Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 04 (4 page)

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"Needless to say, I had no intention of cooperating with those Hollywood types," Mrs. Jim Bob informed Perkins's eldest, who was on her hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor. "But I was under the misconception that they would simply take over the house and I would have no say in what they did."

She waited for Perkins's eldest to respond, but when nothing was forthcoming, she decided to call Lottie for a nice chat. She fixed a cup of tea, tucked a few lemon cookies on the edge of the saucer, settled down on the sofa in the living room, and dialed the number. To her chagrin, she was treated to a busy signal.

"Lottie Estes is the worst gossip in town," Mrs. Jim Bob said loudly so that Perkins's eldest could benefit from the opinion. "I merely wanted to let her know that I have been asked to take a small yet vital role in the movie. I protested, naturally, but the woman who called all the way from California pleaded with me to accept." She once again waited for a response -- anything, even a primitive grunt of admiration -- but Perkins's eldest seemed to be in one of her taciturn moods. "I shall donate the money to charity. It's the Christian thing to do, and I will feel much better about being involved with that kind of people if I know I'm helping to feed little heathen children in Africa or to do something about those disgusting homeless people."

Perkins's eldest took the bucket and went outside to dump the scummy gray water on the shrubs. "Because," Mrs. Jim Bob continued, "it's vital that we share with the less fortunates and the heathens. It seems I'm to play the role of a kindly widow woman who gives shelter to an innocent girl in order to protect her virtue. I must say, I wouldn't have accepted a part in which I did anything less."

Jim Bob came through the back door, stealthily opened the refrigerator to extricate a beer, and went back outside to lie in the hammock and dream about movie stars. On his way across the yard, he nodded to Perkins's eldest, who was taking down sheets from the clothesline.

Mrs. Jim Bob took a deep breath. "I asked the woman, a Miss Lowenberg or something, the names of my costars, but I only recognized one: Anderson St. James. He was in one of my soaps for years, and I always thought he had a civilized air about him, even though the script called for him to act rather crudely to his wife. Do you recall him?" She took the ensuing silence as a negative. "Perhaps you wouldn't, since you don't have a television out in that disreputable excuse for a house. I was telling Eula just last week that I was amazed to hear you had plumbing."

Perkins's eldest accepted a few dollars from Jim Bob and trudged down the driveway, looking like she was thinking about something. It could have been about her next cleaning job, or it could have been the result of gas. Perkins's eldest took secret pride in being an enigma.

Mrs. Jim Bob lost interest in the Perkins residence. "I asked when they would send me a script. The woman, who claimed to be the assistant director, said not to worry about my lines, that I was obviously quick-witted enough to learn them in a Hollywood minute -- whatever that is. I asked her which days I would be filming so that I could have my hair done, and she said it was impossible to decide ahead of time." She tightened her mouth for a minute as she faced an unpleasant reality. "I'm going to be forced to use Estelle. If I don't know until the last minute, I simply won't have time to run into Farberville to have my regular girl do my hair."

Jim Bob let the sunshine wash over him like he was in a hot tub with a hot number. Life was verging on perfect, even if his screwy wife was inside shouting at the walls. A tidy sum for letting them use the house, and as the owner, the right to be there to watch over his property. And he sure as hell was going to watch over Gwenneth D'Amourre. When that Hollywood woman had called to say how grateful Miss D'Amourre would be if he allowed them to use the house, why, Jim Bob had been obliged to cross his legs to keep from wetting his pants. He'd recognized the name immediately, in that he always managed to catch a movie or two in the motel room when he was down in Hot Springs for the Municipal League tomfoolery. Tanya Makes the Team, he thought with a lazy grin. Gawd, she'd made the team all right, and done it darn well.

He lowered his foot and pushed to set the hammock into motion, then lapsed into a most intriguing fantasy.

"But I'm not sure if the turquoise taffeta is quite right," Mrs. Jim Bob said to the doorway. "I suppose a widow woman might wear something dark, although there's no reason why it has to be dowdy. My navy wool with the lace collar might be better. What do you think?" She waited politely for a moment. "No, I guess you're not the one to give wardrobe advice, are you? I think I'll see if Lottie's stopped chattering."

This time the telephone began to ring, and Mrs. Jim Bob decided to allow Perkins's eldest to work undisturbed.

