Chapter Ten #2
Libby exploded. “How in hell should I know? The script isn't
finished. Valentine has gone there to find peace or something,
okay? God knows I wish I
could. Are you gonna try this again or
not?”
Already
Laurie could feel the changes begin. He was a director's dream, or
so he'd been told by all his directors so far. He picked up
instruction almost before it had been given—the spirit of it, not
the letter, delivering what was needed but could not be expressed.
He was Devlin Steele, face to face with Valentine in a
heart-stopping confrontation whose subtly nuanced power would glue
backsides to seats across the globe. If Libby took it seriously,
then so could he. “Yes. I'll try again.”
“Good. Sal, get back here, will you?” To Laurie's astonishment,
she reached out and ran an appreciative palm across his cheek.
“God, look at you! Fucking delicious. Right—off you go.”
***
When he
finished, the chair directly behind the camera was occupied. Devlin
gave Valentine one last darkling glance, allowed Laurie Fitzroy to
take back his skin, and inclined his head to the newcomer, whose
face he recognised from the entertainment sections of the
newspapers. Douglas Brett didn't move. He was leaning on one elbow,
listening intently to Libby. Whatever she'd been saying, Laurie
only tuned in for the last part.
“And he barely needs a script. I think he's eidetic—he
flash-learned his lines for this scene.”
Brett
rested his chin on his hand. He looked Laurie over thoughtfully, as
if he'd been an image on a screen. “Given how little Devlin has to
say in this film, that's not a huge advantage to us.”
“I've checked his stage credentials. He's never used a double
for his fights or action scenes.”
“Given the insurance, we'd barely allow him to
move.”
Libby sighed. She looked briefly tempted to crack Douglas
Brett across the head with her clipboard. “All right. He's
twenty-one, British—English
British—and hot as hell. And Valentine is starting
to look...”
She leaned in close and whispered the rest. Whatever it was,
it made Brett grimace. “I'm not arguing,” he said, never altering
his steady examination of Laurie. “I can see he's good. But I've
got three RADA grads and that kid from School For Wizards to see yet. Put
him on the shortlist and send him home.”
Laurie
shrugged off the freeze-frame stillness his theatrical discipline
had imposed upon him. He had learned years ago to wait in
respectful silence while a director tore his audition piece apart.
He wasn't in the theatre now. He stepped around the camera and
walked up to Brett, smiling, hand outstretched, his implied reproof
good-humoured but so obvious that the producer actually scrambled
upright. “Laurie Fitzroy. I appreciated your email, Mr Brett. It's
good to meet you.”
“Um. Email, yes.” Clearly Brett wasn't accustomed to images who
emerged from his green screen and interacted with him. He shook
Laurie's hand. “You tested well, Mr Fitzroy. Now, if you'll just
leave all your details with Libby here, we'll call you
if—”
“You don't understand.” Laurie allowed his smile to widen
slightly, amped up its bright, imperious charm. “I didn't come here
to test for Devlin Steele. I came to get the part.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I'm in rehearsal for Sir Ralf Evans' new production of
Romeo And Juliet. I
haven't signed contracts yet, but I will do tomorrow unless I hear
from you.”
Brett
burst into raucous laughter. Behind him, still clutching her
clipboard, Libby looked as if she'd swallowed a goldfish whole. “It
doesn't work like that, my friend! You'll wait till we've seen all
our candidates, and then you'll wait some more while we run your
clip through the labs. Libby says you've never even worked a CG
role before, so—”
“All right,” Laurie said mildly. “I hope you find your Steele.
That School For Wizards
guy is very good.” He picked up his jacket from
the chair. “It was an honour to talk with you.”
“Details!” Brett bellowed at him just as he reached the door.
“Leave your damn details with Libby!”
“She already has my phone number. That's all she needs, isn't
it?” Laurie grinned and glanced around the studio. “Thank you,
Libby. Thanks, Mikey and Sal. Take care, okay?”
He set
off down the corridor. He'd pulled this trick before, in a
desperation almost as great as he was feeling now. That time Alison
Jones had come running after him, stopped him on the steps of the
Rayne's End.
No-one
came running now. That was all right, Laurie told himself. These
were bigger stakes. Hollywood directors didn't go chasing after
upstart newcomers—not instantly anyway. There had to be a dignified
pause.
It
lasted until he was in the studio's reception, where he chatted for
a minute to the admin girl and passed the time of day with the
other nervous hopefuls, and then it lasted some more. Laurie told
the others not to worry—that Brett was a pussycat, and Libby much
less fearsome than she seemed. He waited for the desk phone to
ring, and then he emerged into the sunny, noisy street.
The Tube
stop was a minute's stroll away. Laurie didn't set off with his
phone in his hand, but he switched it to vibrate, put it in his
pocket and rested his fingertips on it while he walked. The phone
remained silent and still. The crowd jostled him lightly. Among its
shapes and colours he saw again the skinny, grey-hooded ghost, and
then further off a dark-haired man who could be Stefan Petrica, or
could be anyone, or nobody at all. He reached the entrance to the
underpass and plunged into the neon dark. His phone didn't ring,
but the signal down here was bad. He kept walking.