Once Upon A Poet

by H S Peer

  “We nothing. Get the car back yourself and pay me my 10 grand.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Do I ever joke about money?”

  “Listen, Poet, make it another favor. I need that 10 grand, my wife wants a sheared-beaver coat for Christmas.”

  “Marty, its ten grand. That’s all. We’re not talking about big money here.”

  “It’s the principle, Poet. I was contracted to steal a hearse. I want to deliver a hearse. I have a reputation to maintain.”

  “And a fur coat to buy,” I said.

  “That too.”

  I sighed. “Let me ask around. I’m not making any promises.”

  “You’re a good man, I don’t care what everyone says about you,” he joked.

  He could joke; he’d gotten what he wanted. I shook my head as I looked at the nearly empty streets.

  “Sometimes you are a real pain in the ass,” I told Marty.

  “You’re right,” he agreed.

  He stopped the car in front of my bar, and I got out. Just what I needed, another pain in the ass mystery to solve. Bermuda sounded better and better. Maybe I’d call a travel agent in the morning. First I would drink a couple of brandies and ask if anyone knew redheaded Irish girl. After that, I had a trip to the public defenders' office to make.

  Chapter 12

  I was running out of time, on both counts. Chances were the hearse was already painted and on its way to Quebec. And Bill Jenkins case just got colder and colder. It was Thursday; I had until Monday morning to clear Jenkins. I awoke at noon and went through my morning routines. No nap today, I had work to do.

  Dressed and sober I headed out to the “adult” store. Despite the whips, chains, and gimp masks, for some reason, they had one of the best magazine selections in the city. I walked past the magazine to the racks of DVDs I had never paid attention to before. I was surprised that people still bought DVDs considering how everything could be streamed. Pulling boxes off the shelves, I looked for the name of the production company.

  The clerk wandered over. His name was Alfred, he was a film student at NYU.

  “No magazines today? The new issue of Der Spiegel is in," he asked. “Suddenly develop a taste for porn?”

  “Yeah,” I replied dryly, “all I can get.”

  “Looking for something special?”

  “Anything by a company called Rainbow Productions.”

  Alfred made a face.

  “That bad?” I asked.

  “You got that right. Horrible production values. It’s cheap stuff. They bang it out, excuse the pun, and flood the market. It’s trash. It’s the stuff that sells really cheap in sex shops. The company started doing gay porn in the 80s, hence the name. Since then they have branched out.”

  “Homegrown stuff?”

  “A lot of the homegrown stuff I’ve seen is better than Rainbow’s ‘professional’ product,” he said.

  “Do you have any?”

  “One title,” he said as his eyes scanned the shelves. He found what he was looking for and bent over to get it off the bottom shelf. The garish looking box was entitled ‘Nothing Butt Fetish.'

  “You really want this?” asked Alfred.

  “It’s against my better judgment, but yes.”

  I paid and left the store, heading back to my place. I made coffee and added a generous amount of Baileys before sitting in a leather chair in front of the television.

  Alfred was right, the movie was horrible. The camera shook, the lighting was terrible, and even by porn movie standards, the music was awful. I saw a barefoot woman stamping on live worms. A pregnant woman in a PVC corset whipped a man with a ball gag in his mouth with a cat-o-nine tails. A woman dressed in a wedding dress got a golden shower from a woman in a leather nursing bra. I wanted to turn it off, but I was looking for Cindy. This must have been one of the titles she wasn’t in.

  I turned it off. I wanted to take a shower, suddenly feeling dirty. From the box, I discovered that Rainbow Production had an office on West 57th Street. I read the credits until I found the name of the producer. John Smith. Original.

  I called a cab and waited on the street until it arrived. I opened my window. For a November day, it was lovely. The temperature hovered around 40 and overcast sky was washed with a tint of sunlight. I paid the cabbie and walked into a five-story office building.

  From the directory, I learned Rainbow was on the third floor. I walked up the fire-stairs and opened the door with the big three on it. The hallway was packed full of young women. There was a line stretching fifty feet from a corner office down the hall. It was just like Lola had said, grist for the mill.

  I walked down the hall to the door. I opened it and entered. Inside were more women lined up to a desk in the reception area. A woman in a black Lycra top sat behind the desk. She wore too much makeup and painted on her eyebrows. She looked up and seemed surprised to see me.

  “I’m here to see John Smith,” I said.

  “No salesmen, honey,” she replied.

  “I’m not selling anything, I’m here about Cindy McMillen.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “I doubt that,” I said. I didn’t know Cindy’s stage name, maybe she had gone by that. “You know her, your little starlet who got shot in the head.”

  The women waiting in the office went silent. The receptionist seemed to pale under her makeup.

  “That’s why you want to see Mr. Smith?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “We’re a little busy today, we’re casting a new feature. Let me see if he will see you.” She got up and walked through a glass door behind the desk. The women in the room resumed talking, although quieter than before. After a few minutes, the receptionist returned, followed by a would-be star in a short leather skirt and a white peasant blouse.

  ‘He’ll see you,” she said, “but just for a few minutes.”

  I thanked her and headed through the glass door.

