Crashed

mean, they’re sort of dangerous for a living.”

“Okay,” I said, “let’s do something that’s rarely useful. Let’s divide the world into two groups of people. Over on one side you’ve got a bunch of guys whose necks are thicker than their thighs, and they want the movie to fail so Trey will go down and they can go back to boosting cars and breaking legs. Yeah, those folks are dangerous. And over here you’ve got a bunch of movie people who presumably want the filming to go on so they’ll continue to get paid. And they’re, theoretically, at least, less dangerous. And somewhere between those two types of people is one of three things: a movie person who wants the movie to fail, which I think is unlikely; a crook who can work his or her way in among the movie people, which is almost equally unlikely; or a movie person who’s been promised a big bouquet of money if the movie shuts down. That’s likely, and that person is not very dangerous.”

“Until,” Tatiana said.

“Exactly right. When, if ever, will it become dangerous? Everything that’s been done so far looks like it was the work of a movie person under pressure, except maybe the tire slashing. So figure a movie person made the phone call to Ellie, who seems to be suggestible, to say the least-”

“If I were casting the role of Second Lemming, it would go to Ellie.”

“Okay, so a movie person phoned Ellie, and the crook in charge-whoever promised all that money-dispatched some thug with a knife to slash the tires. The until is obviously the point at which the person behind the scenes feels he or she has to take direct action.”

She nodded. “And that would be when?”

“If Trey’s diagrams this morning were straight, I’d say the dangerous period will begin tomorrow morning. Up until now they’ve been focused on screwing up the process so the company wouldn’t get to the point when Thistle starts to shoot her scenes, but here you are. You’ve gotten there. And that takes us right to the other question, the one about the movie’s Achilles Heel, which is-”

“Hold the thought,” Tatiana said, getting up. “Here’s Doc.”

I turned to see Milburn Stone, the guy who played Doc in the iconic TV series “Gunsmoke,” limp into the coffee shop. Same white hair, same drooping white mustache, even the string tie. It wasn’t until he was practically sitting down that I realized I was looking at someone who bore a passing resemblance to Milburn Stone and had decided to push it.

“This is Doc,” Tatiana said. “Doc, Junior Bender. Junior’s working with Trey.”

Doc nodded at me and said, so help me God, “Howdy.”

“Howdy,” I said. I raised my hand for the waitress. “Wet your whistle, partner?”

“Sure thing, stranger,” Doc said, and then grinned at me. “Pretty good,” he said. “Some people think I’m doing Walter Cronkite.”

“Y’all didn’t finish your salad,” the waitress said.

“You have a keen eye, Daughter of the South,” Doc said. “Gimme a beer.”

“What kind?”

“Whatever leaps into your hand. I’d be a fool to turn my back on fate when it comes in such a pretty package.”

“Golly,” the waitress said, and blushed. She backed away from the table until she bumped into an empty chair.

“I may be an old fart,” Doc said, “but, by God, I’ve got it.”

“Oh, come on,” Tatiana said. “She’s still got grits in her hair.”

“And a discerning eye for men,” Doc said.

“You’ve been with Thistle?” I asked.

“I have indeed, poor child.”

“In what way?”

“In every way you could think of. Physically, she’s underweight, anemic, got half a dozen low-grade infections, several dangerous vitamin deficiencies, and a complete spectrum of full-on addictions. Emotionally, she’s isolated, depressed, possibly suicidal, terrified of everything that moves. Spiritually, although that’s not my normal territory, I’d say she’s the sole inhabitant of Planet Zero, where the sky is black and the rivers are full of dead animals.”

Tatiana looked stricken. Doc spread his hands and said, “You asked.”

“Is she-Jesus, I hate to even ask this,” Tatiana said. “Is she going to be able to work tomorrow?”

“It won’t be anything you’d expect from having seen her on TV,” Doc said. “She’s going to get a good night’s sleep because I gave her enough Xanax to knock out the mule our waitress rode to California. Tomorrow, I’m going to top her up with some mild amphetamines and a couple of tranquilizers. So she’ll be awake and able to go where she’s pointed. She’ll probably be able to hit a mark if it’s a really big mark. Dialog is going to have to be on cards, and whoever’s holding them may have to wave to get her attention. I don’t think old Rodd’s going to get a lot of long takes. But I’m told it’s an easy day, so she’ll probably get through it.”

I asked, “What kind of a doctor are you?”

“A disbarred one,” Doc said, “with a practice that specializes in the criminal community.” He looked up as the waitress, blushing all over again, put a bottle of beer in front of him.

“I, uh, I brought you a glass,” she said.

“In the middle of this chemical and mechanical wasteland,” Doc said, “how refreshing to meet with a moment of unexpected grace. My dear, you make me think of village greens and little white courthouses.”

“We had one of those,” the waitress said. She looked at the rest of us. “Anything else I can do for y’all?”

“We’re fine,” Tatiana said. “Bye.”

“With a lynching tree in front of it,” Doc said after she was gone. “The courthouse, I mean. The South is so green and lush that you forget it’s from the nitrogen in all that blood.” He poured the beer carefully, tilting the glass to control the head, lifted it, and drank half of it down. “Before I lost my license,” he said to me, “I was a pediatrician. That’s good training, because you treat everything. And that’s pretty much what Thistle’s got, everything.”

“Why’d you lose your license?”

“What do you care?”

“Just thinking about Thistle,” I said. “You’re pumping her full of dope, and I don’t know-”

“Young man,” Doc said. “Thistle’s system is cleaner right now than it’s been in years. One of the reasons I sedate her is to keep her from going out and scoring some really deleterious shit. And don’t go getting all protective about Thistle. She’s not that amazing little girl you saw on television. She’s a fucking mess. I’m going to get her through this, and then I’m going to sit her down with a couple of friends to try to get her straight, because if I don’t-” He blinked heavily, finished the glass, and poured more. “If I don’t,” he said, “she’s going to get paid at the end of the filming, and I think she’ll go right out and kill herself. Some of the stuff she’s been using, she might as well have been drinking Drano.”

I said, “Mmm-hmm.”

“I lost my license because I was an addict,” Doc said, sounding irritated. “And that’s another item on my resume that makes me the right doctor for Thistle.” He picked up the glass of beer. “See this? This is standing in for cocaine, barbiturates, methedrine, and horse. I walked away from all that, even though it turned me inside out and left me to dry, red and wet, in the sun. Now I drink the occasional beer. A little cognac now and then. I know what she’s going through. And I loved that little girl on TV, too. I’m not going to let anything happen to her.”

“Other than this movie,” Tatiana said.

Doc’s hand stopped with the beer inches from his mouth. After a moment, he said, “Nothing I can do about that.”

Tatiana said, “I really ought to quit.”

“You should not,” Doc said. “You should stay right where you are. Try to keep that child in one piece.”

“Not to be insensitive, but we’ve all seen people who fucked themselves up,” I said, “and it’s very dramatic. And we’ve all got friends who are healthy now, when there was a time we didn’t think they’d live through the week. How fragile is she, really?”

“Thistle Downing,” Doc said, “is held together by cobwebs.”

“Doc’s okay,” Tatiana said. We were in her car, driving back to the studio. “He likes to talk, wants to write the great American novel, and he reads too much Faulkner. But he’s okay.”