Chapter 1
"Manners, you've read the script, you know the client has presented us with crap but we need the money. If you wish to continue working for us, go and find people, preferably professional actors to front this production."
George Manners scowled, knowing Reggie Childs was talking as if he were the producer supreme of a big outfit supplying movies for Hollywood release. Instead, Reggie was the boss of a tight-ass outfit that made ads for low-level businesses in Manhattan and within 70 miles into the hinterland.
What a tight-ass outfit, he thought, asking for week to complete the scouting mission and been told to complete that assignment in three days.
He left the former abandoned warehouse that Reginald D. Dwight Childs had converted into a film studio and post-production house and headed downtown. How the fuck would he find a lead female at noon on a Monday, the day of all workdays when the city was at low-ebb?
Geo as George preferred being called, dropped into a bar and had two beers. The female inhabitants were clearly predominantly bartenders or servers of questionable ambition or barfly women waiting to snare clients.
Three more diversions into bars and nine beers later on the second day of scouting, had him no further ahead and Geo accepted he was about to become jobless. It was no use going to any agency for two-bit actors because Reggie would refuse to pay the fees the agency would demand.
Then it happened.
Geo was on the sidewalk waiting for the lights to change to allow him to cross to another bar, when a guy in a big 4X4 nudged into the back of a Mazda sports car that had stopped at traffic lights changing to red.
A woman in white burst out of the sports car, looked at the dents in the rear of her vehicle and Geo thought she was about to burst into tears.
But then a gay-looking guy in a white suit and bone-white bleached hair marched up to the woman and said, "You stupid bitch, why did you stop and make me hit your car?"
A few people stopped alongside Geo, hoping to witness live street theater. They weren't disappointed.
"Because the lights had changed to red."
"But I was in a hurry."
"Oh, poor you. You are in such a hurry you don't care a shit that you damaged my car."
"Fuck you, you blonde bimbo."
Geo watched, mouth agape, as the blonde slugged him and the guy dropped like a stone.
A woman in jeans and a bra with orange hair jumped from the 4X4 brandishing a long wrench and screamed, "Your bitch, take this."
She swung with enough strength to decapitate the blonde.
Blondie ducked and sunk her fist into her assailant's midriff and she fell all bent up to the sidewalk, emitting a distraught scream combined with a death-like rattle.
Geo was enthralled.
The blonde babe was wringing her punching hand and groaning 'Ouch' when a cop appeared from nowhere and said sternly, "You're under arrest."
The babe slugged him and he dropped.
Geo ran to the driver's door of the sports car and yelled to Blondie, "Jump in, we've getting out of here, pronto."
She was half into her vehicle when Geo rammed his foot down and just caught the end phase of the green light.
"Oh god, I'm going to jail," she sobbed.
"That's unlikely because by the time that cop and the other two you assaulted gather themselves and look for witnesses, everyone would have faded way. New Yorkers are not tourists or country hicks keen to talk to the cops."
"Why are you driving me in my car without my authority?"
"The alternative was for you to be arrested."
"Oh yes, I can see it all unfolding now. I was good, wasn't I? I trained in self-defense for five years and this is the first time I've activated myself."
"Activated?"
She laughed. "I mean the first occasion of being able to use my skills in, err, self-defense."
"Oh, I understand. Listen, we ought to lie low for a few hours. I live near here and we can park this most noticeable car in my garage. You can call your husband and advise where you are."
"I have no husband."
"Then your partner or boyfriend?"
"I'm, um, between guys at the moment."
He said nervously, "But you are not gay?"
"God, what a question. No, I'm not."
Geo curled his lip and practically sniggered, "Oh, is this my lucky day?"
She sighed and said if he wore her down, he might get lucky.
Appearing shocked, he said, "Oh no, I'd not angling to do that."
She eyed him and then looked out the side window.
They drove up to a drab apartment block and gaining vehicle access into the basement. Geo said as they stopped and sounding rather nostalgic, "My ex used to park in this spot."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"Don't be, you didn't know her."
She snorted and said she was expressing her warmth for him.
"Woops, I misread your comment, thinking you were sorry for her as if the poor woman walked out on a bumbling and useless fool."
"No."
Geo said expansively, "I appreciate your unfettered comment. Either I misjudged the situation or you, perhaps both."
She said curiously, "You appear well-educated. Am I safe entering your abode?"
"Being associated with a male stranger who's educated is no guarantee of a girl's safety. However, rest assured; you are safe with me. Imagine the alternative of being out on the streets and surrounded by cops with drawn guns?"
She nodded gravely and leant over and kissed him; just a brush of the lips.
An electrical charge swept through Geo and appeared to infuse into his groin.
He was most impressed.
"You smell nice and feel so soft; what are you made of?"
"God what era are you from?" she giggled. "I remember my late grandmother saying when cuddling me, "Little girls are made of sugar and spice."
"That's one hell of a tribute for her to have made and for you to have remembered that."
The woman looked at him and her eyes softened. "I'm Kerry O'Bryan. Who are you?"
"George Manners, known to his friends as Geo."
"Hi Geo," she smiled.
The apartment door opened into a foyer and Kerry looked at the more than thirty awards plaques on the wall and said, "Omigod, you're a somebody?"
"Correction," he smiled. "These are acclaims for my photography and later my TV advertisements I directed and produced. But after Julie left me and we divorced, I hit the bottle for almost a year and, as the media loves saying, by then I'd fallen from grace and my community chose to ignore me and forget my past achievements."
"How wretchedly sad. Did Julie catch you tagging some broad?"
"No, I caught Julie fucking her best friend's husband with her best friend filming it."
Kerry giggled and then, red-faced, apologized.
"No, it's fine. I'm about over it."
Kerry said with some interest, "What do you do now?"
"Make B-grade advertisements on shoestring budgets."
Kerry said her father's firm commissioned companies to make advertisements.
"Would you like me to persuade him to commission you to make an advert for his company?"
"Yeah that would be lovely," Geo said sarcastically.