  Despite the apparent cheapness of his films, Mr. Smith’s office screamed money. His desk was two black pedestals covered by a sheet of thick cut glass. The furniture was leather, and the bookcase held what I was sure were first editions. Mr. Smith looked like a banker. He five-foot-six and wore a grey suit with a purple tie. He was balding, but not trying to cover it up. The hair he did have was ginger-colored. His face was punctuated with rimless eyeglasses. He was talking into a telephone headset when I entered.

  “I don’t care,” he barked into a headset, “Fix the damn thing and get it rolling again. He ended the call without saying goodbye. “You’re here about Cindy?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And you are?”

  “An investigator looking into her death.”

  “Do you have any identification?”

  I opened my jacket and showed him the Glock resting in my shoulder holster.

  “That doesn’t prove anything,” he said.

  “Just that I’m not a man to get angry.” I smiled like a shark. I should learn to be nicer. I could hear Dale Carnegie turning over in his grave.

  He flustered for a moment before sitting in his chair and crossing his legs. “I’m a very busy man, Mr.…?”

  “Shelley. Percy Shelley.”

  “As you saw from the line up in the hall we’re casting a new picture. I don’t have much time.”

  “Need to get back on that casting couch?”

  “I don’t find you funny.”

  “Not many people do. Casting a sequel to ‘Nothing Butt Fetish’?”

  “Oh,” he said and perked up. “You know our work?”

  “You could say that.”

  “It was a shame about Cindy, she had a small but loyal following,” he said.

  “Do you have any ideas about her killer?” I asked.

  “I read it was her husband. Didn’t they find his gun or something?”

  “Something,” I said. “Tell me about Cindy, what kind of work did she do for you.”

  “It�
��s pretty obvious what kind of work she did. She was in several pictures. Starting with bit parts but she was featured in the last two, Ass Bandits and Crack Pirates.”

  “Did she have any enemies? Any of the other girls jealous of her?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, but you’d really need to talk to our production people, I’m mostly the behind-the-scenes man who makes it all happen.”

  “Makes what happen?”

  He looked at the ceiling and sighed, silencing complaining about having to explain the industry to an outsider. “We are a multi-faceted company. The adult industry has seen monumental shifts in the last 15 years. We have an internet division that makes content aimed at our core customers as well as the free “tube” sites. We have a ‘live’ division that looks after online live performances. There’s a host of other bits and pieces, I look after it all - and run our ‘features’ division. We make six to eight full-length feature films per year. Understand?”

  “Too well,” I said. “Where would I find these production people you mentioned?”

  He picked up a pen off his desk and tapped his forehead with it. “I don’t think that is a good idea.”

  “I’m not asking for permission. Tell me where they are,” I smiled.

  He tapped his head twice more and pulled a pad over from the corner of the desk. He wrote on it briefly and tore off the sheet. He handed it to me.

  The note instructed the reader to provide me with cooperation. At the bottom was an address in uptown.

  “They’ll be shooting there today and tomorrow. After that, we won’t have anything big starting for three weeks. I suggest you get there as soon as possible.”

  “I’d shake your hand,” I said, “But then I’d have to wash it.” I turned and left the room. Back in the lobby, I said to the assembled women, “Next.”

  The location of the shoot was an elegant brownstone in uptown past the park. I knocked on the door and was admitted by a man who looked like he’d been punched in the nose one too many times. From the bulge on his right hip under his green sweater, I saw he was carrying some kind of pistola. I handed him the note Smith had given me. As he read it his lips moved. He told me to stay put and climbed a flight of stairs. After a minute the man walked halfway down the stairs and waved me up

  The upper level was one large loft-type room. There were two cameras, one on a tripod, the other held by what looked to be a college student with a goatee. A woman, naked except for a purple garter-belt, pink stockings and high heels sat on a plush sofa smoking a cigarette. A man, naked except for a pair of black socks, talked into a cell phone. What I guessed was a sound man and director stood chatting against the wall. The man who had led me in tapped on the shoulder of a woman and pointed to me.

  Her hair was a blue-black. She was on the wrong side of forty, but her body looked good enough in the tailored skirt and jacket combo. She was barefoot.

  “I understand we’re to cooperate with you, whatever that means,” she said. Her voice was high, like a lousy reed on a clarinet.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Me? The director, Molly Muffington. Who the hell are you?”

  “Call me Poet.”

  “How quaint.”

  “That can’t be your real name,” I said.

  “In this business names are like the day of the week. No, Muffington is not my real name, just my stage name. Before I put on the director’s hat, I starred in over 60 pictures.”

  “So you know the business?”

  “Intimately. Roger!” she yelled at the naked man, “Are you almost ready? You can talk to your broker later.”

  Roger finished the call and put the phone down on a chair. The woman sitting on the sofa looked bored. Roger looked at her, shook his head and said to me, “Ain’t show business great?”

  “Places people,” said Molly.

