Darkest Night - Smoke And Mirrors Part 5

And not going to get any older either. All right. We're shooting an episode about a haunted house in a haunted house and that sort of thing never ends well. Real dead people not so big on the happy ending. So what do I do? I get everyone out of the haunted house. And how do I do that?

Production a.s.sistants had about as much power as. . . well, bottom line, they didn't have any power. None. Nada. Zip.

And zilch.

He had to call the boss. Since CB remembered the shadows and the Shadowlord, CB would believe him. Announcing to anyone else that he'd seen a ghost-two ghosts-would result in ridicule at best. "A ghost?" He could hear the broad sarcasm in Peter's voice. "Why don't you go see if they'll work for scale; I'm sure CB would appreciate the savings."

Come to think of it, CB would appreciate the savings. And he wouldn't be too happy about losing his chance to shoot in a house he'd already paid a week's rent on. Maybe he could get CB to agree to put the ghosts in the show. They clearly wanted to be involved; maybe official ghost status would be enough to placate them.

"You're going to exhaust the hamster."

"What?"

Lee grinned. "The hamster running around on that wheel in your head. You're trying to figure out how to keep those kids out of trouble, aren't you?"

Close enough. "Yeah." "Don't worry about it. I'll put in a good word for them. Darkest Night isn't quite a solo act no matter what Mason seems to think." They turned together to look at the clump of people grouped around the actor who was standing, arms crossed, glaring at Peter. "You might tell them to keep out of his way, though."

Sure, I'll hold a seance and get right on that. Even if he got hold of CB, how was he supposed to get hold of the ghosts? Glancing around the room, he doubted there was a medium in among all the size twos.

"Want to share the joke?" Lee asked as Tony snickered.

He did. And as bad a joke as it was, he even thought that Lee would appreciate it-right up until the back story killed the laughs. As he hesitated, Lee's expression changed; closing in on itself until the open, curious, friendly expression was gone and all that remained was the same polite interest he showed the rest of the world.

"Never mind. I should get back to work before we end up keeping the extras over their four-hour minimum."

Tony couldn't think of a thing to say as Lee flashed him the same smile he'd flashed a thousand cameras and walked away. An opportunity missed . . . An opportunity for what, he had no idea-but he couldn't shake the notion that he'd just dropped the ball in a big way.

A sudden soft pressure against his s.h.i.+ns drew his gaze off Lee's tuxedo-clad back and toward the floor. The caretaker's black cat made another pa.s.s across his legs.

"Tony!" Ear jack dangling against his shoulder, Adam approached the fireplace. "You get that mirror done?"

He held up the plastic bottle. "It's covered."

"Good. Clean your grubby footprints off Peter's chair, put it back behind the monitors, and . . ." His head dropped forward and he stared at the cat now rubbing against his jeans. "Where the h.e.l.l did this animal come from?"

"I think it belongs to Mr. Brummel, the caretaker; he was holding it earlier."

"Then grab it and get it back to him. The last thing we need is an unattended animal running around."

One of the extras shrieked with laughter. Both men turned in time to see Mason moving his mouth away from her throat.

"Another unattended animal," Adam added wearily, shoving the ear jack back where it belonged. "He's got a bed in his dressing room, doesn't he?"

"It's a bedroom."

"Right. Let's move it with the cat, then; we've got to do what we can to get these people out of here before he talks her into a nooner."

Given that it was the woman who'd put the moves on him in the kitchen, Tony suspected "You want to?" would probably be conversation enough. He bent and wrapped his hands tentatively around the cat. It squeezed through his grip, skittered about six feet away, sat down, and licked its b.u.t.t.

"Adam . . . ?" Peter's voice.

"Tony's got it." Adam's answer.

A fine sentiment but less than truthful-every time he got close enough for another grab, the cat moved. Once or twice, his fingertips ghosted over soft fur, but that was it. As amber eyes glanced back mockingly and four legs performed a diagonal maneuver impossible on two, he had no doubt the cat was playing to its snickering audience. At least it seemed to be moving toward the small door in the back corner of the drawing room.

The library, he thought, as the cat slipped through the half-open door and disappeared. I'll just close the door and the cat'll be out of our hair. A sudden burst of static clamped his left hand to his head. Son of a b.i.t.c.h!

"Tony! We've got sffffft stored in there. I don't want the cat p.i.s.sssssssstnk on it."

Yeah, well, nothing harder to get out than cat p.i.s.stnk on sffft. He sighed and kept going.

