Love in Focus

by Max Hudson

  “What about it?” Jameson demanded. “First a light, then a backdrop...”

  “Yes. The truth is, I’m not quite sure about that. They seem to be fairly common accidents but are happening at an alarming rate.”

  “I’ll say. I can’t afford to keep replacing things. This is an expensive production as it is.”

  August bristled at his mention of expense. “I think Margaret’s fine, by the way.”

  “I knew she would be. She’s tough. The question is, why are these things happening?”

  “Well, quite.”

  Jameson gave him an incredulous stare, refrained from asking him how long he’d been living in this country, and then paced the room. After a long moment of letting the man squirm, he turned back. “Do you have any idea?”

  “No... I mean, there hasn’t been any kind of investigation, which I think we should do,” he quickly added.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any idea how long that will take? And I suppose you want to shut down production to do it?”

  “Well, yes,” August admitted. “I think it would be the safest course of action. This is a new set, perhaps there are some flaws in the...”

  “You’ve got one day to get everything cleaned up, worked out, and to let everyone shake this off,” Jameson interrupted. “You got it?”

  “Um, yes, sir. We’ll take tomorrow off and then get back to work.”

  “Good.” With that Jameson turned and left without so much as a how do you do.

  Once he was gone, August leaned back in his chair and rubbed at a chin that was starting to feel stubbly. He groaned. He hated stubble; it was so...uncouth. More than that, he was really starting to dislike Jameson, and was wondering whether his career was really worth all this. If the set truly was unsafe...or if his spell had gone terribly wrong, something even worse could happen next time. He sighed though, knowing there was nothing for it. If he didn’t do what he was told, Jameson would simply get someone else to run the film.

  He dragged himself to his feet and walked back out into the huge building that made up their set. He made his way over to the indoor scene where the backdrop had fallen. It was, for all intents and purposes, a wooden wall like any other that might make up an interior wall, except that the wood was lighter and the wall hollow. It had cracked as it had fallen, and then broke in half when he and Jared moved it off of Margaret. He knelt down and looked at it but didn’t touch anything. He knew it wouldn’t matter without a proper investigation, but he still wanted to see it. He looked up above the wall. They were built with an open ceiling, the walls held up with braces on the outside instead. The brace was still attached to the broken piece of wall, and he shook his head as he walked around the makeshift room. Other than someone pushing the wall over, he had no idea how it simply could have fallen.

  Eventually, his head pounding, August left the set behind, and had his driver take him into LA. He wasn’t usually big on rubbing elbows or spending more time than he had to in the city, but he knew a quiet place that served amazing cocktails. At the moment, he needed a stiff drink, and some time away from his thoughts. His driver dropped him off, and then he sent him home, insisting that he would call him when he was ready to go.

  The small pub reminded him of a home he’d barely seen since he was eighteen. It was a friendly, neighborhood place that served fish and chips, and Yorkshire puddings. Not that August would ever partake in anything so fattening and passé, but it was comforting to know it was there, and to hear familiar accents. August also came for the bartender, who was a hidden genius that came up with new and exciting drinks, sometimes on the spot.

  The director wasn’t excited that day, though, and just needed something simple like a Dark and Stormy or whiskey sour. He sat at the bar, smiling weakly as his drink was poured, and then sipped at it as melancholy took over.

  He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, when the door opened, and footsteps approached. He didn’t think anything of it; people came and went from pubs all the time. However, this time, the footsteps approached him, and then stopped beside him. He didn’t glance up until the person sat down next to him, though. To his surprise, it was Jared.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded, echoing his sentiment from earlier in the day.

  “I needed a drink,” Jared mumbled in reply.

  “Tell me about it.”

  The actor eyeballed his drink. “What is that? I figured you’d have some frou-frou thing with an umbrella and multi-colored liquor.

  “It’s a Dark and Stormy,” August replied, blushing. “I wasn’t in the mood,” he added, trying not to admit that he would normally have exactly that kind of drink.

  Jared hmmed and then held a finger up to get the bartender’s attention. “I’ll have the same,” he said and waited for the man to pour the mixture of dark rum and ginger beer. He watched as it swirled together, like dark clouds, the feature that gave the drink its name. Then he picked up the tumbler and gave it a sip. “Not bad,” he admitted.

  “Not my favorite drink,” August admitted, “but it suits my mood.”

  “Yes, I can see that. Do we know anything more?”

  Under different circumstances, August would have chuckled at the insinuation that something clandestine was going on, and Jared was somehow involved in it. Instead, he simply raised an amused eyebrow.

  “No, we don’t know anything, really. Jameson doesn’t want to investigate, and I see no way that backdrop could have possibly, simply, fallen over on Margaret. We only get one day off, and that’s only to clean up.”

  Jared let out an exasperated breath. “Sounds about right.” He glanced down at his glass, twirling it in his hands more than drinking it. “Ah well, what the hell,” he said and then downed it all. “Bartender!” He turned to August and said, “Hurry up and finish that one so I can get you another.”

