"Ladies and gentlemen, we have begun our descent to Miami. Please make sure your tray tables are in the upright position, and that all portable electronics have been turned off. We will be landing in approximately ten minutes."

The soothing female flight attendant's voice stirred me out of a deep sleep. Another flight attendant, this one male with a severe look and a prissy demeanor, scooped up the knocked-over plastic cup that sat wedged between my legs. I yawned, and the spittle caked onto both corners of my mouth cracked. Catching Charlie in a compromising position with a judge had just been a dream. But I knew if I didn't make amends soon, it could become my reality.

I hadn't rushed to the courthouse. Like the good SAG member I was, I had boarded my plane to Miami. With makeup and hair tests scheduled for the morning and wardrobe fittings in the afternoon, I didn't have a choice if I wanted to keep in good stead with the independent film community.

After we landed and I retrieved my bags, I stepped out into the balmy air of south Florida and looked around for my ride. I immediately spotted a maroon van with a cardboard sign jammed into the dash that read, CREEPS-TRANSPORTATION CAPTAIN. A bouncy, chatty production assistant rolled down the window and called out to me, "Jarrod Jarvis?"

She didn't wait for me to answer. She jumped out and threw open the back doors of the vehicle. She was short and had a cute little body tucked into an aqua blue T-shirt with Creeps emblazoned on the front and tight jeans that accentuated every delicious curve of her hips and legs.

"I'd recognize you anywhere," she chirped. I knew it was coming. "Baby, don't even go there!" She exploded with laughter. "God, that cracked me up when I was a kid."

"You seem a little young to have been a fan of the show," I said, guessing she was no more than nineteen or twenty.

"TV Land. They play all those moronic shows," she said, and then caught herself. "Not that your show was moronic. I mean, it wasn't Shakespeare or anything, but it had its moments." She wisely chose to change the subject. "I'm Amy Jo."

"Hi, I'm Jarrod," I said. She grabbed my bags and tossed them in the back, and then was behind the wheel in an instant. I was winded just trying to keep up with her. As we drove south toward Miami Beach, Amy Jo decided I was due to hear her long-range career goals in the film business. Despite her knowing the trademark line from my long-running sitcom, Amy Jo insisted she'd never watched much television growing up. Her parents had raised her as an artist, and after a brief stint at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York (she wasn't asked back for vague reasons best described as political), she decided her future was behind the camera, and this gig as a PA would be the perfect way to kick off her foray into writing and directing and composing and editing. I loved the misguided idealism of youth. It just made me feel better about myself, being a bitter old pro in my thirties.

When Amy Jo began a dissertation on her life-long devotion to Quentin Tarantino and how his films affected her on a deeply fundamental level, I whipped out the cell phone, begged my driver's pardon, and tried to call Charlie. I got his voice mail. Maybe he really was banging the judge. No, I wasn't going to go there. It had just been a silly, ridiculous dream. So we fought, and whenever we fought, Charlie always had to go blow off some steam, and what better way to blow off steam than to . . . No. I had to stop it. Otherwise, I was going to have Amy Jo turn the van around and drive me back to United, which would leave my career in tattered ruins. Or at least in more ruins than it already was.

Amy Jo dropped me off at the Ritz Plaza, one of the many hotels lining Miami's historic South Beach. Although the film was shooting in a small wooded park in Coral Gables, the production was putting the cast up in downtown Miami Beach. I was ecstatic. There were lots of diversions here, and the Latin-heavy population was just gorgeous to look at. Unfortunately the hotel, surrounded by the more opulent and ornate establishments such as the Delano and the Marlin, was a decidedly lackluster affair. The box-like rooms with scuffed white walls and simple, uninspired furniture did nothing to excite one's aesthetic sense. In fact, it downright depressed it.

I debated switching rooms, but I didn't want to cause a fuss. I understood that I was not part of a Warner Brothers multimillion-dollar production starring Jennifer Lopez. So I kept mum and unpacked my clothes.

Amy Jo told me she would be back at 7 A.M. to pick me up for makeup and hair tests, which left me the rest of the evening to grab some dinner and stroll along the boardwalk of Ocean Avenue, which boasted dozens of outdoor cafes, shops, and bars. I showered, shaved, and changed into a light white shirt, white pants, dark blue blazer, and sandals, which seemed appropriate for a night out in South Beach.

When I stepped off the elevator into the lobby, I recognized the man checking in at the reception desk. It took me a moment to place him out of context, but then it came to me.

"Rudy? Rudy Pearson?"

