Skin Deep

by Timothy Hallinan

  "For all that money," I said, "why don't you just put your hands in your pockets and keep them there? Why not buy big soft boxing gloves and punch out the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated?"

  He shifted in his chair. "I've gotta work in a second."

  "Fine," I said. "Duck it. Maybe, if you're lucky, the girls will duck, too."

  "Don't be dumb," he said, sounding as comfortable as a man who was having his prostate probed. "It's not all that easy. Christ, if it was . . ."

  The girl in camouflage cleared her throat behind him. "Ready, Mr. Vane," she said.

  "And just in time," Toby said, getting up. "We were on the verge of a lovers' quarrel. Have I ever told you how pretty you are?" The girl laughed uneasily and led him up the walk and into the light. Toby's enormous stand-in came over and flopped into the chair Toby had vacated. I could feel him staring at me. The middle-aged woman stayed put as Toby joined her; I guessed she wasn't important enough to have a stand-in. With Toby in the shot, people all over the place snapped to attention, donning earphones, moving behind cameras, manipulating boom mikes. I started to get up, and a massive hand fell onto my forearm. I looked over into a pair of vacant blue eyes.

  "Who are you," Toby's stand-in asked tonelessly. Up close, he looked even bigger.

  "Well, hi," I said, trying to move my arm. No deal. He waited, the weight of his hand bearing down on me, giving me the patient gaze of someone for whom things have to be taken in order. "Urn," I said, "I'm Simeon."

  Right answer. He thought it over for a moment and then smiled. "I'm John," he said.

  "Toby's friend," I said, probably more slowly than was necessary. His smile broadened, but that was it. "I'm Toby's friend, too," I heard myself saying as I eased my arm free. John nodded, smile frozen in place. It looked like it would be there for some time. That seemed to be the end of the conversation. I smiled back, got up, and strolled in the direction of Dixie's car. A little cold spot on the back of my neck told me that John's eyes were following me.

  Lights snapped on all over the set. Across the street the crowd of onlookers surged forward expectantly. This was what they'd been waiting for. The middle-aged woman with the autograph book was right up front, staring at Toby and the actress as though the Second Coming, long overdue, had finally clambered down the steps and off the plane.

  "So what the hell are you doing here, Simeon?" It was Janie, clipboard firmly in place against her slender waist.

  "Experiencing the pangs of guilt," I said. "Are we allowed to talk now? Aren't they shooting or something?"

  "No way. They'll rehearse it two or three times. For her, not for him. He always knows his lines."

  "One-take Toby," I said.

  "Well, well," she said acidly, "that proves it. There's something nice you can say about everyone. So you're his new buddy? What do you guys do for fun, tag-team matches against Girl Scouts?"

  "Sure. In between rounds we go out and molest plants. Who's this?"

  Janie turned to see a dusty Chevy station wagon pull in behind Dixie's Mercedes. A youngish woman got out. She could have been anywhere between her late twenties and her early forties, pretty in an exhausted way, her small face framed by a fluffy, outdated hairdo that fringed inward below her high cheekbones, below the dark circles that seemed to hold her eyes in place. Her clothes were determinedly young, a frilly blouse and a short skirt with a wide belt. Over her left breast was a large teddy bear pin that might have been made out of bread dough or hardened library paste, the kind of jewelry that got front-page placement in catalogs targeted to elementary-school teachers. A lanky man in a dark green shirt climbed out from the passenger side and opened the back. He began to pull out an array of photographic equipment.

  "It's the fannies," Janie said, giving up on hostility for the moment.

  "Fannies?"

  "Come on, Simeon. Fannies as in fan magazines. Fan as in fantasy, fantasy pipelines for adolescent girls. Toby's constituency, right? The chenille downside of the American dream."

  "Janie," I said, "what the hell are you doing here?"

  "I asked you first." The hostility was back in full force, and she hugged the clipboard against her like a bulletproof shield.

  "I'm Toby's watchdog," I said. "I'm supposed to protect the world from him. And it pays well."

  "Yow," she said, avoiding my eyes, "you're messing with my ideals. Mommy was paying you, and you didn't have a nickel. You still helped me instead of her." She dug the toe of her boot into some inoffensive dirt and punted it past me.

