The Movie (44 page)

You’re enjoying it too much, warned a little voice in her head. You’re falling for Kendrick. You think about him all the tim. .

No! Ioxana thought angrily. Not true! Kendrick was just a puppet like the others. If she was amused by his body, what did that signify? Nothing and less than nothing!

I know what I’ll do, she thought with a sudden flash of inspiration. I’ll have lunch with that stupid bimbo Jordan Cabot and tell her all about it.

Yes! That would be stage one in the progressive destruction of Samuel Jacob Kendrick - putting word out around town that he screwed his clients. Not to mention having the pleasing side effect of snubbing that old witch Isabelle. After all, what was the point of having the great Sam Kendrick dangling on the end of her strings if she couldn’t boast about it a little? And Jordan would make an admirable audience -‘ married to Tom, so it would be all ‘ over Artemis and therefore the rest of town in five minutes.

tkoxana Felix laughed aloud. Great! What were old schoolfriends for?

‘Can I help you, ma’am?’ a steward asked, rushing over to see if she required anything.

‘You know, I think you can,’ she said. ‘Get me a phone.:

I want to call Mrs Goldman.’

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‘Jesus Christ,’ Fred Florescu swore softly. He wiped a palm across his forehead, trying to clear away some of the beads of sweat that were dewing it. ‘How much longer?’

‘Not far now, mon.’ Their guide smiled at them indulgently, pushing a huge tree fern out of the path. ‘We make the clearing very soon. Very beautiful view.’

‘I hope so,’ Zach said heavily. He plucked at the soaking cotton of his once white shirt, now plastered transparently across his chest.

Megan, panting from the exertion, looked at him and thanked God she’d chosen black. Otherwise she’d have been the top entry in a one-woman wet T-shirt contest by the time they were ten minutes into this mountain climb.

‘You guys got no problems,’ Keith, the Texan cameraman, butted in. He was stripped’ to the waist and red-faced with exertion. ‘You don’t have to carry equipment.’

‘That’s” why I picked you and Jim,’ Florescu said, nodding at his soundman. ‘Southern boys. Real men. You’re used to heat like this.’

‘Fuck you, Fred,‘Jim Dollar said amiably. ‘In Texas you breathe the air, you don’t swim through it.’

He had a point. The atmosphere in the jungle was not only swelteringly hot, it was humid too, the air muggy and oppressive. Megan couldn’t believe that Fred would insist on climbing halfway up Morne Seychellois in weather like this, just so he could shoot Zach’s hideout scene with the perfect view. Or maybe she could. Florescu was an absolute perfectionist ” over the course of two hideous

months on location, that much had become clear. If something wasn’t perfect, they shot it again. And again. And again, until it was absolutely right. It drove the cast and crew crazy, but nobody else complained. That attitude was what had made Light Falling into an artistic masterpiece and a commercial smash. That attitude had won Peter’s Lieutenant five Oscars. And that attitude was going to make. See the Lights one of the most shining, exciting love stories

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ever committed to celluloid - if the damn thing ever got finished.

But why did they need me to tag along? Megan wondered. Is he really going to want a rewrite on a scene for one character?

‘ Vienz, sivoupl,’ said their guide, grinning and lapsing

into Seychellois patois. ‘Come, please. We continue. Not

much further.’

She followed Mason up the thin path, kicking aside

thorns and fungus that had crept across it here and there. This was little more than a track, a derelict trail into the heart of the mountains far from the tourist walkways, and acc. essible only with an experienced local guide. That was on account of the steep drops and sheer ridges that ‘periodically curved away from the edges of the track, sheer plunging walls of granite and creepers that an unwary hiker might not have noticed.

Megan thought, Christ, I know/‘d have noticed.

She kept her eyes firmly on the back ofZach Mason’s

legs. One foot in front of the other, right? And don’t look down.

‘Fo take her mind off it, Megan went over that morning’s events yet again, trying to make sense of them.

What the hell’s going on here? she wondered. First that

little asshole David comes into my new room and tells me I’m fired. No arguing, just pack up and get out, and if you make a fuss it’ll go worse for you in the future. And then runs back in thirty minates later, says he made a mistake, I should get on the set, and clears clean out of my way before I even get to call him on it! And on the set, nobody’s seen David, nobody knows where he is … Everybody’s on drags, I swear.

