Hardboiled Crime Four-Pack

by Jack Bunker

  The dungeon is brightly lit to allow for better video from the three hi-def cameras. Behind the cameras is a cheap banquet table set up with a platter of Costco turkey pinwheel sandwiches, some chips, a basket of fruit, assorted cookies, and an ice chest blooming with vitamin waters and Diet Green Tea with Ginseng. Over the table a hand-lettered sign reads “Craft Services,” a misspelling of “crafts service” that’s ubiquitous in Hollywood.

  “Hungry?” asks Manny, manager of the Kocibey-owned video facility, not to be confused with the production manager of the videos themselves, whom we’ve come to see. Manny is square-faced, white-haired, fat, smells like an ashtray and wheezes like a prime candidate for a lung transplant, especially when he walks. He didn’t give us his last name.

  “I wouldn’t touch a thing on that table without IV antibiotics,” says Gloria with her usual tact.

  I’ve been thinking about snagging a chip until she says this. Despite the filth that they shoot here, the place seems spic-and-span, and the food looks fresh.

  The air—smoke-free and heavily conditioned—is filled with the moans and groans of female pleasure or some imitation thereof, but the dungeon is the only set we can see into as we pass through the studio.

  Manny leads us down a hallway crammed with industrial steel shelves, bar-coded and overloaded with the kinds of DVDs that sully the fine art of punning. Blue Jizzman, The Hunger Games: Snatch on Fire, Rise of the Plumbing of the Apes, XXX-Men, Pacific Rimmer—you get the picture. The sort of wit you’d expect to find on a middle school boys’ restroom wall. More DVDs are piled on the floor.

  “All dead discs,” he says. “Everything’s online these days.”

  At the end of the hall is a large room that looks out over the Simi Hills to the west of the Chatsworth sound-stage facility, where the live porn feeds occupy only a fraction of the brand-new, twenty-thousand-square-foot Fun with Dick and Jane studio. The room’s ceiling slants from one story at the back to almost three at the front, which is walled by large, square, steel-framed windows. It feels like a downtown loft, with a kitchen area against one wall, a walnut conference table in the center with sixteen Herman Miller Aeron chairs around it, and a half dozen Ikea workstations sprinkled around the periphery, each with a seating area for guests.

  Manny points us to one of those areas, where a man who looks to be about thirty is poring over an Excel spreadsheet. He’s got shoulder-length blond hair, light-brown eyes and looks tanned and fit except for a modest paunch that bulges against his purple polo shirt. He seems young to be managing a multimillion-dollar production slate.

  “Sammy,” says Manny. “Your three o’clock is here.”

  Sammy Robins turns to reveal a large strawberry birthmark down the left side of his face, roughly the shape of Italy. I note that he bears a strong resemblance to Manny. “Thanks,” he says, then to me, as if hearing my thoughts, “Manny’s my uncle. We try to keep it all in the family. But I suppose you already know that, being a detective and all.”

  “I’m the detective,” says Gloria, stealing my thunder. “Lieutenant Gloria Lopes. Mr. Brown is working as a consultant on the case.”

  “My mistake,” he says apologetically and actually seems sincere.

  But Gloria doesn’t let it go. “I guess you don’t see many women around here with college educations.”

  Considering Gloria’s effusive embrace of sexual freedom, I’m a bit surprised by the cattiness of her remark. But Sammy takes it in stride. He doesn’t seem the type to be easily rattled.

  “No offense, detective, but that’s an awfully sexist assumption,” he says. “A number of our actors are full-time students. One of them is working on a doctorate in psychology and another is a resident specializing in cardiology at UCLA. The girls I hire are sexually expressive by nature. That doesn’t make them stupid, or even immoral. The problem with sex work is its social stigma, not the character of its workers.”

  “I guess the sex workers I see in my line of work are a different breed,” says Gloria.

  “I expect that would be true of lawbreakers in any line of work,” he says.

  This actually makes her smile. “Touché.”

  “But you didn’t come here to discuss social mores. Welcome to the new and improved Dick and Jane.”

  “Business must be good.”

  “It’s horrible, considering all the adult entertainment you can get free on the Internet. But we’re planning to leverage our expertise into cable video romance novels.”

