“We’ll have to.”
Hal looked at the carpet. “Wolf, there’s something more
at stake here than keeping Centurion from cutting the picture, isn’t there?”
Wolf nodded. “There’s the final payment, due on answer print. I’m going to need it.”
Hal looked as if he wanted to ask why, but Jane returned to the room.
“Okay, we’re on,” she said. “I’ll go home every night about six, make dinner for Sara, and put her to bed.”
“That’s fine,” Wolf said, relieved.
“Where are we going to work?”
“I’ve got a moviola downstairs. How long since you worked on one?”
She smiled, revealing even, white teeth. “Not as long as you think,” she said. “A girl can’t afford all the latest stuff when she’s just starting out on her own. Where’s the rough cut?”
“In my film vault at the office,” Wolf replied. “Hal, can you run over there and get it? You have the combination.”
“Sure,” Hal said.
“While he’s getting the stock, I’ll run home and pack a bag,” Jane said.
“Good.”
She left, and Hal spoke up.
“Wolf, you didn’t say why you needed the money. You’re in pretty good shape financially right now.”
“Speaking of money, cut Jane a check for a third of her fee up front,” Wolf said, ignoring the question.
“Okay,” Hal replied.
“And when Jane goes home at six to feed her kid, let’s you and I play some tennis, okay? You look like you could use the exercise.”
Hal looked at him long and hard.
“Don’t ask me too many questions right now, Hal. I don’t have any answers.”
“I just have one question, Wolf,” Hal replied. “Am I—or Jane or Dave—going to have any problems with the law?”
Wolf mustered all his credibility for the lie. “No, Hal,” he said. “I promise you.”
He hoped to hell he could keep that promise.
H
ow do you want to do this?” Jane asked. “I mean, how do you like to work?”
“I’m a beginning-to-end man,” Wolf replied. “The only way I can keep the whole thing in my head is to do it in sequence. Jack wanted to start the titles after the first setup of the first scene, then intersperse between each of the other setups.” The first scene was already on the moviola, an editing machine with two reels—one for the picture and one for the sound track—and a small viewing screen. He handed her another reel labeled
TITLES
.
They both sat on stools, Wolf behind Jane and to her right, so they could both see the screen. There was a light scent from her—not perfume, but something, maybe shampoo. He liked it. They began work.
Promptly at six, they stopped. They had about four minutes of film done, Wolf thought, and that wasn’t much. Still, they were getting used to each other. He and Jerry Sachs had worked together for so long that they had communicated in a kind of verbal shorthand of grunts, sighs, and monosyllables. Jane liked more detailed instructions, and Wolf was having trouble expressing himself in complete sentences. Still, he was getting used to her ways, and he found that articulating what he wanted helped to define it more sharply for himself.
Jane stretched and rubbed her neck. “You know what you’re doing, Wolf.”
“Thanks,” Wolf replied, warming to the praise. He switched on the overhead lights in the small room.
“You ever think of directing?” she asked, pulling on a cotton sweater.
He caught a glimpse of flat, bare midriff as she lifted her arms. “You know that T-shirt around town—
‘What I really want to do is direct’?
”
She laughed a deeper laugh than he would have expected from such a small woman. “You and everybody else, huh?”
“I’ve always been happy producing,” Wolf said. “I guess I sort of made a career out of keeping Jack in line.”
“Folks ought to make careers out of themselves,” Jane said.
Something in her voice reminded Wolf of something. “You a southerner?” he asked.
“Magnolia Springs, Alabama,” she said.
“Where’s that?”
“Up a little river off Mobile Bay; almost in the Gulf. You’re from someplace in Georgia, I’ve heard.”
“Little town called Delano; in Meriwether County, about eighty miles south of Atlanta.”
“Not as little as Magnolia Springs,” she said.
“What’s the nearest bigger town?”
“Fairhope, but that’s probably not as big as Delano, either. Mobile was the big city to us.”
He walked her upstairs and to her car. “You’ve been out here long enough to lose most of your accent. I didn’t catch it at first.”
She stretched again. “’Bout nine years, now. It comes back when I’m tired, or drunk, or when I’m talking to my mother on the phone. Your accent is gone, too.”
“I’ve been out here a lot longer than you. L.A. has a way of making Californians out of everybody.”
