KW 09:Shot on Location Read online

  An untidy democracy held sway on Big Sandy Key. Just where the paved road ended there were random scraggles of trailer parks. Then, farther on, where the sharp gray weeds gave place to pampered bougainvillea, the second or third homes of millionaires sprawled under their blue or green roofs along inlets and canals. Farther on again, where the island sloped almost imperceptibly back toward the mangroves, there were glorified shacks on cinder-block stilts, ugly but serviceable perches where tattooed families could watch floods go by while drinking beer and eating shrimp.

  Where even the gravel road finally gave out, there was a dusty clearing with a wooden dock that did not inspire confidence. Its pilings leaned and snaggled like teeth in need of braces; its planks were scarred with rot and there were knotholes where the light shone through. In front of this dock the crew’s minibus was stopped; eight or ten large fellows were unpacking gear.

  Donna, who’d been surprisingly silent the entire ride, now leaned forward and said to the driver, “Pull up close. I want those jerkoffs to see me arrive. And if you don’t mind, open my door for me. Hold my fingertips as I step out. I’ll slip you ten bucks. I want it to be like I’m at the fucking Oscars.”

  Heads turned as Donna made her entrance. Jake unfolded his long body from the seat and, uninvited, she quickly and firmly took his arm, not the elbow but the whole arm, clutching it with both her hands and holding it tight against her side. She tugged on his shoulder to bring his ear down close to her. “I know what those pissants are thinking. They’re sure I must’ve fucked you last night. Just to pay the fare. Why spoil their fun? Let ’em think it. Besides, I like holding your arm. It’s a little skinny but I like it.”

  ---

  They rode the funky pontoon barge across the channel, maybe a quarter mile wide, that separated Big Sandy from the largest of its three outlying and usually uninhabited islets. On the other side, Donna was quickly shepherded off to be made up and dressed, giving Jake’s arm a final and rather proprietary squeeze before she moved away.

  At that moment the writer was approached by a woman with a clipboard.

  She had very green eyes, peachy skin, and short reddish hair; she wore no-nonsense khaki shorts and a white fishing shirt with long sleeves and lots of little pockets. Through the bustle all around her, she radiated calm — one of those people who was always busy and never in a hurry. Extending a hand, she introduced herself as Claire Segal. “Quentin asked me to show you around,” she said. Then, with a brief but pointed glance at Donna’s retreating backside, she asked if he was enjoying Key West so far.

  “Yeah, fine,” he said. “I haven’t had time to see much of it yet.”

  “Apparently not.”

  A little slow on the uptake, Jake finally caught the innuendo. “Donna? Hey, she’s way too young for me.”

  Now it was Claire who needed an instant to respond. “Too young? Wow. Did I just hear those words? From a man?”

  “Guess you’re from L.A. Besides, you’re giving me way too much credit. I don’t move that fast. Never have.”

  “TV speeds things up,” said Claire. “Everything.”

  “We met around the pool. I offered her a lift, that’s all.”

  “Whatever. Let’s not gossip. I understand you don’t do outlines.”

  He scratched an ear. “No.”

  She looked at his hands, empty of pen or paper or laptop or iPad. “I see you don’t take notes either.”

  “No.”

  “You’re sort of casual about all this.”

  “Yes.”

  She cocked her head at a who-is-this-guy? sort of angle then nodded. “Okay. Come on, I’ll show you how we film Adrift.”

  She led him to a sort of souped-up golf cart with oversized tires and they set out over the knobby coral. The islet rose in a very shallow dome topped by a cluster of casuarinas whose wispy leaves filtered the hot light like the glass of a cathedral. Then, on the far side, it sloped through sedges to a shoreline that could have been five thousand miles from anywhere. Two smaller islets lay beyond; the waters between them were emerald green in the shallows and a stunning turquoise where the channels deepened. There were eddies around the roots of mangroves; the eddies were the only evidence of movement in a world suddenly silent and still. Nothing man-made was visible for as far as the eye could see.

