I was a twenty something kid brought into a criminal organization. My job was to help with getting a film completed that was being shot on the premises. I met with the director, the cinematographer and the actors when I walked into a room where they were setting up for a shot. The next day I came in and I went to the back and asked to see what they were going to do that day.
I was floundering not knowing how to find this information for myself and in walked the Boss who I assume was the financier, another person to watch over the operation, and the director. They grabbed four photographs that I understood to be their way of using a story board and they were looking at what scenes were going to be shot. I made my way into position to see pretty well and when crowded out by the Boss I backed off and looked the best I could. It wasn’t long after that because of a screw up on the shooting schedule that I found myself in a large room with shined linoleum floor. On the other side of the room were three other people, one the person that was ahead of the daily progress, the Boss and another of his lieutenants.
I was being told how bad it was that we had gotten way behind in shooting schedule and that it could not happen again. All this time there was a pistol pointed at me and I was scared to death, eyes squinting into the gun. I was flinching and alternately slumping to my side and sitting straight. I was more than frightened. After some time of the grilling and abuse the lieutenant came across the room and slid down on the floor in front of me and had a large pair of pliers that he was menacing towards me trying to get a grip on my fingers. As he was doing this I remember him saying, “I need to get a piece.” About this time I heard a gunshot and I flinched and sat in stunned absolute paralysis. It was a bit of time when I heard the lieutenant saying, “Look, look over there.” I finally looked and saw that the Boss had shot to death the person that was ahead of the shooting schedule.
It was some time after the "Bosses" meeting. I was chewing gum and had made a mess on the floor of the front office. I had walked out the door and I came back shortly after that and the lady in the office who was a thirty something lady told me that I had made a mess and I told her that I was just coming back to clean it up. I grabbed a rag that was handed to me and some paper towels and I could not clean the mess up. I could spread it out and glob it differently but could not get it up. I was scared again that I had done something that I should not have done.
I was walking out of the back building one day toward the front of the lot. There was a building to my right and a wide dirt road to my left and another building where the Boss and others were milling about. I saw the Boss holding something up out of my peripheral vision and saw that a golf ball sized orange spot showed up on the building just beside me and a phosphorus burning metal flake type shrapnel showered me. I was confused and shaken but continued on. The next thing I know an egg sized hole showed and the concussion and shrapnel were greater. I was shaken both from the fact that this had again occurred and from the shell itself. It was not terrible though and then next I see a shell hit the wall and an orange spot about the size of a baseball showed and I remember stumbling around dazed completely and I could hear laughter and some efforts to calm me. I walked it off for some time.
In the office I had been making friends with a fellow that worked there and knew a lot about jewelry and opals in particular. I love opals and he knew it. He had told me stories about jewelry he had created, purchased, owned or sold. One day he called me over to take a look at a piece that he had brought in. It was a small oval cut opal with good dark green color and lighter exuberant fire. I loved the stone and expressed my opinions. He asked me what I thought it would cost and I stumbled around without a good answer. He said, “What about 50 cents.” I of course told him that I couldn’t believe it and I could see that the stone was being offered to me.
I found out later that my presentation of the stone was probably a nice gesture as it seemed but also was an introduction into my next job. I was told to go to LA and speak with a supplier of stones. I understood now that the person’s job in the office was gem stones. I came back from LA and had told some of the results but when the Boss came in I told him the full story as we walked down the dirt road, him walking at some speed and my trying to keep up. I told him that I had talked to the fellow and that through no fault of my own was forced to shoot him when he had pulled his weapon on me.
I have a brief memory of being in the office to the near front and right of the office lady and being inside of a city sized garbage receptacle and I was laying down with my feet propped on one end and back against the other and beneath me among other items was a foot or so of water. Not long after that I remember going down the paved road leading to the business heading toward the business and seeing three tanks coming at me. Two tanks were sharing the road and shoulders and then one behind them. I then recall my car going over a cliff headed for water. While I was watching a large object about the size of a city garbage receptacle wrapped in black garbage bags and bungeed to a large balloon float further into the sky.
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