“I have a pocketknife.”

“Make a cut where the fangs went in.”

The man fumbled in his pocket, came up with a Swiss Army knife and selected a blade.

“Quickly!”

The man offered him the knife. “You’ll have to do it yourself,” he said.

Before Tirov could act, two men with a stretcher came into the room through the open door. “Where’s the rattlesnake?” one of them asked, looking around nervously.

“On the terrace,” Tirov said, then he began to get dizzy.

“You get him to the hospital,” the guard said. “I’ll deal with the snake. He grabbed a towel from the back of a chair and started toward the terrace.

Tirov hobbled toward the stretcher, feeling ill, then he fainted and fell into the arms of an EMT.

—

Billy Barnett drove north, turned off the main highway onto Tesuque Village Road, then he pulled over, stopped, and got a cell phone from the glove compartment. He got the number for the Santa Fe New Mexican, the local newspaper, and asked for the city desk.

“City desk, this is Peg.”

“The movie producer Boris Tirov, who is making the movie being filmed out at the Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch, has been bitten by a large rattlesnake and taken to the hospital.” He broke the connection, then made a similar call to the sheriff’s office, then he tossed the phone into the weeds beside the road and drove on to Gala Wilde’s house.

—

Boris Tirov woke up slowly on a gurney in an emergency room; a doctor was bending over him. “What happened?” he asked.

“You were bitten by a rattlesnake,” the doctor said. “We’ve given you the antivenom and, since you’re awake, you’re improving. How do you feel?”

“Sick,” Tirov said.

“What’s wrong with your shoulder?”

“Bullet wound to the arm—accidental shooting on a movie set.”

“We’ll need to report that to the police.”

“The sheriff’s department has already investigated. Call them, if you like.”

“You know,” the doctor said, “I’ve been working in this ER for eight years, and this is the first time we’ve ever admitted a naked man with a rattlesnake bite and a gunshot wound.”

“I’m happy for you,” Tirov said.

52

Tirov stayed the night in the hospital, since the doctor insisted, and checked himself out the next morning. He drove out to the set and went to his trailer to pick up his script. He was surprised to find the door unlocked, and when he opened it, he found the place turned upside down. The drawers of his desk had been emptied onto the floor and clothes were everywhere.

The AD appeared in the doorway. “It’s the same all over the lot,” he said. “Every trailer and set has been searched. That detective had a warrant.”

“Are we shooting yet?”