Hard-core Murder

by Paul Kenyon

  The man sitting in the barber chair was mostly concealed by a striped barbershop sheet, but there was the impression of a massive torso under it. The hands that protruded to rest on the arms of the chair were big, square and swarthy, with curly black hair growing all the way down to the first joints of the fingers. They were neatly manicured, with lacquered nails, and festooned on the last three fingers with gold and diamond rings.

  A basketball of a head stuck up out of the folds of the sheet. The hair was coarse and black, shaped close to the big round skull. The face was heavy and sensual, with flared nostrils and thick, curving lips, and a shelf of brow that shadowed a pair of gunmetal eyes.

  Vito tilted the chair back and swiveled it to face the windows beyond the bare, neat executive desk and the wall map with the colored pins. The view through the windows was the Las Vegas Strip, its crowded forest of neon signs looking tawdry under the cruel noonday sun.

  The barber chair, incongruous amidst the lavish office furnishings, was Mister Head's throne, and his only superstition. It was his fetish, his good luck charm. He'd brought it from the barbershop in New York with Big Al's blood still on it.

  Vito put away the razor with a sigh of relief and slapped cologne over Mister Head's cheeks. He covered the big heavy face with steaming towels, leaving the nostrils free.

  One of the hairy hands rose from the sheet and snapped its fingers. Mister Head's secretary, a thin birdlike girl wearing a little gold cross on a chain, scurried forth and bent toward the mummy-wrapped head. A muffled command issued from the towels. She plugged a telephone extension into the base of the chair and placed a call.

  "Sully," said the basketball head, "your treatment arrived in the mail this morning. I liked it. Now, who's going to write the screenplay?"

  Sully Flick's voice came over the receiver, sounding nasal and Bugs Bunnyish. "I'm thinking of Richard Tombs. If I can keep him off the sauce. He's great on that old Roman stuff. And he needs the dough right now. With the kind of budget we've got, we can afford top talent all the way — writers, composers, film editors, special effects men. Most of them are glad to moonlight, if they can stay anonymous."

  "But your leading man — he can't remain anonymous, can he, Sully?"

  There was a nervous laugh at the other end. "Naw. They might not recognize his dong, but they'll sure as hell recognize his face."

  "Who did you have in mind, Sully?"

  "Well… I thought Iron Man…"

  Mr. Head was courteous but firm. "With all due respect to your usual stable of players, Sully, I think we need a name star for the lead in a production of this magnitude."

  "But…"

  "After all, Sully, some of our male screen idols are halfway there already. Nude centerfolds in women's magazines. Last Tango in Paris. From simulated sex to your type of film is the next logical step. Why, the name star who makes the breakthrough might find that his career is actually enhanced."

  Sully's voice sounded desperate. "Mister Head, I don't think I can get the kind of name you want."

  A chuckle came from the hot towels. "Don't worry about it, Sully. Leave that part of it to me. I'll get you your star."

  "But how?"

  "The Syn has many ways to… persuade… people," Mister Head said expansively. "Sometimes when people are young and desperate, they come to us for a favor. We can always collect on that favor later. Years or decades later."

  "Cheez, Mister Head, I don't know. Any big actor who took the lead in The Golden Ass would be ruined. He might even be arrested."

  "If the person I have in mind were to have his little secret come out, he'd be ruined anyway. And perhaps arrested. At least this way, Sully, he'll be paid. It's better than having nothing." Mr. Head paused. "And it's certainly better than being dead."

  "Well, okay, Mister Head, if you say so."

  "I do say so, Sully."

  "Who is the guy?"

  "You'll be hearing from him, Sully. I'll see that he gets in touch with you himself."

  "Okay, Mister Head." Sully's voice was hesitant. "Thanks."

  Mister Head hung up and handed the phone to his secretary. He peeled the towels off his face. Vito doused him liberally with expensive cologne and unpinned the striped sheet. Mr. Head stood up and hopped down from the barber chair. Standing, he was shorter than one might have expected. The torso, in the pinstriped Caraceni suit, was bulky and overdeveloped, and the arms were apelike. But the legs were bandy and undersized.

