Lloyd’s credit – assistant to Mr. Marcus – was at the very end, one of a long list. Tess and Crow hooted, pumping their fists, while Lloyd pretended to be profoundly humiliated. Or maybe he wasn’t pretending. Tess noticed that others in the crew had cheered, too, and felt encouraged. Maybe Lloyd had found his place in the world, a place where he could succeed.
“It’s so much better than I thought it would be,” she whispered to Crow as the lights came up.
“Well,” he said, gathering up the debris at their feet, “based on everything you ever told me, it would have to be.”
“No, I mean it’s good, really good. When I could forget how they did things – and when I could forget that the leads were played by two people I loathe – it was really affecting, and surprisingly funny. They got Baltimore right. Sort of.”
She wondered if she would ever be able to watch a television show or a film in the same way again, now that she knew too much. She wondered if it was even possible to know too much about something – or someone – that you had once loved. And she had loved movies, once upon a time, not even a decade ago, when it was unthinkable not to be in line at the multiplex every weekend, when it was urgent and essential to see movies the very night they opened. In college, she had once driven to a Philadelphia art house, a distance of more than a hundred miles, to see – well, what was it that she had driven almost two hours to see? A German film, possibly Herzog, maybe Wenders. The American Friend? Aguirre, The Wrath of God? That was it – Aguirre, a film in which a character clutched something secret and vital in his hand, yet died without ever revealing what it was. Tess had left the theater almost in a swoon, so dazed and rapt by Herzog’s images that she forgot to get a cheese steak on her way out of town.
Yet here was Lloyd, who knew far more about what happened behind the scenes than she did, and it was still magical for him. In fact, the movies might just save Lloyd’s life.
“Dinner?” Crow asked.
“Sure,” Tess said. “Lloyd’s choice. It’s his night, after all.” So what if he picked some lowbrow franchise? A little grease was probably good for the stomach and the soul.
She glanced back at Flip and Ben, surrounded by well-wishers and sycophants, all those little moths beating their wings against the bright promise embodied in the two friends’ careers. Tess could all but read their thoughts: If only they had a contact, an in, a friend of a friend of a friend. If only they could tell someone of their amazing ideas, they would be rich beyond their wildest dreams.
Someone – an older man, the kind of person who seldom attracted a second glance, whether alone or in a crowd – appeared to be thrusting an envelope toward Ben, but he was much too slick for that now. He raised his hands, as if to surrender – then shoved them back into his pockets and quickly walked away, motioning Flip to follow. The man rescued his envelope from the theater’s sticky floor and watched them go, his face still weary with hope.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I put these things at the end for a reason, so be forewarned: You might read something here that will spoil part of the story for you.
This is a work of fiction. Seriously. Yes, I am married to a television producer, David Simon, one of those behind HBO’s The Wire. But The Wire, during its six years in Baltimore, had little drama behind the scenes. The actors were down-to-earth; the crew worked hard; the only real drama queen along the way was the former mayor of Baltimore. In order to write this novel, I had to create my own show – not just the concept, but its cast and crew, its behind-the-scene problems and interpersonal relationships – wholly from scratch. The only true thing in this book is that people in television work harder than most of us can ever imagine.
In that light this book is dedicated to the memory of Bob Colesberry, an executive producer on The Wire for seasons one and two. No one ever worked harder on filmmaking, or loved it more. Bob died just as season three was beginning to prep. I don’t want to pretend to a greater friendship with him than I had, but I will be forever grateful to Bob because (a) he was always up for a good meal and (b) he helped keep my significant other happy and relatively sane. (David once described their working relationship, which dates back to The Corner, as one of the most successful shotgun marriages in history.) Nina K. Noble continues in that latter capacity, bless her and all the other Nobles – David, Nick, and Jason. Ditto, Joe Chappelle. William F. Zorzi Jr. and George Pelecanos also were sources of ballast, and while I wouldn’t say that Ed Burns keeps David sane, he does help him to stay grounded and makes the work better in every way. It’s impossible to name everyone in our extended Wire family, which included virtually every department head and actor, but I do want to give a shout-out to Karen Thorson and John Chimples. Last but never least, I am indebted to Laura Schweigman, David’s assistant. “The good Laura,” as we often call her, is sweet, conscientious, and supercapable. She was kind enough to take time, in the middle of her sixteen-hour days, to explain to me the inner workings of a production office.
While I’m on the subject of family – Ethan Simon is the best son that any hardworking father ever had and the best company his stepmom has ever known; Ethan’s mom, Kayle Tucker Simon, could make a claim to being Ms. Incredible, given her flexibility in the face of unending chaos.
As for my sanity – to the extent that I have any, I credit the staff of Spoons and Todd Bauer. I also owe props to Linda Perlstein and John Miller, good neighbors and good friends. Besides, John let me use his iPhone to see just how quickly a novice could learn to navigate the device without any instruction.
Two names in this text appear here because of donations made, respectively, to Health Care for the Homeless and the Parks & People Foundation’s Ella Thompson Fund. Thank you, gentlemen, for your generosity to two causes that mean so much to my household. You know who you are.
Finally, partial spoiler here: Zervitz v. Hollywood Pictures was a real lawsuit and is presented here in a factual light, based on my own reporting during my years at the Sun. I never wrote about the case, but I read the entire court file and interviewed several of the principals. Any errors – whether they involve the production of a television show, legal issues, the tenancy rate or security systems at Tide Point, or even the regular presence of a Kobe beef hamburger on the menu at Nasu Blanca – are my own, the consequence of oversight, manipulation, or downright wishful thinking.
About the Author
LAURA LIPPMAN was a newspaper reporter at the Baltimore Sun for twelve years. Her previous novel, What the Dead Know, was a New York Times bestseller. Her Tess Monaghan books – By a Spider’s Thread, The Last Place, The Sugar House, Baltimore Blues, Charm City, Butchers Hill, and In Big Trouble – have won the Edgar, Agatha, Shamus, Anthony, and Nero Wolfe awards, and In a Strange City was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Lippman is also the author of the critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Every Secret Thing. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
www.lauralippman.com
