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anyway. I need a job.” The wide space between her eyebrows made her look skeptical or amused. Thick upbrushed auburn hairs, tapering toward the outsides of her eyes, a bit mannish. Strange; his impression from last night was of someone more feminine.
    “ As what,” said Simon. He took a breath, let it out, reached into his car coat, but came up empty. What had he been looking for in there anyway? “What do you do?”
    A strange expression flickered across her features . Satis-faction or smugness. He should take charge, not repeat her words back at her.
    “ You need a fight choreographer, don’t you?” she said. “On Babylon .”
    Fight choreographer. He remembered—people he had to call, things he had to decide about casting, sets, the shooting schedule. A rush of pride and anticipation surged through him at the thought of his film. Nothing else today had brought him that feeling. Nothing else but talking to her. Something about the way she planted her feet and stroked one finger across the strap of her purse: once, twice, and then it fell still.
    “I thought it was urgent that you find your wallet , Nadia.” Gloria crossed her arms.
    “Of course. Mr. Mercer?”
    He pulled himself back to the present, and her eyes met his: amused, affectionate. They both smiled. Simon reached into his front pocket and pulled out a card. So that’s where they were; why couldn’t I find them before? “Send me your resume.”
    She did not look at the business card he held out.
    “ It’s a hassle to set up appointments,” she said. “You can interview me here.”
    “ Now?” Was she going to get unreasonable?
    “Ms. Weston, security is this way—”
    Nadia said, “Ask me: armed or unarmed. Left-handed or right-handed. A fight is as much about the reaction as the attack. No one would’ve noticed our exchange last night if you hadn’t walked out angry.”
    Simon rubbed his neck. Her attitude was ballsy and direct. He could use that.
    “ You’d better take my card, then. And send me your resume.”
    She took the card, but this was obviously not how she wanted the conversation to end. Welcome to showbiz, Ms. Weston.
    Nadia stepped aside. As he walked by her, she tucked the card in her pocket.

Chapter 4
     
    Monday, May 22, 4:30 a.m. Day 1 of shooting.
    The alarm clock bleated from the shelf above his bed. Simon groaned and slapped at the snooze button, dislodging a half-empty bottle of tequila that narrowly missed his head. He groped across the blankets for it. Cap still screwed on, at least.
    He lay where he had passed out, in his trailer on the studio lot, looking up at a bulkhead while his head buzzed and rang like a band saw. No, not his head. It was the second and third alarm clocks that he had stationed at the other end of the trailer. Off the set, he could never be bothered with schedules and watches, but here he had to care. He sat up, the pressure in his head sloshing like an overfull glass. He stared down at his legs. Still dressed; too bad he would have to remove his clothes to take a shower. Once shooting started, everything but the film felt like wasted time. The stars had their day trailers, but he preferred to save the drive to the hotel and back. Shedding clothes as he went, he squeezed into to the iron-lung-sized bathroom that smelled of vinyl and soap.
    Get used to it . This trailer would be home for the next fifteen weeks, sixty-two days of which were shooting days.
    Shooting kept him going until he collapsed. Plunge in, draw it back, flow back into it. There was no choice once the momentum built—with decisions to make, disasters to avert, and dailies flooding in: ride the juggernaut, steer it, or it will crush you.
    He skipped his every-third-day ritual of shaving and his usual cup of coffee. The first was a shooting tradition, and the second was necessity. If he swallowed anything but water on shooting mornings, it would come back up half an hour later. The tequila last night had been another