The McBain Brief Read Online Free PDF

and she had apologized for not being so good at this line of work, but she was really an unemployed actress and had just taken the job to make ends meet. Solly had immediately told her we’d been looking for somebody exactly like her to play a role in a low-budget movie we were doing, and this had got her interested, and she’d agreed to talk it over with us the next day. And it was Solly who picked up the ball the minute she came to the table shaking rain out of her frizzy blonde hair and saying she was always starved after dance class, could she order something to eat, would that be all right? She ate like a friggin horse, that girl. I hope Harry, wherever he is, is spending a fortune on food bills. Solly explained that we were three movie buffs who’d managed to save a little money, not a lot, and who were now ready to take a chance on a lifelong dream, which was to produce a quality motion picture which, if everything went okay, would make us all millionaires, God willing. He went on to say that he himself had written a pretty good screenplay . . .
    â€œIt’s a great screenplay,” Ben said. “Don’t knock it.”
    . . . and Ben would be cameraman on the picture, and I would be directing. We had none of us had too much experience, but we were sure we could make a movie that was a lot better than some of the junk being shown around these days, though plenty of those pictures, too, were making tons of money.
    â€œLike I told you in the massage parlor,” he said, “we’ve been searching for a girl about your age and build, who also has that nice quality of looking innocent and sophisticated at the same time together.”
    â€œThanks,” the girl said. She had listened to all this while first she demolished a big bowl of clam chowder, and then a plateful of pot roast, boiled potatoes, and stringbeans, with two buttered rolls. She thought it over now while she sipped at a glass of milk and nibbled at a sugar-covered jelly doughnut—Jesus, that doughnut. Then she said, “How big is the part, and how much are you paying?”
    Now that was when Ben came in, I remember it distinctly, I always give credit where credit is due. It was Ben who put her on the defensive by telling her we naturally wanted somebody with acting experience, and preferably acting experience before a camera because after all we were going to be shooting a movie here and not doing some crumby little play downtown in some grubby little theatre. And I remember she got very offended when he asked her what her acting credits were. She told him she’d been doing plays even when she was a high-school freshman, and since her graduation four years ago, she’d done a lot of summer stock and could even show us some of the really very good reviews she’d got if we cared to see them. She’d never been before a camera except in home movies, but she was only twenty-two, and she figured she had plenty of time yet. Of course, things weren’t going exactly her way just then, which is why she’d taken the job in the massage parlor, but a girl with her talent was sure she’d make it sooner or later, so what was the hurry? And besides, how big was the part, and how much were we ready to pay her?
    Solly almost blew it right then and there; I think he was very premature in asking whether or not she had any objections to doing nude scenes. For a minute, I thought she was going to get up and walk right out, especially since by now she’d also finished the doughnut and the glass of milk. But she looked Solly straight in the eye, and she said in this very tiny sort of breathless voiceshe had, “What do you mean? Do you mean I’ll have to take off my clothes in front of a camera and everything?” And that was where I stepped in, and saved the day. I figured there was no sense kidding this girl, she had to know sooner or later what the project was. If we lost her, we’d just have