There was a long pause on the other end. And then, with just a hint of panic in her tone, Amy Jo said, "Are you trying to tell me you're not ready? Your call time is in ten minutes and it's a twenty-minute drive to the set."

"I'll be right down."

I slammed down the phone and raced into the shower, suppressing a scream as the ice-cold torrent hit my bare skin. I washed as fast as I could with some cheap no-brand soap supplied by the Ritz Plaza, scrubbed a dollop of Nioxin Bionutrient Scalp Therapy into my locks (an aging actor in his thirties needs a good hair stimulant), and quickly dried off. As I bolted for my closet, I jammed my left foot into the sliding glass door and howled like a three-year-old at Disneyland who didn't get his picture taken with Ariel. But I didn't slow down. I pulled on some jeans, threw on my soiled Hairspray T-shirt, stepped into a pair of Docksiders, and was good to go.

When I bounded out of the lobby and spotted Amy Jo's maroon van, I could tell from the look on her face that the hint of panic I had detected in her voice had now grown into a full-blown meltdown.

"Hurry up! Let's go! Let's go!" she barked.

I hopped into the passenger's seat, and we squealed away before I had a chance to even buckle up.

"I'm really sorry, Amy Jo," I said.

"No problem," she lied. "But if I get fired over this, would you put in a good word for me on your next movie?"

"They're not going to fire you. I'll make sure they know this is my fault," I said, knowing full well that at the bottom of the totem pole, she would bear the brunt of everybody's wrath. I kept thinking, "They can't fire her, because after this movie I'll probably never work again so I won't ever be able to give her any kind of recommendation."

We broke speed records to reach the Coral Gables campground set. Amy Jo was impressive maneuvering expertly in and out of traffic. As we pulled up to the makeup and hair trailer, I noticed Stella standing outside, sucking on a Virginia Slim and tapping her foot angrily.

"You are so fucking late," she bellowed.

"I know, I know. Don't blame Amy Jo. I didn't know I was shooting today," I said.

She hauled me into the trailer and started slapping globs of base on my face as I picked up some sides off the counter and read them over. Luckily there wasn't a lot of dialogue in my pivotal death scene. Just a lot of screaming and lines like, "Run, Joey, run!" as I sacrifice myself to save my son. I wondered if the "Run, Joey, run!" line was an homage to that old seventies ballad by David Geddes. That was before I realized there would actually have to be a modicum of depth required in the script, and depth was one thing this opus sorely lacked.

Amy Jo poked her head inside the trailer. "They're ready for you on set, Jarrod," she said.

"Jesus, I haven't even done your hair," Stella said. "Forget it. I'll do it in final touchups. You better go, Jarrod, before Larry starts yelling."

I dashed out of the trailer and over to the campground set, where the crew waited for me. Viveca, in a flattering yellow sundress, flirted with the crew as I said my good mornings and walked over to my mark. The lighting technician and a couple of his assistants immediately buzzed around me to make sure I was lit properly.

Viveca turned and offered me a bright smile. "Good morning, Jarrod."

I was sure this was the first time she had ever deigned to speak to me. "Good morning."

"Sleep well?" she cooed.

"Not really, no."

"Me neither. I was up all night," she said with a playful wink. We both knew where she was last night, and she seemed mighty proud of it. I guess it was our little secret. I didn't know much about Viveca, nor was I anxious to find out more. She struck me as too flighty and girlish for a woman in her late forties or early fifties. Her behavior annoyed me, and it took every last ounce of self-control not to offer her my opinion. But I wasn't about to start yet another feud with a costar. I was in enough trouble already.

So I plastered a conspiratorial smile on my face. "That's too bad you didn't get any sleep. Must have been something you ate," I said, returning her wink. "You go, girl."

She erupted in laughter. "You're so naughty. I love you." I had called her a "girl" so in her mind we were now the best of friends.

Larry ambled onto the set, gave me the once-over, and then turned his head and yelled, "Stella, get over here and do something with his hair! And can we get some drops for his eyes? They're all bloodshot. He looks like shit." Larry looked back at me suspiciously. "What's the matter? You just get up?"

"Of course not. I just thought after the turmoil and trauma my son and I have been through up to this point in the story, I would be looking awfully run-down and exhausted."

"Christ, don't tell me you're one of those method actors," Larry said, making a big show of rolling his eyes. Stella was all over me now with her eyeliner pencil and a wooden brush that she wrenched through my hair.

"No," I said, "I just want to be truthful."

"Okay. Whatever. Let's shoot this." Larry left momentarily to inspect the shot.

Stella gently placed her hand above my eyes and let loose with a shot of Alberto VO5 hairspray to hold my freshly combed locks in place. "You sure pulled that one out of your ass," she said, smirking.

"Do you think he bought it?"

"For him not to, he'd have to stop thinking about himself for one second. And we both know that's never going to happen."

