The Stand-In by Evelyn Piper Page B

Williams gets the money and Alec Agathon gets nothing.” Nube was staring at him in a funny way. “Nube, I didn’t think for a minute that even if I didn’t have this—a man like you doesn’t hesitate.”
    â€œBut, just in case, you throw in the contract to sweeten the pot. Just in case?”
    â€œDon’t needle me now, Nube.” He waved the contract. “This is the first break I got in thirty years. I’ll be honest with you. This is the first time I got in before you. When they see Kitten in Peep —do I have to tell you? I don’t have to tell you where this could put Alec Agathon, but I give it to you.” He held out the contract.
    â€œCareful! It will get wet. The signatures, God forbid, will run!” Nube crossed his arms, grasped the rim of the pool with his two strong, small hands and turning plopped on the edge of the pool. “Put your contract back in your pocket, my dear cousin.”
    â€œBack? What do you mean ‘back’? Back?”
    â€œLet me tell you something, my dear cousin. If I knew this child was the greatest—the greatest—and saw her name on a contract to you I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. In thirty-five years you have had an unbroken record of picking wrong—from the wrong people to gun down, to the wrong asses to lick! You are a genius of wrong, Alec.” He wiped the water off his left arm with his right hand and shook the hand in the warm, moist air while his cousin watched. “Wake up, Alec! As I was saying, even if I didn’t know the kid was nothing from the evening I saw her screen test, I would know it from this contract with your name on it.”
    â€œThen why did you sign her for Peep?”
    â€œWhen Coral changed her mind about letting us use her own kid, she mentioned her niece. She did her sister a favor, and I signed Kitten to do Coral a favor.”
    â€œYou never signed anyone for a favor in your life. Why wouldn’t Coral want her own kid for the part?”
    â€œSearch me. Maybe her own kid would have stolen the picture. This one won’t. Search me. She changed her mind, I don’t know why. Personally I think it was Branton. I think the idea of me directing all three of them, his kid, too, was too much. The whole family jumping when Nube says jump. Maybe it’s one of those psychological hang-ups, but Coral told me she was against it and I signed Kitten strictly to please her.” He laughed. “My dear cousin, you are now thinking in your mind that Nube is lying to you. Everyone lies to you, Alec. To a liar, everyone lies.”
    He turned and slid back into the pool. “Let me tell you something else, Alec. I’ve known a long time if you had a friend you’d gun him down, but I didn’t think that included me.”
    â€œNube!”
    â€œYes, Alec. You got there first with Nube. Maybe I was smart enough to know the kid had it, maybe not, but you got in there first with that contract. You cheated me , Alec! Me, who’s been carrying you all these years. That’s your loyalty, cousin!”
    â€œNube—Nube—”
    â€œSo I’ve had it! As of now, you’re off my back. You’re off my payroll.”
    â€œWhat’ll I do, Nube? Okay, okay, but what about the kid, Nube? Forget me, I’m off the payroll, but what about the kid’s life, Nube?”
    â€œI will get another kid like her for tomorrow’s shooting and because, believe me, cousin, she’s ten for a dime, with Carlos doing a make-up job, a hair job, a clever camera, not one in a hundred thousand will notice. If she’s dead I’ll cry a little, I have a big Armenian heart, but she isn’t going to hold up the shooting one day.”
    Watching Nube swim to the middle of the pool and turn on his back again, outstretch his thin arms again, all at once Alec felt how hot it was in the Turkish bath. Usually, because of the lousy