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She’ll be lucky to get out alive!” He started to heel around, slipped in a puddle of catsup, and caught himself on the edge of the table. The gray eyes glittered like cold steel. “If ever a woman deserved to get herself wasted, it’s Dani Marsh! Don’t be surprised if I kill her with my bare hands!” Having steadiedhimself, Cody Graff stood up straight and looked down at his clutching fingers.
    They looked as if they’d fit neatly around Dani Marsh’s throat.

Cha p ter Three
    C ARLA INSISTED THAT I go with her to Mount Baldy and check out the movie company. Despite some confusion about the print order, the press run was underway in Monroe. Ordinarily, I should have had my weekly bit of slack time on a Wednesday, but the extra work caused by Loggerama was interfering with our routine. I demurred, but Carla was adamant.
    “Come on, Emma, you got your sixty pages,” Carla argued. “Ed came through for once. Celebrate. How often do you get to see real movie stars?”
    How often do I want to?
was the retort that almost crossed my lips. But Carla was so enthusiastic that I finally gave in. It wasn’t that I didn’t admire actors—I am actually a devoted film buff—but the idea of seeing them in the flesh has never thrilled me. Maybe I don’t want my illusions spoiled. Maybe I want to keep the on-screen magic untarnished. Or maybe I figure those celluloid gods and goddesses will turn out to be every bit as human as the tabloids insist they are. Why make a pilgrimage to meet somebody who is just as flawed as I am?
    But I went, piloting my precious green Jaguar across the Skykomish River and down to the highway and veering off onto a switchback logging road leading up the side of Mount Baldy. I noticed that what was known as Forest Service Road 6610 had been recently resurfaced, perhaps even widened. When we stopped at about the three thousand-foot level, I saw why: four enormous truck-trailers rested at the edge of a meadow miraculously covered with snow. Evenunder the afternoon sun, I marveled at how much cooler I felt. Phony or not, the delusion seemed to lower the actual temperature by at least ten degrees.
    Carla was hopping about, looking for someone she recognized. Although there must have been thirty people milling around, I saw no sign of either Dani Marsh or Matt Tabor. But Carla had zeroed in on a lion-maned man wearing a straw hat, cowboy boots, and faded blue jeans.
    “Mr. Hampton!” she called. “It’s me, the press!”
    Mr. Hampton’s teeth sparkled in his tawny beard. “Carla, my favorite media personality! Are you here to do a behind-the-scenes feature? Maybe you’ll get it picked up by the wire service.”
    Carta’s petite body jiggled with pleasure. Proudly, she introduced me to Reid Hampton, a director whose work I’ve sometimes admired but rarely enjoyed. Hampton’s pictures tend to be gloomy, not so much film noir as Kafkaesque. Come to think of it, Ed Bronsky would love them—if he ever stopped watching
Mister Ed
reruns long enough to see a movie.
    “Road Weary
was very provocative,” I said, knowing it was his most recent directorial effort. In truth I had seen only the trailer. Two hours of watching three derelicts beat each other over the head with tokay bottles had not impressed me as entertainment. But Reid Hampton was still holding my hand and beaming that dazzling smile.
    “It was a statement,” he said in as modest a tone as his deep, rumbling voice would permit. “I hope George Bush saw it.”
    Personally, I hoped the president had better things to do, but I, too, kept smiling. “Is this picture a statement?” I inquired, feeling my fingers shrivel.
    He finally let go and made a sweeping gesture.
“All
my pictures are statements. Poverty, politics, sex, violence—the whole human condition. The camera not only conveys truth; it demands a response from the audience. What did you think of Little Louie?”
    “Ah …” Little Louie, Big Louie, even Medium Louiewere