Araluen

by Judy Nunn

  ‘We have to rethink the end of the movie, the motorcade,’ Michael said. ‘It’ll be limp, it’ll wimp out, there’ll be no finale. We need more dramatic impact.’

  It was conference time. They were seated around the boardroom table. Michael, Emma, and Stanley. Mandy was taking notes as usual and the only stranger in their midst was Derek. They’d viewed the rushes shot on Moala Atoll, together with the fortnight of city scenes they’d just finished shooting on location in New York.

  ‘We’re running the risk of being too complacent,’ Michael argued. ‘So the "Earth Man’s" won. So what? Too much the happy ending. Too smug.’

  Derek was nodding. ‘Yes, there is that danger,’ he agreed. ‘We’re lacking conflict at the end of the film, but how do we combat that?’

  ‘We martyr him, that’s what we do,’ Michael said. ‘We kill him off.’

  They stared at him. All four of them. ‘We kill him?’ Emma asked finally. ‘We kill the "Earth Man"?’

  Michael nodded. ‘Yep,’ was all he said.

  ‘How? How the hell do we kill him?’ Stanley queried.

  ‘And why?’ Derek added.

  ‘I told you. Martyrdom. He’s assassinated by an extremist group – he dies for his beliefs. Good stuff.’

  ‘It’s a total change of script.’ Derek looked thoughtful. The idea was certainly intriguing.

  ‘We’d better check it out with Marcel,’ Emma added. ‘He might not like it.’

  ‘He’ll love it,’ Michael said scathingly. ‘His ego won’t be able to resist it.’ He looked at Derek, who nodded in agreement.

  ‘I think we should let Emma break the news though,’ Derek suggested. ‘Just in case. Marcel will do anything she says.’

  ‘Yes, very well,’ Michael answered curtly. ‘You tell him, Emma. This afternoon.’

  Michael had made it very apparent that he didn’t approve of Marcel’s obvious crush on Emma. ‘God Almighty, Emma, you couldn’t be interested in someone like Gireaux, surely!’ he’d exploded when he’d sensed, to his horror, a chemistry between them. ‘The man’s a poseur and a womaniser.’

  ‘I’m not interested in him,’ Emma protested. Although she didn’t agree with Michael’s dismissive view of Marcel, she was taken aback by his perception. There was an element of the poseur and womaniser in Marcel, certainly, an element few people recognised. But he wasn’t the fake that Michael thought he was. He was simply a man who took his passions very seriously. He embraced his women and his causes with equal fervour and, like a kid in a candy shop, he didn’t know how to be selective or where to stop.

  She had told him as much when he’d come up to her apartment late at night having threatened, through the intercom, to ring every apartment bell in the block if she didn’t let him in.

  ‘But I love you,’ he’d said when she’d once again refused him. That was when she’d lost her temper.

  ‘You’re behaving like a spoilt child, Marcel,’ she said, exasperated. ‘Just because you want something, that doesn’t mean to say it’s yours. You don’t love me.’ Before he could launch into his protestations, she carried on. ‘And if you do, you bloody well shouldn’t. I don’t love you,’ she continued patiently. ‘You’re a beautiful man, but I don’t love you. Practise a little self-restraint, Marcel. Grow up. This isn’t Fiji any more, this is the real world.’

  She seemed to get through to him that night. They sat and had a drink and he apologised for harassing her.

  ‘It is not normal for me to make a nuisance of myself with a woman,’ he said sadly with as much dignity as he could muster. Emma wanted to laugh but she didn’t. She felt a genuine affection for Marcel. Beneath the talent and the sexuality and the charisma and everything that impressed his legions of fans, there really was an indulgent little boy.

  She saw him down to the front door of the apartment block and couldn’t resist a teasing whisper as he left.

  ‘Starting tomorrow, we play grown-ups, all right?’

  But he didn’t smile back. ‘I love you and you mock me,’ he said. ‘That is cruel.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ she answered. ‘A bit of mockery now and then does you the world of good. You don’t get enough of it. Oh, cheer up, Marcel,’ she said and she patted his cheek gently. ‘Friends, remember? I’ll always be your friend. And I’ll always remember Fiji. I promise.’ She kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘Now go home and go to bed.’