  He motions for us to make ourselves comfortable, and we take advantage, sitting in perfect unison, a miniature drill team.

  “So what can I do to help our friends at LAPD?” he asks.

  “We’re looking into the death of Ginger Strain,” says Gloria. “How well did you know her?”

  Sammy’s face falls into a mournful expression for a moment then morphs into slight annoyance.

  “If by ‘well’ you’re asking if we had a sexual thing,” he says, “the answer is, do I look like an idiot? Rule number one in the HR handbook: you don’t sleep with people you supervise. That’s a harassment suit waiting to happen, even in this business. She walked in the door on time. I paid her on time. She did her job. I did my job. She had no complaints. I had no complaints. At the end of the shift, she walked out the door. That was our relationship in toto.”

  “What about other employees?” asks Gloria. “There must have been someone here she was friends with. Hung out with by the water cooler? Maybe went out for a drink with after work?”

  “A lot of the girls, they get lonely staring at the lens, they want a little human interaction, so they do doubles. It turns the job into a party.”

  Party? Ball gags, whips, and torture boots? Sure, Gloria’s been known to get a bit crazy with her cuffs, and a little playful spanking is not out of the question. But even she sees the downside of pain and discomfort. No gagging, no humiliation, no misdirected bodily functions. I understand some people like being treated like shit but personally, I don’t get it.

  “Most of the girls enjoy working the doubles shows,” he continues. “It’s not so much sexual as it is social. It’s play time, it’s camaraderie. But Ginger wasn’t into that. She always worked alone. She was one of our biggest draws with her dead-rock-star shtick, but she always rode solo. She didn’t schmooze with the other actors, she didn’t hang with the crew, she just did her work and went home. The only people she talked to were the ones who paid for the privilege.”

  “What about regulars?” asks Gloria. “Did she have any fans she might have agreed to see after hours?”

  “Ginger wasn’t the up close and personal type. She was a very shy person off set.”

  Sammy is leading us nowhere fast, so Gloria asks to talk to some of the other performers and crew members. Sammy summons Uncle Manny to introduce us around, asking only that we not pull anyone off set in the middle of a show. An hour later, we’ve covered most everyone there and learned nothing new. Everyone pretty much echoes Sammy’s description of Ginger as a lone wolf.

  Our last interview is with the black Chinese sub we saw on our way in. She is now untied and eating a Snickers in her bathrobe. Manny introduces her as Jenny Demilo.

  “You like doing that?” I ask, nodding toward the dungeon. “Being tied up like that?”

  “The boots kill my feet,” she says, “but other than that, I love it. The nastier, the better. I guess I’m just a filthy cum slut at heart.”

  She says this with pride and gives me an inviting look that’s about as subtle as a chaser-light arrow. I grapple with my inner prude as Gloria chuckles knowingly behind me.

  “Enlighten me,” I say. “What do you get out of being tortured and humiliated?”

  “It conditions me,” she says, “for doing my rounds with the attending physicians.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  We find Dumphy in his usual spot at the Qat Haus bar trying to impress a twiggy, freckled blonde from Facilities Management with his ability to shoot
Wild Turkey from a highball glass without using his hands. As we head to the bar, he’s already got the glass in his teeth. He swings it up like a pelican swallowing a whole fish. The trick is to do it fast and smooth to avoid spilling up your nose or down your shirt. I give him a ten. It’s a well-practiced skill that I’m proud to admit I’ve never mastered.

  Gloria grabs his arm. “Come on, Casanova. You can woo the ladies later.” She pulls him off his barstool, and he follows obediently. The babe from FM doesn’t seem to care. She swivels around to talk to some other lush.

  We settle into a booth and order a round.

  “So what’s the scoop on Karl Lynch?” asks Gloria.

  “He’s a real piece of work,” says Dumphy. “Thinks his big pecs and fuckin’ PhD let him walk on water.”

  “Does Jesus have an alibi?” I ask.

  “Not much of one,” he says, scratching a bright red scar on his forehead. It looks fresh, like a scab came off an hour ago. It’s the kind of scar you tell people you got from walking into a door because you don’t want to admit you fell on your face. “He claims he was home all night with Sophia. They had a fight, so he fuckin’ slept downstairs. He says she would have heard him if he snuck out, but I don’t fuckin’ believe the fuckin’ scumbag.”

