Teddy had lunch with Peter Barrington. They couldn’t do it as often as when he was producer Billy Barnett, but Peter could eat with his stuntman occasionally. They chose an out-of-the-way café five minutes from the studio that featured good burgers and fast service.
There was a lot to catch up on. Peter thought he was still living at the airport. Teddy hadn’t told anybody about the break-in at the hangar, because there was no way to conveniently explain how he’d dealt with it. He just told Peter his apartment was ready.
“When will your new house be ready?”
“Ask Marvin Kurtz. I have no idea.”
“You can move in next week when we wrap the picture and Billy Barnett gets back from vacation.” Peter took a bite of his burger. “Are you ready for the money shot?”
The climax of the movie was being shot on the top of a construction site with bare steel girders. What Peter was referring to as the money shot was a shoot-out on top of the girders and a five-story fall.
“Not to tell you your business,” Teddy said, “but on most pictures they schedule the crucial exteriors early in the shoot, in case there’s bad weather and they have to move to the cover set and reschedule.”
“Yes, and that’s how I had it originally scheduled,” Peter said. “Until I found out my featured villain would be doing his own stunt. I scheduled it at the end so in case you kill yourself falling off the beam, I can still cut the picture.”
“You’re all heart.”
“I wish you’d use a stuntman.”
“I am a stuntman.”
“After the life you’ve led, to kill yourself making a movie would be pretty ironic.”
Teddy smiled. “Hey, getting shot in the chest on a twelve-inch-wide steel girder five stories up in the air. What could possibly go wrong?”