Smoke and Shadows (10 page)

“Everyone used to play the kazoo.”

“In a marching band?”

“Okay, that's different.”

“Sero!”

The three of them winced in unison.

“Our master's voice,” Amy whispered dramatically. “Good luck. Vaya con dios.”

“What does that mean?”

“What does that mean?”

“Think good and it will be good.”

“SERO!”

“Yeah, you just keep thinkin', Butch. In this particular situation, I'd push the
free
in free band.” Amy watched Zev until the door closed behind him then turned her attention to Tony. “He's right. You look like crap. Hot date?”

He sighed. “Weight of the world. Wasn't your hair pink yesterday?”

“Fuchsia. And that was then. What do you want?”

“Tina sent me in to see if they . . .” A nod toward the closed bull pen door. “. . . have spit out something like the final rewrite of next week's script.”

“You're in luck.” She lifted a file folder off the stack of assorted papers on the floor beside her desk and handed it over. “Hot off the press. I'd have sent it in with Veronica, but she's dropping a deposit for our next location shoot off at the city manager's office. And then getting coffee.”

“What's wrong with the pot in the kitchen?”

“The writers emptied it again. What do you mean, ‘weight of the world'?”

“Things on my mind.”

“Like?”

“I don't remember.”

“You need more B vitamins.”

“I need . . .” He stopped, ran a hand up through his hair, and exhaled explosively. “I need to get back on set.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Before something happens.”

“What?”

“That's the part you didn't say. Before something happens. What's going to happen?”

“Answer the phone.”

“It's not . . .” The ring cut her off. “How did you . . . ?”

Tony shrugged, turned, and headed out of the office, the familiar “CB Productions” sounding behind him. A no brainer on the phone ringing since it rang every thirty seconds eight to ten hours a day.

He had no fucking idea what Amy was talking about. All that dye was obviously affecting higher brain functions.

The red light went off as he passed the women's washroom and the sound of flushing followed him out onto the soundstage. The living room set for the whatever-the-hell-they-decided-to-call-it estate looked incredible even though it was the same old furniture from Raymond Dark's living room, jazzed up with a couple of cushions, a blue-and-yellow sheet, and some duct tape. One of the electricians was already sound asleep on the couch. Had Peter called lunch? Tony checked his watch, the movement dumping papers out of the file and all over the floor.

“Son of a fucking bitch.”

It had just been that kind of a day. Nothing had gone right from the moment he'd woken up in Henry's condo. Between the whole déjà vu of that and the forgotten toast problem with his memory, he hadn't been able to concentrate on anything. Fortunately, they were killing Catherine this morning and once Nikki's replacement had been safely delivered to the set, he didn't have a lot to do.

Dropping to his knees, he started gathering up the papers.

One of them had slid almost to the edge of the fake hardwood floor. He stretched out his hand and froze as a line of shadow crossed the piece of paper and was gone. His heart started beating again as he realized the sleeping electrician's boot had moved for a moment into the light. Boot shadow. That was all.

Given the variety of lights in play, the soundstage was filled with unexpected shadows.

Tony had no idea why the thought made him feel like running.

From the corner of one eye, he caught sight of another shadow moving past him, moving out toward the offices. He whirled around too fast for balance and nearly fell. The shadow was attached to a sound tech. Probably heading in to jiggle the toilet handle.

His fingers closed around the last piece of paper and he refused to turn as a second shadow slipped along the concrete heading for the door. A darker shadow. Its edges more defined.

Hurrying to catch up as the door whispered closed.

A quiet click as it latched.

There, and he hadn't looked.

Clutching the file, he stood, took half a dozen steps toward the set, and realized he'd only heard one set of footsteps go by. The sound tech.

The second shadow had been moving in total silence.

Something . . .

Peter's voice jerked him away from the thought. “That's it for now, people. Lunch!”

Thank God. He really needed to get some more sleep.

T
HE BODY lay crumpled against the side of the building, a smear of blood against the bricks tracing its trajectory toward the ground. Shadows hid most of the details, but an outstretched arm placed one pale hand, like a crumpled flower, out into a spill of light.

“An inch more to your left.”

The hand moved.

Tina consulted the photograph she'd taken before lunch, cocked her head to check the body from another angle, and finally straightened out of her crouch. “That's got it.”

“Good.” Adam took the picture from her as she passed and shoved it into the continuity file on his clipboard. “Let's freshen up the blood and I want a warm body in there to check Lee's light levels. Mouse . . .”

The camera operator looked down from his rig. “What?”

“You're six one, right?”

“Six two. And I'm twice his size horizontally. And I'm working.”

“Fine. Dalal, hit Lee's marks beside the body.”

Looking like he was wishing he'd stayed at his worktable, the prop man shook his head. “I'm five eleven.”

“So think tall. You're not doing anything, get over there. Tony! Go get Lee!”

As Dalal reluctantly crossed the set, Tony headed off the soundstage. Technically, the part of the warm body should have been played by a stand-in, and whether or not they had one on set was generally a fairly good indication of the company's current financial standing. Given the hurry-up-and-wait nature of shooting television, there were always people standing around with nothing to do until someone else did their job. Given the people CB tended to hire, no one was likely to report him for screwing with union rules. Those who might didn't last long.

