Beach Town

by Mary Kay Andrews

  From the corner of her eye Greer saw Bryce scowl.

  “And what about insurance and bonding?” Sherrie asked. “Three years ago, on a shoot in Atlanta, we blew up an old convenience store and a chunk of concrete struck a man in the head—three blocks away from the blast site. We’re still paying his hospital and rehab bills.”

  Greer glanced over at Bryce. “I haven’t talked to the lawyers yet about insurance.”

  “That’s what I expected,” Sherrie said. She started gathering the papers on the table, stuffing them into a slim black Hermès briefcase. “I’m sorry, Bryce, but you have got to get a handle on your budget. You can see for yourself, this little plot twist of Terry’s can easily add close to a million dollars to production costs. And for what? A boom we could just as easily create with a computer and a blue screen?” She slid out from the bench and stood, and Bryce scrambled to join her.

  Greer was struck by just how short Sherrie Seelinger was. Bryce towered over her by a head and a half. But the studio exec didn’t seem the least intimidated by his height advantage.

  “We can cut costs in other areas,” he pleaded. “Sherrie, I really, really believe we can’t sacrifice the sense of verisimilitude we’d get, bringing down the casino. Let me just crunch some numbers.…”

  “Crunch away,” Sherrie said, her hand on the doorknob. She consulted the Rolex. “My driver should be here by now. Look, Bryce, as it stands right now, I think you’d better put the demo plans on hold.”

  “Dammit, Sherrie—” he started, but there was a discreet knock at the RV door.

  “That’s him,” Sherrie said. “We’ll talk after I get back.”

  46

  Greer turned to follow the studio exec out the open door, but Bryce put a restraining hand on her arm. When she turned to look at him, his face was a study in barely controlled rage. He looked over her shoulder and waited until Sherrie had climbed into the back of the black Town Car.

  “What the fuck? Could you have done a better job of sabotaging me with that bitch?”

  Greer carefully pried his hand from her arm and struggled to control her own temper, which had been on simmer all morning.

  “I’m trying to do my job, Bryce. You wanted a beach town that doesn’t actually exist, but I found it anyway. Want to film in a historic building despite the mayor? I found a way to make that happen. An ammo depot? With only two days’ notice? Check. You want to blow up that historic building? Hey, I think that’s a terrible idea, but I did my job. I spent the day pushing paper and got the application submitted. But I can’t do anything about how much it costs to make your big bang happen. And I’m not going to lie to a studio exec about what the demolition will entail, or about what it costs.”

  Bryce sat back down at the dinette table and stared at his open laptop screen.

  “Just go, Greer? Okay? I don’t have time for this shit. I’ve got a male lead who shows up this morning with a broken nose and a black eye, who tells me he ran into a door, studio hacks breathing down my neck, and a screenwriter on a bender. And speaking of shit—I’ve got a location manager who can’t even manage to get me working bathrooms.”

  Greer started to protest.

  “No!” Bryce glared at her. “Spare me the lame excuses. Just do your job. Or I’ll find somebody else who can do it. Somebody cheaper. Okay? Jake Newman says he can have everything set up to go by Monday. So that’s what we’re gonna do, Greer. You’re gonna help make that happen. No matter what it takes. Right?”

  Greer struggled to control her own temper. “Like I told you, I submitted the application, but I really doubt Eb Thibadeaux is going to approve it.”

  Bryce closed his laptop and stood. “And like I told you, I’m dealing with that. You call that Mickey Mouse mayor and tell him I want a meeting with him, this afternoon at four, to discuss our permit. Vanessa will be there, and so will her attorney.”

  “What if he won’t come? He’s the mayor, Bryce. He doesn’t work for you. You can’t just summon him to a meeting with, what, three hours’ notice?”

  “Call him and tell him we’re meeting at Vanessa’s place at four p.m. today. Maybe suggest he invite the city’s attorney too, if they have one. Remind him how many hundreds of thousands of dollars this film is pumping into the town’s economy.”

  Stung, she nodded and beat a hasty retreat from the RV.