  He patted his lucky chair and gave it a spin. Then he stumped over to his desk and took a thick file out of the drawer.

  The barber was packing up his equipment. "Is that all, Mister Head?"

  "Yes, Vito. Have Lou pay you on the way out. Tell him I found you satisfactory. Same time tomorrow."

  When the barber had gone, Mister Head turned his hard shiny eyes toward his secretary. "And how is your mother, Teresa?"

  "Fine, Mister Head." She put a hand to her bosom. "The lumbago bothers her a little."

  He inclined his big round head. "Tell her that the matter is settled. The tombstone carver will give her a refund."

  "Thank you, Mister Head."

  "It is nothing." His voice became brusque. "Now, we must attend to Sully's little problem. I want you to place a transatlantic call for me."

  "Where to, Mister Head?"

  He took an old, yellowed police report out of the folder. "Corsica," he said.

  * * *

  Iron Man, sitting in a saloon chair with a ten-gallon hat covering his lap, stood up eagerly when Sully put the phone down. "Do I get the lead, Sully?" he said.

  Sully clapped him heartily on the back. "Hey listen kiddo. I'll have a good part for you. You know that. But for the lead, we need a big name star."

  Max, the cameraman, said, "Are you crazy, Sully? You can't get a big name star to act in a porno movie."

  Sully chuckled. "The hell I can't! The Syn's going to put the finger on him."

  "You mean blackmail?"

  "Let's call it returning a favor."

  "Who's the guy?"

  "A very big star. The biggest."

  "But who?"

  Sully tugged importantly at his goatee. "I'll let you know when the time comes."

  He was saved from further questioning by the sound of a motor outside. He pushed his way through the swinging doors in time to see one of the dune buggies pull up in the dusty street. The driver climbed down and walked toward him, the pinstriped city suit covered with the powdery dust of the desert. The guards who patrolled the Syn's vast preserve were tough and efficient, but they'd all been sent from the East. So far, none of them had unbent enough to put on casual outdoor clothes.

  The man stopped in front of him, wiping dust from his sunglasses with a big white handkerchief. It was Ottorino, the capidecina who commanded the patrols. He didn't speak until he had finished wiping his glasses and put them back on.

  "We had a little trouble, Sully," he said.

  "Yeah? What kind of trouble, 'Rino?"

  "Couple of kids cut the wire, came through on a dune buggy. We canceled them. Joey's burying the bodies now. We'll bulldoze a hole for the dune buggy later."

  Sully cleared his throat. "Couldn't you have held them, sent Nino back to get me before you shot them? I could have used the footage."

  "Uh, uh, Sully. Mister Head told us to watch you on that kind of stuff. He says you artists don't understand the practical side of the business. Like somebody recognizing people in the film."

  "I could have shot them so nobody would of recognized them. Used the right camera angle. Soft focus. Close-up of a detail…"

  "Sorry, Sully. It's stiff no."

  Iron Man had wandered out while they were talking, holding the ten-gallon hat in front of his groin. "I'm with Sully, 'Rino," he said. "Those last two kids you caught, a week ago. All you guys took turns balling the chick before you killed her."

  Ottorino gave him a shark's grin. "That was different. Wasn't nobody taking no pictures."

>   * * *

  The overseas operator said, "I have your call to Corsica now."

  "You can put me through, operator," the Baroness said to the Bastia exchange. There was an interval of clicks, hums and buzzes.

  She was stretched full length on a velvet chaise, wearing a transparent blue baby doll, her long black hair tied in back by a blue ribbon. Beyond the glass doors of the terrace, Inga was setting up a tray with brunch. It was a clear day. She could see all of Central Park spread out twenty floors below, looking green and neat at this height, and beyond it a serried row of skyscrapers.

  "Terence," she said, "is that you, darling?"

  "Penelope?" There was an electronic sputter. "Where the bloody hell are you calling from?"

  "New York, darling. I'm just airing out my apartment here. It's been closed up for months."

  "It's damned lucky you're three thousand miles away. I'd wring your neck otherwise. You left me on that fucking beach with a fucking bloody hard-on."

