Dangerous Games Read Online Free Page B

just sinking into it when a knock came at the door. “You busy, Lu?”
    She didn’t answer right away, but apparently it wasn’t really a question because Rod came in and sat on the end of the bed, grimacing as he gave out a big theatrical groan. “Oooh. You have no idea, kid, the headaches. The director wants me to shoot second unit, no extra money. The editor complains we don’t cover him. The cameraman says he can’t stand shooting video, it’s too flat and soapy, and he’s never going to do it again. The famous Keith is gonna finally bring the money tomorrow. But, of course, Keith’s not gonna bring the money tomorrow.”
    She folded the page back over and set the book down.
    “Whatcha reading?” He took a look at the cover, with its impossibly dimpled cowboy clasping a blonde beauty and frowned. “You finish high school? I’ll get you something good to read.”
    “I was second in my class.” She didn’t tell him there were only twelve students in senior year.
    “That’s great. Why don’t you save up a little money and start in at a JC? Look what it did for me!” He chuckled at his own expense. “But I’m serious, you know. Unless you’re dumb. Are you dumb?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “There you go.”
    She worked up her courage. “If you went to college, why are you making these kind of movies?”
    He laughed. “You mean, why am I only AD on fuck films when I could be directing The Godfather, Part IV? You’re wrong, kid. The system is crap—it’s all killer robots and things blowed up real good. Why not bypass it altogether? We get to be the last rebels in the world. We film people going down on each other and how many Tarantinos out there actually dare do that? Who’s the real indie filmmaker? I’m a cattle prod up the world’s ass, and it’s all a gas. Anyway, the serious feature I made on the cheap right out of college failed so miserably I dare not mention its title lest the movie gods hit me with a lightning bolt. I couldn’t get a distributor. I couldn’t even get a screen at Slamdance.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said, though she understood little of what he’d just said.
    “Aaah,” he said dismissively. “It was pretentious crap. I mean it, I love what I do. I’m a juvenile delinquent writ large, and I get to stay this way as long as I want. I even get laid as much as I want.”
    She folded the covers down suggestively, though she was still dressed. “Do you want to now?”
    He patted her knee. “Lu, I was wrong to jump your bones the other night. In my house, you only have to do what you want to, when you want to, though it did seem like you were into it 100%.”
    “It was just nice you didn’t want anything weird,” she said. “It was okay.” The fact that she’d been giving it to boys on demand since she was thirteen, not figuring she had much choice about it, she kept to herself.
    “All that acrobatic stuff we shoot is crazy, but it would get pretty dull without it. The girls doing reverse cowgirl, the poor guys having to stand on one leg like storks so the camera can see their weenies going in. Can you imagine middle America watching and trying to copy all that stuff. I bet I’ve personally made a million bucks for the American Chiropractic Association.”
    She couldn’t help but smile.
    “I mean it, Lu. You’re your own woman here. When the money comes, I’ll pay you, and then you can rent your own pad, do whatever you want.”
    “How come it’s Keith who’s got the money?” She didn’t like Keith much. She’d met him only for a minute, and though she couldn’t put a name to it, he had something about him you couldn’t trust, like a guy with a habit of nasty surprises.
    Rod shrugged. “I think he’s just the messenger, the golden moneybags for the golden eggs. He claims it’s his money, but I doubt it. You know what I think, I think he’s found a group of doctors and dentists or something like that, and I just don’t ask. He knows