Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (131 page)

Her eyes glowed with interest. 'It sounds marvellous!'

'It is,' he said. 'But it won't be easy to film.'

'Why not?'

'Well, we'd have to rehearse and film nights, after my reg
ular shooting day is over, and I can't afford to pay you. But the hardest thing of all is that we all have to keep very, very
quiet about it since we'll all be moonlighting. We can't afford
to let the unions find out what we're up to. They'll shut us
down and take away our union cards if they do.' He paused,
holding her gaze. 'Now that all the cards are on the table, are
you still interested? You'd play the old lady, of course.'

'Well, I suppose . . .
Yes!
But, you know, I don't even know
your name.'

'Jerome St.-Tessier.' He extended his hand formally across
the table and grinned. 'And yours?'

'Daliah. Daliah Boralevi.'

They shook hands firmly, as though shaking on a secret
pact, and then he found a pen and hastily scribbled something
on a napkin. He slid it across the table at her. 'Meet me at this
address at seven-thirty in the evening exactly one week from
today. It's the second doorbell from the top. After you ring,
wait for me to lower a basket on a string. It will have the keys
to the front door and the freight lift in it.'

She couldn't help laughing. 'All right, Jerome St-Tessier.
I'll be there a week from this evening. But if we decide to
follow through with this, I think you'd better get a spare key
made.

It was a loft on Bond Street, just off Lafayette, and it took up
the entire fifth floor of what had originally been a warehouse.
As was the case with almost all the loft buildings, the poorly
maintained exterior of Jerome's grimy industrial building and
the steep wooden warehouse stairs with pushchairs and bi
cycles parked on the dingy landings belied the awesome
spaciousness within each loft. Jerome's was high-ceilinged and
had over four thousand square feet of unobstructed space. It was all gleaming polyurethaned wooden floors and window-
lined walls interspersed with two rows of cast-iron Corinthian
columns. It was almost like being in an empty cathedral.

He met her at the lift door, which opened right into the loft.
'You're early,' he said. Smiling like the Cheshire cat.

'I'm punctual,' she corrected, laughing. 'I always am. It has
something to do with defective genes, I think.'

He looked delighted to see her and watched as she reached
back and pulled her waist-length hair from inside the collar
of her field jacket and shook it loose. Below the shapeless
utilitarian olive green, her legs were encased in a second skin
of outrageously expensive French jeans which were tucked
into a pair of gleaming high-heeled fuchsia cowboy boots. He
looked at her approvingly. 'You are a sight for sore eyes.
Come in.'

'Said the spider to the fly?' she asked softly as she breezed
across the threshold and shrugged off her glove-leather fuchsia
shoulder bag. She watched as he rolled the heavy, riveted
metal door shut and latched it with a heavy iron bar. Then she
followed him across the wooden floor, shiny as the floor of a
gym, to the distant seating area where thriving tall ficus trees
were spotlighted by can lamps, created a dappled, leafy
shadow effect on the ceiling. Four sofas, each draped with
rich, shimmering lengths of silvery fabric faced one another across a shipping pallet which had been pressed into service as a coffee table. Enormous abstracts, bold slashes of colour, hung on the exposed-brick walls. The view north looked out
at the distant Empire State Building and the glittering office
towers of midtown. Janis Joplin wailed softly over the turned-
down powerful stereo. Daliah liked the place at once. There
was something exceedingly stylish and eminently luxurious
about all that barren, empty space in the middle of one of the
most crowded cities in the world.

'This place is nice,' she said, parking her huge bag on one
of the couches.

'I'm glad you like it. Why don't you have a seat while I get
you a copy of the script. Then I'll explain my overall idea to you. Would you like some wine? I happen to have a decent
Bordeaux uncorked.'

She shook her head. 'I'm purging today. A glass of plain
water will suit me just fine.'

'I'll be right back with it. Make yourself comfortable.'

She took a seat on one of the couches. The fabric felt luxur
ious. She ran her hands over it. It was antique Fortuny. 'You
have good taste,' she said.

He handed her a glass of Perrier on ice. 'More taste than
money, I'm afraid,' he said with a smile. 'Right now, even if
I had the money, I wouldn't spend it on any more furnishings.
God only knows what location I'll be sent to next month.'

She heard some pounding and scraping noises and turned
around. 'Is that someone hammering?'

He followed her gaze to where a white linen curtain hung
down from the ceiling, neatly dividing the 150-foot loft in half.
'Why don't you go and see for yourself,' he suggested softly.
The Cheshire cat smiled wider now.

Obediently she rose, put her glass down on the pallet, and
walked the fifty-odd feet to the curtain. She hesitated, and then pulled it swiftly aside. She caught her breath. For a
moment she could only stare in amazement. Two young men and a stringy-haired blonde in overalls were busy putting the
finishing touches on what was obviously a three-sided movie
set.

