“I’m not following you,” I said.
“Look, doing these kinds of films always seems like a good idea for a while, particularly if you’ve got the goods.” She bounced her boobs for emphasis. “The pay is incredible. At least it used to be. The fucking recession has hit the porn industry, too. And it’s kind of exciting at first. But after a while…I’m not sure how to describe it, really…it just gets meaningless. Maybe it’s not that way for the guys, all those zonked-out retards with cocks the size of baguettes who want to fuck every woman in the world that doesn’t look like Seabiscuit. But for us, you show up each day and someone new is sticking it into you, and you have to pretend like it’s the best you’ve ever had, you know? And not simply for the camera, either. You literally have to pretend that every one of these losers is the best fuck you ever had, or else they get mad. And then there’s the guys in charge, who are all pretty scummy. Half of them are connected to the mob, so on any given day Jilly from Philly can show up on the set and want a personal sample of the goods he’s investing in. Then you have the constant AIDS testing, which gets to be a drag, and you start to wonder if you really want all this hanging around in your past.”
“Sounds like you regret ever doing it.”
“Maybe I do,” she said, pointing a finger in my face, “but you’re not allowed to judge me, you got that? Only I’m allowed to judge me. I don’t need any crap from you or anyone else.”
“Okay, no crap intended. It just sounds like you hate it.”
“I like the money, and if you dare use the ‘P’ word on me, I’ll drive your balls into your throat.”
I held my hands over my crotch defensively and said: “Let’s talk about Elena instead. You said she wanted out while it was still possible. What did you mean?”
“You don’t know how seductive this business can be,” Janelle replied, “but there comes a point of no return, when there’s no getting out of it voluntarily. Maybe the money’s become too comfortable, or you’re too hooked on drugs, or your self-esteem has spent too long on its back to think of anything else to do, there’s lots of reasons. It was easier for Elena because she wasn’t as in demand, because she’d only do come-ons instead of coming. Most ladies hang around long enough to get their sag card.”
“I didn’t think SAG covered porn,” I said.
“It’s an industry joke. A sag card is a pink slip. It means you’re so old that your tits sag down to your knees, so they can’t get them in the same camera shot as your face. That means you’re out. You’re replaced by newer, higher tits, which may good for the producers and the bastards watching this stuff, but it’s the end of the line for the women. That’s why a lot of us want to get out before we get our sag cards.”
“Could someone have wanted to kill her because she got out? Jealousy, perhaps?”
“I really don’t know. Like I said, I wasn’t that close to her on a personal level, and this is getting kind of boring. So unless you have any other questions—”
“Just one,” I said. “Look me in the eyes and swear to me that you have no idea where Burton and Taylor Frost are.”
I had never really looked into her eyes…I suspected most men didn’t…but now that I was I saw they were very large, hazel and warm.
“I have no fucking idea where the little spawns of Satan are,” she said, meeting my gaze. “I’m sorry if they’re in trouble, but I just don’t know. I’m sorry Nora’s dead, sort of, but I also wish I’d never met the lot of them. I wish I’d never met you, for that matter. If I hadn’t, I’d still have a day job.”
“Janelle, have you ever tried getting acting work in real films?”
She looked at me with a mixed expression that conveyed both frustration and a good measure of pity because of my naïveté, and got up off the bench. “What kind of roles do you think I would get with a rack like this?” she asked, bouncing her breasts so violently that it must have hurt. “You know good and fucking well what kind of roles I’d get! I’d be the pole dancer in the background at the Bada Bing Club, or I’d be Whore Number Three in the brothel scene of a Steven Segal film, or I’d be the naked punchline in a teen comedy. I’d be showing just as much tit, bush and ass as I do in porn, and I’d be blowing just as many producers to get the gig, but I’d be earning scale for it instead of three-grand a fucking day. Why don’t I try acting in real films? Bite me!” She stormed away and headed up a staircase.
