by Lankford, Terrill Lee; Raphael, Lev; Parker, T. Jefferson
I went to the front door and banged loudly. There was no response. I rapped some more and finally I heard a voice yell, "It's fucking open!"
I opened the door and entered. My footsteps echoed throughout the hollow room as I approached Nate Boritzer. Nate rolled over onto his face and curled up into a ball, not wanting to deal with visitors. I stepped up to the foot of his cot and stared down at him. He was deep in the clutches of 151-proof rum.
"Are you Nate Boritzer?"
Nate twisted his head around so that his left eye could look up at me.
"Who wants to know?"
"My name is Nick Gardner. I'm here to ask you about a model you used to work with, Candice Bishop."
"You a cop?"
"Just a friend."
Nate uncurled himself and tried to sit up. He stank of rum and cigarettes.
"Well, if you are a cop it looks like someone got into your ass pretty good."
"Plane crash," I said.
Nate tried to stand, then fell back onto the cot.
"Yeah. Me too," he said.
"When was the last time you saw Candice?"
"Who?"
"Candice Bishop. She also went by the names Candice King and Kandy Kane, among others."
"Never heard of her."
"That's funny. Paul Cutshaw said you called him this morning and offered him a layout featuring Candice."
"Paul who?"
This was going nowhere.
"I'd be very interested in seeing those chromes," I said. "I might even buy them from you."
"Too late. Sold 'em an hour ago."
"To who?"
"That's whom," Nate corrected me. There was something going on underneath his glazed expression. There was still a spark of intelligence lurking behind those bloodshot eyes.
"To whom?" I played along.
"A buyer."
Nate stood up and looked around the dilapidated warehouse. I was becoming totally bored and frustrated with his act.
"Uh listen, uh . . ." he muttered, trying to remember my name, or at least acting like he was trying to remember my name.
"Nick," I fed him to get him to move on.
"Nick. Yeah. Uh, you think we could take this chat outside? I'm gettin' claustrophobic in here."
"Sure."
Nate picked up the bottle of 151, took a long slug, then offered it to me. I turned it down. Nate put his foot on the cot and gave it a good strong kick. The cot was on metal wheels. It rolled all the way across the empty floor and banged against the wall.
"Let's get out of here," he said. "The walls are closin' in."
We went out and walked along the boardwalk. We had no trouble blending in with the tapestry of weird that swirled around us. The Venice boardwalk offers a bigger collection of freaks, fairies, fantasies, and fuck-ups than Disneyland and Ripley's Believe It or Not all rolled into one. Nate and I belonged there.
Red clouds hung low over the ocean, both to the north and to the south of us. Smoke from the Malibu and Laguna fires was making its way into the ecosystem. Soon Santa Monica and Venice would be covered with soot and ash as well.
"Yeah, I knew Candy," Nate said, restarting the conversation somewhere in the middle. "She was a great piece. A real trooper. A total whore."
"When was the last time you saw her?"
"A few minutes ago. Didn't you see her skate by?"
"The girl is dead."
"The dead don't skate?" Nate asked.
"I'm wasting my time with you," I said.
"Time is relative, but life . . . life is a terminal illness. I think Nietzsche said that."
"I doubt it."
"Mmmm, maybe not."
"Can you at least tell me who bought that last session from you?"
"A friend."
"Who?"
"Guy named David. You don't know him."
"David Rink?"
Nate grunted. "Uh, well I guess you do know him."
David Rink again. Some things are inevitable.
"When did you take those pictures?" I asked.
"What pictures?"
"You know what fucking pictures." My voice was starting to imply possible violence.
"Oh, those pictures. Couple weeks ago."
We stopped at a chain link fence and watched the weightlifters and aerobics freaks working out at Muscle Beach. I thought about strangling this jerk. I'm sure none of the jocks would have objected.
"Are you like this all the time?" I asked.
"Sometimes I get really fucked up."
That I would like to see. "Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to hurt Candice?" I continued.
Nate ignored the question. He was mesmerized, watching all the men and women pump themselves up in a desperate attempt to fight off age and death.
"You know what people are?" Nate asked. "Shit factories. If you took all the shit that a person produced by the time they're thirty you could fill ten Olympic-sized swimming pools. Do you know how much shit that is?"
"About the same amount I've stepped through since I walked in your door," I said.
Nate didn't respond to that. He was on a roll and he wanted to finish his thoughts. "Now multiply that amount by all those people over there. . . . Then by all those people down the sidewalk. . . . Think of the implications! We're talking about oceans and oceans of shit! Where does it all go?"
"The ocean, asshole," I said harshly.
I had had enough. I started to walk away. Nate looked out at the Pacific Ocean as if some great truth had just been revealed to him. A mystery had been solved.
"Hey! You're right!" he yelled. "I can see it, man! The ocean is full of shit! Holy Christ, I'm gonna have to sell my surfboard!" Nate laughed hysterically to himself. A couple of weightlifters suggested he stick his surfboard up his ass. He turned to them, dropped trou and mooned them for their trouble.
"Do it for me, sailor," he squawked, then he stumbled back toward his warehouse, pants down around his ankles.
