The Notorious Pagan Jones

by Nina Berry

  Everyone stilled. Pagan tossed her head, becoming Violet, and pictured herself striding up to the door to L.T.’s office fresh from a long hot night spent with the world’s most beautiful man. Pagan remembered well how empowering it was when she sneaked home after being with Nicky. How her whole body was relaxed yet energized. Every tiny thing in the world glowed, and she had emanated that reflected light.

  Strangely, the sardonic face and strong graceful hands of Devin Black sprang to mind, and she hastily brushed that aside to replace him with the strong, square-jawed face of the man who was Violet’s East German boyfriend, played by Thomas Kruger.

  “Roll camera,” said Bennie.

  The camera whirred. “Rolling,” said the camera operator. The second assistant cameraman, standing in the middle of the set, lifted his clapboard and waited.

  “Sound,” said Bennie.

  The sound mixer flipped the Nagra recorder on, adjusting his headphones. “Speed,” he said. Off to the side of the set, the boom operator lifted his microphone into position.

  “Slate,” Bennie said.

  “Neither Here Nor There, scene 25, camera rehearsal,” said the second AC, and slapped the clapperboard down sharply before he sidled off camera.

  “And…action.”

  Pagan gave it a beat, and then sighed dreamily and opened the door. The blaring lights of the set fell full upon her. For Violet Houlihan they were like the lights of heaven, and today she was wearing wings.

  Jimmy Brennan, in character as L. T. Houlihan, had his back to her as he yelled into the phone. Beyond him, in the shadowy dark beyond the lights, the indistinguishable figures of the crew watched, utterly silent.

  “I don’t care if she’s migrated with the kestrels to Greenland, we’ve got to find her, understand?” Brennan was yelling. “Get me the chief of police, get me Khrushchev, get me John F. Kennedy! Yes, all of them at once!”

  Pagan sailed over toward the desk, removing her gloves, to land on her mark. “What’s all the ruckus?”

  Brennan shot her a cursory glance. “Violet’s missing.” Then into the phone: “Whaddaya mean we don’t even recognize East Germany as a country? I can see it from my window!”

  Pagan’s mouth made a puzzled little moue. “But I’m right here.” Her Southern accent gave the word here two, almost three, syllables.

  “Quiet!” Brennan shouted, and then did an incredible double take at Pagan, who blinked at him, wide-eyed. “Violet!”

  She could feel the stir of humor from the crew. During a rehearsal they were allowed to audibly react.

  “Good morning,” she said, splashing the widest, most innocent smile on the planet across her face.

  “Where the blazes have you been?” Brennan slammed the phone into its cradle and rounded the corner of the desk toward her.

  Pagan allowed her body to flood with love, lust, and excitement. “Well, you see, there’s this boy over in East Berlin. And he’s, well—what isn’t he?”

  “Boy?” Brennan’s pouched eyes were alive with alarm and suspicion. His energetic frustration gave Pagan something solid to play off. “What boy?”

  Pagan dreamily removed her coat and laid it on his desk. “Well, last week I was over in East Berlin to see what it was like and some boys started yelling at me to take my fur coat and go home.”

  “Yelling at you?” Brennan looked as if any second smoke would pour from his ears.

  Pagan nodded. “And then Niklaus walked up and told them they shouldn’t bother with me since I was just a poor bourgeois capitalist piglet who didn’t know any better because I’d been raised in a corrupt society bereft of moral values.” She shuddered a little with happiness, staring at Brennan as if she’d just seen the face of God. “It was love at first sight!”

  The crew murmured appreciatively, and Pagan knew she’d nailed the joke.

  The scene went on, over five minutes long, and by the time Pagan introduced her Communist boyfriend to Brennan, she was in the groove, bouncing her lines off both men as if they’d been doing it together onstage for weeks. When Bennie yelled “Cut!” the crew burst into applause.

  “All right, all right,” Bennie said. “So that went well. This time we do it for real.”