‘ On arrive,’ said their guide triumphandy. ‘We here.’ Megan looked up and gasped. The clearing Florescu had been so set on was worth every second of the climb; forty foot wide, it was an outcrop of grey granite stone on the edge of a vast precipice, backed up by the green, palm360

covered slope of Mome Seychellois and overlooking the rest of the mountain range, the whole national park spread out beneath. From here you could watch the mist drifting across the jungle, look down on birds winging over the tops of the trees below, see all the chasms and peaks, the emerald valleys and lush flat plains of the undergrowth. She could hear the screech of monkeys mingling with the low calls of the bulbuls and the omnipresent hum of the insects. The sea in the distance was sapphire blue, sparkling even under the patchy clouds that had begun to drift across the sky.

The scene was utterly deserted and primeval. She could see not a single man-made structure in the whole panorama.

‘Oh, man,’ Jim Dollar breathed. ‘This is incredible.’ ‘It’s going to make the best long shot in history,’ Florescu said, almost beside himselŁ. ‘All right, guys, set it up. I don’t want to waste any ofthilight.’

‘Non, sivoupl3. No. You go back now,’ the guide insisted, shaking his head. ‘Watch, then go back. Yes?’ He waved down the mountainside, pointing at the trail they had just emerged from.

‘No way, buddy,’ Keith said, grinning. ‘We just got here. And I didn’t lug that camera halfway up Mount Everest just to take a couple of holiday snaps.’

‘I go back. You come with me.’ He shifted impatiently from foot to foot, glaring at the Americans. ‘Storm is

coming. Very dangerous to stay.”

‘A storm?’ Florescu asked.

The guide nodded. ‘Monsoon season. Winds, rain.’ He made a sweeping gesture with his arms. ‘Very dangerous. I go back. You come, or not?’

‘No!’ Florescu said. ‘You have to be out of your mind. There’s not gonna be a storm, at least not today.’

‘Wait,’ said Megan uneasily. ‘Fred, I think we should

listen to this guy. I mean, he’s a native. How likely is he to be wrong?’

‘Come on, Megan,’ Keith protested.

‘Sweetheart, take a look at the sky,’ Florescu said gently.

‘I know it’s the start of the rainy season, but just look at it! Practically clear blue. If there’s a monsoon on the horizon. I sure can’t see one.’

Megan glanced up. He was right; apart from a couple of white cotton-wool clouds the sky stretched clear and blue out to the horizon.

Muttering angrily, their guide disappeared back into the undergrowth.

‘That’s what happens when you pay in advance,’ Florescu said, shrugging. ‘But we’ve done it once, we should be OK for the trek back down. We’ll take it real slow.’

‘You got that right,’ said Jim, positioning the lights. ‘Zach, are you ready?’ the director said. Zach nodded.

.‘OK, people. Let’s go.’

Two hours later, while Florescu and Keith set up the equipment for a few panoramic shots before the light failed, Zach Mason walked across to Megan, who was sitting perched on a granite outcrop, scribbling ideas in the margin of her script.

‘Can I join you?’ he,asked.

She glanced up at him, surprised. ‘Sure. Pull up a boulder; be my guest.’

‘I want to talk to you about David Tauber,’ Zach said, propping himself against a rock. He stretched out his long legs, hard and muscular under the costume caltkin pants. Megan tried not to stare at his bare chest, muscular and covered with a smattering of wiry black hair, That was how Florescu wanted to show Zach’s character while on the run: animalistic and savage, the survival instinct taking

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over. It was supposed to set up a mood of sensuality before he was reunited with Morgan and they made love on the beach, at night, while their pursuers could be heard all around searching for them. And looking at Mason now, Megan was pretty sure it would work.

‘Don’t waste your breath,’ she said coldly. Tve got nothing to say about him.’

‘Yeah? Well, I do,’ Mason insisted. ‘You have to have been aware of-‘

‘Zach, we have to get out of here,’ Megan interrupted him. ‘Look at that!’

She pointed towards the western skyline. Zach could see it: a huge mass of dark, heavy clouds had gathered and were moving quickly towards them. The winds were picking up, and the smaller white clouds in their part of the sky were scuttling across the sun, casting swift-moving shadows aross the mist forest below them.

‘We’ll be gone in half an hour,’ Zach said impatiently. ‘Don’t change the subject. It’s ‘

‘No! We have to pack up now,’ Megan said. ‘It’ll take us at least ten minutes to dismantle everything. We’re going to get caught in a thunderstorm halfway up a mountain if we don’t.’

