Deep focus the deep seri.., p.1
Deep Focus (The Deep Series Book 5), page 1
This is a work of fiction. All events described are imaginary; all characters are entirely fictitious and are not intended to represent actual living persons.
Copyright © 2022 by Nick Sullivan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover design by Shayne Rutherford of Wicked Good Book Covers
Cover photo by Zenobillis/Shutterstock.com
Copy editing by Marsha Zinberg of The Write Touch
Proofreading by Gretchen Tannert Douglas and Forest Olivier
Interior Design and Typesetting by Colleen Sheehan of Ampersand Bookery
Original maps of Little and Grand Cayman by Rainer Lesniewski/Shutterstock.com
ISBN: 978-0-9978132-7-2
Published by Wild Yonder Press
WWW.WILDYONDERPRESS.COM
Table of Contents
Deep Focus
Copyright
Maps
Dedication
Defintion
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
The Deep Series
Afterword
About the Author
To Dawn Lee McKenna. Your life story inspired me to spin stories of my own. Your fellow authors will miss your humor, kindness, and wisdom, and your fans will miss your wonderful writing, compelling characters, and well-sculpted plots.
Deep focus / noun: (cinematography)
a photographic technique in film that keeps all elements of an image in sharp focus, simultaneously capturing key activities in the foreground and background.
Nobody will ever notice that. Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It’s about the big picture.
Ed Wood, filmmaker.
1
“And… action!”
Leather boots filled the closeup shot, as the camera’s view followed the worn footwear across the wooden deck until they came to a halt. Camera One panned up, taking in a man dressed in garish pirate’s attire, black greatcoat flaring out from his flanks. A red sash was cinched below a bulging belly, a stubby cutlass tucked into one side. Rising higher, the camera focused on the man’s face. The black eyeliner and a single gold earring were certainly eye-catching, but the pièce de résistance was his beard, dyed a shockingly bright cobalt blue. With a flourish, the man swept a tricorn hat from his balding head and sketched a lazy bow.
“Arrrr, mateys… welcome aboard the Jolly Robert! The greatest rum cruise in the Caribbean! I be yer cap’n, Robert Bluebeard! Yaaaaarrrr!”
Suddenly, a furry figure jumped into frame, dropping onto Bluebeard’s shoulder. The new arrival gave a shriek, then busied itself picking at the edge of the pirate’s beard, grooming the bushy expanse of blue hair. The capuchin monkey was outfitted with three items of apparel: first, a tiny pirate hat atop its head, mirroring Bluebeard’s own; second, a bandolier, strapped diagonally across its scrawny chest, the belt adorned with numerous tropical drink umbrellas, closed and awaiting use; and third… a diaper.
“This here be Ulysses, first mate and bartender-in-training.” He pointed off camera. “You there!”
Camera Two provided a wide shot of those in attendance: college co-eds surrounded Bluebeard, the majority of their tanned, supple bodies clad in bikinis or board shorts. Many held plastic cups of rum punch. A muscled frat boy was the target of Bluebeard’s index finger, and he stepped forward.
“Extend yer drink to the first mate, my good man.”
The youth looked over at his friends, a goofy grin on his face. He turned back to the monkey and held out his rum punch, a skewer of pineapple slices and dayglow cherries sloshing against the rim.
“Ulysses! Bartend!”
The capuchin shrieked, then deftly slid a paper umbrella from his bandolier, opened it in his tiny fingers, and popped it into the man’s drink, the toothpick of the decoration piercing the topmost cherry. The drink-holder laughed and returned to his friends. Mission accomplished, Ulysses returned to grooming his master, who planted his fists on his hips.
“Thar be a few rules on me ship, so listen up, ye scurvy dogs!” he bellowed. “One! No smokin’, fightin’, or throwin’ yer trash overboard. If I see any cups floatin’ in our wake, ye’ll be joinin’ ’em! Two! Only three drinks per person! Each of ye has three wristbands and once ye’ve handed them over, it’s sodas or water for the rest of the voyage, so make yer rum ration count. And three! See to it that ye be havin’ fun, or ye’ll be walkin’ the plank!”
“Ohmigod, so lame,” muttered a girl off-screen, the youthful voice flat and nasal.
Camera Two pulled back and up, showing that the partygoers stood on the deck of a pirate ship—or a cheap, modern-day knockoff of one. Overhead, a black-and-white Jolly Roger fluttered in the breeze. Under the grinning skull, not crossed bones… but crossed beer bottles.
Camera Three focused on one of the college girls, a petite blonde sporting glasses and a ponytail; in her hands, not a drink… but a book. Heaving a sigh, she gazed off toward the horizon, looking like she’d prefer to be anywhere else. Beside her, a buxom brunette nudged her bare shoulder.
“Lighten up, Sarah, it’s a party boat!” the brunette cajoled in a nasal voice. “And ditch the book, nerd. You’re not in school today.”
Sarah sighed again, and Camera Three zoomed in on her flawless face as she opened her full lips to speak her first line.