  “Places!” shouted Matthew Smalls, and they started all over again.

  By lunch break, they’d done it thirty times, and everyone was ready to move on except Bennie. Jimmy Brennan was sweating and sending hot glares Pagan’s way whenever she did a particularly funny take.

  When Bennie announced they’d start the scene up again after lunch, Jimmy stomped over and pulled the director aside. He was trying to keep his voice low, but angry spurts of words spilled out as Pagan gave her purse back to the prop master.

  “She’s deliberately pulling focus from me,” Jimmy spat. “It’s unprofessional scene stealing, pure and simple!”

  Bennie replied in soothing tones with something no one could hear, and, knowing Jimmy had to be ranting about her, Pagan blushed furiously and hustled away from them while the crew pretended to be busy.

  The entire ninth floor of the building had been set aside as a makeshift cafeteria for the cast and crew. Pagan found a spot next to Thomas during the meal break, happy not to have to deal with the complicated Devin Black. Thomas gave her a wide dimpled smile as she set her tray down on the conference table.

  “Jimmy hates me,” she said under her breath to him.

  Thomas didn’t look surprised. “He’s an excellent actor, but he must be the center of everything or he feels small.”

  “But I’m not the center of anything,” she said. “He’s the star of the movie.”

  “Not when you’re in a scene with him,” Thomas said. “And he knows it.”

  “Well, I hope Bennie talks some sense into him. I don’t want him hating me the whole shoot.”

  “Just wait until he sees your fans in Berlin swarm you,” Thomas said. “He’ll have to hire someone to bump you off.”

  “Check out your English skills,” she said as he smiled proudly. “You’re sweet, but I doubt I have any fans left.”

  “Oh, but you do.” Thomas pulled a magazine out of his jacket pocket and unfolded it to show her the cover. It was a newsprint rag, the kind that printed the nasty gossip rather than official studio news and interviews. On the cover was a huge photo of Pagan taken yesterday in the gardens of Schloss Charlottenburg as she dipped her fingers in the fountain. She surprised herself by easily reading the headline, which screamed the German version of: Tarnished Star Pagan Jones Free From Reform School, Shooting Film Comedy in Berlin!

  Her heart sank. She’d hoped to escape the press for a little while longer, until she was more at ease out in the real world.

  The photo looked innocent enough, but something was missing. She took a second to study it and it struck her. Devin had been right beside her most of the time. But in the photograph he simply wasn’t there.

  “Are there more shots?” she asked.

  “Not many,” Thomas said, opening up the magazine. He frowned at her, concerned. “Was I wrong to show you? It’s quite flattering, really.”

  “No, of course it’s all right.” Pagan took the tabloid from him and scanned the three other photos of her, all taken at Schloss Charlottenburg. Devin was in none of them. It was as if he’d been erased.

  She scanned the print, looking for clues. The more she read, the more easily the German words came back to her. At this rate it wouldn’t be long before it became second nature to her, as it had been when she was a kid.

  The article gave an accurate account of her conviction for manslaughter in the deaths of her father and sister, and her last nine months in the Lighthouse Reformatory for girls. It was told in the most sensational language, of course, but the facts were better than any story the magazine could have made up. The report
er finished by recounting how she seemed to be enjoying the beauty of the Schloss Charlottenburg, unconcerned about the past and no doubt looking forward to a second chance costarring in Benjamin Wexler’s new movie, which would be shooting in Berlin for the next four weeks.

  “Are you all right?” Thomas asked as she handed him back the magazine. “It is good publicity for the film. I’m sorry if I—”

  “No, no, it’s all right.” She managed a smile at his worried face. “It’s just a little strange, you know?”

  He looked thoughtful. “The photos are of you, but are not actually you.”

  “Exactly,” she said, relaxing a little. Despite the language barrier, it was clear Thomas Kruger was very kind, that he understood her life in a way that many people could not.

  “Once I went fishing with some friends, and we took off our shirts to get, um, die Bräune…” He looked at her quizzically.

