“I don’t need the money, Marjorie.” He smiled down at her. The offer to share indicated just how unaffected by Hollywood Marjorie Ashwood was.
“I won’t force it on you, but I’d enjoy your company. We can split the driving, if not the reward. C’mon, cuddles. I can hang out the window and pretend you’re my gigolo. You can spare an old gal some time. Tomorrow’s Saturday. No work ‘til Monday no matter what our phay-roh decides.”
“Nahfoud said something about looking at rushes,” Carter replied lamely.
Ashwood made a rude noise. “Uh-huh. And the first thing he’s gonna do is ask the actors for their opinions. Get real, good-lookin’.”
Carter considered. His instinctive first thought was that despite the difference in their ages she might be looking for an opportunity to put the make on him now that their professional relationship was about to end. He decided that wasn’t the case. If that was what Marjorie Ashwood wanted, she would’ve put the question to him directly, and before now.
“Let’s find out where this place is first,” he said.
“You got it, gorgeous.”
She returned the laptop to the main menu, withdrew the disc, and pulled up a resident atlas. By zip code, it placed the address on the disc on the south Georgia coast.
“Pretty good drive,” he commented. “Any farther south and you’d be in Florida.”
“Okay by me. I’ve always wanted to see more of the South. Never worked this part of the country before.” She favored him with another of her maternal, impish grins. “I’m not as widely traveled as some folks.”
“Very funny. I don’t pick the locations of the pictures I make.”
“Then you’ll come along? We will make an interestin’ couple. Unsettle the natives.”
It would be nice to get away from the intense atmosphere that surrounded the production, he thought. See some new country, meet some new people. The Teamsters he usually hung out with probably had plans of their own for the weekend. And he’d heard that the Georgia coast was real pretty.
“Why not?” He buttoned up his poncho. “I’ll rent a car.”
“I’ll let you,” she said agreeably.
III
They clung to 95 all the way to the coast, picking up Interstate 16 just north of Savannah. From there it was a straight shot southward.
Much of the town of Brunswick was obscured by dense forest which was a never-ending source of wonder to a visitor from Southern California. Piney woods dominated the terrain in every direction except east, where tidal flats and rush-choked waterways separated the coast from a verdant necklace of barrier islands.
The address led them to a cluster of private postal boxes. Only Ashwood’s insistence and Carter’s wheedling succeeded in prying the location of the owner’s actual residence from the reluctant but slightly awed franchise operator.
“Can’t get a reward from a post office box,” Ashwood pointed out.
The disc’s owner lived not on the mainland but on nearby Sea Island, which was itself a suburb of Saint Simon Island. Directions sent them across a busy causeway, through housing developments and compact shopping centers, across a second much smaller causeway, until they eventually found themselves driving down an unexpectedly beautiful avenue lined with enormous live oaks.
Spanish moss dripped atmospherically from the vaulting branches. Stunted streets named for local flowers, birds, and animals ran perpendicular toward the mainland or Atlantic Ocean. The houses themselves consisted of everything from fifties ranchstyle homes to rambling Castilian mansions and concrete bastions ajut with Bauhaus flourishes.
Robin Lane contained only four homes. The last, of brick and glass, faced the surf. Vehicular approach to the house was barred by a gray wrought-iron gate. From what little he knew of such matters, Carter thought the house architecturally unimaginative and pedestrian in execution.
“Not a bad place,” he commented, damning it with faint praise.
Ashwood let out a grunt. “Be the caretaker’s shack in Beverly Hills. I reckon it’s what passes for fancy around here.”
An intercom was mounted on the pillar immediately to the right of the gate. Ashwood rolled down her window, leaned out, and addressed the pickup. Following a brief delay a male voice replied.
“Who is it?” The voice was richly nasal, with a drawl than hinted strongly of New England rather than southern origins, Carter decided.
“My name’s Ashwood. Got a friend with me. Were y’all by any chance floatin’ around the Macon area the other day?”
Another pause, then, “Who are you people, and what do you want? I’m a …”
“… very busy man,” Ashwood finished for him. “I know, you men are always ‘very busy.’ Just answer one question for us. Did you visit a movie set and lose something?”
No pause this time. “You found my property?”
“What kind of property?”
“A small storage CD,” the voice replied impatiently. “Obviously you found it, or you would not have been able to find me. Just a moment.”
The disembodied twang was replaced by the whirr of a hidden motor as the heavy gate was drawn aside.
“Park by the main door, please. I will meet you there.”
“Not so fast,” said Ashwood. “How do we know y’all are the owner and not just somebody house-sittin’? Are you,” she hesitated briefly, remembering, “Bruton Fewick?”
“Fee-wick,” the voice snapped. “Not Few-ick. I am.”
As Carter drove up, Fewick came lumbering lightly down the front steps, moving with unusual grace for someone with the build of a resurrected zeppelin. He had wavy blond hair, hazel eyes, and the look and demeanor of a demented baby. He was also much younger than Carter expected, thirty at most.
“I am very grateful to you.” Definitely New England, Carter thought. As an actor he picked up on accents right away. “I have been working with the material on that disc for some time and, silly me, neglected to back up everything.” He turned. “Please, come inside.”
Must be valuable, Ashwood told herself, for him to have been carryin’ it around with him. To Carter she added in a whisper, “Maybe we can get two thousand out of him.”