  "Sheesh," I said, replying to her yow, "there are the girls."

  "Which girls?"

  "The ones he'll beat up if I don't stop him."

  "Yeah," Janie said. It was pretty halfhearted.

  "Has he fooled with you?" Behind her the photographer in the green shirt was setting up a big wooden camera on a tripod and a complicated arrangement of iron pipes under the direction of the tired-looking young woman. He tugged a cord, and a roll of seamless blue paper dropped to the ground from the crossbar at the top of the pipes.

  "Nothing I can't handle," Janie said. "The occasional hand on the fanny, like you saw today. He tried to feel me up once when we were on the sound stage."

  "How many of his balls did you collect?"

  She smiled for the first time in what seemed like days. "None. But I stomped his foot."

  "And he did what?"

  "Yanked my hair. I told him if he laid a finger on me, I'd take his eyes out. Meant it, too. He backed off and said something about chicks having no sense of humor."

  "He didn't get you fired, obviously."

  "No, Simeon, that's the funny thing. He's like a little kid. After he's bad to someone he gets really contrite. He brought me a Danish."

  "Conscience?"

  "Toby? His conscience must be smaller than Medusa's G-spot. Listen, he's twisted. It's just the way the man is."

  "Well," I said, "he's my baby."

  Back on the set the baby shouted something that sounded angry and impatient. The actress stepped back quickly, like someone expecting a raw fish across the face, and there was a general scurrying behind the cameras as people ducked into position. New banks of lights snapped on, and Toby and the actress came down the walk, the actress looking professionally apprehensive and Toby looking genuinely sympathetic. They paused in the hot spot of light and passed some dialogue back and forth, and then Toby patted the woman on the shoulder, gave her his most dazzling smile, and sprinted down the walkway to a long, low black vehicle I hadn't paid attention to before, something that was both high-tech and anthropomorphic, like a cross between a torpedo and My Mother, the Car. He opened the door, looked back over his shoulder, and then climbed back up the walkway while people frantically reangled lights and the camera was moved. Someone else closed the door of the vehicle, using a cloth so he wouldn't mar the shine. Toby reached out and almost touched the camera lens and then drew his hand back until his finger touched the tip of his nose. The cameraman nodded.

  "His close-up," Janie said. "Here comes art." There was a brief delay while the reflectors were brought around, and Toby snapped his fingers impatiently and said something unpleasant to the woman. "He's telling them to get their asses in gear," Janie said, watching. She glanced back over to the people behind the rope across the street. "He really hates standing out here with all these yokels staring at him."

  "Then he should have been a plumber."

  "He is," she said. "He's an emotional Roto-Rooter." As they arranged things for Toby's close-up, Dixie Cohen joined the tired-looking woman and the photographer. The woman was smoking a very long cigarette, and Dixie looked worried. The photographer took refuge under a long black cloth that covered the top of his camera and motioned Dixie into camera range in front of the blue roll of paper. Dixie stood there dolefully, the world's least likely stand-in for Toby Vane. Meanwhile, up on the walkway, the real action had recommenced.

  Toby and the actress came back down, found the light, and Toby
traded in his sympathetic expression for a million-dollar grin. This time he squeezed the woman's arm reassuringly before jogging on down to the torpedo. Then, leaving the car door open again, he waved off the efforts of the director to bring him back and came toward us as the entire group around the cameras stared after him. One at a time, the lights went off. The actress stood there, looking lost.

  "That's enough of that," Toby said as he joined us. "You'd think it was something worth watching. Stunt double's next, right, sweetheart?" he said to Janie.

  Janie glanced at her clipboard, but by the time she looked up again, Toby was already gone. "Right," she said anyway. "You asshole." She looked up at me almost guiltily. "A girl's got to express herself," she said.

  Toby reached the forlorn little band gathered in front of the roll of blue paper. He put his arm around Dixie's neck, clowning for the still camera. Dixie tried to pull away and then submitted in a resigned fashion. He even smiled. It was the complicated smile of a confirmed pessimist who's just been proven right by being sentenced to death. The big stand-in, John, had ambled over. He stood there, loose-jointed, watching.

