Shooters
Page 8
"I have no idea what happened to that girl, Jenn. I passed out around three-thirty or four. She must've gotten a ride out of there with someone else."
"Then why was she found in your Dumpster?"
"Maybe her boyfriend did it and put her there out of spite . . . or maybe she never left at all. Maybe she ran into someone on PCH."
"One of your neighbors?" Her eyes were suddenly bright. She wanted to believe me.
"Maybe," I replied. "Or someone visiting one of my neighbors. Or someone just driving by. I don't know. It's all so crazy. If only I knew more about her, it might make some sense. How well did you know her?"
"I didn't. I never saw her before Mark's party."
I thought about that for a moment.
"Mark Pecchia's the key to all this," I said. Something flickered behind Jennifer's eyes. I couldn't read it, but I had sparked something in her memory. There was a connection.
"He knows all about her," I continued. "He could tell me something that would help."
"I don't think you'd be very welcome at Mark's house right now," she said. "I mean, everyone thinks you killed a girl that he introduced you to. The cops were all over him yesterday. He bitched me out on the phone until midnight last night."
"You could talk to him for me."
"I don't want to get involved in this."
"You're already involved. You made me go to that party."
"Nobody makes anyone do anything."
She was right, but beyond that, she wanted none of the blame and it was obvious that she was feeling some.
"I'm innocent, Jennifer," I said quietly and sincerely. She looked deep into my eyes, trying to figure out whether she should believe me or not.
"Maybe," she said softly.
"That's a start."
_____
"I could believe a lot of things about Nick, but not that he was a killer. If you told me he fucked someone to death, maybe. But chop them up? Not Nick. That kind of behavior would require something Nick just doesn't have in his personal makeup—commitment."
Jennifer Joyner
_____
2
It was afternoon before I returned to my house. A small cluster of paparazzi had gathered under my carport, awaiting my arrival. I hit the remote and scattered them like roaches as I pulled into the garage. I hit the remote again and almost crushed a number of them with the closing garage door. Fuck 'em.
The interior of my house was still a wreck. The cops had taken anything that vaguely hinted of evidence. I closed all the blinds to defend my privacy from an oceanside assault by the paparazzi.
I went upstairs and sat in a lounge chair on my second-story deck, away from the prying eyes of the media. I just sat there, staring out at the ocean. I still hadn't slept. My eyes were red, my hair frazzled. My five o'clock shadow was at twelve o'clock. I ran the last forty-eight hours through my head over and over, trying to make some sense out of all that had happened. None of it had any central thread of logic. It appeared that a series of seemingly random events had conspired to totally fuck up my life. But I knew it wasn't random. There was some form in the mist, but I couldn't make it out.
I could hear a commotion coming from the house to my right, the north side of my house. Even over the waves rolling onto shore, the distinct sound of my neighbor yelling at his wife was loud and clear.
Teddy Vincent is an actor. Or at least he used to be. A golden-haired surfer from Huntington Beach who made a series of successful "family" films as a kid in the late seventies and early eighties; the nineties hadn't been so good to him. He had shown great promise of breaking the mold of failed child actor in a couple of adult roles in mid-eighties action films, but a mixture of rude behavior and drug abuse had put him on bad terms with the studios. He was now relegated to low-budget schlock and straight-to-video erotic thrillers, the kind of crap that made the high-quality porn films of the late seventies look like modern classics.
Teddy had three problems, really. His ego, his wife, and cocaine. Teddy was insanely jealous of his wife, Maria. At the same time, his ego demanded constant gratification from a series of new-to-the-business bimbos. As is the case with most philanderers, he liked to accuse Maria of the same acts of infidelity that he was perpetrating. When cocaine came into play, things could get violent. I had called the police on Teddy two times in the last year for beating his wife. Maria refused to press charges on either occasion, despite her battered and bruised face.