He turned and looked at me. Sweat poured down his chubby cheeks. His skin was ruddy and pale. His linen suit was stained with sweat. Rudy, the soap journalist who had been ejected from Laurette's wedding, had suddenly popped up in Miami.

Rudy knew exactly who I was, but in an attempt to put me on a more level playing field, he feigned ignorance. "I'm sorry . . . you are?"

"Jarrod Jarvis. We met at Laurette and Juan Carlos's wedding."

"Oh, right. I had to leave early that day for another appointment," he said, rewriting history and completely blocking out the fact that he was tossed out of the Hearst Castle on his ass.

"What are you doing here in Miami?" I said.

"Officially, my magazine sent me down to cover a Days of Our Lives fan convention being held here this weekend," he said, his eyes darting back and forth. I didn't need a lie detector to tell that wasn't what had brought him here.

"So if that's the official reason, is there an unofficial reason?"

This caught him off guard. But he went with it. "Yes," he said. I wasn't expecting him to elaborate, but Rudy was a soap journalist after all, and all journalists are shameful, relentless gossips. "I've come across some interesting information about someone who is down here shooting a movie, and I'm going to make sure it gets out so the whole world knows."

"I'm down here shooting a movie, so I sure hope it isn't about me," I said, nudging him gently.

He stepped back, surprised. Rudy apparently wasn't used to people touching him. And from where I was standing, I'm sure they're weren't a lot of takers anyway. He just stared at me and then, in a soft voice, replied, "No, it's not about you."

This guy had not hit the jackpot in the lottery of social skills.

"What the hell are you doing here?" a voice bellowed behind us.

We both spun around to see Juan Carlos charging toward us.

"I'm . . . I'm in the movie," I said. "Didn't Laurette tell you?"

"Not you," he barked, pointing a thick finger at Rudy. "I mean him!" If it hadn't been obvious before, the subject of Rudy's hatred was painfully obvious now.

Rudy, his ire up, straightened his drenched linen coat and lifted his nose as high as it could go. "It's a free country. I can be wherever I want."

"Not here," Juan Carlos said, pushing me aside, and towering over the much shorter Rudy. "I want you out of here right now."

"Make me," Rudy squeaked, as he had probably done countless times on the playground when harassed by one of the many bullies who'd undoubtedly paraded through his miserable life.

Juan Carlos shrugged, then bunched up his fingers into a fist and let it fly smack into the middle of Rudy's fleshy, pockmarked nose. Rudy stumbled back, his eyes wide with astonishment.

The hotel staff began congregating behind the reception desk, quietly debating on whether or not they should call the police, or handle the situation themselves.

Rudy rubbed his nose. A stream of blood trickled down his left nostril.

Juan Carlos took a step closer to him, and pointed to the door. "I'm not telling you again! Get out of here!"

Rudy, humiliated, tried sniffing the blood back up into his nose, but to no avail. It kept flowing. His hand was smeared with it, and some more had wiped off on his light-colored suit. But instead of retreating, Rudy let out an anguished roar, and with arms outstretched like an angry bear, he rushed at Juan Carlos. Rudy had at least a hundred pounds on him, so when they collided, I could feel the air whoosh right out of Juan Carlos's body. I felt like I was watching a repeat of my own altercation with the fiery former soap star.

But what Rudy had in size, Juan Carlos made up for with street smarts. As I had already learned, Juan Carlos had a whole repertoire of dirty tricks at his disposal. He gouged Rudy's right eye with one of his fingers, and bit hard into one of his fat cheeks.

The concierge grabbed the phone and punched in 911. My hand shot out to stop him. "No! I'll take care of this!" This was not a heroic act on my part. I just didn't want an arrest to hold up production on my big comeback movie.

I jumped in between Rudy and Juan Carlos. "Stop it right now, both of you!" But they were in the zone, too immersed in their battle to even realize I was attempting to pry them apart. Which was why I could never blame Rudy for socking me square in the right eye.

I sank to the ground. The room spun around me like some bad AFI student's opening shot in his first short film. My eye throbbed with pain, and I managed to look up to see both Rudy and Juan Carlos, staring down at me as if noticing me for the first time. At least I got them to stop fighting.

Chapter 13.

"Hi, this is Charlie Peters. You've reached my voice mail. You know what to do."

Beep. This was the fourth time in an hour I had tried calling Charlie. Why wasn't he picking up his messages? Was he embroiled in a big case I didn't know about? Was he really screwing the judge presiding over the trial he was involved in? I couldn't let my paranoia consume me. I returned to the matter at hand.

