Bloody River Blues

EIGHT

Pellam realized suddenly that he had known Nina Sassower for twenty-four hours and had no idea what she did for a living.

"I'm unemployed actually," she said in response to his question. She was blushing and suddenly appeared very embarrassed. Pellam told her that he'd been in films more than ten years and the majority of that time he'd been unemployed.

They were walking through what was left of downtown Maddox. They had finished lunch and were moving, at Pellam's tacit guidance, away from the park where Tony Sloan was choreographing the murders of two Pinkerton men who stumble on Ross's hideout; Nina's narrow eyes darted uncomfortably at the sound of the gunshots. They were make-believe but still troubling. Pellam touched her arm to direct her toward the river.

Today she wore a bulky orange V-neck sweater. The matching orange skirt was billowy and a brisk wind snapped it like a ship's sail. Her shoes were tan and she carried a raincoat that was the same shade. An improbable outfit on Santa Monica Boulevard, but in Maddox, Missouri, it was quite becoming.

When they had put some distance between them and the gunfight, she relaxed. "Before I got laid off, I was a school counselor, grade school."

Pellam had taken those tests. His teachers, in the Catskill town where he grew up, were encouraging, but the tests revealed he had relatively little aptitude for any of the listed careers. (Because Pellam liked to read, the counselor suggested, "Book salesman." Because he liked to go to movies, the man offered, "Usher, then with hard work, theater manager.")

"Not a guidance counselor-more of a therapist."

"A psychiatrist?"

"Psychologist. But budget cutbacks… Illinois, too. All over the country, I guess."

"Surprised they even have schools left in Maddox."

"Well, I really live in Cranston, which isn't as bad off as here. Closer to St. Louis. But we still aren't doing well. Anyway,

I guess if you're the one laid off, it doesn't matter if unemployment is one percent or twenty."

"Guess not."

They looked straight down this broad street and saw the gray slab of river a quarter mile away. Despite a heavy network of overhead power and telephone cables, the street seemed very nineteenth-century- like a deserted frontier town's. It would look perfectly natural for the road to be filled with muddy mule teams and drovers and ponies and river workers slogging through the muck toward the docks. Pellam noticed a couple of scabby, atmospheric buildings, right out "of 1880. "Let me take some snaps. Hold up a second."

A battered Polaroid camera unfolded and he took four pictures. He stuffed the undeveloped, moist squares into his shirt, then continued on, Nina beside him.

"Are those for your movie?"

"Not the one they're shooting now. I have a catalog of buildings and places that directors might want. Keeps me from reinventing the wheel every time I get a call."

"You work for the studio? Or do you have your own business?"

"Freelancer. Like most everybody here. Nowadays the studios just finance and distribute. Everybody else is hired as an independent contractor. Used to be different. In the thirties and forties the studios owned your soul-if you had a soul, that is."

She didn't laugh but seemed to be memorizing this lesson in Hollywood enterprise, and so he decided not to make a casting couch joke. Not yet. He turned back to the old buildings and Nina watched him take more pictures.

"What's that?"

"Your catalog of locations."

Pellam stored the binders in a file box under his bed in the camper. He said, "That can be arranged."

They continued up the street.

"Let's go in, can we?" Nina nodded at a store. Although Pellam was extremely aware that he owed Sloan a big field, he said sure. They walked into a huge warehouse, filled with scavenged relics from buildings. Nina said she was interested in columns and mantelpieces. They found a couple of scabby wooden columns, stripped down carelessly; you could still see blotches of paint and nicks and the scorch marks from the blowtorch. Nina liked them but thought at four hundredeach, they were too pricey. Pellam agreed. He also did not think they would fit into his California contempo bungalow on Beverly Glen. "And dangerous," he added, "in the camper."

She smiled at this, then stopped in front of a dark, flaking mirror, framed in ancient oak. She flicked her hair with her ringers.

Pellam asked, Tell me about yourself."

She blushed and gazed at a brass coal bucket with a face embossed into it.

"A cherub," Pellam commented, not pushing the deflected question.

"I always thought that was a cigar. Like the kind Clint Eastwood smoked in those Italian westerns."

"Isn't that cheroot?"

"Could be. I'm always getting things mixed up."