“Not me,” she said. “If I didn’t love this work so much, I’d be somewhere else. Not much work for film editors in Magnolia Springs, Alabama, or Butte, Montana.”
“Not much work for producers in Delano, Georgia, or Santa Fe, New Mexico, either.” He opened the car door for her.
“I’ll be back at eight,” she said. “Don’t wear yourself out on the tennis court.” She drove away.
Wolf walked down the path and through a hedge to the court. Hal was waiting for him, stretched out on a bench. “Be right with you,” Wolf called out. He went into the little dressing house and changed.
“The bank’s been on the phone today,” Hal said when Wolf joined him. “They’ve frozen your and Julia’s accounts, of course; that’s usual in a death. They want to talk with your lawyer or your executor about disposition.”
Wolf had been his own lawyer for his whole adult life, and Julia was his executor. “Stall them for a week or two,” he said. “Now, no more business; let’s play.”
It took them an hour to finish a set. Hal was a rangy, powerful player, about Wolf’s age, and in good shape. Wolf
always relied on cunning with Hal’s sort of player—chop shots and occasional hard second serves; passing shots, when he could manage them. Wolf won, 7-5.
“I don’t think we’ve got time for another set,” Wolf called over the net.
“Coward!” Hal yelled back. “Afraid I’ll get even?”
“Come on, Bridget’s fixing us some supper.”
They dined on cold roast lamb in the small dining room. Hal seemed unusually quiet.
“I called the Santa Fe police this afternoon,” he said finally.
“Why?” Wolf asked, concealing his alarm.
“I wanted to get to them before Centurion did.” He sliced a piece of lamb. “They think you’re dead, you know.”
“I know,” Wolf admitted.
“Why’d you lie to me?” he asked calmly.
“I’m sorry about that, Hal,” Wolf said, contrite. “I’m trying to protect everybody else as well as myself.”
“I know enough about the law to be scared about this,” Hal said.
“I’m scared, too,” Wolf replied. Starting at the beginning, he told Hal everything.
When he had finished, Hal was contemplative for a minute or two, then he said, “You’ve got to finish this film before they arrest you, isn’t that it?”
“That’s it, buddy.”
“So, I’m sitting here in Bel Air, eating leg of lamb with a possible triple murderer,” Hal mused.
“That’s about the shape of it,” Wolf said.
“I’ve known you how long?”
“Twelve, fifteen years?”
“Closer to fifteen,” Hal said. “You’re an honorable man, Wolf. I don’t deal with many of those out here. I don’t
believe you did it. There’s got to be another explanation.”
“Thanks for that, Hal,” Wolf said. “I wish I had the truth in my pocket, so you could release it to the trades.”
“The downside, of course, is that you did it—whacked Jack and Julia and this other poor schmuck, whoever he is.”
“That’s the downside,” Wolf agreed.
“Well, it surprises me a little, what I think about that.”
“What do you think?”
“I think I don’t much give a shit if you did whack ’em out.”
Wolf turned to him in surprise. “You don’t care if I’m a triple murderer?”
“I’ll admit, it’s not much of a character reference, but I think that if you did do it, you either had an overwhelmingly good reason, or else it was some sort of temporary aberration. I guess I could live with either of those.”
“You have a forgiving nature, Hal.”
“Not really. But you’ve been my friend almost as long as you’ve been my client, and I need somebody around who can take a first set from me the way you just did. Keeps me on my toes.”
“Thanks, Harold.”
“And since you’re my friend, I’m going to give you the best advice I can muster.”
“Go right ahead.”
“Get a lawyer right this minute and start working on getting yourself out of this mess. I know a couple of hotshots.”
“That’s good advice, Hal, but no. I’m going to finish this movie first.”
“You may be digging your own grave, pal.”
“I may already have dug it,” Wolf replied.
T
he four of them sat in Wolf’s screening room and watched the cut and scored print of L.A. Days. Jane got up periodically and changed the reels on the big 35mm projectors, and Wolf took an occasional note. The work had taken ten days—longer than Wolf had intended, but less time than ever before, and he was pleased. In the process, he and Jane had learned to work together. They had edited four minutes of the film on their first day, and three times that on their last.