While I’ve not done many things right in my life, I silently gave thanks that I never had any interest in the film industry, except as a consumer. Had Jean Harlow gone through what Janelle Wynn had? Probably, though that was a depressing thought. Jean was long gone, of course, but I took a moment to pray that Janelle Wynn would come out of this all right. Then I showed myself out of her apartment building. I went straight to my car and noticed something sticking under the windshield wiper. “Aw, sheez,” I moaned, recognizing the paper as a ticket. I had not noticed any parking restriction signs anywhere on the block, and it turned out the ticket was not for a parking violation, but for not turning my wheels into the curb. This was L.A.: you want to take a shot at someone, go ahead. No one will ever see you. But fail to turn your wheels to the curb and the cops will get you.
Or maybe my good friend Detective Hector Mendoza had managed to put out a harassment order on me.
I didn’t bother going back to the office; I went home instead. When I arrived there was little for me to do except check the mail, which consisted of more bills, real estate ads, grocery store fliers and something from a politician. Apparently there was an election coming up; in California, elections were practically a weekly event. I needed to return the stellar films I’d rented from Edendale and thought about scooping them all up and doing just that, but there was one I had not yet watched, No Cuntry for Old Men. I was looking forward to it as much as I was looking forward to orthodontic surgery, but I had paid for it, so I was going to get my money’s worth.
Popping it in, I paid particular attention to the credits, trying to discern if Janelle was in this one, too. Her real name never appeared in the credits, of course, but all the other films in which she appeared listed “Bo Dacious” and “Tia Ney” in the credits. My money was on Janelle being Bo Dacious, but that name did not appear here (though there was a credit for “Liz Behan”). The plot—if that word could actually be applied to this kind of film—involved two aging Western policemen, one of whom was played by a clearly young man with very bad shoe-polish hair whitening and a moustache that looked like it was made from hair from a cat comb, chasing a robotic killer who clubs his victims, all women, on the head with a gigantic dildo, after which he used the murder weapon in a different way. Once again, the result was about as erotic as a WWF title bout. Janelle finally turned up as the chief detective in charge of the case, who was first seen seated behind her desk completely nude, while a male officer shouted, “Shit, lieutenant, you’re out of uniform!” She assigned a new officer to track the dildo-bludgeoner, an equally buxom blonde in a rhinestone cowboy hat and a halter top made of gauze, after which the male officer rushed back in and announced he had a 69 in progress, and the scene turned into a threesome.
Of course, Officer Sexpot managed to capture the crazed murderer (after having an encounter in a swimming pool with the suspect’s equally stunning landlady, presumably played by “Liz Behan”), and her reward was to be “sent to the showers”…literally. The last scene was the actress (for lack of a better word), in what was supposed to be the police locker room shower, with a couple of naked male friends, their backs to the camera. “This is no cunt…[pregnant pause]…tree for old men,” she said into the camera, fingering herself as her companions started soaping her up. Then they turned to the camera.
“Oh, God, no!” I shouted aloud as I watched the two rub themselves all over the woman, who was rubbing them back.
It was Burton and Taylor Frost.
SIXTEEN
I probably broke every speed limit getting over to Edendale Vide
o and Poster. I did not want to risk telling Mac what I needed to tell him over the phone. After carelessly parking, I rushed in, bearing the DVD’s. Upon seeing me, Mac said: “Boy, you plowed through all those in only one night?”
“Back room, Mac, we need to talk,” I said.
“Hell, Dave, what’s—”
“Back room!”
Calling to his employee, a middle-aged, very gay guy named Bonn, who was restocking the shelves, he said: “Can you watch the register for a minute?”
“Sure,” Bonn replied. “Hey, Dave.”
“Hi, Bonn,” I said, practically pulling Mac back to his small, cluttered office.
“Man, what’s got you so exercised?” he enquired as I closed the door.
I held up No Cuntry for Old Men. “Is this the only copy you have of this?” I asked.
“I think there’s another one, why?”
“Get rid of them. Now.”