  “What else did he have to say?” asks Gloria.

  “A lot of bullshit about his business bein’ none of my fuckin’ business.”

  Dumphy’s attention is caught by a small pantry moth buzzing his nostril. He swipes at it, and it darts away.

  “Doc Lynch claims he was in a session with Ginger,” says Dumphy, his tone implying that session is French for orgy. “They was in his office from four o’clock to four fifty. The asshole even used the term ‘on the dot.’ Exactly fifty minutes. Calls that a fuckin’ hour. Oughta bust the fucker for fraud. No wonder Medicare’s outta cash.”

  “Skip the commentary,” says Gloria, “and just tell us what he said.”

  “I’m tellin’ you it’s bullshit. Fifty fuckin’ minutes.” Gloria starts to object, but he puts up his hand to quiet her. “Okay. Ofuckinkay. So he says she left at four fifty. ‘On the dot.’” Dumphy can’t help but baste the words in irony. “Says that was the last time he fuckin’ saw her. Eighteen hours later, the sister finds the corpse.”

  The moth returns, circling the rim of Gloria’s margarita. She shields the top of her glass with her hand, and it flits off.

  “No other contact?” I ask. “Phone calls, texting, e-mail?”

  “He said no. So I tell him his fuckin’ answering service says at eleven fuckin’ seventeen they called him and got his permission to pass through a call from fuckin’ Ginger. Big fat Berkeley Med School degree, president of some big head doctor ass-ociation, and he’s all of a sudden gettin’ pinned to the fuckin’ wall by a guy had to go through twelfth grade twice and still barely got outta high school.” Dumphy chuckles at the memory. “It was fuckin’ sweet.”

  “So what’d he say?” asks Gloria. She’s putting a lot of effort into keeping him on track, as if the interview left him high on endorphins, and the Wild Turkey is just reinforcing it.

  “Nothin’. He starts to fuckin’ cough. Goes all red in the face then says he wants to see the call log; buys himself some fuckin’ time to think. Then he looks up from the log, and all of a sudden it all comes the fuck back to him how she called, but he told her it was too late and to call back during fuckin’ business hours. Eleven outta ten on the bullshit meter.”

  The waitress sets two shots of Wild Turkey in front of him. He grabs one in each hand and slugs them down in quick succession. I’m impressed with his hand-mouth coordination. He signals for another round. He must think Gloria’s paying.

  “You think he went over there?” asks Gloria.

  “Fuckin’ A,” says Dumphy. “Ginger calls, his main squeeze gets fuckin’ jealous. They fight, he goes downstairs to sleep in the fuckin’ den. The squeeze goes nite-nite, he sneaks out to see the porn star, calm her the fuck down, maybe get fuckin’ lucky.”

  Two more shots arrive. He does the two-handed shuffle again.

  “I gotta drain the gecko.” Dumphy gets up and heads for the john.

  “What do you think?” asks Gloria. She takes a sip of her drink, and a thin line of salt paints a line on her lower lip. She sucks her lip into her mouth, and it comes out clean.

  “I think Karl looks good for it.”

  “Then the murder can’t be connected to Lana’s. Karl never met her.”

  “We all have bad hunches once in a while.”

  “You more than most.” She can’t resist a good setup.

  “It all fits,” I say. “Sophia goes to sleep, he jets out of there, goes over to Ginger’s, finds her freaking out, realizes she’s a threat to expose him. He goes into shrink mode, talks her down, tells her she needs to relax. She makes herself a nice cup of tea, he gives her a few pills to help her sleep and slips a few more in her tea to put her out.”

  “I hear the stuff’s so bitter it makes you gag,” says Gloria.

  “That’s what sugar is for. She drifts off. He wipes his prints off the teacup and anything else he’s touched. He turns on the gas, closes the door, and goes home to his alibi. When Sophia gets up in the morning, she finds him asleep in the den, all cuddled up with his blankie.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  It’s my mother’s old-fashioned dial phone. It’s pink. The numbers in the finger holes are worn out from decades of being dialed with the tips of pens and pencils. And it’s ringing.