  * * *

  When she got back to the casino, she found Zena directing the driver who was delivering the new porta-potties. As promised, they were glistening platinum-silver units, with elegant script proclaiming their status as Ritzy Rest-Stops.

  She conferred briefly with Zena, who was still sulking, then hopped on her golf cart to return to the office. Despite her own resistance to the idea, she knew she had to have everything ready for a Monday demolition—or risk being fired. And that was a risk she couldn’t afford. Two firings in a row could mean the end of her career.

  She was tooling down Pine Street at the cart’s top speed when she spotted Eb Thibadeaux walking rapidly down the sidewalk toward city hall. He saw her at the same moment and waved, and for one absurd moment she thought he actually might be glad to see her.

  “Hey, Eb. I saw Allie at Gin’s last night. I know you’re relieved to have her home. I met your brother, too.”

  “So I hear.”

  “You’re still pissed at me? Eb, you should know I’m already having a really bad day. I just came from a major ass-chewing from Bryce.”

  “And I just got off the phone with Vanessa Littrell. It seems I’ve received an imperial summons to meet with her and her attorney and Bryce today to ‘chat’ about this demolition application.”

  “So it’s a two-pronged offense,” Greer said. “Bryce just informed me of the same thing—that I was to ‘invite’ you to Vanessa’s house to talk about the permit.”

  “I haven’t denied your application, you know.”

  “But you intend to, don’t you?”

  Eb shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been a little too distracted since yesterday to give the casino much thought.”

  She reached out and caught his right hand in hers, and he winced.

  A jagged cut stretched across his knuckles, and the hand was bruised and swollen.

  She gently traced the cut with her finger. “I got a look at your handiwork this morning when Kregg showed up on set. CeeJay had her work cut out for her, covering up all the damage you did.”

  “He’s lucky he only needed makeup and not reconstructive surgery,” Eb said.

  “Not that I care whether or not you beat the living daylights out of him, but just out of curiosity, what were his bodyguards doing while you were punching out Kregg’s lights?”

  “From the commotion I heard from the back of the house when I pulled in, it sounded like they were having a pool party,” Eb said, allowing himself just a hint of a smile. “I rang the bell and he answered. As soon as he saw who it was, the little twerp tried to slam the door in my face. But he wasn’t fast enough.”

  “Kregg told Bryce he ran into a door,” Greer said. “So, will you come to this meeting today? And bring the city attorney?”

  “The city attorney is on vacation this week. I don’t especially like being issued an ultimatum, but yeah, I’ll show up. Not that it will make a damned bit of difference on what I decide to do about the casino.”

  “Nothing like total impartiality,” Greer said, laughing.

  “Will you be there too?” Eb asked.

  “Yep. It’s a command performance for me, too. Bryce made it pretty clear my job could be on the line over this issue.”

  “I’m sorry about that.,”

  “The one good piece of news is that a woman who’s vice president in charge of bean counting for the studio flew in today to try to rein in Bryce’s spending. He’s already nearly two million dollars over budget, and blowing up the casino doesn’t come cheap. The special effects guy alone charges $150,000.”

  Eb whistled.

  �
�Which is not to say she’ll pull the plug on Bryce’s plans,” Greer warned. “In the meantime, my marching orders are to move ahead and get things done.”

  “And my job is to do what’s best for this community. I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  47

  Her radio crackled again, and Greer considered throwing it under the tires of a passing minivan. Since one of the grips had appropriated her golf cart, she was on foot, en route to her motel room to shower and change before the four o’clock powwow at Vanessa Littrell’s house.

  Instead, she keyed the radio mike. “What is it, Zena?”

  “The pizza guy and the ice cream lady want to get paid. You know, for letting us use their bathrooms.”

  “So pay them.”

  “I would, but I don’t have access to the petty cash,” Zena said. “Also, it looks like somebody maybe broke one of those concrete benches in the park.”

  “Somebody? Somebody on our crew?”

  “Maybe. Anyway, it’s broken, and since nobody else but us has been in the park since we started filming, I thought I better notify you.”

