High Midnight: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Six) by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online Page B

horses so my pants and shoes wouldn’t show on camera. Then Gelhorn went mad with activity. The cameraman, a little guy with a heavy German accent began arguing with him about how little space there was to shoot.
    “You want the cowboys should ride behind a hot-dog stand?” he squeaked. “Or up the hill to that garage?”
    “I know it’s tight, Hugo, but that’s what we’ve got. Just do it. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee after.”
    An overweight actor in a cowboy suit lumbered up to Gelhorn, waving a script “Max,” he cried, “how the hell am I supposed to do this? You said you’d get a stunt man. I can’t—”
    “Mickey,” whispered Gelhorn, “a stunt man is at least twenty bucks, even a lousy stuntman. You’ve done harder than this before. I’ll give you an extra te … five.”
    I adjusted my cowboy hat and stepped out from behind the horses to get a better look at Tall Mickey Fargo. It was the same man whose picture I had in my pocket, but someone had put a balloon inside him and blown it up. He was a bloated caricature. I couldn’t imagine him getting on a horse, let alone doing a stunt, but the five dollars proved too much for him, and he agreed.
    It was cold without my coat, so I huddled back among the horses. One of them tried to nuzzle me. I’ve got nothing against animals as long as they leave me alone. I think human responsibilities are too much and I never understood why anyone would choose to take on responsibility for an animal. Unfortunately, all animals love me. Maybe I just smell from salty sweat. A factory worker with a bottle of Nehi and a sandwich came up to me and asked what we were shooting.
    “A Hoot Gibson movie,” I said. “Hoot’s not in this shot.”
    Gelhorn had backed off with Hugo and the camera and waved wildly for the factory worker to get out of the shot. The factory worker, a stocky guy with black curly hair, raised his fist at Gelhorn and laughed before backing away.
    “No sound in this shot,” shouted Gelhorn over the music from the hot-dog stand and the laughs and conversation of factory workers. “Remember, Mickey, you’ve set a dynamite charge in the shack, and you want to get away fast. You come out of the door, go for your horse, get shot and tumble down. Then you look back at the shack in fear. You know it is going to blow any second and you’re not sure you can get away. You with the horses,” Gelhorn shouted, seemingly forgetting who I was in the heat of shooting, “get in the shot.” I moved forward.
    “Okay,” shouted Gelhorn, his voice cracking. “We have to shoot this tight, Mickey, one take, not much room up and down. Do it right the first time.”
    Mickey nodded, went over to check his horse and waddled to the shack.
    “Camera ready,” shouted Gelhorn.
    “Ready,” grunted Hugo.
    “Camera rolling,” shouted Gelhorn.
    “Rolling,” said Hugo.
    “Action,” said Gelhorn. “Doris, action, get the damn sticks in there.”
    Doris ran out in front of the camera with the clapboards.
    “You don’t have to clap them,” Gelhorn screamed. “We’re not rolling sound. Just get out of there.” Doris looked hurt as she scrambled behind the camera with the crew and other extras.
    “All right, Mickey, for God’s sake,” screamed Gelhorn, “get your ass out there! We’re wasting film.”
    Fargo came scurrying out of the cabin, looked back at it with fear worthy of Emil Jannings and went for his horse. It took him two tries to make it onto the horse. Then Gelhorn shouted, “Now, Mickey, now. You’ve been shot.” And the sound of a gunshot cut through the music and noise. Mickey went down off the horse with a grunt and the horse next to me also went down, almost toppling over on me. I jumped out of the way and saw the spot of blood on the horse’s shoulder. Then a second shot came and dug dirt a foot away from me. The shots were coming from the top of the hill. No one else seemed to notice them, but then everyone was watching Mickey Fargo