“Are you talking about Roy?”
“America is in love with Betty Hutton and Margaret O’Brien. They love Judy Garland. They love mythology, and the Puritan in them is still alive and well. Rob them of their myths and they’ll tear you apart.”
“You think I’m doing something wrong?”
“I’m saying don’t get caught. Anybody who was on the set today could sell a very nasty story with one phone call. Wake up, doll.”
“I don’t like you calling me names.”
“I’m assuming you’re an adult. The space between your teeth is worth a million dollars. Roy is reckless. He thinks his crate should have burned with him in it. One day he’ll find a way to do it. You want to ride it down with him?”
“He’s suicidal?”
“No, he’s worse. He wants the funeral of a Viking.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“He wants lots of companions for the trip across, a dead dog at his feet.”
“You’re upsetting me, Jerry.”
“That’s why I brought you a drink. Roy’s box score is legendary. You drove off with him at lunchtime in front of a hundred people. You know what I heard one of the cooks say? This is from one of the cooks. ‘Her husband and Wiseheart were both war heroes. Now they’re sharing the same foxhole.’”
Her face was as hot as an electric iron, her head throbbing. “And what did you do about it?”
“I’m not worried about what two scullions say. Hedda Hopper is another matter. You know the fun she’d have with a juicy bit of news like this?”
“Roy and I are friends. You stop assuming things.”
“When you came back from the hacienda, you looked like you’d forgotten to put your panties on.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that.”
“I got a call from your husband fifteen minutes ago. He’ll be here tomorrow morning. We’re shooting the battle scene at first light. We don’t need distractions, love. Now you clean up your act and get with the program.”
“Hershel is coming here?”
“That’s what the man said. Does he know about you and Roy?”
She sat down in a chair. Her ears were ringing, her stomach roiling. Jerry upended the Champale, the foam running through the neck and down his throat. He set down the bottle and looked her evenly in the face.
“I hate to see you foul your own nest,” he said. “You’ve got it all, love. You don’t need the wrong guy crawling around on top of you. Dump the bastard while you have the chance.”
“Get out,” she said.
Maybe she threw something at him. She couldn’t remember. When she went to bed, the wind was buffeting her trailer, blowing dust devils out of the hills, dimming the stars that one hour earlier had glittered as brightly as electric bulbs in a theater marquee.
JUST BEFORE DAWN she woke from a dream in which wolves were sitting on tree limbs, their muzzles moist with blood. At first she thought the wolves were looking at her, a frightened, small girl unable to flee her attackers. Then she realized that was not the case at all. She was sitting on a tree branch among them. What did the dream mean? The answer wasn’t long in coming. She was a kindred spirit, her agenda as predatory as theirs. Linda Gail Pine had taken on a new identity, one that was probably hidden inside her all her life.
The first scene Jerry shot the next morning involved a Heinkel coming in low, out of a watery yellow sun, bombing and strafing the airfield, the planted explosives geysering showers of dirt and rock into the air, the Heinkel’s engines rattling the tin roofs of the hangars as it swept overhead, the bombardier hunched inside the Plexiglas nose cone, his face like a pig’s inside the leather cap and goggles and fur collar on his leather coat.
The explosions were deafening, their aftershocks vibrating through the ground under Linda Gail’s shoes. Curds of black smoke coiled out of giant smudge pots, powdering the air with soot and filling it with an oily stench that reminded Linda Gail of the refineries in Baton Rouge. A small tank clanked across the airstrip, a Falangist flag flapping from its radio antenna. After the driver got out, Jerry told a stagehand to fire a fully automatic weapon into the cupola so he could record the sound of live rounds ricocheting off the steel plates. Linda Gail found herself stepping back involuntarily, her arms folded across her chest, as the bullets whined into the distance and a German fighter plane streaked low overhead, the barrels of its wing guns flashing. Was this what Rosita Holland actually went through? Linda Gail looked around, wondering if any of the crew or cast sensed the fear that had invaded her body.
Jerry put his arm around her shoulders. “You ready?” he said.
“For what?” she asked, startled out of her reverie.
“You’re about to witness the fascists executing Republican wounded. It’s not your everyday event. You rush out to stop it. You’re the Angel of Andalusia. The poor buggers just want to touch the hem of your garment and be made whole. Remember Scarlett O’Hara walking across a train yard filled with Confederate wounded begging for water? That’s you, love.”