Stella stepped back and nodded, satisfied with her handiwork.

We were ready to roll. I looked around for the tiny terror playing my son, but he was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Simon?"

Larry shuffled back over to me. "We don't need him for this scene. We'll have Maggie, the script coordinator, read his dialogue off camera. This is all about you and the killer, finally face to face." Larry glanced around the set. "Where is he, by the way?"

A grip pointed to a large man sitting in a spare director's chair. He wore a red and black plaid hunting jacket, Army-issue green pants, and a pair of black boots. A cartoon mask of Elmer Fudd covered his face. That was a last-minute touch added by Larry. He didn't want the killer's identity to be revealed until the end, but he didn't want the headache of hiding his face throughout the movie. So in the tradition of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street (a couple of Larry's childhood favorites), he gave the killer a mask. And Elmer, in Larry's mind, was an inspired choice. After all, Elmer Fudd was a hunter who spent most of his time chasing after Bugs Bunny. But he was never able to catch him. Larry explained to us all in the hotel bar one night early on in the production that all of our characters represented all the other rabbits in the woods, and Elmer Fudd, who had spent years unsuccessfully hunting Bugs, was now going to take his frustration out on all of us. He'd kill and kill again, skin a whole slew of bunnies, but he would never be satisfied because none of us was truly Bugs Bunny, the elusive prey he could never beat. Larry saw the mask as the perfect symbol for the story he wanted to tell. I saw it as too many Jell-O shots after a long day of shooting.

"You ready to do this, big guy?" Larry called to the masked actor.

He nodded, stood up, and lumbered over to us. He carried a machete made of rubber. Larry turned quickly and whispered frantically in my ear, "The guy we hired in LA went AWOL on us, and we just hired this guy yesterday locally, but I can't remember his name, so I just call him big guy, okay?"

"Okay," I said as I reached out to shake Elmer Fudd's hand. "Hi, I'm Jarrod. Nice to meet you."

"I'm Elmer Fudd," he said in a deep, scratchy voice. Everyone laughed appreciatively. Larry slapped him on the back.

"You feeling confident about what we're going to do here?"

Elmer nodded. Larry clasped his hands together and addressed us both. "Good. Now, your son's been lost in the woods for almost a day. The whole campground has risked their lives searching the area, knowing a maniac is loose somewhere out there. You finally find him. Kneel down to hug him. Big reunion. Blah, blah, blah. The kid screams bloody murder. You turn to see Elmer standing over you. You tell the kid to run. He does. Elmer pushes you down on the ground with his boot. You do your "No, please, no!" line, and then he starts whacking chunks off your face with the machete. Everybody cool with that?"

"Sounds simple enough," I said.

"Excellent. We can wrap this scene up by lunch," Larry said as he jogged back over to the camera and slid into his director's chair. As the makeup and hair people rushed in for final touchups and the cameras began rolling, I tried again with my new costar.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

He didn't answer me. The goofy face of Elmer Fudd simply stared at me. And the open slits in the eyes weren't big enough for me to see anything behind it.

"Quiet on the set, please!" said the assistant director.

"We're rolling," said the cameraman.

"And action!" roared Larry.

Maggie the script coordinator, a been-there, done-that, bored veteran in her late forties, who had worked on countless productions, read Simon's lines.

"Daddy, look out, he's right behind you," she said flatly, with all the enthusiasm and dedication of a DMV lifer.

Looking at empty air in front of me since the boy playing my son was absent, I shot out my hand and shrieked, "Run, Joey, run!"

"No, Dad, not without you," Maggie read directly from the script. A coma patient would have given more of a performance.

I turned to see Elmer Fudd raising the rubber machete over his head.

"No, please don't!" Shoot. As the words came out, I realized the correct line was "No, please, no!" and I hated disrespecting the writer's words, but Larry didn't yell "Cut!" so I kept going.

Elmer pressed the heel of his boot on my chest and shoved me down so I was on my back, struggling and wriggling like an upended cockroach. The guy pressed harder with his boot to the point where I could barely breathe. Either he was truly in the moment or he just didn't like me. I did what the script called for and covered my face with my hands and released a guttural wail. Elmer slashed down seven times with his rubber machete. He was supposed to stop a couple inches short of my head, but instead he managed to whack me five out of seven hits. Since this was a master shot, Larry had decided not to use the blood squibs that would illustrate my head coming apart. He was saving those for the close-ups.

"And . . . cut!" Larry said. He leapt up and excitedly ran over to us. "Beautiful! Just beautiful."

I was happy he was pleased. It would make up for some of my blunders so far, such as my disruptive cell phone and my call time tardiness.

Larry threw his arms around Elmer Fudd. "I love you, man. You're so fucking scary."

I waited for Larry to compliment me, but he was too preoccupied showering praise on my costar. "Man, I believed you were a nut job. I really did. You're a natural."

I tugged on Larry's sweatshirt. "Need me to make any adjustments for the next take?"

