Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers

by kps

  Tomorrow, after he'd done his stint, he'd drive into town again-without company, this time. Call old buddy Peter and get his orders. Think about Lucy-he hoped she wasn't too scared. Big Daddy Reardon would look out for Anne.

  Suddenly, a shadow moved against the dark outline of the patio doors. Becoming twin shadows. He stubbed out the cigarette, suddenly alert.

  Jean Benedict's husky whisper was song and lyric merged into one.

  "I can tell you're not asleep. Did you know I was one-fourth Cherokee? It's too late to sleep and too early to be awake alone. We decided, Sarah and I, that we could maybe keep each other company, the three of us-like warm against the cold outside.

  Like finding out and learning . . . and early morning's no time to be alone .. ."

  Half-chant and half-music, pulling his mind out of the dark places where it had been wandering.

  Anne's eyes felt gritty from too little sleep and the fine sand thrown up by the tires of the pickup driving them to the location of the morning's filming.

  She was too tired to feel keyed up as she usually did-or to care that Karim, sitting beside her, kept his arm about her shoulders, pulling her more closely against him each time they bounced over a rut in the road.

  The sand dunes were on the far side of the island, slipping down into the ocean.

  Occasionally they had picnics there during her childhood summers. Today, they would be a part of the desert. Special Effects would take care of all the little details, and no one watching Greed for Glory would ever realize they hadn't traveled to the Mojave Desert for this particular segment.

  Yves was anxious about the light-he had come out here very early, with the camera crew, to make sure everything was set up just right.

  "I wonder what he would have done if it had turned out to be a foggy morning?"

  "Probably stood there like Moses ordering it to roll back!"

  The girls from Makeup and Costume talked over Anne's head as if she weren't there-or was merely a window mannequin. So much the better-she herself didn't feel quite real. And she was glad that Yves had skipped his usual little pep talk this morning.

  The sunlight looked pale in comparison to the van with its bright artificial lights. Anne sat in a canvas chair and looked down at the script. No more nerves-just another stint to be got over with. And then, if the day stayed fine, maybe she would go into town and see if Carmel had changed very much. Perhaps she'd have lunch there, go shopping in the plaza like any tourist. Wear her oldest, most faded pair of levis-she needed to get away from this closed-in artificial atmosphere.

  A shadow fell across her shoulder. She looked up quickly, and into Karim's smiling face. Without a word of apology he lowered himself into the chair next to hers.

  "Are you studying the script only now? I think I know this part by heart." He was wearing sunglasses and she couldn't see his eyes. She only knew she disliked and mistrusted him, and yet circumstances forced her to act civilized towards him.

  "Civilized"! It was an overdone word-meaning something before, but not now, not recently, when she'd watched the layers of so-called civilization peeling off almost everybody around her, to show their real selves.

  "Has Pleydel told you of this insistence of his on realism? We are to fall into our parts and become what we are supposed to be. You did very well yesterday."

  She was in costume, a peasant-type blouse that left her arms bare, and he stroked the length of one arm before she pulled it away from him instinctively.

  "Please, Karim! I really am trying to concentrate,'

  "Are you? Very good." He laughed-she had the impression that he was about to say more, but just then Yves walked over to them, looking impatient, a frown of concentration between his brows.

  "Anne, here you are! Come along, my dear, we have to set up the first scene."

  No stand-ins today. And the standing around was kept to a minimum as both Yves and the camera operators kept an eye on the sun. She and Webb. He did nothing more than raise one eyebrow at her-his idea of a greeting, she supposed wrathfully, wondering why he always had the power to put her into a temper. And where was Anna-Maria this morning? Standing on the sidelines watching?

  No more moonlight, sending her mind spinning and dancing on the silver edges of swells; breaking like splintered glass against rocks and beaches. This was the morning after, and she was sane again, able to take Webb as he was.

  But what was he? She once knew what she had been looking for-herself, maybe, freedom, whatever that meant. She was no longer certain. But Webb-the image, the women-

  "Very well, we are ready at last." Anne heard Yves' voice with relief. She was ready to get this over and done with, so she could have the rest of the day to herself, to be herself.