  “Voila,” said Claire. “Our miniature universe. Took weeks of scouting to find it, but it’s pretty perfect. We get sunrise and sunset. There’s places for campfires, trysts, fistfights, conspiracies. If we bring in bad guys or cannibals or ghouls —”

  “Are you?” Jake cut in.

  “Are we what?”

  “Bringing in cannibals or ghouls.”

  Claire gave a rather coy shrug. “Hey, you’re the one who had three martinis with Quentin.”

  “And you’re the one who’s out here every day.”

  “Putting on band-aids,” said Claire. “Watching the clock with the union guys. I do the detail stuff, the nitty-gritty. The grand overarching vision — that’s Quentin’s department.”

  “Grand overarching vision,” Jake repeated, spreading his hands to frame the words. “Do I detect just a whiff of sarcasm?”

  Claire looked at him sideways, didn’t quite wink but sent a tilted smile that was halfway to a wink, and left it at that.

  A soft splashing was heard offshore, and when Jake and Claire broke off their gaze they saw a fellow rowing a dinghy into the channel between the islets. When he’d made it to the turquoise water in the middle, he boated his oars then reached down between his feet and lifted an enormous lobster. The beast must have been four feet across. Its claws jabbed and pinched the air and its tail curled and humped in a manner that was quite obscene. The fellow threw it overboard. It sank, trailing an almost invisible tiny buoy that now bobbed on the surface.

  “Mechanical,” said Claire. “Pretty realistic, no? It’s for your girlfriend’s big scene.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “You keep saying that. Let’s get over to the set.”

  9.

  Up over the next hump in the coral, the cast and crew had gathered. Fat cameramen with their shirt-tails out were setting up their angles. Assistants were placing scrims in trees to soften the sunlight, stylists were spraying shine on hair.

  Rob Stanton, the director, was pacing in front of the group and saying, “Okay folks, so this is where we are. The meeting scene has broken up. Dismal failure. No one could agree on anything. So much for democracy.

  “Now we have a two-scene between Lulu and Tony. Lovers for three episodes, but everyone in America knows it can’t last. Tony’s too passive, cerebral. Lulu’s all action, impulse. This scene is where it really comes to a head. We ready?”

  The two actors stepped out of the group into a small clearing near the shoreline. The one who played Tony didn’t really look all that cerebral, at least not without a shirt on. He had a V-shaped torso, rippling abs, a jaw so square it would have sat up on a table. He wore tight jeans that were held up, sort of, by an impromptu belt made of salvaged rope. As for Candace, she looked ravishing in a faded blue cambric shirt with torn sleeves and a plunging neckline, its tails tied off snugly, liftingly, at the midriff. She wore tiny yellow shorts that exposed a delectable crescent of flesh just at the cusp between leg and buttock. A nice S&M touch had been added in the form of a painted-on wound on the left side of her neck.

  Claire, standing off to the side with Jake, handed him her copy of the script. “It isn’t Chekhov but you can read along.”

  Cameras came up to speed. Microphone booms dangled overhead. The director called for action.

  LULU

  My God, you were such a wimp in there!

  TONY

  A wimp? Why? Because I didn’t scream

  my head off? Because I let other people talk?

  LULU

  Talk. Right. Talk, talk, talk. That’s all you

  do is talk. We’re not gonna get ourselves

  out o
f here by talking.

  TONY

  No? How then? By being completely negative

  about everything?

  LULU

  Negative? I’m not negative. I’m realistic.

  I deal with things.

  TONY

  So do I. In my way. Look, I try to be fair —

  LULU

  Fair? You can’t eat fair. We don’t need a

  goddam committee. We don’t need a freakin’

  Constitution. We need food.

  TONY

  Agreed. And the best way to get it —

  LULU

  --is to shut up and go get it!

  Lulu furiously wheels and races full-speed toward the water.

  Except Candace didn’t race toward the water. She turned, flashed a last contemptuous look back at Tony, took a single step, and broke the scene. The director called, “Cut.”

  After a moment to exhale, he said, “Candace, dear, the script says you run full-speed toward the water.”

  The actress pointed at the sharp and gnarly excuse for a beach. “I’m not running on that shit. I’ll cut my feet.”

