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.He stuffed his BlackBerry in his pants pocket and left the trailer without a backward look.When he entered Goodman’s office the previous judges were there.Matt Gant, Jonas Smith and Izzy Mayer stood behind Goodman.Maggie, Chambers and Westerly sat in chairs in front of the desk.Scott stopped in the doorway and surveyed the group.Gant, Smith and Mayer stared at him.Maggie looked as if she’d been crying, her eyes were red and swollen.He wanted to hug her, to tell her everything would be fine, but Chambers and Westerly glared at him and then at each other.Goodman coughed.“Well, we’re nearing the end of filming The Gunslinger’s Wife and all hell has broken loose.” Goodman pounded his beefy fists on his desk.“I have a full account of what happened, plus it’s on film.I’ll look at that later, but right now we have a problem.” Goodman stared at each person in the room.Scott saw Maggie shrink into the chair a little and moved to stand behind her.He placed his hands on her shoulders to support her, but mostly because he craved the physical contact with her.His heart calmed a bit, then he massaged her shoulders for a minute.“Maggie didn’t have anything to do with this problem, Mr.Goodman,” Scott said.“Let her go and the rest of us can discuss the film.”“I’m not discussing anything with that—interloper in the room!” Chambers bellowed.“No one’s leaving this room until we’ve come to a solution,” snapped Goodman.He stared at every man and woman and said, “We are finishing this movie with ALL of the principal actors.That means, Carey, that you will finish your scenes with Forrester.”“I will not!” shouted Chambers.“I refuse—”“You can’t refuse a thing, Carey,” Gant, the lawyer said.“You have a signed contract that says you’ll finish the film.” Gant patted the folder of papers he held in his lap.“Can the goddamned contract,” yelled Chambers.“He goes, or I go.” Chambers stood to leave the room.“Stop right where you are, Carey,” Goodman said in a deadly quiet voice.“This meeting isn’t over.”From the looks on everyone’s faces Scott knew they’d never heard that tone of voice from Sid Goodman before.He had a reputation for being a nice studio executive, if a tough one.He could see now where that had come from.No one moved in the room.“You’ve outlived your fame in this town, Chambers,” Goodman stated.“Everyone knows you’re a drunk and they will hear about the trouble on this set soon enough.”Chambers sucked in a harsh breath.“Your contract ends with this picture.You are legally bound to finish it as are Forrester, Cummings and Ingram.They will be in the scenes with you.You will show up on time and not hungover or drunk.If you even touch a bottle of liquor before this film’s finished, I’ll alert the police.You’ll be arrested and sued.And I’m letting you know right now, Jonas Smith, on my orders, will put out a full page ad in Variety Magazine about your behavior during this film.You’ll never work in Hollywood again if you don’t straighten up.You hear me?”No one spoke.All eyes were on Carey Chambers.His face had mottled to a dark red.As Scott watched, the red drained away and left a dull gray color.Chambers’ eyes bulged with the effort not to speak.His fists were bunched next to his sides and a muscle ticked in his jaw.Scott expected the explosion any second.But it didn’t come.Chambers pulled himself upright.He glared at every person in the room and said through clenched teeth, “I will finish this damned film.I’ll never work with any of you again.You’ll see.When it gets out how you’ve treated me, the biggest star around, no one, and I mean no one, will ever work with any of you again.”Nobody said a word as Chambers stormed out of the office.Only Scott knew that Chambers was wrong.He knew from Turner Classic Movies in 2005 that Carey Chambers had never worked another day in his life after The Gunslinger’s Wife.Chapter ElevenBy the next afternoon Scott was ready to punch Chambers again.They had just finished filming the court scene where Scott’s character, Alex, tried to get the ranch back from Chambers’ character, William.It took thirty-five takes.Chambers kept stepping out of the camera shot or standing on a mark that didn’t exist so that Scott was out of the camera’s range.Or he’d move a prop to the wrong spot when no one was looking.When either character went to get it, sit on it, lean on it or point to it, the prop wouldn’t be there and the scene would have to be shot again.The thing that infuriated Scott was that Chambers ruined the takes on purpose.He hadn’t been drinking since the meeting the day before with Sid Goodman [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]