same since Vince Ryan stripped the gearbox.”
“Too bad,” Reeny said.
During the shoot someone did in fact recognize Reeny. Not from Star Crossed, though, but from a recurring minor role she’d had in The X-Files, when it was still being shot in Vancouver. I’d worried a little that Reeny might prove to be more hindrance than help, but I needn’t have. She seemed to know her way around cameras, which shouldn’t have surprised me, but did.
“I enjoy the technical aspects of filmmaking,” she told us later. “I’d like to go into production someday. Acting is fun, most of the time, but I’m no Kate Hepburn. When my looks and my figure, such as they are, are gone, so is my acting career. Who cares if the producer or director is wrinkly and grey with sagging boobs?”
“I like her,” Bobbi said after we dropped Reeny off on our way back to the studio.
“Me too,” I said.
“No kidding.”
“Do you still want to send One-Way Willie packing?”
“Him, yes. The job, no. I have a feeling working with Reeny could be fun.”
“Me too,” I said.
chapter three
“I think that covers just about everything,” Willson Quayle said a few minutes before ten Tuesday morning. He ran his finger down his neatly bulleted list of topics on the pad in front of him, then looked up. “When do you think you’ll be able to get back to me with an estimate of costs and a schedule of deliverables?”
I glanced at my own scribbled notes, which were strewn chaotically across four and a half pages of yellow legal foolscap. “I should be able to have a preliminary estimate for you by the end of the day,” I said off the top of my head. “Or first thing in the morning,” I added.
“Because,” Willson Quayle said, as though he hadn’t heard a word I’d said, “we’d like to have the site up and running by American Thanksgiving, in time for the Christmas shopping season. A lot of the basic design, layout and so forth, has already been done. All you have to worry about is the content and putting it all together so that it can be converted to HTML. Our people will tweak the final code.”
“Um, listen,” I said. “When you first approached me with this, it was with the understanding that all we’d be doing was product photography. I don’t have a problem with the film set and location photography, we’ve done a fair amount of that, but I’m afraid streaming video and audio and web page construction are way outside our area of expertise.” Not to mention computer capacity. The newest computer we had was the two-year-old Macintosh that was part of the digital camera set-up and pretty much dedicated to that function. The next most recent was a five-year-old PowerBook I’d bought to replace the one Carla Bergman had stolen.
“You can subcontract that work out if you like,” Quayle replied. “Or bring in temporary expertise. But what I’m looking for, Tom, is a one-stop, full-service shop. I don’t want to have to deal with a bunch of different suppliers on this. Frankly, Tom, if you don’t think you can handle this, you’re putting me in a bind, time-wise. The fourth Thursday in November isn’t that far off.”
Don’t I know it, I thought. “All right,” I said. “Let me talk to some people. I’ll get back to you by the end of the day, first thing in the morning at the latest.”
Quayle’s mouth stretched in a smile. I found the immobility of the upper half of his face unnerving. “The sooner you can give us a firm cost estimate and delivery schedule,” he said, “the sooner we can get the lawyers to work on the contract.”
“How long do you expect that to take?” I asked, wary at the mention of lawyers.
“You know lawyers,” Quayle said with a shrug. “It could take a couple of weeks.”
“Weeks,” I said, dismayed. “If we have to wait two weeks to start the work, it’s going to be damned hard to make the deadline. As you said, the fourth Thursday in November is not that far off.”
The corners of Willson Quayle’s mouth turned down in a frown. “It’d be impossible,” he said. “And if we miss the deadline, well, I don’t much relish the prospect of being unemployed. And, if I know lawyers, they’ll build in penalty clauses that could end up costing you plenty if you don’t deliver on time. You’re just going to have to take it on faith, I’m afraid, and start right away.”
Or tell you to take a hike, I thought sourly. Talk of penalty clauses made me nervous. And maybe I wasn’t the most astute businessman in the world, but I hadn’t stayed in business for eight years by taking a lot on faith. While I considered myself a reasonably trusting person, the operative word being “reasonably,” I wasn’t stupid. Well, not that stupid.
Willson Quayle leaned across my desk and, looking conspiratorially to the left and the right, motioned me closer. “My boss,” he said in a low voice. “If she finds out I told you what I’m about to tell you, I’ll be up shit creek without a bucket for sure. You have to give me your word that you’ll keep this to yourself. Don’t even tell Barbie.” He leaned closer still. “You aren’t the first shop we’ve approached. I won’t name names, but the first outfit, they screwed us royally, just took the money and ran. My boss’s ass is on the line. So’s mine. The company spent a fortune acquiring the merchandising rights to Star Crossed, and even more on the advertising campaign, which starts the first week of October, when the new season premieres. If I can pull this off, my boss will come out of it smelling like roses. And me along with her. If I can’t, well, my boss will go back to the mail room, and I’ll be out beating the bushes for a new job.” He sat back and shrugged. “The point being, Tom, you’ve pretty much got us over a barrel. My boss will approve any reasonable proposal.”
“Well,” I said dubiously.
“That-a-boy,” Quayle said. “I knew I could count on you.” He gathered his notes into a neat stack and put them into his briefcase. “Say, Tom,” he said, as he closed his briefcase, “how long have you known Irene Lindsey?”
“Reeny? Two years. Why?”
“Do you know her very well?”
“No, not really,” I said.
“So you wouldn’t know if she was seeing anyone?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” I said, although I didn’t think she was. Or perhaps that was just wishful thinking. “Have a nice day, Will.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Bobbi said. “Call him up this very minute and tell him we’re not interested. Jesus, have you been taking Botox injections too?” She dropped with a grunt and a twang of springs onto the old leather sofa. “Sorry, but I don’t know how can you trust that smarmy creep.” She made a sound deep in her throat, as though she were getting reading to spit. “He’s so utterly slimy. Can’t even get my goddamned name right.”
“I don’t trust him,” I said. “At least, not completely. But don’t you think you’re overreacting just a little? I haven’t committed us to anything except a few hours of our time to write the proposal. And if they’re as desperate as he says they are, they should be willing to advance us some money to upgrade the computer equipment and bring in some temporary help.”
