Final Cut

by Colin Campbell

  Alfonse was intrigued. “Did you catch him?”

  McNulty shook his head. “I don’t catch people. Just aimed him where I wanted him and everybody else caught him. Turned out he had been burgling the house while the owner was out looking for the dog we’d found.”

  He waved a cautionary finger.

  “Point being, a cop walks up to a door; he doesn’t know what’s on the other side. No matter how innocent the reason he’s there in the first place.”

  Alfonse nodded. “Got it.”

  This time McNulty believed Alfonse actually had got it.

  To prove it, the actor surprised McNulty: “Especially if it’s somewhere unusual like a boat at the marina.”

  “Exactly. Passed with honors.”

  They slapped hands in a high-five and Alfonse went over to the boat. Cursive script across the stern read, The Helen of Troy. The camera was ready. Brad Semenoff snapped the clapperboard and F.K. Parenteau rolled camera. The director shouted, “Action.” And Alfonse Bayard became Dirty Harry.

  McNulty watched from a safe distance. He didn’t notice the woman standing next to him until she whispered in his ear.

  “That was very impressive. Can you run that past me again?”

  TEN

  Helen Kozora stood behind McNulty out of the shot. The camera was filming the other way, catching the bigger boats of “D” Dock in the background, rather than the owner of the boat they were filming. McNulty recognized her because, apart from arranging local zoning permissions and liaising with the Boston Film Office, he’d accompanied the location scout when they had rented The Helen of Troy. He glanced over his shoulder and smiled.

  “The face that launched a thousand ships.”

  Helen was pushing forty but carrying it well. She had flame-red hair, a cheeky smile and a figure that put the bikini girls hired for background to shame. She reminded McNulty of Ann Margaret before the facelifts. Her own bikini was tastefully hidden under a sarong that flapped in the breeze. Her nose wrinkled when she smiled.

  “That’s why my husband named her that.”

  She looked at the thirty-foot cabin cruiser, now weighed down with heavy lights and camera equipment and let out a sigh.

  “When he became my ex-husband, he started calling me ‘the face that sank a thousand ships.’”

  She wrinkled her nose again.

  “But at least I didn’t sink that one.”

  McNulty watched Alfonse step over the stern rail in character to ask his questions. The boat swayed. The lights and reflectors weighed down the back end. The film crew stood at the edges of the shot, angling the reflectors. The boat looked top-heavy and unstable. He turned back to Helen.

  “I hope letting Titanic Productions film on board isn’t tempting fate.”

  Helen raised an eyebrow.

  “The only ice around here is on the fuel dock.” She pointed to a small jetty poking out the end of “D” Dock. Her nose wrinkled again and the smile this time was full of hidden promise. “They’ve got an ice machine. For all the wild parties.”

  McNulty chose to ignore the suggestion. “People live on board?”

  Helen pointed to some of the slips farther down from hers.

  “Some. On the bigger boats.” She nodded toward the more substantial walkway of “D” Dock. “Then there’s silly money. Cabin cruisers better than staying at the Hilton.”

  McNulty kept the conversation grounded in film talk. “They wouldn’t have fit the story. Given the cost of renting one of them, I think Larry would’ve rewritten the script to downsize.”

  Helen looked interested. “Larry Unger?”

  McNulty nodded. “The producer. Yes. You know him?”

  Helen shrugged. The smile dialed down but didn’t disappear. “In passing.”

  She waved at the teenage bikini bodies walking the dock as background artists.

  “Did he hire the teeny totters?”

  McNulty tried not to look at the young girls who were barely developed enough to need bikini tops—tall, slim and tanned, and very young. He looked at Helen Kozora instead.

  “Somebody did. But hey, thanks again for letting us use your boat.”

  Helen noticed something in McNulty’s eyes and filed it away for later. She looked at The Helen of Troy then turned back to McNulty. Her nose wrinkled again.

  “Don’t thank me yet. The way they’ve overloaded her she might go down on you.”

  McNulty kept his eyes on Helen’s face. “Like the Titanic?”

