Free Black Is the Fashion for Dying by Jonathan Latimer Page A

the three cameras dropped into place. One by one the three cameramen signaled, each directing O’s made with thumb and forefinger at Billings, standing on the other side of Blake.
    â€œAll rolling,” Billings said.
    Gordon was still staring into the middle monitor. “Somebody move that holster around in front,” he said. “So we can see it.”
    Blake edged sideways between the monitors, ran across the set. In reaching for the holster, he dislodged the belt from the nail holding it to the tent pole. He managed to catch the belt before the holster hit the ground. He steadied the swinging holster with his left hand, was bringing both holster and belt up to the nail again when the Webley slid out and would have fallen if he hadn’t clutched holster, pistol and belt to his stomach. Cursing himself for his clumsiness, he got the pistol back in the holster, untangled the belt and hooked it over the nail. He brought the holster around to where it would be in direct view of the center camera, made sure the pistol wasn’t jammed, then ran back to the platform.
    Herbie grinned as he came around the monitors. “You carrying a Union card?” he demanded.
    â€œMoses!” Blake said. “What Union would have me?”
    Somebody said, “Shut up!” Gordon had backed away from the monitors, was peering over them at the waiting set. Jaw firm, tufted brows pulled flat over narrowed eyes, sharp-angled face taut with concentration, he looked like a destroyer captain about to sail into battle. He stood motionless for a long moment, then, barely moving his lips, he said, “Action.”
    â€œ Action! ” the loudspeakers echoed.
    The camp servants by the fire, three brown-skinned men in loose-fitting white garments and a scrawny boy wearing a breechclout, began to chatter in what Blake supposed was some Indian dialect. Presently Graves emerged from the tent, his face somber, faintly apprehensive, as in the script, and paused by the Webley hanging from the tent pole. “ Be quiet! ” he told the chattering servants and turned from them and stared out at the dark jungle.
    Too fast, Blake thought, and then decided it was just right. The audience wouldn’t be interested in the old white hunter; it would want to know what Ahri and the others were doing. What Ahri was doing was running from the edge of the jungle towards the tent, a frantic Eurasian girl, slim golden legs flashing below the tucked-up sari, lovely face twisted with apprehension for her beloved Masterson. Graves swung around as she approached, said, “ Ahri! Where did you come from? ” and she began, properly breathless, to reveal the details of the murder plot.
    Blake, seeing her not as Ahri but as Lisa Carson and feeling the unsettling glow seeing her always produced, heard only disjointed fragments of the scene. He wondered how angry she really was. He should have refused to make the changes. So he got fired. Only a month to go, anyway, and there wouldn’t have been any quarrel. And no naked blonde to explain. Brother! How would he ever explain her? When there was no explanation? He couldn’t even say truthfully that she was drunk because when he had bundled her into her coat and pushed her out the door and into her car she had cut loose with some of the most lucid profanity he had heard since his Navy hitch. It didn’t make any sense at all.
    The sound of Ella, the script girl, turning a page in the master script brought his attention to the set. Ahri was saying her last line, “ Oh, believe me, McGregor! I speak the truth. If the woman comes in—alone —” and then the bearers came trotting down the jungle path with Caresse, one arm still dangling from the litter.
    He turned to look at Gordon, crouched back of the monitors, and saw he was nodding in approval. Evidently Lisa had done well. He swung back to the set, saw Graves was already leading the bearers towards the