I picked up my pace out of there. I wanted to get far away from this lunatic as quickly as possible. Even if it meant seeing my old friend David Rink.
2
I got on my car phone and called Paul Cutshaw. He gave me the name and address of David Rink's company, Fantasy City, Inc. It was out in Canoga Park, another bastion of the porn world deep in the San Fernando Valley. I called and asked to speak to Rink. The receptionist told me he was not available. I asked when he would be available. She asked me who I was. When I told her, she put me on hold. After a few minutes the girl got back on the phone and said Mr. Rink could see me in one hour. I said fine and headed out.
Traffic was light, so I was in Canoga Park in half an hour. I grabbed a cup of coffee and a copy of the afternoon newspaper at Denny's to kill some time. The fires had been 95 percent contained. The weather had suddenly cooled, but the Santa Anas were due to hit again in a day or so. Prepare for the worst was the newspaper's advice. Wasn't it always?
My story and the story of Candice Bishop now occupied three columns on page twenty. No new news. No good fuel for the scandal fire. Instead I learned that rising young actor River Phoenix had died a little after 3 a.m. Sunday morning in front of a Hollywood nightclub called The Viper Room. Cause of death was rumored to be drug related. The Viper Room was owned by another hot young acting stud and the two had been partying with a rogues' gallery of Junior Hollywood types in the club until the wee hours of the a.m. Someone mixed the wrong kind of drug cocktail and the guy went into eight or nine minutes of convulsions in the latrine before being tossed out on the sidewalk by a bouncer, where he promptly died. The papers were already prepping River to be this generation's James Dean. Dean was still the gold standard by which all tragic young male death was measured. Dean's people were annually taking in more money forty years after his death than most actors make in a lifetime of work. For some, dying is a good career move. You could hear the memorabilia machinery starting up all over town preparing to milk every dime possible out of the p
oor guy's death. The story was tawdry and glitzy enough to make me feel a little easier about my situation. The names were much bigger surrounding this death than Candice Bishop's. This could be a smoke screen even denser than the one the fires had provided.
I finished my coffee, tossed the paper, and headed for a rendezvous with my past. David Rink and I went way back. To the very beginning of my career. We had been partners and the partnership had ended abruptly when I left the business. I was sure he felt betrayed in some way. And David had never been the type to forgive and forget.
3
The outside of the Fantasy City, Inc., building was innocuous enough, a little fancier than Paul Cutshaw's place, but not by much. It appeared that it might be a good deal larger. The building seemed to go on a distance in the back, but the front was perfectly mundane. Just another business living out of a few connected warehouses in the Valley. The inside was a different matter altogether. It was a palace. There was an incredibly ornate waiting area immediately inside the entryway. Marble floors. High, triple-recessed ceilings. One entire wall of this room was made of rock with a waterfall cascading down the face into a large pool filled with big, healthy koi. Environmentally themed paintings lined the walls not made of water and rock. Antiques abounded. The furnishings in this room could easily be valued at over half a million dollars. Apparently no one cared that the moisture in the air would damage the rich wood grain of the furniture.
I looked around, impressed, then approached the reception desk. A young, perky, voluptuous girl was signing paperwork for a Federal Express agent who seemed quite enamored with her. She completed the paperwork and he completed his lame flirtations and skittered off. She looked up at me and smiled a perfect smile.
"May I help you?" She spoke with the professionalism of a flight attendant.
"I'm here to see David Rink."
"And you are?"
"Nick. He's expecting me."
She picked up a phone.
"He's in editing. I'll ring him." She punched a few buttons. "David? 'Nick' is here to see you. . . . Okay."
She hung up, smiled, stood up and straightened the wrinkles from her beige shirtdress. She had a great body. The outfit and the way she was wearing it reminded me of Candice Bishop. Then I realized: This girl was probably a porn actress as well. She was working the "legit" job as either a way in or a way out of the hardcore life.
"Come with me," she said.
She turned and walked through a set of gold double doors. I followed. She led me down a very long, white hallway. More original art adorned the walls, all by name artists. Doors along the hall led off to a dozen offices and workrooms. I could see artists hunched over drafting boards in some of the rooms, salesmen working the phones in others. Young, energetic people bustled from office to office like ants respectfully obeying a higher order.
"What's your name?" I asked the receptionist.
"Nancy."
"You've got quite a place here, Nancy."
"We're moving soon. We've outgrown the space."
"Where are you going to go?"
"Probably out of the Valley. We've been looking at an estate in Beverly Hills that we're thinking about renovating."
"Sounds expensive."
"Gotta spend it to make it."
"That's what they say."
"Could I ask you a question? It's kind of personal."
"Fire away."
"What happened to your face?"
"Slipped in the shower."
"Ummmm."
She stopped in front of a door marked Editing Bay #5. "Here we are," she said as she threw the door open and ushered me in.
David Rink sat in front of an elaborate video editing console. A plump guy wearing funky-looking red glasses sat off to the side. He looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place him. They froze the image that they were working on so they wouldn't lose their place in the picture. On the multiple screens above the console I could see an attractive woman going down on some hundred-dollar-a-day stud from a variety of camera angles. The latest epic was being assembled for the masturbatory masses.