Teddy stepped out onto his deck, still yelling at his wife. He wrapped things up with "Shut the fuck up, cunt!" and took a drag off a glass pipe. Teddy was a smoker. He had a lot in common with Candice Bishop. They both enjoyed the crack rush and it had similarly disrupted both of their respective careers, even if Teddy's career had been in what would have been considered "legit" movies by comparison to Candice's oeuvre.
Teddy let the narcotic wave flow through him and stood motionless, looking out over the ocean. After a few minutes he turned and saw that I was sitting on my deck.
"Hey, Gardner, how's it hanging, asshole?"
Needless to say, our relationship had gone downhill a bit after my calls to the police. I wasn't going to respond to him, but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of looking away either. I just stared at him, hoping he would go back into his house.
"So I see you finally got a taste of the cops yourself, huh?" he continued. "I may have hit my wife, but I never chopped her up."
"Give it time," I said, unable to stay quiet any longer.
"Fuck you, jailtail."
Maria was suddenly out on the deck. "Get in here, Teddy, and leave Nick alone," she said. She was high also.
"You still gonna defend that asshole, even after what he's done?" Teddy asked her.
"I don't know what he's done and neither do you."
"He killed that girl fifteen feet from our bedroom window, you stupid bitch. Don't you get it?"
"Whatever. Just get inside. You're making a fool of yourself."
Maria tugged at his arm and he pulled away violently, raising his hand as if he was going to slap her.
"Get the fuck off me, woman. I'll smack the shit out of you. Think he'll call the cops this time? No fucking way."
She shrank back, then reached out for him again. He slapped her in the face and she turned away from him and looked at the ground. She stood frozen there, waiting to see what would happen next.
Teddy looked over at me and smiled a rather boyish smile. "How about it, Gardner? Want to call the cops?" he goaded.
I stood up and walked over to the rail. His balcony was only six feet away from mine. I could jump it if I had to.
"Tell you what, crackhead," I said as ominously as I could. "You touch her again and I'll be stuffing another Dumpster."
Threatening a guy like Teddy Vincent was not my style, but I thought my newfound notoriety might save Maria Vincent some bruises, or worse.
Teddy looked at me as if he was seeing a monster. The drugs were twisting him up inside and whatever effect my words were having on him was being magnified through a coke-flavored haze. His eyes got wide and he looked genuinely scared.
A helicopter bearing photographers buzzed overhead, startling all of us. The paparazzi weren't going to let me off the hook that easily. They had technology on their side.
Maria pulled on Teddy's arm again and said, "Let's go in, honey." The slap seemed to be long forgotten.
Teddy looked up at the helicopter, then over at me. "You're a sick fuck, Gardner. I hope you fucking rot in jail."
Teddy and Maria disappeared into their house and the chopper came lower to get a better look at me. I flipped them off and went inside.
The action had finally supplied me with enough adrenaline to give me the strength and interest to shower and shave. I thought it would make me feel better. It did—for about five minutes. Then the bottom fell out. I lay down in bed. I was beat, but I couldn't get to sleep. I stared at the fish tank for about an hour before I passed out.
My exhaustion was so great that I never managed to find a truly deep and peaceful sleep. I dreamed with the kind of lucid imagery that is usually the product of drugs or alcohol. The dreams were so vivid that I couldn't relax properly. I'm not clear on the content, but the whole experience was so jangling that I might as well have stayed awake. As sleep goes, it was a bust.
3
After a few hours of tossing and turning I awoke to the smell of smoke. The Santa Anas were blowing in from Thousand Oaks again. I walked out onto my deck and looked for the smoke. The sounds of helicopters echoed from every direction, but this time they weren't looking for me. They were working the blaze. The media folks were out in force, capturing every tragic second of other people's misery. Oh well, at least I wouldn't be on page one again in the morning. I hoped.