  She met his gaze. “Not as deep.”

  McNulty wiped sweat from his brow and glanced up at the baking sun. “Or as cold.”

  The clapperboard snapped and the crew returned to their start positions for another shot. Amy dashed forward to touch up Alfonse’s makeup. The bikini girls came back along the dock so they could walk past the camera again. McNulty couldn’t avoid looking at them. He couldn’t stop thinking about the other young girls from his past and what had happened to them. At Northern X.

  Helen followed his gaze.

  “Aren’t they a bit young for you?”

  McNulty tried to push the nightmares back in their box. He shivered despite the heat and felt sadness crease his face before he came back to the present and forced a smile. Helen saw the look and wished she hadn’t mentioned it.

  “Something bad?”

  McNulty took a deep breath then flicked more sweat from his forehead. “Nothing an iced tea won’t cure.” He indicated the quayside café next to the Dockmaster Tower. “We can discuss health and safety and sinking ships.”

  Helen softened her eyes. “Boats. The Helen is a boat.”

  McNulty nodded, then motioned with an arm for her to go first. “Let’s talk about Helen then.”

  The Kozy Korner was a small café and sandwich shop with a half-dozen tables inside and three picnic benches on the boardwalk out front. The kind of rough-hewn tables with bench seats on either side and a hole in the middle for a beach umbrella. The umbrellas were white and yellow and didn’t protect customers from the angle of the sun, which had moved around toward the west.

  McNulty bought the cool drinks and Helen chose the seats. She sat at the middle picnic bench with her back to the sun. McNulty squeezed his legs under the table across from her and put two iced teas down between them.

  “There you go. That should cool you down.”

  Helen looked across the table.

  “You think I need cooling down?”

  McNulty thought she was hot and dangerous but wouldn’t be drawn on the subject. He nodded toward “C” Dock where the film crew were tightening the shot for the close-ups. The reverse angle meant setting up in the main cabin, shooting out. The Helen of Troy rolled with every movement.

  “How long do you live aboard?”

  Helen accepted the delaying tactic. “As long as the weather holds.”

  Then she turned the question back on McNulty.

  “How long have you lived in America?”

  McNulty took a sip of iced tea. “Who said I’m not American?”

  Helen snorted a laugh. “With that accent? I’ll bet they’re swooning all over you.”

  McNulty blushed and covered it by drinking more tea.

  Helen explained: “I love the English accent.”

  McNulty looked at her. “Even if it’s from Yorkshire?”

  “Especially if it’s from Yorkshire. I fell for a wealthy Yorkshireman once. Turned out not to be exclusive enough. He liked women from anywhere.”

  “And that hasn’t put you off Yorkshiremen?”

  She slid her fingers up and down the glass of iced tea, then flicked the condensation to one side. “I’m coming around.”

  McNulty took another sip.

  “In the meantime, you kept some of the wealthy part.”

  Helen let out a sigh. “This is Quincy. I’m not that wealthy.”

  She pronounced Quincy the local way. Quinzy. McNulty s
miled.

  “Do Bostonians have a lisp? That’s not how it sounded on that TV show with Jack Klugman.”

  Helen chuckled. “Boston is its own place. Even our organized crime is different.”

  McNulty lowered his voice. “It’s not The Sopranos then?”

  Helen waved a hand toward a small cove across from Marina Bay.

  “Whitey Bulger ruled this place for decades. Was top of the FBI’s most-wanted list for years. Over there.” She pointed at the cove. “He buried some of his victims. Dug up the bodies a couple of years ago.”

  “The FBI?”

  “Fishermen digging for bait.”

  McNulty looked her in the eye. “Maybe we should stop digging then.”

  Helen took a drink of iced tea and shrugged. “We’ve all got skeletons in the closet. Bodies that need to stay buried.”

  McNulty looked her up and down. “I don’t see you as the burying kind.”

  “I’ve got a past.” Her eyes never left McNulty’s face. She lowered her voice, “So have you.”

