Prayers For Rain Part 12

Then he stopped. He threw up his hands and screamed, "Aaron! You call that racking?"

A collection of rags with a spillage of dark hair and a dripping Fu Manchu looked up from a boxy remote in his hands. "I'm racking, Eric. I'm racking. It's the lights, dude."

"Bulls.h.i.+t!" Eric screamed. "The lights are fine."

Ray Dupuis smiled and turned his head away from Eric, who looked like his head was about to explode with rage.

"Steadicam guys," Dupuis said. "They're like kickers in the NFL. Very specialized talent, very sensitive personalities."

"That thing strapped to his chest is a Steadicam?" I said.

He nodded.

"I always thought it was on wheels."

"Nope."

"So the opening shot of Full Metal Jacket Full Metal Jacket," I said, "that's one guy moving around those barracks with a camera strapped to his chest?"

"Sure. Same with that shot in GoodFellas GoodFellas. You think they could have rolled a machine down those steps?"

"I never thought of it that way."

He nodded at the kid holding the boxy remote. "And that's the focus puller over there. He's trying to rack focus by remote."

I looked back at the young guys as they prepped to try the shot again, fine-tune whatever needed fine-tuning.

I couldn't think of anything else to say but, "Cool."

"So you're a cinephile, Mr. Kenzie?"

I nodded. "Mostly the older ones, to be honest."

He raised his eyebrows. "So you know where our name comes from?"

"Of course," I said. "Sam Fuller, 1953. Awful movie, great t.i.tle."

He smiled. "That's just what David said." He pointed at Eric as Eric rushed by again. "That's what David was supposed to pick up the day he was hurt."

"The Steadicam?"

He nodded. "That's why I don't get it."

"Get what?"

"The accident. He wasn't supposed to be there."

"On the corner of Congress and Purchase?"

"Yeah."

"Where was he supposed to be?"

"Natick."

"Natick," I said. "Birthplace of Doug Flutie and girls with big hair?"

He nodded. "And the Natick Mall, of course."

"Of course. But Natick's about twenty miles away."

"Yup. And that's where the Steadicam was." He gestured with his head at it. "That piece of equipment makes most of the stuff we have here-all of which costs a G.o.dd.a.m.n fortune-look cheap. The guy in Natick was fire-saling it. Rock bottom. David raced raced out of here. But he never arrived. Next thing, he's back downtown on that corner." He pointed out the window in the direction of the financial district a few blocks north. out of here. But he never arrived. Next thing, he's back downtown on that corner." He pointed out the window in the direction of the financial district a few blocks north.

"You tell the police this?"

He nodded. "They got back to me a few days later, said they had absolutely no doubt it was an accident. I spoke at length to a detective, and I came away pretty convinced they were right. David tripped in broad daylight in front of something like forty witnesses. So I guess I don't question that what happened to him was an accident, I'd just like to know what the h.e.l.l made him turn back from Natick before he arrived and come back into the city. I told the detective this, and he said his job was to determine whether it was an accident, and on that score, he was satisfied. Everything else was 'irrelevant.' His word."

"You?"

He rubbed his smooth head. "David wasn't irrelevant. David was just a terrific guy. I'm not saying he was perfect. He had flaws, okay, but-"

"Such as?"

"Well, he had no head for the nuts-and-bolts of hard business, and he was a pretty serious flirt when Karen wasn't around."

"Did he fool around on her?" I asked.

"No." He shook his head emphatically. "No, it was more like he enjoyed knowing he still had it. He liked the attention of pretty women, knowing they dug his action. Yeah, it was childish, and down the road maybe all that playing with fire would have gotten him burned, but he truly loved Karen, and he was determined to stay faithful to her."

"With his body, if not his mind," I said.

"Exactly." He smiled, then sighed. "Look, I bankrolled this company with Daddy's money, okay? I signed off on the loans. Without my name, no way it would have got off the ground. And I have a pa.s.sion for it, and I'm not dumb, but David, he had talent. He was the face of this company, and the soul. People did business with us because David went out and made the contacts. David reached out to the independent film companies, the industrials, the commercials guys. It was David who convinced Warner Brothers that they should get their Panther dolly through us when they were shooting that Costner movie here last year, and once they liked the dolly they came back to us for replacement thirty-fives, replacement lights, filters, booms." He chuckled. "You name it, they were always breaking something. Then they began to transfer their raw stock on our Rank when theirs went down, and cut their second-unit stuff on our Avids. And it was David who pulled that money in. Not me. David had charm and pizzazz, but more than that, you believed him. His word was his bond, and he never f.u.c.ked anyone on a deal. David would have made this company. Without him?" He looked around the room, gave all that youth and energy and equipment a small shrug and a sad smile. "We'll probably go under within eighteen months."

"Who profits if you do?"

He thought about it for a bit, drummed his palms on his bare knees. "A few rival companies, I suppose, but not in any huge way. We weren't taking all that much business, so I'm not sure we'll leave all that much business to scoop up if we go under."

"You got the Warner Brothers gig."

"True. But Eight Millimeter got the Branagh film Fox Searchlight did here, and Martini Shot landed the Mamet film. I mean, we all had our slices of pie, and none were too big or too little. I can tell you that n.o.body's going to make millions or even hundreds of thousands because David's no longer on the scene." He placed his hands behind his head and looked up at the steel rafters and exposed heating pipes. "It would have been nice, though. As David used to say, we might not have gotten rich, but we might have gotten comfy."

"What about the insurance?"

He used his hands to push his head back toward me, looked into my eyes with his elbows framing his face. "What about it?"

"I heard Karen Nichols was going broke trying to pay David's medical bills."

"And that led you to believe...?"