Hollywood Scream Play (18 page)

For Willow, the realization that Reed was boinking half the crew, means all out war.

“To retaliate, she’s bedding Reed’s stuntman, Ellis,” Emma tells me.

Talk about bad karma. Ellis is also Candy’s husband.

Should either Candy or Ellis find out about the others’ dalliances, they would likely walk off the picture, and the production would shut down anyway.

In the meantime, Willow has added fuel to the fire with a Tweet making a comparison of her lovers’ sexual prowess:

@WillowHigginbotham

@ReedHorwitch has stunted growth where it counts most 

 but @ReedHorwitch’s stuntman: is THE MAN! 


A half hour later, Reed’s fans—who call themselves Reed’s WhoreBitches—launch a Twitter hate campaign against Willow:

@ReedsWhoreBitches

@WillowHigginbotham is gaining so much weight on @WifeyAssassin that she should change her name to @PillowBigOnBottom!

A photo of Willow is attached to the post. It has been doctored to make her look three times wider than her natural (okay, make that surgically-enhanced) physique.

To add insult to injury, so many WhoreBitches have retweeted the post that it’s taken even less time than Ellen DeGeneres’ Academy Award tweet to crash Twitter.

Publicly humiliated, Candy has requested a separate cabana from her husband. Knowing his temper, she keeps mum about her own indiscretions.

It’s now all-out war between Willow and Reed. They’ve both requested that all mutual scenes be shot separately, using the others’ double as a stand-in.

Whitford refuses to do it.

To retaliate, they fluster each other by muttering cruel asides.

Production is almost at a standstill. In the meantime, Jack and I are climbing the walls. Every day we spend on Isla Margarita puts us one day further away from proving our innocence.

“Maybe I should go on ahead,” Jack suggests. “You and the kids can catch up with me there.”

I shake my head emphatically. “No way! That would mean flying commercial—not exactly a smart thing to do when you’re sitting on top of the Interpol’s Wanted Persons list! If you remember, one of the reasons we agreed to work with Addison is because of Montague Studios’ private plane. It’s our free ride to France, and then England afterward.”

“What good does it do any of us if the plane is sitting on the tarmac?” He’s pacing again. “We’ve got to come up with a Plan B.”

“My Plan B is to murder the two idiots playing us,” I grumble.

“I get the feeling their stunt doubles feel the same way,” Jack says. “Emma tells me Ellis and Candy had a big fight the other night.”

Arnie knocks on our door. “Hey, can I speak to you both? I’ve…I’ve got a bit of a problem.”

I’ll say. I don’t know what I can say to help Emma get a reprieve, but I’ll do my best. I give him a really big smile. “What’s up?”

“I think I’m in trouble. I was rigging two explosives for the second unit’s next scene—a car chase—when I got a call from some guy claiming to be Whitford’s assistant. He told me to report to the main soundstage. When I got there, Whitford said he never called. A moment later, I get a call from a woman requesting that I meet with Addison. When I got to his office, Jeff was there. He said the producer never made a call—that Addison had been in meetings with the stars all morning, reading them the riot act. When I went back to the Special Effects shed, the explosive devices were gone.” He frowns. “What should I do now? If I tell the second unit director, I’ll probably get fired.”

“Not if I can help it,” Jack assures him. “Go back to the shed and rig up two replacement devices. In the meantime, Donna and I will see if we can find them, and more importantly, who took them.”

Arnie nods furtively. “They’re wrapped in red tape. Each is the size of a paperback book. Thanks!” With shoulders slumped, he’s out the door.

Jack grabs his cell. “While I search the cabanas and exterior sets, you take the plantation house. Corner anyone looking suspicious, even if the devices aren’t in sight.”

“Will do,” I say. My kiss expresses the thought uppermost in my mind: 
stay safe, because I can’t afford to lose you.

The incendiary devices are nowhere to be found.

Whoever has them has hidden them well.

Arnie must have handed off the replacement devices because the second unit has already set up for the car chase scene. In it, “John” and “Jane”—or in this case, Ellis and Candy—are in separate cars, chasing down a bad guy in a third car. They will come at him from different directions, shooting at him simultaneously.

Of course, one of the bullets “kills” him. When this happens, the car will roll and explode, using Arnie’s replacement devices.

The scene is being shot on the empty private jet way adjacent to the resort. I watch as Candy and Ellis take off on the same road, in different directions. Through my ear bud, I hear Chad, the second unit director, shouting instructions to them. When they are far enough apart, he commands them to turn the cars around so that they face each other. They then wait for the signal that will put them in motion.

The bad guy’s car takes off when its driver hears, “Action!” It approaches them from a lane that intersects their road.

Candy and Ellis finally get their signal and they’re rolling toward each other. The cars—one is a Porsche, and the other is a Ferrari—take just a few seconds to accelerate past sixty miles an hour—

Only to explode—simultaneously.

