Docketful of Poesy (3 page)

Chapter Two

P
ursued closely by the black van, the blue BMC Mini
swerved sharply, spun out, and skidded to a halt in the middle of
the muddy side road. The van, narrowly missing crashing into the
smaller car, rocked to a stop. Its doors flew open and two men
wearing ski masks and waving semi-automatic weapons jumped out and
ran to the Mini. They dragged the driver, a tall blonde woman, out
of the car.

“Where is he? Where’s David Wolf?” yelled one of the
masked men. He shook the woman.

Roberta had informed me that morning that because of
possible liability issues all of the characters in
Dangerous to
Know
were getting name changes. Peter Fox was now David Wolf. I
was Faith Bolton. Needless to say, this was not a documentary.
Maybe it was a dramatization, but I had the sinking feeling that
any resemblance to living persons, places or actual events was
entirely coincidental.

The man loosed off a short burst of gunfire into the
air.

The woman and the other masked man stopped tussling
and stared at him in astonishment.

“Cut
!” yelled a stocky, middle-aged man in a
cowboy hat. Director Miles Friedman left the safety of a grassy
verge well to the side of the action. “For chrissake,
cut
!
Pammy, what the hell was
that
?”

Pammy Dickens, the assistant director, put her hands
wide in an open shrug.

Miles began to swear lengthily.

“Uh-oh,” murmured Roberta Lom, standing next to me on
our vantage point behind the silent camera. The rest of the cast
and crew of
Dangerous to Know
milled about the trailers and
equipment stationed on the wildflower-sprinkled hillside. Roberta,
the film’s producer, was a tall, sleek, gently aged brunette. She
smiled at me—she had a flawless smile. “It’s pretty tedious, isn’t
it? Making movies.”

“A little,” I admitted. They had been working since
seven o’clock that morning, rehearsing each leg of the car chase at
half speed, verifying the “choreography,” then rehearsing again,
and then finally shooting at full speed. It was four-thirty now,
and as far as I could tell they were only about three-quarters of
the way through the scene.

Of course all kinds of things could spoil a scene:
the extraneous noise of a diesel truck changing gears on the
freeway behind the hills, the cries of a hunting hawk—or things
that affected the continuity of a shot like jet trails in the
sky.

“That’s one reason I try to avoid visiting the set
during shooting.” Her eyes were hazel behind decorative cats-eye
glasses. She studied me curiously. “What’s it like seeing a chapter
of your own life acted out?”

“It’s interesting,” I said politely. What I was
thinking was:
Are you serious?

Never mind that it had been autumn and England—and
this was winter and obviously Southern California. Never mind that
my attackers had been wearing funny Halloween masks, and that the
only gun in sight had been a handgun—terrifying for all that, but
hardly the mini arsenal the movie bad guys were carrying. No, what
really irked me was that I, a medium-sized, thirty-something woman
with auburn hair and a fairly decent brain, had been replaced by a
tall, thin, platinum blond twenty-something whose dialogue mostly
consisted of lines like, “But why is this
happening
to
me?”

A documentary this was most certainly
not
.

“It wasn’t so tedious yesterday,” said the slim young
man with the wispy goatee on my left. Walter Christie was the
film’s screenwriter; which was enough to jaundice my view of him.
Interestingly, Christie seemed equally unenthusiastic about meeting
me—and less inclined to hide it. “You heard about the brakes going
out on Miles’s car last night?”

“That was a close call,” agreed Roberta. “I take it
the Jag is back in the shop today?” She met my inquiring look.
“That vintage Jag is Miles’s pride and joy. He’d just taken it in
for a tune-up, so you can imagine how livid he was.”

“The brakes went out?”

“On the Grapevine. Not a road you want to try to
tackle without brakes, but Miles was lucky. A trucker saw what was
happening and maneuvered his rig in front of the Jag. He was
gradually able to slow it down and then finally bring it to a
stop.”

“That
was
lucky.”

The three of us watched the cowboy-hatted director
shouting, “Ted, what are you doing? You’re not supposed to fire
that thing. Why the hell is it even loaded?” He continued to rant
and rave.

