"I'll fuckin' kill you, Rockman!" insisted the voice on the other side of Robby's trailer door. "I'm not fuckin' kidding!"
Robby knew from the voice that it wasn't the stalker, but with all the people pissed at him that didn't necessarily mean his life was not in danger from whoever it was outside. At least three people had threatened his life, and God only knew how many more crazies wanted him dead.
"Rockman, I saw you fucking go in there!" shouted the voice. "Don't fuck with me!"
"Who is it?" Robby asked back timidly as he pressed 911 on his cell phone and held his finger over the "send" button.
"Ralphie!" said the voice. "Ralphie Sullivan, from the Gazette. We had a fucking deal and you reneged! Again! And I don't appreciate you ducking me!"
Robby breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
"Are you alone?" he asked.
"What the fuck you think, you retard?" answered the pissed off reporter. "Of course I'm alone."
Robby opened the door to let Ralphie in as he insisted he wasn't ducking anyone. But the moment the tabloid hack entered, Robby quickly double-locked the door behind him.
"Then why the hell you hiding from me all of a sudden?" Ralphie demanded. "You been wooing the press to follow you around since Artie's party."
"There's a stalker after me," Robby explained. "I can't go out there with all those people. I'll be dead... or worse."
"A stalker," Ralphie repeated suspiciously. He could tell that Robby meant what he said, but he didn't believe it anyway.
The rumors of Robby's drug addiction were widespread by now, and Ralphie had heard about Robby putting the drug on top of his breakfast cereal. At present, Robby was pacing, sweating, and out-of-breath, and demonstrated all the symptoms of one who's had too much and started too early. So Ralphie easily assumed the stalker tale to be nothing more than the paranoid delusions of an abusive coke-fiend.
"Must be tough having a stalker after you with everything else going on," he said. "But I have a serious fucking bone to pick with you. You promised me a goddamn exclusive with you two if I got her for you, and you said I'd get the first exclusive -- no one else'd get shit for a week -- yet your girlfriend's out there blabbing all over the place!"
"Lisa's still here?" Robby asked surprised. "Norman was supposed to take her home! She's in as much danger as I am! The stalker could be just as pissed at her as at me!"
"Yeah, that would be bad," Ralphie replied matter-of-factly. "So what do I get for what I did for you?"
"You still get what I promised you," he answered, panicked. "I promised you an exclusive one-on-one with the two of us. Well, I'm not out there, am I? And I bet she's not saying anything too personal, is she?" This last part was a calculated bluff. He knew Lisa was too smart a girl to get caught in a lie. "I bet she's just deferring most of the answers to me."
"Actually, she's deferring a lot to you," Ralphie conceded.
"Of course she is," a relieved Robby responded as if he had been sure all along. "Look, she loves the attention, and dammit, she deserves it. But she knows our deal. She wouldn't screw you because I told her not to."
"She listens to everything you say?" Ralphie asked.
"Everything," Robby replied emphatically. "That's why I like 'em young."
Ralphie enjoyed the implication that Lisa wasn't Robby's first juvenile, and made a mental note to make "I like 'em young" his headline -- far superior in ugliness to Robby's earlier "this little girl is the most amazing woman I have ever met." As far as Ralphie was concerned, it knocked the earlier quote completely out of existence.
"So you'll still get your exclusive," Robby vowed. "But you got to do something for me. You've got to get her home. She's in danger."
"When do I get my exclusive?"
"I told you," he answered. "You'll get your exclusive in the morning. First thing."
"New favor, new payback," Ralphie explained. "And this time you pay in advance. My deadline's tonight. I want something now."
"We can't do it now!" Robby pleaded. "It's too dangerous."
"Those schmaltzy pictures you gave me before ain't gonna do it, Rockman," Ralphie insisted. "You want me to drive your girl home -- you've got to gimme something."
"Okay," Robby conceded. "But you've got to take her home right after, so the stalker can't get to her. Rip her away from those leeches that are your brethren, and jam her into a car that's safe. You back out, the Enquirer'll get the exclusive."
"It's got to be good, or I don't help your girl," said Ralphie who didn't believe there was any jeopardy whatsoever, but saw no reason not to prey upon Robby's drug-induced paranoia.
But it wasn't drug-induced, Robby knew, it was real.
"We never had sex," Robby shamefully admitted.
"Bullshit," responded Ralphie without a blink.
"It's true," Robby said. "I love her, this is the real thing. I'm gonna wait till she's eighteen."
"I can't print that without proof," insisted Ralphie.
"Since when do you tabloid guys need proof?"
"To say you're fucking a teenager when you're not, well, that's what we do," explained the journalist. "But to say you're not when everyone thinks you are? I'll be laughed out of the business."
"When they thought she had been raped, they gave her a complete physical," Robby offered. "It's in the D.A.'s file, if you can get it. She's a virgin."
"Holy shit," said a blown-away Ralphie. "You really are a freak."
"Get her home now," he said. "You'll get your exclusive tomorrow. I'll see you in the morning."
"If you're fucking me on this, you won't have to worry about an imaginary stalker," he threatened. "You'll have to fucking worry about me."
"Get the file," Robby said confidently. "But get her home first."