  "Hey, champ," Toby called to me. "Come over here and meet some people."

  "His master's voice," Janie mumbled.

  "Ease up, okay?" I said. "I'd like it if we could stay friends."

  "Champ," Toby said. "We're being a little rude here."

  "Go to it, champ," Janie said. Feeling like the Incredible Shrinking Man, I went over to Toby, who had slipped an arm around the youngish woman's waist.

  "My man," Toby said, daring me to contradict him, "this is the extraordinary Betsi, with an i. Betsi with an i is the photo editor of one of America's favorite magazines, a magazine you probably read every day of your life. And this is, um, this is Betsi's photographer."

  "Bert," said the lanky man behind the camera.

  "Who said that?" Toby asked. "Do I need to be told the photographer's name? Bert here is my favorite photographer, champ. I asked for old Bert, didn't I, Betsi?"

  "Sure, Toby," Betsi said mechanically. "You always ask for Bert."

  "Always," Toby said, "unless I ask for someone else." He pinched the skin beneath Betsi's blouse. "Simeon here is supposed to keep me out of trouble. What the hell? Somebody has to do it."

  "And good luck to both of us," I said.

  "So what do we want here, Bets?" Toby turned his attention to her. "The usual head-and-hunk shots, or something special? And where's the mirror?"

  "In the car," Betsi said. "Bert—"

  "Not going to do anyone much good in the car, is it?" Toby said. "Are you busy or something, Bert?"

  Bert scurried off to the station wagon and came back lugging a full-length mirror, which he set up behind the camera.

  "There I am," Toby said, passing a hand over his hair. "Let's go. Forty minutes, no more. These clothes okay?"

  "Fabulous," Betsi said a little nervously. "Couldn't be better."

  "Does the film have to age or something?" Toby impatiently asked Bert. Bert ducked his head under the cloth draped over the back of the camera and went to work.

  For the next fifteen minutes or so I got a crash course in star making. Toby worked the camera as though it were a long-distance telephone line over which he was talking to a wife he'd been deceiving for months. He teased it, flirted with it, arched his brows at it, gave it the smile of the century. Before every shot he checked the mirror. Bert's head never emerged from the black cloth. The people across the street edged closer, and Betsi lit one cigarette off another, stubbing out the old ones against her shoe with ravaged-cuticle fingers. Dixie stood uselessly on the side- lines, now and then asking Toby to check his hair in the mirror. Big John just watched silently, his mouth hanging open and his hands opening and closing on air.

  Bert emerged from the black cloth like a Muslim woman renouncing the veil. He looked up at the sky, checking the light, and said, "That's enough heads." He pulled the camera back three or four feet.

  "Toby," Betsi said, "we're going three-quarters now. Can you give us some profiles?"

  "Which side?" Toby took a quick look at the mirror, giving a quick tug at the skin on either side of his eyes.

  "Up to you," Betsi said.

  Janie spoke from behind me. "At least twenty minutes," she said.

  "I asked you which side," Toby said to Betsi as if Janie didn't exist.

  "Really, Toby, it doesn't matter. You're the boss."

  "But you're the genius, darling. Come on, just pick your favorite side of old Toby."

  Betsi looked flustered. Then she took a vehement drag on her cigarette and said, "Left."

  "Left?" Toby's eyes widened in surprise. "What's the matter with you today, Betsi? You want to shoot my left side?"

  "Okay, okay, then, the right." Betsi was blushing deeply now and fiddling with the teddy bear pin. Bert had stepped away from the camera, staring down at the grass as if it hadn't been there a minute ago.

  "Watch this," Janie whispered. "It may be educational."

  "Just a fucking minute," Toby said to Betsi. "There's a principle here. I'm giving you this session because you need it, right? And I expect a little protection in return."

  "Left," Betsi said desperately. "Wait, I mean right."

  "Do you see this lip?" Toby demanded, tugging at the swelling. "Courtesy of my buddy Simeon, here, I might add. You donate your contact lenses to Greenpeace or something? Shit, if you can't see that, how do I know you can see the best shots? How do I know this isn't going to turn up in the Enquirer?" He framed a headline with his hands, " TOBY VANE GETS TRASHED AT LAST. I've got a little puffiness here, to put it charitably. What're you going to do, Bets, put it on the cover?"

