by Stuart Woods
“You’re all heart.”
“I wish you’d use a stuntman.”
“I am a stuntman.”
“After the life you’ve led, to kill yourself making a movie would be pretty ironic.”
Teddy smiled. “Hey, getting shot in the chest on a twelve-inch-wide steel girder five stories up in the air. What could possibly go wrong?”
69
Slythe, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of sunglasses, a camera hanging around his neck, stood in line for the Centurion Studios back-lot tour. He didn’t have a reservation, but he bought a place in line for a hundred dollars from a college kid who was happy to have the money, and joined the group of starstruck tourists being led through the Centurion gate onto the lot.
Their guide was a young production assistant with an insider’s arrogance and enough knowledge to get by.
“Now then,” he said, “we’re going to be walking through the sets where we shoot our street scenes. You may recognize them from the movies and TV. The same streets have appeared in many movies, slightly redressed, with different street signs, different windows, a different saloon door.”
“Saloon door?” a big man in a straw hat said. He had a booming voice, louder than that of the guide’s. “We’re in New York City.”
They were indeed walking down a Manhattan street, easily recognizable by the police station with an NYPD police car parked out front.
“Yes, we are,” the guide said, “but if we turn right at the corner, I think you’ll get the idea.”
They did, and found themselves in front of a charming French café with tables on the street. A scene from An American in Paris could have easily been filmed there.
“See? Another street, another country, another time period. Our saloon door should be up on the left.”
The group turned another corner and found themselves on a dusty street with hitching posts and water troughs, a saloon, a hotel, and a sheriff’s office.
“There you go,” the guide said. “Throw in a few horses and extras, and you’re set for your gunfight at high noon.”
“Where are the actors?” a girl wanted to know. She was of high school age, and clutched an autograph book.
The guide smiled. “Of course, everyone wants to see the actors. I’m afraid they’re filming inside today. We can’t enter the studio, but you might see someone on the way to their trailer or going out to lunch.”
As if on cue, a man rounded the corner and came walking down the street.
“And look who that is,” the guide said.
People craned their necks eagerly, whispering guesses as to who it was.
“That’s special-effects wizard Fred Russell,” the guide announced, and the crowd deflated. A technical wizard was not who they wanted to see. “Hey, Russell, how’s it going?”
“Busy, busy, busy,” Russell said, strolling up. “This film has a lot of special effects.”
“What are you working on now?”
Russell had clearly done this many times and had his own line of canned patter. “This film has a zillion gunshots. For a contemporary thriller that’s not a cops-and-robbers, that’s rare. You can’t shoot live bullets at the actors, because they’re expensive to replace. We do it with blanks and squibs. If someone gets shot, it looks like they’ve been shot, but they can get up and walk off the set. I’m responsible for every gunshot in the movie. If there’s one live round, I lose my job. And it’s not great for the actor either.” He smiled and raised his eyebrows at the joke, which landed with a thud.
Russell was carrying a bag. He set it down on the empty water trough and took out a gun. “Here’s your basic gun. A .38 Smith & Wesson revolver.” He swung open the cylinder and took out the shells. “And here’s your bullets. You can see they’re all blanks. Just a shell and a charge.” He reached in his bag again. “And here’s a live round. You can easily tell the difference because you can see the top of the rounded bullet.” Russell reloaded the barrel and snapped it closed. “And there you are. A perfectly safe, personally inspected movie prop.”
The man in the straw hat wasn’t buying it. “Can I see the other bullet?”
“Oh, I put it away,” Russell said. “But, trust me, it’s perfectly safe. I stand behind my work. Actually, I stand in front of it. I can’t let any gun be aimed at an actor that I wouldn’t have aimed at me.” He looked over the crowd. “Who wants to shoot me?”
“I do,” the man in the straw hat said.
The guide chuckled and returned to his tour script. “I’m sorry to be a party pooper, but for insurance purposes we can’t let any guest fire a gun on the property. I’ll shoot Russell.”
The guide took the gun and stepped out in the street. Russell stepped out and faced him. “Think you can hit me from fifteen feet?”
“I’ll give it my best shot.”
The schoolgirl giggled nervously.
“And draw!”
Russell drew an imaginary gun and aimed his finger.
The guide fired.
Blood gushed from Russell’s chest. He jerked backward and collapsed in a heap.
There were gasps of shock and awe.
“Oh, my God!” the guide said. He rushed to the fallen man.
Russell leaped to his feet with a ta-da! gesture. “And he’s still alive!” he declared. “Movie magic. You knew it was coming and you still bought it. That’s why I showed you the real bullet. So in your mind, for a split second, you’d think I mixed them up.” He pointed to his bloody shirt. “It’s a blood bag and a squib, of course. I set it off with a detonator in my pocket. Pretty neat, huh?”
The tour group applauded halfheartedly. It was good theater, but it wasn’t making up for the fact that there were no actors.
“So when do we see the cast?” Slythe said.
