He got into some faded but clean jeans, a Western-flavored shirt, a pair of well-worn suede boots, and a belt with a silver buckle, then he put on a Western hat that he had bought in a custom hat shop on the Plaza and had decorated with some sweat stains made of mineral oil, then he consulted the image in the mirror once more. “How do you do, Ted Shirley?” The answer was, pretty damned satisfactory.
The Porsche Cayenne was in the garage, locked away for the duration. He had met a man in a bar the day before who owned a nicely restored old pickup truck and had rented it from him for a month for $1,000, which the fellow was glad to have.
He slipped into an old suede jacket and tucked an envelope into an inside pocket, which contained a copy of the carefully constructed employment application he had filed at the movie employment office in a downtown hotel. He tucked his Ted Shirley wallet into a hip pocket, got his truck keys, and headed south of Santa Fe, to the J. W. Eaves Movie Ranch, a few miles off I-25.
Once there, he parked in the public lot and walked into the nicely designed and constructed Western town, entering the saloon. A woman sat at a table on the front porch, and he tipped his hat to her. “Good morning,” he said. “My name is Ted Shirley. I have an appointment just about now.”
She gave him a dry smile and found his name on a list. “You’re not an actor?”
“I can do just about anything.”
“You’re supposed to see Dan Waters, inside at table number three. Dan is our production manager.”
He thanked her and went inside. There were four poker tables, each with a number. He walked up to number three. “Dan Waters?”
“That’s me.”
Teddy held out a hand. “I’m Ted Shirley.”
“Oh, yeah,” Waters replied, shuffling among some applications on the table. “Siddown. You’ve got an interesting sheet.”
Teddy sat down. “Thank you.”
“Let’s see, theater, documentary films, a few TV shows. You’ve done a little of everything, haven’t you?”
“I guess I have.”
“I’d hire you as an actor if I didn’t need technical people more. We’ve brought a skeleton crew from L.A., and our tax deal with the state film commission calls for us to hire locally, when we can. What would you like to do on this picture, Ted?”
“I think I’d like to work for you,” Teddy replied.
Waters leaned back in his chair. “How long you been in Santa Fe?”
“A few weeks.”
“Why’d you leave New York?”
“Twenty years in the big city was enough. I was looking for a change of scenery.” He paused. “And maybe another wife. The last one didn’t work out too well.”
Waters smiled. “We’ve all been there. You got a place here?”
“I rent. I don’t know the town well enough yet to buy.”
“You ever done any casting?”
“Sure.”
“We’re gonna need about thirty actors with SAG cards, and maybe sixty extras. We’ve already nailed down the SAG people. Why don’t we put you in charge of casting extras?”
“Sounds good.”
Waters handed him a heavy cardboard box. “Here are head shots and CVs and a list of what we need. Most of these applicants have shown up in Western dress, and we’ll favor them to save money on costumes, but if you run across good ones who need dressing, we can handle that. Oh, no weapons—we’ll issue those.”
Teddy stood and picked up the box. “Where do I work?”
“There’s a number eight in the box. Pick a poker table, start interviewing, and bring me a list of your preferences, plus a dozen alternates, by the end of the day. Then maybe we’ll find something else for you to do.”
Teddy picked up the box, chose a table in a corner, and stuck the number on it. In short order, a line had formed before him, and he looked it over for a moment. Some of them looked ridiculous, but others, pretty good. He started to interview the first in line, a wiry fifty-year-old who looked at home in cowboy boots and hat. He was also wearing a six-shooter in a worn holster. Teddy took about three minutes to put him on the list to hire. “One thing,” he said.
“Yessir?”
“Lose the weapon. Lock it in your car, or something. If a gun is called for, the armory will issue it to you.”
“I’m kind of fond of my own,” the man said.
“You can’t work this picture with it. It’s a liability thing.”
He shrugged. “Whatever you say.”
They broke for an hour for lunch, which was served from two actual chuck wagons: hamburgers and beans.
Teddy went back to work, and at three-thirty, he walked over to Dan Waters and handed him his preferred list and their photographs. “Here you go. I think this is a pretty good bunch.”
Waters looked through the photos. “I think you’re right. Now go send them over to Personnel, across the street in the general store, and they’ll get formally hired, then come back and we’ll see what else we can find for you to do.”
Teddy felt someone approach from behind, and he turned to find a tall, heavily muscled man with a thick head of gray hair under a large, cocked-back Stetson.
“Ted, this is the boss,” Waters said, “Dax Baxter.”
Baxter regarded him coolly for a moment, then gave him a quick nod and turned to Waters to start a different conversation. He was followed by two equally tall, equally muscled men.
“Those are Dax’s body men,” Dan said, “Hank and Joe. We call ’em Hinky and Dinky when they’re not listening.”
Teddy nodded. He wanted to hurt Baxter, but he thought better of it.
7
TEDDY SPENT THE REST of the day with Dan Waters, evaluating costumes for the supporting cast. They quit at six o’clock.
“Ted,” Waters said, “can I buy you a drink? Those bottles behind that bar over there contain the real thing, and this saloon is the crew and cast canteen after six.”
“Sure,” Teddy replied. “Bourbon and rocks, if they’ve got ’em.”
Dan waved at a man dressed as a waiter. “Two bourbons, rocks,” he said. The man left and Dan chuckled. “That guy’s an actor, but he’s a waiter in the evenings. There’s an ice machine concealed behind the bar.”
“Pretty neat, Dan,” Teddy said. “Where are you from?”
“L.A., born and bred. You?”
“Born in Florida, then everywhere. Marine brat.”
“When you left New York, why didn’t you go to L.A.?” Dan asked. “Plenty of work for a guy like you.”
“I didn’t want to work all the time, and I like this town. I’ve had it with big cities. Tell me, who are Hinky and Dinky protecting Dax Baxter from?”
“Whatever rises in that paranoid brain of his,” Dan said. “He doesn’t like to be touched, so don’t ever slap him on the back or you’ll find Hink and Dink sitting on you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Sounds like you don’t like him very much.”
“Nobody likes him very much. Oh, he’s got plenty of charm, if you’re a studio exec or a movie star he wants for a picture or somebody he wants something else for. He does okay with the ladies, too.”
“I thought he was married to Willa Mather, the actress,” Ted said.
“Sort of an actress,” Dan replied, with an eye roll. “He doesn’t like her to work, and on top of that, she’s got a drinking problem, so she doesn’t get offers anymore. A few weeks ago she was driving through Beverly Hills, drunk, and ran down a pedestrian, killed her, but Dax got it hushed up. She’s still in rehab, so she’s not on our shoot.”
“You sure make Dax sound like a sweet guy.”
“Oh, you’ll form your own opinions before we’re done here. This is a twenty-six-day shoot. By the way, I need an assistant. The pay is five hundred a day. You want the job?”
“Sounds great.”
“Do it well, and I’ll get you a screen credit.”
“That would look nice on my résumé.”
“About Dax—he’s not lovable, but he’s a hell of a producer. He has an eye for what the public wants to see, and for a good script, and he knows how to deal with the studio.”
“Does he have a production deal somewhere?” Teddy asked, already knowing the answer.
“Yeah, at SAC, Standard American Cinema, in Burbank. He’s made them a lot of money, so he gets what he wants.”
“I expect he does.”