scribbled notes in a reporter’s pad. Wild just looked straight ahead of him and McLeish looked down at the floor, perhaps at Space’s feet. Butler clapped his hands and his actor’s voice boomed out across the technology- crammed room.
‘Let’s do it that way, sounds good. Let’s get going!’
McLeish unsquatted and wandered off towards the back of the house. I heard his voice lift in a quick, angry Scots-accented shout.
Fuller and I picked our way across the snake pit.
‘Kurt, this is Hardy, the guy we talked about.’
Butler shook my hand in a powerful grip that must’ve started in the shoulders.
‘You agreeable?’ he rumbled.
‘We’ll give it a try.’
‘Good. C’mon Josh, let’s get fixed up. Should have some time to talk to you this afternoon. Is that right, love?’
Mrs Butler looked up a foot or so; she had a small, pointed face that looked even sharper when inclined.
‘Should be if that Scots twit is half as good as he thinks he is. I’ll give Mr Hardy the details.’
Butler nodded and he and Wild disappeared behind some cameras. Fuller was looking relieved that Jardie Butler hadn’t said I was too tall or the wrong colour. He slapped Bob Space on the shoulder and laughed.
‘Know what this guy said, Bob, when I told him about the picture? He’d said he hadn’t read the book! Good?’
Space blinked two or three times quickly and clenched his fists; for a moment he was sixty inches of pure aggression. Then he relaxed and let go a grin that showed his stained teeth.
‘Hah, hah,’ he said. ‘The laconic Aussie wit we’re famous for. D’you think you can get Kurt to be a bit warmer, Jardie, love-touch less craggy? We’re supposed to like him.’
‘How craggy should a private eye be, Mr Hardy?’ She turned on me a pair of grey eyes that shone hard and cold, like a slate roof in the rain.
‘It depends how smart he is,’ I said. ‘If you need some extra cragginess you can always hire it.’
She nodded. ‘After Richard shows you the set-up I’ll tell you about our problem.’ She swung back to Space and moved him away with body language. ‘Changes, sure,’ she said. ‘But not just for the sake of change, Bob. Constructive
I broke down and accepted a cup of coffee while Fuller gave me the tour. The company had taken over three adjoining houses and gutted the middle one. There were generators, refrigerators and fans all over the place. I counted fifteen telephones in the three houses. There were caravans in the biggest of the backyards and another couple in the laneway behind the houses.
‘They’re for the cast and some of the crew. I’ve got an office in one. Bob Space has a writing room in one.’
‘Hasn’t he finished the script?’
‘There’re always changes, sometimes it’s handy to have the writer on deck. Space says he sees his script as fluid.’
‘Piss!’ McLeish was suddenly standing beside us. He seemed to have a higher colour than when I’d first seen him and he was sucking some kind of sweet. ‘Script started off just fine, just fine, but between them the Butlers and Space are re-writing it by the hour. It’s getting worse.’
‘Shoot it your way, Iain, that’s your job.’
‘Aye,’ McLeish said vaguely.
Butler and Wild were deep in conversation over a table covered with bottles and the crew was all packed around them, each man and woman performing some small, essential task. When Jardie
Butler was satisfied with the look of things she beckoned me to go out back with her. She cocked one leg in skin-tight red satin pants over a low brick wall, took a deep breath of the Leichhardt air and gave me one of her Boss looks. She was strongly built, with wide shoulders and a flattish chest; her sex appeal was in her strength and she seemed to know it. ‘You’re no oil painting,’ she said. ‘How old are you?’
‘Around forty.’
‘You look it. Kurt’s twenty-five and looks thirty, I wonder what he’ll look like at forty.’
‘It’ll depend on the lighting. Tell me about these crank calls.’
‘They started about two weeks ago, no, three. Really weird stuff-like he said he’d throw acid in my face, or cut me. Said how would I look after I’d gone through a windscreen-stuff like that.’
‘Anything actually happen?’
‘No, but I’ve had a creepy feeling-like I’m being watched. It really got to Kurt.’
‘Was that the idea d’you think? I mean, I suppose you could have enemies…’
She laughed. ‘You mean I’m a domineering bitch. You’re right, I am. I haven’t got any talent you see, and a girl’s got to make her way somehow.’
‘I guess so. Well, I’ll hang around. I suppose I can go for a drive with Kurt, talk to a few people where you live, check a few things out. I don’t really think I can give him the flavour of the work though.’
‘Humour him. It’s just another macho fantasy.’
‘I can’t work out what you really think of him.’
She grinned and a little warmth showed in the slate eyes. ‘Neither can I.’
They got through working, if that’s what you’d call it, by 7 o’clock. I heard McLeish say they might get two minutes out of it and that that wasn’t too bad. Butler was too tired to do any sleuthing and I wound up my day by talking to the three security guards who’d be on duty all night. They weren’t bright but they seemed to be able to grasp that they should pay special attention to the Butler caravan. The happy young couple lived at Whale Beach, so they were in temporary residence on the set.
There was a small drinking party in progress when I left. In one of the undeveloped kitchens Space, McLeish, two actresses and a crewman were working their way through some wine and whisky. They didn’t invite me to join them so I went to where I keep my modest supplies of the same items.
The next day was one of the most boring I recall; I hung around the set while they ground out another two minutes. A copy of the script was lying around and I picked it up as a keepsake-from what I could see it was unlikely that I’d ever want to read it. I talked to Butler after he finished shooting and told him I’d check on whether there’d been any attempts to learn his unlisted number and invited him to go with me to do some snooping in Whale Beach.
‘No way, man, I’d like to but I just can’t make it. Bob’s done these new scenes and I’ve got to look ‘em over tonight. Tell you what, I’m going for a run tomorrow, early. What say you come with me-6 o’clock say. You can tell me how it went.’
I thought it’d give me a chance to see how the security boys were shaping up at first light and maybe Butler would have a few more ideas in his head at that time. I agreed to meet him on the street at six. There were three messages waiting for me at home-all prospective clients. I rang two of them and made appointments. I couldn’t see myself spinning out the Death Feast job for six weeks and it seemed smart to take advantage of the sudden easing of my personal recession.
We had the run, and Butler couldn’t resist keeping ahead of me and being more agile over the gutters. Leichhardt woke up around us; dogs yapped, and trucks delivered to shops and the cooking smells in the street suggested better breakfasts than tea and toast. I did a fair bit of panting as Butler showcased: we didn’t talk much. The action started at around eleven when Jardie Butler knocked over a camera and punched a cameraman who swore at her. I moved in fast to break it up, and eased her away from the broken glass and the fuming technician.
‘Easy, easy,’ I said. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I got another one of those bloody calls! Right here, on the set!’
‘Where’s Kurt?’
‘In the other house, getting made up. I didn’t want him to hear about it until I’d seen you. Then I knocked over the stupid camera.’
‘Same voice?’
