Power Slide (2 page)

I did another mental run-through but wasn’t reassured. Stunt work is illusion, relative safety masquerading as danger. But it only works that way with meticulous preparation. I’d done mine; I wanted Guthrie here to do his. If he blew it, he’d be sorry.

I’d be dead.

“Can’t even see San Fran any more.” Mo was staring across the Bay at the thick white cover hiding everything but the tops of a couple of high-rises and the tip of the Transamerica Building. “What do you figure? Fifteen minutes?”

“Max.”

Together we started back toward the crane.

We heard the cheer before we saw Guthrie’s truck.

A second later he jumped down from the cab, looking like he always did. And all the doubts of the last half hour might never have existed.

GUTHRIE COULD HAVE been born in that big semi-trailer truck of his, at least that’s how he looked. Red plaid shirt, lined; white T-shirt, jeans, boots. The only thing missing was a signature hat. He’d been vain about his hair, admittedly, then worried, and now the whole issue had receded—into an ear-level rim of brown fuzz and a silly-looking ponytail. But, it all just seemed background to those startling dark brown eyes that searched me out as if to say there was us, and then, way down the ladder, everything else. For a guy pushing fifty, he looked damned good. “Sorry! Really, sorry,” he said. “Accident on 980. Two rigs. I didn’t think we’d get the one guy out at all. Ambulances took forever. There still light?” He meant for the gag.

“Just.” Jed looked like he was downshifting emotional gears, from fourth to third and now first.

“You want me to do a slow drive around the corner to the mark, so you can get the oncoming shot?” And so he could do a slo-mo run-through for himself.

Jed gave a curt nod. Even with doing that to check for angles, trolley speed, lighting, it’d be asking the camera crew to perform a miracle. The run-through was what he’d have ordered, but
he’d
wanted to give the order. Jed was a good director, but he wasn’t a saint, and Guthrie had
turned more than one director into a martyr. He usually didn’t start this soon, though.

He loped over, bending as he hugged me, muttering, “Thanks.” He was back at the cab before he had a chance to feel me go stiff.

The dim light veiled changes in Guthrie’s face, but his ribs were bony to the touch in a way they hadn’t been the last time I’d had a serious feel of them. His heavy shirt flapped around him all too freely as he darted across the pier and sprang up into the cab.

Till that moment I hadn’t realized how tense I was. Jed had wanted to give him the order; I just wanted to smack him, heroic performance on the freeway or not. What were cell phones for?

He backed up the big rig as if it were a VW Bug. Driving slowly forward, he rounded the corner and jackknifed the trailer before he came to the stop mark. I ran through my gag, factoring in when I’d spot the truck, where it had to be when I skirted the crane. Then there was the angle of the trailer when I tossed the bike and the angle when I slid forward under it, between the rolling tires. Most of the reasons for rehearsing are aimed at bringing the unknown into the light before it’s too late. No one wants to do a gag cold.

“How’d you manage that, man?” One of the gaffers was staring at the tires on the trailer. “It’s like they skidded, but they couldn’t have.”

“Trade secret,” Guthrie said, grinning.

“Okay,” Jed snapped. “We need to get this in one take. Fog’s to the end of the dock. Darcy, Mo, there just isn’t time for rehearsal. Can you handle it?”

I nodded and headed for the start mark. Behind me I could hear Jed giving Guthrie his start signal.

The bike still lay at the end of the dock. The start mark was a couple yards away. In the few minutes since I’d stood there the temperature had dropped sharply and now the damp of the fog brushed my back. Ahead, lighting techs did final checks and Mo revved the camera cart. He’d be running mostly a couple yards in front of me. If he ended up in the still camera shots, he’d be edited out later.

“Ten seconds!”

I inhaled, then exhaled with care to pull in my attention.

“Live on the set! Action!”

I ran, scooped up the bike, swung on, hard-pedaled toward the container ship, overcompensated, and skidded back right. Straightening with my head down over the handle bars, I thrust my body with each downward push. Mo’s motor ground ahead: doin’ good, doin’ good, doin’ good. At the crane I jerked into the double take, swerved, did the “relief” shoulders drop, looked at the truck, and did a bigger double take—a real one.

The trailer was out of position!

It hadn’t jackknifed.

It wasn’t in front of me. No way could I do the easy slide. The cab was almost at the stop mark.

No time!

Mo’s cart engine roared; he was cutting right.

I jerked, tossed the bike, hit the pad, caught the raised edge, and flung myself to the right as hard as I could. Then I skidded toward the front tire, caught the lug, and swung myself under the trailer.

Not hard enough. The truck was moving. I was sliding ever slower. The rear tire would crush my feet. I needed to grab, but I had no leverage.

I crunched my abs, lifted, caught a pipe—hot!—pushed off harder than I’d ever done, and shot out the far side of the truck.

The rear wheel ran over my hair.

I was clear.

Usually, after a big, final stunt, there’s a moment’s silence and then the whole second unit crew applauds. Now they stood silent. They looked as stunned as I was. I glanced over at the cameraman. He was still on his dolly a couple of yards in front of the truck. Fog had dampened his shoulders, but he seemed oblivious. Jed was eyeing him questioningly. The only sound was the click of the newspaper photographer’s camera.

Guthrie jumped down from the cab. In an instant he was standing over me. His face was dead white. “You okay? I’m sorry. . . I . . . shit. I don’t know what . . . You okay? Omigod! Your hands, they’re burned!”

The camera clicked again. This was
not
the picture I wanted in the paper! Not in a field where reputation is everything. “Shh! They’ll be okay.”

“I . . .”

“Shut up! I’m fine. Just shut up! I vouched for you, dammit. Don’t blow it!”

Guthrie was still staring at my hands. The camera clicked again.