  “Okay.” Greer pivoted and began walking back toward the pier. “Take a photo of the damaged bench and e-mail it to me. Ask the pizza and ice cream people if they can give me an invoice. Handwritten is fine. I’ll stop at the office for petty cash and be there in ten minutes to pay them. Anything else?”

  “That’s it for now.”

  * * *

  She paid off the ice cream lady and then hustled over to the pizza shop. Marco, the owner, was lifting a huge pie out of the oven as she pushed through the glass door. The mingled aromas of garlic, onions, tomatoes, and sausage assaulted her nostrils.

  Greer waved the envelope. “Hi, Marco. Thanks so much for helping us out today.”

  “No problem,” Marco said. “Hang on a minute.” He drew a rotary cutter through the steaming pizza, lifted out a huge slice, and transferred it to a paper plate, which he presented to her with a flourish. “Here ya go. I’m calling this the Beach Town pie. All your guys love it. I bet I did two hundred dollars in extra business today, just with your crew coming in here to take a whiz.”

  “I’m glad,” Greer said with a smile.

  “Go ahead, taste it,” he urged. “Nobody likes cold pizza.”

  What could she do? She bit into the pointed end of the slice and felt the boiling sauce sear her tongue and the roof of her mouth.

  “Oh-h-h.” She had to clamp her lips together to keep from crying out.

  “Too hot?” He handed her a bottle of water.

  She took a long gulp, but the damage was done.

  By the time she walk-trotted back to the Silver Sands, it was five till four. No time to shower or change clothes. Greer climbed into the Kia and drove as fast as she dared in the direction of Seahorse Key.

  * * *

  The dogs ran out to greet her as she drove on to the Littrell property. Four other cars were lined up in front of the house: Vanessa’s Jeep, Bryce’s black Navigator, Eb’s pickup, and a gleaming silver Lincoln with Florida license tags. It was ten after four and she was undoubtedly the last arrival.

  Greer flipped down the visor and checked her appearance in the mirror. She found a crumpled Kleenex in the cup holder and used it to mop her sweaty face, applied some coral lip gloss, and attempted to finger-comb her out-of-control mop of blond curls. There was no time to do more. She took a deep breath and stepped out of the car, and the dogs began barking loudly to announce her arrival to their mistress.

  Vanessa met her at the door. She was dressed in a sleeveless pale pink scoop-necked dress and looked as fresh and cool as a scoop of strawberry sorbet

  “We were starting to get worried about you,” she said, as Greer followed her inside. Her eyes swept over Greer, taking in her disheveled appearance: the faded denim shorts, the sweaty white T-shirt, the red Keds. “Is everything okay?”

  “Fine. I’m just having one of those days. Everything is a crisis, you know?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” It occurred to Greer that there was no crisis in Vanessa Littrell’s life that could keep her from looking poised and polished—twenty-four hours a day.

  “Everybody’s in the dining room,” Vanessa said. “And let me say how glad I am to have another woman in the mix. There is a lot of free-flowing testosterone in that room.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “I really don’t get why guys have to get so hostile when somebody challenges them,” Vanessa went on. “You should have been here five minutes ago. I thought Eb was going to throttle Sawyer when he told Eb he doesn’t have the authority to—”

  “Sawyer?” Greer clutched Vanessa’s arm. “Did you say Sawyer?”

  “Yes. He’s the lawyer I hired to get this casino thing settled. It was Bryce’s idea. He knew Eb was never going to give us that permit.…”

  Greer felt the blood drain from her face. “Not Sawyer Pratt, right? Not my Sawyer.”

  “Your Sawyer?” Vanessa frowned. “You know him?” She studied Greer’s panic-stricken face. “Oh-h-h. That’s right. You did tell me you’d had a relationship with an attorney. And his name was Sawyer. Oh my God. I’m just now putting it together. I bet it is the same guy. I mean, how many attorneys from L.A. are named Sawyer Pratt? Right?”

  Greer couldn’t trust herself to speak. When was the last time she’d seen him?

  Was it the morning she’d arrived home two days early from a location shoot in Colorado and interrupted Sawyer and his shrink sharing a tofu scramble in the kitchen of his Hancock Park apartment at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday? She could still remember the sight of Erica—the redheaded shrink—sitting at the kitchen table dressed in Greer’s striped bathrobe.