“This drunken barf-fest is not my idea of fun, Cindy. I wish—”
“Aaaahh!” a voice shrieked off-screen. “Bloody hell, he did it again!”
With its lens still pointing at Bluebeard, Camera One could see what Camera Three could not: Ulysses, bored with fruitless beard-grooming, had extracted another umbrella, opened it… and jammed it into the pirate’s ear.
“Cut!” a voice shouted.
The actors on set relaxed—a few of the background extras had been sucking in their guts to look good in their swimwear, and the exhalations were audible. “Bluebeard,” whose real name was Daniel Wolfit, clawed at his ear.
“If I hadn’t twitched, that malodorous little shit would’ve punctured my eardrum!” Gone was the ludicrous pirate’s brogue, replaced with a theatrical British accent. The actor extracted the umbrella and hurled it aside, a droplet of blood adorning the point of the toothpick.
Ulysses, his artistic talents spurned, shrieked into the recently cleared ear, eliciting a wince from Wolfit.
“Someone get this devil monkey off me! And change his damn diaper! I was inhaling the unholy reek of his feces all through my speech.”
The animal wrangler extended an arm and the capuchin dutifully leapt across to receive a treat.
“You’re rewarding him? The wee bastard jabs me in the ear and—”
“Enough, Daniel.” A gaunt man rose from a director’s chair. Appropriately, the word “Director” was emblazoned on the chair’s canvas backing. Heinz Werner dug a cigarette out of a pack and fired it up. “Dario, if you please, let us take fifteen and reset. Daniel’s beard is starting to run, anyway.” The director’s voice had a droning quality, a strong German accent tugging at the consonants.
The first assistant director—1st AD—clapped his hands. “Fifteen minutes, people!” Members of the film crew relaxed, boom microphones carefully set aside and camera lenses covered. “Hair! See what you can do about the streak of blue dye.”
A stout woman with a shoulder bag of brushes, spray, and a hair dryer waddled over. “Took too long setting up the shot,” she muttered. “It’s ninety degrees and humid—what did you expect? Should’ve shot this in the States.”
“I left the Royal Shakespeare Company for this?” Daniel Wolfit appealed to the sky as the lady from the hair department took a look at the streak of blue dye that ran down his neck.
“It’s on his skin now. This is makeup’s job.” She wandered off.
“Gott im Himmel!” the director swore. “We will lose the light!”
“The light’s the least of our worries, Heinz,” Alan Novak, the gray-haired cinematographer said, pointing out to sea.
On the horizon, a cruise ship was making its way into the bay that lay alongside George Town, the capital of the Cayman Islands and the largest town on Grand Cayman. The Jolly Robert—a converted party-barge on loan from Jamaica—was currently anchored in the bay. The film crew had wanted to shoot this particular scene at a pier, but they
“Scheisse,” Heinz Werner hissed, before looking at his watch. “Time is a harsh mistress and she makes cruel demands of us. But we needs must obey.”
Novak merely nodded. He had worked with Werner on three previous movies and was accustomed to his odd way of speaking. Atop the stilted, almost pompous, verbiage lay a thick accent. The director hailed from the Czech Republic, specifically the region of Bohemia, where a substantial portion of the populace was German.
Werner looked up from his watch and squinted out at the arriving cruise ship. “Did we get all of Bluebeard’s opening speech before the untimely simian assault?”
“We’ll check the gate,” the cinematographer offered. “The humidity and salt air can be tricky on the lens, but I think we got it.”
“Let us hope so. For now, we will focus on the closeup coverage and avoid that looming monstrosity.” He waved a dismissive hand toward the oncoming ship. As Novak headed back to a bank of monitors, Werner looked around. “Dario, where is my ‘Sarah’? Where is Brooke?”
“I think she went to crafty to grab a water,” the 1st AD said, referring to the craft services table, where a steady supply of drinks and snacks was maintained. Dario tilted his head down and spoke into a mic. “Jerry, could you bring Brooke Bablin back to set? Heinz wants a word.”
“Can I get out of this blasted pirate coat?” Wolfit asked, a member of the makeup department dabbing at his neck with a foam sponge. “I’m going to get heat stroke!”
“Ja, ja… I will focus on my lead actress’s scenes,” the director said. “I may need you to deliver some lines to her from off-camera, so don’t sojourn too far.”
The rotund actor snorted, nodding his head to the ocean around them. “Not bloody likely.” He started to clomp off the set but a crewmember—rounder around the middle than Wolfit—stopped him.
“Where are you going with that?” the prop master asked, pointing at the cutlass. “Weapons don’t leave the set.”
“It’s duller than a butter knife!”
“Weapons don’t leave the—”
“Here! Take the blasted thing.” Wolfit disarmed himself and left the set in a huff. “At least they let me cut the eyepatch,” he grumbled. “Felt like that eye was going blind for real.”
Jerry—the second assistant director—came up to Werner, with the blond actress who played the bookish college student following close behind. Gone were the spectacles, and she now wore a lightweight dressing gown over her bikini. She stopped in front of the director, raising a sculpted eyebrow expectantly.
