Swimming to Catalina

I’mgoing to make you even more beautiful.”
    “What, exactly, are you going to do to me?”
    “Not much,” she said, unbuttoning his shirt collar and lining it with tissues. “Your problem is you’re the world’s whitest white man.” She ran her fingers through his hair. “Can’t tell you how long it’s been since I saw a real blond, male or female. You have fairly blond skin, too, although I see you’ve picked up a little sun since you’ve been in town. You’re going to have a lot of light dumped on you on the set, and without makeup, you’d look like a corpse, especially next to Vance, who’s so tan he doesn’t need makeup. My job is to make you look like a living person under those lights.” She tilted his head back onto the headrest and went to work.
    When she had finished Stone opened his eyes and looked into the mirror. “I’m orange,” he said.
    “You won’t be under light. I’ll be on the set to touch you up between takes. Try not to get too hot and start sweating; it just makes everything hotter. I’ll have a fan for you. At the end of the day, you can come back here for cleanup, or there’s cold cream in your trailer. Use that before you shower.”
    Corbin drove Stone back to Stage Twelve, and escorted him inside.
    It was as cavernous as the first stage Stone had visited, but instead of the farmhouse, there was a warren of sets—offices, a conference room, a jury room, a bedroom, and, finally, a courtroom.
    There was a lot of action in the courtroom—technicians of every sort swarmed over the set, adjusting lights and props. Gradually, actors arrived, dressed as lawyers, cops, jurors, and spectators, then Mario Ciano made his appearance.

    “Good morning, Stone,” he said. “We’re going to shoot Scene 14A, where you question your first witness, the junkie.”
    “Right,” Stone said, finding the right page.
    “We’re not going strictly in chronological order; I don’t want you to have to shoot your opening statement to the jury first time out of the stall. We’ll get you warmed up with a rehearsal, then your little scene, then we’ll shoot Vance’s cross-examination, then we’ll get reaction shots from both of you. You’ll have to be on the set most of the day, because you can be seen in backgrounds.”
    Stone was introduced to the actor playing his second chair, then rehearsals began. Stone learned to stop on a mark and ignore the camera, then they began shooting. It was more difficult than he had imagined it would be, but he got it done.
    He had a sandwich in his RV dressing room at lunch; his suit was pressed, and Sally Dunn came and redid his makeup. “I hear it’s going well,” she said.
    After lunch, Vance Calder did his scenes, then Stone sat and did reaction shots while Vance read his lines off-camera, then Stone read while Vance reacted. By the end of the day they had finished five pages of script, about five minutes on film, which Stone was told was a good day. When shooting was done, he removed his own makeup, showered, and surrendered his new suit to wardrobe, which would press and, if necessary, clean it overnight. By the time he arrived back at the Bel-Air, he was exhausted.
    He opened the door to his room and found two little envelopes on the floor containing his day’s messages. The first was from Bill Eggers.
    “So how’s the movie star?”

    “Exhausted. You wouldn’t believe how hard actors work.”
    “Yeah, sure.”
    “What’s up?”
    “I made a few calls about Onofrio Ippolito.”
    “What did you find out?”
    “It was really weird;nobody would say anything about him, good or bad.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean, every time I asked somebody about Ippolito he’d say, ‘Oh, he’s a banker, I think,’ and then he’d get Alzheimer’s. And these are people who should know stuff about him, people who know stuff abouteverybody. ”
    “So they’re protecting him?”
    “More likely, they’re scared shitless of him.”
    “Maybe I should have been nicer to him at dinner.”
    “I hope you didn’t spill anything on him.”
    “I hope so, too.”
    “It worries me, Stone. I’ve never run into anything quite like this before. Usually I can find out anything about anybody with three or four calls.”
    “Well, there’s nothing to be worried about. I sat next to him at dinner, and that’s it. There’s no reason why I should have any further contact with him.”
    “I’d keep it that way, if I were you.”
    “I’ll try;