She moved closer to it, her eyes everywhere at once. It
looked amazingly authentic, as though a musty, stuffy middle-
class parlour had been scooped up from pre-war Berlin and set
down right here in Manhattan. Everything looked historically
correct, right down to the fussy pattern of the wallpaper, the
faded, tattered Oriental rug, the Biedermeier secretary, the
Bechstein piano with its clutter of old photographs and bibe
lots, and the overstuffed armchairs complete with yellowed lace antimacassars. And facing all that were the high-tech implements of a much more recent decade—floodlights on trolleys, an overhead microphone boom, and a professional
thirty-five-millimetre camera, as well as all the other expensive
paraphernalia and accoutrements of the professional
filmmaker. A jumble of thick black electrical cables snaked
across the floor.

'Oh, glad you're there, Jer,' the blonde girl called out. She
moved a chair a few inches to her left. 'You want the piano
the way it's there now, or you want it on the other side, by the
window?'

'Where it is now is fine, Marie. But the backdrop outside
the window is still too garish. Soften it up with some more tree branches. I want an effect of very hazy, dappled sunlight once
the floods are switched on.'

'Will do, boss.' She grinned and saluted. 'That lady our
star?' She indicated Daliah.

'It is. Why don't you stop what you're doing for a minute
and come meet her. And you guys too.'

Marie and the two men dropped what they were doing and
came on over.

'This is Marie,' Jerome said. 'Marie, meet Daliah.'

Marie gave her the once-over and grinned. 'Pleased to meet
cha.' She stepped forward, popped a giant pink chewing-gum
bubble, and pumped Daliah's hand vigorously.

'Marie is our set designer,' Jerome explained. 'And this is
Tim Fawcett, and Ian Potter. From their names they might sound like a plumbing company, but believe me they're first-
rate engineers. Tim works the sound and Ian the lighting.'

'Fawcett and Potter at your service,' Ian and Tim said in a
chorus.

Daliah laughed. 'Nice to meet you both.' She shook their
hands and nodded at the set. 'You've been busy. I must say it looks impressive. Up to now I've been calm and collected, but just seeing the set and all that equipment is making me weak
kneed.'

'I've got just the thing to calm you down,' Marie said. She
went to get her bag, rummaged through it, and came up with
a Marlboro box stuffed full of rolled joints. She extracted one,
stuck it in her mouth, and struck a match. She took a couple
of puffs and handed it to Daliah.

Daliah held it delicately between two fingers and looked at
it for a moment. 'I've never done this before,' she confessed
sheepishly.

'There's no time like a first time.' Marie smiled brightly.
'Just inhale deeply, hold it, and let it out slowly. It'll make
you into a new person. I guarantee it.'

Daliah took a deep toke, held the smoke in, and broke out
in a coughing fit. Then it subsided and a sense of well-being
flooded through her. She passed the joint to Jerome, who took
two puffs and passed it on.

'Good pot,' Jerome said. He looked at Marie. 'Got any
more I can buy off you?'

Marie shook her head. 'One of my boyfriends was making a film on the West Coast and brought it back with him. He
only gave me half an ounce.'

Tim passed the joint back to Marie. 'Well, we'd better get
back to work.' He made a little gesture for Daliah's benefit.
'Jerome's a slave driver and wants us ready to roll by the
weekend.'

Daliah turned to Jerome. 'So soon?'

'And why not?' he asked. 'We have the script, we have the
equipment, and now we have the actress. The other members
of the technical crew and the supporting actors will come and
go on an as-needed basis.' He glanced around. 'Where's
Cleo?'

'She was working on the costume sketches just a minute
ago,' Ian said. 'Maybe she jumped into the bathroom.'

'Cleo!' Jerome called out.

'Comin', White Bwana,' a muffled voice called back cheer
fully. There was a distant flush and a moment later a young, thin black woman with an urchin's face and glowing, intelli
gent, but naughty eyes and the build and poise of a model
stepped out of the bathroom and came toward them. Her hair
was corn-rolled, her face had a lively expression, and she was
dressed in baggy army fatigue pants and a tight-fitting camou
flage T-shirt. Yet despite all the man-tailored military green,
there was something decidedly feminine about her, and the
perfectly shaped apple-sized breasts tipped with aggressively
jutting nipples made it clear that T-shirts were not for men
only. 'What's the matter,' she asked. 'Can't a girl have a wee
in pea—' She came to an abrupt halt. Slowly she bent forward,
her eyes widening to saucers. 'Daliah?' she asked incredu
lously under her breath. 'White Woman, is that you?'