Clack…clack…clack…clack
Murdock rubbed one eye tiredly as he shuffled his feet down the stairs to see what Jean was doing in the living room. Of course he knew what she was doing, the same thing she'd been doing all night, but this was getting ridiculous. After dinner he knew Jean needed the place to herself to work, so he'd been content with confining himself to his game room upstairs for a few hours; it gave him plenty of time to try beating his old records. After that she was still typing, and he'd been tired so he just went to bed and waited for her. But then a couple more hours passed and she still hadn't come up, still he could hear the slow, repetitive yet monotonous clack-clack-clack of the keys, so he decided to see what was going on.
He stopped in the middle of the threshold to the living room and looked at Jean still seated at the table she'd set up to put her typewriter on. There was a mess of typed papers all over the table and a few on the floor and one still in the machine as she kept her head propped up against one balled up hand and with the other punched at the keys one at a time with her index finger. When it reached the end and the typewriter dinged, Jean turned the roll to pull the paper out and sent it flying in the air and looked like she was ready to collapse. Without so much as a word, Murdock went over to her, got behind the chair and reached around and grabbed Jean and tried pulling her up out of it.
"Let go of me," she grumbled tiredly as she beat his hands off of her with her fists.
"Come on, Jean," he said, borderline whining, "Come on to bed, you can start on this again in the morning."
"No," she replied.
"Come on, Jean," he repeated, a bit more forceful, "Stop pounding on that Tommy gun and come to bed."
"No," Jean rubbed an eye, "I want to keep working on it now while it's fresh."
"Jean, it's 2 in the morning," he told her.
"That's fine, I can still get another hour done before stopping," she murmured as she rolled a new sheet of paper into the typewriter.
Murdock picked up a piece of paper she'd already typed on to see what it said, "You get the screenwriting job?"
"Nope," she replied, "Trying to come up with some dialogue for an audition."
Maybe he was too tired to get it, but he looked up from the paper and asked her, "What?"
Jean pushed the typewriter back and pushed her chair back and explained, "A lot of these auditions I go to are strictly improvisation only stuff…you know how hard that is to come up with on the spot? So, I figured I'd type out a few ideas to work with now, so by the time I go to try out for the roles, I already have it memorized but it'll all be new to them."
Well it was a plan. Murdock picked up another sheet that had a bunch of numbers and asked her, "This part of it?"
Jean glanced at the sheet and shook her head, "No, that's for a screenplay. So far no luck."
Murdock scratched his head as he glanced over the numbers, "What's 187 mean?" he asked as he noted the one at the very top, separated from the others.
"It's a police scanner code," Jean answered, "Means homicide."
"…Ah," he replied, wondering what that was about.
"I got about all those codes memorized," she said, "Not that it's been doing me any good."
Whatever was eating at her had her frustrated enough she leaned forward and started beating her head against the table. Murdock snagged her by the back of her shirt and pulled her back up and told her, "Stop that!"
"I still have about an hour to go, so just leave me alone and let me work," Jean told him as she started typing again.
Murdock paid little attention to what she said, instead he went around picking up the papers that had gone flying over the night and tried to get them all organized, but it was impossible to tell what was what and what belonged where. So he just stacked them all together and set them in a corner on the table. Now that the papers had been cleared up he could see that underneath some of them, several large books had been piled on the table in sections. He cocked his head to the side to read some of the titles: McTeague by Frank Norris, The Wind by Dorothy Scarborough, The Perils of Pauline by Charles Goddard, The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Penalty by Gouverneur Morris, The Unholy Three by Tod Robbins, Metropolis by Thea van Harbou. These were some of the largely forgotten novels that spawned some of the most unforgettable movies to ever grace the silver screen back when Hollywood was making its way out of its infancy and on its way to adolescence. And even the ones that hadn't made a mark to stand the test of time as well as others, still left a mark that carried over into the decades to come. And even now 60 years later some of those movies were even more famous than they used to be, and yet for all that, the majority of the world would never know their original stories.