“I thought it added to the scene,” the hapless stunt
man said.

The director went on yelling while other crew members
scurried around looking harassed. “You’re a stuntman. You’re not an
actor. You’re not paid to think! For chrissake!” He relieved his
feelings at length, ending, “ Okay, people, back to one!”

Walter muttered, “Cinéma Vérité for Dummies.”

“Now, now,” murmured Roberta.

“How’s the camera rig in that car doing?” Miles
called, and one of the cameramen gave him thumbs-up.

Miles threw something uncomplimentary over his
shoulder, striding back to where the rest of us stood. He pulled a
silver flask out of his pocket and took a swig. The stunt people,
actors, and crew resumed their positions.

“Miles,” Roberta called, “what about all those skid
marks where they practiced turning off the highway onto the dirt
road?”

Miles put his flask away and turned back to the
deserted highway streaked with myriad skid marks on the faded road.
“Don’t waste my time with that stuff, Robbie. We can fix it in
post.” He glanced upwards at the somber gray sky. High above,
predatory black specks could be seen circling. “Perfect,” he
muttered.

“Miles is winging in the rain,” Walter commented,
sotto voce.

Roberta, who had stiffened at Miles’ dismissive tone,
smiled unpleasantly. Without looking at Walter, she murmured,
“Remind me again of how many screen credits you have, Walter?”

He reddened, and shoved his hands in his jean
pockets. Shoulders hunched, he moved away down the line of watching
crew members, dollies, and lighting hardware.

“Twerp,” Roberta remarked to no one in particular.
Catching my eye, she said, “I guess we seem a little uncivilized
compared to academia?”

“Oh no,” I assured her. I didn’t bother to say that
some of my most treasured moments in academia made the World
Wrestling Federation seem civilized.

“Places! Quiet!” shouted the assistant director. She
spoke rapidly into her walkie-talkie.

Miles, who had been scowling through the lens of one
of the cameras, straightened up. “I want to get some wide profile
shots this time around.” Catching my eye, he winked with practiced
charm. “Enjoying yourself, Ms. Hollister?”

“It’s a whole new world,” I assured him.

Which was certainly true, if not exactly what the
director was asking. I was trying to enjoy myself, but anxiety over
Peter was a constant presence in the back of my mind. Brian’s
information had been sketchy. Two masked men with shotguns had
burst into Rogue’s Gallery in the middle of the afternoon, and
opened fire. Luckily no one had been hurt—primarily because the
gunmen had a specific target, and that was Peter Fox. They had
ignored the screaming, terrified customers, going after Peter with
deadly purpose. But Peter had made it to the stockroom in time,
slid the bolt on them, and escaped through the passage concealed
behind the shelving units. It had not taken the gunmen long to
blast through the stockroom door, but long enough. By the time they
burst in, it was empty; and whoever they were, they were
unacquainted with the secrets of Craddock House and Rogue’s
Gallery.

The gunmen had departed, and not long after, the
police had arrived. Eventually they had uncovered the entrance to
the passageway, but there was no sign of Peter. He had simply
disappeared.

“There was no sign that he was…hurt?” I had asked,
swallowing on the word.

“Nothing to indicate it,” Brian had reassured me.

And certainly Peter had sounded healthy enough when
we’d spoken on the phone, and that call had taken place hours after
the shooting at Rogue’s Gallery.

I watched, unseeing, as the van and car reversed and
disappeared down the empty highway, followed by a truck with a
camera crane mounted on a platform.

“What the hell is going on? Has anyone here ever
worked on a film before?” Miles cried. “Pammy, tell them to hold
up, we don’t need to reshoot that part!”

The assistant director chased after the truck,
screaming into her walkie-talkie.

“What was it like?” Roberta asked suddenly. She
nodded after the disappearing vehicles. “Being abducted, I
mean.”

“Terrifying.” I said.

She eyed me curiously. “And it all happened like it
did in the book?”

“Yes.” If anything, I had toned down actual events
for the book. The tentative beginnings of romance with Peter: that
had definitely been missing from the book.

As though reading my mind, Roberta said, “And Peter
Fox, the antiques dealer and

ex-jewel-thief, that was all true, too?”

