“Good flight?” I asked.
“Exactly the same as every other flight I have ever taken in my life,” Perkins said.
I tried a winning smile, feeling like a fool. “I don’t suppose you often find yourself in Tucson.”
“The last time was 1971, when they were shootingJudge Roy Bean.Before that, I was here in 1969 and 1968. I first came here in 1965.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
He ran his hands over the lapels of his jacket, smoothing them down. The luggage was beginning to move on the stainless-steel conveyor.
“That’s my bag there,” he said, pointing to a leather two-suiter.
It seemed to be a cue. I picked it up. He stood and watched me. I was liking Mr. Perkins less all the time.
“I assume the car is this way,” he said, heading for the exit. I followed behind, carrying his bag.
* * *
As the limousine purred down the flat highway into town, I turned to Perkins and said, “I’m afraid there isn’t much I can tell you about the murder. I was only?—”
“Then don’t tell me anything,” Perkins said. “I prefer to arrive without preconceptions, and certainly without misconceptions.”
Screw you, I thought, and said nothing at all for several minutes. Perkins stared out the window at the desert. In this area, there was very little of the saguaro cactus for which Tucson is famous. That cactus is what movie companies come here for. It’s a very distinctive landscape: red hills, high peaks with snow, and those funny, almost human-looking cactus bushes growing everywhere. Some places, it’s almost a forest of cactus.
But here the landscape was mostly flat and brown. The sky was clear.
Perkins turned back to me. “Has the weather been good?”
“Good after the first week. We had some flash flooding, washed out roads to the location.”
“How far behind is the production?”
“We’re at day fifteen, and we figure we’re two and a half behind.” This was the most optimistic view. It would be more accurate to say we were probably four days behind, or maybe five. And we’d just lost today, which added one more.
“Counting today?” Perkins asked. “I assume you didn’t shoot today.”
“Counting today, it would be three and a half.”
“I’m not doing insurance business this trip,” Perkins said heavily. “How far behind are you?”
“Probably five days.”
Perkins nodded. “Now this man McDougall. He was the writer, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Has he been at the location from the start?”
“Yes,” I said. I knew why he was asking. It was unusual for a screenwriter to stay with a film once it began shooting. “We needed some rewrites as we went. Brenda Conrad was a last-minute casting choice. Her role had to be reshaped.”
“I see. And his body was found this morning.”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