  A couple of hours, and a few drinks later, the two of them had perked up, but only a little. Now and then, they would start talking about their jobs and fall into laughing fits, but then they’d grow somber again, both wondering if the accidents on set where somehow their fault.

  “You know,” Jared finally blurted out. “I think I may know what’s going on here.”

  “You do?” August squeaked, thinking the man had caught on to the growing crush he seemed powerless from developing on him.

  Jared nodded sagely. “A few years back, I met a woman. Her name was Madame L’Begnaud, and she taught me...um...” He looked over at August, and frowned at the wide-eyed, breathless look he was giving him. “What?”

  “Me too,” August said in a whisper as his held breath deflated.

  Jared’s look of shock changed to a narrowing of his eyes. “You weren’t doing any spells, were you? Perhaps the night before the first “accident”,” he finished, making air quotes with his fingers.

  August quickly looked around to see if anyone had overheard. “Keep your voice down, will you? And, well, yes, actually I did. But just for the success of the project,” he quickly insisted.

  “Yeah, me too. Well, more of a spell for my own success.”

  “Ah-hah!” August exclaimed and held up a finger.

  “No, no, nothing that would cancel out anyone else’s success, not a competition type thing.”

  August put his finger down and turned back to his latest drink. “I can’t believe you knew her too.”

  “Oh yeah, I knew her. I knew her very well.” When August turned back and gave him a strange look, he shook his head. “Not that well. She took me in, though, you know, when times were tough.”

  “Me too.”

  Jared’s eyebrows shot up.

  “What?”

  “Just trying to picture you having rough times.”

  “Well, trust me, there were.” August took another sip of his drink, thought better of it, and then downed the rest of it in one swallow. “What are we going to do about this?”

  “I can’t see th
at we did anything wrong,” Jared countered.

  “The production was going well until we started meddling. If it doesn’t have anything to do with us, then why the accidents?”

  Jared’s brow furrowed as he thought about it. After a moment, it deepened, and he slowly began to nod. “What if they aren’t accidents?”

  “What are you saying?” August asked incredulously, though his heart was pumping wildly with his own suspicions.

  “You know exactly what I’m saying. If Jameson won’t shut down to investigate, we’re going to have to do it. It’s our careers, maybe our lives on the line.”

  “I don’t know, Jared. I want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do but...” His voice drifted off as the actor gave him a shrug and downed his drink.

  Chapter Six

  Jared and August had very different ideas of what to do on a day off. Jared stayed up to the wee hours of the morning, thinking about the accidents on the set, as did August but that was the extent of what they’d had in common.

  The next morning, Jared rolled out of the bed, just in time for brunch, which he skipped. Instead, he made himself a quick cup of black, instant coffee, downed it quickly, and searched the house for a cigarette before remembering he’d quit smoking a decade ago. From there, he hopped in the shower, planning on a luxurious soak, but he found himself doing too much thinking, so finished up and headed out of the house. He smiled at the Black Widow, placing his fingers on the pad, and then roaring out of the drive.

  LA was essentially a large playground, maybe not quite as showing as someplace like Las Vegas, but there was plenty of fun to be had if you knew where to look. And Jared had some interesting ideas of fun. Though it was only noon, he knew a club that would already be open. It was an underground, hole in the wall type place, that didn’t advertise, and didn’t let you in unless they knew you and flashed the right card. Of course, they all knew Jared, and at this point, didn’t even bother with the card.

  “Bobby,” he said, giving the bouncer at the door a high five.

  “Mister Hodgens,” the big man with a long beard said.

  “Oh please,” Jared said and rolled his eyes, making the big man blush and chuckle nervously. He grinned mischievously and winked, doing the man in completely.

  “Tony!” he called out, turning around and addressing the man pouring drinks at the hidden gay bar/gaming den.

  Tony, a thin, bespectacled man who didn’t look old enough to be serving alcohol, nodded at Jared and grabbed a glass. “The usual?”

  Jared opened his mouth to answer, and then it slowly shut again. He crossed his arms and shook his head. “You know, I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway. “Just give me whatever pop you’ve got on tap, okay?”

  Tony shrugged and poured him a glass, not concerned with the man’s odd behavior or whether the man was worrying about things he wouldn’t normally care about. And he certainly wasn’t worried about whether or not he had a sudden increased fascination with his current director.

  “Thanks,” Jared said, picking up his glass. Then he nodded toward a doorway with a curtain hanging over it. “Good action in the back?”

  Tony finally showed a slight hint of emotion. A small smile crossed his face, and he gave the actor a nod. “The best. You want in?”

  “Definitely.” He followed the bartender through the curtain, excited by the possibilities.

  To the uninitiated, the bar might seem like some seedy back water gambling house. They might expect to see tables full of poker players, a roulette wheel, televisions full of horse races, and the like. Instead, there was one large table, with men who looked mostly like Tony and Bobby sitting at it, and instead of poker, they were zealously playing a tabletop roleplaying game.

  “Hey boys! Have we gotten far? Has anyone faced the Kraken yet?”

  “Not today, there’s still time to get in,” one of the boys said.

  “Brilliant,” Jared said and pulled over an empty chair. “I’m the green wizard, of course.”

