20
“So,” Mason began. He picked up and unfolded a wood-and-canvas contraption that had been leaning against one of the cameras, and I noted with amusement that it was an old-fashioned director’s chair. Like something Alfred Hitchcock might have used on set. I wondered if Mason had his last name stenciled on the back. “Even though you’ve already signed a release, I need to confirm that you’re aware that this interaction is being videotaped for possible public viewing at the discretion of SwordFight Productions. This distribution may occur online, on DVD, or through other technological means yet to be developed. By appearing in this video, you give full and informed consent. Do you agree to these conditions?”
Mason appeared to have the spiel memorized. I thought of police reading suspects their Miranda rights. They knew those by heart, too.
It didn’t usually bode well for the arrested.
Dry-mouthed, I nodded.
“I need you to give your verbal consent, please.”
“Yes,” I croaked.
“And you are of legal age?”
“Yes.”
“You provided a driver’s license with your written consent form and contract. Is that accurate?”
“Yes.”
“And would you state for the record your date and year of birth.”
Considering I’d come here to ask questions, I was giving a lot of answers. I confirmed my birthday.
“Excellent,” Mason said. “Tell me what brings you here today.”
This was the part where I was supposed to say I was broke and trying to make money to buy my girlfriend an engagement ring. Or, I’d lost my job and the rent was due. Or that my mother had end-stage renal failure and it was up to me to buy her a liver on the black market. Anything to endear myself to the audience, establish my bona fides as a first-timer, and, if at all possible, convince them I was straight and, maybe, just maybe, bi-curious.
Was that what I was supposed to do now? Did getting my questions answered require me to play the role? I looked at Mason for direction.
After all, he had the chair for it.
Mason looked back, a slight smile lying across his face like a dead slug.
Fine. If he wasn’t going to do his job, I might as well do what I’d come to accomplish. “I’m here about Brent,” I said. “I want to find him.”
“All right,” he said. “How do you think I can help?”
“Do you have any idea how to contact him?”
“I don’t.”
“Did you check his application?”
“Pierce?” Mason asked.
His assistant stepped forward and handed Mason a sheet of paper. “Just give it to him,” Mason said.
It was Brent’s application. He’d used his stage name, not his real one.
There were two emergency contacts. One listed his parents; the other was Charlie.
“The one for his parents was a ruse,” Mason said, anticipating my next question. “We tried it. The area code is real; it’s for a town in Wisconsin. The number isn’t registered, though.”
I remembered Brent telling me he came from Queens, New York. I also recalled Charlie saying that Brent was cut off by his parents.
“You think Brent was from Wisconsin? ” I asked.
“I think he wrote down the first ten digits that occurred to him,” Mason said. “You’ve met and talked to Brent. Was there anything about him that screamed ‘Wisconsin’ to you?”
Maybe he liked cheese.
“We have tried to contact Brent,” Mason said. “When he didn’t show up, we left a message with Charlie.”
“Two messages,” Pierce corrected from somewhere in the darkness. I’d almost forgotten he was there running the cameras.
“Thank you. Two messages. Charlie didn’t return either. But, then again, I imagine you know how he felt about Brent’s work.”
I nodded, scanning the rest of the application for anything useful. Nothing appeared revealing. He left blank the sections for references, experience, and education, but what would you put down for a job in porn?
“That’s a copy,” Mason said. “You’re free to keep it.”
I folded it and put it in my pocket.
“So, now that I’ve given you something, don’t you think you should give back?”
“What do you mean?”
Mason looked to his left and I saw he had a monitor there, probably feeding him whatever video Pierce was taping at the time.
“You look as good on screen as I thought you would. It’s a rare quality.
“Some people, even pretty ones, come across dead on camera. Flat. The features are pleasing, but you don’t feel anything when you see them. You might as well be watching animations.
“Think of all the models who’ve failed to succeed as actors. They’re perfectly lovely in still shots, but on film, they’re wooden. It’s not that they’re bad actors, although most of them are. It’s that they don’t come alive on screen.
“On the other hand, you have actors with undeniable screen presence. Look at someone like Sean Penn. Or Glenn Close. They don’t have the most classically beautiful features, but you can’t take your eyes off them. It’s what makes them stars. That indefinable quality of being amplified by the camera rather than reduced by it.
“Billy Wilder called it ‘flesh impact.’ He said the first time he saw it was in screen tests with Marilyn Monroe. He described her as radiating sex in every scene, even the comic ones. He said she had ‘flesh which photographs like flesh. You feel you can reach out and touch it.’ ”
I remembered thinking exactly that when I’d watched Brent’s movies at Freddy’s the other night. That Brent somehow seemed more alive, more present, than anyone else on the screen.
“Wilder said he’d only worked with a handful of stars who had that quality. Monroe, like I said. Jean Harlow and… Rita Hayworth, I think. The man filmed almost every major actress of his time, but he could only name three who had that magical quality.
“So, imagine how rare it is. Look, all of my models are great-looking guys. They wouldn’t be in my movies if they weren’t. But they’ll never have that ineffable something that sets them apart. That special quality that makes them the star of any scene they’re in, even if the other guy is technically more handsome, or better built, or bigger hung.
“After twenty years in the business, I like to believe I’ve gotten to the point where I can see as the camera does. That’s why I approached you after the taping of that television show. I thought I saw in you the same quality Brent had. Brock Peters has it, too. Flesh impact. Skin the camera reads as real.
“Of course, to be sure, I’ll have to see more of it.” The leer in his voice was subtle but couldn’t be missed.
The film history lesson was interesting and flattering. It might even have been enjoyable if I didn’t think it was just another ploy to get my pants off.
Something else disturbed me. Mason said “flesh impact” was something Brock “has,” but Brent “had.” Why was Brent being referred to in the past tense? An innocent slip of the tongue into which I was reading too much? Or maybe Mason just assumed that since Brent had stopped showing up for work, he was done making movies?
Or was there a more sinister reason for Mason’s wording? A subconscious slip that indicated he knew more than he was saying?
“I agree,” I said. “Brent did have that ‘special something.’ I didn’t know what it was that made him stand out,