“That bad, huh?”
“That illegal. There’s a sex scene in this with two twelve-year-old boys.”
“Holy shit. Are you sure?”
“I know the boys in question, and I know they are twelve. I’d hate to see you get shut down and have to register as a sex offender.”
“Fuck, man,” he said. “That’s nuts! Why would any producer do that? That’s practically begging to be arrested and sentenced.”
“I can’t figure it out, either,” I told him. I did not bother trying to fill him in on the case, nor tell him that the fact that the boys were involved in child pornography suggested at least a reason, if not an actual motive, for some of the carnage that had been going on the last few days. “Man, you hear about things like this, but you never really expect to see an example of it,” Mac said. “But thanks for tipping me off. I’ll get rid of the disks right now.”
“Actually, I might need to keep one, if that’s all right.”
Mac cocked his head and squinted at me. “What for?”
“Because it might turn into evidence.”
“Won’t that put you at risk to having to register as a sex offender, if you’re caught with it?”
“If I turn it straight over the police, I should be fine.”
“All right, Dave, but if you get caught, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.”
“You don’t have a secretary,” I said.
“Then I’ll do it myself.”
“I’ll be careful, Mac. I’m going to have to go, now.” Sticking the copy of the illegal porno in my pocket, I went back out into the store, where Bonn was ringing up a woman’s order. As I started to leave, he said: “You’re not getting anything today, Dave?”
“No, not today.”
I heard him comment, “Must be sick,” under his breath as I walked outside and made a beeline to my car, and then spend away. Halfway home I managed to convince myself that there was no reason to be nervous. The photos of the boys were not on the packaging, nor was there a banner reading, See naked adolescent boys soaped up in the shower with a hot babe! You had to watch the film to find that out. The only positive thing I could project onto having seen this heap of sleaze was that Elena Cates was nowhere to be seen in the film. It must have been made after she decided to get out.
When I got back home I placed a call to Marcy, to make sure nothing else had happened to her.
And to hear her voice, Bogie said.
Okay, yeah, to hear her voice. This time she answered. “Dave, do you have news about the boys?”
“Unfortunately not,” I said. At least not the kind of news you want to hear.
“I’m really getting worried.”
“I know. You haven’t received a ransom call or anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Until we hear otherwise, let’s try to assume the best case scenario. They’re fine, and who knows? Maybe they’re playing someone else’s video games. How are you feeling?”
“Better. My head is still a little sore, as I’m sure you can imagine. Oh, and thanks for letting me know that the strange figure is really their father. I had no idea the soldier wasn’t. If I see him again, I’m not planning on letting him in or anything, but at least I won’t be terrified.”
After some more chitchat, I hung up and let her go back to whatever it was she was doing…probably worrying. Then I tried to get back to what I should be doing, which is trying to figure out just what the hell is going on all around me. I wasn’t getting very far, because nothing really seemed to fit together. Nora and Elena were dead, but Marcy wasn’t. Someone shot at me but missed. The twins were gone, their presumptive father was a combat fatality, but a strange homeless, or near-homeless, guy who was really their dad suddenly appears, and he’s convinced the boys are not really his kids. Even Howard Hawks couldn’t direct this into any semblance of coherence.
Then I had a brainstorm. Last year I had been contacted by a mystery writer, a guy named, believe it or not, Jack Daniels (though he wrote under a pseudonym), who phoned out of the blue to ask if he could pump me for information about private investigating to use in his books. He said he found me through the Yellow Pages, and once we had established a cordial relationship, he confessed that the first three investigators he had contacted had rudely hung up on him. Since then we had casually stayed in touch, but I hadn’t talked to him for quite some time. Digging his card out of an old shoebox that I laughingly refer to as my rolodex, I dialed his number, and he answered on the fourth ring. I could hear the sound of a vacuum cleaner in the background. “Hi, Jack? This is Dave Beauchamp.”
“Who?” he asked.
“Dave Beauchamp. The private investigator.”