David Rink stood up and faced me.
"Look who's back from the dead," he said.
I extended my hand. David made no move to shake it. I dropped it to my side and tried not to let the brushback bother me.
"Hello, David. Been a long time."
"A couple of lifetimes, at least," he said.
_____
"Nick fucked me over big time. He got his ass in a sling and then he cut and run. He didn't tell me shit about it, other than a frantic phone call in the middle of the night saying he was in trouble and had to skip town. He was extremely sketchy with the details. He's a shit and a coward. I can't believe we were ever friends."
—David Rink
_____
David nodded at Nancy, releasing her. She looked at me oddly and shrugged as she exited the room. I had no idea what it meant.
David looked up at the frozen image on the main screen of the editing console. The girl had a mouthful and was working it with precision. It was Nancy. Her hair was different, but it was Nancy. The look and shrug now made sense. A casual "whatever" apology to a man she had never met before. I understood. No matter how seasoned a professional became in this business there were always moments of awkwardness.
"How do you like her?" David asked. "Cute, huh? Wonder what her folks think?"
"I'm sure they're proud as hell," I said.
"Jesus Christ. What happened to your face?" It had taken him long enough to notice.
"Got my ass kicked."
"That's terrible." He didn't sound particularly concerned or sympathetic.
"I've felt better," I said flatly.
David suddenly seemed aware of the plump guy's presence, as if just realizing that he was in the room.
"Shit, I'm being rude. Nick, this is my associate, Morrie Fein. Morrie, this is Nick Bracken . . . or should I say Gardner? I hear that's what you've been calling yourself lately. Which is it?"
There was more than a hint of bitterness and irony in the way David spoke. I attempted to ignore the hostility. No time for a pissing match with this guy. "Doesn't matter," I said. "Nick will do."
Morrie stood up and shook my hand and then I recognized him. He was the guy kissing Mark Pecchia's ass at the party; the guy who had gotten us our drinks. I thought he worked for Pecchia, but here he was, thick as thieves with David Rink. What the hell was going on around here?
"Glad to meet you, Nick," Morrie fawned.
"Nick and I used to be partners, way back in the Dark Ages," David told Morrie.
"Didn't I meet you at Mark Pecchia's house?" I asked Morrie.
"At the party?"
"Yeah."
"Could be. I was pretty toasted that night. . . . I don't remember much."
"So, Nick," David said. "Let me show you around the place and you can tell me what's on your mind."
"All right."
David led me toward the door. Morrie sat back down in front of the fellatio-filled editing console.
"Nice meeting you, Nick," Morrie said.
"Again," I insisted.
"Again," he admitted.
Morrie Fein looked a little nervous.
PART XI
"Sex rules the universe."
—David Rink
1
David Rink took me on a tour of the Fantasy City studio complex. It was a complete one-stop shop of pornography; sound stages, photo studios, processing labs, telemarketing offices, shipping warehouse, video duping rooms; the works. It was a country unto itself. David seemed quietly proud of the operation. I tried to act suitably impressed, but I really couldn't give a damn. I had left the business a long time ago and revisiting it was only stirring up bad memories. I had larger concerns on my mind. Life-and-death concerns. I explained the Candice Bishop situation to David in brief detail. Then I asked him what he knew about Candice.
"She worked for me plenty," David said. "But that w
as a long time ago."
"I thought you might be able to tell me some things about her personal life. Who were her friends? Who were her enemies?"
"Candice didn't have friends or enemies, only contacts," David said. "She was into money and drugs. If you couldn't supply her with either she wasn't interested in you. She did have this thing going with a guy named Angelo who liked to consider himself a manager, impresario, whatever. Sort of a Svengali of sleaze, if you know what I mean . . . a real pain in the ass. He used to strong-arm us into hiring him as a stud on her shoots—a two-for-one or none-at-all kind of proposition. He's a suckfish. A real jerk."
"Yeah. I've met the guy. Think he might have killed her?"
"How would I know? I'm not a cop." David was starting to lose what little patience he had with me. We entered a large, soundproofed stage. It was vacant at the time, but the amount of camera and lighting equipment scattered around the bedroom set indicated that they were getting heavy use out of the room. David gestured around the studio, as if I hadn't taken it all in properly yet.
"We have a complete complex here," David said. "I'm not just a shooter anymore. I handle every aspect of the business now. From production to marketing to distribution to retail sales." David gestured even more expansively, trying to give me a hint of his company's grandeur.
"I've got soundstages, a film lab, video duplicating house, ad agency, even my own printing presses for the mags and video boxes. I'm as close to a monopoly as you can get on the West Coast. I'm self-sufficient now. Completely self- sufficient."
"That's terrific, David. I'm glad you've done so well."
"Sure you are," he said sarcastically.
I could feel the tension coming off David Rink like Santa Ana heat. I tried to move on to a different subject.
"Where are you living now?" I asked.
"I'm back in my old loft."