by Lankford, Terrill Lee; Raphael, Lev; Parker, T. Jefferson
"Yeah. . . . Well, you moved plenty fast afterwards. While you were out making a name for yourself in Hamburg and Paris, I was here taking the rap for that murder."
"What rap? Nobody ever got caught."
"Not by the cops."
"What are you talking about?"
"We were partners, Nick. You ran."
"What happened?"
"I belong to those assholes, now."
'Who?"
"My bosses. . . . Her family. . . ."
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?'
"It was that chick . . . that chick you and Matty snuffed . . . she was connected."
I was finally catching on. I felt myself sinking deeper into the quagmire. Ten years of nightmares flushed my face.
"The mob?" I asked.
"Yeah. She was the niece of some mafioso bigwig from New York. She was just doing porn to get back at her family or some shit like that. She didn't expect to get killed. When the boys finally figured out what had happened they came down on me hard."
"But you had nothing to do with it. You weren't even there."
"I was your partner. They traced you to me."
"What did they do?"
"They hurt me bad. And when I got out of the hospital, I was ruined. They own my ass, lock, stock, and barrel. They wanted in on the West Coast porn trade, but they wanted to keep a low profile. They decided to use me as a front man for them. That's all I am. Just a front. A beard. The guy who will take the fall if Fantasy City ever gets busted. I do what they want or I don't do anything."
"Why don't you take off?"
"Where to . . . South America? Or maybe Europe, like you?"
"Why not?"
"I don't like to run, and even if I did, I wouldn't get far from these guys."
"So you kill innocent women instead? You got balls. You make me want to puke."
"That's Mark's thing. The guys in New York don't know anything about it."
"Then why do you do it?" I asked.
"I take my orders from him."
"Pecchia's mob-connected?"
"Fuck, yes. He loves doing his little rock videos but he's also a major L.A. conduit between Colombia and New York for the white stuff. The director gig is the perfect cover and the perfect networking tool. He's considered big time in New York. Kind of a freak, but big time. That girl you guys wasted? She was his sister."
I didn't think my jaw could get much lower, but it managed to drop another two feet.
"This is crazy. This can't be happening. . . . It doesn't make any sense."
"Make sense? If you wanted things to make sense you should have never come back to L.A."
"This guy's trying to get revenge on me for being involved with something that I had no control over. I didn't plan anything. It was just supposed to be a porn loop. No one was supposed to get hurt! It was Matty and that maniac George. They lost it and smothered that girl while I was rolling the camera. They didn't mean to do it. They just lost control and got carried away. We didn't even know she was dead until we stopped filming. It was just a stupid accident."
"That's not the way they saw it back in New York," David said. "Somehow prints of the film got out; Matty and George must've printed the fucker. It circulated in the underground for a couple of years before one of the mob guys saw it. They'd been looking for the girl for years. Needless to say, the shit hit the fan. Matty and George had moved operations to the Apple trying to stay away from L.A. in case anyone came looking for the girl. They had no idea they had moved out of the frying pan, into the fire."
"I still don't see how all that led up to Candice Bishop's murder."
"Mark was obsessed. For years he was obsessed with the whole thing. He used to talk about how it must've been for the guys who were in that room when his sister got snuffed. How the bastards must've got off on it. He had a copy of the film and he'd watch it over and over again. He was obsessed . . . and finally he did something about it. He acted out his obsession. Candice wasn't the first, but she was becoming an embarrassment to the Community and she had to go. Whenever some chick crossed Mark or his people in a way that couldn't be dealt with cleanly, she became a candidate for the warehouse. He calls it 'Justice Therapy.' But I just think he's got a hard-on for dead women."
"The guy's a fucking nutcase."
"I guess it's all a matter of perspective. Some would say he's just a good businessman. He does well with the snuffs. He's got worldwide distribution. You wouldn't believe how much demand there is for this kind of thing in the underground."
"If the other guys in the business find out what you're doing, you'll disappear—both of you—no matter what kind of muscle is backing Pecchia."