  As Michael and Derek had anticipated, Marcel was in favour of the assassination of the ‘Earth Man’. He was more than in favour, he was delighted with the suggestion. ‘Excellent. What a scene we will have, eh? The death of a hero. A man who gives his life to save the world.’

  Emma was pleased that the idea was appealing enough to distract Marcel from his melancholy. He’d been irritable and depressed since she’d convinced him that their shortlived affair was over. Now he could finish the movie on a high and, within a week, he would be back with Annette and the children.

  Michael paid a fortune for the motorcade. Bugger Franklin’s modest budget, he thought, and forked out his own money to cover the massive scale of the scene. He paid a huge amount to the New York Film and Television Office for location rights to vast areas of the inner city and, although Captain Matthew (Mac) Macfarlane, Commander in Charge of the Police and Citizens Liaison Unit, insisted that the PCLU was proud to be a part of such a worthy project, a sizeable amount ended up in his pocket as well.

  ‘It’s an epic scene,’ Michael insisted. ‘Historic’ And he showed old footage of John Glenn and the first American astronauts as they were paraded through the streets of New York. ‘That’s what I want,’ he said. And that’s what he was going to get.

  The streets were to be closed off to traffic and the scene shot in the dawn light but Michael gave the story to the press to ensure that there would be thousands of people lining the pavements to watch not only the pomp and ceremony, but ‘the greatest European star of them all, Marcel Gireaux’.

  And thousands there were bound to be. ‘Mac’ wasn’t too happy about it. ‘This wasn’t part of the bargain,’ he said when the story hit the papers. ‘We’ll need crowd control. I thought you just wanted the streets closed off.’ But Michael made sure it was worth Mac’s while.

  The week before the actual parade, Derek filmed the segments of the scene involving the assassin.

  The motorcade was to proceed from upper Manhattan down 5th Avenue on its way to the United Nations building. It would never get there, of course, because the assassination was to take place on central 5th Avenue. After a short search, Michael had decided that the ideal location for the assassin was the rooftop of the Frick Museum on the corner of 5th and 70th.

  The Frick Collection was housed in the former residence of Henry Clay Frick, a gracious two-storey stone mansion built in 1913. There was a wide roof area with plenty of space to set up a film unit and, not only was it a perfect vantage spot for a would-be assassin, the building itself would look superb on film. It was without doubt the ideal location and, having gained permission and generously greased the right palms, Aiichael gave Derek the go-ahead.

  Several days later, Michael sat back in the viewing room and watched the rushes. Derek had done well, as had the director of photography and the actor. It was an effective sequence. The man on the Frick mansion rooftop. The perfect view overlooking 5th Avenue. The Heckler and Koch .308 sniper rifle, the military model, with bi-pod and Bisley 20x80 telescopic sight.

  The man methodically and painstakingly setting up his equipment and making himself comfortable, very much the way a birdwatcher might. The man settling himself in for the long wait, everything prepared.

  Then the man’s reaction as the quarry came into view and he positioned himself for the kill. Then the careful sighting. No rush. Then the gentle easing back of the trigger. And then the man packing away his equipment as methodically as he had assembled it.

  Cut in with the master shots and the close-ups of the parade it would look superb. Michael was plea
sed with the rushes. A member of the crew had paraded around the block a number of times standing up in an open car so that the eyeline of the actor playing the assassin would look correct in the editing. And of course there would be a marvellous soundtrack to accompany the suspense. It was all looking very good.

  The day of the parade dawned bright and clear. It was going to be hot. But the light was perfect and they would finish filming well before the fierce heat of the New York summer hit.

  The press announcements had served their purpose. Despite the early hour, thousands of people lined 5th Avenue, a particularly dense crowd gathering around the Frick Gallery. And the media were everywhere – photographers, journalists and television crews from the various news and current affairs programmes. Michael was delighted. It was a publicity coup – the exposure was going to be fantastic.