“That was true.”

“Truth really
is
stranger than fiction?” There
was something in Roberta’s tone….

My eyes met hers, and Roberta licked her lips. “He
sounds yummy,” she said, and I blinked. It couldn’t possibly work
long-distance, could it: that magnetism Peter seemed to hold for
the opposite sex?

“Uh, yes. He had his yummy moments,” I said, and
could have kicked myself.

“What does he think about this film?”

I said honestly, “I think he hopes it doesn’t bring a
lot of the wrong kind of publicity his way.”

She seemed amused. “Is there a wrong kind of
publicity? Not in our business.”

We fell silent as the Mini screeched into view, made
its turn—barely—and skidded to a stop, mud spraying beneath its
tires. The pursuing van banged into it—hard—and the little car
bounced a couple of feet, the stuntwoman inside lurching
forward.

“Jeeeez,” one of the crew muttered.

Quietly, Miles ordered, “Keep rolling. Keep…the
camera…rolling….”

As before, the van doors flew open and the two
stuntmen got out, approaching the mini. They dragged the blond
stuntwoman out of the car again.

“Where is he? Where’s David Wolf?”

And that was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,
wasn’t it? I had waited all day for my cell phone to ring with an
update from Brian, but there had been nothing. No news was good
news, right? I reminded myself of this—and that Peter was very good
at taking care of himself.

I kept running our last conversation in my mind,
understanding only after the fact what it was that Peter had called
to tell me. And maybe if I had shut up about the damned movie—

But, after all, how could I know? It was Peter’s
responsibility to have made me understand, wasn’t it? The fact that
he had let me rattle on, choosing not to tell me that he had been
the target of would-be assassins, surely said more about Peter’s
faulty communication skills than mine?

So now what? Would Peter contact me again? Would he
disappear out of my life forever? I wanted to believe that he would
never abandon Rogue’s Gallery and the life he had built for himself
in Innisdale, but he hadn’t behaved like the normal, innocent
victim of a crime—he had not gone to the police. Brian naturally
took the dimmest possible view of this, but I could not imagine a
situation where Peter
would
voluntarily go to the police, no
matter how clean his own hands were.

“Aaaaaand print!” called Friedman, and I snapped back
to the present in time to see Tracy Burke, the film’s “Faith,”
moving to take the place of the stuntwoman. Booms, and C-stands
were shifted, grips moved, camera angles changed. So many people on
a movie set—even for a little independent production like this
one.

“It is effing fer
eeeezing
out here!” Tracy
complained loudly, tossing her long platinum hair. Except she
didn’t say “effing.”

It was a strange feeling not to like the person who
was supposed to be portraying you in your own real-life adventures,
but I did not care for Tracy. In fact, although I didn’t want to
admit it, so far I wasn’t wild about anyone I’d met on the set of
Dangerous to Know
.

Not that I
dis
liked Tracy; she was fairly
harmless, despite a mouth like a sailor (and that would not be one
of the hands on the
good ship lollipop
) and a strange
tendency to shed her clothes at the slightest provocation. She
stood now in black stovepipe jeans and a teeny-tiny pink midriff
blouse, hip sexily canted while she waited for the gold-leaf
reflectors to be positioned around her.

A few yards down, I spotted Walter Christie, his face
pinched and red with cold. He was watching Tracy, and even I
couldn’t mistake the naked longing in his eyes.

“Let’s move it, people! This light won’t last much
longer. Hell, this weather won’t last much longer. We’re losing our
window of opportunity here,” Miles called. I glanced up at the
increasingly ominous skies. The assistant director began running
around like a harrying border collie, barking out directions,
snapping orders. There were several groans and a smattering of
language not approved for General Audiences.

“What will you do now?” Roberta asked.

I tuned back in. “About what?”

“Now that you’re home for good. Will you go back to
teaching?”

For a moment it was as though she were speaking in
another language. It took a few seconds to translate. “I’m not home
for good,” I said. “At least…” At least I didn’t think so. That had
never been the plan, and the idea that it might play out this way
was shocking to me.

“Oh, but I was under the impression…”