Rough Cut Read online

  The camera was still rolling. It had recorded everything, including Stegman’s confession to the murder in Harry’s film.

  Garon stepped up to Rachel with the gun. He gave her a long look, then turned to Stegman.

  “Let’s save her for last,” he said. “She showed us her hot little body. She’s got spunk. We’ve got the bed. How about some fun with Betsy Brewer before knocking her off?”

  Rachel spat in his face.

  Garon turned to her, eyes blazing. He wiped the spit gob off his cheek. He said, “You will regret that. I swear to it, you bitch.”

  With all eyes off him, Harry seized his opportunity.

  He pounced on the video camera. He pounded the eject button and pulled out the digital tape cartridge.

  Stegman whipped around to see what was happening. He hesitated before realizing, “For Christ’s sake, we’ve been taping ourselves. Garon — shoot him!”

  Garon spun away from Rachel and aimed the gun at Harry.

  Paul plowed into Garon, shoving his aim off target. The gun fired into the ceiling.

  Harry ran for the door, Stegman chasing after him. He reached Harry and grabbed him with both hands, pushing him backwards into the dresser. Harry felt a sharp pain in his back.

  “Give me that tape!” snarled Stegman. Harry pulled free, but now Garon came at him too, and Harry realized that there was no way he would be able to maintain possession of the tape much longer. But...

  Paul was open.

  “Paul! Take it!” Harry flung the cartridge past Stegman and Garon.

  Paul caught it by surprise. He looked at the tape. He looked at Harry. He looked back at the tape. He looked back at Harry.

  “RUN!” screamed Harry.

  Garon fired a shot at Paul. It missed and exploded one of the lights, showering white sparks.

  Paul yelped and ran for his life. He dashed across the room, jumped on a chair, and dove through a plate glass window, shattering it to pieces.

  49

  Paul landed on the walkway with tinkling glass, wrapped up in drapes, still clutching the video cartridge. The drapes helped prevent him from getting sliced up by the broken window, but the fall to the cement hurt like hell; and he yelled.

  Picking himself up, Paul ran for his car.

  He heard the motel room door slam open behind him, and an angry shout.

  Paul didn’t turn to look. He kept going, running across the parking lot toward his Mercedes, fueled by panic and a single thought, I don’t want to die.

  As he ran, the video cartridge tumbled from his grasp and his foot kicked it across the blacktop. As Paul bent down to retrieve it, he heard the crack of gunfire and the zip of a bullet overhead.

  Paul grabbed the video while still on the run, losing as few steps as possible. He reached his car, unlocked it, and scrambled inside. He turned to see if someone was pursuing him and his fears were confirmed.

  Garon came running at the car, fast, gripping the gun.

  Paul started his car and floored it. The Mercedes shot past Garon, almost hitting him. Paul tore out of the parking lot with his foot flattened on the accelerator.

  Garon took aim and fired at Paul.

  Paul’s back window shattered.

  The Mercedes sped down the street, away from the motel, blowing past two stop signs.

  Paul checked the front seat. The tape remained at his side, safe and sound. He planned to leave this wasteland and head into downtown L.A. to find a policeman, any policeman.

  After several blocks, Paul began to breathe easier. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. He said out loud, “I made it, I made it,” and a wave of relief washed over him.

  Then he saw a car approaching fast in the rear-view mirror, a white van with Garon behind the wheel.

  50

  Stegman attacked Harry, face pink with rage, long hair free of its ponytail, wild and flowing. The two directors battled inside the cramped motel room, and Stegman unleashed a brutal beating on the older director, pounding him with punches. Rachel fought to stop Stegman, hitting him from behind; and he finally grabbed her by the shirt and threw her into the camera equipment, toppling tripods and sending lights crashing to the floor.

  Harry punched Stegman squarely in the mouth, a solid hit. The younger director jerked his head back, then smiled for a moment as if in appreciation. He shoved Harry back several feet, slamming him into a wall with such force that the vibrations caused framed pictures to fall.