  They filmed the start of the procession at the top of 5th Avenue, Marcel looking resplendent as he stood in the open limousine waving to the crowds, occasionally making the victory sign and acknowledging the flowers that were thrown high in the air to land on the bonnet or in the vehicle itself. Every now and then he’d catch one and the crowd would roar its approval.

  They stopped filming for half an hour while the cameras were set up by the Frick Gallery to cover the assassination. Derek was using five cameras, four to film the wide shot of the procession and one to concentrate on the close-ups of Marcel.

  Michael, Emma and Mandy stood on one of the gallery balconies beside the cameraman covering the close-ups. They watched as Derek gave his final instructions through a two-way radio to his assistant director, who was with the waiting motorcade a block up the street. ‘Standing by,’ he said finally and signalled one by one to the cameramen covering the wide shots. One by one the cameramen signalled back. Derek looked towards the cameraman covering the close-ups. The cameraman nodded. ‘Action,’ Derek said into the walkie-talkie and the motorcade started its slow procession towards the Frick Gallery.

  The extras amongst the crowd whipped the onlookers into a frenzy. People cheered energetically and waved the flags and threw the flowers and streamers that the film unit had handed around. Marcel saluted them, acknowledging the tribute. Stanley, in his role as bodyguard to the ‘French Ambassador’, was travelling in the vehicle behind Marcel’s. When the shot rang out, he was to leap from his car into Marcel’s and throw his body over that of the mortally wounded ‘Earth Man’.

  Closer and closer came the motorcade, led by four motorcycle police and two cars. They crossed 71st Street. The motorcyclists passed by the Frick Gallery and over 70th Street. The two cars passed by. Then the Earth Man. Marcel, smiling, waving, acknowledging the victory and the cheers of the crowd. The vehicle was directly in front of the Gallery. A shot rang out, clear in the early morning air. Marcel fell back onto the car seat.

  To Emma it looked effective. It looked as if all had gone according to plan.

  But then she heard the cameraman whose zoom lens was focused on Marcel. ‘Oh my God, oh Jesus, oh my God!’ She watched dumbfounded as he fell to his knees in a state of shock.

  People in the crowd closest to the motorcade were screaming. Emma saw Stanley leap from the following vehicle into Marcel’s car but it wasn’t the way they’d rehearsed. He was yelling at nearby police and pointing up at the Frick building. He was also screaming at the driver to pull the vehicle out of the procession and up onto the footpath. Something’s gone wrong, Emma thought. Something’s gone terribly wrong.

  It was on the news later that day. Marcel Gireaux had been shot through the head. Assassinated by a person or persons unknown while filming a sequence in his latest movie, Earth Man.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ON THE MORNING OF the procession, many of the people living in the block on the corner of 70th and 5th had invited friends up to their apartments. It was the perfect vantage spot – the newspapers had reported that the ‘assassination’ was to be filmed from the rooftop of the Frick Gallery.

  The commissionaire had his time cut out buzzing up to everyone’s apartment to get a clearance on each of the visitors. No names were recorded. ‘A Mr Harris to see you, Mr Weinberg,’ was one in dozens of requests.

  ‘Thanks, Norman. Send him up.’

  The man Judd let into his apartment was neatly dressed in a polo-necked sweater and sports jacket and carrying a briefcase. He could have been a business executive on a Saturday appointment when suit and tie were not mandatory.

  ‘Mr Harris, isn’t it?’ Judd said jovially. ‘Come – ’ The man was inside the room and the door closed before Judd could offer the invitation. He thought it was rather rude. ‘My name’s Judd,’ he beamed and he held out his hand, expecting the man to offer his Christian name. The man offered neither name nor hand, but walked over to the front windows and looked down through the curtains at 5th Avenue. Then he walked through the door to the right, the room in the very corner of the apartment. It was the bathroom and it looked over 70th Street, the Frick Gallery and up 5th Avenue.

  Well, if he wanted to go to the bathroom, Judd thought, why didn’t he just say? He waited until the man came out of the bathroom, no longer carrying the briefcase, and was about to offer him a drink, but didn’t get the chance. ‘Thank you,’ the man said curtly. ‘That will be all – I don’t need you.’

