A Knife to Remember

with it?“
    “Jake was trying to blackmail me. Stupid waste of time, but Jake was good at wasting time.“ “Blackmail you into what?“
    “Into trying to get that little chippy Angela Smith into a scene with Lynette and me. As if Roberto would care what I wanted. Ridiculous. Jake was really scraping the bottom of the barrel when he got to me.“
    “Do you think he’d tried it on other people? The blackmail, I mean.“
    “If he had anything on them, yeah, probably.“ “But you don’t know who else he tried it on?“ “No idea.“
    “What did you mean about his wasting time?“
    “Just that he has—had a reputation for being a niggling perfectionist. It was his gimmick. He’s shut down work for hours getting some damned trivial piece of something exactly right and as often as not, it wasn’t even in the frame anyhow, but it got everybody bowing and scraping to him as a master.“
    “So he wasn’t good at what he did?“
    “Oh, he was good all right. But no better than a dozen others in the business. He just invented this mystique about himself and a lot of people bought it. The more of a bastard he was, the more the ‘legend’ grew. Well, it worked for him.“
    “Angela believed in the legend.“
    “Well, she would. She’s his niece.“
    “His niece!“
    “ Yeah, what did you think?“
    “She said he was trying to seduce her.”
    George laughed. “Then that lie was the only good bit of acting she’s ever done. Angela Smith’s shoulder blades are rubbed raw from sleeping around. She’s normally a hopeless excuse for an actress. My daughter took some acting lessons once and ol’ Angela was in the class. Angela got to be a legend herself for sheer awfulness.“
    “I wonder what else she lied to me about—“ Jane said.
    She wasn’t able to pursue this, however, as a production assistant burst through the “doorway“ in the scenery just then and said, “Oh, Mr. Abington! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Mr. Cavagnari wants you for a run-through. And Mrs. Jeffry, you can let your dog out now for“—she consulted her watch—“seventeen minutes.”
    Jane met up with Shelley while she was dragging Willard out to his dog run. “Learn anything while I was gone?“ Shelley asked, pitching in and pushing on Willard’s back end.
    “Yes, that Angela Smith lied to us. At least George Abington says she did. Unless“—she looked up at Shelley—“unless George Abington lied to me, too.”
     

15
     
    As the morning wore on, the whole atmosphere seemed gradually to become electrified. A photographer from People Weekly magazine showed up with an assistant who was ruthlessly snagging people to interview, and a whole crew of individuals from “Entertainment Tonight“ arrived on the scene and got underfoot in creative ways. These outsiders made a difference in the mood of the set. Crew members who had previously appeared practically comatose bustled around looking busy and vital. Grips hauled things about in an intense, frantic manner, calling out, “Look out! Coming through!”
    Jane caught up with Butch Kowalski briefly when he was having a short break at the craft service table. “How’s your hand?“ she asked.
    “I’d almost forgotten about it,“ he admitted. “It’s fine.“ He was slathering mayonnaise on a piece of bread.
    “You’ll ruin your lunch.“
    “Oh, I won’t have time for lunch today,“ Butch said, slapping slices of ham on the bread.
    A young man suddenly yelled at him from the break in the scenery. Butch turned and watched the other young man make some gestures, then laid his half-constructed sandwich down and gestured back with his still-bandaged hand.
    Jane watched this, fascinated. “What was that all about?“
    “Huh? Oh, we’re setting up for an important scene and Ted wanted to know about where to put some stuff.“
    “Who’s Ted and why all this,“ Jane said, imitating Butch’s hand motion.
    “Oh, Ted’s an intern. Getting school credit for helping Jake. Now for helping me. And the sign language is what Jake made everybody who worked for him learn. Cuts out a lot of yelling across the set. Jake hated yelling. He said it was an undignified way to work.”
    And that kind of attitude probably added to the “mystique“ that George Abington was talking about, Jane thought. “How are you doing on your own?“ she asked.
    “Okay, I guess. Jake had everything laid out to the littlest detail, so I’m just following his directions, but