Last Days Read Online Free PDF Page A

film.’
    ‘Cool. I think.’
    ‘Which means that we are back in business.’
    ‘What film?’
    ‘Get over here. I’ll explain it all.’
    ‘Kinda busy right now.’
    ‘Unless you’re getting a blow job, shift it. You’ll want to hear this.’
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    ‘Mind, body and spirit. That tofu and crystals shit. This sounds kind of desperate, Kyle. I know things are getting tight, but—’
    ‘One hundred grand advance.’
    Total silence, then, ‘No way.’
    ‘Mate, get over here. You have to see the budget. All Talent Release Forms are signed. Liability insurance is done. He’s even forking out for Errors and Omissions cover. Broadcast compatible, mate. He’s giving net points too. This is un-fucking-believable. You in?’
    ‘Whoa. Slow down—’
    ‘Mate, we don’t have to tout round distributors, send it to festivals. Acquisition is taken care of. We are already acquired! He’s going for pay wall, embedded content, the whole shmoo. Everything we wanted for the next film and more. For once we don’t have to do the legwork!’
    ‘So this guy just calls you and offers the gig. Is this a setup?
    Where’s the catch, mate?’
    ‘Doesn’t seem to be one. I’ve been looking at the contract in the pub. From all angles. I’ll get a second pair of eyes for sure, but someone pulled out. Last minute. Not sure why. But I get the feeling this Max is in a real bind here. That shit happens all the time. But he needs an answer today if we’re in. I can’t do it without you, mate. Nor would I want to.’
    At the other end of the line, he heard the sound of Dan getting to his feet. A toilet flushed.
    ‘Now wipe your ass and wash your hands.’
    ‘Tell me more.’
    ‘I’ve gone through the schedule quickly. There’s an old mine. In Arizona, mate. Arizona! You believe this shit?
    Another couple of houses in the US. One in Seattle. Always 29
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    wanted to go there. A farm in France. None of them are going to present ball ache. All daylight shoots. Stationary interviews or long shots, medium shots of remote, disused places. No streets, no crowds. Undisturbed by the infernal rubbernecker!
    USB lead to a laptop as a monitor. Two cameras. All pretty straightforward. Only downside is the schedule is so tight there’s no pickups or reshoots at all. We cannot fuck it up.’
    Haste and unpreparedness were counterproductive,
    always. Here he was already compromised, totally. He often spent days looking at each location before unlocking a cam -
    era case. And that was not going to be a possibility. Was Max suggesting he had four days to look at the photographs of the first location, before working out camera angles and a shot list? Before travelling through three countries in . . . how many days . . . he couldn’t remember, but not many. Was it possible?
    ‘Hang on. What’s it about? The film?’
    ‘The story, it’s radical.’ He’d added to his feeble know -
    ledge by quickly leafing through the true-crime book, Last Days , in the pub. And the first thing he did with Last Days was exactly what everyone with a true-crime book in their hand does: he went to the plate section. And he saw seventies American faces in black and white, long hair and perfect teeth and freckles and centre partings. He saw aerial shots of desert, ramshackle wooden buildings, maps, and crime-scene photos that made him turn the book upside down and around to work out what was a hand and what was a foot.
    But above all else, he felt a frisson of genuine, authentic excitement. A long unfamiliar sensation that made him feel faint. ‘The Temple of the Last Days,’ he told Dan. ‘Hippy killers. I’ll read the files when I get in. Go to Amazon now 30
    LAST DAYS
    and get a copy of Irvine Levine’s Last Days . The third edition.
    It’s a true-crime book. Max has set up exclusive interviews with the surviving main players. All the pre-production is done. All of it. You believe that?’
    ‘It’s been done before. I’ve seen one of the