  Since then, she’d encountered Sawyer a few times at industry events, across the room at parties and screenings. Once he’d even been ahead of her in line at the movie theater at the Grove. With another woman, who definitely wasn’t Erica. As soon as she’d spotted him, Greer had slunk quietly out of the theater lobby. Somehow, she’d always managed to avoid having to speak to her ex. Until now.

  “You two are on friendly terms, right?” Vanessa asked breezily. “I mean, it’s all very civil, right?”

  “Right,” Greer said weakly.

  Civil? No. The end had been anything but civil. Bitter tears, angry accusations.

  Somehow, Sawyer had made it her fault that she worked long hours and neglected his needs. Somehow, she was to blame for his needs being met by another woman. He had called her needy, selfish, childish, naïve, and suffocating. Greer had called him a low-life, scum-sucking whoredog. And then she’d burned every single item he’d ever given her and mailed him a box containing the ashes of their relationship. It was probably safe to say she was not on friendly terms with Sawyer Pratt.

  * * *

  “Here’s Greer,” Vanessa announced. The four men were seated at one end of the long mahogany dining table. File folders and documents were scattered across the polished tabletop. All four heads turned as she entered the room, but only Eb Thibadeaux stood.

  “Sorry to be so late,” Greer murmured. She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. “Complications on the set.”

  Bryce gave her a curt nod, then turned back to the document he was reading.

  Sawyer sat back in his chair, his hands resting loosely on the arms. His dark eyes sparkled with barely disguised amusement.

  “Hello, you,” he said. Now he stood and brushed his cool lips against her cheek. “Good to see you again,” he murmured in her ear. “It’s been too long.”

  He smelled expensive, like the inside of a new Jaguar. His coal black hair, shot through with silver, curled against the collar of his jacket. His chin had a trendy line of dark stubble, and he wore dark denim designer jeans, an olive green silk shirt, and a slubby linen sport coat.

  Bryce looked up. “You two know each other?”

  “Old, dear friends,” Sawyer said smoothly.

  “A long time ago,” Greer added, disengaging from
Sawyer’s embrace. She took a seat at the table. “Where are we?”

  On cue, Sawyer slid a piece of paper across the table toward her. “I was just reminding the mayor here that the city’s lease of the Cypress Key Casino is terminated, because the city hasn’t used the property for its stated use in three years. If he reads the lease agreement, he’ll see that it specifically states that the lessor’s rights are terminated if the building goes dark.”

  Greer pretended to study the lease, sneaking a sideways glance at Eb, whose jaw was firmly clenched. He took off his glasses, polished a lens with his shirt sleeve, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  Sawyer handed another set of documents around the table. “Mr. Mayor, this is a copy of your city ordinances governing the issuance of building and/or demolition permits. I’ll save us all time here by pointing out that there is absolutely nothing in these ordinances that would give you cause to deny the demolition permit Ms. Littrell and Beach Town Productions have applied for.”

  Eb shook his head. “That’s your interpretation of the ordinances, Mr. Pratt. As city engineer, and as the mayor of Cypress Key, I can tell you that I find plenty of exceptions that would justify denial of this application.”

  “Name one,” Vanessa cried.

  “Public safety interests,” Eb shot back. He tapped the demo application with a pencil. “There’s nothing in this application that gives me any assurances that the firm hired by the production company can guarantee the proposed demolition will be done in a safe manner.”

  “Certainly there is,” Sawyer said. “You’re being deliberately obstructionist. You know it, and everybody at this table knows it.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Bryce said, tossing a sheaf of papers onto the tabletop. “We’ve danced around long enough. I’ve got a film to make.”

  Sawyer shot Bryce a look and a barely perceptible shake of his head. He reached into a briefcase at his feet and brought out yet another document, which he slid across the table to Eb.

  “This is a writ of mandamus, which I’m prepared to file with the circuit court in this county, first thing tomorrow, compelling you to issue a demolition permit without further delay.”