  "Watch your language, darling. Don't you know that the government listens in on overseas calls? Every single one of them."

  It was true. One of the NSA's functions was to monitor and record every telephone call made abroad by U.S. citizens, though the vast majority of the calls received merely bored attention from NSA's eavesdroppers.

  "Let them listen! Give them a bloody thrill! You Yanks are always spying on one another!"

  "You're not still mad at me, are you, darling?"

  "I'm furious. What the hell happened to you?"

  "I remembered an appointment in London."

  "Couldn't it have waited another five minutes?"

  "Why darling! We've never finished in five minutes."

  He laughed. "My balls are a lovely shade of blue, thanks to you. Absolutely stunning, love! They match my eyes."

  "I'll make it up to you, Terence darling. That's what I called about."

  "Don't tell me you Yanks have figured out some way to do it over the telephone?"

  "Why don't you fly to New York? Today?"

  His voice became serious. "Penny, I'm making a picture. I've already got a reputation for being wild. Twentieth Century-Fox ran two million dollars over budget on my last wide-screen epic. And I've been blackballed by Columbia."

  "Why Terence, you've never worried about that before."

  He hesitated. "Something's come up. I've had another call from the States today, as it happens. A business thing. Penny, love, I may be needing money soon. I've decided to be a good boy on this Foreign Legion spectacle."

  Penelope stretched her legs and looked down at her toes. Through the transparent chiffon of the baby doll she contemplated the dark triangle at her groin, the oval nipples floating on the Jell-O of her breasts. She spoke, making her voice husky.

  "Terence, darling, it's so dull in New York. I need diversion. Everybody's talking about these new pornographic movies. They're only for private showings. They're supposed to be quite extraordinary." She laughed throatily. "Very corrupt. People actually die in them. The torture scenes are real. And Terence, darling, they even have people you know acting in them. Have you heard about them?"

  His voice was wary. "Yes, I've heard about them."

  "I thought you had, darling. If anybody would, it would be you."

  "What are you leading up to, Penny?"

  "Darling, I'd love to see one. Everybody who's anybody has been to one. But I can't seem to get myself invited. My crowd aren't corrupt enough, worse luck. Could you take me to one?"

  "I suppose I could. But…"

  "Marvelous, darling. I'll expect you in New York by evening."

  "Just a minute, Penny. I've told you about the penalty clause in my contract. It would cost me a hundred thousand dollars to fly to New York and take you to the movies."

  "Darling, that's the bargain rate."

  "The last time cost me twenty thousand dollars. And all I got was an hors d'oeuvre."

  "You'll get twenty thousand dollars worth this time, darling. I promise."

  He laughed. "Penny, you're irresistible."

  "Then you'll come?"

  "I'll be there with balls on."

  It was her turn to laugh. "The blue ones?"

  "Robin's egg blue. To match the movie."

  "You're a dear."

  "Dear's the word for you, too. I'll see you tonight. Ciao!"

  "Ciao!"

  She rang off. She put on the blue peignoir that was draped across the chaise and went out on the terrace. Traffic noises and soot assailed her, even this far up. She sat down at the little table. Inga handed her a bloody mary and started to take the silver cover off her brunch.

  "Not just yet, Inga. Get me the scrambler. And patch a satellite connection through Key's transmitter to Dan in Washington."

  Inga brought her the scrambler, a slim black case packed with electronic components. It was a PCM — pulse code modulation — box that translated changes in voice frequency to a linear code consisting of pulses and nonpulses. They cost one hundred thousand dollars apiece. One of them was considered sufficient to handle White House traffic, and the State Department and the military had limited numbers of them.

  She fitted the tiny button to her ear and spoke into the pencil-size microphone. "Dan?"

  "Right here," came Wharton's voice.

  "Have you fed the programs Tommy gave you into the PDP-12 computer?"

  "Just finished this morning."

  "Good. I want you to get into the memory storage banks of NSA's 7090 computer. Erase all transatlantic telephone calls that took place during the last hour."