"I warned Mark that there could be ramifications," David said. "He wasn't concerned."
"Then he's not as smart as he thinks he is. You know those guys won't tolerate any pissing in the pond. It's bad for business."
When the big wigs in porn find out someone's moving kiddie porn or snuff films they either report them to the FBI or handle it on their own. When shit like that floats around it makes them all look bad. They were willing to get as rough as it took to keep the air clean.
"Mark Pecchia's health is the last thing that should be on your mind," David said.
"How did he find me?" I asked.
"Actually, I found you. I saw that piece they did on slick dick ad shooters on Entertainment Tonight a few months ago. You do a good interview for a guy who's supposed to be on the lam. Smooth move."
A freelance documentary crew had invaded one of my outdoor locations and I had given them a few sentences to make them go away, trying not to arouse any kind of suspicion. The fuckers had sold the footage to ET. Lou had been thrilled with the publicity at the time. Of course I was horrified, but I soon forgot all about it. The media dogs had struck again. I had caught my dick in the fame wringer. I had never wanted it, it just happened.
"I was only on the screen for twenty seconds," I said. "How did you recognize me?"
"You haven't changed that much," he replied.
I paced nervously in front of David Rink. He was starting to smile, enjoying the show.
"I'm not taking the rap for you sick bastards!" I said.
"You've got no choice." David's upper lip curled with arrogant satisfaction. "The cops are in charge now. Nothing you tell them will change anything. They've got what they need and there's no way you can stop them."
"You can stop them. You can tell them the truth."
David got up and walked over to the wooden banister. He looked down into the studio below, our old studio, where our careers began two decades ago, and shook his head.
"No way in fucking hell," he said.
David seemed glad to see me in this jam. I was willing to bet they didn't have to twist his arm to get him to help set me up. He obviously blamed me for his last ten years of enslavement. All his braggadocio at Fantasy City took on tragic meaning in this light. It had all been a paint job. He had nothing. His life was nothing. He was exactly where he had been a decade ago. Worse. What little he had then didn't even belong to him now. He had been completely stripped of his manhood and left as a shell, a figurehead, without true wealth or power. Only the illusion. The veneer. He was a patsy. A failure, all the way around. I should have felt some form of sympathy for him, but I didn't. I should have felt some twinge of guilt or responsibility for his sorry excuse of an existence, but I couldn't. There was always a way out if you really wanted it, as long as you didn't give up hope. His slavery was at least partially voluntary. I'm sure he liked being the big honcho at Fantasy City, even if it was a front. He still got to live and act like a king. It was the closest thing to success he would experience in this lifetime. He had made his pact with the devil just as surely as I had.
I walked over and faced David eye to eye.
"Tell them, David," I said. "Tell the police the truth."
"And take the heat for you again?" he asked. "Not this time, Chief."
"
You didn't have to take it the first time."
"They killed Matty and George. They put me in the hospital just for knowing you. If I had been in the room with you assholes when it went down they would've killed me too."
"Why haven't they killed me?"
"They would have if they could have found you back then. But it's been a long time. Mark's softened on the whole business. Thing's are different now. His uncle died a couple of years ago. The heat died with him. Mark didn't even tell the boys in New York that he found you. Don't get me wrong, he still wanted revenge, he just thought the law should handle the situation. Irony or some shit. I don't know what's in his head. The guy's got a weird sense of humor."
"He's a real comedian."
"You been kind of funny yourself."
"This is the most fucked up thing I've ever seen."
"You should'a never gone off to scab with Matty."
"I needed the money. We weren't making enough and you were stuffing more than your share up your nose. Or did you forget that part of the story?"
David sized me up.
"You're right. What's the difference? You're a big man now."
David and I stared each other down. A decade of rage was building in both of us.
"You always were a loser, David," I said. "Nothing's changed."
"You're the one who's going to jail."
"We'll see about that."
"Nothing you can do about it."