  “Of course, no one ever takes your piece, just in case.”

  “Right, now, where are we?”

  ***

  Up in the hills, August had gotten up at his usual crack of dawn, though he wasn’t really feeling up for it. He gave himself a pep talk, though, and a lovely bath, and by the time it was time to make himself breakfast his was feeling tip top. He considered going for a hike in the hills, just to get away from it all, but he wasn’t really much of a fitness type. He considered running around after actors and crew as much exercise as he needed. Instead, he fixed himself some tea and sat down in a comfy chair with a good book. His comfy chair was out on a back patio so that he could still enjoy the relatively fresher air of the hills. His view of the city was blocked by trees so that he could, mostly, forget it was there. He would have preferred if the weather hadn’t been quite so hot, but it was LA, and there wasn’t much of the year it wasn’t hot these days.

  When he had read a couple of chapters and finished his tea, he went inside to look at travel opportunities. It was high time he got back home, having been a couple of years now since he’d seen the UK. With his current stress levels, he felt he could do with a vacation when and if this film ever wrapped. Then he realized they still had the location shoots to do. This film was going to take forever, and he was tired of it already. With a sigh, he closed his laptop, wondering what to do with the rest of his day. He was all about a bit of downtime but even those days were usually planned. When he had a sudden day off, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself.

  Eventually August picked up a pair of knitting needles, he kept in a carved wooden basket. If he couldn’t get to the UK any time soon, he could at least be there in spirit by knitting himself a cozy sweater he’d never actually be able to wear in LA. That would give him some incentive and something to look forward to when he was finished filming.

  Unfortunately, the problem with both of these men, was that they couldn’t keep their minds from creeping back toward the accidents on the set, or from finding themselves missing each other's company. Eventually, they found themselves so distracted that Jared ended up losing a good deal of money to the lads at the secret nerd den, and August ended up knitting himself a sweater two sizes too small for him. In the end, they found themselves calling one another at almost exactly the same time.

  “I was just going to call you,” August said in surprise as he picked up the receiver from a faux antique rotary phone, possibly the last land line in LA.

  “Were you?” Jared mocked from the hands-free setting on his cell phone as he drove the Black Widow up and down the streets of LA.

  “No really. I thought we should talk more about these...incidents.”

  The look on Jared’s face was genuine surprise and he let out a little, “Huh. Okay then, I’ll just come up to your place, shall I?” he ended with a slightly pretentious English accent.

  August rolled his eyes and sighed out, “Yeah, come on up.”

  Thirty minutes later, Jared roared up to the big glass house, where August was standing outside, waiting for him. “Don’t you have people for this sort of thing?” he teased as he climbed out of the driver’s seat.

  “What sort of thing?” August asked, shaking his head.

  “You know, parking cars, greeting guests.”

  August clucked his tongue and then waved for him to follow. Once inside the large, open spaced first floor, he continued waving Jared over to the kitchen. The actor was having none of it though.

  “Well, my, my. This is not what I had expected. Okay, I did a little bit, but it’s different than I’d expected.” He left August behind and crossed the space to the living room. Stairs, practically concealed on the side, led up to the bedroom, which was really more like a large loft. He glanced out at the trees through more glass walls.

  “This must have cost a fortune!” he exclaimed.

  August chuckled, a mixture of embarrassment and pride. “Well, yes, but the views and solitude are wor
th it.”

  “Solitude, yeah,” Jared repeated, his voice sounding unsure if it was something he was interested in anymore. Then he turned back to August, and with a flourish said, “Of course, you’ve seen my place.”

  First August went ghostly white, and then he blushed, before sputtering a bit, and then gesturing for the actor to join him. “We’ve got to get to the bottom of this.”

  “All right, all right. I thought we already talked about it, though?”

  “We were drunk.”

  “Oh, right,” Jared replied and then sat down at the table across from August. He took in the view of the city, down the hill from the kitchen and nodded. “High above it all, are we?”

  “No!” August snapped. “It’s not like that. It’s just that...you’re all so very different from me.”

  Jared chuckled. “It’s LA. Everyone’s different. You should come down and see some time.”

  August pursed his lips, but he didn’t disagree. He’d lived there once before but had never liked it. “Anyway,” he emphasized, “we both agree that our rituals didn’t have anything to do with what’s been going on, right?”

  “I don’t see how they could,” Jared agreed.

  “And backdrops don’t just fall over.”

  “No. Lights don’t usually simply fall from lighting apparatuses either.”

  “Though it has been known to happen,” August pointed out.

  “Yes, well so has people landing on the moon, but it doesn’t exactly happen every day.”

  “Quite.” August thought for a moment, and then perked up. “There’s nothing for it, we’re going to have to investigate.”

  “What? The two of us? You know I only play a detective in the movie, right?”

  “Jameson won’t listen to us, and we seem to be the only ones worried about it. And, if it’s unlikely that these truly are accidents...”

  Jared nodded. “Then someone on the set is causing them.”

  “Someone’s trying to sabotage the film, and we have to find out who and why.”

  “And preferably stop them before someone gets killed.”