“Oh, shit, hi, Dave, how the heck are you? I can’t hear you too well, because the cleaning woman is here.”
“Oh, I can call back later—”
“No, no, it’s fine. What can I do for you?”
“If you have a minute or two, I’d like to run something past you.”
“Please don’t tell me you’re thinking about writing a book,” he said. “Don’t bother. Writing crime fiction is a lot like crime itself. It doesn’t pay.”
Maybe not, but he could still afford a cleaning woman. “It’s nothing like that. I’m working on a case and nothing about it makes any sense. Since I’m trying to approach it from inside my own peculiar box, and getting bogged down, it just struck me that if I could get a fictional mind working on it, that mind might see something that I’m missing.”
“Oh, cool! That’s different.” The vacuuming behind him was getting louder now. “Tell you what,” Jack said, nearly shouting. “Buy me a beer, and we’ll talk.”
“When?”
“Now. I can’t get much work done anyway with Sarah here.”
Sarah I took to be the cleaning woman. We agreed to meet in an hour at the Hound & Badger in Santa Monica, which is where Jack lived. (Santa Monica; not the Hound & Badger.)
To me, a joint called “Hound & Badger” sounded like a place you went to in order to get nagged, but Jack swore by it. It was, obviously, a British pub. There were several such pubs in Santa Monica, since there was a high percentage of Brits living there, and the cool, often foggy coastal weather reminded them of home, but without the VAT. I had probably put seventy miles on my Toyota today alone, and a round trip to the Santa Monica would likely push it to one hundred, but what the hey? Philip Marlowe never complained about the gas.
That’s ‘cause I charged for expenses, junior, Bogie’s voice said to me. Thanks for reminding me.
It took only about forty minutes to get to Santa Monica, but a good portion of the rest of the allotted hour was spent looking for parking. I finally swallowed the pill and pulled into a lot. After paying the parking attendant, I understood out why a place like this was called “a lot.” I walked the few blocks down to the Hound & Badger, which was within a stone’s throw of the palisades overlooking the ocean. Jack was already there waiting for me.
Jack Daniels was a big, open, friendly, rumpled guy wit
h uncontrollably thick hair and a crooked grin. He looked like anything but a man who spent his waking hours trying to figure out new and better ways to kill people. After shaking my hand forcefully, we took a table in the bar area of the Hound & Badger. “How’s Kim?” I asked. Kim was Jack’s wife.
“Great, great,” he said. “She’s got a business function this evening, so she’ll be out late.”
Terrific. I hope Jack wasn’t under the impression that I was going to entertain him until last call. After a few more minutes of catching up with each other, during which time a British barmaid appeared to take our order—something called an ESB and a sausage roll for Jack, and a glass of ice tea and a bowl of clam chowder for me—Jack said: “So, Dave, why don’t you tell me what your problem is.”
As concisely as I could I outlined the various events of the past couple days, while Jack listened in silence, interrupting only to thank the barmaid when she brought his beer, which was a dark amber, and sausage roll, and my soup and tea. He took a sip of the brew and savored it. “Oh, that’s good,” he whispered. “Okay, now that I have my thinking juice, tell me the rest.”
“That’s about all there is,” I said, taking a spoonful of the excellent chowder. “Where would you take this story if you were writing it as a book?”
After taking a chomp out of the sausage roll, he said, “Let’s see…the two kids are doing porn, probably because the woman looking after them is doing porn. But did the mother know about this?”
“My best guess is that she knew of Elena’s past in porn, but I doubt she knew her sons were involved. No matter how desperate Nora was to get them into showbiz, there still had to be a line she wouldn’t cross.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“I don’t know. I think Nora regularly left the kids in her assistant’s care for the entire day. Elena could have been doing anything with them, other than taking them to the zoo.”
“Maybe this Elena person was simply fulfilling every twelve-year-old-boy’s fantasy, that a hot older woman wants them.”
Kill the Mother! Page 16