Shooting Script

I found that while I'd been deducing, I'd poured myself a glass of straight Canadian Club, which perhaps wasn't so good for ten past eleven, but by then I couldn't do much but drink it. I had the glass halfway to my face when a voice said: 'And who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing?'

She was standing just outside the sliding doors, wearing a simple black-and-white bathing dress, big black sunglasses, dripping sea-water – and carrying an overstuffed black briefcase.

I said: 'I'm Keith Carr, waiting for a Mr J.B. Penrose and availing myself of some of the hospitality he'd have lavished on me if he'd remembered to be here himself.'

She came in, tossed the case on the sofa and said: 'You're late, Carr.' I just stood there with my mouth slightly open and looked at her. She was a bit short and a bit slim – not flat-chested, but it wouldn't be insured for a million, either. She had long fine hair that might once have been mousy but now streaked with the sun and touched up with every colour from chestnut to silver blonde and tied up in a careful-casual knot around the back. Her legs were long, rather thin, and covered with golden sand broken by zigzag trickles of water. For some reason I like watching a girl's legs covered with sand; psychologists probably have a long word for it. I have a short one.

I said slowly:'I'm late? What happened to the well-known J.B. Penrose?'

'I'm Penrose. Most people call me J.B. You call me Miss Penrose. I waiteduntilfive past eleven; then I went for a swim.' She walked out into the bedroom. I finally took my first taste of the whisky.

But she was back in a few seconds, without the sunglasses and rubbing herself here and there with a small hand towel. 'Aren't you starting drinking a little early for a pilot?'

I nodded. 'You might have a reasonable grievance there – once I'm on the payroll.'

She looked at me thoughtfully. Without the sunglasses, she had a sharpedged face, with a small pointed chin, a nose a bit too thin, a mouth a lot too wide, and quick-moving blue eyes. A flexible face; one that could go from a suspicious stare to megaton grin, and neither expression looking out of place and it all remaining the same face all the time.

'All right.' She dipped her head quickly. 'I'll have a Cinzano and ice – there should be some ice in the refrigerator in the kitchen.'

I went back down the hall, found the kitchen and refrigerator and the ice and hauled it back, stopping only long enough to finish my own glassen route. I had a feeling I was going to need something in my blood besides blood.

She was sitting on the sofa beside her briefcase, scratching herself idly between her thighs with the towel and staring at a piece of paper. I poured her drink, my second one, and handed hers across. Then I got out my pipe and sat down at the table.

After a while she said: 'They say you're the best multi-engined independent pilot on the island – that right?'

I liked her use of 'on the island'; she'd picked up the local phraseology quickly. 'Since there isn't anybody else, I imagine I'm the best.'

'Hmm.' She handed across the piece of paper. 'Is that an accurate breakdown of your costs?'

It was. It had even got the insurance and depreciation figures right, which meant she must have known how much I'd paid for the Dove in the first place. Still, that wouldn't be much of a secret around Palisadoes.

'It's near enough,' I admitted.

'Good. Ever done any film work before?'

'I'veflown a few film people around. The place is crawling with them every summer. They pay promptly, but always in the wrong currency."

That didn't advance my cause much. She said coldly: 'I meanreal film work. We may want you to fly a camera plane for us.'

I frowned and puffed a tired bit of smoke that had managed to crawl down the pipe-stem into my mouth and said: 'Let's go back to the beginning: who is "we"?'

She started. 'My God, I thought you'd knowthat.'

'I'm an unworldly character, Miss Penrose. Just start at the beginning.'

'Well, you've heard of Walt Whitmore?'

At least I had that. He must have been a little younger than me John Wayne-Gary Cooper generation, but he'd started in Hollywood when half the actors were still horses. And he'd stayed in the saddle come the time when a lot of old-timers had climbed down to act bedroom scenes – and been professionally dead before they'd had time to change the sheets. The critics had tried nicknaming him everything from One-Expression Whitmore to The Original Council Bluff, but they'd gone on getting him twice a year for the past thirty. In a country where they elect politicians for looking good on horses, a man whose whole profession is looking good on a horse can't lose.

I nodded. 'I know who you mean.'

'He's independent these days. He runs his own company, puts his own money into his pictures, takes his pay as a percentage of the profit. He's down here shooting a film called Bolivar Smith. Haveyou heard of that?'

'No, but don't tell me the story; let me guess. He's an American gun-for-hire in this country called – say, Amazonia – and the dictator's tough guys push him around and he gets impressed with the nobility of an honest peasant maid and he helps them revolt and doesn't take any pay for it-'

'Allright.' I saw from the look on her face that I'd just scripted the film for them. She growled: 'You'd go great in the movie business. We may not fit you in as a third assistant clapper boy just yet, but you'd go big as a critic.'

'Miss Penrose,' I spread my hands, 'don't get me wrong. I like Walt Whitmore. I've just seen him do this same story in Mexico, Texas, and New Orleans. But it won't stop me paying to watch him do it in Amazonia.'

She looked at me, running through a silent-movie expressions catalogue of suspicion, mistrust, loathing, surprise, appreciation, delight, and a few I couldn't name. 'All right,' she said finally. 'I withdraw that word "critic".'

'You haven't yet told me where you fit in,' I reminded her. 'I don't quite see you as the Amazon maid who brings him mangoes in jail nor as the fiery village dancer who-'

'I'm not anactress!' You couldn't mistake the expression that time: disgust. 'I'm Whitmore's lawyer; I fix the contracts for his company. If you'd quiet down for a few seconds, I might fix one for you.'

I shut up, except for the pipe which was making plumbing noises. After a while she said: 'Do you accept those figures?'

I nodded.

'Okay. I'm prepared to offer you a retainer of $20 a day for the next four weeks, just to be available on twenty-four hours' notice. When you fly for us, you get costs on this scale and $10 an hour with a minimum of $20 a day over the retainer. Do you agree?'

'Hold on a minute.' I was waiting for the rusty wheels in my head to catch up on a currency conversion. When I had it sorted out, it still looked pretty good: £7 a day for doing nothing plus another £7 at least and costs for flying. Then I remembered something. 'You talked about flying a camera plane: what about that?'

'Same deal without costs.'

'No.' I shook my head. 'I want half the scale costs: the Dove's costing me money just sitting on the ground when I'm not free to fly it. And what camera plane are we talking about, anyway?'

'We haven't got one yet.'

'Right – then I'll agree to that part of the deal when I see what you get.'

Her wide mouth turned into a wide smile, just a little twisted at one end. 'Are you afraid it might be a bit much for you?'

'Miss Penrose -1 don't know much about the film business, but I know a little about film flying. Most of it's done by professional outfits who hire or buy their own planes. You're trying to do it on the cheap by getting the plane and pilot separately. You might get the plane a little too cheap; this partof the world's full of planes like that. I'll agree to fly it when I've seen it.'