With ten seconds to go Ian said: "Woody Allen and Sydney Pollack in Husbands and Wives. Kevin Costner and Clint Eastwood in A Perfect World."
"Damn."
Ian laughed. He was still batting a thousand. He rose, grabbed his shoulder bag. "What is Norma Desmond's phone number?"
Ian always said is in regard to film. Most people used the past tense. To Ian, film was always in the moment. "Crestview 5-1733," Seth replied. "What name did Janet Leigh sign in under at the Bates Motel?"
"Marie Samuels," Ian said. "What is Gelsomina's sister's name?"
This was an easy one, Seth thought. He was familiar with every frame of Fellini's La Strada. He had first seen it at the Monarch Art when he was ten years old. He still got teary when he thought of it. All he needed was to hear the mournful wail of that trumpet in the opening credits and he started to bawl. "Rosa."
"Molto bene," Ian said with a wink. "See you on set."
"Si, maestro."
Seth grabbed a cab and headed to Ninth Street. As they drove south, he watched the neighborhoods change, from the bustle of Center City to the sprawling urban enclave of South Philadelphia. Seth had to admit that he liked working in Philadelphia, Ian's hometown. Despite all the pressure to formally move the offices of White Light Pictures to Hollywood, Ian had resisted.
Within minutes they came across the first police cars and street barricades. The production had closed down Ninth Street for two blocks in each direction. By the time Seth arrived on the set, everything was in place-the lights, the sound package, the security presence needed for any shoot in a major metropolitan area. Seth showed his ID, skirted the barricades, and slipped into Anthony's. He ordered a cappuccino and stepped back onto the sidewalk.
Everything was running like clockwork. All they needed was their leading man, Will Parrish.
Parrish, the star of the hugely successful 1980s prime-time ABC comedy-action series Daybreak, was riding the crest of a comeback of sorts, his second. In the 1980s he had been on every magazine cover, on every TV talk show, on virtually every transit ad in every major city. His smirking, wisecracking Daybreak character was not all that different from his own, and by the late 1980s he was the highest-paid actor on television.
Then came Kill Game, an action film that catapulted him to A-list status, the film grossing nearly $270 million worldwide. It was followed by three equally successful sequels. In between, Parrish made a number of romantic comedies and small dramas. Then there was a slump in big- budget action films and Parrish wasn't getting the scripts. Almost a decade passed before Ian Whitestone put him back on the map.
In The Palace, his second film with Whitestone, he played a widowed surgeon treating a young boy who'd been badly burned in a fire set by the boy's mother. Parrish's character, Ben Archer, was performing skin-graft operations on the boy while slowly discovering that his patient was clairvoyant, and that nefarious government agencies wanted to get their hands on him.
This day the shot was a relatively easy one, logistically speaking. Dr. Benjamin Archer walks out of a restaurant in South Philly and sees a mysterious man, a man in a dark suit. He follows.
Seth took his cappuccino and stood on the corner. They were about half an hour from the shot.
For Seth Goldman, the best part of a location shoot-any shoot, but especially a city location shoot-was the women. Young women, middle- aged women, rich women, poor women, housewives, college students, workingwomen-they stood on the other side of the barricades, enthralled at the glamour of it all, mesmerized by celebrity, lined up like sexy perfumed ducks at a gallery. In major cities, even the gaffers got laid.
And Seth Goldman was far from a gaffer.
Seth sipped his coffee, ostensibly marveling at the efficiency of the crew. What he was really marveling at was the blond woman standing on the other side of the barricade, right behind one of the police cars blocking the street.
Seth edged his way over toward her. He spoke softly into his two-way radio, to no one at all. He wanted to get her attention. He moved closer and closer to the barricade, just a few feet from the woman now. He was wearing a Joseph Abboud navy blazer over a white, open-collar polo shirt. He oozed importance. He looked good.
"Hi," the young woman said.
Seth turned, as if he hadn't noticed her. She was even prettier up close. She wore a powder-blue dress and low white heels. She wore a string of pearls and matching earrings. She was about twenty-five. Her hair was gold-tipped by the summer sun.
"Hi, there," Seth replied.
"Are you with…" She waved her hand at the crew, the lights, the sound truck, the set in general.
"The production? Yes," Seth said. "I'm Mr. Whitestone's executive assistant."
She nodded, impressed. "This is really exciting."
Seth looked up and down the street. "Yes, it is."
"I was here for the other movie, too."
"Did you like the film?" Fishing, and he knew it.
"Very much." Her voice rose in pitch a little when she said this. "I thought Dimensions was one of the scariest movies I've ever seen."
"Let me ask you something."
"Okay."
"And I want you to be completely honest with me."
She held her hand up in a three-finger pledge. "Girl Scout promise."
"Did you see the ending coming?"
"Not in the least," she said. "I was completely surprised."
Seth smiled. "You said the right thing. Are you sure you're not from Hollywood?"
"Well, it's true. My boyfriend said he knew it all along, but I didn't believe him."
Seth frowned dramatically. "Boyfriend?"
The young woman laughed. "Ex-boyfriend."
Seth grinned at the news. This was going extremely well. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but then thought better of it. Or at least, that was the scene he was playing. It worked.
"What is it?" she asked, circling the hook.
Seth shook his head. "I was going to say something, but I'd better not."
She cocked her head at a slight angle, began to color. Right on cue. "What were you going to say?"
"You'll think I'm being too forward."
She smiled. "I'm from South Philly. I think I can handle it." Seth took her hand in his. She didn't tense up or pull away. This was also a good sign. He looked into her eyes and said: "You have very pretty skin."
13
The Rivercrest Motel was a tumbledown, twenty-unit pay and play on Thirty-third and Dauphin streets in West Philly, just a few blocks from the Schuylkill River. The motel was single-story, laid out in an L-shape with a weed-blotted parking lot and a pair of out-of- order soda machines flanking the door to the office. There were five cars in the lot. Two of them were on blocks.
The manager of the Rivercrest Motel was a man named Karl Stott. Stott was a hard fifty, late out of Alabama, with an alcoholic's damp lips, pitted cheeks, and a pair of navy tattoos on his forearms. He lived on the premises, in one of the rooms.
Jessica handled the interview. Byrne hovered and glared. They had worked out this dynamic in advance.
At just past four thirty, Terry Cahill arrived. He hung back in the parking lot, observing, making notes, walking the property.
"I think those shower rods were installed two weeks ago," Stott said, lighting a cigarette, his hands a little shaky. They were in the motel's small, shabby office. It smelled like warm salami. On the walls were posters of some of Philadelphia's major attractions-Independence Hall, Penn's Landing, Logan Square, the art museum-as if the clientele who frequented the Rivercrest Motel were tourists. Jessica noted that someone had drawn a miniature Rocky Balboa on the art museum steps.
Jessica also noticed that Karl Stott already had a cigarette burning in the ashtray on the counter.
"You've got one going already," Jessica said.