KW 09:Shot on Location Read Online Free PDF Page A

right? A story connected to the show, but not too much. Little strands. Teases. Coincidences. I get it. I can do that. But I need more to go on. I’ve only had time to watch the first half-dozen episodes.”
    This was a fib. He’d only watched three and a half.
    “What did you think of them?” Dole asked.
    What did he think? He thought they were utterly preposterous and highly annoying but drew the line at saying so. “Good soap opera …”
    The producer didn’t wince, and Jake went on.
    “… catchy sub-plots, plenty of balls in the air. But I need to know what happens the rest of the season, the season or two after —”
    Jake broke off because his tablemate suddenly seemed uncomfortable in the extreme. He’d lowered his head and was peeking somewhat spasmodically around him as if afraid that someone might be listening. Speaking barely above a whisper, he said, “Jake, we off the record here?”
    “Of course. And even if we weren’t, I’m just the writer, no one talks to me.”
    “Seriously now. Off the record?”
    Jake nodded.
    “Okay, then. Listen, I have no idea what happens in the next season or two. I have no idea what happens in the next
month
or two. I have three scripts in hand. After that …?” He let the question hang.
    Jake took a moment to process it. Then he said, “The buzz is that the show will run for six or seven seasons.”
    “Right,” said Dole. “And there are millions of people glued to their sets every week, dying to see how it all turns out, believing that there has to be a master plan, a God almost. But there’s no master plan. There’s no plan at all.”
    The producer swigged his drink, then leaned in closer, more confiding and seemingly more tipsy than he’d been just a moment before. They were three thousand miles from L.A. and he seemed relieved to talk. He took his glasses off and showed his eyes. What was in them wasn’t fear exactly, but a kind of surprise and bewilderment, a silent but frank admission that he was in the middle of something that had gotten way too big for him, maybe too big for anybody.
    “Last year,” he went on, “me and some buddies sat down with a yellow pad and many bottles of Cabernet. We had this kick-ass idea for a pilot. That was it. Now we’ve got a monster hit, a cult, and I have no fucking clue where it’s going.”
    Jake ate his second olive, scratched his nose, and said, “Be careful what you wish for, right? Must be a lot of pressure.”
    “Pressure,” the producer echoed. “Put it this way. The show stays on track, I’m set for life, I write my own ticket. It tanks after a start like this, I probably never get a job again. The phone doesn’t ring, the calls don’t get returned, I’m dead. I don’t think there’s any middle ground.”
    He drummed his fingers on the table. Jake looked off at the ocean. The seam between the sea and sky was fading, the air and water both trending toward a violet that seemed to have no surface, only depth.
    Rather jumpily, the producer flagged the waiter for another round. Then he pulled in a quick breath like he was trying to suck back the words he’d indulged himself by confiding. “This conversation, it never happened, right?”
    “Scout’s honor,” Jake said. “Trust me.”
    Dole managed a grim laugh. “Which is how they say fuck you in Hollywood. Last two words I wanted to hear.”
    “Except we’re not in Hollywood,” said Jake, “and I mean it. It’s between us. I appreciate your telling me. Now let’s talk story.”

7.
    Wobbling and weaving through mostly empty streets, Jake somehow made it home that evening. He opened the compound gate, rolled his bike into the rack, and was walking a bit unsteadily up the gravel path when he noticed a naked woman swimming laps.
    The small pool wasn’t really suitable for laps; it was only long enough for five, six strokes before a turn was called for; the laps, in fact, were as much about somersaults as swimming. Still, the naked woman