Swimming to Catalina (Stone Barrington 4)

Stone began again, but this time he leaned on the table and looked directly at his imaginary jury. “That young man over there in his nice blue suit with the neat haircut looks like a very nice fellow, doesn’t he? Well, if you’d seen him a month ago, his hair was in dreadlocks, and under that suit he’s covered in prison tattoos. This, ladies and gentlemen, is not his first time around the block.” Stone straightened and began pacing back and forth along the dining table. “That nice-looking young man kidnapped a fourteen-year-old girl, took her out into the woods, tortured her, raped her a few times over the course of an afternoon, and then strangled her to death. You’ve heard the evidence; it doesn’t leave any room for doubt. Your choices are simple: you can send him up to the state prison to be put to death, or you can put him back on the street. Next time, maybe it’ll be your daughter.”

“Cut!” the director yelled. “That was good for me; good for you, Bob?”

“Good for me,” the cameraman said.

“Good for you, Mr. Barrington?”

“Whatever you say.”

“Okay, rack it up in Screening Room One for Mario and Mr. Regenstein to see. I’ll let them know.”

Everyone grabbed his gear and walked away. Stone sat down at the dining table and wondered what he’d gotten himself into.

Half an hour later, Stone sat in a tiny movie theater with Louis Regenstein, Mario Ciano, and Vance Calder.

“Roll it,” Ciano said into a phone.

Stone stared at himself on the screen. As the lines came out he slunk lower and lower into his seat; the scene seemed to go on forever, and it was very clear to him that he was no actor. Then it was over, and the lights went up. Stone sat up straight and started looking for the door.

“Jesus, that was damn good,” Ciano said, sounding surprised.

“I wish I’d looked that good in my first movie,” Calder said. Both he and the director turned and looked at Regenstein.

“Stone, you’re hired,” the studio head said.

“Be in makeup at eleven tomorrow,” Ciano said, rising. “We start shooting at one.”

Stone, stunned, stood up and shook the men’s hands. But he had been terrible, he thought. Couldn’t these people see that? He had never been so embarrassed. These people were crazy.

7

Stone pulled up at the gate to Vance Calder’s house and rolled down the window. An armed, uniformed security guard approached.

“Good evening, sir,” he said. “Your name?”

“Barrington.”

“Go right in, Mr. Barrington.” The gate slid open.

Stone drove some distance up a winding drive, and it was not until he had crested a little hill that he saw the house. It was of white stucco, in the Spanish style, with a tiled roof A valet took charge of the car, and Stone walked through the open double doors into a broad tiled hallway that ran straight through the house. A man who looked Filipino, dressed in a white jacket, approached.

“Mr. Barrington?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so; I know all the other guests. Will you come this way, please?”

Stone followed him into a very large living room where at least a dozen couples were chatting. He had worn a tan tropical suit and a necktie, and he was glad, because everyone he saw was, for L.A., very dressed. Vance came toward him from the other end of the room, wearing a white linen suit. Stone had always wanted such a suit, but he didn’t have the nerve to wear one in New York.

“Good evening, Stone,” Calder said, grasping his hand warmly, “and welcome to the cast of Out of Court.”

“Is that what the picture is called?”

“That’s right; everyone is talking about your test. Come on and meet some people.”

Stone followed Vance around the room, greeting other guests. Half of them looked or sounded familiar from the papers and television—some were actors, others were producers or directors. He spotted Betty Southard at the other end of the room, talking to another woman.

“Stone,” Vance said, “I’d particularly like you to meet my good friend David Sturmack.”