  Stegman glared deep in Harry’s eyes and hissed, “You’re history, Harry.” His teeth had turned crimson from the blood in his mouth. He stuffed a fist into Harry’s gut. Then he punched him hard in the jaw, and Harry saw stars.

  “Stop it, you bastard!” Rachel rushed Stegman again. She slammed a light stand across his back. Stegman roared and almost dropped from the blow. He turned and seized the light stand, ripping it from her grasp, throwing it back at her and striking her head with a loud crack. Rachel fell backward to the carpet. She lay stunned, curled, and semi-conscious. She could not get back on her feet.

  Harry saw Rachel go down and charged Stegman, slamming into him and wrapping an arm around Stegman’s neck. Stegman took advantage of Harry’s off-balance momentum to flip him to the ground. Harry crashed to the carpet hard, feeling the pain reverberate in his bones.

  Stegman pounced on top of Harry, keeping him grounded with several hard hits to the face. Harry struggled to push Stegman off of him, but after receiving a hard slam to the temple, his vision erupted into a swarm of spots.

  When the vision cleared, Harry saw the black cable.

  Stegman looped a length of electrical cable around Harry’s neck and began tightening.

  Harry felt his air choked off. He struggled violently, squirming, head turning from side to side.

  Stegman stared down at him, a cartoon devil, face red, veins pulsing in his forehead and around his eyes, grinning with red teeth. He exerted every ounce of his strength into strangling the life out of Harry.

  Harry’s tongue protruded out of his mouth. He felt the blood pounding in his head. He struggled in vain; Stegman had him pinned down securely. Then Harry saw something out of the corner of his eye...

  The knife. Lying nearby on the floor. Possibly within reach.

  Oh God if I could only...

  Harry strained with everything he had to get a grasp on the knife handle. His arm shook as he stretched, but the knife remained just barely out of reach.

  Stegman pulled the black cable tighter around Harry’s neck.

  Harry felt his fingertips brush the knife handle. He struggled not to blackout.

  Just a little more... Almost...

  Got it.

  Harry moved the knife toward him. He secured a grip on the handle. He squeezed it. He lifted the blade and positioned the point to plunge into Stegman’s side. All he needed was one final, powerful burst of strength to sink it deep...

  But in an instant, Stegman caught the movement. He turned and spotted the knife in Harry’s hand.

  Stegman let go of the cable and snatched Harry’s wrist. He forced Harry’s arm down, slamming the hand repeatedly against the floor until the knife came loose and fell from Harry’s grasp. He picked it up.

  Stegman now held the knife.

  He grinned. He raised the blade above Harry’s chest. He centered the tip over Harry’s heart. He tightened his fist around the handle.

  Harry struggled, helpless, looking on in horror.

  “Fade to black, Harry Tuttle,” said Stegman. “This is The End.”

  Stegman plunged the blade downward.

  Harry shut his eyes tightly and screamed as the blade hit.

  Several seconds passed.

  Then several more.

  Harry realized he was not dead. And he felt no pain.

  Harry opened his eyes...confused. He lifted his head and looked.

  The knife had a retractable blade. The blade had disappeared up the handle, a harmless prop pressed against his chest.

&n
bsp; Harry looked up at Stegman. Stegman’s face froze with a look of complete surprise. Then Stegman sputtered. He sputtered a second time, spitting up blood. His eyes turned glassy. Stegman pitched forward, toppling off Harry, dead. The real knife protruded from his back, sunk deep. Rachel stood behind Stegman. She looked down at his crumpled body. “There’s your knife, you son of a bitch.”

  51

  Paul raced his Mercedes through a zigzag of Los Angeles streets, trying to shake the persistent white van off his tail.

  With one hand on the wheel, he worked furiously to call 911 on his cell phone, fumbling with the tiny buttons, managing to hit every possible three numeral sequence except for

  911. When he finally got ahold of a 911 operator, he screamed, “Somebody’s trying to kill me!” which felt silly but at least it was accurate. The operator calmly asked for his whereabouts, and Paul provided an intersection, then updated it with another intersection, then had to update it again and again, and eventually dropped the cell phone to the floor during a last minute, high-speed swerve around a stopped bus.

