6 

TEDDY SAT AT the dressing table in the bedroom of the little house he had rented, regarded himself in the mirror, and made some decisions about who he should become. He had always had a distinctly anonymous look about him, a face that lent itself to change, one that people had trouble remembering.

He had to keep it simple, since he would spend considerable time in this character, and he began with a thick, gray mustache with little handlebars. That one thing would establish him in the minds of others as Ted Shirley, the name he had chosen for himself, one easy to remember. He had already spent a couple of hours online, creating a structure for this identity—New York driver’s license, Social Security number, union memberships, credit report, everything an employer would need to hire him.

He stared at the face in the mirror: it was already tan from his years in California, so no makeup was required. It needed one other distinguishing feature, though, one more thing. He fished around in his makeup box and found a pair of round, steel-rimmed eyeglasses; he wiped the lenses clean and put them on, securing them over his ears with the flexible stems. There: sort of a more youthful Wilford Brimley type.

He opened his Ted Shirley file and ran through his particulars again. He had to be this character completely, and he couldn’t allow himself to stumble over facts, like the year he was born or the last four digits of his Social.

He got into some faded but clean jeans, a Western-flavored shirt, a pair of well-worn suede boots, and a belt with a silver buckle, then he put on a Western hat that he had bought in a custom hat shop on the Plaza and had decorated with some sweat stains made of mineral oil, then he consulted the image in the mirror once more. “How do you do, Ted Shirley?” The answer was, pretty damned satisfactory.

The Porsche Cayenne was in the garage, locked away for the duration. He had met a man in a bar the day before who owned a nicely restored old pickup truck and had rented it from him for a month for $1,000, which the fellow was glad to have.

He slipped into an old suede jacket and tucked an envelope into an inside pocket, which contained a copy of the carefully constructed employment application he had filed at the movie employment office in a downtown hotel. He tucked his Ted Shirley wallet into a hip pocket, got his truck keys, and headed south of Santa Fe, to the J. W. Eaves Movie Ranch, a few miles off I-25.

Once there, he parked in the public lot and walked into the nicely designed and constructed Western town, entering the saloon. A woman sat at a table on the front porch, and he tipped his hat to her. “Good morning,” he said. “My name is Ted Shirley. I have an appointment just about now.”

She gave him a dry smile and found his name on a list. “You’re not an actor?”

“I can do just about anything.”

“You’re supposed to see Dan Waters, inside at table number three. Dan is our production manager.”

He thanked her and went inside. There were four poker tables, each with a number. He walked up to number three. “Dan Waters?”

“That’s me.”

Teddy held out a hand. “I’m Ted Shirley.”

“Oh, yeah,” Waters replied, shuffling among some applications on the table. “Siddown. You’ve got an interesting sheet.”

Teddy sat down. “Thank you.”

“Let’s see, theater, documentary films, a few TV shows. You’ve done a little of everything, haven’t you?”

“I guess I have.”

“I’d hire you as an actor if I didn’t need technical people more. We’ve brought a skeleton crew from L.A., and our tax deal with the state film commission calls for us to hire locally, when we can. What would you like to do on this picture, Ted?”

“I think I’d like to work for you,” Teddy replied.

Waters leaned back in his chair. “How long you been in Santa Fe?”

“A few weeks.”

“Why’d you leave New York?”

“Twenty years in the big city was enough. I was looking for a change of scenery.” He paused. “And maybe another wife. The last one didn’t work out too well.”

Waters smiled. “We’ve all been there. You got a place here?”

“I rent. I don’t know the town well enough yet to buy.”

“You ever done any casting?”

“Sure.”

“We’re gonna need about thirty actors with SAG cards, and maybe sixty extras. We’ve already nailed down the SAG people. Why don’t we put you in charge of casting extras?”

“Sounds good.”

Waters handed him a heavy cardboard box. “Here are head shots and CVs and a list of what we need. Most of these applicants have shown up in Western dress, and we’ll favor them to save money on costumes, but if you run across good ones who need dressing, we can handle that. Oh, no weapons—we’ll issue those.”

Teddy stood and picked up the box. “Where do I work?”

“There’s a number eight in the box. Pick a poker table, start interviewing, and bring me a list of your preferences, plus a dozen alternates, by the end of the day. Then maybe we’ll find something else for you to do.”

Teddy picked up the box, chose a table in a corner, and stuck the number on it. In short order, a line had formed before him, and he looked it over for a moment. Some of them looked ridiculous, but others, pretty good. He started to interview the first in line, a wiry fifty-year-old who looked at home in cowboy boots and hat. He was also wearing a six-shooter in a worn holster. Teddy took about three minutes to put him on the list to hire. “One thing,” he said.

“Yessir?”

“Lose the weapon. Lock it in your car, or something. If a gun is called for, the armory will issue it to you.”

“I’m kind of fond of my own,” the man said.

“You can’t work this picture with it. It’s a liability thing.”

He shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

They broke for an hour for lunch, which was served from two actual chuck wagons: hamburgers and beans.

Teddy went back to work, and at three-thirty, he walked over to Dan Waters and handed him his preferred list and their photographs. “Here you go. I think this is a pretty good bunch.”

Waters looked through the photos. “I think you’re right. Now go send them over to Personnel, across the street in the general store, and they’ll get formally hired, then come back and we’ll see what else we can find for you to do.”

Teddy felt someone approach from behind, and he turned to find a tall, heavily muscled man with a thick head of gray hair under a large, cocked-back Stetson.

“Ted, this is the boss,” Waters said, “Dax Baxter.”

Baxter regarded him coolly for a moment, then gave him a quick nod and turned to Waters to start a different conversation. He was followed by two equally tall, equally muscled men.

“Those are Dax’s body men,” Dan said, “Hank and Joe. We call ’em Hinky and Dinky when they’re not listening.”

Teddy nodded. He wanted to hurt Baxter, but he thought better of it.