Stace and his crew also rigged debris mortars and vaporized gasoline bombs for the shots in which the mock-ups of the antique cars exploded. Reminding actors and actresses to stuff their ears with cotton before the filming was another part of the job as was instructing them how to work the guns, how to stand when they fired and reminding them to provide the gun-bucking recoil that occurs only with live ammunition. He had running battles with Sloan (as he did with all directors) because he urged the actors to point the muzzles slightly away from their victims for safety, while the directors, for the sake of authenticity, wanted guns aimed directly at their targets.

A competitive and award-winning pistol marksman, Stace was also the set rifleman- occasionally manning his own bolt-action.380, or M-16 automatic, to fire wax bullets for impact effects on surfaces that couldn't be rigged with squibs-windows, water, or even, if they volunteered, a stuntman's bare flesh.

The final scene in Missouri River would involve the firing of five thousand rounds in several setups. Once the medium- and long-angle shooting was finished, the rigging would be done once more for the close-up and two-shot angles. This was going to be a long day. The exhausted key grip looked over the prep work, then at his watch. "Man, we'll be fighting the light on this one." Meaning working until dusk.

"Are we ready?" Sloan shouted through his megaphone.

Various crew members, not knowing whether or not they were the subject of this inquiry, assured him that they were.

Stace checked the location of every weapon, noting it on a clipboard, and walked back to the fiberboard table on which was the squib control board. Three of his assistants sat like puppeteers, both hands above rows of buttons. Because the scene was newly added to the script and was so elaborate, there had been no time to rig the guns themselves'to fire the squibs. The young assistants-two men and a woman-would use their judgment in deciding where the machine-gun bullets would land and push the corresponding buttons.

Stace said, "Ready."

"Okay," the unit director shouted. "Everybody in position."

Dehlia sprawled out of the open door of a muddy Packard.

The Pinkerton agents piled into the armored truck and it backed down the road.

The parishioners walked into the church.

Ross's soon-to-be-dead fellow gangsters checked the harnesses and cables that would jerk them backward as they were shot by the agents.

The director of photography and the camera operator climbed into the Chapman cranes twin seats and rose twenty feet into the air. Sloan released his own death grip on the boom and wandered over to the unit director.

"Pep talk," Stace wryly whispered to his assistants.

Sloan lifted his megaphone. His voice crackled, "Could I have everybody's attention please? Quiet please! I'd just like to say one thing. This next eight minutes is costing me a quarter of a million dollars. Don't fuck up."

Pep talk…

He returned to his place beside the crane.

The unit director nodded to the senior gaffer. The lights clicked on, replacing the mute aura of overcast sunlight with a wash of light that seemed to bleach the colors out of the scene but that would translate into natural sunlight by the time Technicolor was through with the film. The temperature on the set immediately rose five degrees and kept going.

"Cameras rolling."

Assistants stepped in front of each camera and snapped clappers.

"Action!" the unit director shouted.

The bulky gray armored truck eased along the dirt road, passing the church, then slowing as it neared the Packard. It stopped. Dehlia lifted her head, stained with the phony blood, and motioned for help. The driver and the front-seat guard hesitated. They mouthed words to themselves, they spoke into the back of the truck. The front doors slowly opened. The guards stepped out onto the road. Ross lit a smoke bomb and ran, crouching, toward the back of the truck.

"Now!" the driver shouted, pulling a machine gun from the front seat.

The back doors of the armored truck burst open.

Parishioners stepped from the church, smiling and nodding. The two guards began firing at Ross and the other gangsters, who were approaching from a stand of trees. Tree branches snapped, dirt puffed up, signs were riddled, the side of the truck was dotted with bullet holes, bodies of gangsters flew backwards. Churchgoers littered the ground.

"Go, go, go!" Tony Sloan was mouthing. "Beautiful."

Dehlia was trying to start the Packard. Ross was covering her and retreating. The other gangsters fell back The preacher came out onto the steps. He was brandishing a Bible; a guard accidentally gunned him down…

"Stone cold beautiful," Sloan whispered.

It was into the middle of this battle-directly between the warring factions-that two modern navy blue sedans and a white Ford Econoline van skidded to a halt. Men in suits climbed out leisurely, examining the set with some amusement.

Sloan's mouth opened in astonishment. Everyone began talking at once-many of them shouting because of their earplugs.

"Jesus Christ," Sloan shouted. No one had any trouble hearing this. "Who the hell are you?"

The unit director was too shocked to order the cameras shut off. Finally the assistant director, holding her ponytail in a death grip, woke out of her stunned silence and shouted, "Cut. Cut! Save the lights."

The huge lights clicked off.

The assistant whose job it was to keep the road closed ran onto the set. Sloan pierced her with a glance of hatred. "They came right at me," she sobbed. They wouldn't stop."

A tall, gray-haired man climbed from the first sedan, looking around. When he saw the director he stepped toward him.

"What," Sloan said, "in God's name are you doing? Do you have any idea of what you've just done?" His face was crimson.

An ID card appeared. "I'm Agent Mclntyre. You in charge?"

"Who are you?"

"We're agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Department of the Treasury. We've been informed by the U.S. Attorney in St. Louis that you're in possession of unregistered automatic weapons and we're here to confiscate them."

"You can't do that!"

"Clear the chambers on those weapons," Mclntyre shouted to the actors. "Put the safeties on and set them in the van here."

Sloan stormed up to Mclntyre, who ignored him.

Another man got out of the car, studying the smoke and destruction around him. Detective Bob Gianno looked at the director. "Are you Anthony Sloan?"

"Damn right I am; do you know what you've just cost me? This scene-"

"You're under arrest for violation of the Missouri state laws governing possession of illegal weapons. Would you hold out your hands, please?"