The Last Story Read Online Free Page B

love him. He seemed to have a special affection for me. He had a daughter my age, Rico.

    She wanted to be in our movie, but her father said no, she was too plain for the part she wanted.

    Henry could be objective, when necessary, and that was another quality that I liked about him.

    "Good news," he said as we went through the doorway. "We have a place to dump our sharks and tie our boat."

    "Universal's going to let us use their pool?" I asked, relieved.

    "Not unless we pay them a fortune." I started to freak out and he raised his hand to silence me. "It doesn't matter. I found a place out in the valley where we can dig our own pond."

    "But that'll cost a fortune," I complained.

    "It will cost us a quarter of a million when you include the backdrops and the support for the boat set. I know that's a lot of money but we'll have more freedom on our own set. We can shoot the hours we want."

    "How long will it take to dig?"

    "A day. It's just a huge hole in the ground. I have three bulldozers heading out to the spot tomorrow. We'll dye the water green-blue—it'll

    look like the Caribbean. And the backdrops can be painted by Andy's boyfriend or be computergenerated."

    Andy was our insane director. "This is a huge change of plan," I said. "It makes me nervous."

    "Welcome to the movie business," Henry said.

    "Shari, trust me on this."

    "All right, but I want to go out to the spot tomorrow."

    "I'll go with you. Now we have something else to discuss." He glanced at Jo. She took the hint.

    "I'll go wait by the pool," she said quickly.

    When she was gone, Henry continued. "I think I've found a replacement for Darren."

    Darren was our cocaine-snorting star. Personally I couldn't stand the guy but he was talented, and I didn't want to make such an important casting change so late. I told Henry as much.

    "You're going to give me a heart attack," I said.

    "At least with Darren we know what we've got.

    Let's keep him."

    Henry got up on his toes, which he did when his sense of dignity had been offended.
    "Darren knows we're going to start shooting in two days and he's using the situation to demand three times the salary we agreed on or he says he'll walk. Also, he wants half of it in advance—this evening. I told him that's just not done and he laughed in my face.

    He thinks he has us over a barrel. But no one talks to me like that—I don't care how talented he is."

    "Who's the new guy?" I asked wearily, knowing Darren probably wanted the money for drugs. The

    five million we were spending on the film didn't belong to me, but I felt like it did, and I refused to squander any of my investors' funds.

    Henry brightened. "His name's Roger Teller. An agent at CAA sent him over this morning after Darren issued me his ultimatum. This kid—I can't tell you how good he is. Andy loves him as well. He says he's better than Darren. Honestly, it was as if Roger was born to play Daniel. He's in the backyard.

    Do you want to hear him read?"

    "Right now?"

    "Yes. We have to decide in the next hour, one way or the other."

    "OK, let me see him. How old is he?"

    "Your age—twenty-one."

    I made a face. "And he's a kid?"

    Henry patted me on the shoulder. "You're all babes in the woods next to me. I'll bring him into my study. He can read for you there."

    "Alone?"

    "Yes. He won't bite you."

    "OK."

    Henry's study was piled full of screenplays rather than books. Henry had taught me a lot about the art of screenplay writing. It was easier than novel writing yet it made demands that were unique to the form. The main one was the limitation of space.

    Every word had to count, whereas in a novel I could go on about whatever happened to suit my fancy. Another thing about writing scripts I found maddening was that—with only dialogue to work with—I was unable to give my story a tone. First to Die was a straight-forward thriller, however, in book form, I had managed to give it a haunted feeling, which was probably why it had become