And in the midst of these, he also saw several books about Hollywood and its actors and directors from its infancy and golden age. He spotted a couple books about Mary Pickford, America's sweetheart 20 years before Shirley Temple ever was; perhaps ironic or perhaps not given that at least three of Pickford's movies had been remade with Temple in them, and, Murdock thought, how odd that in 20 years the title of America's Sweetheart could transfer from a 25 year old to an 8 year old. That was Hollywood for you, especially today, always looking for something younger, and younger, and younger, to be the latest new thing, and if they couldn't get younger, they could present the illusion of younger. But more often than not they just booted out anybody who they thought had outlived their usefulness and their physical appeal to the audience. Also on the table were books about Lon Chaney, Buster Keaton, the Keystone Cops, Mabel Normand, Mack Sennett, Frank Capra, D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, Eric Von Stroheim, and many more. If they weren't biographies they were filmographies, collections of those people's life works. He knew that a lot of these had come from Jean's own personal library, the rest she had scavenged up from the public one; this he knew because that's what she'd spent the afternoon doing.
It was no wonder she thought she could stay up all night working on this, whatever it was. Murdock knew there had been plenty of nights they stayed up watching those old movies, plenty of times they stayed up watching them until the sun came up the next morning. A lot of them were just too funny to miss, others were just too powerful, whether they were stories of the future, or just a testament to the strength of the human soul and what it could endure.
Jean must've known what he was looking at because she stopped typing and looked to him and for a few seconds didn't say anything, then she said, choosing her words carefully, "They always say you sell your soul to become a hit in Hollywood…well…Hollywood sold its own soul long ago."
Murdock had heard about what had happened down at the studio that morning, and if he'd had any idea what to say or do about it, he would've gone down there and used the director as a punching bag; but as it was it seemed that Hannibal handled it already and Jean had stood her own ground. He couldn't help wondering if that was what brought that on. But, he didn't say anything yet and decided to wait and see if there was more to that thought, and there appeared to be.
"Used to be Hollywood made a movie because somebody had a story to tell, something that would rip you open and pull out your guts and your tear ducts and your funny bone and your heart and soul and strew them all over the theater for you to pick up on your way out at the end of the feature," Jean said as she reached over to one of the books on 50's films and flipped it open to a still photo from "Rebel Without a Cause" and she told Murdock, "Now, they make a movie because they want to make $80 million, who cares about the storyline?"
Murdock was tempted to reply to that but he could tell there was still something else to it, so he pulled up a chair from the dining room and sat down cattycorner to her at the table.
"Of course there were always movies that stunk, but these days they're more the rule than the exception," Jean said, "And I know yes there are still a lot of movies made because somebody had a story to tell, but with all the scripts I've read, I'm going to tell you, Murdock, that too is something facing rapid decline."
Now Murdock figured it was his turn to talk. He just opened his mouth to say something when Jean came back with something else and she asked him, "You ever get the feeling you were born at the wrong time?"
Hmm, he had to stop and think about how to answer that one. Jean seemed to forget at times that he was a decade and a half older than her…but then again, he tended to forget that fact on occasion as well, preferably when he wanted to.
"All due respect, Saint," he told her, "I really don't think you'd be any happier 60 years in the past."
"Probably not," she conceded, "But I'd probably have better luck of finding steady employment. You know how common it was swapping one gender of an actor for another of character? Like that grandpa in "Old Dark House", you could tell it was a woman but they still went with it. Or all the men that dressed up like women?"
"Yes but that was done for a joke," Murdock reminded her.
"Well it worked," she said, "And you know, some of them made pretty nice looking ladies."
Murdock fell forward in his chair laughing at that.
Jean yawned and groaned and covered her whole face under her eyes with her hand instead of just her mouth. When she lowered it again she told him, "You know, silent movies get no respect."
"Well now I wouldn't say that," Murdock said.
"Okay, they get a little, but they don't get the recognition they should, especially the good ones…exactly what the hell is it with people they think if there's no color or sound that a movie's not any good?"
Murdock shrugged, "Who knows?"
"Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, and King of Kings were all movies from the 1920s remade in the 1950s with color and better effects, but were they better movies?" she shook her head, "I don't think so, and I can't be the only one. And how about all those screwball comedies from the 1930s they remade in the 50s and made them in color and gave them all those big musical numbers?" she shook her head again, "The originals still prevailed, because they were the best."
"That's a matter of opinion," Murdock said.
"And what's your opinion?" Jean asked.