“I told you,” the guide said, “they’re filming inside today.” A chorus of disappointed murmurs coursed through the crowd.
The guide continued, “But if you’re still in town tomorrow, they’ll be shooting outside in the vicinity of Sunset and Main, on a construction site. Russell will be working, because they’re actually filming a gunfight on a five-story-high steel girder. That’s a shoot-out between Devon and Leonard Kirk.”
The schoolgirl wasn’t impressed. “Who?” she said.
“Those are the names of the characters in the movie. Leonard Kirk is an actor named Mark Weldon. And Devon”—the guide drew it out, teasing her—“is the star of the movie, Brad Hunter!”
There were oohs and aahs. The schoolgirl practically swooned.
“Hang on,” Slythe said. “That won’t be the actors. That will just be stuntmen.”
The guide put up his hands. “Brad Hunter’s scene on the high beam will be shot with a stuntman. Mark Weldon is a stuntman, so will perform himself. But Brad and Mark will both shoot the same scene on a low girder just a few feet off the ground. They’ll actually shoot most of it there. The high beam is just for the stunt.”
“And what’s the stunt?” Slythe wanted to know.
“Oh. Brad shoots the bad guy, and he falls off the beam, down five stories to his death.”
Slythe smiled. “No kidding.”
70
Slythe was waiting in his rental car outside the Centurion gates when the shift ended. After a few minutes Russell came out talking and laughing with a couple of production-crew types. They hopped into their cars and took off.
Slythe followed them a few miles down the road to a workingman’s bar, complete with shuffleboard and a pool table. All were greeted by the bartender and ordered draft beer.
Slythe bellied up to the bar and ordered one, too. He was in luck. Russell’s buddies started shooting pool.
Slythe slapped a goofy grin on his face and pointed. “Hey, aren’t you the guy?”
Russell grinned. Clearly this had happened to
him before.
“The gun guy with the special effects. From the movies? That was you.”
“You were on the tour.”
“Damn right. Is that part of the job? You gotta do the tour when you’re not on the set?”
Russell grinned. “You a cop? No, it’s not part of the job. They slip me a little on the side to entertain the tourists. It’s hokey, but they gotta give them something to make up for not seeing the actors.”
“No offense, but it doesn’t.”
“No kidding. Well, tomorrow I don’t have to do it.”
“You’re working the construction site?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you have to go up on the high beam?”
“I hope not. I’m hoping I can check their guns on the ground, before they go up and shoot the scene.”
“What time do you think they’ll shoot it?”
“It should be the first shot. If they can’t get that, there’s no point shooting the other stuff.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“The director will figure out something else that does work, and shoot that. And the stuff on the ground will be shot to match. If you shoot the stuff on the ground first and the stunt doesn’t work, you’re screwed. Nothing will match.”
“What do you mean the stuff on the ground? I thought the scene was five stories up.”
“They’ll shoot some of the scene on a lower beam a couple of feet off the ground, so they can get some shots with the actors’ faces. They won’t put them at risk doing the actual stunts. The stuntmen practice on it, too, to get the footwork right. Running on a narrow beam isn’t easy.”
“Will they be using the same gun you were using today?”
Russell snorted. “Hardly. The bad guy will be using a .38 snub-nosed revolver, but Brad will be using a Sig Sauer P320 nine millimeter. He thinks it looks stylish. Can you imagine that? Stylish. All that means is some other actor used it in some other movie and he wants to be like him.”
“Are you saying the guy’s an asshole?”
“Absolutely not, and you didn’t hear it here.” Russell set his empty glass on the bar. “Guess I better go. Six AM call with the prop man, and he’ll bust my chops if I’m late.”
“He a hard-ass?”
“Sometimes, when he’s stressed. Tomorrow’s a big job—we gotta load our supplies and get to location by seven AM to be ready for shooting.”
“No sweat, then. Take it easy. Have one on me.” Slythe tossed money on the bar, said, “Give this man another beer,” and went out.
Slythe got in his car and checked his cell phone to see if Fred Russell’s address was listed. It was. Good.
He wouldn’t have to follow him home.
71
Winston Sporting Goods had very poor security for a place that sold guns. Slythe had no problem disconnecting the alarm system, smashing a bathroom window, and letting himself in.
With a pencil flashlight he made his way to the firearms section. He was pleased to see a Sig Sauer among the guns hanging on the wall. He didn’t take it, but began pulling out drawers below the countertop. They held nothing but bullets, from BBs to buckshot to assault rifle magazines.
In the middle drawer he found what he wanted: a box of 9mm cartridges. He opened the box and dumped a pile of bullets out on the counter. He took the Sig Sauer off the wall and loaded it just to make sure they fit.
When he was done he popped the magazine, thumbed out the bullets, and ejected the one in the chamber. He slid the empty magazine into the gun and hung the Sig Sauer back on the wall.
He put a dozen bullets in his pocket and returned the rest to the box. He closed the box and put it back in the drawer, underneath another box of identical shells.