  Wharton hesitated. "What about the physical tapes? I can't get to those." Wharton was referring to the fact that NSA used a device similar to the PCM scrambler to change taped conversations into a digital code that could be fed to a computer.

  "Don't worry about the tapes. They're erased at the end of each day. And it'll take a week or more till anybody gets around to monitoring the routine overseas telephone traffic."

  "Check. Anything else?"

  "That's all."

  She unplugged the scrambler, then uncovered the tray to see what Inga had made her for brunch. It was a red caviar and sour cream omelet, ham, Scotch scones with wild strawberry jam, black coffee. She finished the bloody mary and set about to eat it before it got covered with soot.

  Inga said, "Will you need me tonight, Baroness?"

  "Yes. Terence is taking me to a movie. I'll want you to monitor my body tag. And I'll be taking along a supply of additional tags, in case I can plant them on anybody who's likely to be a lead."

  "I can handle up to twenty with the little time-sharing processor."

  "Twenty should be enough." The Baroness broke off a piece of scone and spread it with jam. "And lay out a wardrobe for tonight."

  "What did you have in mind?"

  "Something sexy. With room to conceal a gun."

  Chapter 5

  "Are you really a movie photographer?" the girl said.

  "Cross my heart," Skytop said. He didn't take his eyes off the topless dancer performing on the little platform over the bar. She was a big, hefty girl whose silicone-inflated breasts were the approximate size of watermelons. Her only garment was a watchstrap-sized G-string. She arched her back, sending the melons bouncing upward in time to the beat of the three-piece combo.

  "You act like you've never seen a pair of boobs before."

  Skytop sipped his watered drink, his eyes still on the dancer. "Oh, I've seen plenty of boobs. I've just never seen those boobs."

  "Will you look at me! Mine may not be as big. But they're all me."

  Reluctantly, Skytop dragged his eyes away from the extraordinary performance over the bar and looked at his companion. Her name was Amber, or so she said. He'd picked her up at Laurel and Sunset, in front of Schwab's Drugstore. She had long straight brown hair and the inexpressive face of a Barbie doll. She was dressed in a pair of tight white flares, cut low enough to show her navel, and a vestlike spangled harem to
p. The belly in between was a rich tan.

  Right now she was fumbling with the catch on the vest. She pulled it open and gave him a flash of her breasts.

  "How'd you like them apples?" she said.

  Skytop sighed. "Once upon a time they hung around in Schwab's to break into the movies. Now they try to break into porno flicks."

  "A girl has to start somewhere. How about it, big guy? Can you use me?" She spread the vest and gave him another look.

  A bulky shape loomed over the table. It was the bouncer. "Hey, no amateurs. Once more and you're out. Both of you." The bouncer glared at them and stomped away.

  Skytop reached across the table and patted Amber's hand. "I told you, babe, I'm looking for work too. I heard this was a hangout for some of the cats in the skin-flick racket. But I'll tell you what. If I score, we can audition together."

  He looked around the topless club. It was called the Tower of Ilium, and it was nestled between a head shop and one of the Strip's ubiquitous car-rental places. It was a dim, shabby place that the owner had attempted to decorate with shields and spears and plywood battlements. The customers were mostly middle-aged businessmen in protective groups of two and three, and a few solo tourists looking for action, but there was one table in the corner occupied by a couple of jocks and their girls, giggling over some pot-inspired private joke.

  It was about the twentieth hangout Skytop had visited in the last two days. They were all merging in his mind into one blurry joint where he'd drunk gallons of watered whisky with scores of scruffy characters, shared a roach with the swingers and been groped by a dozen bedraggled women, not a few men, and one or two whose gender was in question. A good many of them had claimed to have worked in the West Coast porno flicks, but he'd been unable to make a solid connection. He had, however, gotten several consistent leads to the Tower of Ilium. He looked at his watch. It was over an hour since he'd put on his act at the bar. Time to move.

  There was a hand under the table groping him now. He looked across at Amber's bland, smiling face. The hand traced the entire length of the firehose shape plastered against his inner thigh, paused at the distal end and moved back to heft the heavy pouch underneath. Amber's eyes widened in surprise. The hand started to unzip his fly.