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rushed to do the maestro’s bidding, but he stopped her with an authoritative snap of his stubby, beringed fingers. “No, I will prepare it myself so it’s done correctly,“ he said in the tones an empress might have used to say she’d do her own mending. Underlings fell back, nearly bowing, as he approached the snack table.
    “ Ja, mein Herr,“ Shelley said under her breath.
    “I think you’ve got the wrong country,“ Jane whispered. “I think we’re supposed to be chanting, `Duce! Duce!’ “
    Shelley laughed and Cavagnari whirled and glared at them for a moment before turning back to the preparation of his mocha coffee.
    A second later he bellowed, “Jake! Jake! Here she is, my watch! I told you to look here.”
    Jake materialized at his side. “I did look for it here. Not half an hour ago.“
    “You did not use your eyes, Jake. It was here, beneath a chip wrapper.“
    “I am very good at seeing objects! I searched thoroughly,“ Jake said firmly. “It was not here.“
    “But you see? Here... just here before my eyes.“ He slipped the watch on.
    “I tell you it was not—“
    “Enough, Jake! I have spoken. It is done.”
    Jake subsided, obviously furious at having both his judgment and his eye for details questioned, but apparently unwilling to anger Cavagnari further. His eyes narrowed and he looked around the group as if daring anyone else to criticize him. Then his expression turned deeply thoughtful.
    Cavagnari discoursed briefly on the proper way to prepare his coffee, most of his audience pretending rapt attention. Then, when it was done to his satisfaction, he sipped and said, kissing his fingertips and offering them to heaven, “Perfect! Now, we will do the close-ups of scene fourteen, then luncheon.”
    He swept away, underlings trailing like the train of a coronation gown.
    “Wow!“ Shelley breathed. “That’s an extraordinary display of ego run amok.”
    Maisie nodded. “Yes, but would you cross him? Or insist on your own interpretation of a role? You’ve got to be pretty ostentatious to intimidate actors.“
    “Jake stood up to him pretty well,“ Jane said.
    “Jake’s a fool,“ Maisie said dismissively.
    But Jane was still looking at Jake and was thoroughly chilled by the sight of the small, secretive smile on his face.
    Shelley followed Jane’s preoccupied gaze and said quietly, “He’s scary, isn’t he?“
    “I don’t know whether to be scared of him or for him,“ Jane said, involuntarily shivering.
     

6
     
    The rest of the morning passed uneventfully, at least for the moviemakers. For Jane, every new discovery was an event. She started out by prowling carefully through her neighbors’ yards. In her own was the craft service setup and the “location office,“ which consisted of a table covered with stacks of paperwork and a phone. Two “honey wagons,“ which was what the trailer-type dressing rooms with bathrooms were somewhat obscenely called, were parked on Shelley’s property. These were divided into tiny cubicles with doors along the long side, on which were written the principal actors’ names. Jane was dying to get a glimpse of the inside of a cubicle, but nobody was around them just then and she couldn’t peep through any open doors.
    The house to the other side of Jane’s had the wardrobe changing tent and the meal tent. Both were crude arrangements. The meal tent just had long trestle tables and wooden folding chairs. There was an odd piece of equipment at one end that she discovered was a kerosene heater, used at breakfast when it was still cold outside. The changing tent had a men’s entrance at one end, a women’s at the other, and a sheet hung between. There were lightweight wardrobe racks standing around the perimeter and everybody changed in the center of each section.
    The wardrobe truck itself was in the yard beyond. This contained more substantial racks and a desk-like arrangement where a young man was intent on updating the apparently