  When the van got close, the driver took another shot; and Paul heard a bullet ping off the trunk. Paul promptly increased his speed to Extra Reckless.

  Paul was tearing down Fairfax Avenue when the roadway narrowed, crowded from a glut of parked trucks, long trailers, and humming generators: the telltale signs of a movie shooting on location. Only this was no ordinary movie. Today was the day that Army of Steel was shooting its multimillion dollar action sequence to end all action sequences in front of the Los Angeles Farmers Market. Paul saw the Farmers Market’s white clock tower up ahead. Then he saw a big roadblock swiftly fill his view, and the very long crash began.

  The Mercedes smashed through the barricade and entered the film set of Army of Steel, closely followed by the white van. Paul Jacobs said “Shit” and managed to drag the one syllable word across forty-five seconds of skidding tires, scattering crew members, screaming extras, exploding craft services tables, pulverized filmmaking equipment, collapsing ladders, bouncing bounce boards, and falling lighting rigs.

  The Mercedes came to a final stop when it slammed into the body of an elevated camera crane, causing director Nigel Howard to plummet to the ground, breaking his legs.

  The white van spun across the set for another 40 feet, running over two 35mm cameras before bouncing off a 3-ton grip truck and striking a mounted light. A 6000 watt, 54-pound HMI Par light wobbled, then fell, crashing through the van windshield, killing Garon instantly.

  Paul remained in his car, face pressed in the airbag, preferring to keep it there, where no one could see him. When he finally gathered the courage to look outside, he was startled to see a young man standing a few feet away, filming him with a video camera.

  “Who are you?” said Paul. He felt faint. The eye of the camera lens stared back at him. “Why are you filming me?”

  The young man introduced himself. He said his name was Philip. He explained he was making a behind-the-scenes featurette for the Army of Steel DVD.

  “I think I got some good stuff,” he said. “Even better than the actual movie.”

  52

  She approached in a simple but graceful white sundress, smiling at him, stepping down the walk, eyes bluer than the skies, hair lifted by the breeze. He grinned back, felt his heartbeat accelerate, his hands sweat, and marveled that his reaction today was no different than the time he first met her at Richard Metherell’s birthday party at the mansion in the Hollywood Hills more than two years ago. He still adored her. She sent the world around them into a softer focus. She thrilled his heart.

  Rachel climbed into the car and greeted Harry with a kiss.

  “OK, Mr. Suspense,” she said. “Where are we going for our date night surprise?”

  “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise,” he told her.

  “No sneak preview?”

  Harry pretended to mull over the request for a long moment, then said, “No.”

  He pulled away from the curb, entering the traffic on Sunset Boulevard. They drove into Westwood.

  In Westwood, the car approached a huge crowd lined up for movie tickets, stretching around the block. The letters on the theater marquee, bordered in flashing white bulbs, announced the film: Rough Cut.

  “You’re taking me to your movie?” she asked.

  “No,” said Harry, and the car continued past the theater.

  “Looks like a sell out,” she said.

  “We’re adding new screens every week,” said Harry. Although he had not studied the grosses as closely as Paul, he knew that Rough Cut was one of the year’s biggest smash hits.

  Most importantly, it was Harry’s biggest success; and he was the film’s true auteur.

  In the months that followed Harry and Rachel’s escape from Marcus Stegman, the Deadly Desires story became the most lurid, most sensational, most talked about Hollywood scandal since the last one. Broadcast live, The State of California vs. Harry Tuttle earned Harry the biggest audience of his career and tripled his fan base. The D.A.’s office worked feverishly to implicate Harry in the deaths caused by Stegman, but the star-struck jury didn’t see it the same way. The high-profile case attracted a “dream team” lineup of attorneys to Harry’s side, each posturing for maximum exposure in the spectacle.

