“All right, Jimmy, check it out. I’m here the next two nights. You come back and I’ll hook you up. Tomorrow there’s gonna be a love scene, and I might be able to get you something good.” Pete didn’t know if this was true. It wasn’t like security guards were given scripts, but he thought it sounded provocative. And when Jimmy snapped his head around, a side smile curling into his face, Pete knew he’d landed the hook.
Jimmy nodded once, cradled the mug in both hands, turned, and disappeared into the dark.
“Bring cash!” Pete yelled, but Jimmy, a deteriorating white smudge in the dark, did not respond.
3
THE NEXT DAY, PETE WOKE in the late afternoon to an empty house. Noemi had already dropped Gina at school, and it would be up to Pete to pick her up at three p.m., take care of her until Noemi returned from work, then get himself ready for another overnight.
He hadn’t had a chance to speak to his wife, but eventually he’d tell her about the strange guy—Jimmy—and his swiping the mug from the actress’s trailer. He smiled thinking about it. Three hundred bucks! That was more than he made working two twelve-hour shifts, after taxes anyway. He got out of bed, went for his morning coffee. He hoped Jimmy came back tonight, it would be so easy to find some other dumb trinket for the guy and make an easy couple hundred. He must be loaded. A rich eccentric. Pete stood in his boxers, pouring the fresh coffee Noemi had brewed for him that morning, knowing he’d want some when he woke up later in the day.
He sipped the coffee, looked around the apartment. He thought it could use some new things. A flatscreen television, maybe. They’d always wanted a nice computer, or an iPad for Gina to play on. Maybe he’d even get his little girl one of those Google laptops for graduating third grade. She’d go nuts for that.
Pete nodded to himself. Warming to the idea of having some extra cash.
Humming, he went to take a shower and get dressed. He couldn’t wait to pick up Gina, already fantasizing about her smile when he gave her the computer.
GINA CLIMBED INTO THE BACKSEAT and Pete buckled her in. He sat behind the wheel, pulled out of the school’s congested parking lot. “How was school, baby?”
“Good,” she said, already doodling in one of her pastel notebooks.
“Our baby’s going to be an artist, I think.” Noemi handed him a scotch while they waited for the oven to cook their Thanksgiving turkey. “Her kindergarten teacher says that she is unusually gifted.”
Pete smiled, watched Gina in the rearview mirror. She drew everything: plants, landscapes, faces. Even monsters and superheroes. Whatever took her fancy. “What are you drawing?”
“You, Daddy,” she said, not looking up.
He smiled, feeling warm pride spread through him. “What am I doing in the picture? Is Mommy with me?”
“No. You’re working in the movie,” she said, a stuffy sigh escaping her lips.
“You mean like on a movie set? Am I wearing my uniform?”
“Uh-uh … you’re in the movie, Daddy. Like a movie star.” She giggled, but Pete’s smile disappeared. He didn’t ask to see the picture.
IT WAS COLDER THAT NIGHT, but the parking lot lights had been activated, so it wasn’t as dark, which made Pete’s job a little easier.
The last of the crewmembers had pulled away only minutes after Pete’s arrival. Jerry, one of the day guards, told Pete they’d gone longer than expected because of some issues with the Fire Marshall, who made the director change the way he shot a scene where office workers lit sparklers for a party. “They didn’t have it on the permit, so the asshole made a stink about it. Sparklers, man. Can you imagine? My kid lights those things in the living room.”
Pete had nodded, not caring and distracted. What happened during the shooting day wasn’t really his concern, and he liked it that way. Liked being at the location when nothing was going on. Less hassle. Same paycheck.
And now the day guards had left along with the crew, and Pete was relieved to be alone once more. Silently, he walked the perimeter of the base camp again, adjusted some cones, picked up some trash. He pulled another folding chair from the catering tent, sat heavily, his bones achy, his mind thick.
Under the gentle buzz of the phosphorous lights, he settled in for a long night.
PETE WAS RUNNING DOWN AN alleyway, sweating and hurt. Moonlight soaked the walls. Bricks dripped mercury, but the shadows fought to stay. He prayed he could sneak to a bus stop, get back to the neighborhood. Marty and Israel were still inside the grocery store, trapped by the old man and his fucking shotgun, but he couldn’t go back. Nothing he could do to help them. They’d tripped the alarm and the old man had been sleeping in the office, as if waiting for them. And now there was nothing. No money, no fame with the crew. No respect.
Just escape.
He turned a corner and saw red and blue light smeared across the alley’s exit. He started to retreat, but another police car pulled into the other end of the alleyway, trapping him. Hi-beam headlights stared at him, wide spectral eyes. The doors of the squad car thumped opened like wings and two shadows jumped out, guns pulled, pointed at his chest. A chopper beat overhead, its spotlight flooding the alley with hard white light. Criminal sunshine.
He closed his eyes, raised his arms, thinking fuck fuck fuck.
One of the cops shouted, “Gun!”
Pete had forgotten to drop the crowbar they’d used to jimmy through the store window. He started to bring it down, to show them it was just dumb metal. That he was just a stupid kid, sixteen years old, his whole life ahead of him.
The police guns flashed and popped. Stunned more than hurt, he felt bullets punch into his chest, shoulder. He fell onto his back, cold alley water seeped into his shirt, pants, hair. Still the bullets came, beating his arm and shoulder like a fist.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
“Pete! Jesus, are you dead?”
Pete snapped his head up to the voice. He had been slumped in the chair, zoning out, losing himself. He focused his daydream-riddled eyes on the bearded face of Jimmy, his white hoody wrapped over his head and across his chest like St. Jude. He was tapping Pete’s shoulder with a hard index finger.
Pete pushed Jimmy’s hand away, pushed the memory away. It hadn’t happened like that, he thought, confused and still meandering through the hazy thoughts of his youth. I’d escaped. The other two guys were caught. I was never shot … that wasn’t real ….