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"But Raz," Ruby Bee said plaintively, having already tried sternness and also a futile stab at reasonableness, "Marjorie is a barnyard animal. She's supposed to be outside."

Raz loosed a stream of tobacco juice into a conveniently situated coffee can. "No, she don't care for it. The gnats get in her eyes and she gets all nervous and jumpity." He beamed at his pride and joy, who was snoozing peaceably on the sofa.

Ruby Bee tried not to wince at the sight of his stained stubbles of teeth and crumb-encrusted whiskers, or to allow herself to dwell on the miasma of the room created by equal contributions from the owner and his pet. "They can't use your house if there's a sow in it. Don't you want the money?"

"What fer?" He cackled. "I got everything Marjorie and me needs. We got us a color tellyvision, a VCR with a clicker, and a new icebox stocked with frozen entrées. Marjorie is particular about the brands. She gets all het up if the food don't match the picture on the box."

"Where are you getting all that money?"

Raz spat into the can, then hooked his thumbs on the straps of his overalls and swelled up like a bloated carcass in a pond. "I got my ways, Rubella Belinda Hanks, and they's none of your business."

"They're probably Arly's business," she retorted in her most snippety voice. "I heard someone's running a still up on the ridge again, not too far from Robin Buchanon's old place. Wouldn't be anyone in this room, would it?" When he flinched, she moved in (verbally-not physically) for the kill. "Now, if I'm busy cooking for these movie people, I won't have time to pass along my suspicions to Arly. But they won't come if you don't agree to let them use your house and barn, and they might not understand why there's a sow in the living room."

"I reckon I can run the hose and make Marjorie a nice wallow," he said sullenly. His cheek bulged, but he caught her glare and sucked it back in. "But only for a day or two, and they pay me in cash. I ain't gonna mess with some darn-fool piece of paper. Cain't buy corn with paper."

Ruby Bee lifted her chin and sailed into the fresh air outside the shack, feeling pleased with herself despite the worrisome possibility that she was aiding and abetting Raz Buchanon in the act of something that smelled a sight worse than his front room.

-- ==+== --

"Okay, here's the way it goes," Hal said. He was sprawled on the leather couch in his office, a cigarette between his lips and his unclad body glistening from a session in the sauna. Although he took sessions under a tanning lamp three times a week, his skin resolutely remained alabaster except for the sprinkling of freckles and moles. "The mother finds out Loretta's been sneaking out at night to let Billy Joe feel her up. She tells the father and he goes into a rage because they'll lose the farm if Cooter refuses to marry her."

Carlotta nodded as she found her notebook and a pencil, and sat down behind Hal's desk to listen to him spill his ideas as quickly as he spilled his seed. She would diligently record them, then throw them away and make whatever revisions she felt were needed to the script. Hal never remembered his suggestions, particularly when he had done several lines of coke.

"Zachery learns about the trysts," she said, trying not to look at him. When he was naked, it was difficult not to think of the menu at a luau. "Then what?"

"He'll drag her outside to spank her. Do these primitives have woodsheds? For that matter, do they have -- what do you call 'em? -- opposable thumbs?"

"I'll check on the availability of woodsheds." Carlotta scribbled a note in the margin.

"So he drags her wherever and orders her to drop her pants. He's going to spank her, but once he starts slapping those lily-white mounds and ogling the red marks, he -- "

"Gwenneth won't go for this."

"You'd be surprised," Hal said with a short laugh. "She knows she'd better do what I tell her to do, so just get it down and quit interrupting. I've got to have total silence when I'm in a creative mode. I've got to flow. Okay, close up on him as he throws her to the ground and starts scrambling out of his pants. She leaps to her feet and runs -- "

"With her pants around her ankles?"

"She leaps to her feet, kicks off her pants -- I like it, I like it -- and runs through the gate and across the road to where this widow lives. I am on a roll tonight, n'est-ce pas? Let me hear what we've got thus far."

Carlotta read his scenario in a bored monotone, irritated because she was already late for her aerobics class. "And pounds on the door?"

"There she is, tears running down one set of cheeks and the other set rosy from the spanking, and the father bellowing for her to come back. The widow -- give her a real hick name -- the widow hustles the girl in and locks the door."