He swept up the glass, locked the bathroom window, and went out the back fire door, pulling it shut behind him. He reset the security alarm, hopped in his car, and drove off.
It couldn’t have gone better. With luck, no one would notice there’d been a robbery. Certainly not before tomorrow.
After that it wouldn’t matter.
* * *
—
Fred Russell was up at five o’clock. It was a huge tech day, and he had to be at the studio at six, and the set wasn’t at the studio—it was at the top of a five-story-high construction site. A technician’s nightmare to set up.
He pulled on a T-shirt, a pair of jeans, and running shoes, his standard attire. He didn’t stop for breakfast, he’d get coffee and a Danish from the catering truck on the set. He checked that he had his money, his keys, and his wallet. He pulled on his cap and opened the front door.
A man stood in the doorway. He seemed vaguely familiar, but Russell couldn’t place him. He was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, with a baseball cap worn backward. Otherwise—
Russell’s eyes widened.
The man from the bar.
The man Russell had just recognized stepped in with a straight razor and cut his throat.
72
Slythe drove down to Centurion and bluffed his way onto the back lot. It wasn’t hard. The guard at the gate was half asleep and not expecting to do anything but check IDs.
“Who?” he said.
“Tim Dale. I’m supposed to check in with the prop department.”
“No one said anything about it.”
“I was just called in, someone phoned in sick. The union sent me instead.”
“I don’t know . . . ”
“There’s a big shoot today, and they told me to get my ass down here and report in. If they lose a day shooting they’ll be blaming me. You know how it goes with these types,” Slythe said, trying to appear like just another blue-collar guy who worked among a lot of people with more power and money than he’d ever have. “Who’s the head of props?”
The guard picked up the phone. For a moment Slythe was afraid he was calling the union to check up on him, but he was actually calling a production assistant to drive him to the set.
Slythe reported to the head of the prop department, who wasn’t pleased to see him. Leon Gerber was a small, wiry man, always suspicious that someone was after his job. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“The union sent me to fill in for Fred Russell.”
“No one told me.”
“It just happened.”
“Why’d they send you?”
“I answered the phone.”
Leon snorted in disgust. “We have a tech-heavy shoot on location at a high-rise construction site. A shoot-out on a five-story-high girder, between a bad guy and the star. I can’t tell you how important this is.”
“Where’s the equipment?”
Leon unlocked the prop room. As Slythe expected, the weapons to be used that day were laid out on the prop table. There were two guns, two boxes of blank cartridges, and two dozen squibs and blood bags.
“Don’t tell me,” Slythe said. “The star’s using the Sig Sauer. The snub-nosed revolver is the evil bad guy’s gun.” He cocked his head at the prop man.
Leon smiled. “You’ll do.”
* * *
—
Slythe caught a ride to the location with some of the other prop men. No one cared about him much, and when he told them he hadn’t done a feature in years, they left him alone. That was good because one of them was one of the guys who’d been playing pool in the bar while he was talking to Russell. Luckily, the man clearly didn’t recognize him.
They got to the set to find Leon already standing on the sidewalk. Slythe walked up to him and said, “Where are we setting up props?”
Leon said, “There’s a table in the crew trailer where you can spread everything out, and someone will always be assigned to watch them.”
“Who did Russell have doing squibs?”
“Jackson.”
&nbs
p; “He can do them today, then. I’ll load the guns myself.”
“We got a guy to load them for you.”
“It’s my first day. If something goes wrong, it’s on me. I’ll load them myself. Where’s the trailer?”
“Show him, Jackson.”
A teamster handed down a box of equipment from the truck. A prop man took it and said, “Come on.”
Slythe followed him to the crew trailer, where the props department had been allotted the kitchen table to spread out the day’s props.
The prop man unloaded the guns and cartridges and squibs onto the table.
“Where are the backup guns?” Slythe said.
“On the truck. We won’t bring them out unless something’s wrong with these.”
“Are you the guy who does squibs?”
“Yeah, I’m Jackson.”
“Good. You’ll be doing them today. I’ll check them, of course, but you rig them. Just let me know when you’re done.”
“There’s only one squib.”
“One?”
“Only one guy gets shot.”
“Who’s that?”
“The bad guy. The star shoots the bad guy. He doesn’t get touched himself, so there’s only one squib. You don’t need any help with the guns?”
Slythe picked up the Sig Sauer, popped the magazine, checked that there was no round in the chamber. “Let’s see. Sig Sauer, nine millimeter. Looks like a P320. And a snub-nosed revolver. Any other weapons?”
“Not today.”
“Then I’m all set.”
73
Teddy was on alert driving to the set. Mason Kimble and Gerard Cardigan weren’t the type to give up. There was no indication that they’d pierced the Mark Weldon disguise, but he hadn’t survived this long by assuming the best-case scenario.
Today was a day of maximum exposure. They weren’t filming in the studio but were out on the street on location, and anyone could watch. The police would keep the crowds back, but anyone with a sniper rifle could take him out and he’d never see it coming.