After a pause she said in a dogged voice, "So, tell you about myself. Well." She had apparently steeled herself for the response. "You'll probably find it pretty boring. I grew up in Maddox. Went to Mizzou-that's the University of Missouri-in St. Louis, studied English lit, which gets you nowhere. I got a job in a library and didn't like where it was going. So I got a master's degree in psychology. Then moved over to Cranston, nice safe distance from Mom and, at the time, Dad. Hobbies?

Astrology, shiatsu-"

Massage? He thought quickly. Was it too early in their courtship to make a thigh reference? Probably. He opted for back.

He said, "I have this problem in my back." Then added, "My lower back."

She parried with feigned disappointment. "I don't do lower backs."

"You specialize. I see." He waited what he thought was the proper amount of time. "No boyfriend?"

"Boyfriend." She considered and he wondered if she was tailoring a lie. "There's this guy I see off and on. A lot off and not much on. You know how it is. When I was younger I dated a lot but, I don't know, something about me-I was kind of a jerk magnet. What rocks those boys crawled out from under…"

"Ever been married?"

"No. You?"

He was a veteran, Pellam admitted.

"See, I'd rather not get married than be married and have to go through the pain of divorce."

"Well," Pellam said, "without pain, there's no appreciation." They both considered that while they stared at a ninety-dollar spittoon. He said, "You're thinking that was a stupid thing to say."

Nina was nodding. "Uhm, yeah, I think it was." She laughed and they paused at bins filled with old albums, selling for fifty cents each. Pellam liked the scratchy sound of LPs. He didn't own a CD player. He sunk a lot of his listening money into records. When he got home he'd record them on cassettes for the tape deck in the Winnebago. He began going through the jazz bin. "You like music?"

"Oh, yeah, music is the best," she announced, and looked over his shoulder at the album cover he was reading.

"Who's that?" she asked.

"Oscar Peterson." Who's that?

"Sounds familiar."

"Oscar Peterson," Pellam said again.

"Uh… I'm land of into soft rock, you know. Light FM. It's relaxing."

Oh.

"It's jazz," he said.

"Like Stevie Wonder?" Nina asked sincerely.

"Sort of," Pellam said. "They use the same notes."

Outside, the voodoo of Tony Sloan's paranoia caught up with Pellam. He explained that he had to get back to work. When he leaned forward to kiss her cheek, to say good-bye, she responded with firm pressure on his hands and even leaned into him. A semihug. He glanced down and got a clear vision of the plunging neckline of her sweater. He was staring at her pale skin when they separated and she caught his downward-looking eyes. He said quickly, "I was admiring those earrings.

They're interesting."

"A present," she said, perhaps choosing not to believe him.

He slipped on his sunglasses and smiled. "You interested in searching for a field with me sometime?"

Nina nodded. "Sure. I'd like that." She touched his arm and looked serious. "But I'd like to say something."

The boyfriend who wasn't a boyfriend. The girlfriend who was a girlfriend. I don't like men with film companies.

Lips that touch liquor…

"Yup?"

"I want to tell you why I picked you up."

"How's that?"

"I mean, not that I don't like you."

"No."

"See, I heard that when the film company came to town they were hiring people. I mean, it's not the only reason I started talking to you." '

"Is there any way I could get a job?"

Well, he should have known. This was hardly the first time it had happened. She must have seen the flicker in his eyes.

The Ray-Bans were not all that dark.

"I'm sorry." Her eyes went straight to the ground. "I shouldn't have asked. It's just-"

"I don't mind."

"It's just that I've been out of work for six months. I haven't even been able to find a job waitressing."

He touched the incredibly soft orange alpaca over her muscular arm. "The thing is, shootings almost over. All the extras have been cast and they don't make much money anyway."

"No, no, no." Her face had turned pink "I wouldn't want to act. I don't even like movies. I think they're stupid."

She doesn't like movies?

"Oh." Everybody likes movies… "Well, what did you have in mind?"

"I don't know. I see so many people in town from your company…"

Thirty-seven cast members from Hollywood. Sixty-two local extras. Seventy-one L.A.-based crew members, sixty-seven from St. Louis, twelve stuntmen, eight drivers, two producers, two caterers, two animal wranglers, one stoolie from the Coast, one high-tech visionary director.

