Silver Nitrate(2)

“Look, I have to meet someone for lunch,” Montserrat said, grabbing her leather jacket from the hook by the door and slipping it on. “Why don’t you talk to Mario and we’ll see what he says? I’d love to help, but he was raging about an unpaid dubbing—”

“Come on, guys, I always pay even if I’m a few days late. As soon as I offload those videos I’ll be golden, I swear.”

Montserrat didn’t know how true that was. Paco had scored a modest hit with an Exorcist rip-off a few years before. Mexican horror movies were scarce these days. Paco had reaped the benefits of a nascent home video market a few years back. But he wasn’t doing well anymore. Four years before, René Cardona III had tried the same concept: shooting a low-budget horror copy of a hot American film with Vacaciones de Terror. Although Vacaciones was a blatant attempt at mixing Child’s Play with Amityville, the film had one semi-famous star in the form of Pedro Fernández, whose singing career had assured at least a few butts in seats. Vacaciones de Terror and its obligatory sequel had performed decently, but the market for local horror productions wasn’t substantial enough to support two filmmakers intent on churning out scary flicks, and Paco didn’t have a singer to put on the marquee.

Not that there was a market to produce anything with a semi-decent budget at this point. The best that most people could hope for were exploitation flicks like Lola La Trailera. Paco was, if anything, a little better off than most Mexican filmmakers, since he’d managed to rope a few Spanish financiers into his moviemaking schemes and so the bulk of his output was meant for the European market. He’d dump a bunch of copies at Videocentro, then sell the rest to Italy, Germany, or whoever had any dough to spare. Paco’s work was slightly more nutritious fare than what most of the other exploitation hounds offered, but nothing to get excited about.

“Montserrat, come on, darling, you know I’m solid. How about we do this: I pay you the overtime. I’ll throw in…oh, how much would you want?” he asked, reaching into his pocket and producing a wallet.

“God, Paco, you don’t have to bribe me.”

“Then you’ll do it?”

Montserrat had been working at Antares for the past seven years. She’d never made it into the two big film studios, but you had to be the son of someone to edit at a place like that. Positions were passed down through the STPC and STIC like knighthoods. Now that Estudios América was being dismantled, the movie business was even more of a mess than before, and competition for positions was cutthroat. Antares had been, when you added all the pluses and minuses, not that bad.

Not that bad, that is, until the previous year, when the company had hired a new sound editor. Everyone loved young people and despised old ones. Help wanted ads always specified “35 and under,” sometimes even “30 and under.” Samuel, the newest member of the team, was definitely under thirty. Mario had funneled a bunch of assignments to Samuel, in part because his youth meant he was one of their lowest paid employees. Antares saved money with Samuel. And, as a result, Montserrat had been pulled from several projects. She’d gone from working five, sometimes six days a week, to three, and she was sure Mario was going to cut her down to two by December. Maybe they’d end up assigning this job to Samuel.

Crap, she needed to make more money. Her sister didn’t ask her for anything, but Montserrat knew she was hurting a little. She had been working only part-time for half a year now; the cancer treatments were too exhausting for her to manage her usual workload at the accounting firm. Montserrat tried to chip in when she could.

“Follow me,” she muttered, looking at her watch. She’d be late if she didn’t step out now.

Paco and Montserrat walked down a long hallway decorated with wall-to-ceiling mirrors and back toward the reception area. The mirrors were supposed to be “wall art” and lend an air of class to the joint, but the results were more tacky than elegant. The reception area was the only part of the studio that looked semi-decent. Instead of shabby, patched-up furniture, the room boasted two black leather couches. Behind a big desk a big sign with silver letters said “ANTARES” all in caps.

Candy was behind the desk. She had bright yellow neon nails that week—she changed them often—and smiled at Montserrat happily. Candida, who liked to go by Candy, handled reception and all manner of assorted tasks. She was the person who kept track of who was using which editing bay at any given hour of the day. She wasn’t supposed to schedule anything until Mario said so, but Montserrat sometimes skipped the queue.

“Candy, is Mario back from that business lunch yet?” she asked, hoping the answer was yes but the receptionist shook her head.

“Nope.”

“Crap,” Montserrat said. “Okay, this is what we’ll do: Candy, can you slot me in for some night work tomorrow? Put me for the whole week, beginning at seven in my usual room. I need to work on Paco’s latest picture.”

“Oh, what’s it called?” Candy asked, looking at Paco with interest.

“Murder Weekend,” Paco said proudly.

“Sounds cool. But, Montserrat, I need to know the pricing, the green form—”

“Put it down before someone grabs the time slot,” she said. “I’ll show it to Mario later and fill in the green form.”

Before Candy could ask another question, Montserrat waved them a curt goodbye and stepped outside.