“I’m fine.”
“Then what’s the matter with you?”
“She doesn’t know,” I said. “After all this, she doesn’t know. I asked—”
“Aud,” someone said. I turned. Finkel, looking sleek and self-satisfied. "Allow me to introduce our star, Sîan Branwell.”
Her smile was warm, her hand pressure brief but sincere, and her makeup flawless. I thanked her for being willing to fly back up for the day’s filming. She thanked me for making sure she would now actually get paid, and laughed prettily. She was an actress.
“But we won’t keep you,” Finkel said. “If you need us, we’ll be at the rehearsal stage.”
The rehearsal stage: a corner of the floor where Kick had taped out an outline of an area the same size as the tower platform.
I turned back to Dornan. “I asked Kick—”
“Aud.” This time it was Peg. “Our visitors are here. Did you know you have a great big smear on your pants?”
“Yes,” I said. And a great big bruise under that. I fingered the rust, from the crowbar, mixed with dirt. I hadn’t bothered to drive back to the hotel for clean clothes. None of the visitors were here to see me.
“We’ve got Pat Irenyenko, she’s OSHA, and her daughter, Ekaterina, eleven. Irenyenko’s the one with her arm in a sling. We’ve got Toni Merritt, she’s EPA, and her mother, whose name I didn’t catch but who’s about a million years old. And we’ve got the reporter, Leptke, and a photographer called Cheney. I don’t know if that’s first or last. I told him no pictures that he hasn’t cleared with you or Floo—Rusen and Finkel. Rusen’s looking stressed. Joel, as usual, is fixated on what he can’t do. Anyhow, I’ve already asked about tea and coffee.” She looked at Dornan. “That’s one macchiato, one breve, one chai tea, one green tea, and a swirkle.”
“What in God’s name is a swirkle?”
“No clue,” she said cheerfully. I left them to it and headed for the main entrance.
Toni Merritt wore an Eddie Bauer business suit that had seen better days, and her mother’s name was Margaret. I could see the genetic stamp on their narrow shoulders and strong chins. Irenyenko was considerably better dressed; there again, she was considerably higher up the food chain. I wondered if she’d even considered inviting Michael Zhao, the underling who actually did the work.
I was glad Peg had told me the daughter was eleven. Only a year older than Luz, but she looked more like a teenager than a child: rounder, almost womanly. She wore a bright green ribbon choker with a cameo around her neck. Cheney and Leptke stood apart from the others: the Fourth Estate, in all its impartial majesty.
I said hello, explained that we were very happy to have them. “Ms. Branwell is rehearsing at the moment, but perhaps later we can say hello. Meanwhile, let me give you a tour of the set.”
I took them outside and showed them the gas lines and explained that the finale would be filmed in separate parts. I showed them the production office trailer, and spoke of the astonishing amount of paperwork that could overwhelm a production. We talked to Peg, to Joel, to the carpenters. “Wasn’t it one of the carpenters who nearly died?” Leptke said. “Cheney, get a picture of these guys, would you?”
We spent two minutes posing and snapping. We were getting closer to the corner where Kick and Branwell were rehearsing. I could hear her clear voice, Now, when you shove here, really show the effort. You’re pushing this man from you, hard.
Then it was on to the costume designer and props manager.
That’s excellent. But move a little more from here, from the hips.
I hadn’t taught her how to hit people. Perhaps she’d picked up pointers last night.
Okay, let’s take five.
“I think we have a moment for a very brief introduction to Ms. Branwell, ” I said.
Branwell, lightly sheened with sweat—I turned back to Kathy and mouthed, “Tell Rusen to turn up the AC”—gave them the same gracious treatment she had given me. They basked. Kick spoke to them briefly, but no one but me had eyes for anyone other than Branwell, whom they crowded around.
Kick, outside the circle, looked tired. I wanted to pick her up, tuck her head against my shoulder, hold her while she fell asleep. I wanted to ask her when she might know. “Maybe we should forget the demonstration fall.”
She shrugged. “It’s only from the fifteen-foot platform. I’ll get the Model Forty gassed up.” And she walked away to do just that.
Getting the fans away from Branwell was like whipping hounds off a fox, but eventually I persuaded them that she had to get fitted for a safety line, and she escaped. In the background, the racket of an air compressor started.
“This is the scaffolding tower where later Ms. Branwell and the stunt actor will be staging the fight scene. As you can see, it’s very economically designed, with the steps built right up the inside.”
“Those tiny things are steps?” said Toni.
“Certainly. I’ll check with the stunt coordinator, but perhaps we could go up and take a look at the platform.”
“I think Mom and I will get that coffee now,” Toni said.
“Cheney and I want to get more pictures.” I remembered that Leptke hadn’t even liked standing on her desk.
“Oh, I’m sure it would be so interesting,” Pat Irenyenko said, “if only I could climb with this shoulder. But Kat will certainly want to go, won’t you, darling?”
Kat looked as though it was the last thing in the world she wanted to do, but she was too young to know how to disagree with her mother.
“We can do something else, if you like,” I said.
“Oh, no, she’s dying to climb up,” Irenyenko said. Mommy couldn’t, and so darling daughter must.
“If you’re sure?”
“Of course she’s sure, aren’t you, sweetie? She’s not at all afraid of heights. And here’s the nice stunt person. There’s no reason my daughter can’t go up there, is there? I mean, I’m sure it’s a very safe structure.” She leaned a little on the last phrase.
Kick knew as well as I did why these people were here, and what the right answer was. “If your daughter is fit and has a head for heights, and if she’s accompanied by Ms. Torvingen, I have no objections.” She turned to me. “When you get to the top, don’t touch the rigging or headsets, and don’t let her near the edge. Oh, and you’d better wear hats.”
KAT WENT first, keeping both hands on the pipe railings, taking a rest every few steps. It was probably hard on her eleven-year-old quads. It certainly was on mine. I felt every flex and stretch of the crowbar-shaped bruise on my left thigh. It was just pain. Clenching and relaxing the muscle would flush away the miniature clots and speed healing.
“We can stop at any point,” I said.
“My mom can’t do this,” she said in a determined voice. In her bright orange hard hat, her head looked very big.
“True.”
“It’s pretty high,” she said, a few feet from the top. And then, “Oh,” as her head emerged from the stairwell. She froze.
“Keep going, otherwise I can’t get by. That’s right. Keep holding on to that pipe, that handrail, right there.”
She leaned to one side but didn’t move a step farther away from the pipe. Her hand was white around the metal. Keeping her away from the edge wasn’t going to be a problem.
“You don’t have to look down, but if you look out, across that way, you can see Sîan talking to the director, Stan Rusen.”
“The guy in the glasses?”
“That’s the one.”
She swapped hands carefully on the pipe. “They look pretty small from here.”
They did. “About the same size as the figures in a foosball table.”