Larry threw me a cursory glance, suddenly aware of my presence. "No, Jarrod, that was fine."

I had come to the set totally unprepared so it shouldn't have bugged me that I was all but ignored. But it did. Actors live with so much rejection they crave any kind of positive reinforcement. We want everything we do to be adored and we have a need to be constantly showered with accolades as if every day we were the special guest on James Lipton's Inside the Actor's Studio series.

"I want to watch the playback on the monitor and then we'll go again," Larry said as he hustled back over to the phalanx of cameras and film equipment.

I turned to Elmer. "Nice job."

"Thanks," he said in his low, barely audible, raspy voice.

"For a minute there, I thought you were really having fun killing me."

Elmer removed his mask to finally reveal himself. Wendell Butterworth stood there, leering at me. His grotesque face was decorated with a sick, disturbing smile.

Chapter 21.

Wendell Butterworth just stood there grinning as I sent all the furry little creatures of the forest scattering with my yelling. The startled crew descended upon us, and after I explained just who the man in the Elmer Fudd mask was, Larry marched up to him, poked a finger in his face, and with a quiet authority said, "You're fired. I don't ever want to see you near this set again, or I'll call the cops."

A couple of burly grips escorted him off the set.

"Can't we have him arrested?"

"For what?" Larry asked.

"I don't know. For impersonating an extra or something."

Larry put a comforting arm around my shoulder. "I don't think so, Jarrod. He gave us his correct name and social security number when we cast him."

I nodded, completely shaken. Now that he was sprung from prison, Wendell was never going to leave me alone.

"Jarrod, I'm so sorry," Larry said. "I thought he was a local. I hired him because of his intimidating bulk."

"It's okay, Larry, you couldn't have known."

Juan Carlos had arrived on the set just in time to witness the whole messy scene. He took great pleasure in watching my meltdown. Not even Viveca's little kisses on his shoulder or playful butt squeezes could draw his attention from me. After the initial flurry of drama had died down, Juan Carlos sauntered over and said with a self-satisfied smile, "Well, well, well. Jarrod has a stalker." He took a long sip of his coffee. "Maybe now you'll get a little taste of what it feels like to have someone following you around, watching your every move. How ironic."

"You know what amazes me the most, Juan Carlos?" I said, red-faced but remaining calm.

"What's that?" he said.

"That you actually know the definition of ironic, and can use it in a sentence."

He didn't like that one. He almost hurled his cup of coffee in my face. But he thought better of it, and strutted off in a huff.

Larry declared the campground a closed set for the duration of the shoot, and security guards were hired to patrol all access routes into the wooded park. Shooting resumed without incident, I finished my death scene with a strapping young grip filling in as Elmer Fudd, and we were wrapped by five-thirty in the afternoon. Larry was impressed with my performance (I didn't have to dig deep to find a lot of fear to play), and as the cast and crew dispersed for the day to various restaurants and bars, I was left alone in my trailer to change clothes and head back to the Ritz Plaza alone.

My cell phone rang. I pressed the talk button and cradled the phone between my left shoulder and ear as I stuffed my script and spare shirts into a gym bag.

"Hey, babe, just checking up on you," Charlie said. "Have a good day?"

I didn't want to run crying to Charlie every time something scared me. I had been standing up for myself since I was a little kid on the playground cornered by a gang of bullies, and I certainly was not about to become one of those whiny, victimized boyfriends who always rely on their better half to get through everything. On the other hand, this was the third time Wendell Butterworth had shown up, and I couldn't take it anymore.

"He's here, Charlie. He's here in Florida."

"Who?"

"Wendell Butterworth."

"Are you kidding me?"

I told him the whole ugly scene on the set with Wendell pretending to split my head open with a rubber machete while wearing an Elmer Fudd mask.

"Christ, Jarrod, why didn't you call me the minute it happened ?"

"Because I didn't want to disrupt shooting. We're half a day behind schedule as it is."

"Where is he now?"

"I don't know. They tossed him off the set immediately. He could be anywhere."

Charlie took a deep breath, and then said, "Okay, I don't want you going back to that hotel by yourself. I want you to stay with someone tonight."

I wasn't sure who that someone could be. I had been so single-minded in my mission to expose Juan Carlos as a philanderer and connect him to the Austin Teboe murder that I hadn't exactly made a lot of burgeoning friendships on the set. Amy Jo was ticked off at me for being late this morning. Stella had already mentioned she was going up to Palm Beach to pal around with some friends. Juan Carlos despised me so it was safe to assume his two female lovers, Viveca and Dominique, were in the same camp. Larry was my boss, and not about to do me any favors after I'd mucked up two takes of his movie with my cell phone. And Simon was the spawn of Satan and more dangerous in my mind than Wendell Butterworth. My parents were too far away. After racking my brain, there was really only one person whom I would feel safe staying with tonight and who would be open to putting me up.