Aileen stood on the ridge, her black dress shining in the sun. She looked behind her and started running down the hill. A man in a flannel shirt, wool cap, jeans and work boots appeared on the spot she'd fled. He looked down the hill with a grin.
The man ran after her, catching up by the bank of a small mountain stream. He grabbed her arm from behind. She whirled to face him and writhed in a futile effort to escape his grip.
He tossed her onto the ground and ripped off her dress. She winced, but as he unbuckled his belt, her face lit up with anticipation. She smiled.
He lay down on top of her and kissed her neck as she moaned in pleasure. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth.
But suddenly she opened her eyes again, raised her eyebrows and sneered at him.
"What was THAT?" she burst out.
"Well, I tole ya beforehan' it wathn't gonna work," René said, his Southern accent distinguished by a lisp. "I wathn't gonna be able to go for a lon' time today. You coulda pretended."
"Cut!" Rico yelled. "What the hell happened?"
Aileen was furious.
"Pretend?" she shouted at René. "This isn't pretend. This is REAL!"
"Well I tole ya," René protested, pulling his pants back up.
"OK," Rico said, sniffing. "Time is money, people. Let's do it again. From the top."
"I cain't," René said. "I need a few minut-th."
Rico, sniffing some more, fixed him with wide eyes.
"Your contract said: Three money shots a day. And on command."
"Well, I tole ya, I'm not feeling it today. Especially with her."
"WHAT?" Aileen shrieked. "ME! THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME! She lunged at him but a guy in a shiny suit had already walked over to hold her back.
"YOU!" Rico had turned to Matt. "You brought me this loser."
"Hey, I just made the phone call. I'm supposed to be the electrician."
"Electrician MY ASS!" Rico said. "You're fired."
"You can't fire me. I quit."
"NOBODY QUITS HERE! You're either fired or you're dead." He walked toward Matt, menacing a fight.
"OK," Matt said, beckoning Rico closer. "I'll straighten you out, you screwed up cokehead."
But before they got within arms length, the shiny suit guy and the cameraman pulled Matt out of the way.
"C'mere bud," the guy in the suit said. "Let's call it 'creative differences,' and let's call it a day."
"Hands off," Matt told him and pulled back, then turned and walked toward his car.
The guy in the shiny suit followed him.
"You figure people get what they deserve?" the guy in the shiny suit said.
"I didn't deserve to waste my whole morning.”
"It wasn't a waste.”
Matt looked at him.
"I actually came up here to give you a job," the guy said, taking out a business card and sticking it in the chest pocket of Matt's T-shirt. Matt took it out. There was a phone number on it.
"No thanks," Matt said, and handed it back to him.
"Call the number."
"No phone. Like the song: No phone, no pool, no pets."
"Borrow your girlfriend's phone," the guy said.
What did he mean by that, Matt wondered. Does he know Mariko? Was that a threat?
Matt measured him up. Sometimes you can read a person and sometimes you can't, Matt knew. But he thought he read this guy pretty well and decided this guy wasn't fooling around.
"What's in it for me?" Matt asked him.
The guy pulled out a roll of bills from his pocket. He held the money out, counting the cash so that Matt could see how much it was. Ten hundreds for a total of one thousand dollars. The guy stuck the money in Matt's T-shirt pocket.
"And if I don't call?"
"Oh, you'll call," the guy said and walked away.
Matt laughed and got into his car. He stepped on the gas and a cloud of dust rose from behind the Mustang's back wheels as he steered toward the highway leading back to Los Angeles. He slowed down for three deep grooves in the dirt road, cut there by runoff from desert rains. Suddenly a roadrunner darted alongside him, then veered away into the sparse brush. Then Matt was driving back to the city.
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