A Game He Would Not Play

After a simple dinner in the suite, Evan was ready for an early night. He had gone straight from the airport to the set, and the travel had left him more tired than he had expected.

Charlize sat at the dressing table, putting on moisturizer. She turned to look at him.

"How long are you staying?"

He considered the schedule before answering.

"I may leave tomorrow. The day after at the latest. Preparations for the new film are about to start in Los Angeles. I need to be there."

"Already?"

She came over and sat beside him. He smoothed a hand over her hair.

"This was mostly a visit to see how Zack was doing. The shoot's moving. There's no reason for me to stay and look over his shoulder. I'll go back to the set tomorrow, and if there's nothing that needs me, I'll head straight to the airport."

"Then let me get some sleep. I've got a heavy day tomorrow."

"All right. An early night for both of us."

When Evan next opened his eyes, she had already left. He found his watch on the bedside table and stared at it. He had slept for almost ten hours.

Nina knocked on the bedroom door.

"Boss? Are you awake? It's nine. We still have to visit the set."

He yawned and threw back the covers.

"I'll be out in a minute. Have Sergey get the bags ready. We're going to the airport from the studio."

After a quick shower, he joined them in the car the hotel had arranged.

The lot was busier than it had been when they arrived the previous day. Zack was already shooting in the largest soundstage.

Brandon was working through an action sequence. On screen, the movement would look continuous. Here it came in fragments, with Zack sometimes calling cut after less than two seconds.

Evan stayed near the entrance, watching from outside the working area. There was no reason to interrupt a crew that had found its rhythm.

Apart from the shots centered on Neo, most of the performers on the floor were doubles. One of them brought Evan up short: Trinity's costume was being worn by a bearded stunt performer.

The finished film would conceal the substitution through framing and cutting. From the doorway, the contrast was impossible to miss. It was a useful reminder of how much of a screen image existed only from the camera's angle.

Most productions worked this way. Even when a principal actor was physically capable, a director had to weigh the risks before allowing that actor to do a stunt.

An injury to a lead could stop an entire production. With a crew of more than a hundred people drawing wages, delays became expensive almost immediately. A double's injury, by contrast, rarely brought the same machinery to a halt.

Evan disliked how easily the business turned that distinction into a judgment about whose loss it could afford. Stunt performers worked under contracts, and an injured performer could be replaced. There were always others waiting for the work.

He remembered reports from his previous life about a fatal explosion during the making of The Expendables 2. A young stunt performer had died. The exact legal outcome and compensation figures were no longer clear in his memory; what stayed with him was the distance between the scale of the production and the vulnerability of the people taking its risks.

Explosions were routine spectacle in that kind of film. Safety rules applied even to experienced action stars, and a star's willingness to attempt a stunt did not remove the producer's responsibility. Yet it was often the less visible performer who had to face the most dangerous part of the work.

No major action production could sensibly treat that risk as nonexistent. Evan watched the crew reset, conscious of how much the smooth finished sequence would conceal.

"Why isn't Brandon using a double?" Sergey asked. He had been studying the fight team with undisguised interest. "He makes it look good. I'm still not sure those moves would stop a punch from me."

"Don't be so sure," Evan said. "He had an exceptional teacher. His father changed how people looked at martial arts on screen."

Brandon and the other performers reset once more. Evan beckoned Luke over.

"I'm heading back to Los Angeles. Call me if anything comes up. I won't pull Zack away while he's working."

"Want me to drive you?"

"The hotel sent a car. Stay here. You've got enough to do."

The visit had been brief. Evan had come to check that the production was moving in the right direction, and he had seen enough to leave it in their hands. By early afternoon, he was on his way home.

He had not devoted as much of his own time to The Matrix as he once intended. There were limits to what even he could oversee. If he could not direct it himself, giving the film to someone he trusted was the best alternative.

For years, he had regarded the series as a project he might eventually make. Its commercial appeal was obvious, and he knew how long its influence would last. People would still be talking about it decades later.

But knowing a film's future did not give him unlimited time. He had chosen to pursue the Academy with The Departed, which left no room to direct The Matrix as well. Leaving it untouched for the Wachowskis was not a choice he was willing to make.

In his current position, the film occupied an awkward place between two goals. A superhero production offered him a more direct route to another huge commercial success. A grounded crime drama offered a better chance of the kind of recognition he wanted next.

He could not personally claim every opportunity simply because he could see it coming.

At LAX, Nina took a call while they waited for Sergey to bring the car around. When she hung up, she was smiling.

"Colin called. The ninety million is in the studio's account. Warner moved quickly."

Evan smiled too. An expected payment was still satisfying when it actually arrived.

"Follow the plan. Transfer the money to the charitable foundation first. Wait for my instructions on the rest."

"He wanted to speak with you himself. I told him we'd call back."

She slid into the car and continued as he joined her.

"Our accountant has another idea. I think he wants to make the pitch in person."

Evan took a bottle of water from the small refrigerator.

"What does he want now? Tell him I don't care how well Internet stocks are doing. I already have a use for this money."

"Not Internet stocks. A financial investment."

Nina understood the appeal. With that much capital available, Evan was no longer merely a client to be sold an ordinary investment product. People who wanted access to film financing, or a relationship with a Warner shareholder, had a reason to seek him out.

The returns might be larger. So would the commitments required to obtain them. Colin was being used as an introduction to a table where Evan's money and position both had value.

His expression closed.

"What exactly did Colin say?"

"Some people want a meeting. They're interested in Warner and the film business."

"No. Tell Colin Howard I don't invest in things I can't control. I don't care how much money they say I can make."

Nina's smile returned.

"I already turned him down for you."

"I'm not short of money. I don't expect to be. There's no reason to play that game." He settled back in his seat. "Don't mistake me for a saint. There aren't many in this business. But there are still ways of making money I want no part of."

His distrust went beyond this particular invitation.

In the mid-nineties, the financial world could still look to an outsider like a collection of people moving money around. Evan remembered how differently many people would see it after another two decades.

In his own bitter assessment, the worst damage did not always come from a visibly violent act. It could come from a product that made permanent debt look like freedom.

Credit let a household buy what it could not yet afford. More borrowing created more spending, and the businesses serving that demand borrowed to expand in turn. To Evan, the danger lay in a cycle that rewarded everyone for keeping the borrowing going, even when the people at its base had little room left to absorb a setback.

He was not thinking about a carefully managed loan to build a business. He was thinking about the sales pitch: a better life now, with the cost kept just far enough away to feel abstract.

Education, a car, a home, ordinary purchases on a card. A young person could pass through each supposedly necessary step and discover that every paycheck had been promised to someone else before it arrived.

He remembered alarming claims about how little cash families had available for an emergency. He could no longer put reliable figures to them, but the picture had stayed with him: people who appeared to have entered a comfortable middle-class life and could not withstand a modest unexpected bill.

Once debt became the default, refusing it could feel like refusing any chance of advancement. That was the part he found hardest to forgive.

The institutions extending the credit were themselves using borrowed money and leverage. The borrower at the bottom rarely saw the full structure, let alone had any say in its rules.

Evan's view was harsh and selective, shaped by memories of consequences that had not happened yet. It was nevertheless firm. He understood the risks he took in movies. He had no intention of handing his fortune to people whose risks he could not judge.