Spencer Quinn - A Fistful of Collars

“Soldier through?” said Kina.

“Possibly a Europeanism,” said Lars. “Sorry. Merely a way of saying-”

“Tough it out,” Thad said.

Kina turned to Thad. They exchanged a look, not just unfriendly, more like they hated each other.

“All set then?” Lars said. “In this scene, Lolotea first sees-but subtle, subtle-that Croomer may be unlike the other white men, not a monster. At first, you both stare into the fire, possibly remembering the horror of the day. Then you, Kina, slowly turn and gaze at his profile. Questions?”

“His left profile?” said Kina.

“Why, yes, with the way you’re sitting,” Lars said.

Kina shrugged again. She was a great shrugger, sending messages I never wanted coming in my direction.

“Something wrong with my left profile?” Thad said.

“No, no,” said Lars. “What a thought-agreed, Kina?”

She was silent. Behind his back, the knuckles of Lars’s fists were white as bone and getting whiter. A crazy idea popped into my mind; I won’t describe it. Lars turned to the woman with the clipboard. “For this shot we will clear the set.”

“Right away, Lars.” The woman with the clipboard faced us. “All nonessential personnel please clear the set.”

Nonessential meant what, again? Right around then I gave up on understanding the movie business. The best thing about it was the buffet table set up near the trailers. I had some experience with buffet tables, and this one was aces. No time to go into aces now-and this card sharp name of Doc Sloman, now breaking rocks in the hot sun-on account, for example, of the steak tips, which Charlie was slipping me under the table.

“Set to go?” said Bernie.

“Oh, no,” Leda said. “I’m having a blast. So’s Charlie.” She turned to him. “Right?”

Charlie said something, impossible for me to understand with his mouth full like that.

“That was so interesting,” Leda said.

“Yeah?” said Bernie.

“Like how they had to show the horror of the day on their faces. What do you think the horror was?”

“This stupid massacre in the script,” Bernie said.

“Why stupid?” said Leda, sipping her white wine. What was this? They were kind of getting along, having a human conversation with no bad feelings around the edges?

“The weaponry’s all wrong, for one thing. And the Apaches would never-”

Leda laid a hand on Bernie’s arm to shush him. Bernie didn’t like that, gave her an annoyed look. We were back to normal. Meanwhile, Lars was coming toward the buffet table, actually right in our direction, sweat dampening his shirt in the armpits. I always watched for that.

Lars stopped in front of us. “Hello… Bennie, is it?”

“Bernie,” said Bernie.

“Nice to see you back on the set,” Lars said. “Always welcome. And this is?”

“My, uh, ex-wife,” Bernie said. “Leda.”

“What a coincidence!” Lars said. “I had a wife named Leda, too.”

“Really?” said Leda.

What was going on? Something about two Ledas? My mind shrank away from the thought. Always a surprisingly nice feeling when my mind did that: I had one of those minds that was on my side, if you know what I mean, which I actually don’t.

“And this is your son?” said Lars, turning to Charlie.

“Yes,” said Bernie and Leda at the exact same time.

“Hello, Charlie,” Lars said.

Charlie, working on a brownie, nodded his head a bit.

“Charlie?” Leda said. “Can you-”

“Like movies, Charlie?” Lars said.

Charlie stopped chewing for a moment. “Some,” he said.

Lars laughed, a surprisingly squeaky laugh that caught me by surprise and which I was in no hurry to hear again. “For example?” he said.

“ Fight Club,” Charlie said.

“What?” said Leda.

“Just the first few minutes,” Bernie said. “Inadvertently. The moment I-”

“Do you think you might like being in a movie?” Lars said.

He was looking right at Charlie, but for some reason Leda answered. “Me?” she said, her face starting to pinken.

“You?” Lars said, and pink went red on Leda’s face. “I was referring to Charlie. We have one nonspeaking youngster role still uncast. Your son looks the part.”

“No way,” Bernie said.

Leda turned to him, her complexion recovering real fast. Leda was strong inside, no doubt about that. “Bernie?” she said. “A moment?”

She pulled him aside, her fingernails, now a deep and shining red, digging into his arm. They spoke in low voices-most of the talking done by Leda, something about being provincial, completely lost on me-and in the meantime Lars grabbed a whole slice of pie off the buffet table and gobbled it down.

Bernie and Leda returned. “We’ve decided,” Leda said, “that it’s up to Charlie.”

“Very sensible,” said Lars, crumbs falling from his lips. I licked them up, not so much because of liking pie, more because that’s what you do when a crumb opportunity arises.

“Charlie, sweetheart,” said Leda, “would you like to be in a real movie?”

“Do I get paid?” Charlie said.

There was a moment of silence. Then they all started laughing, except for Charlie, who didn’t seem to get the joke. Neither did I. What was so funny? Being in a movie was a kind of work, right? It was important to get paid for work, an area where we’d slipped up in the past at the Little Detective Agency, part of the reason-along with the Hawaiian pants, now filling our self-storage in South Pedroia, and the tin futures play, gone bad on account of an earthquake in Bolivia-that our finances were such a mess.

Leda was the first to stop laughing.

Then Lars. “Scale,” he said.

Then Bernie.

That night we packed the twisted-up bike back in the Porsche and drove over to Vista City. The streetlights on North Coursin Street were out again, and the crime scene house was dark, but lights shone in the house across the street, where Bernie had questioned the mother and her little girl. What had come of that? I looked forward to doing it again.

We parked and walked across the hard-packed dirt yard. The front door opened and out came a man carrying a vacuum cleaner. He stopped and said, “No dogs.” Or something like that: he had a huge wad of gum in his mouth.

“We don’t need to come in,” Bernie said. “I just want to find out where to return Nino’s bike.”

“Huh?” said the man. “You’re not the one who wanted to see the place?”

“Not following you,” Bernie said, which made two of us, but I didn’t worry. We’d catch up: we always did.

“It’s for rent,” the man said. “Very reasonable.”

“You’re the landlord?”

“Yup.”

“Where are the people who lived here?” Bernie said. “The woman and her daughter.”

“Cleared out,” said the landlord.

“Where to?”

“Back to Mexico, most likely. They’re all doin’ it these days-didn’t turn out to be the paradise they had in mind.”

Bernie nodded, a short little nod. Some of his nods meant nothing; this one meant he was starting not to like the landlord dude.

“How long have you owned the building?” he said.

“Awhile,” said the landlord.

“Know much about the place across the street?”

“Nope.”

“A man was killed there.”

“Heard somethin’ about it.”

“He had a son named Nino, lives with his mother. We’ve got Nino’s bike in the car. Any idea where we could find him?”

“Nope.”

“Ever run into anyone named Ramon around here?”

“Nope.”

“He might have a dog called Outlaw.”

The landlord stopped chewing his gum for a moment.

“Ring a bell?” Bernie said.