Read Online If Angels Fight by Richard Bowes - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Richard Bowes
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the bill. The condo was one more casualty of his divorce and bankruptcy. When he could have sold, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. When he had to sell there were no buyers.
Everyone had consoled him about the divorce like he’d suffered a death in the family or been laid off from work. Monica Celeste had the better career, was a major presence on daytime cable. Quinlan told himself that if the situation had been reversed he wouldn’t have dumped her. But all that was in the past.
The San Bernardino matter was current. A runaway grand jury led by a self-righteous young DA was investigating collection agency practices. Some debtors apparently testified that a few years before Quinlan had led them to believe he was a cop. So far nothing had gotten out to the media.
That time just after the divorce was still a jumble in his mind. One thing he was sure of was that testifying meant implicating his former employers, which would be very unwise. Another thing about which he was positive was that lawyers had eaten up his Like ’60 pay.
Adie was at the office and in full business mode when she left a message. “For the Peggy Hughes thing, we can meet at Ormolu at eight. I mentioned that to a prospective client and he knew all about it. So we may meet him there.”
The last call was a voice from deep in a disreputable past. Rollins said, “You asked around about me. Here I am. I know where to find you.” Quinlan was a bit amused.
When they knocked on his door to say he was due on the set, Quinlan thought about his character for a few moments. Roark had the usual problems trying to raise a family on a cop’s salary. His wife and he had disagreements. But she was a cop’s wife and understood what that meant. A steady guy was Roark, a good partner.
Detectives McDevitt and Roark hold the same poses as at the end of the previous scene. The audience has just watched a sequence shot two weeks before on a sound stage in California. It shows what the two cops are watching — a nude woman standing behind gauze curtains.
The viewers see a reverse strip as she hooks her bra, pulls up her panties, draws on nylons, wriggles into a slip, a blouse and a skirt. She bends slowly to put on her shoes.
Suddenly McDevitt shakes himself awake. “Decoy!” he says. “She’s letting him get away.” The pair of them run for the front door of the building.
Locations had found an untouched and ungentrified tenement. Props had filled the dented cans in front with in-period trash, a partly crushed Wheaties box, a broken coke bottle, a striped pillow leaking feathers.
A little old lady with a wheeled shopping cart gets in their way. The stoop is worn and paint is peeling on the railing. As they run up the steps the front door opens.
And there stands Laura Chante, the first time the audience gets a good look at her. Laura is the girlfriend of a very wrong guy, hard but soft, bad but good. She wears high heels, a black sheath skirt and a jacket open to reveal a pale, shimmering blouse. A scarf with a streak of scarlet covers most of her blond hair. “You boys looking for someone?” she asks with an innocent expression.
Laura was played by the young London actress Moira Tell. Her posture, her accent, her attitude were impeccable.
Peggy McHugh still had a sassy smile. Back in the 1950s and ’60s she had made a career playing bright young girl friends and wise cracking best pals of too sweet heroines. She was the young detective’s fiancée in the Naked City TV series.
At eighty she played tough old broads with a regular role on As the World Turns and a girlfriend thirty years her junior. In a nod to nostalgia she’d been cast as Detective Pete McDevitt’s hip, utterly unsentimental grandmother in this movie.
It was her birthday and Mitchell Graham, the director, along with the movie’s producers threw a little party for her at Ormolu’s on Union Square and invited the press.
Ms. Hughes had already knocked back a Jameson’s on
Everyone had consoled him about the divorce like he’d suffered a death in the family or been laid off from work. Monica Celeste had the better career, was a major presence on daytime cable. Quinlan told himself that if the situation had been reversed he wouldn’t have dumped her. But all that was in the past.
The San Bernardino matter was current. A runaway grand jury led by a self-righteous young DA was investigating collection agency practices. Some debtors apparently testified that a few years before Quinlan had led them to believe he was a cop. So far nothing had gotten out to the media.
That time just after the divorce was still a jumble in his mind. One thing he was sure of was that testifying meant implicating his former employers, which would be very unwise. Another thing about which he was positive was that lawyers had eaten up his Like ’60 pay.
Adie was at the office and in full business mode when she left a message. “For the Peggy Hughes thing, we can meet at Ormolu at eight. I mentioned that to a prospective client and he knew all about it. So we may meet him there.”
The last call was a voice from deep in a disreputable past. Rollins said, “You asked around about me. Here I am. I know where to find you.” Quinlan was a bit amused.
When they knocked on his door to say he was due on the set, Quinlan thought about his character for a few moments. Roark had the usual problems trying to raise a family on a cop’s salary. His wife and he had disagreements. But she was a cop’s wife and understood what that meant. A steady guy was Roark, a good partner.
Detectives McDevitt and Roark hold the same poses as at the end of the previous scene. The audience has just watched a sequence shot two weeks before on a sound stage in California. It shows what the two cops are watching — a nude woman standing behind gauze curtains.
The viewers see a reverse strip as she hooks her bra, pulls up her panties, draws on nylons, wriggles into a slip, a blouse and a skirt. She bends slowly to put on her shoes.
Suddenly McDevitt shakes himself awake. “Decoy!” he says. “She’s letting him get away.” The pair of them run for the front door of the building.
Locations had found an untouched and ungentrified tenement. Props had filled the dented cans in front with in-period trash, a partly crushed Wheaties box, a broken coke bottle, a striped pillow leaking feathers.
A little old lady with a wheeled shopping cart gets in their way. The stoop is worn and paint is peeling on the railing. As they run up the steps the front door opens.
And there stands Laura Chante, the first time the audience gets a good look at her. Laura is the girlfriend of a very wrong guy, hard but soft, bad but good. She wears high heels, a black sheath skirt and a jacket open to reveal a pale, shimmering blouse. A scarf with a streak of scarlet covers most of her blond hair. “You boys looking for someone?” she asks with an innocent expression.
Laura was played by the young London actress Moira Tell. Her posture, her accent, her attitude were impeccable.
Peggy McHugh still had a sassy smile. Back in the 1950s and ’60s she had made a career playing bright young girl friends and wise cracking best pals of too sweet heroines. She was the young detective’s fiancée in the Naked City TV series.
At eighty she played tough old broads with a regular role on As the World Turns and a girlfriend thirty years her junior. In a nod to nostalgia she’d been cast as Detective Pete McDevitt’s hip, utterly unsentimental grandmother in this movie.
It was her birthday and Mitchell Graham, the director, along with the movie’s producers threw a little party for her at Ormolu’s on Union Square and invited the press.
Ms. Hughes had already knocked back a Jameson’s on
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