Stella, a gloriously big-boned, brassy blond makeup stylist, was applying some pancake base to the corners of my right eye as I sat still in a director's chair in the tight quarters of the makeup and hair trailer. It was obvious she was using the cheap stuff, because no matter how much she rubbed onto my face, it wasn't enough to cover the dark bruise that made me look like half a raccoon.

Stella stepped back and inspected me. "Oh, honey, we're going to need a little more."

"But you've used almost the whole jar already," I wailed. "We're never going to be able to cover it up. Do you have something else?"

"This is all the budget allowed me to buy. Hell, this production is so cheap, I had to bring my own brushes and eyeliner pencils."

"Maybe I can run out to the nearest Sav-On and find something," I said, starting to stand up.

Stella pushed me back down in my seat. "There's no time. They're nearly done with the lighting out there. You're probably going to be called to the set any minute now."

The door to the trailer flew open and Larry Levant, the documentary wunderkind who was about to shoot his first narrative feature film, stuck his head in. He had obviously read his "How to Look Like You're an Up-and-Coming Hollywood Film Director" handbook. He had taken great pains to dress the part. A baseball cap, T-shirt, brown leather jacket, blue jeans, and Reebok sneakers. He was a small guy, not much over five and a half feet, had a hawkish nose and tiny hands, and the cap covered what I was sure was premature balding.

"Hey, Jarrod, how's the eye?"

"Can't even tell," I said hopefully, knowing full well I looked like a battered Farrah Fawcett in The Burning Bed.

Larry inspected me closely, unable to hide his obvious revulsion, and thought for a moment. He pressed a fist to his chin, and lowered his head like a Rodan statue. After a few painfully long seconds, he raised it again and this time had a twinkle in his eye.

"Why don't we write it into the script?" he said, snapping his fingers for emphasis.

"Brilliant idea," said Stella, an obvious kiss-up who wanted to be hired on future Larry Levant films.

"We've already established that your son Stevie is a troubled kid. Gets into lots of fights on the playground and that kind of shit. Where does he get it from? Dad! You're a drunk who gets into all kinds of bar brawls, and one of the reasons you went on this camping trip was to recover from getting the shit kicked out of you by some yahoo redneck you mouthed off to when you were liquored up!"

He looked at me for a reaction. I paused. "I thought Stevie and I were on the camping trip to get over the fact my wife deserted us to go find herself."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I stole that from Kramer vs. Kramer. Great movie! Changed my life! I was that kid. But this is far more fucking original, don't you think?"

"Um, sure," I said, not wanting to argue with my director on the first day.

"I love it!" Stella chirped as she started scraping the mounds of makeup off my face. "It totally works with his black eye."

"Perfect. I'll get you some rewrites by tonight. See you on the set," he said as he flew out of the trailer.

As Stella worked her magic on my face, I wondered if Juan Carlos had arrived yet. After I had been knocked down in the lobby of the Ritz Plaza, Rudy Pearson had beaten a hasty retreat. He was afraid I might press charges or something. Juan Carlos watched him scurry away, and then reached down and hauled me to my feet. He looked at the swelling around my eye.

"Jesus, that's gotta hurt," he said. Not exactly a warm truce, but at least he didn't sock me in the other eye so I'd have a matching set. Juan Carlos steadied me, and then strolled out the glass door toward Ocean Avenue to kick off his own night on the town. Dizzy and disoriented, I swayed a bit as the concierge, a tall, slim Colombian, raced to my aid and escorted me back up to my dismal and depressing room. A bellman arrived with an ice pack, and I crawled into bed, calling it a night.

It seemed as if only a few seconds had passed before Coldplay was blaring through the CD alarm clock. I stumbled back downstairs, where the impossibly perky Amy Jo quickly greeted me and then, before I could request coffee, whisked me out to her maroon transport van, and we began our twenty-minute journey to the set of Creeps in a wooded park just outside Coral Gables.

Stella finished dabbing up the sweat that had formed on my brow, and then wheeled me around so I could get a good look at her handiwork. I was pale, haggard, my hair was matted and dull, and my eyes were bloodshot. But none of it was noticeable because all attention was drawn to the large purple-and-black shiner that was now taking up a quarter of my face, and was getting bigger by the minute.

"I look terrible," I said weakly.

"Well, you heard Larry. You're a mess. Your wife just ditched you and you were in a bar fight."

"But don't you think this might be overkill? Maybe you went slightly overboard with the whole death-warmed-over look."

Stella bristled at my pointed criticism of her artistry.

"Honey, I didn't do a damn thing," Stella said. "This is the real you." She saw the horror in my face and decided to mollify the situation by adding, "Besides, this is an independent film. We want to go for realism."