He paused for a second before answering, "Well I think you could be right, but still…"
Jean shook her head, "Mack Sennett once asked, 'What has become of laughter? There used to be so much of it'. And oh boy was he right. You know why? Because back then they knew they had to be funny to entertain and get people to come see them. How ironic. 60 years ago people had a choice of going out to a movie, or staying home where there's no TV and no radio and just talking to each other, and they would. Today people have a TV in every home, which would eliminate a need to go to the theater if the features are lousy, but people will still pick a bad movie over a night at home with the TV or even talking to one another. Now how the hell did that happen?"
Murdock just shrugged. Clearly the research Jean had been doing over the evening had left her with a lot to get off her chest, and he decided to just sit back and let her purge herself.
"You know how people who don't watch certain movies because they think there's no plot, just that iconic moment in them? Like people who won't watch Psycho, refuse to acknowledge there's a storyline there, all they think the movie's about is a woman being murdered in the shower. Older movies are the same way."
"What do you mean?" Murdock asked.
"If you asked most people to define Charlie Chaplin, what would they say? They'd automatically think of him eating his shoe. Harold Lloyd? Hanging off a clock. How about Buster Keaton? What would people remember him from?"
"Having a 2-ton wall fall around him?" Murdock offered.
"Exactly," Jean said, "And is that all that they did?" she shook her head and Murdock shook his in agreement, "No, but it's all they're remembered for, because most people aren't going to take the time to watch any of their films, let alone watch all of them and see what they were really about. Nobody is going to think of Charlie Chaplin in connection to him using a hand drill to open a loaf of bread to stick his hot dog in, nor will they remember him running plates and teacups through a laundry wringer. And Buster Keaton? Will they remember him being every member of the audience, including women and a little boy, watching him play every part in the orchestra at once? Or him doing the high dive to kill himself, missing the pool completely, and falling all the way to China and returning years later with his Chinese wife and 3 children to show how he made his journey? Or Harold Lloyd? Will they remember him as the country doctor who imposes a little excitement on the sick-little-well-girl by pretending to be an escaped maniac and jumps around on the bookcases around the room scaring the hell out of her caretakers who are trying to keep her sick and shut away from the world?"
"Probably not," Murdock said.
"Now you tell me something, Murdock," she demanded, "Why is it that Hollywood can't make movies like that today? Are they afraid they'll have to actually make an effort and try hard to entertain people?"
Murdock scratched his head and shrugged, "Got me, hon."
Jean scratched behind her ear and commented, "Hollywood is indeed a weird place, they like to act like they care about their own, and then they let them be thrown to the dogs." She grabbed another book and opened it to a certain page and said, "Roscoe Arbuckle's put on trial for rape and murder and the prosecutor goes ahead with a case that has no evidence to destroy a man who made it his mission in life to entertain people and make films so clean that all kids could see them and laugh. Busby Berkeley, who devoted his career to making films so entertaining that people could forget about the Depression they were living in for an hour or so, also put on trial for murder."
"But he actually did kill somebody," Murdock pointed out, "Three somebodies as I recall."
"A car accident possibly the result of drunk driving," Jean replied as she slammed the book shut, "Worst case scenario he should've been charged with vehicular manslaughter, what was the prosecutor thinking charging him with a premeditated crime? That's very progressive thinking for the 1930s, but it still didn't get them anywhere. And like Arbuckle, 3 trials, 2 hung juries and a final acquittal, what was it worth then?"
Murdock wasn't sure how to answer that one, all he could say was, "It's a sordid town, always has been."
"That's for sure," Jean nodded, "But it seems to get worse all the time." She paused a moment to sigh and run a hand over her face, "I tell you, I have half a mind…"
"What?" Murdock asked, "Half a mind to what?"
She grumbled something and told him, "I've been toying with the notion of talking to Marie Frances."
"That big fat woman Face got stuck on a date with?" Murdock asked.
Jean nodded, "One and the same, I've been considering asking her if she'd be willing to back an independent film, something that makes an attempt to return Hollywood back to its roots."
"Think she would?" Murdock asked.
"Well we know she has the money for it, and it could be in her blood, there are rumors around the studio that her grandmother was good friends with a lot of the people at MGM when it was newly founded. Only thing is first there has to be a storyline to sell her on, and for that it helps to have a script. That's where I'm currently stuck."
