flush deepening. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“That’s too late. Tomorrow night I go to Australia to see what they have to offer. So tonight you’ll show me photos and tomorrow you’ll take me on a helicopter and ground tour of the locations I’ve selected or you’re out of the running.”
“That’s not the way it goes,” Mingus said. “We need more advance notice and a lot more details before we go scouting. For one thing, we have to see a script—”
Nick interrupted him. “Nobody sees a script. It’s the latest installment in a major billion-dollar movie franchise. Anyone who wants to read the screenplay must come to the studio, surrender their cellphones, and lock themselves in my office.”
“Okay, but before we can get started, we need some basic information,” Mingus said. “We need to know the production company and studio, where the financing is coming from, whether the project is union or nonunion, whether—”
Nick interrupted him. “Say that again.”
“What?”
“What you said before, only this time with coiled rage and greater authority.” Nick pointed at him and said, “Go!”
Mingus stared at him for a moment, not sure what to make of the request, so he just soldiered on. “What I’m saying is that I need to make sure that you and your movie are legit. Anybody can just walk in here and claim—”
“Wonderful,” Nick said, cutting him off again. “I believed it. Where did you get your training as an actor?”
“I don’t have any, but before I got this job, I did some small parts. I was one of the airline passengers in the
Lost
pilot. I didn’t have any lines, but I was in the background of every scene.”
“Those roles are crucial. They are even harder than speaking parts.”
“They are?”
“Of course. They give a film its inherent reality. You have that and natural gravitas, too.”
“I do?”
“Inherent reality and natural gravitas are just what I am looking for in the actor who plays Indy’s boss.”
“Did you say ‘Indy’?” Mingus’s gaze flicked to the
Raiders of the Lost Ark
poster on the wall. “As in ‘Indiana Jones’?”
Nick winced, as if realizing he’d let something slip. “No, I most emphatically did not. Forget I said that. All you need to know is that it’s a key speaking part, and I need to cast a local rather than fly someone in. You’d be doing me a big favor if you’d take the role. It’s a two-day job, tops. Would you do it for me?”
“I’d be glad to,” Mingus said, breaking out in a huge grin.
“Then it’s done, assuming we shoot here, of course,” Nick said. “What can you show me tomorrow?”
“We have some spectacular locations, among the best on earth,” Mingus said. “Let me go grab the binders.”
—
Kate and Jake awoke at dawn and worked their way slowly to the southeast, keeping low and staying off the trails. It took them three hours to slog through the heavy vegetation and reach their destination, which was marked by a pair of iron gates under a massive stone arch with the words “Cretaceous Zoo” carved across the top.
Jake knocked on the arch. It was a molded fiberglass veneer nailed to plywood. “What is this place?”
“The old set for a movie about a zoo filled with genetically re-created dinosaurs and cavemen. The dinosaurs escape and eat all of the guests,” Kate said. “The cavemen team up with a retired New York cop, a busty medical student, and a novelist to battle the monsters.”
“You saw it?”
“I think it’s probably the best work Gunter Jorgenson has ever done. In the finale the survivors fight their way through hordes of raptors to get to the brontosaurus paddock. That’s the field where the helicopters landed to get the heroes off the island before the nukes were dropped. If it worked for them, it could work for us.”
Kate took the lead, her shotgun at the ready, and sprinted under the arch, then hugged the tree line along the trail
“That’s too late. Tomorrow night I go to Australia to see what they have to offer. So tonight you’ll show me photos and tomorrow you’ll take me on a helicopter and ground tour of the locations I’ve selected or you’re out of the running.”
“That’s not the way it goes,” Mingus said. “We need more advance notice and a lot more details before we go scouting. For one thing, we have to see a script—”
Nick interrupted him. “Nobody sees a script. It’s the latest installment in a major billion-dollar movie franchise. Anyone who wants to read the screenplay must come to the studio, surrender their cellphones, and lock themselves in my office.”
“Okay, but before we can get started, we need some basic information,” Mingus said. “We need to know the production company and studio, where the financing is coming from, whether the project is union or nonunion, whether—”
Nick interrupted him. “Say that again.”
“What?”
“What you said before, only this time with coiled rage and greater authority.” Nick pointed at him and said, “Go!”
Mingus stared at him for a moment, not sure what to make of the request, so he just soldiered on. “What I’m saying is that I need to make sure that you and your movie are legit. Anybody can just walk in here and claim—”
“Wonderful,” Nick said, cutting him off again. “I believed it. Where did you get your training as an actor?”
“I don’t have any, but before I got this job, I did some small parts. I was one of the airline passengers in the
Lost
pilot. I didn’t have any lines, but I was in the background of every scene.”
“Those roles are crucial. They are even harder than speaking parts.”
“They are?”
“Of course. They give a film its inherent reality. You have that and natural gravitas, too.”
“I do?”
“Inherent reality and natural gravitas are just what I am looking for in the actor who plays Indy’s boss.”
“Did you say ‘Indy’?” Mingus’s gaze flicked to the
Raiders of the Lost Ark
poster on the wall. “As in ‘Indiana Jones’?”
Nick winced, as if realizing he’d let something slip. “No, I most emphatically did not. Forget I said that. All you need to know is that it’s a key speaking part, and I need to cast a local rather than fly someone in. You’d be doing me a big favor if you’d take the role. It’s a two-day job, tops. Would you do it for me?”
“I’d be glad to,” Mingus said, breaking out in a huge grin.
“Then it’s done, assuming we shoot here, of course,” Nick said. “What can you show me tomorrow?”
“We have some spectacular locations, among the best on earth,” Mingus said. “Let me go grab the binders.”
—
Kate and Jake awoke at dawn and worked their way slowly to the southeast, keeping low and staying off the trails. It took them three hours to slog through the heavy vegetation and reach their destination, which was marked by a pair of iron gates under a massive stone arch with the words “Cretaceous Zoo” carved across the top.
Jake knocked on the arch. It was a molded fiberglass veneer nailed to plywood. “What is this place?”
“The old set for a movie about a zoo filled with genetically re-created dinosaurs and cavemen. The dinosaurs escape and eat all of the guests,” Kate said. “The cavemen team up with a retired New York cop, a busty medical student, and a novelist to battle the monsters.”
“You saw it?”
“I think it’s probably the best work Gunter Jorgenson has ever done. In the finale the survivors fight their way through hordes of raptors to get to the brontosaurus paddock. That’s the field where the helicopters landed to get the heroes off the island before the nukes were dropped. If it worked for them, it could work for us.”
Kate took the lead, her shotgun at the ready, and sprinted under the arch, then hugged the tree line along the trail
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