"I'll do whatever it takes."
"Maybe you can run . . . again."
"Fuck you," I said.
"No. Fuck YOU!"
David growled like a rabid coyote and lunged at me. He slammed me back against the wall and punched me in the stomach. He was totally alert now. No sign of the drugged out character he was a few minutes earlier. He punched me in the stomach again and my gun went flying over the rail onto the floor below.
David hit me in the face with his forearm. I took it, then shoved him back with the palms of my hands. He staggered back a few feet. I pushed myself off the wall and hit him hard in the chest with my palms again, trying to give myself space so I could catch my breath.
David's heel caught against the bottom of the four-poster bed and he was propelled backwards. He crashed into the wooden railing and it splintered. For a moment I thought it would hold, but his weight was too much for the rickety construction. We had built it ourselves almost twenty years ago and it was not designed to take this kind of punishment. As I reached out for him the wood gave and David disappeared over the side. He fell twenty-five feet and landed on a collection of lamps, tripods, and other photographic equipment that was being stored on the first floor.
I went to the broken rail and looked down. David was tangled in a pile of twisted metal and shattered glass. I panicked and slid down the wooden ladder, filling my hands with splinters from the banisters as I went. I threw tripods and light stands out of the way to get to David. I pulled him out of the mess. His face was covered with shards of glass. There was a large gash in his neck and blood was spurting out with every pump of his heart. It looked like an artery had been severed.
"David! David!" I yelled crazily.
I tried to cover the gash with my hand. The cut was too large and too deep. The pressure only made the blood squirt between my fingers even faster. David gripped my arm and gagged. He tried to speak, but couldn't. He convulsed for thirty seconds or so before dying. His blank gaze stared up at me accusingly as his grip relaxed.
I stood up. I was covered in David Rink's blood. Suddenly I heard a noise from the front door of the loft. I looked over. Morrie Fein, the fat sycophant with the funky glasses, was standing in the doorway, a look of horror on his face.
"Holy shit," Morrie said with a shaky voice. He turned on his heels and ran out of the loft. I staggered forward, grabbed my pistol off the floor, and sprinted after him. I wanted to stop him long enough to explain that what he saw was an accident. Maybe I could work something out with him. A bribe, a deal, something.
As I exited the loft I saw that Morrie was already far down the street, standing beside a black BMW, fumbling with a key ring loaded with keys, trying to find the proper one for the car door.
"Hold it!" I yelled.
Morrie said, "Shit!" and slammed his hand against the driver's door window, trying to break the glass. He just managed to set off the car alarm.
Morrie spun and ran down the deserted street. I chased after him.
"Hold it, you fuck!" I screamed.
Morrie ran as hard and fast as he could, which, for an overweight guy, turned out to be pretty speedy. I barely managed to keep pace.
"I'll shoot you!" I yelled. "I swear to God I'll shoot you!"
Morrie overturned some trash cans in my path. I couldn't stop my momentum. I smashed into the cans and went airborne. I came down hard and skidded across the pavement, tearing the hell out of my right knee.
Morrie was running toward an alley. If he made it he would be safe. He would tell everyone what he saw. I looked up from the ground and realized that the eyewitness to what would appear to be a murder I had just committed was about to get away.
"Stop!" I screamed.
Morrie didn't miss a step. He didn't even pause. He was almost to safety. I aimed for Morrie's legs and opened fire with the Beretta. My aim sucked. Bullets ricocheted off the walls of the alley. Morrie got hit in the leg. He stumbled, and a second shot caught him in the center of his back. He let out a sharp yelp as he disappeared into the darkness of the alley.
I got to my feet and half staggered, half ran to the alley. I was terrified of what I would find. Morrie was on the ground, trying to crawl away, but there was not a lot of life left in him. He had a big red hole in his back. I turned him over and looked at his face. The man was about to die. His breathing was labored. Blood was trickling out of his mouth. When he spoke the words were gurgles.
