The McBain Brief Read Online Free PDF Page B

to look for someone else.
    â€œMiss,” I said, “this is a pornographic movie we have in mind here.”
    The girl blinked and said, “Could I have another doughnut and glass of milk, please?”
    I sent Ben up to the counter, and while he was gone I patted her hand gently and told her I knew this must come as a terrific shock to her, but she shouldn’t think for one minute that we were going to make a dirty movie, so-called. The sex scenes would be explicit, yes, but Solly had written a beautiful screenplay with plenty of socially-redeeming value, and the film we planned to make would be something that no one would be ashamed to take his wife or his sweetheart to, or maybe even both together, something in fact that might be beneficial to poor unfortunates who had sexual hang-ups as well. I told her that the film would be shot on a closed set, no exteriors, we would never even consider asking her to take off her clothes in public. There’d be only her on the set, and a few actors, and Ben cranking the camera, and Solly there to make any necessary script changes, and me, of course, directing. I told her I was a man of sensitivity who would most certainly be aware of her innermost feelings, and the feelings of any actor working with her, and besides I’d be the first to take offense at any line or gesture that seemed merely dirty or obscene without being also artistic and socially-redeeming. This was going to be a story of quiet beauty and delicacy, I told her, and she said, “Gee, I don’t know, I’ve never fucked in front of a camera before.”
    Ben came back with the milk and the doughnut, and hebegan talking about the kind of salary she could expect. He explained that some very fine dramatic actresses like Linda Lovelace and Tina Russell and Marilyn Chambers had got their start in pornographic movies of taste and distinction, but that their salaries were very low when they were just starting out—Georgina Spelvin, for example, had got only five hundred dollars for the extraordinarily sensitive work she did in The Devil In Miss Jones —but of course now that she was a star, now that they all were stars, they could call their own tunes and were even being sought after for work outside skin flicks. Considering the circumstances, and realizing that we were interested primarily in turning out a quality film, which would mean making sure that every inch of footage was in good taste and carefully shot, the most we could offer her was double what these other actresses had got. In short, we could offer what was a high salary for a beginning actress in a starring role in her very first big movie, and that was one thousand dollars from the start of principal photography to the day of completion.
    â€œGee, I don’t know,” she said.
    â€œWe’ll pay you an advance of one hundred dollars on signing,” Ben said.
    â€œHow long will it take to make this movie?” she asked.
    â€œTwenty weeks,” I said.
    â€œTwenty weeks is a long time for only a thousand dollars,” she said. “I make more than that in the massage parlor.”
    â€œYou can’t become a star in a massage parlor,” Solly said.
    â€œThat’s true,” she said, “but . . .”
    â€œI can understand what she means,” I said. “We’re offering her a thousand dollars for twenty weeks’ work. That only comes to fifty dollars a week.”
    â€œThat’s right,” she said.
    â€œAnd suppose we run over?” I said.
    â€œWe won’t run over,” Ben said.
    â€œHow do you know we won’t?”
    â€œWhat do you mean ‘run over’?” the girl asked. “What’s ‘run over’?”
    â€œThat means if it takes more time to shoot than we planned.”
    â€œMore than twenty weeks? ” she said. “This must be some long movie you’ve got in mind here.”
    â€œWe want to do a quality