  “The running is the climax of the scene.”

  “No, my last look back is the climax. I hope you got it good and close. Let Donna do the running.”

  The director squeezed his lips together and looked over at Claire. Claire looked over at the cameraman. The cameraman looked up from his monitor and nodded discreetly. Sighing, the director said, “Okay, we’ll leave it there for now. We’ll pick up with the running. Donna ready?”

  ---

  Donna was. Donna was always ready. She was always ready ahead of time and always as eager to get started as a jumpy thoroughbred.

  Now she stepped out of the cluster of casuarinas just as Candace was slipping back toward it. For an instant Jake thought he must be looking at clones. Donna was wearing an identical blue shirt, tied off in the same bust-enhancing way. She had the same tiny yellow shorts that revealed a remarkably similar sliver of behind. Her slightly dull brown hair had been tucked under a shining black wig; the left side of her neck, the twin of Candace’s, sported an oddly becoming painted-on wound.

  She strode to the spot where the star had last been standing. She took a couple of deep breaths, stared at the ground in front of her to gather focus. She tried not to notice that cast and crew who weren’t involved in the shot had wandered unceremoniously off. This was just a little swimming scene, a throwaway. Just the stunt girl.

  The director called for action.

  Donna wheeled and ran. She ran low, like an Indian scout, slightly bent at the waist, arms compact at her sides. Coral shards flew from her heels and when she reached the water’s edge she took a final lunging stride that flattened into a perfect shallow dive. Seamlessly, the dive turned into swimming, hands cupping the water, feet churning the foam. Strong shoulders lifted the determined arms, breaths came in quick but measured sips between the strokes. Distance stretched between Donna and the shore as sunshine put hot white spangles on the broken water.

  It was the sound man who first noticed something wrong. A low rumble coming through his headset, very faint at the beginning, something felt as much as heard but gradually rising in both pitch and volume. He tried without success to catch the director’s eye.

  Donna tirelessly swam, the rhythm steady, the kick unflagging.

  The sound man waved a hand as the low rumble was rising toward something like a mechanical growl. No one saw him waving.

  Donna swam.

  She’d almost reached the tiny buoy when the speedboat — enormous, gleaming, up on plane at a ferocious angle like a breaching orca — came tearing around the far side of the islet, peeling toward the channel at breakneck speed. She didn’t see it. If she heard it, she paid no mind. This was her scene. The big swim. Through the pellucid water she finally saw the mechanical lobster wriggling on a patch of sand a dozen feet below. She pulled in breath, arced her body, the deep dive smooth and streamlined from all those somersaults in the pool, and headed down to grab the prize.

  On shore, people were frantically waving and screaming now. They windmilled their arms at the unheeding speedboat. They shouted to Donna who had no chance of hearing them. Helplessly, pinned between quailing hope and sick certainty, they watched the distance disappear between the careening boat and the place where the stunt girl would surface.

  She came up, facing shore, a smile barely visible, waving the lobster in triumph for just an instant before the speedboat ran her over.

  The planing hull barely grazed her neck and shoulders, almost gave her time to dive away from harm. But the propeller shafts caught her as she tried to sink to safety. One shaft slammed into her shoulder, wrenching it at a grotesque angle in its socket. The other nailed her at the bottom of her ribcage, the propeller biting into the flesh of her side as it raked past.

  At the spot where Donna had last been seen a slick of red appeared in the turquoise water and the speedboat rocketed away without ever slowing down.

  Part 2

  10.

  Jake found himself in the water, clothes on, sneakers on, first wading then swimming, surrounded by twenty other flailing people who were trying clumsily, desperately, to help. It could have been a scene from the pilot of Adrift, people clawing at the sea with looks of horror on their faces. A better swimmer got to Donna first and dragged the limp body ashore; it left behind it a meandering zag of blood.

