Pete finally pulled into crew parking with only minutes to spare. He would not have time to beg food off craft service, which meant he’d be going the whole night without a meal.
“Look who’s here,” Marco said loudly, causing a few heads to turn as crew members locked up the trucks for the night. “Cutting it close.”
Pete smiled as best he could and shook Marco’s hand. “Sorry. Car trouble.”
“No worries, man,” Marco said. “You wanna see if crafty can get you some food before they take off?”
Pete did but didn’t want to say so. Besides, now that he had arrived on-time and was relaxing a bit, he remembered a certain actress’s refrigerator that he was confident was stocked with a variety of things he could munch on late that night. It didn’t surprise him to even consider such a thought a week ago would have been an impossible joke. “I’m good, Marco. Thanks. Good day?”
“The best, amigo, the very best,” Marco said, smiling widely. “Living the dream, bro.”
Pete got instructions from the locations guy about keeping an eye on the condor parked at the side of the building. He nodded and made sure to look extra concerned to placate the young white boy making five times what he was. Like someone is going to drive off with a forty-foot crane, dumbass, he thought, but continued to nod and seem intense about the instructions.
Two hours later, the crew was long gone, the last of the day guards driving away with a honk and a wave.
Pete let out a breath and waited for the night to take over the sky.
AT TEN P.M., HIS FRIEND CALLED. The truck was totaled. The engine block had cracked, and fluids had been happily mixing for weeks, messing up both the radiator, which was poisoned with oil, and the engine, which was poisoned with water and anti-freeze. “You can fix it,” his friend said. “Or you can buy a new truck. New truck will be cheaper.”
Pete grudgingly optioned for the new truck, and his friend agreed to have his old one towed to a junkyard who would pay a few hundred bucks for the scrap. Pete asked if he knew of anything for sale, and although he didn’t, they agreed to get together over the weekend and find him something decent.
Pete hung up, depressed and unsure. He did some calculations, and figured he could spend three thousand dollars on a new truck, but that was it. The rest of their savings would have to remain untouched.
Three thousand eight hundred actually. The thought slipped into his head unbidden, and he did his best to ignore it.
THE NIGHT WAS COLD AND brittle with a sheen of moisture that hazed the phosphorous lights of the parking lot into fuzzy halos. Pete’s legs were stiffening, his hands dry and cold. He put on thin gloves, stood, stomped his feet. Figured he’d make a round, for no other reason than to get his circulation going.
Everything was quiet, as always. He made his way around the trucks and catering. He even poked his head beyond the edge of the building to make sure no one had absconded with the condor, which looked to him like a monster in the dark, albeit a motionless one.
As he made his way to the trailers, his stomach grumbled. He was approaching Holly Pages’ trailer, debating whether he wanted to press his luck by stealing a granola bar and a soda, when he heard a loud thump come from inside.
He felt a spike stab his brain and froze in mid-step. Slowly, he pulled his flashlight, pointed the beam against the trailer’s face, as if the explanation for the noise would be written in blood across its surface. His mind leapt immediately to Jimmy. Had he followed Pete into basecamp last night? Seen him pull the hide-a-key? Was that creepy fuck in there right now, ransacking the actress’ trailer?
Pete took a few steps closer to the door, which he saw was closed.
Thump!
Pete jumped and cursed. There was no longer any doubt: Someone was inside the trailer. Quietly and slowly, his eyes never leaving the trailer’s door, Pete walked to the hitch, felt underneath for the hide-a-key’s magnetic case.
It was there. He pulled it out, slid open the metal box. To his amazement, the key was inside, docile and dull. Confused, he took the key anyway, replaced the magnetic box. He went to the door, the trailer creaking as he stepped up onto the metal stairs. He wasn’t sure whether to knock or just go in. He tried the handle and felt a cold snake slither up his spine and kiss the back of his neck.
The door wasn’t locked.
Pete unbuckled the pepper spray. He pointed the flashlight with one hand, lifted the spray in his other, ready to shoot it at Jimmy or whoever the hell else was trespassing.
He pulled the door back slowly, put a leg onto the trailer floor, and waited, a silhouette against the gray haze of night. He flashed the light into the trailer but saw nothing amiss. “Security,” he said, his voice filling the room. The sitting area was empty, and neat. He turned to his right, saw that the kitchen, also, was empty. He pointed the light toward the rear of the trailer. The bedroom door was closed.
Silently as he could, he walked toward the bedroom. Once at the door, he rested an ear against the thin wood, but heard nothing…
No … there was something. A rustling. Movement.
Pete turned the small handle, pushed the door inward, his light pointed at the wall, and then the bed. He gasped in shock, but his fear evaporated like sun-blasted mist.
It was Holly Pages. Asleep on the bed. Fully clothed, sprawled atop the duvet as if dropped there from the sky. Arms wide, face buried into a decorative pillow, legs a wide V.
“Um … Ms. Pages? I’m security. Ms. Pages ….” Pete said in a near whisper. He moved closer to the bed, wondering if she was asleep, or hurt. Or dead. She shouldn’t be here, he knew that. It was impossible.
He kicked something as he stepped closer to the edge of the bed and flashed his light to the ground. An empty bottle spun dumbly on the thin carpet. A vodka bottle.
Realization struck him and his brain hurriedly sent updated information to his senses. The now overwhelming, unmistakable stench of alcohol filled his nostrils. He brought the light to Holly’s face, saw her snarled, unconscious visage, and knew immediately that she wasn’t just asleep.
Holy shit. She’s passed-out drunk.
He moved the light around the rest of the room quickly, trying to take it all in. He saw another fifth of vodka, this one only half-empty. There were two prescription pill bottles on the nightstand. One topless, one sealed. He saw half a mound of cocaine, the size of a quarter cut in two, a white-edged American Express Black Card.
“Damn girl,” he breathed, then looked at Holly once more. Took in not just her face, but her whole body, long and alive and helpless. That’s Holly fucking Pages, he thought, amazed to be so close to her. To have her flesh, usually reserved for social media stalkers and ticketholders of her latest feature, just … there.
He stuffed the pepper spray back into its holster, snapped it shut, then reached one gloved hand to Holly’s shoulder, his light never leaving her face. He touched her. Felt the thin bone of her shoulder blade beneath a black t-shirt. He gave her a shake.
Nothing. Her expression didn’t change.
“Ms. Pages?” he said again and shook her harder. Her body rocked, and she snorted, but did not wake.
Pete stood up straight, fascinated, and a little sick to his stomach, the unease one feels when in an unreal situation or confronted with a hideous possibility. The feeling one might have standing at the edge of a steep cliff, knowing that if only their brain willed it they could leap off that edge and fall to their imminent death, the rush of air filling their mouth and roaring in their ears as they dropped. A fantasy both thrilling and horrifying.