  “To get a tan,” she said.

  “Yes, exactly! To get a tan, and we didn’t know a photographer had followed us. The next day—photographs of me were in the paper.” He lifted his arms in a weight lifter show-off pose and widened his smile into a grimace so silly, Pagan laughed out loud.

  He nodded. “Exactly! I saw the photographs and thought, who is this ridiculous boy showing off for the camera? It didn’t seem like me at all.”

  “You must be very popular,” she said, “if there are photographers following you.”

  “Only in my own country, and maybe a little in the Soviet Union,” he said. “I was like you. I started as a child, and after my father died, the money was very helpful for the family.”

  He was more like her than he knew. “I liked acting from the first, even though it was all my mother’s idea,” she said. “You probably took to it right away, as well.”

  He shook his head. “I always enjoy acting, but—” he lowered his voice “—to be very honest, until now the scripts have been so terrible that I had trouble forcing myself to truly act in them. The state film office in my country does not have directors and writers like Bennie working there. This…” He gestured around at the cast and crew, scattered around the large conference room they’d turned into a sort of cafeteria. “This is too good to be true.”

  “It is for me, too,” she said. “Maybe we both have a second chance.”

  “I hope so.” Thomas’s gaze stopped on something behind her, and his face froze.

  Pagan turned to see Devin by the conference room door, lean and intent as a panther, beckoning to Thomas with one imperious hand.

  “Excuse me, please,” Thomas said. “I’ll be right back.”

  If Devin was going to take away her lunch companion, she would take advantage. With Thomas temporarily blocking Devin’s view of her, Pagan slipped away.

  She made her way quickly to her dressing room and grabbed the photo of her young grandmother in Berlin out of her purse. It was time to ask Matthew for that second favor.

  She emerged from her dressing room to find Devin leaning one shoulder against the wall in the hallway outside. Thomas was nowhere to be seen.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked with a casual indifference completely at odds with the fact that he was stalking her like prey.

  “I just wanted to get this,” she said, flourishing the photograph. “I’m going to ask Matthew to see if he can find out where it was taken.”

  “Matthew’s from Chicago, not Berlin,” Devin said.

  “Watch and learn, genius,” she said, and stomped off to find Matthew. Devin followed.

  Matthew was eating with the grips and seemed receptive when she said she needed to ask a favor.

  “Do you think there’s any chance our location scouts might know where this building is?” she asked, showing him the photo. “That’s my grandmother, you see, holding my mother when she was just a baby. I know very little about Mama’s family, so I was hoping to find out where they lived while I was here.”

  Matthew took the photo from her, scanning it. “I can ask our location scout, sure, but this might be one of the buildings that got bombed during the war.”

  “I know it’s a faint chance,” she said. “I promise not to be disappointed if they don’t recognize it.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll get this photo back to you by the end of the day.”

  “Thanks so much, Matthew,” she said. “I promise I’ll return the favor.”

  “Got any tips for improving my poker game?” He allowed himself a smile.

  “Hmm…” She gave it a moment of thought. “Well, if you want to bluff, it’s all about the acting, right? And acting is all about lying to yourself. If you believe it, they’ll believe it.”

  “So pretend I’ve got the best hand in the world?” he said. “I already do that, and it’s not working.”

  “No, it’s more than pretending.” Pagan thought back to what she told herself before she did a scene. “You’ve had really good hands in the past, right? Well, when you want to bluff, remind yourself of how you felt when you had that royal flush or four aces or whatever it was. Bring that feeling back, even if you’ve only got eight high, sink deep into that feeling, and everyone around you will see it on your face. They’ll believe you.”

  The grips were all listening intently along with Thomas. Several were nodding. One said, “So, if I wanted them to think I had a bad hand…”

  “Just pull up that feeling you had when you first saw the crappiest hand you ever got in your life,” she said.

  They all laughed. Matthew shook his head at her. “It’s no good. Now you’ve told them all the secret, too!”