  She quickly dismissed the thought as irrelevant. “I’m not proud of how I kept the boat. The properties. And the businesses.”

  “All of them?”

  “Enough.”

  McNulty glanced at The Helen of Troy and then at the small cove along the coast. Local knowledge was a valuable commodity. As a cop it wasn’t so much what you knew as knowing who to ask. A local businesswoman with fingers in many pies was a good place to start.

  “International or American?”

  “The ones I kept? Mostly America. East and a few South.”

  “Quincy?”

  She put on a serious face. “With Jack Klugman?”

  He smiled. “I’m from Yorkshire. I’m not saying Quinzy.”

  “You just did.”

  He finished his tea with one gulp and let out a satisfied sigh. “Do you know if there’s a local processing lab?”

  Helen jerked a thumb at the film crew busy working on her boat. “Movie film?”

  McNulty nodded. “Thirty-five millimeter.”

  Helen raised her eyebrows. “Doesn’t Titanic Productions have its own?”

  McNulty shrugged. “Titanic Productions doesn’t have anything of its own. But this is something else.”

  Helen tried to see what McNulty’s eyes were telling her, but he’d pulled the shutters down. She considered the question for a moment, then nodded.

  “There’s a place just out of town. Address is on The Helen.”

  She nodded toward the boat. Her nose wrinkled. “Come see me when they’ve stopped filming and I’ll give it to you.”

  Without any effort she’d got the subject back where she wanted it. The sun moved across the bay and the crew changed camera positions. There was a long afternoon’s filming ahead. McNulty wouldn’t be boarding The Helen of Troy until this evening. In the meantime, he’d better make sure Alfonse kept his end up.

  ELEVEN

  Filming didn’t finish until almost seven. The angle of the sun was different from when they’d started shooting but by then they were on interiors for the exposition scene. Alfonse was getting answers to his questions. This was the acting bit, not the walking-like-a-cop part. Bayard didn’t need any help from McNulty. Instead, the technical adviser stood at Slip 10, looking across the marina at a small cove beyond the sea wall, thinking about the bodies that had been discovered there. He looked around at the boats moored at Marina Bay. Civilization was a skin that covered the world. In some places it was wafer-thin. In some people it wasn’t even a skin; they were just hard and evil, with no regard for others. McNulty had met men like that before.

  The crew wrapped filming for the day. Alfonse thanked McNulty and headed to the motel. The grips struck the set and loaded the equipment. Brad Semenoff labeled the film cartridges for processing and F.K. Parenteau ran through his shot list for the next location. Tomorrow was a rest day, so there would be no filming. The location crew put back up the flyers and posters they’d removed for the shoot.

  McNulty reverted to security mode and ensured that all the equipment was accounted for before it was returned to the compound. The makeup trailer was towed away. The camera, lighting and dolly track were loaded onto trucks and driven off. By the time Titanic Productions left Marina Bay there was only one man standing.

  McNulty waited until the last vehicle left the parking lot then walked along the jetty to “C” Dock. A relaxed easy gait. Not like a duck. Like a cop, even though he wasn’t a police officer anymore. That’s why Larry Unger paid him, because he might have left the job, but the job had never left him. He approached Slip 10 and checked the windows and hatches of The Helen of Troy. Whenever you approach a door you never know what’s on the other side. He had a pretty good idea this time. He was smiling when he stepped across the stern rail and knocked on the cabin door.

  “You’d think they’d clean up after themselves.”

  Helen was straightening the cushions on the bench seats around the stateroom. This was only the second time McNulty had been inside the main cabin. It was big and airy but not blessed with headroom. He banged his head in the doorway and had to fight back the expletives. This wasn’t Larry Unger’s midget-doored office. He waved a hand toward the main dock.

  “They’ve put the posters back up.”

  Helen stopped fluffing up the cushions. “That’s hardly the same thing.”

  McNulty kept his head bowed and helped straighten the coffee table in the middle of the cabin. “I’ll mention it at the next budget meeting.”

  Helen put her hands on her hips. “You think that’ll make a difference?”