  And ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing, but when I try to answer, it’s just out of reach. I try to stretch, but it’s just beyond my fingers. So frustrating.

  The realization surfaces like the creature from the Black Lagoon: I’m asleep, and my cell is ringing. I squint in the dark at the glow of 1:53 on the screen. My ringtone is supposed to sound like an old-fashioned telephone, except it can’t quite succeed with a quarter-inch speaker.

  I swipe to answer. “What?” I drop the phone on the bed and pick it up again. By the time I get it to my ear he’s in midsentence.

  “…late, but I got me some gossip that’s, uh…Oh, Lordy sweet Jesus, gonna make you cream your panties.” I don’t respond. I’m not sure what he wants, and I’m not sure I’m awake, and I’m not sure he’s sober. “You comin’ or what?”

  “Okay.”

  I find Billy Kidd in a circular window booth overlooking Sunset Boulevard from the 24-7 restaurant at the Standard, the preferred hotel of ancient rock stars. It’s the middle of the night, but the place is packed. Billy called from the Purple Lounge, where he was meeting an old friend for drinks, but the bar closed at two, so now they’re here, having watermelon martinis and miso soup.

  I must look like I feel because he says, “You look like you been rode hard and put up wet.”

  “I’m still waking up.”

  I recognize his friend from Ginger’s funeral. She’s wearing a tie-dyed earth-mother sundress under a tartan wool Pendleton shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Her unkempt, curly red hair has about an inch of gray roots showing. Billy calls my name as I approach, and the redhead stands to meet me. She looks fiftyish with lips too linear for her round face and a torso too thin for her broad hips. The whole package screams “frumpy” until she smiles. Her aquamarine eyes streamline from round to almond, her vague cheekbones become sharply defined, her narrow lips transform into a seductive bow that reveals perfect teeth, and even her pear-like shape seems to somehow deemphasize in the radiance of her spirit. It’s an astonishing metamorphosis.

  Billy introduces her as Claudine Hugo.

  “Pleasure,” I say.

  “Ze plezaire is mine,” Her sexy French accent completes the demolition of my first impression.

  “Take a load off,” says Billy. “Martini?”

  I slide into the booth. “Coffee’s fine, thanks.”

  “Suit yourself.” He signals a passing waitress, and I place my order.

  “We was j
ust talkin’ up the old days,” Billy says. “Sweet Lordy, I’ve known Claudine what? Thirty years? Forty years?”

  “Sirty-one. We met on ze Berlin tour, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. Damn Wall was still up. Lana hired Claudine as a personal assistant, stole her straightaway from Stevie Nicks. Man, was Stevie pissed. Still holds a grudge, if you can believe ’at. Jesus in heaven have mercy.”

  “I understand you and Lana were close,” I say.

  “Until ze day she died.”

  “They was best friends, man. Why in God’s name you think I hauled your ass outta bed?”

  “That was going to be my first question, but I got sidetracked.”

  “Do I look like the kinda jerkoff trusts cops? I’m betting on you to crack this thang. I want the sumbitch caught, man.”

  “Okay.” My coffee comes, but it’s too hot to drink.

  “So we was in the lounge and Claudine tells me this fuckin’ shit, and I figure it might be sump’in. So here y’are.”

  “What shit?”

  “It seems that dear sweet fuckin’ Lana, Lord forgive me, was having a goddamn affair on me ’fore she died, may she requiescat in pace.”

  I’ve never heard Latin spoken with a Kentucky twang before. Maybe that’s how the Romans sounded.

  “I sought he knew,” says Claudine, “or I would not have told him.”

  “I thought everybody knew,” I say. “It was in all the papers. The guy from Sticky White.”

  “Sticky White?” Billy barks a laugh. “That butt plug Vern Senzimmer weren’t no affair, that was just a couple party fucks with a boy toy. Sticky White never even cut a album. I didn’t give a shit about that. Even Baby Jesus knows that’s just life on the road. There’s only so many lays a body can turn down when they’s offered up like handshakes. Lana called ’em sump pumps, praise Jesus. But what Claudine’s talkin’ at is an affaaaaaair, a relaaaaaationship. A thang that lasts longer’n a weekend with feelings that last longer’n a hard-on.”