Final Cut

by Colin Campbell

  She’d worked in the industry for three years before meeting her husband and putting the life behind her. Almost. Since he’d met her at an awards ceremony, he knew what she did and expected her to do it once they were married. And not exclusively. For him or her. It wasn’t a marriage made in heaven. It wasn’t a marriage built to last. Thankfully, before she called “time,” she’d positioned herself to take half of his businesses and enough of his wealth. And The Helen of Troy.

  “By the time I got out of the game things were turning violent.”

  Helen stared at her iced tea but didn’t drink it. She seemed fascinated with the concentric circles whenever she tapped the glass. McNulty didn’t interrupt. Some things have to come out in their own time. He knew all about that. Helen looked up from the glass.

  “Bondage. Punishment. That sort of thing.”

  She shrugged.

  “I’m not fooling myself. We were making movies, but it wasn’t Hollywood. It was sex. But at least the sex was consenting-adults sex. Not this other stuff. So I quit while I still had my looks.”

  McNulty raised his eyebrows.

  Helen smiled. “And The Helen of Troy, among other things.”

  She took a long cool drink and let out a satisfied sigh.

  “The fruits of my labor.”

  McNulty toyed with his glass. A thought that he wasn’t all that comfortable with crossed his mind and he had to get it out.

  “Do you ever miss it?”

  Helen looked at him and saw the guilt on his face.

  “Do you ever miss the massage parlors?”

  McNulty met her gaze but couldn’t hold it. He lowered his eyes. “Not good, is it? Missing something you know was wrong.”

  This time it was Helen’s turn to raise her eyebrows.

  “It was a buzz. Nice boys don’t always give you that buzz.”

  McNulty looked at her again.

  “I’m not a nice boy?”

  Helen sidestepped the question.

  “You saved the dog.”

  That was enough of an answer. McNulty knew what he was. What he had been. Combatting the darkness of others hadn’t always kept his own darkness at bay. He’d been trying to remedy that ever since. Do the right thing. Protect the innocent. Protecting Larry Unger’s stolen film didn’t quite fit the bill, but finding his sister did. It looked like he’d failed on both counts. It was time to bring the conversation back on track.

  “The guy who took the film away. He must have taken it somewhere.”

  Helen clenched her jaw. “Yes.” She didn’t elaborate.

  McNulty prodded. “Any ideas?”

  She made a decision and put her glass on the table.

  “Back then we used film but never thirty-five millimeter. Nowadays it’s all shot on digital. If they’re using large format, they must have found a more profitable market. Everyone starts somewhere. Small then bigger.”

  She locked eyes with McNulty.

  “You don’t get where you are today without being what you were before.”

  McNulty didn’t speak. Helen held her hands wide apart.

  “Big cameras are expensive to run. Unless you’ve got a source.”

  McNulty deflated. He looked around the cabin that Titanic Productions had used for filming yesterday, then turned back to Helen.

  “Larry was a pornographer.”

  It wasn’t a question. Helen answered anyway.

  “We all start somewhere.”

  McNulty remembered the three frames of film he’d seen in the darkroom area just before the world exploded. Naked flesh posing for the camera in thirty-five millimeter. “He still is.”

  Helen shook her head.

  “He’s knocking on the door of Hollywood. He’s not getting back into porn. But somebody is. And they’re using his equipment.”

  McNulty thought about the film canisters that Hooknose had loaded into his car.

  “Where was he taking the film? The lab guy.”

  Helen stood up and went behind the counter. She took a notepad out of a drawer and began to write.

  “The lab’s where they processed the film.” She finished with a flourish and tore the page out. “It’s not where they’re based.”

  McNulty leaned forward. “They have a studio?”

  Helen folded the paper in half, then half again. Neat folds.

  “They filmed in people’s houses. Businesses. They didn’t use a studio. Except for inserts and the later stuff.”

  “Torture porn?”

  Helen could barely acknowledge the name.

  “It’s the only place he could have taken the film. Where they’d feel safe.” She handed the address to McNulty.

  “Industrial side of town. Out of the way.”

  McNulty didn’t open the note. “Are they cooking there as well?”

  Helen came around from behind the counter.

  “That was the lab guy’s sideline. I’m surprised they didn’t shut him down. I guess they needed him. It’s not the kind of film you can send to Kodak.”

  McNulty stood up. Yorkie looked content under the table.

  “You sure you don’t want a dog?”

  Helen turned sad eyes on McNulty.

  “You think I’m a fit mother?”

  McNulty put his arms around her, and they held each other without kissing.

  “I don’t think you get where you are without being where you were.”

  She pushed back to see his face. “Is that a yes?”

  He indicated the dog. “Is that a no?”

  TWENTY-ONE

  McNulty couldn’t inquire at the new address until filming ended for the day, even though there had been no Alfonse to coach. McNulty had had to revert to security duty and close down location shooting at Quincy Medical Center. That didn’t involve too much work. Since the medical center was a functioning hospital, they had been allowed to film only in nonessential rooms and to use some exteriors in the back. Traffic was an issue only on Whitwell Street out front, so closing down just meant making sure that the equipment got hauled away safely and that the location signs for Titanic Productions were removed.

