“And the second type of people?”
“That’s everyone else,” Booty says. “For most people, this is a passing thing. They’re in the business for three months. Tops.”
“And then what?”
“That’s the thing,” he says. “If you don’t make it big in porn, you’re just some chick or dude who worked in porn.”
“You make it sound like a death sentence.”
“Would you go to a doctor who used to be a porn star?” he asks.
I wouldn’t, and we both know it.
“What do you think happens when someone at the office finds that video of you online?”
“Right, but that’s talent.”
“So you’ve seen a lot of Pulitzer Prize winners who did what we do?”
I stand up to get some French fries.
“I thought you didn’t like the fries here,” Booty says.
“If it’s hopeless, I’m having fries.”
Chapter 12: Yellow journalism and hot Jewish chicks
Back at the office, I wait for my Clove-smoking competitor at PND to post the story. I kill the time writing a few quickie stories.
A producer of Israeli porn tells me that scenes filmed in Israel are the hottest movies in adult because the performers know that “every fuck could be their last.”
“They screw like there’s no tomorrow, because there may not be—it’s ridiculously hot,” Cy Zion tells me. His name is fake, but his thick Israeli accent sounds legit. My job, I’m learning, is to run with the bullshit, not question it.
Cy puts one of his stars on the phone and she tells me that a surprising number of porn fans prefer Jewish girls. I ask how they can tell if the girl is Jewish or not, and Cy chimes in.
“The description says Jewish!”
Well, that settles the question, doesn’t it? I use the two interviews to manufacture two separate stories. One story is about the growing Jewish niche, which Cy claims is the biggest thing since the anal craze of the late nineties. No disrespect to the beauty of Jewish women, but I’m fairly certain that butt-sex has a wider appeal. The other story is about Israel’s answer to the San Pornando Valley. Cy tells me there are lots of other companies, but that his is the best. When I press him for the names of his competitors, he says he’ll have to get back to me, but I’m able to fill in the question with a little help from Google, which knows far more about Israeli porn than Cy Zion is willing to share.
I meet my quota by publishing the bankruptcy story an hour after PND, which means I have to stay twenty minutes late. The extra time at the office gives me an opportunity to check on BoobTube, the site Little Juggs plugged in his quote. At the very bottom of the site, I find the owner—TubeWorks.
I think about that for a minute, but I’m not sure what it means. As a trade journalist, I know it’s my job to bring a powerful, mysterious company to the attention of my readers. But as I’m learning, professional duty isn’t exactly compatible with pornification.
I turn off my computer, grateful—I think—that the fiasco of day two didn’t lead to the sacking of Heywood Jablowme.
Inspired by Cy’s Israeli accent and feeling just enough job security to spring for dinner, I cruise down to Pita Kitchen on Ventura.
For six bucks, you can get a falafel stuffed into a pita with hummus and salad. I come here for the cheap eats, and because you can browse the newsstand next door while you wait. That’s what I’m doing when it occurs to me that perhaps I’m looking at my future.
A third of the newsstand is dedicated to porn, a third to news publications that always seem to be cutting pages, and the remaining third to the cult of celebrity. Famous people who everyone wants to fuck, and not-so-famous people who everyone has seen fuck, surround the real news magazines—killing the laggards and softening the survivors with an adapt-or-die proposition that rots the core of once dependable media outlets.
I worry about the future of my profession as I drive home. But as I pull up to my apartment, a half-eaten falafel in my hand, the sight of a parked police car gives me reason to worry about my present.
Chapter 13: The fuzz
As soon as I enter my apartment, my worst fears are confirmed. The sight of the cop is bad enough, but my heart sinks when I notice that he’s sitting on top of a pound of sweet Afghan Kush.
Fortunately, the cop doesn’t know his ass is four inches above sixteen ounces of a premium medical marijuana strain called LA Confidential. This is because Miles had the good sense to stuff the Buddha into the center pillow of a couch he bought off of Craigslist. Still, our place stinks of weed so bad we’d need a gallon of Mary Jane’s perfume to mask the stench. Seeing the fuzz, I can’t help but think that this is the end of the Miles Steinberg retail pot operation.
Not that it was much of an operation. With more pot shops than Starbucks—or so the local papers say—Los Angeles has become a less profitable place for the casual pot dealer. Miles resells medical marijuana to low-level Hollywood types who are too paranoid to get their own cards, because, you know, Warner Bros. totally gives a shit. But that market is a relatively small one, compared to the total demand for weed, and so dealers like Miles have had to accept reduced margins and a dwindling customer base.
But it’s not all bad news for Miles. Up until now, pot has subsidized a series of industry internships for Miles while he works on some screenplay that will never get read and tries to put together deals that will never come to fruition. But it looks like that pipe dream is over. The only question is whether Miles will call his dad’s lawyer, or if he’ll just cry and beg the cop for mercy.
But the cop doesn’t look like a mercy kind of guy. He’s tall and imposing—the kind of man who played safety on his high school football team because he liked to lay dudes out. But beneath his physical power, I detect an even stronger will. Maybe it’s his eyes—dark as his complexion and cold like the ocean this time of year. He looks like the kind of bad cop who works without the contrast of a good cop.