"Watcha got in mind so far?" Murdock asked as he tried glancing at the paper currently in her typewriter.
"So far nothing," she replied, "I got plenty of ideas in here," she pointed to her temple, "But try getting them down on paper is impossible, it's no wonder Buster Keaton never used a script." She groaned and grumbled and told him, "That's why I'm going to be down here for another hour, you don't need to bother waiting up for me."
Murdock didn't say anything at first, he just stood up, leaned over, kissed Jean on the top of her head and said, "You'll get it, darling, I know you will."
"I hope," Jean said.
She spent the next hour sitting at the table alternating between just staring at the old Remington and occasionally punching a few keys here and there, trying to get a few ideas down in black and white. Finally she gave up, tore the paper out of the roll, crumpled it up and tossed it off to a far corner of the room, pushed her chair back, stood up, stretched her arms high up over her head, and turned to head upstairs, and stopped before she made one step away from the table.
Murdock hadn't gone up to bed. He'd laid down on the couch behind Jean and fallen asleep there apparently waiting on her. Jean shook her head in disbelief and asked herself quietly, "What am I going to do with you?"
Murdock grinned big and opened his eyes and said, "I can think of a few things."
Jean balled her hands on her sides and shook her head as she tried to maintain a neutral line on her mouth, willing it not to curve up into the smirk that was trying to break through. Murdock pushed himself back against the back cushions of the couch and patted the space in front of him for her to join him.
"I am not sleeping on the couch with you," Jean told him.
"You sleep on it by yourself, what's the difference?" Murdock asked. He curled a finger and wagged it towards him, "Come on, come here."
Jean gave in and walked over to the couch, Murdock grabbed her and pulled her down beside him, and before she could move to get up, he pinned his hands down against her and tried giving her a hickey, but she kicked and elbowed him to get off of her.
"I suck at this," she told him.
"What're you talking about?" he asked.
"Murdock, since I've started my hand at scriptwriting, I've come up with ten different ideas, and never got any of them finished, and they're all still up in the air barely 10 pages into any idea before I hit the wall and tried something different. I'm getting nowhere with this."
Murdock shrugged as he wrapped his arms around her and said, "It takes time. Hey, it could be worse."
"How?" Jean asked.
"At least you didn't have to spend the first two years learning to type," he told her with a knowing smirk.
Jean laughed at the reference and quoted, " 'You'd think with forty monks and one girl, that something would happen'."
"Exactly," Murdock said.
"Okay, so it could be worse," Jean said, "But it still feels like I'm going nowhere with this whole idea of switching from stunts to writing."
"Not nowhere," Murdock assured her, "You know it took Thomas Edison 2,000 tries to make a light bulb that actually worked? You want to talk frustrating? And you can note he never once looked at it as failure, merely as 2,000 ways how not to make a light bulb."
"He had more time to waste than I do, and that's exactly what it feels like," she responded, "It just feels like I'm getting nowhere in anything I do."
Murdock lightly tightened his hold on her and pulled her tighter against him and asked, "Ain't you a little young to be having a midlife crisis?"
She turned her head to look at him and said, "It's really funny, you know? We spend our whole lives being raised with the idea that the minute we're 18, we're ready to go out into the world and make it on our own and will automatically be a success because that's what everybody does and it's something anyone and everyone can do. And 18 came and went, so did 19, then 20, and now it's five years past that, I've been on my own for about a year, but other than that I don't have anything to show for what I've been doing with my life."
"Well how do you define success?" Murdock asked.
"Generally by how much money you make," she said.
"Except you know that's not the case," he told her.
"So says the man with $100,000 in the bank," Jean pointed out.
"Well that's another thing," Murdock told her as his hand found one of hers and gave it a slight squeeze, "You have an advantage over a lot of people your age because you're not under obligation to bring home a steady paycheck, you know if it comes to it we can get by on my finances instead. So that puts less of a squeeze on you to have to prove anything."
"Yeah well, it still feels like I'm wasting my time," she said, "When you were my age…"
"When I was your age the world was still flat," Murdock replied sarcastically, "You can't compare your life to mine."
"By now you had already served with the Thunderbirds, you'd been in a war," Jean said.
