Gavin Lyall - Shooting Script

'The hell with you, Carr.' But she grinned suddenly, vividly, and sat down on the end of the bed. I reached for the half-bottle of Scotch in my bag. 'Drink?'

She nodded, picked up the page of the Handbook, and started reading. 'Puffs of black smoke… thin wisps of bluish-grey smoke… variable grey smoke and bright flame… heavy black smoke – Christ, it sounds like the penalty clauses I write in contracts. Do these thingshappen to that aeroplane?'

I winced; the flight handbooks have a certain realism you don't get from the manufacturer's brochures. 'Not all at once, I hope.' I passed her a fairly clean glass of neat Scotch.

'Thanks.' Then she turned suddenly serious. 'Look, Carr -youdon't have to take on flying this old ship.'

'We'll manage.'

She eyed me carefully. 'You aren't trying to… to prove anything to the Boss Man, are you?'

'No. Flying aeroplanes is my trade.'

She nodded and we sipped silently for a while. Then I said: 'So – tell me about your early Me and struggles.'

She smiled again. 'Early life spent in San Francisco. First struggle with a kid named Benny Zimmerman.'

'Who won?'

'Me. He's probably still walking around doubled up holding his… where I got him with my knee.'

'Mistake. It could become a habit.'

She looked at me. 'It has, chum. You don't win law-suits on your back.'

I gave her what was intended to be an encouraging and friendly smile. 'How did you get into the law-suit business?'

'Usual way: four years college – at Los Angeles. Couple of years law school.'

'Perhaps I meant "Why?" '

She considered, then said thoughtfully: 'I guess… I justlike the law. I don't mean I'm a great crusader for justice, anything like that. I just like it as sort of machinery: a way of doing things exactly, of getting them just right.' She looked up and grinned. 'Maybe I just mean I like writing watertight contracts. Doesn't sound very noble, does it?'

'You're talking to a man whose first job was shooting down other pilots. Go on.'

'I don't mean squeezing anybody on the fine print, either -1 just mean getting itright; so it's what everybody wanted and nobody wastes time breaking it or dodging it or fighting it. Maybe like a good aeroplane engine: so all the wheels really fit. Hollywood's built on contracts – well, so's any business, but pictures more than most. Nobody in pictures can remember what he promised five minutes back, even if he wants to. So -somebody's got to make the wheels fit. I try.'

I nodded slowly. 'Sounds worth doing… And I can vouch you're good at it.'

'Funny. I was expecting you to say something else.'

I raised my eyebrows. 'I like to think I'm a professional, too.'

'I don't mean that. I guess I was braced for you to ask "Wouldn't I be better off with a Man and a House and chasing a flock of kids around the backyard".' She frowned. 'Or maybe why wasn't I lying on my back shouting "Come and get it"? A girl doesn't get much room for manoeuvre between those two ideas.'

'Or, "If she won't hop intomy bed, shemust be Lesbian." Right?'

'Yes, I've heard the bastards say that, too.'

I spun the Scotch bottle along the bed to her. 'Well, it was you who chose to live in that stronghold of Victorian morality called Hollywood.'

'I did that,' she said grimly. 'Thank God for smog and Communism. They broaden the conversation there, anyway.'

I eyed her nearly bare upper half thoughtfully. 'Actually, I wasn't trying to broaden the conversation.'

She looked up quickly. 'You don't have to make a pass at me just because we're stuck in the same hotel.'

'That wasn't why. I've just got a feeling about you… And me. It scares me, a bit.'

For a long time, we looked at each other down the length of the bed. And the room was very still – except for the air-conditioner wheezing like an old lecher peering through the key-hole.

Then she said, in a small, shivery voice: 'I know, Keith.' Then shook her head. 'I told you I wasn't settling for just a brand on the backside. Nor a one-night stand in some flyblown hotel-'

'Spider-blown, please.'

She grinned exasperatedly. 'Okay. But I still mean it: get tangled up with me and you'll have one hell of a job getting clear again. I'm not one of your North-Coast tourists looking for a quick tumble under the mango trees with the hired help, no strings attached, bacatomummy in two weeks.'

'You're pretty clear about what you think I think, aren't you?'

After a moment she said quietly: 'I'm sorry. I guess being a lawyerand Hollywood – it makes you too suspicious. I like you, Keith. You're an independent sort of character…'

'Come up this end.'

She hesitated, stood up, walked three paces, and sat down beside me. A deliberate, but perhaps wary, movement.

I reached and put my hands on her bare shoulders. 'You're a pretty independent character yourself. I'm not trying to spoil that, nor take advantage of it. And I'm not kidding myself I could own it – or want to. I just like it.'

She ran a finger down my forehead, my nose, across my chin, splitting my face neatly in two. 'You know,' she said thoughtfully, 'if you cut your hair more often and shaved a bit closer, you'd be quite a handsome guy.'

I pulled her down – or she leant – and kissed her.

Then she pulled back and there was a flicker of worry in her eyes. 'It scares me, too, Keith. And you've got a plane to fly tomorrow.'

'I always have.' But she held back against my pull.

'You don'thave to fly this one. I'll back you right up if youwant to go back and say it just won't do.'

'If she won't fly with me shemust be a Lesbian.'

She grinned quickly. 'And you don't even know my name -what the J.B. stands for. I thought Englishmen never seducedgirls without being properly introduced.'

'You're thinking of two Englishmen in a railway carriage.'

'Fact? I didn't realise your railways were so exciting.' After a while, I said: 'You could always tell me yourname.'

She smiled again – but then stood up. 'Keith – if it's what Iwant, it'll wait. A bit, anyway.' And again, the flicker of worrythat I couldn't quite understand.

But gradually the mood dwindled and died like smoke on alight wind. I said: 'There'll come a day.'

'I hope so, Keith.' She stooped quickly, kissed me, and wasgone.

A couple of seconds later she was back.'What about thatspider?'

I sighed and handed over the remains of the Scotch.

'Sprinkle that on him. He'll curl up like Benny Zimmerman.' She grinned, touched my nose with one finger, and was goneagain.

One of these days I'll remember to bring a cheaper spider-killer than Scotch to South America.

At seven-thirty the next morning we – the Mitchell and I – lined up on the runway. It was the still clear time between the land breeze and the sea breeze, between the morning mist and the heat haze. As good as I'd ever get.

The cockpit windows were open and the engines were giving off a terrific dry clatter a few feet from either ear, sounding as if they were trying to eat their own insides. But it was the same noise they'd made at the run-up the night before, soperhaps it was the sound Wright Cyclones always made.

I looked carefully around the cluttered cockpit. The flight instruments were still dead; I wouldn't know about them until we were in the air. But the engine instruments all seemed to be registering.Supercharger to low gear; booster pumps to 'emergency'; mixture… I had the page of the flight manual which gave the landing and take-off checklists, but nothing to show at what speed she left the ground – or ought to. Well, I could guess: it was going to be over 100 mph, probably nearer – No. Stop guessing, Carr. You're going to get the fastest flying lesson of your life on this runway. Don't cloud your tiny mind with preconceptions.