Magic Hour Read Online Free PDF

unless it was some specific request. Like get a glass of Evian; he liked it plain, no lemon. Or find out what kind of flowers the costume designer likes, because Lindsay had gotten pretty nasty over a red lace teddy; Sy wanted to smooth things over."
    "He never talked to you personally?"
    "No. Just hello in the morning and goodbye when I left—if he wasn't on the phone."
    "Did you ever see him angry?" Gregory shook his head. "Did you ever see him show any emotion at all?"
    "Well, he'd laugh at someone's joke on the phone, that sort of thing. One time, when he was talking to someone who I guess was very important, he was doing William Powell. You know, roguish charm. But nothing else. Not while I was around, sir."
    "Sounds like he must have been rough to work for."
    "He was kind of like a combo William Hurt-Jack Nicholson. Classy-scary-cold. I think if you had some value to him he could be very nice. But I had absolutely no idea if he liked me or hated me."
    "But still, even though he didn't show emotion, you say you sensed he wasn't thrilled with the dailies?"
    "Yes. The last couple of nights, he was white as a sheet after the lights came back on. He had to have known that Lindsay was running the film into the ground."
    "But do you know that for a fact?"
    "No. I could just ... intuit it."
    "Had Lindsay and Sy been fighting?"
    "No direct confrontation. Not that I ever saw. But most of this week, the air was charged. I'm sure, with you being in Homicide, sir, you know better than most people that anger isn't always expressed verbally."
    "Yeah, I know that. But if you're trying to sell me a charged-air theory, you've got to give me some substantiation. Come on now. How angry was Sy? How angry was Lindsay? Angry enough to have pumped two bullets into him?"
    Down near the beach, there was just enough light from Emergency Services for me to see Gregory's white skeleton arms start popping goose bumps. "Please, Detective Brady, Ms. Keefe may have been wrong for this particular role, but I have the greatest respect for her not only as a performer but as a human being. I'm sure someone of her intellectual stature and—"
    "Can it, Gregory! This isn't some NYU film school fucking seminar. Now, you'd been shooting the movie for three weeks. Isn't that early to know a picture's in trouble?"
    "No. Everyone sensed it. You know how there's a feeling of intense community? Did you ever see Day for Night ?"
    "No. And don't tell me about movies or actors. Tell me about life."
    "On the set, the cast and crew were just going through the motions, talking about all the other movies they'd worked on. Not about this one."
    "But what about Lindsay Keefe? How could she stink? She's supposed to be one of the best actresses around, right?"
    "She is a good actress. But her role calls for vulnerability under a brittle exterior. The only thing that came through in dailies was brittleness. And not sophisticated, Sigourney Weaver brittleness. Just hardness, shallowness. Very TV miniseries."
    "You personally saw these dailies?"
    "Yes."
    "Well? Was she bad?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "Did Sy ever express displeasure over her, either to her or to you or to anyone else?"
    "Not ... really. But he was so circumspect, you never had any idea what he was thinking unless he specifically told you." Gregory hesitated. I couldn't tell if he was trying to come up with something—anything—to please me or whether he was honestly trying to remember something. But just then, Robby Kurz came sauntering down the lawn.
    Detective Robert Kurz. Rain, shine, sleet, hail. Gunshot, strangling, knifing, poison. Man, woman, child. No matter what the conditions of a homicide were, Detective Robby lit up every crime scene with his big Howdy Doody smile, his endearing, snub-nosed face and the bright white light of his enthusiasm.
    "Yo, Steve!"
    "Hi." To get away from his relentless exuberance, I walked toward the beach, pretending I wanted to think. Naturally, Robby hurried after me.
    Lucky for me,