So far, Tony had managed to stay on the move and out from under the lights. The thought of being in front of the camera, even without the camera actually being on, made him sweat.

“Lee?” He took a deep breath, reminded himself that geeky was not a good look, and rapped on the dressing room door. “They're ready for you.”

The door opened almost before he moved his hand away. Frowning, Lee peered out at him as though he wasn't entirely certain he understood what he was seeing. “For me?”

“Yeah. Scene 22B.” The room behind the actor seemed unusually dark. “You discover the body.”

“The body?”

“Catherine's body.” With the wig and the blood—and according to bar talk
Darkest Night
used more blood than any other program currently shooting in the Vancouver area—fans of the show would never know it wasn't Nikki.

Stepping back, Tony indicated that Lee should precede him down the hall. He'd learned early on that expecting actors to follow was like expecting cats to follow and after the whole “quickie in the broom closet” incident with Mason and the previous wardrobe assistant, he never let them out of his sight. When Lee continued to merely stand and stare, he stepped forward again, suddenly concerned. “Hey, are you all right?”

“I'm fine.”

Tony wasn't so sure. “You look . . .”

“I'm fine.” Lee gave himself a little shake and slowly moved out into the hall. It seemed that rather a lot of the shadows moved with him. The dressing room visibly lightened as he left.

And that's just wrong.
Tony stood where he was for a moment, eyes narrowed.
Not to mention, well, wrong!
He'd have asked himself if he were imagining things except that he had no idea what he thought he might be imagining. Finally, when it became obvious that nothing was out of place, he hurried after Lee, careful not to step on the actor's shadow.

“Oh, for Christ's sake, it's one goddamned line and I've already said it seventeen fucking times!”

The crew suddenly became very busy, looking anywhere but at Lee and Peter.

“It's not about your performance, Lee,” the director said calmly, “it's a technical glitch. There's a shadow . . .”

“So get rid of it!”

“That's what we've been trying to do.” Peter's genial voice picked up an edge. “We've been trying to do it all afternoon.” As one, they turned toward the lighting crew clustered around the director of photography, who continued describing his latest concept in an exasperated mix of English and French.

Although over the course of the afternoon the lighting layout had practically been rebuilt, the shadow continued to reappear in take after take. Scene 22B, take one: it had covered Lee entirely as he'd leaned forward and flipped over the body. Scene 22B, take seventeen: it was a dark bar across his eyes.

Watching from the sidelines, Tony found himself wondering where the shadow was going. And then wondering when he'd started thinking in cheap horror clichés. Actually, he knew the answer to the second question: right after he'd met Henry.

“Get rid of it in post!” Lee snapped. “And why is it so fucking cold in here?” Usually someone who took the inevitable technical delays of television in stride, his temper had frayed a little more with every take. Hartley Skenski, the boom operator, had tried to make book on whether or not he'd stomp off the set before they were finished, but no one had taken him up on it.

“We'll do it just once more. I promise,” Peter added as Lee's lip curled. “If it's still there, I'll let the guys in post deal with it.” He opened his mouth and closed it again, clearly deciding to leave the temperature question unanswered.

Green eyes glittered during a long pause. “One more.”

While another five hundred milliliters of blood were applied to the latex gash in the actress' throat, Lee dropped back onto one knee.

Tony moved quietly around behind the video village and checked out the monitor showing the close-up of the actor's face. The bar of shadow was still in place. He stepped hurriedly out of the DP's way and winced as Sorge began to swear.

The shadow quivered.

And disappeared.

The torrent of French profanity stopped between one word and the next. “Go now.”

Peter dropped into his chair and jammed on his headphones. “Quiet!”

No need for anyone to repeat. The soundstage was so quiet, Tony reminded himself to breathe as he crossed his fingers.

“Roll cameras! Slate!”

“Scene 22B, take 18!”

Lee didn't wait for
action.
Reaching down, he grabbed the corpse's shoulder, flipped her over onto her back, and snarled, “Well, it looks like Raymond's secret is safe.”

“Cut! Print.”

“It looked good,” Sorge murmured.

“It sounded like shit,” Peter snapped. “But we can fix that in post. Tina, I want the sound from take one.”

“Sound from one, got it.” As she noted it on her lined script, everyone else turned to watch Lee stomp off the set.

Peter pulled off his headphones as the corpse sat up and rubbed her shoulder. The crew moved about their usual post-print routine strangely subdued, as though they weren't entirely certain how to react. “I don't need a second prima donna around here,” the director sighed as the distant sound of a slamming door marked Lee's passage from the soundstage.

“Maybe he's still upset about the body. The
real
body,” Tony elaborated as everyone now turned to look at him. “You know . . .” He added a shrug to the explanation. “. . . Nikki.”

After a long moment, during which Tony mentally rewrote his résumé, Peter sighed again and gestured wearily in Lee's wake. “Go make sure he's all right.”

“I told CB we should have taken at least one day off,” he added as Tony hurried away.

Sorge snorted, the sound remarkably French. “And CB said the show must go on?”

“No, he told me to get the fuck out of his office.”