By the time Robby got back to the set, the crew had broken for lunch. Picnic tables had been laid out on the sidewalk in front of the abandoned medical building, as cast and crew waited in line in front of the large catering van parked on the street.
Norman and Ciggy were at the front of the line when they saw him and had him cut in front. Robby always felt uncomfortable with this kind of preferential star treatment and had never taken advantage of it before. Of course, it was consistent with the asshole prick he was playing off camera, so he cut in front as if it were his inalienable right.
The two producers congratulated him on the rape charge being dropped when Ciggy noticed the shiner Robby had received courtesy of Cameron Docks. It was cause for concern because his closeup that they were to shoot next had to "match" the master shot they had filmed that morning. The only other alternative would be reshooting the morning's work, but that would ultimately cause the production to go an hour or two into overtime, and rip several thousand dollars out of the budget.
"I'd rather have the shots not match," said Ciggy.
The makeup artist, a handsome Lithuanian woman in her forties, studied Robby's eye, since it would be her job to hide the discoloration and swelling.
"I don't know," she said. "It looks pretty bad. Too blue to hide."
"Just do your best," he told her.
"How can you do that?" Norman asked him. "If he has a black eye in the closeup and he's fine in the master, it'll look ridiculous."
"It's a one million dollar movie, Norman," he said. "You can't start going into overtime for every little thing. Besides, you're in no position to start saying we should spend MORE."
Norman hadn't told Ciggy, or anyone, about the pending murder charges that Robby would soon be facing, nor did he plan to. He wanted to see how far Ciggy would actually take his threat of seizing his house. He also wanted to appear morally outraged to Robby and the world when the charges were officially announced. And mostly, he was skating on very thin legal ice as it was, and so it was best if no one ever learned about it. As far as anyone in the loop knew, the budget was missing three hundred thousand dollars because it was all going to Robby.
Robby would have loved to tear up the new contract and return to his original deal of union minimum. It was the right thing to do, which was why he simply couldn't do it. A pure act of altruism like that would completely blow the entire asshole image that he had worked so hard to achieve. He had almost gone too far when he warned Norman not to push for the new deal in the first place, and giving away money was way over the line.
Ciggy and Norman would simply have to do their jobs and come up with the money on their own. If they failed, Robby could always "invest" his salary back into the picture and claim it to be for selfish reasons, then rub everybody's noses in it. If they succeeded, he'd give the whole kit'n'caboodle to charity. He didn't want it because he felt it wasn't rightfully his. It was blood money, stolen. Besides, if his plan continued to go as well as it had been, he wouldn't need it anyway.
Robby took his lunch tray into his trailer on the auspices of being a snob, but it was really because he had several important calls to make. The first was to Trudy, and he prayed she hadn't seen his impromptu news conference yet. It had been his intention to tell her his new plan before he went public with it, but she was already asleep when he thought of it, and still asleep when he left in the morning. He didn't think much of it at the time because he never expected to have to act so quickly.
But no one picked up, so he left her a message to call him on the set, and that it was urgent. He would leave eight more such messages throughout the course of the day.
His second call was to Lisa to ask her out on a "date." The press had completely bought his story of their sordid past, but he knew that wouldn't hold them for long. They would insist on seeing them out on the town, and Robby had no intention of disappointing them. He got her number from the D.A.'s case file that Norman had given him and dialed her up.
When Cameron Docks answered, Robby poured on the charm. He said he understood why Cameron had decked him and that he would have done the same thing under similar circumstances. He assured him that his intentions with his daughter were honorable, and asked if he could speak to her. Then Cameron hung up.
Robby immediately phoned back and apologized that his phone somehow got disconnected. This time, Cameron cut him off before he could even ask for Lisa.
"Listen, you sick Hollywood fuck," shouted the father. "I'm meeting with the D.A. tomorrow and will insist she file charges against you for statutory rape. If you call my house again, I'll get her to add invasion of privacy or harassment. And if none of that matters to you, listen to this. You try to contact her again, I'll kill you myself!"
Then he hung up again.
Robby completely understood. But that didn't stop him from calling back five more times throughout the course of the day. Cameron answered each one, and threatened him each time.
After his first two attempts at reaching Lisa directly failed, he called his North Hollywood High teacher friend. This time, the phone was answered by a young woman who introduced herself as the teacher's cousin who was housesitting for them. She said that the teacher and his wife had gone camping in Yosemite and wouldn't be back for a month. Robby told her that it was vital he speak to them and asked if they had a cell number. She laughed at his obvious lack of camping experience and asked him to leave a message. Robby didn't want to get into it so he simply said he'd call back in a month.
He tried Lisa again. Cameron answered, and threatened to kill him once more.
Robby was running out of ideas, so he decided to play a long shot. He didn't expect it to amount to anything, but he had learned long ago that you don't succeed if you don't try. He got Mitch's home number from the D.A.'s case file that Norman had given him, then picked up the phone to enlist the boy's help in contacting Lisa.
There was no answer at Mitch's home, but there was a work number listed on the contact sheet, so Robby tried him there.
Mitch was understandably as pissed off as Cameron, and Robby realized pretty quickly that the idea of asking him for help was as absurd as he first thought. So he tried to end the conversation politely, but the boy wouldn't hear of it. He simply needed to shout, and Robby felt that letting him vent was the least he could do.