  “So sorry…” It was Thomas, hovering a little anxiously behind her. She hadn’t seen him a moment ago, and Devin had disappeared. “But I couldn’t help overhearing. You wanted to find a particular building in Berlin?”

  Pagan’s mouth fell open a little as she realized the obvious had completely bypassed her. “Yes! I— One second!” She slid the photo out from under Matthew’s hand, smiling apologetically at him, and thrust it at Thomas. “Do you know it?”

  Thomas raised his eyebrows, looking down at the small picture. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. But I was thinking, if you like, we could show this to my mother. She knows Berlin very well, both before and after the war, all of the sectors. Even if the building is now gone, she might know it.”

  “That would be great!” For the first time, she might actually be making progress. The location scout idea had been a stab in the dark. “Maybe if your mother comes to visit the set one day, we could show her the photograph?”

  “Or you could come to our house for lunch tomorrow.” Thomas laughed at her surprised expression. “We both have the day off, you and I. They’re shooting scenes without us, so I’d been thinking of inviting you anyway, selfishly, because my sister Karin is such a fan of yours. And I would enjoy your company.” He flushed slightly, but his gaze was steady. “It would mean so much to Karin, and you’d have plenty of time to talk to my mother about this. “

  “I’d love to!” The whole prospect was appealing—an adventure into the eastern sector, finding out about her mother’s past, hanging out with the easygoing Thomas, getting away from Devin… Her stomach fell. “I’m not sure I can, though.”

  “Devin told me it was okay,” he said as if he’d read her thoughts. “Perhaps I am presumptuous, but I know you’re still underage, and I didn’t want to cause any problems. So I asked him first.”

  “Oh!” She was taken aback and slightly confused. “You asked him just now?”

  “Yes. I hope you don’t mind.”

  But she’d seen Devin beckon Thomas over, not the other way around. Which meant their conversation had to have been about something other than an innocuous invitation to have lunch with Thomas’s family, right? Why would Thomas lie about something so small? Or maybe Thom
as had asked him after that. The latest revelations about Devin probably had her overthinking things. “If Devin says it’s okay, then we’re all set.”

  “Great!” Dimples showed in both of his cheeks as he grinned. He really did look quite pleased. Perhaps she’d imagined the dread in his eyes when he spoke to Devin. “I’ll pick you up at eleven-thirty tomorrow. How is that?”

  “I can’t wait,” she said.

  But when Pagan trotted down the front steps of the Hilton to meet Thomas the next day, she spotted Devin, ominous as a raven perched on a pigeon coop, talking to Thomas. They stood beside a red convertible Mercedes-Benz. The sight of it made her breath catch. Its low-slung silhouette was very like the cherry-red Corvette she’d driven off a cliff.

  “Good morning,” Devin said, smiling at her. It gave her time to gather her wits.

  “How nice of you to see me off,” she said to him. “I promise to be back before midnight.”

  “I’m going with you,” he said, unperturbed. “Assuming I can fit in this poor excuse of a backseat.”

  “But…” She made a helpless gesture with her hands. A nice family lunch with the very manageable Thomas and his family, people who wanted nothing from her but conversation, would feel like a much-needed vacation.

  “You can’t think I won’t be safe with Thomas,” she said to Devin as she flashed a genuine smile past him at her costar, who looked glowingly handsome in a crisp white shirt, open slightly at the neck to show a peek of smooth tan skin, and casual cotton pants that fit ever so nicely over his hips.

  “It’s Thomas I’m here to protect,” Devin said.

  She put her hands on her hips. It was an attempt at a joke, but as usual, he was full of hooey. “Three’s a crowd.”

  Devin nodded sympathetically but didn’t budge. “Pretend I’m not here. Think of it as an acting exercise.”

  She leveled a don’t try to humor me glare at him. “My talent stretches only so far.”

  Thomas had gotten out of the car and opened the passenger door for her. “My lady?” He bowed smartly at the waist, smiling.