Hal, who had never seen any of the film, had laughed aloud throughout. “Jesus,” he said, “it’s fucking wonderful. It’s Jack’s best work.”
Wolf and Jane exchanged an amused glance. “I’m glad you like it, Hal,” Wolf said.
“I’ll take it to Centurion tomorrow,” Hal said.
“Hang on, we’re not ready yet. I’ve got some notes for Dave and Jane.” Wolf held up a pad. “Ready, Dave?”
“Ready,” Dave replied, producing his own pad.
“In scene sixteen I’d like you to wait a couple of seconds before the strings come in—just at the point where she lifts her wineglass.”
“Good idea,” Dave said. “I can do that and trim without rerecording. What else?”
Wolf consulted his notes. “That’s it.”
“
That’s it?
” the astonished composer asked.
“The score is unimprovable,” Wolf said with satisfaction. “And brilliant, besides.”
“Jesus, thank you, Wolf,” Dave said. “I’ve never had an experience like this on a film. Maybe we ought to work this way all the time.”
“God forbid,” Jane said. “Now, what have you got for me?”
Wolf consulted the stopwatch in his hand. “I want you to take four minutes out of the film without fucking up Dave’s score. We haven’t got time to rerecord.”
“
Four minutes?
” she wailed.
“Centurion would ask for it anyway, and they’d be right. It moves just a hair too slowly, and four minutes will trim it to an hour and forty-five minutes exactly. The distributors and exhibitors will love us for it—they can turn over the house every two hours on the hour—I bet we’ll pick up an extra fifty screens on first release.”
“Okay,” Jane said resignedly. “When do we start?”
“
You
can start now,” he said. “I’ve got to be somewhere.”
“
By myself?
” Jane erupted.
“You can do it,” Wolf said, squeezing her hand. He didn’t let it go. “You know this movie as well as Jack or I do by now, and you’ve got great instincts.”
“By myself,” she muttered.
“When you’re finished, hand-carry the print to the lab and stand over them until you’ve got an answer print you can live with.” He turned to Hal. “
Then
you can take it to Centurion. And don’t leave without their signed acceptance.”
When the others had gone, Wolf sat in his study and stared at the telephone.
Last chance
, he thought.
Tell Hal to raise all the money he can, then get in the airplane and head for Mexico—no, Central America, maybe even Brazil—someplace with no extradition treaty
. Finally he heaved a deep, fearful sigh and picked up the phone.
“The Eagle Practice,” a woman’s voice answered.
“I’d like to speak to Mr. Eagle,” Wolf said.
“Whom may I say is calling?”
“A friend of Mark Shea. I believe he’s expecting my call.”
There was a moment’s pause and a deep, rich voice drawled, “This is Ed Eagle.” The tones were the pure, oddly accentless speech of the American Indian, almost regardless of tribe.
“Mr. Eagle, I believe Mark Shea called you about me.”
“He did,” Eagle replied laconically. “Who are you?”
“I would prefer not to give you my name until we can meet and see if we can establish a client-attorney relationship,” Wolf said.
“Well, sounds like you’re a lawyer,” Eagle said. “When do you want to come by here?”
“I don’t think it’s wise for me to come to your office at the moment. Could we meet somewhere else privately? After office hours?”
“Why don’t you come out to the house this evening? Say, about seven?”
Wolf looked at his watch: a little before five, and L.A. was an hour earlier. “I’m not in Santa Fe at the moment,”
he said. “I don’t think I could make it there much before eleven.” He didn’t want to reach the city until after dark.
“That’ll be all right,” Eagle replied. “I’m usually up late. You know where I live?”
“No.”
“You know Tesuque?” He pronounced it
Teh-SOO-kee
.
“Yes.”
“Drive past the Tesuque Market, and take your first right. I’m about four miles up the road in the hills. You’ll see the sign on your left.”
“I’ll get there earlier if I can.”
“See you this evening, then, Mr. Willett.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Eagle.” Wolf had already hung up before he realized that Ed Eagle had known his name.
W
olf landed at Santa Fe Airport half an hour after the field closed. Once in the Porsche he became downright paranoid, working his way to the north side of town by back roads and side streets, nearly fainting when a police car pulled up beside him at a traffic light, then ignored him.