  I won’t tell you what happened after Molly said, “Action.” I’m no connoisseur of porn, but I have seen a few dirty movies in my day. Watching how it was made took whatever novelty may have been in it and turned it to mush. It was mechanical. Molly shouted at the two actors, and they changed positions. The college kid with the hand-held camera had to twist and contort himself almost as much as the actors to get the close-up shots. It continued for about twenty minutes before the man in the black socks prematurely “finished” the scene.

  “Jesus, Roger,” said Molly, “We needed another ten minutes.

  “Sorry,” he replied.

  “I hope it’s enough or it’s your hide,” she snapped, “Okay, get Latisha ready and set up downstairs.”

  She turned to me, “Now Mr. Poet, did you like our little show?”

  “I may never have sex again.”

  “I doubt that. Now tell me, why are you here?”

  “I’m here about Cindy McMillen.”

  Molly shook her head slowly from side to side. “A shame. A real shame.”

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  “She was great to work with, took direction like a dream. Inventive, always open to new things.”

  “I mean personally.”

  “Ohh, well. I can’t say I knew her all that well. Sure, we did a couple of pictures together, but we never socialized.”

  “So you wouldn’t know if she had any enemies? Received any threats? Anything like that?”

  “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Can anybody here help me?”

  “You might talk to Amber, she does the makeup. I think they were close.”

  I pulled a card from inside my jacket and handed it to her. “Just in case,” I said, “you think of anything.”

  “Do I have to think of something to call you?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “With your build, you might photograph well. Are you well endowed?”

  “You’ll make me blush,” I replied.

  “I doubt that. I’m swamped Mr. Poet, so if that’s everything,” she said, letting it hang in the air.

  “Thank you,” I said and headed downstairs. They were setting up for the next scene in the parlor at the front of the house. Heavy drapes had been pulled over the windows and two stands of lights compensated for the lack of natural light. A young black woman with blonde hair in pigtails was talking to a man dressed as a telephone repairman. The floor had been covered with a plastic sheet. I didn’t want to see what would happen next.

  I found the kitchen and a woman touching up the makeup of the woman I saw upstairs.

  “I know he smells, Lynn, but you’ll just have to deal with it,” said who I guessed was Amber as she applied powder to Linda’s forehead. I cleared my throat. They both looked up.

  “Can I help you, handsome?” asked Amber. Unlike the woman she was working on she wore no makeup, she didn’t need it. He cheeks were pink, and her skin was a beautiful cream color. Her blonde hair was held back with a hank of yarn. She wore a man’s linen shirt. If I had to guess I have said she was between 25 and 30.

  “I need to speak with you,” I said.

  “Just a second, hon, I’m almost finished.” She powered the rest of Linda’s face and quickly applied some mascara before sending her on her way.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  “I’m here about Cindy McMillen.” As I spoke her mouth seemed to clamp shut. “Molly said the two of you were close.”

  “Yes,” she said hesitantly.

  “I’m looking into her death.”

  “Why?”

  “To find out who killed her.”

  “What are you, a PI?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I don’t have anything to say.” She started to put the makeup items scattered across the kitchen table back into a toolbox. Her hands shook as she moved them.

  I pulled out a chair and sat down. I lit and cigarette and waited. She wouldn’t look at me. I don’t know much about the investigation game, but I know when I’m being stonewalled.

  “I’m needed on the
set,” she said, standing up.

  “No, you’re not,” I replied.

  She sat back down. She closed her eyes and said, “She was scared of her husband, she told me that lots of times. I guess she wasn’t scared enough. He got her.”

  “What if I told you he didn’t,” I said, “That the whole thing was a frame-up, would you believe me?”

  She shrugged.

  “Amber, I really need some help here. Was Cindy getting any threats? Did she have any enemies? Were any of the other girls jealous of her? Anything.”

  My question hung in the air. Amber was either searching for the truth or fabricating one hell of a lie.

  “Nothing like that,” she said, her voice cracking. Her eyes welled with tears. “She was just like a child, harmless. It was that innocence that made her so popular. She was just like a naughty teenager.”

  “No enemies?”

  “None that she talked about and no threats either.” A tear ran down her left cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand.

  “Tell me about her.”

  She sniffled once before she started. “It’s an old story. She was from somewhere down south, some little shit burg. She came to the big city on the bus to be an actress. She didn’t get a break. No one spotted her in a drug store and made her a star. She worked as a waitress and met Bill. They got married, and it didn’t work out. They split up. She started dancing and got noticed by someone at Rainbow. The rest is history. She was a rising star at Rainbow. The public loved her. She was needy though. She always had to have a man. She could never be alone. She was dating a plumber I understand.”

  “Yes,” I said, “Anything else?”

  “No.” Another tear ran down her face. She didn’t bother wiping this one away.

  “You were close?’

  “Yes, you could say that. She called me every night when she got finished dancing at that dive she worked in.”

  “Did she have any plans for the future?”

  “No, just a divorce.”

  She wasn’t telling me the truth, I could tell that by looking at her. Her eyes were lying. I let it slide. I couldn’t really smack her around, as I might have done if it was a man in an alley somewhere. I thanked her and excused myself. She didn’t move from her chair. Another fat tear rolled down her face. As an afterthought, I pulled out a card and set it before her.