  "Good morning. Christ, is it afternoon already? They still filming?"

  Harris had stayed up later than any of them last night, and had risen early. He'd been on the telephone all morning; and mixed with a sense of satisfaction at having accomplished so much was a feeling of resentment at the others. Espinoza and Randall had taken off at dawn to play golf; and Randall still wore his golfing clothes, his cigar stuck at a jaunty angle in his mouth.

  "They're still out there, as far as I know." Harris made his voice sound noncommittal.

  "You know what a stickler Pleydel can be. Where's Sal?"

  "Downstairs having a shower and changing, I guess. His girl friend came with us, to caddy." Randall gave a bark of laughter. "You should have seen those guys' faces!

  Hear anything new?"

  "Carol's arriving this afternoon. Parmenter and his friend" -Phelps's look was significant-"ought to be here sometime tomorrow. It's the weekend, so everyone else will probably go into town or fly down to the city. We ought to have time to talk and plan the last-minute details."

  "Uh-huhl" Randall grunted around the cigar that was already filling the room with foul-smelling smoke. "And Carnahan? We have his angle figured out yet? Can't underestimate his connections, you know. When this thing breaks .. ."

  Randall watched as Harris Phelps tried to keep the annoyance from his face.

  "Nobody's underestimating anyone. And we do have the advantage of knowing what he's up to, don't we? And why. As I've said, we could turn that to our advantage.

  Right now our contact in Washington is working on finding out where they're holding his sister and the children."

  "And in the meantime, what's Reardon up to?"

  Harris permitted himself a tight smile. "He's playing it slow and cautious. Remember that he has only suspicions to go on, the bastard. And he daren't pull anything too obvious. Not now, with the press"-he nodded at Randall-"screaming at his heels.

  Parmenter doesn't like all those CIA exposures Norm's been printing in his column, by the way, but he understands what we're doing and why-we'll have to do a certain amount of explaining when he gets here, you know."

  "Oh sure." Randall had a way of dismissing unimportant details with a wave of his cigar. Now he actually grinned. He was a man of action, and the weekend promised plenty. The first big move forward. A few more weeks, and ...

  He snapped back to attention when Harris Phelps said carefully, "I had a call from Petrakis, too. Everything's going well at his end. I talked to him about our-slight problem with Karim, and he felt sure the emir would understand whatever measures we have to take. Although they do not have to be too extreme-on our part, that is."

  The two men exchanged a look. They had talked until late the previous night.

  "Which scene were they shooting today?"

  There was a flickering change in Harris Phelps's cold gray eyes-there for an instant, then gone, as they turned opaque.

  "A very short sequence between Anne and Webb Carnahan. The scene-if you remember the book-where Glory steals Jason's horse when he's asleep and takes off, planning to turn him over to the soldiers who are looking for him."

  She was riding bareback-remembering how to ride, although the horse, well trained, made it easy for her.
Glory, running away from the man she alternately loved and hated. Looking for the soldiers who would rescue her ... although the small patrol into whose midst her bolting horse took her was more interested in Glory herself.

  A series of short scenes. She had to say few words, only to register various emotions. With her hair hanging loose and tangled and her face deliberately dirt-smeared by the makeup girl, it wasn't too difficult.

  At least there was no Webb to cope with. This was really acting. Easy to show fear and revulsion when the grinning soldiers began to paw at her body.

  She was being dragged along with them, screaming-and then they let her fall, moving away from her as their commander rode up, barking out an order in Spanish. Boots polished to a meticulous shine. Whip tapping against them. Fearfully, she looked up, to encounter malicious black eyes, nasty-smiling face.

  "So! I find you again, eh? Or you have found me." She was pulled to her feet. "Which is it? You look a trifle the worse for wear since I saw you last, senorita. Did your Americano tire of you so quickly?"