One location scout.

"Is there," Pellam asked, "anything you can do?"

Nina considered this for a minute. The blush was gone and so was her bashfulness. He suspected that beneath the wan Julia Roberts face was a ball-buster of a school counselor. "I can't really do anything other than coach girls' gymnastics and talk to students."

Pellam squeezed her arm again. "And," he said, "you can make yourself beautiful."

She sniffed a laugh. "You're flirting."

"No, I have something in mind," Pellam said. Then he added, "In addition to flirting."

MISSOURI RIVER BLUES

SCENE 180A-INTERIOR DAY,

ROSS'S GETAWAY CAR, cont'd

ROSS

When 1 first saw you, you know, it was the night of the dance. It was-

DEHLIA

(holding wounded arm) I remember.

ROSS

It was hot as a in-line block. You were across the room under that Japanese lantern.

ANGLE ON Dehlia, hair flying in the breeze. She looks back with LOVE in her eyes.

DEHLIA

(gasping) That lantern, it was the one that was busted.

ROSS

Sure it was busted and the bulb shone through that paper and covered you in light. That's when I knowed you was the girl for me.

"Ouch. That's terrible. Don't read anymore, Pellam." Stile and Pellam sat on a river bluff overlooking the Missouri.

Pellam was looking down at the revised script. He recited emotionally, " "You was the girl for me.'"

"Pellam," Stile said, wincing. "Please."

"That's what they say just before they skid into the river. Don't you think that's purty? The hole in the-lantern's a metaphor for freedom."

"You know what's a metaphor? To keep the cows in. In this case-" Stile nodded toward the script "-it's where the bullshit is."

"I'll bet in the final scene the cops find the car but not the bodies." Pellam flipped to the end and read. "Damn damn damn, I'm right. Gimme five."

Stile and Pellam slapped palms and the stuntman limped over to the Yamaha. He had spent the afternoon getting shot with a.45 at close range and tumbling down a flight of stairs. Thirty gunshots and fifteen falls. Then Sloan had changed his mind and decided Stile should fall through a window after getting shot. But the stunt coordinator insisted they postpone the scene till tomorrow and gave Stile the rest of die day off. He had joined Pellam and together they spent the afternoon driving around on the cycle looking for Sloan's big field. "Who was that squeeze I saw you with?"

"Nina Sassower." Pellam joined Stile at the cycle.

"Well, that's a name and a half. I haven't seen her around."

"That's because this is her first day on the set. I got her a job doing makeup. She's pretty good at it."

"She's also pretty good at kissing and throwing her arms around you."

It was true, she had been.

"Casting couch is one thing, Pellam. If you get laid 'cause you got somebody a job as a makeup artist while I fall out of tall buildings and have to content myself with ring around the rosy at night there is no justice in this world."

Pellam was not, however, thinking of Nina Sassower and her embracing arms. He was obsessed with getting the field. The houses and buildings for the film had been easy, Maddox's economic condition being what it was. The field was another story. It needed a border of dense trees, a road, a river, and a school in a stand of bushes. Also a small cliff for the dramatic crash.

The best they had found was a small overhang beside a weedy pumpkin patch. To reach the bluff for its dramatic fall, Ross's Packard would have to crash through deep thickets of forsythia and juniper and maple saplings.

"Very vegetative place, this Missouri," Pellam observed, "and oddly short on fields."

"I still don't see why you're working for Sloan. Even a whore's got principles. Sort of oil and water is what I'm saving."

Pellam wiped beads of dew off the face of his Casio. Six P.M. He had to meet Marty Weller and Ahmed Telorian in two hours. "Let's have a beer, call it quits." He sat in the saddle of the Yamaha. Stile pocketed the Polaroid and climbed on behind.

The wind rose up in sudden chill bursts. The rain had mostly stopped but the streets were flecked with its aftermath-bits of bark and branches-and the air was very damp. A dog with fur spiked by an earlier downpour walked up to them, sniffed belligerently then fled as Pellam kicked over the engine. They sped onto the asphalt.

"I called Hank," Pellam shouted over the roar, referring to the card-playing attorney retained by the film company. "He said there's nothing I can do about it."

