"It's ready," said Jimmy. "The camera's ready, and you don't have to rank me over the coals."

   "That's rake, Jimmy," said Heather. "Rake your uneducated ass over the coals. Now tell Thorne and Wolf to get started."

   Jimmy trotted across the busy street, a chorus of honks and screams following him as he wove through SUVs and lowered pickups, and waived to two men standing on the park lawn. One of the men wore the blue, long-sleeved shirt and hardened hat of a construction worker, and the other was dressed in the faded jeans and tye dyed t-shirt of an aging hippie. At Jimmy's signal they faced one another and began to gesture with pointing fingers and clenched fists.

   "You hate everything that's good about this country," the hard hat yelled at the hippie.

   Heather made a lifting motion with her hands to let the players know they needed to raise their voices. Iggy, the camera man, stood with his tripod and microphone about ten feet from the two men.

   "You mean the parts that are paved over and poisoned with toxic waste?" the faux hippie said, his voice loud enough for the pedestrians on the L.A. city sidewalk to hear.

   "You know what's toxic?" the hard hat said. "You are. You're full of dope."

   The hippie leaned forward. "Because I care?"

   A couple of passersby had stopped to observe the debate. Heather jogged across the busy street with her wireless mic. "Who do think is right here?" she asked a man in a charcoal suit.

   The man pushed his substantial mug at the microphone, overly familiar, as if starring in his own home movie. "Each side has something to say," he announced. "I like to believe that, in a democracy..."

   Heather put her left hand on his chest and shoved him back. She held the mic up to a young woman in Capri slacks. "How about you, miss?"

   "I, uh," said the girl, flipping back her long brown bangs with a flick of her wrist. "I don't know, really."

   Heather made a cut sign to Iggy. "That's enough," she said. "Is everyone in this town an idiot? Doesn't anyone have an opinion?"

   There was a loud bang like the report of a rifle in the traffic, and all heads turned toward the intersection. "Did someone get shot?" Heather said. "Iggy, get the camera on it, now!"

   "It was just a car backfiring," said Jimmy. "No reason to spill your juice."

   "Shit," said Heather. "I needed a shooting. I've got to put something good together for this Friday's slot, and this material sucks."

   "But you told the writer--"

   "Shut it, Jimmy. Do you want to go back to serving Shirley Temples at the Pink Stallion?"

   "That's harassment," said Jimmy.

   "Not half of what the leather queens will give you when I send you back to that sorry-assed nightclub where I found you."

   "I don't know why you have to be such a ferocious hag," said Jimmy. "I'm giving you my best."

   "It's not enough," said Heather. "Help me out here -- if somebody would get shot or something..."

   "Listen to yourself," said Jimmy. "It's like you want to stage a shooting." His hands were planted on his hips, the right one clutching a lavender PDA.

   "Jimmy, you're a genius." Heather grabbed his head between her hands, banging at his left ear with the mic, and kissed him on the lips.

   He shrank away from her. "Don't you ever, ever..."

   "Get everyone in the van," she said. "We're going to the studio for props."

   "...do that again," he said.

   The studio makeup girl fussed over Thorne, daubing at his face with minstrel black. The small, cramped room was stuffy and overly bright, with rows of incandescent bulbs framing the wall mounted mirrors. Thorne fidgeted in the barber chair and complained. "Why do I have to be the black guy; why can't Wolf do it?"

   "You're bigger than him," said Heather. "I want to show some physical intimidation. Now shut the hell up and let the girl do her work."

   Heather's cell phone beeped Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries'. "What?" she said to the phone. "I'm working on it."

   Jimmy held up a starter pistol for Heather's perusal. "Is this realistic enough?" He asked.

   "This will be the most intense episode ever of Bystander Review," Heather said to the phone. "Of course we'll make deadline; I only need to fill a five minute slot, for God's sake." She turned to Jimmy and said, "Get the damn gun out of my face, you imbecile."

   "This makeup's hot," said Thorne, turning his head as the makeup girl stretched to reach for his rotating brow.

   "It's under control," Heather told her phone. "We'll make it, editing and all, by Friday. Ciao." She snapped the cell phone shut and pocketed it in her pantsuit. "Where's that prop weapon, Jimmy?"

   "You told me to get rid of it," said Jimmy from across the room.

   "It would be very easy," said Heather. "To exchange your Dockers and your silk shirt for a cottontail waitress thong."

   "Bitch," said Jimmy, fetching the pistol. He held it up again.

   "Satisfied?"

   "Never," said Heather.

   Wolf had changed into his downtown worker's suit, and was displaying his new outfit by prancing around the little room like a hooker at Hollywood and Vine. One arm clutched an imaginary purse and the other sashayed around his hip.

   The makeup girl laughed and misapplied some of the minstrel black.

   "Ow," said Thorne. "That went in my eye."

   Heather clapped her hands. "Everybody back to the van," she said. "Asses and elbows. Chop, chop."

   Iggy parked the van across from the park, nudging the rear bumper of a BMW as he forced the vehicle into a tight spot. The side door of the van popped open, and the crew spilled out onto the street, Heather in the rear urging everyone to make haste. The sunlight would be failing soon, she said.

   Once Iggy had the camera set up at the corner of the park lawn, Thorne and Wolf took their positions on the grass. Heather, Jimmy at her side, motioned for everyone to roll.

   Thorne pointed the pistol at Wolf's head, holding it sideways like he'd seen on TV. "Give me your wallet," he told Wolf. "Or I will cap your ass." His black makeup was streaked with sweat and beginning to run.

   "Don't hurt me," said Wolf. "I'm a taxpayer."

   Heather looked around and saw that people were definitely paying attention. A small crowd gathered at the park's edge and looked on. It appeared they wanted the event to play out, and Heather wasn't sure if they believed it was a real mugging. Thorne glanced at her, and she raised her hand to encourage him to step it up a notch.

   "Don't mess with me," Thorne told Wolf, his gun hand shaking. "I will kill you."

   The audience gasped as one, and Heather was so jazzed by the white heat of success that she missed the policeman pushing through the crowd.

   "Freeze!" the cop shouted, training his handgun on Thorne.

   Thorne turned to face the officer, unwittingly swinging the starter pistol around in the same direction. The cop unloaded his gun with a series of pops, and Thorne fell back onto the grass, a dark stain spreading over his Snoop Dogg sweatshirt. His unmoving eyes gazed at the empty blue sky as if in disbelief.

   "Oh God," Jimmy cried, clutching at Heather's arm. "What have we done?"

   Heather was speechless for a moment, not her natural state, to be sure. But she recovered quickly. "I'm going to interview the cop," she told Jimmy. "You round up a couple of good witnesses -- black people, if you can."

   Jimmy watched her lope across the street, holding her wireless mic like a relay runner's baton. Her composure was frightening, and there was a part of him that wanted to flee. But he'd been trained by the best to think on his feet, and he was already planning the phone calls for screenplay rights.