“Ah, Miss Bablin. Good. I wanted to—”
“What did I tell you about smoking around me, Mr. Werner?”
The director was momentarily thrown. He held up the cigarette. “Mein Liebchen, it has been a long day, and the relentless march of tedium is trying to the soul. Perhaps—”
“No smoking within twenty feet of me, unless it’s part of the movie. It’s in my contract.” The defiant actress lifted her chin, locking eyes with the director. At only five feet in height, she usually had to look up to stare someone down. “Shall I call my agent?”
Werner summoned up a brittle smile. Brooke Bablin was the nearest thing this mid-budget sci-fi movie had to a movie star, and he needed to keep her happy. “My apologies, Miss Bablin.” He turned and flicked the cigarette overboard.
The 2nd AD winced, stopping himself from making a mid-air grab at the smoking butt. Instead, he furtively glanced over toward the representative from the Cayman Islands Film Commission, hoping the man hadn’t seen the blatant act of littering. No such luck. The Caymanian shook his head and made a note on his clipboard. Another $500 penalty added to the budget.
Heinz Werner clapped his hands together. “Now, Miss Bablin… your first scene—”
“You mean, the scene that psychotic monkey just screwed up? I still don’t know why you didn’t go with a parrot.”
Werner sighed. “As was explained in the table read, the monkey is vital to the greater arc of the story. In addition to accomplishing a number of plot points, the monkey itself hearkens back to our own evolution… and this symbolism ties in to the evolution that occurs in the creature at the heart of our movie.”
“Whatever. You’re the visionary.” The way Brooke said it, it didn’t sound like a compliment. “So, are we going to shoot again?”
“Yes… and no. We have an unwelcome maritime guest encroaching upon the framing for the wide shot, so for now we will focus our efforts on your coverage.”
“Fine by me,” Brooke said, shrugging out of the dressing gown and revealing a toned body that only a near-starvation diet and a full-time personal trainer could achieve. The eyes of several nearby crew were helplessly drawn to her as she plucked her prop spectacles from where they dangled from her bikini top and slid them onto her face. Brooke held the gown out to the side.
Dario, the 1st AD, took the gown from her fingers and shoved it into the hands of a passing intern. He triggered his mic. “Call everyone back to places, please.”
While cast and crew scrambled, Werner took out the pack of cigarettes. They were scarcely out of his pocket when he caught Brooke looking at him with a raised, perfectly sculpted eyebrow. He returned the cigarettes to his pocket, turning aside to stare at the sparkling waters of the Caribbean.
American movie stars… they will be the death of me.
“All right everyone, this is now officially dinner. Most of you are wrapped for the day, but those of you in the two interior scenes, be back at the dock in one hour.”
The 2nd AD glanced at his clipboard as members of the cast and crew disembarked from the two tenders, freshly docked at the northernmost pier of Grand Cayman’s George Town Cruise Port. A group of extras gathered to one side, and Jerry turned his attention to them. “Background, you’re all wrapped. See you at Base Camp tomorrow at six a.m. sharp.”
Brooke Bablin held out a hand and the assistant director took it, helping the petite actress step across to the pier. “Great work today, Miss Bablin.”
“It’s why they hired me, Jerry.”
“Are you eating with us, or do you need a car?”
“No and no. I need a drink. See you tomorrow.”
Snugging a ballcap onto her head and donning a pair of sunglasses, Brooke strode away from the pier, leaving behind the cast and crew as they bum-rushed the nearby restaurant the producers had rented, jockeying for position at the craft services buffet. She’d eaten there last night and the spread had been decent, but right now she wanted to find a nice tropical beverage—heavy on the rum—and then get a solid night’s sleep.
The cruise ship terminal was in George Town proper, south of the popular stretch of sand and hotels known as Seven Mile Beach. Unlike many Caribbean islands, Grand Cayman did not allow the cruise ships to actually dock at a pier, requiring them instead to shuttle passengers ashore via tenders. Groups of vacationers milled about, waiting for outbound transportation.
Walking north along North Church Street, Brooke passed small groups of tourists strolling along the road. With the hat and shades, she felt fairly anonymous, but she turned her head aside all the same when the father of a family of four swiveled his head in her direction.
Ahead, she spied an outdoor bar and restaurant named Rackam’s. Situated on the water, it would provide a nice view of the rapidly approaching sunset. Settling into a corner table, she ordered a piña colada and a tropical salad with blackened chicken. Once she’d put aside her hat and sunglasses, Brooke breathed in a lungful of the salty air. The frothy frozen drink arrived just as the sun kissed the horizon and she took a lengthy pull on the straw, stopping just shy of brain freeze. The drink was delicious, and they hadn’t skimped on the rum.
Looking down at the drink’s fruit garnish, she snorted a laugh. A paper umbrella adorned the side of the glass. Watching a monkey jab that pompous ass in the ear had been the highlight of her day. That fat has-been couldn’t go an hour without mentioning his Hamlet or Richard the Third. Brooke took another sip. True, her own body of work tended toward the salacious, but she was far more successful—and famous—than he would ever be.