  McNulty went to the center of the cabin where the ceiling was higher.

  “I think they’ll say it’s not included in the price they paid.”

  Helen leaned against the counter that separated the stateroom from the galley. “What about common courtesy?”

  McNulty still had to keep his head bowed.

  “This is the movie business. If they dirty something, Larry will have it cleaned. Apart from that, you’ll have to fluff your own cushions.”

  Helen gave a sad little smile. “The film industry. Of course.”

  McNulty looked at her. “Was that one of your husband’s businesses?”

  She scanned the furnishings…

  “Fringes.”

  …then looked at McNulty. “Would the police have tidied up after themselves?”

  McNulty stood beside her and leaned against the counter. The act of leaning shortened his height so he didn’t have to duck anymore.

  “If we’d executed a search warrant, traditional thinking was that you brought it on yourself. Not usually a tidy search. No cushion-fluffing.”

  Helen threw him a sideways glance. “I should be thankful you work for Larry Unger then.”

  He turned to look at her. “I should be thankful he rented your boat.”

  There was a pause while they considered what to do next. The harbor was calm. There was only a gentle swell. The boat creaked. A seagull squealed. McNulty qualified his answer.

  “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have got the address.”

  The moment passed. Helen pushed off from the counter.

  “The processing lab. Let me get you that.”

  She went to a drawer behind the counter and shuffled through a stack of papers and business cards. She scribbled in a notebook and tore the page out. “There you go.”

  Their fingers touched as she passed him the note and McNulty pulled his hand away. Helen watched his face. He didn’t meet her gaze. She stood for a moment then took a step closer. A gentle hand reached out for his and this time he didn’t pull away. He raised heavy eyes to look into hers. She touched the side of his face and he fought to hide the flinch but didn’t quite succeed. Her voice was soft and reassuring.

  “That bad, huh?”

  He shrugged.

  “It was a long time ago.”

&nb
sp; She lowered her hand but kept watching his face.

  “In my experience that just makes it worse.”

  Then she took his hand in both of hers and squeezed it gently. “Secret is to take the sting out as soon as you can. The longer you leave it in, the deeper the poison gets.”

  His eyes took in every part of her face. “You’ve been poisoned too?”

  It was her turn to shrug. “Who hasn’t?”

  He watched her as he considered his next move. Her flame-red hair wasn’t as vivid indoors, but her figure was just as beautiful. McNulty had been avoiding female company for so long he’d forgotten how to proceed. Wasn’t sure if he wanted to proceed. He thought about Amy and her innate niceness. Helen seemed to have a harder edge. A shared history perhaps? Whatever it was, he felt like he could talk to her. He nodded toward the refrigerator.

  “You got any iced tea?”

  Helen nodded.

  “Is there anything iced tea won’t cure?”

  He let out a sigh.

  “Plenty. But it’s a good place to start.”

  For the first time since he’d left the north of England McNulty unburdened himself. He didn’t go all the way back to the orphanage and the slap and his missing sister, but he told everything about Northern X. Helen was a good listener. McNulty got the feeling she had her own story to tell but this was his time. Like confessional. He laid his soul bare. A potted history. The life and career of Vincent McNulty: West Yorkshire Police.

  Back in the day McNulty worked plainclothes vice squad. Before they lumped it into general CID and prioritized burglary and violent crime. Before target culture dictated police strategy and the police could work crimes as they saw fit. What they saw fit back then was to put undercover cops into massage parlors to elicit offers of sex for money, then bust them and close down the parlors. McNulty was one of the undercover officers—until they sacked him for assaulting a child abuser in the police station corridor.

  After that he was adrift in a world without brotherhood. He missed the camaraderie of the boys in blue. He continued to visit massage parlors as if he were still undercover, only this time he could enjoy the fruits of his labor. The happy-ending massage. Many of the parlors were run by Northern X. It wasn’t until he became a suspect that he learned they also ran an underage sex ring that went even further. Selling very young girls for torture and slavery. And death.