"You ruined my life, you crazy son-of-a-bitch!" shouted the boy as his anger gave way to tears. "I can't show my face anywhere!"
"I'm sorry," said Robby. "I shouldn't have called."
"I'm going to hunt you down, you bastard," cried the young tackle. "I'm going to swipe my father's gun and hunt you down and blow your fucking brains out! What do I care? My life's already ruined. You're a dead man, Rockman!"
"I understand," said Robby calmly. "Take care, now. B'bye.
Robby took Mitch's death threat about as seriously as he had taken Cameron's, which was not very, but that all changed several hours later.
They had finished shooting his closeup for the second of the three scenes he had to do that day, and he was given an hour break while they reset the lighting for the final one.
It is generally considered good form for actors to perform their lines even when they're off-screen as it helps motivate their on-screen co-star. When an actor refuses, and most of the mean ones do, their lines are read by the script coordinator and usually with very little expression. For an actor, it's like playing the scene with a wall.
Robby had always been the kind of star who would go out of his way to help a fellow actor. In turn, everyone had always read with him so he never had to play a scene alone. But he had made the decision not to help anyone on "Gun Butt" since it enhanced his reputation as a prick. Tit-for-tat, Cheyenne wasn't helping him either, and for the first time he saw how hard it actually was.
In the end, his performance was as riveting as it had been all day, but he could only imagine how tough it must be on the less-experienced girl. The most important thing was that the movie end up great, and her performance was as vital to its success as his own. Perhaps more since, in the end, she had a bigger part than he did. For the good of the film, he had no choice but to work with her on her solo shots.
Besides, it was a joy to watch the young lady improve with every take.
So he was on his way to Cheyenne's trailer when he first noticed it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone watching him, but when he turned towards the person, there was no one there. He didn't give it much thought at the time.
He knocked on Cheyenne's trailer and heard her whisper, "Come in."
He entered to find the young black girl sitting in the corner of the Winnebago, crying. But the moment she saw Robby she quickly tried to hide it. She wiped away the tears and jumped up.
"I'm sorry, I thought you were Savannah," she said. "What do you want?"
So Robby told her what he had planned to say and how well he thought she was doing. He put it all on himself and said that he needed the help, and in return he would help her with her closeups. Her eyes seemed to well up even more than before, and when he asked if she'd agree, she could barely speak.
"What's wrong?" he asked her.
"I don't know what I'm doing!" she wailed. "I'm lost out there!"
"You're doing great," he said, sincerely. "Everyone says so."
"They're just being nice," she answered.
"Then listen to me because I'm not just being nice," he told her.
"No, you wouldn't be," she said.
Robby suppressed smiling at the irony that he only had credibility with her because she believed him to be an asshole. If she knew him for who he really was, she wouldn't believe him at all.
"You're just plain wrong," she continued. "I'm just stumbling all over the place! It's like I'm in this black hole or something!"
And as she continued ranting, Robby could've sworn he saw someone watching him through the trailer window. But once again, as he turned towards it, there was no one there. Not even a shadow.
"I can't act anymore," she went on. "Maybe I never could. I don't know. I did so good in my school plays, but I get my big break and I don't know shit!"
"All actors feel like that," he said.
"You don't," she insisted. "I watch you and you know exactly what you're going to do and it's so good and surprising, and the surprises just throw me and I'm bopping around like nothing but the big boss's ho!"
"And that's exactly who you are," he said as a compliment.
"Fuck you!"
"I mean, that's who your character is," he laughed. "She's scared, and humiliated, and filled with self doubt. But not because of Robby Rockman, but because of Dr. Kincaid. And believe me, your performance is just as surprising as mine."
"But that's not acting," she said. "That's just being real."
"And you just discovered what millions of actors spend a lifetime trying to learn."
And she smiled. She had seen enough of Robby to know he'd never be nice for the sake of being nice, and the compliments she had received all day began to register. In a burst of emotion, she wrapped her arms around him in a warm, friendly hug.
"Thank you," she said. "Thank you a lot."
"My pleasure," he smiled back.
"Listen, watch your back, okay?" she warned him.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, concerned.
She took a deep breath and confessed. "During lunch I spoke to my brother on the phone. He lives in Detroit but he's connected out here, you know what I'm saying? And when I told him how mean you were to me, he said he was going to get you."
"Tell him to get in line," Robby joked, but it came out a little more nervous than he intended.
"I told him not to, but he doesn't always listen to me," she went on. "And he may have been kidding because sometimes he kids about that kind of stuff. But just to be safe, watch your back, okay?"
"No problem," he said. "I'll see you on the set."
He walked out and headed for his own trailer to try Trudy once more, and he had a very odd feeling. He quickly turned back behind him as he saw a person's foot disappear between two of the trailers, and then he heard running footsteps fade away.
His first instinct was to follow whoever it was into the building, but something inside himself told him not to.
And he was starting to worry because now it was now obvious.
SOMEONE was stalking him.
*** Up Next: "Trudy" ***
The main characters in this e-novel are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual individuals, whether living or dead (except for Jeff Abugov who is a real screenwriter, director and producer.) Although certain real people and companies are mentioned in this e-novel, all of the events are fictional and are not intended to portray or resemble any actual events.
Copyright © 2015 Tinseltrash, Inc.