  Amy went into the makeup trailer to put away makeup while the stagehands hooked the trailer to the tractor unit. The dog bounded up the steps, following her. McNulty waited at the door. He fingered Helen’s note in his pocket and felt guilty all over again. He really needed to get himself straight with that. Amy came to the door with a makeup brush in one hand.

  “Do you want a touchup before I go?”

  McNulty saw the dog sitting behind her.

  “I told you. Yorkshire dogs don’t like makeup.”

  The terrier sniffed around Amy’s legs. She smiled.

  “This one does.”

  McNulty stood back from the steps and looked at the dog. Yorkie sat beside Amy and wagged his tail. McNulty nodded.

  “Can you look after him for a while? I’ve got to run an errand.”

  Amy lowered the makeup brush. “How long?”

  McNulty lied. “Couple of hours. I’ll be back before dark.”

  Amy dropped to her haunches and stroked the terrier.

  “What’s Larry got you doing now?”

  McNulty shrugged and didn’t answer. Amy looked at him.

  “You’re not going to start another fire are you?”

  “I didn’t start the fire.”

  Amy stood up.

  “Well, if you save any more dogs, make it a girlfriend for Yorkie.”

  She smiled at McNulty. “He could use a good woman.”

  McNulty felt his cheeks flush and turned away. For a man who’d spent years getting his pole waxed at illegal massage parlors he was easily embarrassed when it came to nice girls. He thanked Amy and promised to be home soon, then went to his car. The map was in the glove compartment. The address was in his pocket.

  The building they were using as a porn studio and production office was
part of the industrial wasteland that had once been a vibrant shipping industry. Bents Creek Dockyard was a rusting landscape of mothballed ships and derelict buildings. Boat slips stood empty. The cargo warehouse sagged along the roofline. The office buildings along the wharf were the only ones in good repair, and even they weren’t in tip-top condition. The studio was second from the end. There was no sign above the door.

  The sun was a dull red fireball low on the horizon. It scorched the darkening sky and painted the wharf in shades of red and black. McNulty left his car in a side street across from the dockyard and climbed through a hole in the fence. The wire was as rusty as the derricks and sagged like a torn curtain. The main gate and empty security hut looked as bad as the fence. McNulty found a vantage point in the weighbridge office and watched the buildings opposite.

  Dusk settled over the dockyard like a blanket. The evening darkened and the sky turned to rust. Light shone from the production office window, but McNulty couldn’t see anybody inside. To save him guessing, Hooknose came out of the door and went to his car. He took a package from the trunk and went back inside. McNulty tracked him until the door closed then turned back to the car—not the one Hooknose had used but the one parked next to it. The one that had tried to run him down and had almost killed the dog.

  There was some activity in the office. Movement passing the window then back again. A horn sounded along the river—some kind of tugboat or barge maneuvering in the channel. Traffic on East Howard Street thinned to almost non-existent. Occasional headlights cut through the dark between distant streetlamps. Music resonated from the only other occupied building in the block, a solid square structure at the end of the wharf. Disco lights flashed briefly as the D.J. adjusted the sound levels. A dance club for the great unwashed. McNulty kept his eyes on the production office. There was no diner for McNulty to wait in. There was no Dunkin’ Donuts. This was going to be a long night.

  Hooknose left an hour later. He wasn’t carrying anything this time. Brake lights glowed red as he reversed then stopped. Hooknose turned the headlights on then bent forward to rummage in the glove compartment. The car was sideways to McNulty. He watched as Hooknose bowed his head, swung the nose of the car toward the weighbridge and stopped again. McNulty didn’t move. The moment stretched out. The exhaust throbbed. Then Hooknose tapped a cigarette out of a pack and lit it with a Zippo. His face stood out in the flame for a second, then he drove out of the main gate and turned south.

  Nobody else came out of the office for another thirty minutes. The lights went out and a tall man with stooped shoulders came out. It was impossible to see his face in the dark. He paused outside the office and turned his head toward the distant music. Base thumped into the night but there was no tune. No song. You’d have to be inside to hear that. There were more people outside the dance club now, staff preparing for the evening. Early birds wanting a head start.

  McNulty shifted in the weighbridge office. His legs were stiff and his back ached from keeping low. He checked his watch but since he’d been hiding in the shadows all evening even the luminous dial had petered out. He knew it was getting late though. After nine. Past Yorkie’s bedtime.

  The second man got into his car and then drove out of the main gate, turning south, just as Hooknose had done. The row of offices became a long black silhouette against the night sky. Stars winked in the dark. Another tugboat sounded its horn—more musical than the dance club. McNulty waited another half-hour, then stretched his legs. He checked to make sure he was still out of sight, then crossed the open space to South Shore Hardcore.