“Give me your jacket. Now!”

He nearly ripped the thing getting it off and trying to wrap it around my shoulders. I didn’t dare think about the wheels, how close—I couldn’t feel my hands; didn’t dare look at them. I jammed them through the sleeves and into the pockets. Then I turned to the photographer and grinned.

“Great shot!” Mo yelled. “Way better! And that last grab, Darcy: terrific! I thought you were being sucked into the chassis. It’s gonna make the scene!”

“Thanks!” I yelled before anyone could disagree. “Mo, you’re the best!” I eyed the cameraman, still standing behind his camera on the cart, hoping to pull him in. But he wasn’t committing. He was heading to the
monitors, where Jed was already running the coverage from the dolly. The other guys crowded in behind, and we all watched each camera’s take. My hands were burning. “This a wrap, Jed?”

“Unless we’re going to do it in the dark. You’re shivering. Check with me in the morning, just in case, but I have a good feeling about this one. Good work, Darcy. You’ll be at dinner?”

I glanced over at Guthrie. “We might be late.”

“What the hell happened, Guthrie? You were supposed—”

“I could have killed you!” The words exploded from him as soon as the crew moved off. His face was stiff with horror. “Omigod, I just can’t—You know I would never, ever—”

“Of course, I do. It’s over. Fine, now.” I looked away, blocking out his fear. I couldn’t go there. “Could have been killed” will kill you. Mistakes are for learning. “But still, how come—”

“Stupid! You’re lucky to be in one piece.” He hoisted me into the cab and thrust my hands into his ice chest. “I blew it! They all know it. No reason to drag yourself down with me!”

“They knew it when you blew the jackknife, but once the shots were good, you’re the great wheelman again. Maybe Jed noted me reacting mid-gag and making it work, and that can’t hurt. So, all good.”

“Yeah, ’cause they’d be thinking you’re using your balls for brains.”

“So to speak.” I caught his eye and grinned. It was an effort, but when his mouth twitched and he fought back a laugh, I relaxed.

Suddenly he looked almost like himself, the guy always ready with the quick comeback, up for the next impossible challenge, ready to go all out, then shrug it off if he failed.

“Using
my
balls for brains?” I said. “I must really be losing it, or else you are?”

It was the wrong thing to say, and I saw him just as quickly sink back down. I felt bad, puzzled, worried, and then just pissed. My hands throbbed. “The hell with you. What do you have for burns?”

“Lemme see those hands.”

I’m not superstitious, or at least no more than anyone else in the business, but now I had to fight the urge to shut my eyes, as if refusing to see my scabrous red palms would keep them from being reality. I held them up to what was left of the light. “Backs are fine. Skin’s still on the palms. Fingers are better than I thought, as long as I don’t have to bend them. Won’t be too bad. But I’m glad I don’t have another call for a few days.”

He looked closer. “You could take those hands to the emergency room, but you happen to be with the all-time expert on undercarriage burns. When something’s gone wrong in the middle of a shoot, there’s no time to wait for things to cool.”

“Yikes.”

He shrugged.

“Yeah, I know. You gotta do what you gotta do. But still . . . So, welcome to the Guthrie cut and burn clinic. Healing faster than the eye can see.” He laid my hands gently on his own and bent close. “You must’ve let go fast.”

“Well, yeah!” I kind of snorted, but it turned into a laugh and then he grinned, too. I couldn’t tell whether he was truly coming out of his funk. I’d forgotten how tender he could be, how seductive in the way he cupped my hand as he moved it closer to his eyes. But I did have a good idea where all this was headed.

“I’ve got some good stuff in the back.”

“Burn ointment?”

“That, too.”

The odors in the cab seemed homey, as if welcoming me back into our past. There was always the smell of gasoline—I liked that—and the wood chips he kept handy, and the pistachios I’d seen him shell with one hand while driving. A bottle of Plymouth gin had been a staple behind the seat till a close call with the Highway Patrol made him stash it in the trailer. But enough had been spilled over the years, in my presence alone, that the smell of juniper and fruity aromatics hung on. And coffee, good strong coffee brewed in one of those old metal drip pots.

An aspiration of Zen students is to be not so much
in
the moment but an integral part
of
the moment. There was no such blending with him. If the Zen student were a dollop stirred into the mix, Guthrie was a marble added to the bowl, touching everything but still the marble, banging around, popping up, instantly recognizable as itself and nothing else.

He’d pulled into a parking slot near the dock, turned off the engine. “I wasn’t kidding about the ointment. Your hands don’t look bad, but that stuff’ll have ’em working fine tomorrow. You won’t even remember you had a worry. Step this way.”

In the trailer it was, of course, dead black, and the lamp cut a small circle in the dark. Carefully he slipped palm-only gloves over my fingers. “I told you this was the best clinic.” He got out a jar of salve.

“You sure about this stuff? These are my
hands
here! My career!”

“Trust me. I’ve burned my mitts on this truck more than any sane guy should and all ten fingers are still working, sensitive as ever.” He grinned. “Let me show you.”

I had questions—big questions—about the stunt, about my hands that now felt cool, and about him. In the end, though, as I leaned back against his shoulder and he bent over for the first teasingly soft caress to the back of my neck, I decided to postpone them.

IT WAS LATER, when we were still in the back of the truck, leaning against the pillows, his arm around my shoulder, that I said more pointedly, “So what happened with the gag? I mean, why didn’t you do the jackknife?”

He shrugged.

“Did the gear jam?”

“Hell, no!”

“Electrical—”

“No. The truck’s always ready. I make sure of that.”

Whoa!
I’d sure hit a nerve there. Any decent stunt double keeps his equipment geared up; it’s an insult to suggest otherwise. But if the problem wasn’t the truck . . . “Then what was it?”