There was a moon out and it had turned blood red from the smoke in the air. My house was in no immediate danger. Living by the beach was more of a high-tide risk in the Boo. The mountain dwellers had to deal with the fires and the mud slides. We got the storms and the tidal waves.
I went back in and lay down. I still wasn't feeling very good. The fish seemed agitated, darting erratically around the tank, as if they could sense the potential threat of the fire in the air.
Then the fire made me remember something. The lighter in Candice Bishop's purse; the words The Eight Ball inscribed on the side. It was probably a restaurant or club that she frequented. Maybe someone there would know more about her.
I got out of bed fast. Too fast. The room started spinning big time. I held still for a few seconds and regained my composure. I dialed 411 and asked for the number of The Eight Ball. They didn't have a listing so I tried San Fernando Valley Information. The 818 operator had the number and I dialed it immediately. I had a sneaking suspicion what kind of place this would be and I was right. It was a strip club deep in the Valley. I struggled to get dressed. It was almost midnight. I'd have to move quickly if I was going to get to The Eight Ball before it closed.
I backed the Lamborghini out of my garage and stopped. The paparazzi were gone, off to the fires I supposed, but my next-door neighbor, Robert Momberg, had just pulled up and was getting out of his Range Rover. It was funny how many people in show business had Range Rovers, Land Cruisers, and Jeeps. Most of them never braved rougher terrain than the Paramount backlot. It was as if they were preparing for Armageddon. Some kind of hip Judgment Day when they would have to load up and get the hell out of town fast like packs of hardened survivalists. It was all part of the tough-guy image.
Robert lived in the house immediately to the south of me; Teddy Vincent was one door north of me. I was wedged between these two slices of ham like bread in an inverted deli sandwich.
Robert Momberg came over to talk. He had a handsome face, fit for the daytime soap opera in which he starred, but it was late and he looked frazzled. I was now clean shaven and feeling fresh. My hair was slicked back into place. My day was just starting, Robert's was winding down.
"Hey, Nick," Robert mumbled. His voice sounded rough, like he'd been up all night drinking hot whiskey.
"What's up, Robert? You look beat."
"Late nights at the studio this week. We're stockpiling shows in case the directors' strike happens next month. Heard about the trouble. Everything okay?"
"It's all just a big mistake. We're working it out."
"That's good. It's a bitch about the fires, huh?"
"Yeah."
"I heard forty homes have burned."
"That's bad."
We stared at each other for a minute, not really knowing what to say. Neither of us really gave a shit if forty homes had burned, as long as none of them was ours, but we had to at least appear civilized. Robert seemed to have something else on his mind.
"Where you headed now?" he asked.
"Business," I said.
We looked at each other suspiciously, each of us wondering what the other was doing the morning Candice Bishop was killed. It was almost comic.
"Well, I better get some sleep," Robert said. "Gotta be up at four."
"See you."
"Yeah. I might have a barbecue next weekend. Drop in."
"Thanks."
Robert partied hard on the weekends. Starlets of all shapes and sizes flowed through his doorway. Occasionally I got a little of the overflow, but I doubted that this invitation was sincere in light of recent events. His was an uncomfortable politeness born of kissing up to craven characters on a daily basis.
Robert turned and walked toward his house. I let his "Gotta be up at four" sentence sink in a little, then I backed out onto PCH and hauled ass toward the city.
4
I cruised over the 405 freeway into the Valley and got off on Victory Boulevard. I hung a left on Van Nuys Boulevard and went north, entering an industrial-park zone. An unlikely location for a strip joint, but it hadn't slowed any of the fans down. I made a left on Raymer Street and immediately saw the large neon sign flashing The Eight Ball.
By the time I pulled into the crowded parking lot of The Eight Ball it was almost one o'clock in the morning. I got lucky. This was one of the full-nude clubs in the San Fernando Valley that didn't close until 4 a.m. They couldn't serve alcohol due to the raw nature of the entertainment, so juice or sodas or near beer would have to do if you were thirsty, but this freed them from the two o'clock curfew that a "real" bar would have to obey.