In spite of the rain, the two long windows to his left let in enough daylight for him to see the cat moving purposefully across the room toward the other door. He could understand why it didn't want to linger. The empty shelves didn't feel empty. They felt as though the books they'd held had left a dark imprint that lingered long after the books themselves were gone. The only piece of furniture in the room was a huge desk and a chair in the same red-brown wood. Tony had overheard Chris telling Adam that it had belonged to Creighton Caulfield himself. The fireplace shared a chimney with the drawing room and over the dark slab of mantel was a small, rectangular mirror framed in the same dark wood. Tony made a point of not looking in it. If there were ghosts in the library, he didn't want to know.

Moving out and around a stack of cables and half a dozen extra lights, he picked up the pace.

The cat slipped out the library's main door, Tony following out into the main hall. His reaching hand touched tail. The cat picked up the pace, streaking toward the front doors, then turning at the last minute and heading up the stairs. Tony made the turn with considerably less grace and charged up the stairs after it. Three steps at a time slowed to two to one and at the three-quarter mark, as an ebony tail disappeared to the right, he realized there was no way in h.e.l.l he was going to catch up.

He reached the second floor as the cat reached the far end of the hall. It paused outside the door to the back stairs, turned, and looked at him in what could only be considered a superior way-no mistaking the expression even given the distance-and then disappeared into the stairwell.

Just for an instant, he considered calling the cat to his hand, but the memory of the exploding beer bottle stopped him. While blowing up the caretaker's cat would certainly keep it off the set, it seemed like a bit of an extreme solution.

Not to mention hard on the cat. Besides, from what he knew about cats, it'd probably head straight for the food in the kitchen where it would be Karen's problem.

Nice to have his suspicions about that creaking sound he'd heard earlier proved right-the upper door to the back stairs had been left open. Mind you, that doesn't explain the baby crying.

The faint unhappy sound was coming from his left. He turned slowly. They weren't using that end of the hall, so he had no idea what was down there. Gee, you think it could be the nursery? And the million-dollar question now became: was it a new ghost or were the two teenage ghosts he'd already seen just s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around trying to freak him out?

"Tony!"

For half a heartbeat, he thought it was the baby calling his name. Apparently, the freaking-him-out part was working fine.

"Haul a.s.sssssssssstkta wardrobe and pick up Maffffffffffffffffk other tie from Brenda."

"I'm on it, Adam." He thumbed off his microphone and started back down the stairs. Investigating phantom babies would have to wait. And I'm so broken up about that. . . .

Crossing the porch, he felt someone watching him.

The caretaker's black cat sat staring at him from one of the deep stone sills that footed the dining room window.

"Good," he told it. "Stay out here."

Maybe a cat could make it from the second floor and through half of a very large house in the time it took him to cover a tenth of the distance. Maybe it was really motoring. Maybe he didn't much care. Cat weirdness was pretty low on his list at the moment.

As Lee and Mason entered the drawing room for the fourth time, Tony headed for the kitchen and the side door.

Tucked into the narrow breezeway linking the main house with the four-car garage added in the thirties, he thumbed CB's very private number into his cell phone. This was the number he'd been given when they'd thought a dark wizard's army from another reality was about to invade. This was the number he'd been told never to use except in the case of a similar emergency. Ghosts weren't exactly on the same level, but the bar had been set pretty d.a.m.ned high first time out.

"We're sorry, the number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang up and try your call again."

Great. His direct-to-CB number was worthless. One of the producer's ex-wives had probably gotten hold of it. No chance of getting to him through the regular office number either-not through Ruth the office manager, not by telling the truth anyway. Lying, on the other hand . . .

"Peter wants me to give CB a message."

"Give it to me and I'll pa.s.s it on."

"Uh, he said I was to give it directly to CB."

"Tough."

Something more complex, perhaps . . .

"There's been some of the usual trouble with Mason. Peter wants the boss to talk to him. I'm to hand Mason the phone the moment CB picks up."

That might work. When Mason was in one of his moods, CB was the court of last resort.

"Sorry, Tony. CB's in a meeting."

"But . . ."

"Look, Peter'll just have to handle whatever it is on his own. Call back in about an hour."

"But . . ."

"It's a money meeting."

c.r.a.p.

Rumor was the police had called during a money meeting when they'd arrested CB's third wife for torching his Caddie after a matinee viewing of Waiting to Exhale. CB dealt with it when the meeting was over.

"How long's this meeting supposed to last?"

"How should I know?" He could almost hear Ruth roll her eyes over the phone. "All morning definitely."

