Death of a Blue Movie Star

"I'm paying you a thousand dollars for a hard dick. This film shoulda been in the can a week ago." "So shoot around me. Put in some stock inserts." "Johnny"-like Traub was talking to a six-year-old- "people save up their pennies to rent tapes of you and your foot-long. They want to see the wand do its magic thing, you understand?" "I'mtired."

"You're strung out is what you are. You know what coke does to your yin-yang. You can be a lawyer, a doctor, a musician, probably even a fucking airline pilot and do all the blow you want and it isn't going to fuck up your job. But a man who makes porn can't do as much as you're doing."

"Just give me a couple of hours." "No, I'm giving you the fucking boot. Get out." Nicole had been watching from the side of the bed. She stepped toward them. "Danny…" Traub ignored her.

Johnny muttered something. He walked to the corner of the set. From a leather shoulder bag he took a blue glass vial. Traub stepped up and slapped it from his hand. It hit the wall and fell, spinning. "Fuck, Danny, why-"

He shoved Johnny up against the wall hard. Gave a vicious smile, looking around. "He thinks I'm joking? Yeah, he does! The man thinks I'm joking… I can't afford to carry you anymore."

"Cut it out."

"Shut up!" The words were jarring, pitched high, frantic. Everyone on the set must've heard. But they all looked away-at scheduling sheets or invoices or scripts. Or they stared at the coffee and tea they stirred compulsively.

Johnny pulled away. He sat on the bed, looking absently for his clothes.

Nicole walked to the fallen coke shaker, picked it up and offered it tentatively to Johnny. Traub stepped forward and pulled it from her hand.

"You dumb bitch. Didn't you hear what I just said?"

"I was just-"

Traub had turned back to Johnny. "I paid you up front for this week. I want half back."

Nicole said, "Danny, leave him alone, come on."

Traub turned on her. Said viciously, "A real actress'd know how to get him up. You're fucking useless."

Nicole was obviously frightened of him. She swallowed and looked away from his tiny piercing eyes. "Don't fire him, Danny. Come on. He's, you know, had trouble getting jobs."

Traub's face broke into a dark, simian grin. "An impotent porn star, having trouble getting work? You're shitting me."

"He's having a rough time is all."

Traub said to Johnny, "Fuck the money. Just get outa here."

Johnny turned abruptly and walked off the set.

"Asshole," Nicole whispered.

Traub spun around and grabbed her teased hair. He pulled her head close to his. "Don't… you… ever."

Nicole whimpered. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

Anger swept through Traub. He drew his hand back in a fist. But he looked around. A beefy, T-shirted assistant stirred. The cameraman took a step toward them. Traub waited a moment and released her hair.

Nicole's hand rose to her head and massaged her scalp. Traub gave her a fake smile again and patted her cheek. She flinched, waiting for a slap. He laughed and slipped the vial of coke between her breasts. "There's my-"

She tossed her hair and walked away.

Traub called after her, "-good girl."

*****

"Shoes," Nicole said to Rune. "A lot of times I think about shoes."

"Shoes? Like on your feet?"

"Yeah. You know. Just shoes."

Rune and Nicole were sitting in one of the dressing rooms at Lame Duck, which wasn't a room at all but just an area set off from the rest of the studio with cracked and mouse-gnawed Sheetrock.

They were on the fourth floor, the floor above the bombing. Nicole had said the company had decided not to move, which she thought was real tacky, what with Shelly being killed just below them. "Danny says we're got a sweetheart deal with the landlord. Whatever that means."

Rune had snuck up to the dressing rooms after the incident with Traub. There she'd set up the camera and zoomed in for a close-up of Nicole's face. She'd lowered her voice to sound like Faye Dunaway's inNetwork and asked, "When you're on the set with the cameras rolling and you're with a man, doing it, what do you think about?"

"Just one man?"

"I mean, with anyone."

"Danny likes to shoot with two men a lot."

Rune said, "Okay, say you're on the set with two men."

Nicole nodded to show she understood the question and started talking about shoes.

"I think about Ferragamos a lot. Today, before that thing with Johnny I was picturing this great pair. It has a nifty bow on the side, real small and cute." Nicole was dressed in a shiny silver jumpsuit with a wide, white belt. She wore cowboy boots with metal rivets on the side. Her hair was teased up high. Rune noticed that her scalp was slightly red from where Traub had grabbed her.

"I love shoes. I have about sixty pairs. I don't know. They calm me down. For some reason."

"Sixty?" Rune whispered in astonishment.

"That was one difference between Shelly and me. I spend everything I make. She put it all in mutual funds and stocks, things like that. But, hey, I like clothes. What can I say?"