  ‘Oh.’ Judd wasn’t due at Felicity’s apartment, which was only one floor down, for another fifteen minutes or so. He’d expected to have a drink with the chap. It was only hospitable, after all. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t…’

  ‘You may go now.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Bloody rude, Judd thought. Still, it was a business arrangement, after all, and if leaving the chap the apartment for an hour meant clearing a fifty thousand dollar debt, who was he to argue? Besides, the man didn’t look like the sort of person one would want to argue with. Eerie sort of guy. His speech was accentless; it was impossible to tell where he was from. He was of average height and weight, but obviously fit. He moved effortlessly, like a boxer or a dancer, with the lazy grace of a person whose body was prepared for anything. And, although the pale grey eyes didn’t dart about, it was apparent he was taking in every detail of his surrounds.

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it then.’

  ‘Take your key,’ the man reminded him. Judd picked his keys up from the hall table and made as dignified an exit as he could.

  An hour later, when the shot rang out and all hell broke loose, Judd felt sick. Could this have anything to do with the man in his apartment? All he could see from Felicity’s window was pandemonium. ‘Binoculars,’ he snapped, ‘give me your binoculars.’ Felicity wasn’t used to being snapped at and certainly not by Judd. ‘Hurry it up, woman.’ He snatched the binoculars she sulkily handed to him and focused on the car which had been driven up onto the pavement. Marcel Gireaux was slumped in the back seat and a man was beside him screaming orders to the police who were racing towards the Frick Gallery. He focused on Marcel Gireaux’s head, but there didn’t seem to be one. Just blood, masses and masses of blood and … Judd dropped the binoculars, turned away and started to vomit, all over one of Felicity’s Persian rugs.

  Judd’s heart was pounding as he let himself into his apartment. Not with fear for his own safety – he knew the man wouldn’t be there. It was pounding with horror at what he’d seen, and with terror at his involvement in the whole ghastly business.

  He looked around the apartment. There was no trace of the man. He went into the bathroom. The window was open two inches just as he always left it and the chintz curtains were flapping gently in the breeze just as they always did.

  He didn’t dare look down at the street below. Could he just pretend that this had never happened? That’s what he was expected to do, wasn’t he? Of course he was. It had never happened; the man had never been there – he must put it out of his mind. He’d witnessed something horrific, certainly, but then so had many others. He’d had nothing to do with it. There had been no man in his apartment. That was t
he part he must forget.

  He drank half a bottle of scotch that afternoon and had the presence of mind to ring Felicity and apologise for the rug. Then he read and listened to music. In the evening, he didn’t send out for the paper or turn on the news as was his habit. He took two Nembutal instead.

  The next morning he’d nearly convinced himself that it had all been a bad dream. Then he made the mistake of turning on the television. There it was, graphic footage of the horror he’d witnessed. He needed a brandy. He took the bottle of Hennessy XO from the cabinet, poured himself a healthy measure into a whisky glass and gulped it down greedily. He looked back at the television set. Oh God, the images were still there. He went into the bathroom, opened the window and looked out. It had happened from here, he told himself. It had happened from here.

  It was then that he noticed the brandy balloon, rinsed and left to drain upside down on the bathroom shelf. And he remembered that the Hennessy XO had been unopened yesterday. Ready cash was short these days and he’d been saving it for a special occasion.

  He picked up the brandy balloon and stood staring out of the window at the street below. This was what the man had done yesterday, he thought. The man had stood right where he was now, looked out of this same window, held this same brandy snifter in his hand. And he’d quietly sipped twenty–year–old cognac while he watched and waited. Judd wondered whether he’d finished the brandy and rinsed the glass before or after he’d …

  He slammed the window shut. He took two tranquillisers and then he picked up the telephone receiver. He had to talk to someone. He looked back at the television set as he dialled. The ghastly pictures were no longer there but the news item was still on the murder of Marcel Gireaux. A reporter was harassing a senior police officer in the street outside police headquarters. ‘Captain Macfarlane, can you explain how…’