The place even had valets. I decided to park the Lamborghini myself and gave the guy a five for allowing it. I found a vacant spot way in the back of the lot. The place was jamming. I walked through the parking lot looking at the vehicles owned by the denizens of The Eight Ball. BMWs and Jaguars competed for space with Jeeps, muscle cars, motorcycles, and rusty pickup trucks.
I went through the bronze double doorway into The Eight Ball, paid the ten dollar entry fee, then entered the arena. The place was dark, packed, loud, and happening. Neon trimmed the walls. Topless and bottomless dancers occupied three separate dance floors like a Ringling Brothers for horny guys. Rock music blasted the girls into wild gyrations as a wide spectrum of men dropped cash on the mirrored floors near their feet or whatever else happened to be there at the time. There were at least two different bachelor parties scattered among the spectators. Men on their worst behavior coming to see women the way they thought God intended them— naked, flailing, and bent over.
The dancers were stylish and quite acrobatic. Floor-to-ceiling-length bronze poles were placed strategically on the stages and the girls had no trouble shimmying up and down them upside down and every which way they could; whatever it took to turn up the heat. One of the dancers' favorite moves entailed climbing all the way up the pole to the ceiling, doing a backbend until they were upside down, and then quickly sliding back to earth that way, stopping an inch away from a concussion. Once arriving back on the ground the dancers usually did a slow cartwheel over until they were right side up and could go into a full split all in one smooth, fluid motion. Men ejaculated dollar bills onto the dance floor whenever they were particularly pleased, which was often.
"Table dances" were also available for twenty bucks a song. You pick the girl and she takes you to a semiprivate booth to do a little dance for you, sans clothing. She strips, bends right over, and backs up into your face, eye to eye so to speak. It's a great way to satisfy curiosity without any complications. You can sample the wares for less than dinner would cost on a regular date and see more than the average woman would probably show you even with the lights off. All within five minutes of meeting your dream girl. Touching was not allowed. There are benefits to such restrictions. No disease. No drugs. A spending cap. And, of course, no jail time. There was even a glass booth where you could help your favorite dancer take a shower, in full view of the establishment's bouncers and all the other clientele, of course, but a loofa is a loofa. If you wanted full contact you could have a lap dance, but the girls had to remain fully clothed for that action and you were not allowed to to
uch them. They could touch you, however, and if you didn't mind a dry hump it could be worth the twenty bucks a song. Some guys would strap a condom on under their clothes, wait for the two-songs-for-one special and try to take it all the way to get full value for their dollar.
I went to the bar and ordered an orange juice, then turned and watched the dancers work the crowd. The girls were high quality for this sort of place, better looking than most of these sorry-assed guys would ever get to see naked in real life. It was an honest establishment. Strictly run and well organized. Everybody wins at The Eight Ball.
I sat watching the spectacle for a while and began to wonder what I thought I was going to find at this place. What had I come for? I stopped a passing barmaid dressed in skimpy nothings.
"What's your name, honey?" I asked.
The girl touched a small plastic name tag over her left breast.
"Maxine. Can't you read?"
"It's dark in here."
"Your eyes will adjust," Maxine said. Then she took my hand and rubbed my fingers along the raised letters on the tag. I could feel her chest pulsate under the plastic.
"Say it with me. . . ." She spelled out her name: "M-A-X-I-N-E . . . "
I joined in and said her name with her as she repeated it. "Maxine," we said together.
"That better, 'honey'?" she asked, gently mocking my chauvinistic familiarity.
"Yeah."
"So what can I do for you? You want a table dance?"
"Maybe later. Actually, I was wondering if you had seen a girl around here?"
"What do you think you just touched? String cheese?"
"I'm looking for someone specific, a girl named Candice Bishop. . . . Sometimes she goes by the name Candice King or Kandy Kane."