"Those FBI guys, you mean?'

"They can interview whoever they want, they can stop production, they can look at all our permits. They can go to Delaware and Sacramento and look at everything the company's ever filed."

"Wooee, Tony's gonna roast your nuts, boy."

"He'd just fire me is what he'd do," Pellam said.

"I don't think he can fire you for not testifying. I'll bet you can sue him if he tries."

"Yeah, right."

Pellam motioned toward the river. A mule team of barges slapped through the water beside them. The wind was up and sailors were huddled on the pushing tug. Deckhands stood on the front of the barge, wearing orange vests and speaking into walkie-talkies- presumably to the captain, who stood, three football fields behind, in the pilot house. He wore a suit and tie.

Stile watched it and shouted, "I love riverboats, yessir. Eighteen fifty-three. The Altona made the run from St. Louis to Alton in one hour and thirty-five minutes. See the lights? That's Alton."

"How do you know this stuff?" Pellam shouted back over the rattle of the engine.

"Nobody beat that record for a while. Well, the Robert E. Lee could've, of course. Or the Natchez. Watch the curve there."

Pellam looked back at the road just in time to make the curve with a skid that didn't even make Stile flinch. They turned off River Road and shot toward downtown. The lights were gassy and brilliant in the mist. "See," he shouted to Stile, "glare everywhere. How could I see anything?"

Pellam pulled into the discount package store and killed the engine.

They walked into the green-neon-lit store, went to the cooler, and began fighting it out over Canadian or American beer. Pellam lost the toss and Stile snagged a six-pack of Bud, plunking it down into Pellam's hands. "Gotta take a leak."

Pellam paid for the beer and wandered outside. He opened a can and sat on the Yamaha, sipping. He looked over at the flat black strip of the river.

He softly whistled a few bars from "Across the Wide Missouri."

The siren remained silent until the car was directly behind him, then it burst into an huge electronic howl. The spotlight came on simultaneously. Pellam was so startled, he dropped the beer, spilling a good portion on his jeans. "Goddamn!" He spun around and looked at the car. The doors were opening and two men were coming toward him like G-men about to gun down Dillinger.

The WASP detective and the Italian detective. Oh, no____________________Them again.

"Look what you did," Pellam lifted an arm, showing them the drenched Levi's.

The Italian cop ignored the spill and grabbed Pellam's arm. He cuffed bis wrist.

Pellam stared at the silver chain. "What-"

The other wrist got cuffed, too.

"-are you doing?" *

"You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney." It was the Italian detective speaking.

"If you can't afford one," his partner took over, "one will be appointed for you. If you waive your right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in court."

"Do you understand each of these rights?"

Pellam thought they somehow knew about the' unregistered.45 that was sitting below his butt in the toolbox of the Yamaha.

"Do you understand these rights?"

"Sure, I understand them. What am I being arrested for?"

The WASP cop said, "Sir, we take drunk driving very seriously in our community."

Pellam closed his eyes. He shook his head.

"We'll have to give you a Breathalyzer test," the Italian detective said.

The WASP said, "But I'm afraid we don't have it with us."

The Italian said, on cue, "We better take him downtown."

"What's going on here?" Stile, chewing on a piece of beef jerky, walked out of the store.

"I'm-" Pellam began.

"Just stay out of this, mister," the WASP cop said ominously to Stile.

"-being arrested."

"For what?"

"For bullshit," Pellam called. He looked at his watch. It was six-twenty. "Look, I have a very important meeting at eight.

I can't-".,

"Quiet."

"No, look, I've got to meet a man in St. Louis-"

They roughly dragged him to the squad car and, with a furry Italian hand on his head, pushed him inside.

Pellam called, "Stile, you gotta make a call for me. You gotta call Marty-"

"All right, that's enough out of you." The door slammed shut. Pellam kicked the front seat furiously.

"He's a hairsbreadth away from resisting," the Italian cop said to nobody.

"Where's the station?" Stile asked. "I'm coming down there."

The cops climbed into the front seat. One of them said, "It's in the phone book. Look it up."

They drove off leisurely, leaving Stile with a strip of beef jerky in one hand and five cans of beer in the other.