“You must be Heywood Jablowme?”
The cop’s use of my porn name throws me. If he’s here for Miles, why would he know about my job?
With a powerful hand, the cop directs me to take a seat next to Miles on the opposite couch. That couch, our second one, came with the apartment because the previous tenants said it was impossible to get through the narrow doorway, though they never explained how it came to rest in the apartment in the first place. Miles sold them an eighth of Sour Diesel.
“Heywood Jablowme,” he says again. His voice booms around the room. It’s almost as if he’s excited, like he lives to bust balls. “I’m Detective Boyd, LAPD. I have a few questions for you.”
“About what?”
“I’m going to ask the questions, and then you’ll know what they’re about,” Boyd says. “That’s how this works, Heywood Jablowme.”
“Why do you keep calling him Heywood Jablowme?” Miles asks.
“That’s my porn name,” I say.
“Yeah, I know,” Miles says. “I’ve been reading your stuff at work—nice job on that Israeli porn story, by the way. Hey, do you think all Israeli chicks are down to fuck, because, you know, each time could be their last, or is that just a porn star thing?”
For months, Miles has been talking about taking the Israeli government up on their offer of a Birthright trip that would send him to the Promised Land, all expenses paid. My story, it seems, may have rekindled the Judaism that died in Miles the day after he cashed his bar mitzvah checks.
“I don’t think this is the best time for that,” I say, angling my eyes toward Boyd.
“Thank you, Heywood Jablowme.”
“No, it’s weird,” Miles says. “You’re just Heywood.”
“Don’t all porn guys go by their porn names?” Boyd says.
“No, it’s more like a stage name,” Miles says. “Ron Jeremy doesn’t just check in at the Macaroni Grill with his stage name. He only uses his stage name when he’s, you know, working.”
&nb
sp; “You mean fucking,” Boyd snaps.
The word fucking just hangs there for a second. We say fucking all the time, and for the past two days, it’s been a constant in my life, even if Oz frowns on such language. But polite conversations with strangers and authority figures usually aren’t so blue, and so the word—fucking—puts Miles and me on guard.
“You settle it,” Boyd says, looking at me. “Do you use your porn name when you go to the Macaroni Grill, or just when you’re fucking around at work?”
I’ve never been to a Macaroni Grill, and I’ve only been Heywood Jablowme for two days—two of the weirdest days of my life. Either way, I feel totally unqualified to answer the question.
“We don’t like to use the word fuck in our copy because it tends to undermine the mainstreaming of pornography, or what we call the adult entertainment industry.”
Jesus, I make myself want to puke. I sound like a fucking shill. I sound like Rachel, and so it doesn’t surprise me that my self-loathing reaches a new, undiscovered low point.
“Don’t fuck with me,” Boyd says.
“OK. Yeah. No. I won’t. No way.”
Cops make me nervous. I’m pretty sure they know it, too.
Boyd shifts his weight and opens his notebook.
“Do you know a guy named Johnny Toxic?”
“Yes,” I say. “I wrote about him—twice. But I don’t really know him, know him.”
“Know him, know him?” Boyd asks, parroting my speech. “Do you mean, know him, like fuck him know him?”
“I think he means biblically know him,” Miles says.
“I hate fucking euphemisms,” Boyd says.
“He’s not gay,” I say. “I don’t think he’s gay. I’m not, you know, gay, so I’m not always sure. But I did see him, you know, have sex with a woman, so...Although, she had just had sex with a man, and it was kind of gross, because the man’s, you know, well she kind of needed a shower, and anyway, Johnny, Mr. Toxic, he didn’t seem to mind. But that’s just perverted. He’s a pervert. I mean that’s what his publicist said I should put in the story. I don’t know if he’s technically a pervert, or if there’s a technical definition of pervert. I just...look, I don’t want you to think that I know him very well. The interview only lasted a few minutes. It was all business, basically.”
“Why didn’t you just say that instead of this know him, know him junior high school crap?”
“I don’t know. Cops make me nervous.”
“Did you kill him?”
My jaw drops an inch, but it feels like it just hit the floor. Miles shifts away from me on the couch.
“I’m fucking with you,” Boyd says. “I know you didn’t kill him.”
Only Boyd laughs, and I wonder if I naturally come across as incapable of killing someone. I suppose that’s a good thing, but for some reason I find it irksome that I can be so easily discounted. Isn’t anyone capable of murder, I wonder?
Then, after moment, I put it together.
“He’s dead?” I ask.
“Like disco,” Boyd says.
“What does that mean?” Miles asks. “People still listen to disco. Ironically, but they’re still listening.”
“It’s an idiom,” I say. “It means there’s zero doubt.”
“Look at Mr. AP English,” Boyd says. “Now, do you mind if I get back to my questions?”
“Sure.”
Boyd’s eyes shoot me a sarcastic thank you.
“Did Toxic mention what he was working on?”
“Besides Fuck-Whores 8?”
“It’s going to be a lot easier if you don’t answer my questions with questions.”
“Sorry.”
“And?”