"I guess I'll call when we break for lunch, then."

"Why don't you do that."

"Yeah, why don't I." Switching off his phone, Tony stared out at the rain pocking the puddles. "Nothing'll happen before lunch."

He just wished that sounded less like famous last words.

Nothing happened before lunch.

The ghosts stayed out of sight. The baby stopped crying. Flies didn't gather, the walls didn't bleed, and there were no spectral voices telling them to get out. The traditional high body count never happened. Peter finished with the extras, completed the close-ups on the one bit player, and sent everybody home before they legally had to feed them. Although not feeding them was a relative term since craft services looked as though a swarm of locusts had pa.s.sed through as they exited by way of the kitchen. Their souvenir hunter didn't s.n.a.t.c.h anything else, but neither was the broken garden claw returned to the conservatory.

"I'm sure I can find a broken claw somewhere to bring in," Keisha sighed, standing over the kitchen sink was.h.i.+ng makeup off c.o.c.ktail gla.s.ses. "I'm just glad those tea bag figurines are still there. I could replace them off eBay, but we both know I'd never see my thirteen dollars again."

"Thirteen bucks?" Tony was amazed. Or appalled. He wasn't sure which. "No s.h.i.+t?"

"s.h.i.+t was up to $72.86 last time I checked. Sure, they call it coprolites, but we know what it is. Are you going to let the cat in?"

The cat was sitting outside the kitchen window languidly tearing at the screen with the claws of one front paw.

"No." He threw the denial as much at the cat as at Keisha. "It lives with the caretaker, so it can just go home. It's not like it's homeless and starving."

And speaking of starving-the caterers had set up lunch in the dining room.

Tony crossed the kitchen toward the butler's pantry, pa.s.sed the back stairs, glanced up and thought he saw a black tail disappear around the second-floor landing heading for the third floor. He turned back toward the window. The cat was gone. Next time don't look up the stairs, he told himself heading through the butler's pantry. If you don't want to know, don't look.

He'd barely settled down with a plate of ginger sesame chicken, noodles, and a Caesar salad when he felt a cold hand close over his shoulder.

"Geez, you're a little jumpy."

Considering he'd just dumped his lunch, not really much he could say to that.

"Listen, finish up quick . . ." Adam paused and grinned as Tony scooped another handful of chicken and lettuce off his lap. ". . . and head back to the studio. CB wants you to pick up the two kids playing the ghosts and bring them here." The 1AD cut off Tony's nascent protest. "You did drive today, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but . . ."

"So that look's just because you've got ginger sauce seeping into your crotch?"

"No . . . well, yeah." Setting his plate back on the table, Tony applied a napkin to the warm, wet, fabric and prayed that warm, wet and pressure wouldn't be enough to evoke a physical reaction. Oh, yeah, because that sort of thing never causes wood. He looked up in time to see Lee glance away and realized the actor had seen him spill his food. Tony's brain immediately threw discretion to the wind and added Lee Nicholas to warm, wet, and pressure. "Someone spoke to CB?".

"Peter called him about ten minutes ago." If Adam noticed the strain in Tony's voice, he ignored it. "Why?"

"No reason." It was just going to make getting through Ruth to the boss a lot harder. Hang on; he was going to the studio. Problem solved. While CB had what could charitably be referred to as a slammed door policy, it was always easier to speak to him in person. Where easier was generously defined as taking your life in your hands.

"Finish eating first."

"Right. Thanks." Might as well since standing up wasn't currently an option.

"CB's not here right now."

"And the kids I'm supposed to pick up?"

Amy glanced around the crowded production office as though the pair of child actors might be hiding in and among the gray laminate desks or the stacks of office supplies. "No sign of them."

"Great. Why doesn't Wanda drive them over when they get here?"

"Because the collate function on the photocopier's broken again and Wanda's helping Ruth with some remedial stapling in the kitchen."

Tony half turned following Amy's gesture and realized that the background thudding was not in fact the sound of a hammer falling but instead the distinctive slam-crunch of a staple forced through one too many sheets of paper. If he'd been paying more attention, the intermittent profanity would have given it away. "So I'm supposed to just hang around here," he sighed. Caught sight of Amy's expression. "No offense."

"Taken anyway." Artificially dark brows drew in as she scowled up at him. "I've half a mind not to tell you what I've discovered."

"If it's about Brenda and Lee; Lee already confirmed it."

"No. Knew it. You should see the graffiti in the women's can. What is it about wardrobe a.s.sistants anyway? Didn't Mason boing the last one?"