"And then I got air mailed express back here to the nuthouse," Murdock said, "Where I spent 10 years learning to fit in to stay under the radar, learning to slip pills under my tongue and blend in with the other crazies who don't even know where they are. You want to talk about time wasted?" His voice was deeper now, commonly associated with the 'more serious Murdock' when he would take a melodramatic approach to a subject weighing heavily on his mind, even if to everyone else it was all a bunch of nonsense. And he added, "I have no regrets for the time I was out with my Team, but 10 years is a lot of time for your everyday life to be consumed by institutionalization and hospitalization, believe me I spent every day thinking of plenty of things I would've far rather been doing."
"Even so, in that 10 years alone you accomplished more than I ever will with my life," Jean said.
Murdock reached over and patted through her hair and told her, "You can't think like that, Jean, that's only going to depress you even more…all you can think about is in terms of what over the years has occurred that you've enjoyed, believe me you'll get more out of that train of thought instead."
"That how you think?" she asked.
"Mm-hmm, and I'm thinking about one right now," he said as he adjusted his hold on her and rocked them both back on the couch.
Jean giggled and gave in and leaned back into his embrace. Murdock kissed her and nuzzled his face against her neck and said, "Darling I love you, but you just try too hard at everything."
"I can't help it, I've always been that way," Jean told him.
Murdock reached up and ran his hand through her hair and said to her, "Hey, I checked the paper's TV schedule, next week they're going to have those silent movies on all night for a marathon, that ought to give you a few ideas to work with and help get you unstuck."
"And my luck I'll probably be watching them by myself," Jean told him, "Hannibal says that you guys may have a new client so you'll be off on another job."
"Well we'll just see about that," Murdock replied, "I'm sure things will get back to status quo now and we can have the mission over with in 2-3 days tops."
"That would be good," Jean murmured.
She looked to the clock on the wall and saw it was 3:15, she cocked her head back to see Murdock and told him, "I've got to get some sleep, I have to be at work early in the morning."
"Another audition?" Murdock asked.
"No, Crowley that stuntman I work with has decided to try his own hand at amateur freelance directing, he wants to make a movie and asked me to help him with it."
"Oh boy," Murdock groaned.
"He's funding it out of his own pocket so it's definitely going to have to be a labor of love," Jean explained.
"What're you doing in it?" he asked.
"Stunts of course," Jean said, "I'm glad we're home because I've got to get ready for the part. He's got this scene in mind where the girl I'm doubling for, swims out to an airboat to sabotage it, and ducks under the boat as the people who own it come out, and manages to swim out of the way just as the thing starts moving."
"Sounds dangerous."
"That's why it's stunt work," Jean told him, "In any case it's largely stop-and-start filming, I'll be out of the way before the propeller ever starts up, it's just a matter of he doesn't want to risk something going wrong with the girl he's casting in the part of the daughter."
"Why didn't he hire you for the full part?" Murdock asked.
"Because like you said about Amy, she looks better in the swimsuit," Jean answered.
"I'm sorry, Jason, but it just can't be done," Jean told Crowley the next morning as they were working on the shot. They stood on the beach a few feet in from the shore and Jean was in her bathing suit covered in water and goosebumps from spending 20 minutes out in the still icy water. "There is no way I can swim under that boat and get on through to the other side, I keep rising up and bumping against the damn thing. The only way you'd be able to get that shot would be to rewrite it so she weighs herself down so she sinks and then swims out."
Murdock had decided to accompany her out to see just what was happening with this movie her friend was making, and he'd managed to talk Face into coming out with them. They'd been watching the last few takes where Jean tried pulling off the stunt under the boat, and they had to agree, from what they saw it just couldn't be done, least of all not the way the script had it written.
And for some reason, it was Face who decided to ask, "How would she do that?"
Jean looked down at the way she was dressed and saw his point, and an idea hit her, "Rewrite it so she's still dressed, she could put some rocks in her pockets and sink herself, then take them out to lighten the load as she makes her getaway."
"Rocks? In that water?" Crowley asked, "Jean, do you have any idea how dangerous that would be?"