  "Please-please! I ran away from him ..." "Did you? Were you looking for me? You must tell me all about it." Dream-or new nightmare? Yves had only to call, "Action I"

  and she moved and reacted like an automated doll.

  They had erected a makeshift tent, and he threw her down on the ground just inside it, thrusting her. ragged skirts up as he threw himself over her. Her blouse ripped under his hands.

  "You must show me what he has taught you since he made you his whore. And I think my men are anxious to find out, too."

  Not real, not true. This was Karim, not Webb, and his face looked just as it had that night when she had been asleep and not quite asleep. Her struggles to escape him were in earnest now, but he kept laughing. Putting his hand over her mouth, half-smothering her when she would have screamed. Putting his other hand, hidden from the cameras, between their bodies, and between her thrashing legs. Hurting her so much that her arching convulsions looked as if she were responding to him.

  "You will like this, and this-and anything else I choose to do with you. I am making you mine, do you understand that? Just as you were the other night. And when this is over, you will come away with me-I will have you begging for my favors, blonde bitch, just as you beg for his with your eyes that follow him everywhere!"

  Karim's voice was only a whisper, but through the nightmare of pain and degradation she heard every word he said.

  Rape. "Don't fight it, or they might kill you." "Lie still and enjoy it." Other words she had heard or read jostled themselves in her mind. Don't worry, this wasn't real-it wasn't happening to her, to Anne, any of it. Only to Glory, a make-believe woman who didn't know her own mind-in a make-believe book written by a woman called Roberta Savage. She'd read it in London. She'd read the script, which was all words and camera angles on different-colored pages. Let her mind cling to that and forget everything else. In the end she'd wake up and find she had been dreaming again.

  In the end she stopped resisting. Even when one body followed another. She let her mind detach itself from her body, which was aching and bruised and being used.

  Webb didn't know why he had stayed to watch. He had intended to take off soon after he'd done his bit. With the weekend coming up and his head still not where it should be, he'd planned on going up to visit Dave. Make the phone calls he had to make, and get his priorities straightened out.

  He'd headed for the transportation-but everyone was busy watching the filming. No drivers, no ignition keys. When he headed back, in a frustrated, ugly mood, he'd run into the ubiquitous Joe Palumbo in his black leather jacket, smoking a cigarette.

  Palumbo's eyes, too, had been glued to the action.

  "I need a ride back ..." And then he had seen what was going on and a sheerly primitive instinct had made him start forward, to be stopped by a hand on his arm.

  "Better not. She ain't fighting, is she?"

  She hadn't fought too hard against him either, but what he was seeing made him sick. If he'd had a gun that worked, he'd have sighted it on Karim's back and squeezed the trigger.

  As if he'd read his mind, Palumbo handed him a smoke. "Sorry. I'm supposed to stay here until they're all finished. Gotta haul a lot of equipment back in the truck. But there's room in the front with me if you'll still be needing a ride then, Mr. Carnahan."

  For Christ's sake, he'd better bring himself back under control. It might be all faked, or she might actually be enjoying it. In any case, he'd only make himself look like all kinds of a fool if he strode out there. And he'd been wanting to talk with Palumbo in private in any case.

  Webb turned his back-wondering why he felt like Judas, wondering why a muscle he had no control over jumped in his temple. She'd turned him down last night for Karim, hadn't she? She damn well knew what was going on.

  Even after Yves had called, "Cut!" she kept tying there, feeling herself broken in a million places.

  "Anne, you were magnifique! What an actress you have turned out to be!" Yves himself handed her her robe, and helped her up off the ground.

  Didn't he know? Didn't he realize? There were some things the camera couldn't record, and her thighs still felt wet and sticky. She hurt, all the way inside her, but everyone kept rushing around just as usual, as if nothing had really happened. Had it? She mustn't let herself become hysterical, Anne thought. She'd fall to pieces if she let herself go. Better to pretend, like everyone else, that it had all been a piece of pretense.

  "Are you all right? You look pale, cherie. Perhaps you should go into the dressing room and rest-take a pill, eh? We will be ready to go in a short while."