"Okay, Loretta's in the widow's house."

"Wait a minute; I'm losing the flow." He walked into the washroom, but continued talking between gusty snorts. "Are we gonna have a problem with this mayor's wife?"

"Probably. I promised her a few lines, but we'll have to tiptoe through the scene. Let's make sure we shoot it after we've used her house."

Hal came back into the office, a towel around his waist, and made himself a drink from the bar. "Are we ready to roll?"

"Everybody's agreed to the usual terms, and Fuzzy's willing to do the technical side." Carlotta hesitated for a minute, not sure if she wanted to prolong the conversation with her boss. At last her innate sense of responsibility overcame her distaste. "When I talked to him, he sounded tight, really tight. From what I've picked up, he's back on booze and his wife left him several weeks ago. He's on the edge, Hal. We might see if we can corral someone else until our boy either implodes, explodes, or regains consciousness in court."

"If you can find someone willing to work nonunion in a hellhole three thousands miles from civilization, do it," Hal said, displaying his typical compassion. "Tell you what, baby, you've got enough of my input to finish the scene and have it on my desk in the morning. I'm going to run a little powdery present by Marty's and lay on some more crap about setting up a meeting with the swish at Cinerotica. Gawd, I hate swishes. They're so damn arrogant."

After Hal dressed and stumbled away, Carlotta poured herself a drink and sat down behind her desk in the adjoining room to type up the scene. She toyed with the idea of Zachery raping the widow, but dismissed it (at least for the moment) and wrote out a charmingly steamy encounter between Loretta and Billy Joe in the widow's own bed. Out of mischievousness, she had the widow discover the two and demand coitus interruptus. The actor who would portray Billy Joe would be incensed, of course, which was why she devoted an inordinate amount of time frustrating him via the script.

She was typing briskly when the telephone rang, and she mentally debated the ramifications of ignoring it. However, she'd given her office number to a rugged young actor who'd attempted to sound interested in her rather than her proximity to Hal. "Glittertown," she said into the receiver. "Lowenstein here."

"I need to talk to you."

"Hey, Fuzzy," Carlotta said, disappointed. "We were just talking about you. Were your balls burning?"

"Naw, the penicillin took care of it. This is important. I ran over to Vegas yesterday. Took a room in one of those seedy joints out by the airport. Guess which soft-porn movie was available for a modest price?"

"I just write them, Fuzzy. Once they're made, I don't care if they're the feature at Rockefeller Center after the Rockettes flash their panties at the tourists."

"I think you'll care," Fuzzy said in a dark voice. "It was a new flick called Prickly Passion, starring Gwenneth D'Amourre and Frederick Marland." He paused for a minute, and she heard the tinkly collision of ice cubes. "I watched the damn thing. This well-endowed prospector finds a busty, half-naked woman wandering in the desert. He takes her back to his shack, and the two of -- "

"Enough." Carlotta took off her glasses to rub her eyes and temples, then drained her drink. "Are you sure you didn't drink a quart of rotgut tequila, and watch the film in your dreams?"

"In your dreams, Carlotta. No, I even brought back the card with the times and prices of the movies. There were a couple of scenes we left on the floor, but I had plenty of time to recognize the prospector and the prostitute -- and I'm familiar with each and every mole and freckle, including that little butterfly tattoo Gwenneth's so proud of."

"Damn it, that means there was a pirated copy, and now there are apt to be thousands of illegal copies floating around. We're all contracted for a piece of the net. What are the chances this unknown distributor's going to send a check?"

"About the time we go ice skating on the corner of Hollywood and Vine," he said with a morose sigh. "So who filched the tape and sold it? What'd we have on the set -- three of us and the five actors? Hal and I did the editing ourselves. The negative's in the vault. There's no way anyone else could have gotten a copy."

"You know, Fuzzy, Anderson said something about seeing a version of Satan's Sister that contained some of the stuff we decided was too risky. It's beginning to look as though we have a full-time pirate in our midst. I'll see what I can find out before we leave for the next one."

"Did Hal try to give me the boot?"

"Oh, good Lord, no. He was really sorry to hear about your marital problem, but he said he was thrilled to work with you again."

"Like hell he did."

"Would I lie to you?"

"Would the pope take a check?"

Carlotta was smiling as she replaced the receiver.