"Oh shit, man," I said. "I'm sorry . . . I didn't mean it. . . . "
"You shot me!" Morrie cried. "How could you not mean it?"
"I just wanted to stop you from running."
"Good job."
I could hear sirens far in the distance. The area was sparsely populated, but the people who rented or owned lofts around here were primarily artistic night owls. Plenty were up at this hour. The 911 lines at LAPD must have been flashing like crazy.
"Hold on, man," I said. "Help's coming."
"I'll wait here," Morrie said. He laughed at his own joke and blood dribbled out of his mouth onto his shirt. The light in his eyes was starting to fade. He coughed and spit out a gob of bile and blood. I opened Morrie's collar so he could breathe easier.
"Gimme a cigarette," Morrie said.
I produced a cigarette and put it in Morrie's mouth.
"How about a light, asshole?" he asked.
In my confused state of mind I had neglected to light the thing. I fumbled with the lighter and fired up the cigarette. He took a deep puff and immediately started choking. I took the cigarette out of his mouth.
"What the hell are you doing here anyway?" I asked, trying to distract him from his fate.
"Mark sent me down . . . to check on Dave. . . . Been trying to call him all night. Mark knew you were on a rampage . . . 'fraid Dave might talk."
"You've gotta tell me what happened that night. How did they do it? How did they set me up?"
This made Morrie laugh again. And with the laughter came more blood.
"Set you up? You set yourself up."
"You rotten bastards. You were all in on it. Even Jennifer. I can't believe she'd fuck me over like this."
"Don't be so hard on JJ. She just thought Mark wanted to meet his idol. She didn't know what the real deal was."
"You used her to get to me?"
"That was the easy part. She didn't know shit about it. It's not her fault. You did it to yourself. . . . They knew your weakness. Pussy. They played you like a marked deck of cards. Mark wanted to get rid of Candice . . . wanted to get revenge on you. He a
sked her to do you . . . promised her some coke . . . told her to come to Nate's warehouse when she was done. She had no reason to suspect anything. Just another busy night in the life of a coke whore."
"You scumbags."
Morrie laughed even harder. This made him choke on his blood again. He started to shake violently. Panic filled his eyes. He was going into shock. I grabbed him, as if trying to hold the life in him. I didn't want it to happen again.
"Don't die! Don't die, you fuck! You've got to tell them the truth!"
The vibrations subsided and Morrie seemed to snap out of it. For a moment I thought he might even make it.
"What they said about you was the truth. . . ." Morrie gagged. "You are a murderer."
Morrie gripped my hand tightly. His back arched and stiffened. His eyes rolled back in his head and he projectile-vomited blood all over my clothes. He rolled over onto the ground and gradually relaxed like a tire with a slow leak. After a minute or so he was still. Steam exited his mouth in a steady stream. There were no pulsating breath patterns. He was dead. The heat was simply leaving his body.
I stared at Morrie Fein, transfixed by the process of death and the realization that I had brought about this process. He was right. I was a murderer.
PART XV
"I can explain."
—Nick Gardner
1
I drove through the city in a trance. David Rink had hit the nail on the head when he criticized me for returning to Los Angeles. It was crazy to have come back here. Why did I do it? What sick addiction had drawn me back?
I had foolishly believed that no one had ever found out about what happened to the girl those long years ago. The media had never reported anything. No investigations by the police had ever developed, no warrants were issued, no rivers were searched. Di Bacco didn't even know about it, even with the phone book-sized file he had on me. Matty and George had vanished long ago. I assumed they had disposed of the body safely and flown the coup like me. They had, but they didn't quite have the international imagination that I possessed. They had disappeared all right, but I hadn't correctly guessed the reason why. They went somewhere exotic to escape, somewhere like New Jersey. Now they were a cornerstone in some office building foundation in Queens. After so many years of non-activity regarding the "accident" I thought I could come home. I had changed so much. A new look, a new profession, a new attitude, a new identity. Who would know? It wasn't enough. The past could never change. It could fade, but it could never change.