  Fortunately, Stegman’s tapes told the real story. Public sympathy hugged Harry from coast to coast. He soon joined the long list of celebrity acquittals — although he didn’t appreciate seeing his name alongside the likes of O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake, Michael Jackson, and Fatty Arbuckle.

  Once Harry’s soap opera left the TV airwaves, the movie offers rolled in. A bidding war ensued for the rights to Harry’s ordeal. The money was astronomical, but Harry insisted on one very important stipulation: he would not sell the rights to his story unless he got to direct.

  Harry got his wish. Paul brokered a deal between PJ Productions and one of the major studios. Harry received the largest budget of his career, and his pick of the crop of major film stars. A number of Hollywood legends phoned Harry, begging to be in the film. Everyone wanted to be Harry. In the end, Harry went with an unknown, someone with untested commercial appeal, but a lot of talent.

  Rough Cut was completed on time, on budget, and previewed to great acclaim. Harry the director was hot —this time on his own merits.

  The film’s release collided with another highly anticipated movie, the long-awaited sci-fi epic Army of Steel. Delayed for 18 months by ongoing production trouble, artistic differences, a prima donna cast, and a budget that mushroomed out of control, Army of Steel limped into theaters the weekend before Rough Cut, and didn’t last long. In many cities, the film was yanked to allow for additional screenings of Rough Cut. Around the same time, People magazine announced the divorce of Nigel and Julie Howard, and reported that the director had retreated to the English countryside, moved in with his mother, and become a recluse.

  In recent weeks, Harry had received phone messages from his ex-wife, now Nigel’s ex-wife, asking if he was interested in perhaps getting together for dinner, or a drink or two, just for old time’s sake.

  Harry never called her back.

  He didn’t need to. With Rachel at his side, his life was complete. As they drove through West L.A., windows and sunroof open, air rushing in, he felt heaven. Up ahead, he caught a glimpse of his destination, a touch of glow and color. “We’re almost there,” he said. Rachel straightened up and examined the surroundings. Then the bright, old-fashioned theater marquee came into full view.

  The Palace.

  Harry pulled up to the curb in front of the historic cinema, restored to its original 1920s glory. The three-sided marquee announced the evening’s showing on a bright white grid with bold black lettering,

  Super Pickle.

  “Super Pickle?” said Rachel.

  Harry parked and climbed out of the car. He circled to Rachel, opening her door and offering his arm. She took it and joined him on the sidewal
k.

  “Good evening, sir. Madam.” A spiffy young man with slicked-back hair, a red suit jacket, and white gloves appeared before them. Harry handed him the car keys.

  “What in the world...” said Rachel.

  Harry guided her to the old-style ticket booth in front of the theatre.

  “Two please,” he told the well-dressed, senior woman behind the counter.

  “With pleasure,” she responded, tearing two tickets from an old-fashioned roll. “Enjoy tonight’s program.”

  Rachel started to giggle.

  Harry guided her inside the theater.

  Rachel’s giggle became a gasp. She stepped into the spacious lobby, struck by its elegance. She marveled at the Victorian flourishes. Gold leaf decorated the ceiling. Vintage movie posters brightened the walls. A classic candy counter ran the length of the floor between two broad staircases. The steps wound gracefully to a grand balcony above.

  Harry walked up to the candy counter and bought two large buckets of popcorn and two drinks.

  “Harry, I’m speechless,” said Rachel. “I didn’t even know this theater existed.”

  “It’s been newly renovated,” said Harry. “It just barely escaped the wrecking ball.”

  He took her through the double doors into the darkened auditorium, and she gasped again.

  Wide rows of plush seats advanced down red-carpeted aisles, three times the size of the average multiplex theater. Purple velvet drapes framed a giant movie screen. Near the foot of the stage, off to one side, a silver-haired man in a tuxedo played a sweeping romantic melody on a Wurlitzer pipe organ.

  Harry pointed upward to the dark blue ceiling, where clouds had been painted amid small, twinkling lights to emulate a night sky.

  Rachel took in the surroundings for a long moment, and then asked, “But, Harry, where is everyone?”

  “This is our own private screening. Sit anywhere you’d like.”