51 -0400 From: "J. Hall" Subject: Re: [WRITERS] INT: Goldman Pictures Continues, Lights, Camera...Action > She looked up with deep brown eyes and dropped her lashes. "No, I'm not. You are going to help me aren't you?" > "You could get me killed." > She leaned up and kissed him softly on the cheek. "You are going to help me aren't you?" > "Do I have a choice?" > > Reinie ran her fingers under my lapels. Up and down, slowly. I took that for a no. She bit her lower lip and looked at me like I was one of Johhny Fong's lamb chops at Ciro's. I tried frowning. It didn't work. Maybe she'd never seen a lamb chop frown. Mentally, I added up everything I was worth. A Crosley with bad tires, some Paramount stock I'd been paid with in '49 that was somewhere in a tin box in a bank, three good suits (one of them black, funerals being an occupational hazard of detectives in this town), a big yellow cat who'd stayed with me when Caroline wouldnt and a roll of uncounted money Tony DeLauro had tossed my way to watch his daughter. The daughter who was so close I could count the tiny trimmed hairs in her eyebrows. Gardenias and greed grew wild in her little flower box and I weighed what it would cost to get out of this versus how much fun it would be to stay. I nodded and dropped my hands off her shoulders. "If I go along with this, and Tony finds out, I'm dead," I said sadly. She laughed. Little tripping musical laugh, like a Nora would laugh at Nick. "Oh don't be silly, he's not going to find out until he's back inside." Good old optomistic Nora. "Uhuh. And if I turn around and walk out of here and just forget I ever met you, Tony's boys will treat me to a boxcar barbeque, won't they? After you lean on his suit and murmur tales of lecherous old me and what horrible things I made you do." An attempt at innocence slid across her eyes like the credits for Don Winslow of the Navy, and just as quick vanished into cement. "Possibly," she smiled. "But it won't go that way, will it?" In that dress, in that wig, in that light, she was irresistable and she knew it. The lady or the tiger again. Why does it always end up the lady or the tiger in this town? I ran the numbers. They came out in a long paper tape smeared with lipstick. At least it didn't have bullet holes in it. "No, I don't think it will," I sighed. She tossed a strand of hair back and looked around. "What a dump," she vamped. Not a bad Bette. I'd heard worse. "I have a plan." I was afraid of that. "So do I, " I replied, and fixed the strap on her dress that had slid down. Red silk. She had shoulders like Lake too. "Fix your wig Nora, we have a date with a producer." A little nightlight of hope went off in my head when she smiled. Maybe she was actress enough to pull it off. Maybe I wouldn't end up tied to an anvil at the bottom of Lake Mead. Maybe I should call Marlowe at Palm Springs and ask if he needed backup on the golf course. I walked over to a phone in the corner, the only furnishings in the place, and made a few calls. She listened, leaning against the wall nearby. "This will only work if Tony took over the rackets at the other studios," I said. "I think so," she said. "But he runs everything out of Warners. I looked at his books while you were playing fireman with Alan Ladd." I figured as much. If DeLauro saw her in person he might not make her for his neice but I didn't want to take that chance. "Ok," I said, leading her out into the light of the morning. She held my hand tightly for a second, giving it a squeeze before jumping into the Crosley. I closed the door behind her and walked around, that weightless, standing-on-the-edge-of-the-cliff feeling overwhelmed me for a moment. I slid in to the driver's seat and gunned the little engine ferociously. She turned, sunlight glinting off her dark glasses. "So you wanna be in pictures," I said out of the side of my mouth. Reinie leaned her head back. "No, I wanna own them," she said. "First things first, " I replied, making the turn toward Paramount, checking the rearview mirror. No Lincolns. "We have to get you a part. Something where you can hang around snooping into whatever Tony is running at another studio." She nodded, following along. "The guy you heard me talking to, the last call, that was Maurice Bly. He's producing over here and he owes me a favor." Reinie sat up as we pulled into the studio gates, the arching Paramount sign passing over our heads. It should have said 'Abandon hope all ye who enter' but it didn't. The guard took my name, checked me off the list and told me to drive back to Soundstage Nine, I was expected. "What kind of picture is he making?" she asked, her voice suddenly richer. I knew she had an acting bug, despite the Madam Sin routine. She'd own it all someday if we didn't get caught but I'd met few women who couldn't resist the camera's call. Even for a little while. "How do you feel about Robin Hood," I laughed. Reinie groaned. "Green isn't my color." "Too bad," I said, driving up behind a parked truck and getting out. A long line of actors in medieval costume were standing behind it, loose script pages in their hands. She got out slowly, drawing gazes at the flash of leg. "We're here," I said. Bly was waiting at the side door in a cardigan and worn loafers looking unhappy. He took us both in and shook his head. "She's the one?" he asked, his jowls wiggling over a tennis court tan. "Your next Lady In Waiting to Maid Marian," I announced and he shrugged resignedly, handing her a sheaf of typed pages. "Go read this and come back in an hour," Bly told her. She looked at me, then him, then the part. Then grinned evilly. Bly turned and walked back inside. I started to follow him and she grabbed my arm. "Where the hell are you going?" she demanded. "I need to see if there's a back way out, " I smiled. "The sprinkler system here doesn't work. Go read. I'll be back after your test and we'll get Bly to sign the papers. Once you're a contract player we're going to play a little roulette downstairs." Reinie Hinton put the script down and kissed me hard. "You think that's something?" she whispered. My lips thought it was something and I said so. "Well buster," she said, getting closer, "on page two of this script I get to kiss Cornel Wilde. Don't get lost in the basement." I headed off to find the action, leaving her to figure out how to fake an English accent in the front seat of my Crosley.