head toward the outer edge of the lobby where two men and two women sat high on a riser, behind a table draped with gold velvet. “The autographs you want are over there.”
The long-haired boy mugged disinterest and gave Taye a flickering roll of his eyes. “Yeah? But you say you’re the director, huh?”
“Yep. That’s right.”
“Hey, that’s still cool, man. Gimme your autograph, too.”
Taye felt a brief ripple of pleasure flare as he took out the black Sharpie pen he always carried and signed his name on the boy’s DVD.
“You directed all of ’em?” the young man asked.
“All four films,” Taye conceded with a touch of pride.
“That means you directed that wild chase scene on that bomb-rigged bridge in Terror Train 2?”
“Yep. I sure did.”
“Loved it. The bomb! Hey, but I loved number four, too! The best so far, I think.”
“Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it,” Taye replied, appreciating the comment and impressed that the boy concurred with Taye: Terror Train 4 was his best directorial work so far. After having worked as stunt man for fifteen years, he ought to know what made a memorable action film. The Terror Train series had given him the opportunity to prove what he could do and even though the series went straight to DVD and would never hit theaters nationwide, it created a solid base of followers and pulled in substantial international sales.
“Is it true? Is this the last Terror Train movie?” the fan asked, sounding genuinely distressed.
“Yeah. This is it for the series.”
“Damn, man. That sucks,” the boy grumbled. “Why somethin’ this great gotta end?”
Taye offered a noncommittal lift of his eyebrows as the same question hung in his mind, feeling as agitated and frustrated as the boy. However, he understood how the industry worked: Taye was only a director. The money people held all the power. And without funding, there couldn’t be a deal. “Even good things gotta end sometime, you know?” he finally stated.
“I guess,” the boy grudgingly remarked, adding, “Stay cool.”
“Sure will,” Taye agreed, reaching up to slap palms with the guy, who slipped off into the crush of people clumped around the table where the real stars of the movie busily greeted fans.
Moving to a quieter spot in the lobby, Taye leaned against a wall and watched the animated audience move past, liking what he saw: young males in sports-branded clothing, slouch jeans, T-shirts and baseball caps. Girls in tight T-shirts, lots of jewelry, low-rise jeans and flip-flops on their feet. They were white, African American, Asian, Hispanic. Mostly young, but there was also a substantial number of graying baby boomers visible in the crowd.
A fair-skinned woman with dyed blond hair, accompanied by a bearded guy who looked stoned, stopped in front of Taye, breaking into his assessment of the audience. “You look better in person,” she bluntly assessed, blue eyes boring into Taye.
Taye snapped alert and stared at her. “What?”
She repeated her comment, even more emphatically the second time.
“Oh? Well, sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t in the movie.”
“I know you weren’t, but you’re a movie star, right?”
He chuckled low in his throat. “Nope. Got the wrong man. Sorry, I’m not an actor.”
“But I’ve seen you somewhere. I know I have,” she insisted, cracking gum that bounced from one side of her mouth to the other while intently studying Taye. “I got it! Read about you on Hollywood Web Watch. You’re the stunt man who doubles for all those big stars.”
“Used to,” Taye conceded with an edge of defiance, not particularly interested in talking about those days.
A pause. “Mario Van Peebles in Downtown Killer, right?” the woman blurted with glee.
Surprised to have this bit of trivia thrown at him, Taye simply nodded.
“And that was the movie where an extra got killed in a car chase and you got hurt real bad, wasn’t it?”
A stream of air slipped from between Taye’s lips as he inclined his head in surrender. “You got it right,” he admitted, realizing that he should never underestimate how closely the public followed movies, movie stars and all the peripherals connected to the industry. With all the blogs and Web sites and Internet chats going on 24/7, it was easy to find obscure details about actors, doubles, scene sequences, writers and obviously former stunt people like himself.
The woman bobbed her head up and down, sending her halo of blond hair into a frizzy dance. “I knew I was right. Tore up your back and now you direct Terror Train films.”
“A lot safer line of work,” Taye offered, giving her a playful thumbs-up.
“Yeah…well, you still got that stuntman body.” She raked Taye with an appreciative glance that lingered at his horseshoe-shaped belt buckle and then swept down to his black ostrich-skin boots. She ran her tongue over cherry-red lips and sighed.
Suppressing a laugh, Taye raised both hands, palms up, as if to deflect the uninvited compliment. “Even a director’s gotta keep in shape, you know?”
“Hey, that’s cool. The ladies love a man who’s tight…on and off the screen.” She shot an appraising look at her bearded companion, gave up an easy snicker and then headed out into the mall.
Taye laughed aloud, not completely surprised that he’d been mistaken for an actor. He’d stunt doubled for Mario, Will, Wesley and even Denzel in dozens of movies before injuring his back in that rollover crash nearly four years ago. With his career in stunt work compromised, he’d decided to try his hand at directing and had taken on the Terror Train series as soon as it was offered. Shifting from in front of the camera to behind it had been a risky move, but Taye had never been one to shy away from risks. And while accumulating his directing credentials, he’d also formed valuable alliances with important industry people who were proving to be very helpful. He already had a new project lined up that presented quite a challenge.
When the movie crowd thinned, Taye went over to the stars, thanked them for coming out to promote the film and then headed to the mall parking lot. He got into his dark green Hummer truck, fastened his seat belt and glanced into the side-view mirror, catching his reflection while recalling the blond woman’s remarks.
In Hollywood, image was everything and although Taye no longer stunt doubled for handsome A-list actors, he enjoyed walking into a room and causing a stir, especially among women, even though he’d sworn off all but the most casual of relationships since ending his marriage nearly two years ago.
Chapter 3
Jewel could hardly believe that Brad Fortune was gone, struck down by a massive heart attack due to a long-standing heart condition. And it happened so fast, she sadly recalled as she braked at a red light and scanned the block until she saw Bon Ami, the restaurant where she was meeting Fred Warner for lunch.
Sitting
