“This is what we’ll do. We’ll bury him so his body will never be found. How? That’s the question.” Bob made another short, narrow lap around the trailer’s living room slash kitchenette while unwrapping his sixth stick of Big Red gum and jamming it into his mouth in mid-chew.
Marvin watched his partner from a kitchen stool, his left leg keeping time to an unheard beat. “Mmmm. Okay, what about this: we do it the way he wants, and frame him for it?”
“Fine, so what about Meg? She’s an ex-con and could have him taken out based on their sordid history, no one suspects her. It’s a natural.”
“But it’s too late. There’s no time to make changes, and what if Robino’s blackmail scheme turns out to be a setup?”
“I got it. We let the body be found in a public restroom stall…”
“Stop, no, I’ll hurt you if you finish that thought. Ass-holian!!”
There was a knock on the dressing trailer door and in came Nick, the director’s assistant.
“Guys, we need those new pages. What’s the hold up?”
“Nick, we’ve already soulessly lamed this script beyond recognition, and what Philip wants means we HAVE to do the ending over, too!”
Nick tapped his front teeth with his pencil and started a low siren noise of disagreement. “Nooooo, come on, guys. People are sitting around in costume and makeup is starting to run. Send out new pages with me or I come back with help in five minutes. Oh, and you know if that happens the two of you will…”
“Never work in this town again, yeah. We get it. Why are you still here?”
Marvin started scribbling on his legal pad: “Look, Meg comes in, finds the body, camera pans in tight on her face, and holds. She doesn’t change her expression but turns to the window, pick her up there with the crane camera, pull back out of the house, out of the yard, out of the town, fade to black, music up, credit roll.”
Bob slowly smiles, and it grows, “So the viewer has to decide if she had it done or if she’s stunned or what! Perfect.”
“Shall we try it on them?”
“This is why they pay us the big bucks, if they did, I mean. This would be the reason.”
They stepped out of the trailer and nearly skipped across the giant sound stage to the set.
Mike Whitney writes from a hill in North Carolina but sometimes just watches the birds, chipmunk and squirrels that feed outside his studio windows. They feed there because that is where he scatters the feed.
