“She’s got the best pout in the business,” Carter told him. “You have to admit that much.”

“Good thing, too. It’s her only expression. That and total confusion.”

“We have to work with her, Mel, just like we have to work with the script. Remember, the producer’s nephew is the screenwriter. I’ll talk to Nahfoud. I don’t think this picture will hurt your career.”

“We’re not talking about my career, jack. We’re talking pride. We’re talking about my dignity as a human being.”

“If pride and dignity are important to you, you ought to get out of the movie business.”

“Yeah, right.” Fleet chuckled softly. “Okay, man, you got a deal. You talk to Nahfoud. And if you can’t do anything, hell, I don’t want to get you into trouble, or hold this up any more than I have to. The sooner it’s a wrap, the sooner I can get out of here. But I got my pride, man.”

“There’s a time for pride and a time for professionalism. Think about it.”

“I will, man. You take it easy. I’m gonna get me a sandwich.” Technicians and gofers gave Fleet a wide berth as he headed for the catering truck.

Carter found himself alone on the set. Behind him, workers were reinstalling the shed’s breakaway wall. The long continuous sequence had been a complicated one to stage and shoot, but most of it could be salvaged since Fleet’s outburst had come near the end.

His promise to his fellow actor had not been an empty one. He would talk to Nahfoud, though he didn’t expect to make much headway with the director. Probably Nahfoud would reshoot the ending with Fleet’s stunt double, then dub in the requisite lines later. That didn’t bother Carter. By then his own involvement with the picture would be over.

He considered what to do next. If they were on a studio lot Nahfoud would probably call a break to allow everyone to cool off, but they were on location. Too expensive to call a halt. The next scene involved a tender reunion between the captain and his beloved. Given Amanda’s current state of mind Carter was certain he had an afternoon full of traumatic retakes ahead of him.

As he started for the caterer he found himself beginning to shiver. The long, complicated Steady cam shot had exhausted him and he was still sweating heavily. The local TV weatherman had predicted the onset of a chilly fall for central Georgia. As a freshening breeze cooled his face Carter could well believe it.

He’d gone halfway when an insistent voice interrupted his reverie.

“Mr. Carter, Mr. Carter!”

Not now, he thought tiredly. Turning, he saw the diminutive form of Trang Ho hurrying toward him. She held her microcassette recorder out in front of her, much as the fictional Union captain had carried his saber. A saber, of course, was far less lethal. He had long since come to the conclusion that the recorder was not a separate instrument but was in fact a small rectangular appendage of the woman’s body. Swollen and black, it protruded threateningly from her right hand.

The tabloids she sold her stories to were invariably not worth the trees slain to print them. Indeed, he often wondered why they bothered with reporters at all, since their tales were invariably based on unauthorized photographs, pure hearsay, and innuendo. An actor ignored them at his peril. To do so meant inviting a front-page story along the lines of, “Jason Carter … Antisocial Star Despises Fellow Actors! Worst Film in Cinematic History, Carter Implies!”

You couldn’t win with such people, he knew. If you told them the truth they misquoted you; if you told lies they printed them as the truth; and if you said nothing at all they invented something twice as horrible to fill the void. Privately he wondered if the North Vietnamese still operated any of their infamous “reeducation camps,” and if they might accept someone like Trang Ho on scholarship. He knew many colleagues who would be eager to contribute to such a fund.

She caught up with him as he was filling a plastic tumbler with iced tea from the large canister marked “Sweetened.”

“I hear there was some trouble on the set.” Her recorder quivered beneath his lips like some exotic African parasite seeking a path to its host’s innards. Her eyes were agleam. She smelled conflict, Carter knew, the way a sheepdog could smell a dead lamb half a mile away.

“Nothing happened,” he muttered.

“That’s not the way I heard it, Jason. I heard there was a real blowup.”

“Sorry. Nobody died.”

She didn’t look disappointed. There were plenty of deaths in Georgia she could somehow work into a story.

“I hear that Melrose Fleet stormed off the set and refused to finish his scene.”

Carter sipped tea. “It’s been a tough shoot. Mel got a little tired, that’s all.”

He needed for this picture to end. Maybe the next one would be better, he told himself. If he kept calm and did his job, kept throwing himself whole-heartedly into crap like this, he might finally be offered something worthwhile. A role where he’d be given the chance to act instead of pose, to do something more significant than reveal his chest and declaim heroically while flashing his famous smile.

He could always black out his teeth. Envisioning Nahfoud’s reaction to that made him grin.

“Something funny?” Trang Ho inquired hopefully.

“Nothing you can use.” He glanced down at her. Her elfin face and stature gave her the appearance of a harmless waif, but the nonthreatening image was deceptive. Speak softly and carry a big tape recorder, he mused.

“I can use anything. Come on, Jason,” she prodded him. “Give me something I can use. I’ll be good to you. When they print the pictures I’ll make sure they only show your best side.”

I don’t have a best side, he thought. I don’t have a bad side, either. That’s what all the cinematographers kept telling him. He wished fervently they’d quit photographing him like he was a refugee from Mount Rushmore.

“Give me a break, Trang. I’ve never done anything to you. I’m trying to build a career as a serious actor.”

“Serious actor?” She almost but fortunately for her did not giggle. “I know your credits by heart, Carter. The Toxic Waste Monster. Crack Slashers of Manhattan. And what was that Academy Award winner you did last year in Italy? Hercules Meets Jesse James or something?”

Carter counted slowly to five. “The British don’t have this problem. An actor can do Lear one week and pratfalls on The Simples the next. The important thing is to work.”

“Sure. Listen, Carter, you help me and I help you. I’m just trying to get some ink. I get paid by the column inch and page.” She looked across to the trailer which housed the film’s leading lady. “Personally I consider this opus to be a step up in your career.” Her voice fell to a conspiratorial murmur. “Now, if you could just give me something really interesting, something of serious import for our readers.”

“Something juicy?” said Carter.

She was practically salivating. “Yeah.”

“Something like, ‘Jason Carter Fathers Amanda Peters’s Two-headed Baby’?”

She didn’t blink. “That would fly,” she deadpanned. “But since I haven’t seen any evidence of babies on this set, two-headed or otherwise, I’d settle for a clue to whom she’s sleeping with.” Black and claw-like, the recorder hovered below his chin.

“Not Nahfoud … she hates his guts. You? I know she’s got the hots for you, Carter. Every woman in the crew has the hots for you.”

“Well, I don’t have the hots for anybody,” he shot back. “I’m just trying to do my job.”

Her eyes widened hopefully. “Fleet? Or the guy playing the big rapist, maybe?”

“I don’t know whom she’s sleeping with,” Carter said tiredly, “and I don’t care.”

Mercifully the lamprey-like mouth of the recorder retreated. “And if you did you wouldn’t tell me, I know. Or would you? God knows this picture could use some PR.”

Carter eyed her wonderingly. “Is this what your parents became boat people for? Is this why they fled a tormenting and corrupt regime?”

“No. They did it so they could come to the land of the free and the home of the brave. So they could raise three kids on tacos and apple pie and burgers. So their daughter could graduate cum laude from UC Irvine with a degree in journalism.

“But since the editor’s chair at the New York Times seems to be occupied right now and The Economist isn’t hiring any overseas-based L.A. interns, this is the best their daughter can do. And you know what? I make less than the editor of the New York Times but a lot more than The Economist’s overseas interns. And I get to meet people who are much more interesting.”

His felt a flicker of concern. “You think I’m interesting?”

“Not particularly. But you’re about the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“God but I’m sick of that. I want people to see me as an actor.”