“I’m really sorry,” I say. “I’m not a good witness.”
“You’re not a witness at all.”
“Person of interest?”
“No, you’re just someone who knew the victim, someone I have to interview, for the files,” Boyd says. “So, did Toxic mention what he was working on? Besides Fuck-Whores...”
“Eight,” Miles says, trying to be helpful.
“No,” I say.
“Did he mention any business difficulties he was having?”
“No,” I say.
Boyd stares at me. He’s got one of those stern faces that only a fool or a lunatic would mess with.
“Well,” I say, unprompted. “He did say that he was doing Fuck-Whores 8 because ‘they put a gun to gun to his head.’”
I put air quotes around the words Johnny Toxic told me, trying to give the appearance of a crackerjack reporter.
“That’s what he said?” Boyd asks. “Those stupid air quotes mean he actually said that? Because I can never tell with your generation, the way you guys substitute literal for figurative and all that postmodern, ironic, I don’t give a fuck bullshit. So let me be clear: Did my motherfucking victim actually say someone put a gun to his head?”
“Yes, he actually said that.”
“But you didn’t write that in either story that mentioned him?”
“No,” I say. “The publicist said I couldn’t use that quote.”
“And you just do what the publicist says? What kind of a reporter are you?”
“A porn reporter.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know.”
It’s true. I’m so lost, I don’t know if I’m swirling down the drain, or floating out to sea.
“OK. Well, do you know who they are?”
“The they that put a gun to his head?”
Boyd shoots me a you-must-be-shitting-me look.
“Sorry, the question-answers thing,” I say. “I got it now. He didn’t say who the they were, but I also assumed the gun was a metaphor. I never thought somebody would shoot him.”
“They didn’t,” Boyd says. “We found a medieval battle-ax in his chest. Can you explain that?”
“That is so awesome,” Miles says. “That’s Braveheart shit. Mel was the man in that movie.”
Boyd glares at Miles, who wisely directs his attention to the floor.
“He said he was into ‘Arthurian shit,’” I offer, once again using air quotes to make it clear that these were Toxic’s words, not my own. “Maybe there’s a connection there.”
“You think Renaissance Faire people did this?” Miles asks.
“Probably not,” I say.
“Ren Faire freaks are too busy eating turkey legs and checking out big-titty wenches,” Boyd says. “Isn’t that right, Heywood Jablowme?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I went to Medieval Times once, but the food made me sick and I left early.”
“Well, I used to work security at those things when I was a rookie, and I can tell you those freaks aren’t killers,” Boyd says. “Did Toxic have any enemies in porn?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he have any competitors who stood to lose a lot of money because of him?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Was he well-liked, hated?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Do you know anything about the porn business?”
“I know that midgets prefer to be called little people, but that the word little is a no-no in porn,” I say. “I also know that piracy is a big issue, and that a lot of girls start doing porn because they want to get back at their boyfriends, usually for cheating. Everyone seems to call them girls, even though they’re adults and their costars are never called boys. Also, it’s hard to maintain a fuckable appearance and eat carbs.”
“That’s idiotic,” Boyd says.
“Which part?” Miles asks.
“All of it, but especially the revenge thing,” Boyd says. “Why would they get revenge by fucking on film for money when they could just hurt him a lot worse by fucking his best friend?”
“That’s a good point,” I say. “Maybe porn doesn’t attract the sharpest tools in the shed.”
“No shit,” Boyd says, flipping his
notebook closed as he gets up. “I’ll be in touch, if I have any questions. Oh and by the way, fellas, it stinks of weed in here.”
Chapter 14: 420 reasons
Miles is halfway through his second joint when genius strikes.
“What you have to do,” Miles says, his voice trailing off into the sweet smoke. “What you have to do is—hang on—I gotta pace.”
Miles only paces when a really big idea overtakes him. The last time he paced this much was when he pitched his take for a sequel to the movie Captain Ron, which he titled More Ron. That was one of his bigger ideas. But this time, I’m pretty sure the pacing is just nervous energy; cops have a way of fucking with your high.
“Solve the case, man!”
“What are you talking about?” I ask. “And please don’t end your sentences with the word man—we’re not hippies.”
Miles hands me the joint and I decide not to complain about the fact that his subpar rolling skills have once again created a canoeing problem. The top half of the joint is burning like a Southern California brush fire, while the bottom half remains unlit. There’s no way to fix this, you just have to ride out the imperfect high as best you can. Such is the nature of smoking pot with amateurs, narcs, and Hollywood wannabes.
“It’s like that movie—all you have to do is follow the money. Follow...the...money.”
“You mean All the President’s Men?”
“No, it’s the one about Watergate and those famous reporters, Redford and the other one...you know! The guys who took down Nixon.”
“Woodward and Bernstein.”
“No, I think that’s a salad dressing.”
I hold up my iPhone, threatening to Google it. But we both know it’s an empty gesture. I’m too stoned to fact-check my roommate’s ramblings, and besides, Miles is on a roll.
“You could be like those reporters, only instead of bringing down the president...”
“I figure out who murdered a pornographer with a medieval battle-ax.”
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