Ralphie saw in Robby's eyes that he was telling the truth, and he walked out of the trailer wondering how in hell he could get the police file. He had many friends and contacts at the D.A.'s office, but everyone knew that Theresa Chavez was a tight-assed, non-leakable bitch. Even his best contacts would be afraid to cross her.
But there was no way Ralphie was going to print such a lovey-dovey story without proof.
Robby double-locked the trailer the second Ralphie's back foot cleared the doorway, and Ralphie headed back to where Lisa was still waxing poetic for what she perceived to be her adoring fans.
"It's through our love that Robby will be cured of his drug addictions," Lisa told them. "No one understands him the way I do -- so no one could really help him but me."
"Does that mean he's going into rehab?"
"You'd have to ask him that."
"Has he ever been in rehab before?"
"It's not my place to say."
"Does that mean you don't know?"
"Guys, I love him," she said. "I'm not going to give him away to you because--"
That was when Ralphie grabbed her by the arm and told her that it was time to go home. The other reporters shouted at Ralphie for intervening, but it didn't stop him.
"Get offa me!" Lisa shouted at him. "You're not my father."
"Robby wants you to go home now," Ralphie gingerly explained to her, loud enough for the competition to hear. He had an inside track that they didn't, and he was proud to be able to rub their noses in it.
"Robby said that?" Lisa asked.
"Yes, Lisa," he assured her. "I was just talking to him and he told me to take you home. If you don't believe me, we could go to his trailer to confirm it."
This was the man who Robby had originally sent to bring her to him, so she saw no reason to doubt that Robby had told him to take her back home as well. She agreed without argument.
"No," she said. "That's okay. Take me home now. Sorry, everyone, Robby wants me to go home."
The profanities and insults that the other reporters yelled at Ralphie for taking away their prize are simply too perverse to repeat even on the internet. Lisa stifled her smile at the sight of grown-ups acting more childish than teenagers, and Ralphie loved every second of it.
When the A.D. knocked on Robby's door to tell him that they were ready for him on the set, Robby refused to come out until he spoke to Ciggy. Coincidentally, Ciggy was there within minutes.
Robby explained the stalker situation and told him that he wouldn't come out until Ciggy hired a security company to get rid of the press and to guarantee that no one but the cast and crew were permitted on the set. Ciggy saw the same sweaty, pacing coke-fiend that Ralphie had, but Robby wasn't the first drug-addicted actor with whom the producer had worked.
"I know it seems real to you," Ciggy said in a soft, soothing voice. "But there is no stalker. There's a lot of press who want to speak to you, and a lot of cocaine swimming through your bloodstream. You've done this long enough to know that it makes you a little paranoid sometimes, don't you?"
"I didn't do any today," Robby insisted.
"You put it on your Wheaties," Ciggy replied softly. "Now, come on. The press is going to help the movie, and in turn, help your career. So let's let them see one take of one shot. After that, if you're still scared, I'll get rid of them. What do you say?"
"No," insisted Robby. "I'm not going out there until you hire armed gaurds."
So Ciggy got pissed and started yelling at him. He was faking it, but he knew he had to get Robby out there. When Robby still refused, Ciggy threatened to fire him, which was also a bluff. In fact, Ciggy tried every trick he had learned in his vast experience dealing with coked-up actors, but none of them worked.
So he tried something he had very little faith in. He tried honesty.
"We can't afford security, Robby," he confessed. "This production is three hundred thousand dollars in the hole, but we're moving ahead on faith. I didn't want to tell you this, and I don't want you to tell any of the other actors or crew. Especially don't tell Savannah, she's got enough to worry about. You took us for a loop on your deal, kiddo, and it's fucking us up bad. Our only hope of making it to the end is some great fucking footage that'll impress new backers into investing. So you get your ass out there and get us that great footage or the whole thing'll collapse. That's how fragile this movie is right now."
Robby was silent for a moment, speechless in fact, and Ciggy knew he had him. Robby would be in makeup within minutes.
"I'll pay for it," said Robby. "Just get me some armed guards, and send me the bill. Till then, I wait here."
It was not what Ciggy wanted to hear.
"At best, if I'm lucky, it'll take five hours," he explained. "We won't make the day, it'll send the crew into overtime, and that'll scare off any new backers. How 'bout I send the press away, we hire a security team, but we keep shooting in the meantime?"
Ciggy thought he had him again, but Robby still refused.
"I don't come out of the trailer till there's guys -- guys with guns -- protecting me. I don't want anyone allowed on the set unless they have a pass. And since I'm paying for it, I want them assigned to my wife and child, too."
"Will you cover the overtime?" Ciggy asked.
"No," Robby insisted. "I don't have a back end on this picture -- I don't have shitsticks. I'm a salaried employee, and it's your job to protect me."
"No, it's my job to get the movie made," corrected the producer. "Now get out there and go to work."
"I don't come out of the trailer till there's guys -- guys with guns -- protecting me," he repeated.
"The movie will die, Robby," Ciggy pleaded. "If we don't make our day, it will die."
"Better it than me," said Robby. "I quit."
*** Up Next: "People Can Die But Movies May Not" ***
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.
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