I pulled myself up out of the chair and left the trailer. Outside, the mood was a bit ebullient as the crew prepared for the first shot on the first day of production. People were a lot more cheerful on Day One when inclement weather, blown-out klieg lights, injured actors, and overexposed film were still days, perhaps even weeks, away from having to be dealt with.

The first scene on the schedule was a simple-enough one to kick off the five weeks of principal photography. At this point in the story, the intrepid hero, a park ranger played by Juan Carlos, has gathered a group of campers to warn them that a homicidal maniac may be loose in the forest, and that it is vital we stay together as a group until he is caught. Of course, in the following pages, various circumstances occur that split us all up so the methodical killer can pick us off one by one.

In addition to my character and the boy playing my son, the other endangered campers included college students paired off into three couples, a retired Army general and his son, and the script's leading lady, a psychoanalyst, who would later prove useful in providing a disturbing psychological profile of our adversary. With her was her mother, a doctor, who would later on offer medical assistance to those lucky few who escaped the killer with their lives but nevertheless nursed dangling limbs and knifed torsos.

My only line in the scene, which I had already committed to memory, was, "Forget it. I'm going to take my chances and try to get out of here with my son!" At which point, the ranger (Juan Carlos) would shake some sense into me, and impress upon me how important it was we all stick together, or risk certain death. I refuse to listen until my son, a child with wisdom well beyond his years, looks at me with his big brown eyes and says, "Daddy, please. Do as the nice man says. I don't want to die." I stop cold. Look at everybody. And then my eyes fall back down to meet my son's pathetic gaze. After a long beat which I planned to milk of every last ounce (and to ensure extra screen time), I muss my son's hair with a smile, deeply affected by his words, and nod silently. The boy throws his pudgy little arms around my waist and sobs, "I love you, Daddy." Not a bad scene for a first day.

I spotted Larry hugging a brunette, presumably our leading lady, who had just arrived on the set. My involvement with this picture had happened with such speed, I still had no idea who my costars were besides Juan Carlos. When the brunette pulled away, I was in for a big bombshell. It was Dominique.

Larry clutched her hand and dragged her over to me. "Jarrod, I want you to meet Dominique. She's playing Sarah the psychoanalyst."

Dominique looked at me with empty eyes. She had no memory of who I was.

"We've met," I said.

"We have?" she said incredulously.

"Twice. Once at the Hearst Castle and once out in Malibu," I said, refraining from adding, "When I fished your ass out of the surf following your attempted suicide drowning."

Her eyes flickered at bit, trying to come to life, like a pair of waning headlights sucking the last juice out of a dead car battery.

"Oh, right," she said.

"I have to set up the master shot with the DP. I'll let you two get acquainted," Larry said as he hustled off toward his Panavision camera, the one top-of-the-line piece of equipment on this shoot.

"I didn't know you were an actress, Dominique," I said, studying her face for any signs of animation.

She nodded.

"So, are you doing well? The last time I saw you, you were a bit . . . down." That was putting it mildly.

She perked up ever so slightly. "I'm fine. I've put the past behind me, and I'm moving on. I want to put my career first for a while."

I was ready to believe her until I saw her notice something. Her face fell, and she let out an audible gasp. I turned to see what had caught her so off-guard, and spotted Juan Carlos sweep in, his arm around a stunning older beauty in her mid-forties. She carried herself like a queen and was blessed with a porcelain face, immaculately styled hair, and a slim, statuesque figure. She was in a smart white pantsuit, and laughed while resting her head on Juan Carlos's broad shoulder. They were sharing a private joke.

The stunning woman's eyes met Dominique's, and she gave her a halfhearted wave. Juan Carlos, barely able to contain himself, bussed the older woman's cheek with his hot passionate Latin lips. And then he slapped her playfully on the behind as she scampered over to the hair stylist and commandeered a hand mirror to check her appearance.

Juan Carlos managed to give me a half smile as he sauntered over to the craft service table for a bagel. He gave a quivering Dominique even less attention.

"First team in, please," bellowed the first assistant director through a bullhorn as the stand-ins who filled in for us while the lighting was set up filed off the set. I had one last chance to call Charlie. I hit the speed dial. It rang twice.

"Hi, this is Charlie Peters. You've reached my voice mail. You know what to do."

Damn. I shoved the phone into my coat pocket, not allowing myself to imagine where he could be. I had already done enough of that.

I stepped on my mark next to the cherubic blond boy playing my son. He looked nothing like me. His mother, a squat, harried woman with what looked like a nervous tick, stood off to the side, watching her offspring intently.

Larry was circling the cast one last time, making sure he was happy with his blocking.