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spend the afternoon casting instead of shooting.”
    “It’s settled, then,” Ciano said. “My first assistant director will direct your test this afternoon. We can do it in a corner of Stage Ten while we’re between setups.”
    “I’d really need to talk to Vance about this,” Stone said.
    Regenstein produced his tiny cellular telephone and dialed a number. “Betty, this is Lou; find Vance for me, will you?” He looked at Stone. “This’ll just take a moment. Hello, Vance? We’ve solved the casting on the prosecutor; how about Stone Barrington for the part? I’m sitting here with him right now, and Mario thinks he’d be great; we’d do a test this afternoon. Great! See you tonight.” He hung up. “Vance is all for it, Stone, so you’re out of excuses.”
    Ciano produced his own phone, called his assistant, and ordered preparations for the test. He hung up. “Welcome to Holywood,” he said, grinning.
     
    Stone stood in the dining room of the Connecticut farmhouse on Stage Ten and listened to the young man who was directing him.

    “Okay, you’ve had a few minutes with the lines,” the director said. “You okay with them?”
    “Seems almost as if I’ve said them before,” Stone said.
    “That’s the way! Now, you pretend that the dining table there is the railing in front of the jury. I want you to deliver the lines across the table as if the jury were there, butdon’t look directly into the video camera, just to either side. Got it?”
    “I guess so,” Stone replied, putting his script on the table.
    “You can hang onto the script,” the young man said.
    “I think I can do it without it,” Stone replied.
    “All right, here we go.”
    A man stepped in front of Stone and held up a slate. “Barrington test, take one.”
    The director spoke up. “Camera?”
    “Rolling,” the cameraman said.
    “Action.”
    Stone waited for a moment, then pointed behind him to an imaginary defense table. “That young man sitting over there in his nice blue suit looks like a very nice fellow, doesn’t he?” He stopped. “Can I move back and forth along the table?”
    “Cut!” the young man said. “Sure, whatever; we’ll follow you. Ready, here we go again.”
    “Barrington test, take two,” the slate man said.
    “Camera?”
    “Rolling.”
    “Action.”
    Stone began again, but this time he leaned on the table and looked directly at his imaginary jury. “That young man over there in his nice blue suit with theneat haircut looks like a very nice fellow, doesn’t he? Well, if you’d seen him a month ago, his hair was in dreadlocks, and under that suit he’s covered in prison tattoos. This, ladies and gentlemen, is not his first time around the block.” Stone straightened and began pacing back and forth along the dining table. “That nice-looking young man kidnapped a fourteen-year-old girl, took her out into the woods, tortured her, raped her a few times over the course of an afternoon, and then strangled her to death. You’ve heard the evidence; it doesn’t leave any room for doubt. Your choices are simple: you can send him up to the state prison to be put to death, or you can put him back on the street. Next time, maybe it’ll beyour daughter.”
    “Cut!” the director yelled. “That was good for me; good for you, Bob?”
    “Good for me,” the cameraman said.
    “Good for you, Mr. Barrington?”
    “Whatever you say.”
    “Okay, rack it up in Screening Room One for Mario and Mr. Regenstein to see. I’ll let them know.”
    Everyone grabbed his gear and walked away. Stone sat down at the dining table and wondered what he’d gotten himself into.
    Half an hour later, Stone sat in a tiny movie theater with Louis Regenstein, Mario Ciano, and Vance Calder.
    “Roll it,” Ciano said into a phone.
    Stone stared at himself on the screen. As the lines came out he slunk lower and lower into his seat; the scene seemed to go on forever, and it was very clear to him that he was no actor. Then