"It's not dangerous," Jean shook her head, "It's hard as hell! Think about it, you know how small they make pockets today? You'll never get a good sized rock with a solid weight to it to fit in any of them without it ripping apart. The only thing you could line your pockets with would be a bunch of pebbles, and good luck getting enough of those that they could actually weigh you down." She smacked herself on the forehead and told Crowley, "That's brilliant, you should have that be part of her dialogue when her friends fish her out."
"Uh," Face suggested, "Maybe you ought to write the script for it."
Jean turned to him, then turned and scowled at Murdock, who without a word insisted he hadn't said anything.
"She could definitely rewrite some of the lines for the daughter's part," Crowley noted, "Probably have better luck than I would, I don't have the first clue how girls talk."
"Well you'd be out of luck there too," Face said as he pointed to Jean, "Neither does she."
Jean turned back towards Face and showed her teeth and snarled at him, he made a subtle retreat behind the pilot for cover. Murdock watched as Jean went over excerpts from the currently existing draft of the script with the director who was clearly in over his head and the two discussed specific scenes.
"I don't know," he heard Crowley mumble loud enough to be coherent from 15 feet away, "Maybe it can be redone."
"This part," Jean pointed to a page near the back, "Where the teenagers catch the man breaking into the house, you don't want it to just be a straight out and out dramatic confrontation, it won't be as memorable, you need something in it that'll stick out."
"Like what?" Crowley asked.
"Well look, they have that room at the back of the cabin with all the tools, if it was me, if it was somebody I hated and wanted to screw with his head, I'd tell him that it was the room where we stuff animals and take him in there, saying 'I always wanted to see what a taxidermy human looks like'. Nobody in the audience would be able to forget a line like that."
Jason flipped through the pages and asked, "You think that would work?"
Jean shrugged and replied, "Unfortunately the movie business is only as good anymore as its latest shock value, you have to get something that'll jerk the audience to attention, and if you can keep it limited to an implication it's much better than actually showing them anything because the mind can come up with far worse things than the screen can ever show."
"Yeah," Jason half nodded, half shrugged, "But would a 16-year-old really be able to come up with a line like that?"
"That depends on what kind of person they are and how determined they are," Jean said, "Jason, first rule of creating movie characters, the audience is too smart if you try giving them somebody who is too dumb, they know it and they don't appreciate it, and stupid teenagers may be a common idea but at some point people are going to have to start giving them credit. Remember 'The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane'? That's what you want, that's what the audience will not expect, teenagers who actually know what they're doing and are capable of outsmarting the oh so intelligent adults who constantly berate them for being stupid merely because they aren't 18. That is mere assumption mixed with whatever public mask the teenagers in question choose to wear for the world to judge them by, it's easier to get the drop on people that way when you reveal your true intentions."
Jason flipped the script shut with all the pages back in place and asked her, "Oh yeah? How the hell do you know so much about this stuff?"
"You ever hear Hannibal when he rambles on about of playing a giant rubber monster with emotional complexities and conflicts of interest? You pick up a few things," Jean answered.
"That's just Hannibal's usual runaround," Face told her.
Jean looked to him and remarked, "Well it works, especially since he's got you conning your way in as his speech coach."
Face opened his mouth to respond but came up short when he realized that Jean had him there.
Jean laughed and told Crowley, "Tell you what, when you figure out what you're going to do about the script you let me know, in the meantime I have to go get changed, I've got another job as an extra in a military movie."
"Again?" Murdock and Jason both asked.
Jean nodded and commented cynically, "Vietnam screwed over every high school graduate male of the mid 60s through the early 70s and is reeking havoc with everybody who ever knew anyone who served even today, and is eventually going to be the death of 95% of those soldiers who actually got back, but it's doing wonders for the film industry because they just love doing movie after movie after movie about the war torn post traumatized soldiers who come back to their homeland and cannot adapt to civilian life again, and usually ends with him either turning the gun on himself, or some little folk town burning to the ground or being blown up."
"Business as usual," Face dryly added.
"I'm never sure," Jean said as she kicked her dressing room door shut and joined Murdock and Face outside as they headed over to the correct studio lot, "Whether I ought to take it as a compliment or an insult that I get stuck in so many male roles."
"Well given that you're in the back, you have no lines, they never really see your face, and they have no idea who you are," Face said, "I don't see the problem."
"Maybe you ought to try it sometime then," Jean suggested.
"Well let's see, which lot are you supposed to be at, Saint?" Murdock asked.