  "Toby," Betsi said desperately, "you know I'd never print a bad shot of you."

  "Yeah, right. And I promise I'll pull out in time. The check is in the mail." The photographer had stepped back up to the camera and pulled the black cloth over his head to work on focus. "Just a minute, you—Bert—you, whoever you are. We shoot when I'm ready and not before."

  "I'm sorry," Betsi said. "I'm double sorry. It's just that you look so good right now. . . ."

  "I look like fucking Rocky Graziano," Toby said.

  "No, no, we'll only get the right side. Only the right three-quarters, right, Bert? Only the right, okay, Toby?" She sounded as though she had something caught in her throat.

  "Okay, okay, okay," Toby parroted. "You sound like a machine gun. You know what? You used to be prettier."

  "Toby," Dixie said, "the public is here."

  Toby looked at Betsi for a long moment and then turned toward the crowd of onlookers and made the thumbs-up sign. People clapped. Toby's grin broadened, and he still had it in place when he looked down at Betsi.

  "Honey," he said, "I'm tired of these clothes."

  Janie whispered something that sounded like "Shit."

  Betsi swallowed. "You look great, Toby. You always look so nice."

  "Not as nice as when you help. Come on, Betsi. You know how much I like your taste." He made it sound truly disgusting.

  "I can't," Betsi said. "Please, Toby, not today."

  "It's either that or no more watch the birdie. And with this puffiness, I may have to kill the whole session."

  Betsi glanced around jerkily, as if she hoped no one was listening. She looked drawn and five years older. She picked up her cigarettes and pulled one out. Her hand was shaking.

  "Now come on, Betsi," Toby said. "Even you can only suck on one thing at a time." He put his arm around her and led her to the trailer. The unlit cigarette dangled forgotten from her fingers. Bert managed to look very busy. At the door to the trailer, Toby waved at the crowd and said, "Be right back, folks." They went in, and Big John took up a stance in front of the door, his arms crossed like an Arabian genie who wanted to keep his hands near his scimitar.

  "Congratulations, hero," Janie said.

  My mouth tasted foul. "What happens now?"

  "You want my best guess?"r />
  "I suppose so."

  "He makes her go down on him. He pulls her hair a few times to keep him interested. Then he makes her swallow it."

  "There's nothing she can do?"

  "Sure, she can get her pictures. No pictures, no job."

  "This is what you meant when you said he had something to look forward to today?" I asked Dixie.

  Dixie didn't look at me. "She's been around a while," he muttered.

  "There are worse things than no job," I said to Janie.

  "Simeon, she's been working for the fannies for seven years. Where do you go from there, CBS News? It's not like it was really journalism."

  "Point taken," I said. "Screw it anyway."

  I headed toward the door of the trailer. Big John shifted on the balls of his feet as I approached and uncrossed his arms. He looked vaguely alarmed.

  "John," I said, "beat it."

  "You," John said. A lot of people seemed to be calling me "you." "You beat it."

  "In a minute." I moved to the left and then sidestepped around him to the right, hearing him grunt as he grabbed at where I'd been. My hand was on the doorknob when his arm went around my throat. He hoisted me like an empty nylon suitcase, bent my spine nearly double, and dumped me over his hip. I landed in the dirt at his feet.

  "Get out of the way, John," I said, flat on my back. My words didn't seem as menacing as I'd meant them to be.

  "Hnuh," he said. It could have been a laugh. He leaned down over me. I grabbed a bunch of pebbles and dirt and threw them at him and heard them ricochet against the trailer. John grabbed my belt buckle and tugged me up like a sack of rice, and Dixie's pale hand landed on his shoulder.

  "Stop it," Dixie hissed at both of us. There wasn't much I could stop, but John dropped me back into the dirt and resumed his guardianship of the door. "Get up," Dixie said to me. "For Christ's sake, there are people over there. This isn't what Norman is paying you to do."

  "It isn't?" I got up and dusted my trousers. My heart was drumming wildly in my throat. "Then what am I supposed to be doing, Dixie?"