  It was impossible to tell if Donna was alive or dead. Her right shoulder was hunched up much too high; the arm seemed stuck in an ungainly position, as if she was about to serve a tennis ball. The salt water had mostly stanched the bleeding from her appalling wound, but the torn flesh had an oozing sheen to it, a sheen like that of defrosting beef. Someone who knew CPR took charge. He turned Donna’s head sideways and pressed lightly on her belly. Pink water, an intermittent stream of it, as from a faulty pump, spilled from her nose and mouth. He cleared her tongue, pinched her nostrils, and starting breathing his own air down into her lungs.

  After a while, her eyes very briefly opened, a single cough wracked her, and she gurgled out something that sounded like Fuck happened? Then she either passed out again or died.

  In minutes a helicopter appeared. Riding pontoons, it landed in the shallows and dispatched two men and a stretcher. They carefully maneuvered the motionless Donna onto it and flew away.

  Once the engine noise had faded there was a shocked and shamefaced silence around the set. People had a hard time meeting one another’s eyes. The cast and crew seemed in the grip of an obscure, unfocused guilt, as if they secretly believed that, by their lack of interest in Donna’s big scene and in Donna herself, they had somehow conspired in the calamity, tossed her away as a sacrifice. Cameras sat idle, lenses cast down. Lights and scrims hung forgotten in trees like pieces of last year’s Halloween display.

  The Marine Patrol arrived, then the cops. They started asking questions, and the queasy silence was replaced by a chorus of nervous, staccato answers, people jumping at the chance to speak, to purge themselves of what they’d seen. But it turned out they had almost nothing of use to say. The incident had been filmed, correct? Well, actually, it hadn’t been. It should have been, but it wasn’t. Only a single camera had been trained on Donna as she swam. The cameraman, knowing that the take was ruined when he saw the sound man toss aside his headset, then catching the general panic as the boat wheeled into the channel, had abandoned his post to join in the futile waving and shouting. The camera had pivoted, capturing serenely useless images of blank horizon and innocent sky.

  That left eyewitness accounts, and it turned out that, in the rush and terror of the moment, no two people had seen the exact same thing. The most basic details were a muddle. What color was the speedboat? Some people thought the hull was black, some remembered it as dark blue or green. Some people recalled an open cockpit and a windshield, others thought the cabin was enclosed. Some people had seen a lone man at the wheel; some th
ought they’d seen a pair of men, and others had seen no one on the boat at all. Did the boat ever seem to be intentionally steering toward the victim? No one could say one way or the other. Did it seem at any point, before or after the collision, to slow down? That was the one thing everyone agreed about. The craft had never slowed.

  The cops left. The silence returned. The cameraman who’d failed to shoot the scene busied himself with trivial tasks and tried to disappear. People wandered, paced. No one quite knew what to do with the rest of the morning. After a brief and awkward time, Jake told Claire he had to leave.

  He took the barge across to Big Sandy Key to meet the driver with the black Town Car. Seeing him alone, the driver said, “Holy shit. That chick they med-evac’d. Was that your girlfriend?”

  “She’s not my girlfriend. Where’s the hospital?”

  ---

  At the front desk of Florida Keys General, the switchboard was flashing and the receptionist was frazzled. No, there was no information available on Donna Alvarez. No, she had no idea when there would be. No, there was no one else he could speak with at this time. He was welcome to wait in the lobby but she really saw no point in it. Information would be made public as it came available. She had no other advice, she had to pick up on a call.

  For a few minutes Jake paced through the lobby, slaloming around the potted palms, his feet still squishing in his sodden sneakers. Belatedly, it occurred to him to wonder why he’d gone to the hospital at all. He and Donna were mere acquaintances. And he was, generally speaking, a rather aloof sort of person, a watcher, a teller of stories rather than a participant in them. So why was he getting involved? The best he could come up with was that he didn’t seem to have a choice. You didn’t always get to pick the people or events you cared about. Sometimes things just happened. You started as a mere bystander, a chance witness, nothing more. Then, either suddenly or by slow degrees, you noticed you’d been tricked out of your detachment, you’d crossed a line and actually gave a shit how this thing turned out. Why? Simple decency? Idle curiosity? Or was it just that the bad luck of witnessing a train wreck conferred responsibility, imposed a connection it would be shameful or impossible to dodge?