Free Slow Fade by Rudolph Wurlitzer

again.
    “Keep on shooting, Sidney,” Wesley said to the cameraman, who was in a nothing-left-to-lose mood.
    “Put down that camera,” the studio executive said.
    “Why don’t you tell him he’ll never work again,” Wesley said.
    “All right. Put down that camera or you’ll never work again.”
    “Keep shooting,” Wesley said, as the crowd circled around them. “This is my set.”
    “Not any more, Mr. Hardin,” the studio executive said, conscious that this historic moment was being filmed. “I am relieving you of that responsibility.”
    Wesley had almost reached the calm that he was seeking, needing only one more shock to cut him loose altogether. He took the .38 out of his belt and raised it, aiming toward the bottle on the bar that held the live tarantula. At that moment he saw Evelyn standing just inside the door, regarding him soberly. He lowered the .38, motioning for Sidney to hold the camera on her reaction. Then he fired, shattering the glass.
    As one body, the crowd rushed out the door. All except for the studio executive, who walked over to the tarantula and squashed it with the heel of a custom-made English boot. “That’s it,” he said directly into the camera, managing to look both official and compassionate. “That’s the whole ball of wax.” Then he turned and left the saloon, nodding politely to Evelyn as he went through the swinging doors.
    Shaken and exhausted, Wesley sat down at a table, Evelyn coming over to him and absently rubbing the back of his neck.
    “Give me a two shot uptight and we’ll call it a day,” Wesley said to Sidney and the sound man, who were the only other people left in the saloon. “Assemble the footage in L.A. and consider yourself both on the payroll. Perhaps we’ll continue this little exercise later on.”
    Having run out of all other options, Sidney raised the camera and focused on Wesley as he pulled Evelyn onto his lap. She put a hand up to block the lens but Wesley gently lowered it. “How would you feel about driving to Mazatlán tonight?” he asked. “We’ll lie on the beach for a few weeks and see where we go from there.”
    “I would like that,” she said, kissing him on the mouth.

CUT TO A.D. and Walker rolling down the mountains in a secondhand Dodge van, their first stop a national park campsite a mile off the main road. They were on arid tableland, around them twisted formations of rock, a maze of natural arches and bridges bathed in a hard crimson and yellow evening light. They made a rough camp with the equipment and supplies they had bought after leaving Caleb’s. A.D. wasn’t going to pull his weight, that was obvious as he sat in front of the small fire Walker had made and played a few desultory notes on a pocket harmonica. Walker didn’t mind, preferring to handle the chores himself, peeling potatoes and frying two steaks over the fire. After they had finished eating, Walker decided to tell A.D. what was on his mind.
    “I’m ready to go my own way,” he said. “You can have the van and I’ll split at the next town where there’s a bus station.”
    “No way, José,” A.D. said. “You can’t quit on me like some out-of-town roadie.”
    “I’m not up to doing the script.”
    “Who cares what you’re not up to doing? If you sign for pay you got to play. I want to grab some of the movie pie. Anyway, you owe me for my eye. If it wasn’t for you I’d be making my normal moves.”
    Walker didn’t reply. Picking up the paper plates, he threw the steak bones into the darkness and the plates on the fire.
    A.D. reached into his duffel bag and took out a bottle of Johnny Walker and took a long pull. “My days as a backup man are over. I been a backup man all my life, one way or the other. No way, José.”
    “Who is this José?” Walker asked.
    The question infuriated A.D. “What are you, some kind of off-the-curb arrangement you don’t know the way people speak any more? They must have rung your bell over there. Who