Face got a look at the scenery up ahead that had yet to be occupied by the regular crowd of cameramen and sound crews, and noted, "Well this isn't it, this is the one for the Aquamaniac, see? There's the costume!"
"I wonder who they got to replace Hannibal for the part?" Jean asked.
Murdock couldn't resist running over to the giant green creature and opening up the trap door and concluding, "Nobody yet, it's empty!"
"Huh, you probably couldn't pay anyone else to actually get in that thing," Face said.
They heard a car horn honking loudly and turned to see a convertible speeding towards them and kicking up a dust storm behind it. As it came to a screeching halt they were able to recognize Hannibal driving it and Amy in the passenger side.
"Hannibal!" Face exclaimed.
"What's going on?" Murdock asked.
"Amy's got a new client for us to meet," Hannibal said casually, and added, "And unless you'd rather keep a date with Decker who ought to be arriving here within the next 60 seconds, you might want to consider coming along right now."
"Nothing new here," Jean noted.
Murdock paused long enough for a quick kiss and goodbye before he joined Face and jumped over the side right into the backseat, then they tore out of there and left Jean in the dust. A few seconds later she heard a car coming and turned to see a standard MP sedan pulling up and she could tell that Decker and Crane were in it; but she noticed they were the only ones here, they hadn't brought the usual parade of MPs with them, and she wondered what was up.
"Alright, Miss Rhodes," Decker said as he slammed his door shut and walked up to her, "Where are they?"
"Where's who?" she played innocent.
Decker noticed the Aquamaniac suit and told her, "Get away from there, nice and slow, and don't try anything stupid."
Jean complied and raised her arms though she couldn't help commenting, "It's too late to say the same to you." She watched Decker and Crane go over to the suit and tried to interject, "Ah…Decker…" but didn't really bother trying too hard.
Decker pulled a gun out of his pocket and held it on the suit and said, "Alright, Smith, we've got you now."
"I don't think you do," Jean spoke up. Then, just to see what would happen, she called out randomly, "Decker look out!"
Decker was caught off guard by that and turned to her for a split second, then turned back to the costume and blew a hole point blank into the Aquamaniac's chest. Jean drew back and said with a slight cringe, "Ooh you're gonna wish you hadn't done that, Roddy."
Decker moved over to the suit and grabbed the trap door in the neck and threw it open and looked like he might have a heart attack when he realized that there wasn't anyone in it.
"I tried to tell you," Jean just about broke out laughing, she couldn't keep a straight face but so far she managed to keep from bursting into a fit of chuckles.
Decker spun around on his heel, marched back towards her and demanded to know, "Where are they?"
"Where's who?" she asked again.
"The A-Team!"
"Uh, have you checked your TV set on Saturday mornings?" she asked.
By now she was laughing, and she was still laughing when Decker grabbed her by the collar of her jacket and was borderline choking her. There were no further words exchanged between them though because it was at that time that the director of the film had showed up along with the crew to begin setting up the lighting and sound equipment before they started filming. And the next thing Decker knew, he had one very angry director screaming in his face about putting holes in the star of the film, naturally the actors inside the Aquamaniac were expandable, the costume itself was the true star.
"Sorry I can't stick around and watch you get your ears boxed in, Roddy," Jean told him as she started walking off backwards, "But I gotta go blow up somebody's car, see ya round!"
An hour later she was among 50 other extras in similar soldier uniforms painted in Vaseline and makeup dirt to give the illusion of perspiring to the point of near-death in a heat trap; and they were all toting movie prop assault rifles and grenade launchers on a lot that was made up to look like a Nicaraguan war zone and waiting for filming to start. Then, amongst all the typical noises associated with preparation for the first take of the day, she heard a sound from above. Up in the sky she could see a plane, so high up it was almost impossible to see, but it made enough noise that it almost sounded like a tornado touching down. Up that high it was impossible to tell what kind of plane it was, but she had a pretty good guess as to who was onboard it.
"Good luck guys," she murmured to herself, "Wherever you're going."
"Okay everybody," she heard the director calling, "Everyone into position! Let's try and get this right! And…action!"
Jean's eyes glanced back to the plane in the sky and before she heard the clapboard slam shut she murmured, "You ain't kidding."