“What the Hell?” Chad screams. “Cut! Cut! Oh my God!”

The fire unit comes running. They hose down the infernos with fire-retardant foam so that the med techs can pull Ellis and Candy from the wreckage.

The production’s medical emergency team has split up into two groups, one for each of the victims. I watch them work furiously to save the couple’s lives.

After whispering something to one of the responders, Ellis succumbs.
  

Candy dies a few minutes later.

Jack, Arnie and I watch as the med techs cover their bodies before hoisting them onto gurneys and wheeling them away.

The lead emergency responder heads over to Chad. We walk over just in time to hear Chad exclaim, “What do you mean, they made ‘final confessions?’”

“I’m not kidding,” the team leader swears. “Ellis said, ‘If she lives, tell her I rigged her car. If she doesn’t, I’ll see her in hell.’ At the same time, Candy was telling her team almost exactly the same thing.”

At least now we know who took the IADs.

Chad is too shaken to say anything.

He walks toward the plantation house to break the news to Whitford.

An hour later, Addison gathers the cast and crew together.

He’s so longwinded that I find myself tuning him out. At the same time, I hold my breath as I wait for him to say what I fear is the inevitable:

The production is being shuttered.

Since the family Stone can’t go back to the US, we’ll have to figure out some other way to get off this island.

Or else go back to the mainland and join Venezuela’s revolution.

“—and so, in memory of our fallen colleagues, let’s rally as a team and as a family! Let’s show the world their lives weren’t taken in vain! This movie will be dedicated to the memories of…”—he pauses. Jeff stands on tiptoe, to whisper their names in his ear—“of Candy and Ellis Cunningham.”

The show must go on—at least for Montague Studios’ stockholders.

Love hurts, but jealousy kills.

I didn’t need Candy and Ellis to teach me this lesson when I’ve got Carl breathing down my back.

Chapter 11

American Psycho

“My need to engage in homicidal behavior on a massive scale cannot be corrected, but I have no other way to fulfill my needs.”

—Christian Bale, as “Patrick Bateman”

Even if you can’t walk down the red carpet for a premiere, you’re quite welcome to stand on the sidelines and cheer the film’s stars as they make their grand entrances. However, you’re wise to follow these do’s and don’ts:

Do stay behind the red velvet rope. If you’re caught on the carpet, you’ll be goose-stepped off the property by two gorillas in tuxedoes. Take this as a hint that you’re not getting anywhere near that carpet, let alone those who tread it so regally.

Don’t reach over the rope and grab a star. You are not at a petting zoo, despite the aforementioned tuxedoed gorillas who now have their paws wrapped firmly around you.

Do leave all sidearms at home. Despite your desire to give your favorite star a snappy military salute, the embarrassment of being arrested as a possible terrorist won’t encourage him to appreciate you, let alone get you any closer than five hundred yards of his next public appearance.

Don’t try to crash the carpet by getting primped up and hiring a limo to drop you off. The guest list to these things is always written in blood—that of the publicist in charge of the event. They are orchestrated to perfection, so no matter how dazzling your over-the-shoulder smolder, she’ll think nothing of wrestling you to the ground herself, so that the real stars can arrive on time.

The deaths of their stunt doubles left the stars of our picture duly chastened. Replacements were on the set the very next day. However, both are so plug ugly that even Willow and Reed wince when they see them.

Smart move on Addison’s part, or perhaps Jeff’s.

Three weeks ago, shooting shifted to Paris. The production is moving through its list of tourist-friendly outdoor location shoots. In the movie, they will be sinister, as well as beautiful and familiar.

Whitford is shooting some choice, universally recognizable interiors, too. These include a salon in the Louvre; the pews in Notre Dame; Printemps Department Store; and a suite at the Georges V, the grand hotel where the leads, the director, the producer and the family Stone (greatly pleased) have been placed.

The supposed-child actors are needed at some of these locations, but most of the filming revolves around the leads.

To be honest, I’d kill for the heroine’s wardrobe. Willow has it written into her contract that she gets to keep any dress she likes.

She’s lucky she’s not my size.

Mary and Rachel are still joined at the hip. Having been to Paris for a couple of film shoots already, Rachel is an accommodating tour guide. When they come back from their many romps, they sequester themselves, sometimes for hours on end. I catch the two of them whispering and giggling. When I ask them why, they freeze and make up some excuse so flimsy I can see right through it.

Trisha is now so comfortable with hotel living that Jack calls her “our little Eloise.” She prowls every new home-away-from-home from top to bottom so that the floor plans and grounds become second nature to her. She orders room service like a pro, and charms the housekeeping staff into leaving extra chocolates on our pillows.

Willow and Reed’s shenanigans put the production off schedule by a couple of weeks, and that has Jack and me worried. Abu sends Serena and Tomas coded messages via Twitter, reassuring them that their stateside trip will take place any day now—that is, when Jack and I can join them and keep them safe.