Swimming To Catalina

5

After breakfast the following morning, Stone called Betty Southard, whose name and number were on Calder’s card, said he’d like to see the studio, and was given the address and was told to be at the main gate at ten-thirty. He was on time.

He gave his name to a guard at the gate and was directed to a parking lot just inside. As he got out of the car a golf cart pulled up, and a tall, slender woman got out and came toward him. She seemed to be in her late thirties and was comfortably but elegantly dressed n a pale Italian suit; her hair was a deep auburn and fell around her shoulders. “Mr. Barrington?” she asked. “I’m Betty Southard.”

“I’m Stone,” he replied, shaking her hand.

“Welcome to Centurion Studios; hop in and we’ll get going.”

Stone got into the golf cart and Betty pulled out of the lot and soon turned left. Stone was suddenly submerged in a wave ofdéjà vu; the street was over-whelmingly familiar, as if out of some long-recurring dream. “It’s…I mean, it’s…”

Betty laughed. “A lot of people have that reaction,” she said. “I suppose a couple of hundred movies have featured this street in one or another of its guises. Have you spent much time in L.A.?”

“No, I was out here a few years ago for a couple of days, but the company was not nearly so nice.”

“Why, thank you,” she said, smiling.

“I wasn’t flattering you all that much; I was a cop at the time, and my partner and I came out here to extradite a small-time Mafia hitman. He weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds, and the three of us sat in adjacent seats, in steerage, all the way back to New York.”

She laughed aloud, a pleasing, unexpected reaction. “I’m glad there’s more room on my cart seat,” she said.

He smiled. “I’m not.”

She laughed again and turned down a street with a large office building on one side and a row of nondescript smaller buildings on the other. “This is executive row, more or less,” she said. “Mr. Regenstein’s office and those of most of the studio executives are in the big building; the smaller ones are occupied by producers with production deals, small businesses who work with the studio, and, of course, writers and actors.”

“Actors have offices?”

She nodded. “Wait until you see Vance’s. We’re on the way to Stage Ten right now, though. Vance is shooting a big scene, and he thought you might find it interesting.”

“I’m sure I will.”

She turned down a side street and drove between a series of immense hangarlike buildings, each with a huge number painted on the front. They stopped in front of number 10, Betty parked the cart, and they entered through a small door, past a guard. As soon as they were inside, a loud bell rang, several people shouted, “QUIET!!!,” and Betty held a finger to her lips. She pulled him around a pile of equipment, and Stone was astonished to find an entire New England farmhouse sitting in the middle of the soundstage, surrounded by about a foot of fresh snow. As he watched, a series of commands was shouted by someone somewhere, ending in “ACTION!” a car drove up to the front of the house, and Vance Calder got out, carrying half a dozen brightly wrapped packages, walked up the front walk, opened the door, and walked inside the house, closing the door behind him.

“CUT!” somebody yelled. “Print that! Next setup, Scene Eleven, back yard!”

“I’ve seen that house somewhere,” Stone said.

“Probably; it’s a pretty close copy of one in Litchfield County, Co

“Why don’t they just shoot it there? Wouldn’t it be cheaper than building it here?”

“Absolutely not. Here, the director has total control of everything-weather, light, snow. He doesn’t have to wait for all the variables to be just right, and when he’s ready for interiors, the walls come off, exposing the living room, kitchen, et cetera, and the camera can roll right in. They’re getting their money’s worth out of that house, believe me.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“They’re setting up in the back yard; would you like to go inside?”

“Sure.”

She led the way up the front path and through the front door. They walked into an entrance hall, then into a large, comfortably furnished living room. There were books and pictures, magazines on the coffee table, and a fire glowing cheerfully in the fireplace. “Notice that the doors are all a bit wider than usual,” Betty said. “That’s so a camera can follow the actors around the house.”

“It’s amazing,” Stone said, looking around. “It feels as though you could move right in.”

“You could. The bathroom works, and your toothbrush is probably in the medicine cabinet.” She led the way into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was full of food, some of it half-eaten. They walked to the back door and looked out into the yard. Three small children were sitting on the “snow” next to a large snowman. Vance Calder sat a few yards away in a folding chair, reading his script. Somebody yelled out an order, and Calder got up and came into the house.

“Hello, Stone,” he said, offering his hand. “I’m glad you could come. You and Betty had better go into he living room, or you’ll be in the shot.”

Stone followed Betty out of the kitchen, and they sat on the living room sofa. He pointed to a butler’s tray with an array of liquor bottles. “If it weren’t so early, I’d expect you to offer me a drink,” he said.

“You wouldn’t like it,” she replied. “It’s all tea or water.” She looked at him frankly. “So, what brings you out here? You’ve missed Arrington. I suppose you know she’s back East, visiting her family.”

“I didn’t have anything else to do,” Stone replied. “I’d just wrapped up a case, and I was at loose ends.”

“A case? You’re still a police officer, then?”

“No, I’m a lawyer these days.”

“What kind of a lawyer?”

“A very good one.”

“I mean, do you have a specialty?”

“My specialty is whatever my clients need.”

“I didn’t know law was practiced that way anymore.”

“It isn’t, very often.”

“Are you with a firm, or on your own?”

“Both. I’m of counsel to a large firm, Woodman and Weld, but I mostly work out of an office in my house.”

She cocked her head and frowned a little. “I’ve heard of Woodman and Weld, of course, but what does ‘of counsel’ mean?”

“It’s a catchall phrase, usually applied to an elderly lawyer who doesn’t practice full-time anymore, but who the firm calls on from time to time for advice.”

“You’re not exactly elderly.”

“Not yet.”

“What does ‘of counsel’ mean inyour case,exactly? ” she persisted.

“It means that I’m not quite respectable enough to be a partner at Woodman and Weld. I’m at arm’s length, but they can reel me in whenever the need arises.”

“What sort of need?”

“Let’s say a valued client is arrested for drunk driving, in a car with a woman who is not his wife; let’s say the daughter of a client is beaten up by her boyfriend, but the family doesn’t want to prosecute; let’s say the son of a client rapes a nun. That sort of thing.”

“Sounds pretty sordid.”

“Sometimes it is. All sorts of people need all sorts of legal representation, and not everything a client needs can be directly provided by a prestigious firm. The firm, in fact, is as concerned about its own good name as the client’s. They want these cases to go away in the quietest and most expeditious ma

“I suppose it must be interesting at times.”

“It’s interesting all the time,” Stone said. “And it beats estate pla

She laughed again, and he enjoyed it.

“Vance is tied up for lunch,” she said, “so you’ll have to make do with me at the studio commissary.”

“Making do with you sounds good; you’re a lot more interesting than Vance and nearly as beautiful.”

She threw back her head and laughed until someone in the distance screamed, “QUIET!”