Gavin Lyall - Shooting Script

There wasn't much warmth in my look, either. Til give you a quotation you don't know: Keith Carr is not, repeatnot expendable. Source, Keith Carr.'

'Capitán, you have joined a noble cause,' she blazed. 'It is too late to remember you are a coward, now.'

'I haven't joined a damn thing. I'm just a hired hand. I'll fly the raid if-'

'For money! ' She bounced up, feet spread, hands on hips, her dark eyes glaring furiously. 'Teach me to fly it, then. / will make the attack! '

I just stared at her: a magnificent, angry huntress, dominating the room, turning Whitmore into a small boy flopped in a corner.

Then I shook my head and said: 'That isn't the point anyway. A starter motor could go, a tyre could burst. Then we wouldn't even get her off the ground – nobody could. Just tell your father wecan't give a guarantee.'

She went on standing there. Luiz said judiciously: 'Perhaps we could give the most careful overhaul, then…' he waved a hopeful hand.

'Overhauls wouldn't do it,' I said wearily. 'She's just too old – all of her. If we started that, we'd find we needed new wings, fuselage, tail, engines… a new aeroplane. I'll check her out on the film flying and fix anything that busts, but she'll still be held together by rust and habit – and even die rust's a bit past it by now. Well, maybe the habit'll keep up long enough. If it does, I'll fly the attack.'

Whitmore nodded. 'Okay, that sounds good enough.' He looked at Miss Jiminez. 'Better tell your old man the position, He can move when he knows Carr's on his way.'

She went on looking at me. 'Perhaps,' she said coldly, 'if the Capitánkeeps his courage in his wallet, he wants us to pay him a little more courage.'

Whitmore said firmly: 'Planning session's over. We got a movie to make tomorrow.'

She gave me one last glare, announced: 'I am eating,' and marched out.

In the silence there was just the click of her heels down the passage to the front door.

Luiz said softly: 'She should have been her brother.'

J.B. stared at him incredulously, 'Jesus, Luiz's gone queer.'

There was a sudden moment of pain on his face, then he smiled and shrugged. 'In political terms only, of course.'

Then he hurried out after her.

When he heard the apartment door shut, Whitmore shook his head and said: 'She's really got him jumping, huh?'

'He's probably rehearsing to play the lead in The Clause-witz Story,' J.B. said sourly.

'Yeah? And I play the small fat guy Napoleon?'

'You could still do most of the scenes on a horse,' I pointed out.

He just looked at me. 'Thanks, fella.' Then he finished hisdrink, lit a cigarette, and reached for one of the yellow scripts.

'So,' he said after a while, 'if you get the ship ready in acoupladays, we'll schedule the flying shots so you'll be clear whenever Jiminez rings the bell.'

'We've got Roddie's church, too,' J.B. said. 'Should be ready in a day or two.'

'You're actually building a Spanish church?' I asked.

Whitmore looked up. 'Sure. You want us to haul the whole unit to Mexico just for a three-minute sequence?'

J.B. said: 'In films, it's always cheaper to bring the mountain to Mahomet – with Mahomet on union rates.'

I shook my head; it would obviously be stupid to ask if it wouldn't be cheaper still to write the church out of the script. Anyway, it was nice to know a business where the costs were higher than in aviation.

Whitmore made a note on his script, then stood up and stretched. 'So if you're working on her up this end of the island, you better move in here. ' He looked at J.B. 'We got a room booked?'

She nodded.

I said: 'If it'll save you money, I don't mind moving in with J.B. She's got space.' I waved a hand around the big suite.

'Pull your throat in, Carr,' she snapped.

Whitmore grinned. 'Suddenly everybody's sex-crazy.' He nodded at me. 'I don't mind, fella. But if she talks contract law in her sleep don't blame me and don't try to stop her. That's what she's hired for.'

'Get out, you broken-down old cow-catcher.' The anger wasn't entirely faked either.

He just grinned again, waved in one of his big, slow gestures, and strolled whistling down the passage.

J.B. looked at me. 'Your room number's 17, Carr-'

'Fine.'

' – at the Plantation Inn.'

I winced. It was only a few hundred yards up the road, but damn it all…

'You don't trust yourself in the same hotel as me?' I asked.

She just went on looking.

'One last drink,' I suggested. 'Before the intrepid aviator wings off on the dawn patrol.'

'If you're going to work for us we'd better put a real writer on your dialogue. All right – a Scotch. A thin one.'

I mixed it, found myself a bottle of Red Stripe, and sat down again. The evening wound down gently; the surf hissed politely on the beach beyond the patio; the lizard sentries drowsed at their posts.

After a while, she said quietly: 'Carr – whyare you flying this raid?'

'I'm making a profit at it – I'm getting an aeroplane out of it, one way or anodier.'

She shook her head impatiently. 'You're not a damn fool, Carr. I know your record; I saw you figure out everything we'd been up to with Diego and getting that bomber. You know you could've tried other ways of getting your plane back. Diplomatic pressure, spilling the story to the papers, bringing law-suits – I'd've been forced to help you, morally, anyway. But this way you may not get your plane but you damn sure will get run out of the Caribbean.'

The grey list. I shrugged, then asked: 'That's my legal position, is it?'

'Ah, legally you probably aren't too badly off. It doesn't seem to be an offence in Jamaica to start a war as long as you don't start it here. They might get you under the Foreign Recruitment Law, but they need an order in council to bring that into force. And they'll get you for having bombs – unless you swear you picked them upen route. But all that isn't the real trouble.'

'I know.'

'A pilot's always vulnerable. If they want to get you, they can trip you up on a dozen licencing troubles, safety standards… They'll run you out.'

'I know.'

She eyed me carefully. 'You'renot a damn fool, not that way.' Then she tossed her empty glass on to the crowded table; two other glasses toppled, rolled, smashed on the floor. She watched them, expressionless. Then said quietly: 'When you first walked in here, I thought you were a pretty toughindependent character. I thought maybe you'd be able to tell the Boss Man to go climb a tree. But then he calls for a posse and everybody grabs a deputy's badge and jumps on a horse -and then they can say "I rode with Whitmore." I've seen it happen before.'

'You think that's why I'm going?'

'Isn't it?' she flared. 'It isn't for your plane – and you don't give a damn about Jiminez, that's for sure. Well, you've joined the posse; the Boss Man thinks you're really one of the boys. That's wonderful.'

I stood up. The evening was dead. Among other things. 'Room 17, I think you said? And the desk knows I'm coming?'

She nodded. I found my own way out. And I didn't feel a thing. And that was pain enough.

The next morning I got the boys down at Port Antonio to work stripping out the seats and bomb-bay tank from the Mitchell, then wangled a company car over to Kingston to pick up my jeep (the cops had finally got tired of finding each other's fingerprints on it) and a suitcase of dirty shirts I'd been saving until my laundry could go on the company's bill.

By the time I'd got back to Port Antonio via dumping the jeep at Boscobel, they'd nearly finished. The seats, the central heating, and the bomb-bay tank were all out, and they were just sealing off the ends of the fuel feed, which seemed to have been designed by a kitten and a ball of wool.