Chapter Thirty-One

THE SMALL WINDOW in my trailer is open a crack, and I hear my name repeated by a multitude of frantic lackeys scurrying around the set. Lena needs this... Stan said Lena better have that or else... Mort will hit the fucking roof if Lena doesn’t get...

Lena, Lena.

My makeup has been applied, my hair styled and glued into place, and I’m ready to roll. As I step down from my trailer, I see Jack Lyons emerging from his. Wearing khakis and a black Cuban collar shirt, and freshly tanned, my leading man looks particularly yummy. I wave, he winks back. We’ll rendezvous at lunch. It’s light and easy, no strings attached—just the way I like it. But I am fond of him. Jack is surprisingly warm, funny, kind, and as generous as an actor as he is between the sheets. He never feels threatened if my role or scene is meatier than his. A good apple among so many rotten ones.

This scene, taking place in a small town near Lake Placid, is the climax of the film. Jack and I have been practicing all week in and out of bed. It’s our second film together. This one is a love story with strong elements of suspense, my wheelhouse: Can this man love a woman with a dark, secret past? Can she love a man who destroyed her husband? Yes and yes. Guaranteed box-office success. And obviously not a stretch for me.

In this scene, we both know we must break off the relationship or people will get killed. It’s the clincher. Tears well up in Jack’s eyes as he holds my hand, presses it tenderly to his lips. My return gaze, however, is as dry as the Sahara. The director immediately calls for a twenty-minute break, clearly wanting more emotion from me. I see the disappointment spread across Stan Moss’s face as everyone disperses.

“Lena, Lena,” he says, wrapping his buttery brown-leather-jacketed arm around my shoulders. “You’re the best. Everybody knows it.” He points to Jack, who is heading to his trailer. “Your husband’s nemesis, a man with his own secrets, has fallen in love with you, and as coldhearted as you are, you can’t hide your true feelings for him. I need torment, pain, struggle. Tears, Lena. Just one, damn it. The shot needs one fucking teardrop streaming from eyelid to cheek to show the audience that you are human.”

I glare at Stan and hiss under my breath, “Read my contract.”

“I know, I know. Everybody knows. The ‘no crying’ clause. But I can’t have Jack Lyons weeping like a newborn and nothing from you. The audience won’t buy it.”

I draw out a heavy, exaggerated sigh. “They always do, Stan.”

“C’mon.” His eyes beg mine.

“Don’t worry,” I tell him firmly. “You will get your money’s worth.”

Stan lifts his foggy glasses and mops his forehead with a crumpled napkin from his coat pocket. Someone nearby goes running for aspirin. “It’s not the money, it’s the artistic value—”

“Spare me, Stan. It’s always the money. Focus on my lips.” I slowly run a manicured nail over my famous pillowy mouth. “Concentrate on the quiver.” I glance over his shoulder and notice that one of the cameramen is still filming me even though we are on break. I point at the intrusive camera. “Who the hell is that?”

He shrugs. “Michael Somebody. From London, I think. Or somewhere else. Who cares? I was told by the studio heads that he’s an investor’s cousin, great with the camera, and to get him on set. You know how that goes. So I put him on backup to shut everyone up.”

“Why is he still filming me right now?”

“Christ, how the fuck do I know?” Stan downs the four aspirins that the script girl just handed him.

“Make him stop.”

Stan shouts over his shoulder, “Hey, you, cut it. We’ll begin shooting again soon. I’ll let you know.”

The cameraman nods. The light goes out in his camera, the shutter closes, and I glimpse his face. Plain-featured, sharp-jawed, reddish-brown hair parted neatly down the middle, early thirties. Unlike the other wrinkled, unkempt cameramen and crew, this guy’s clothes are perfectly crisp, as though he has a job interview. He stares back at me a little too boldly. His eyes pop a startling shade of silvery gray and then he quickly looks away. I’ve seen him somewhere before. Not on set, but where? When?

“At least let Elaine put a few drops in your eyes, Lena,” Stan pleads, interrupting my thoughts, refusing to let it go. “Glisten them up a bit.”

I watch the cameraman exit the set. I will revisit that later. I turn and stare down Stan. “If you ask me again, I’m walking.”

Stan’s shoulders go limp. He knows better than to push me; this isn’t our first go-around together and is far from our last. He also knows that I have no problem exposing a little skin if the character mandates it, but no crying.

He looks at me with hangdog eyes. My gaze back hardens. Man up, Stan. A clause is a clause. But the truth is, though Stan doesn’t know it—will never know it—I need him more than he needs me. He values my opinion, my input on character development, and incorporates all my ideas into his scripts. But most importantly, each off-studio location is Stan’s idea, which I’d planted in his head. Men are so easy that way.

Three out of the four dead Nazis got what was coming to them while I was on location on a Stan Moss film. It’s amazing to me, but not surprising, that no one—including Stan, who can sniff out anything amiss—has assembled the puzzle pieces. Hollywood’s klieg lights tend to blind people.

I eye Jack Lyons’s trailer in the distance, decide to shake off some steam. “I’ll be back in a few. Don’t worry, Stan.” I squeeze his arm. “You’ll get what you want. I promise.”

He throws up his hands. Despite the begging, Stan knows that my quivery mouth will give the climactic scene all the emotion it needs. He trusts my abilities implicitly, and I trust him more than anyone else in Tinseltown. I have known Stan practically my entire “Lena Browning” life. He is the first director I worked with and my favorite. We’ve done four blockbuster pictures together, having met three weeks after I arrived in Los Angeles, and thirteen months and three days after my first postwar kill. I always tell Stan a girl never forgets her first...