  Yves looked searchingly at her. She couldn't force a smile to her face but she managed to shake her head. The robe was soft and warm about her body, protecting it. More than anything she needed a bath. Hot water to soak away the bruises, the traces, the indignity.

  Now, standing on her feet again, with Yves leading her solicitously to the van that served as her dressing room, it was hard to believe.

  Heading toward the van, Webb passed two women, earnestly discussing the scene they had just witnessed. "Come to think of it, all of Pleydel's films contain a certain amount of sadism, which must appeal .. ."

  "Don't you mean sado-masochism? He puts down women, and makes it seem as if they enjoy it!"

  "Well, Bergman .. ."

  He almost ran full tilt into Karim, headed the same way, and they faced each other like wary, antagonistic dogs, ready to fight each other over the same bitch. Until PIeydel's voice called Karim sharply back to heel.

  Very interesting-but this was no time for a confrontation between these two. That could come later. He was wondering what Harris Phelps's reaction would be, even as he walked up easily, clapping his arm about Karim's tensed shoulders.

  "You were very good, mon ami. But there are a few things I would like to discuss with you. If you'll excuse us?" This to Webb Carnahan, who didn't even have the courtesy to nod, or to knock at the door to the van before he opened it and walked in.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  ANNE DIDN'T KNOW how Webb had found her-or why. She had taken another tranquilizer, but there had been no time for it to take effect yet. Still in her robe, she found herself bundled unceremoniously into the front of a pickup truck-the taciturn Palumbo, driving, pretending not to notice anything but the rough, rutted track ahead.

  Sand flew up from the wheels. There was sand in her hair, between her skin and the robe, chafing her. Anne found her mind shying away from any further thought. Think only as far ahead as a bath, a change of clothes. Carmel seemed far away, and a part of her past. She wanted to go home, to hide. But where was home?

  She had been trying not to think about Webb. Practically dragging her away with him.

  His arm holding her tightly against him now. Why?

  He had hardly spoken to her, except to say tightly, "Okay, prima donna, you're going back now. With me." And she hadn't had the strength to argue against the dangerous
look on his face. What could Webb do to her that he hadn't done before?

  A sharp curve in the road threw them even closer together. She stiffened, feeling the tenseness of his muscles, and readied herself for the attack she sensed was coming.

  "Christ, Anne! Have you begun to enjoy being raped? Or was it rape? Did you frequent the partouze circuit when you were spending time in France? Variety and watchers turn you on, baby?"

  He was being deliberately cruel and she would have shrunk away from him if she could have. He didn't let her. She was lying half across his lap, his arm both a barrier and a trap.

  She said faintly, "Oh, Webb, please! Why did you have to ... why won't you leave me be?"

  Cruelly, he mimicked her. "Please-please! In your language, that's an invitation, isn't it? You said that to me, and I heard you say it to Karim. And you're damn right, I should leave you be, only I keep remembering the way you used to be. What happened to you, Annie? What are you doing here?"

  Welcome rage flooded through her. Hypocrite! She didn't quite understand why he had kidnapped her this way, but she sure as hell wasn't going to lie back and take his calculatedly patronizing barbs. And if he didn't care about Palumbo's presence, then neither would she!

  "What are you doing here? Money, publicity, lots of new women? Or just plain kicks?"

  "And what do you mean by that?"

  She had gone too far to turn back now. She had to twist her neck around to look into his dark, angry face, but she did, wanting to watch his expression. "Why do you keep pretending? Do you ever stop playing a role? You like watching yourself on film, don't you? Cameras, videotape-does Claudia know? Does your latest female friend, Anna-Maria? I've watched .. ." She could have bitten off her tongue the next moment, feeling his arm almost choke the breath out of her lungs.

  "Videotape, huh? Who's the hypocrite now, baby? You enjoy being a voyeur? Guess that gives us one more thing in common, doesn't it? Except you have the advantage over me in this case. You're going to have to tell me more about it. Seems like you sure get to watch an awful lot."