‘You’re being paranoid.’

‘Am I, Zach? Look how fast those clouds are moving!’ He glanced at the sky, uncertainly. The clouds had gotten quite a lot closer in the last few seconds, even if it didn’t look like they were raining.

‘Fred,’ he called. ‘Check out those clouds. Looks like our friend’s little tempest might have “arrived. I think we should pack up.’

‘Yeah, OK. Just give me a minute,’ the director called. ‘They’re making for great light over the jungle. I have to get this.’

‘Fred!’ said Megan. ‘You ‘

Her words were suddenly cut off by a violent gust or;

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wind, slicing across the clearing and pushing her back against the boulder. The mikes swayed backwards and forwards on their stands.

‘Shift’ Jim Dollar said. ‘Where the hell did that come from?’

‘Come on, Fred. Let’s go,’ Zach said, getting to his feet and strolling across to the director.

‘Ten minutes,’ Florescu said, not taking his eye off his shot. ‘That’s all I ask. Then we’ll have it in the can.’

Another gust of wind blasted them from the west, and this time Megan found herself spattered with raindrops. Manned, she spun round to see the sound equipment toppling over. Her script was wrenched out of her loose grip and went flying towards the brink of the clearing.

‘

Keith lunged for it, but too late. The white papers went soaring off the edge of the cliff, snatched up by the wind like a dead leaf, pages tearing away from it as it disintegrated over the jungle.

‘Man, we’re going to be in trouble if we stay much lo,nger,’ Kei, th told Florescu anxiously. ‘I don’t like the look of this.

‘All right. Let’s get. out of here,’ the director said reluctantly. ‘Shut it down, guys. Zach, can you give us a hand? Wemight as well leave as fast as ‘

Suddenly they were plunged into gloom as a bank of black cloud swept across the sun. Almost simultaneously rain started to fall all around them, and as the technicians scurried to and fro, cursing and flicking offevery switch in sight, there was a deafening thunderclap, and Meg’an shrieked as a dazzling flash of sheet lightning blitzed across the mountain behind them. She ran forward blindly, her feet slipping on the small pebbles and chips of stone lying loose on the outcrop of the granite. Zach Mason, his lean frame silhouetted against the light, reached out for her as the sky opened and the rain began hurling down ….. drenching everything in sight, the long lines of water

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waving through the tropical gale that was ripping through the forest, bending over young palm trees and sending sticks and bushes bowling across the ridge. As Megan reached Zach, Jim Dollar screamed in agony as his skin connected with a tom wire, and Florescu, half blinded by the rain, watched in horror as the thin blue light of an electric shock crackled around his soundman. He tried to take a step forward, pushing himself into the wind, but was flung back by a fresh blast that half lifted him from his feet, smacking him agaimt a jutting outcrop of granite. Pain and horror surged through Florescu’s body together as he watched Zach and Megan, clutching each other, lose their footing in the hurricane and bowl backwards, Megan screaming in terror, and tip over the edge of the chasm in front of them. On his hands and knees the director inched across the clearing, battling against the storm, until he reached te ledge and managed to peer over it, shouting their names, trying to see if he could see where they had fallen. There was no trace of them,just the thrashing jungle canopy, flailing in the wind and dark green from the driving downpour. It was the last thing he saw before he passed out.

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They met at Chasen’s for lunch. It was another blazing day, but Isabelle Kendrick didn’t notice; she picked through her Caesar salad and sipped delicately at her chilled mineral water, exactly as usual, nodding graciously now and then at various courtiers who wandered up to their table to pay aomage, but her heart wasn’t in it. Under the tailored elegance of her ice-blue Bill Blass suit, the blood in Isabelle’s aristocratic veins was running as cold as liquid nitrogen.

‘Peally? She said that, did she? Go on, dear. I’m simply fasc.inated to hear the rest of it,’ she said, leaning forward to encourage her companion.

It was true; every word pierced Isabelle’s heart like a rapier wound, setting offscreaming, jangled alarms off’ear and fury, but she was nonetheless fascinated. The more she knew about her enemy, the greater her ammunition against her. It was as though Isabelle herself was detached; one part of her mind remained aloof from the storm of emodons boiling within her, and merely watched the scene calmly, a dispassionate observer, curious to know just how far, just how deeply, loxana Felix had dug her own grave.