  TWENTY-TWO

  McNulty kept his eyes down to avoid tripping on the uneven ground, but mainly to preserve his night vision. He avoided looking at the disco lights at the end of the wharf or the single streetlamp visible near the abandoned security gate. He reached the studio door with his sight intact and peered through the window. There wasn’t enough light to see anything more than dull shapes in the darkness. Office shapes. Desk. Filing cabinets. Concertina security grill inside the window. Nothing that required him to turn on his penlight. Instead he examined the door.

  There was no echo when he tapped it with his knuckles. There was nothing hollow about it at all. This was a solid hardwood fire door, reinforced with metal sheeting and set into a frame as secure as Fort Knox. Fifty-two countersunk screws held the metal sheet in place. An equal number secured the flatiron strips around the doorframe. There were three heavy-duty locks spread evenly up one side. Top, middle and bottom. South Shore Hardcore was serious about its security.

  McNulty ran his fingers up the seam of the doorframe. He felt rather than saw the alarm sensors. Very serious. This was drug-dealer-level security. A bit over the top for studio space and office facilities. Even in the porn industry. Unless they were into something more serious than that. McNulty couldn’t imagine what that might be. Blackmail perhaps? It was the only thing that came to mind. He scanned left and right along the wall. There was only one window. He didn’t waste his time checking that. If they were this serious with the door, they weren’t going to have a rickety old window or a flimsy security grill.

  He looked up. Two more windows on the first floor that looked as solid as the one down here. There was a cracked and sagging drainpipe that couldn’t carry heavy water. The front was a bust. He’d have to try the back.

  Twenty minutes later McNulty had taken the only option available. The roof. The back door had turned out to be even more solid than the front and didn’t have a handle on the outside. The windows were bricked up. That only left a rusty fire escape that zigzagged up the rear wall to a first-floor fire exit that hadn’t been used since the dockyard had closed down. Fire regulations meant they had to have one. The porn industry said, “Fuck you,” and promptly boarded it up. Same metal sheeting. Same countersunk screws. But at least the fire escape led to the roof.

  “Bingo.”

  McNulty spotted the weak link as soon as he stepped onto the flat roof. The skylight was big and wide and sloping. It would provide plenty of natural light during the day and nobody worked in the shipping offices at night, back when they used to be shipping offices. What it gave now was a perfect view into the first floor. Stars twinkled in the night sky, but it was the moon that saved McNulty having to use the penlight. It bathed the rooftop in cold white light and shone through the skylight to reveal why the fire exit had been boarded up.

  The back of the building didn’t have a second floor. Whatever offices had been there had been stripped out and the floor removed, leaving the fire door set halfway up the wall above a void. Downstairs the room was empty and featureless with no office furniture or decorations or curtains. The bricked-up windows had been plastered and painted and the floor stripped back to concrete. It looked like a factory floor without the factory. What it was instead was studio floor space and what he saw made his blood run cold.

  McNulty sat against the retaining wall and took a deep breath. Cool night air helped. He broke his cardinal rule and looked across the channel at traffic crossing the Washington Street Bridge into North Weymouth. Headlights flickered between the supports that would raise the bridge for ships coming along the river. He glanced along the wharf at the partygoers gathering outside the dance club. The music sounded more lyrical from up here. Almost like real music.

  He took another deep breath then looked through the skylight again. The studio floor was smooth grey concrete. High up on the back wall there was a pulley system to allow different backdrops and separate lamps to highlight the backgrounds. The main studio lights were on stands on either side of the camera position. Diffusers and reflectors. All the usual stuff. Just like Titanic Productions but on a smaller scale. McNulty didn’t think anybody could be smaller than Titanic Productions. In the mainstream he was probably right. For the porn industry this was big stuff. The camera position had worn smooth by heavy usage and a large footprint. The tripod was there but no camera. Not digital or video or sixteen millimete
r. This was thirty-five millimeter, loud and proud.

  But that’s not what bristled up the hairs on the back of his neck.

  McNulty looked straight down at the area between the lights.

  Helen Kozora had said she’d left because the industry was getting increasingly violent. Bondage. Sex slaves. Torture porn. The set that South Shore Hardcore was using down there suggested she was right. There was a bed with handcuffs at each corner. Next to that was a rack containing whips and leathers and black things with studs and clamps. To one side there was a chair with leg braces and shackles. The bed had been stripped of sheets, so it was clean apart from some faded stains on the mattress. The pale concrete between the mattress and the chair was not.

  He wondered if the women recruited to be in these movies knew they were going to be beaten. If they were being paid enough to accept that their blood was going to be splattered across the floor. This put the slap at Crag View Orphanage into the shade. This was serious harm.

  He examined the skylight hinges, then thought, fuck it. He looked around for something he could use to break the glass. That’s when he saw the head pop up above the fire escape. The voice was hard and urgent.

  “What the hell you think you’re doing?”

  The head and shoulders coming over the retaining wall didn’t bother McNulty. The tone of voice wasn’t a problem either. But he knew he was in trouble when the hand swung over the parapet and the gun glinted in the moonlight.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Guns change everything. There’s no answering back and no arguing. A bullet doesn’t think. You can’t dissuade it. It’s either on target or a miss. Best way for it to be a miss is to present a moving target. McNulty moved immediately.