Bodies (18 page)

“Right,” I said. “So we just wait until he gives out a few more details on what kind of kinky he has in mind.”

Archie Nelson yawned, infuriatingly.

“We can't do much, even on the kinky stuff these days. About the worst we can do is report them to the RSPCA if there's animals involved. But keep your ears open so as to learn more about the distribution. There was this other bloke—what did you say his name was?”

“Mick Spivey,” said Charlie. “A right ratty little guy. Sell his mother for a tuppence-off washing powder coupon.”

“Keep close to him. Try and find out where their stuff is stored. There'll be films and videos, and they will take up a fair bit of space.
Remember anything you hear about who the customers are, and how they get the stuff out to them.”

“Right. So I'm to stay with it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Until they really start pressing you to do something you wouldn't like.”

“I don't pressure easily,” said Charlie complacently.

“Remember the part you're playing,” I said severely. “You're not you, you're him.”

Charlie, I suspected, like most non-actors, found it difficult to keep up any other persona consistently.

The next time I heard from him it was by phone: he still had done nothing likely to raise the temperature of Archie Nelson even half a degree from its professionally reptilian cool. He had done the posing for the leather mag, but he said it was only “the same as before, only with cowhide.” No shocks or surprises. The interesting thing from my point of view, though, was that the session had taken place in the new studio.

“Where was this?” I asked.

“That's the problem. I was told to go to Vince's pad, and we drove on from there. I didn't like to look around me too interested, like. It's the Elephant and Castle, that I do know. Perhaps two or three minutes from the Underground. It's an old warehouse, practically derelict, or at least bloody scruffy. There's some grubby old houses nearby, but a lot of them are empty, and there's a bit of ground with some of those houses they put up after the war.”

“Prefabs?”

“That's right.”

“Not many of those left. That should help us identify the place. It sounds a dump.”

“It is, but they've done it up inside, of course. A hell of a lot of whitewash on the walls, and piles of drapes—a few ethnic ones from the girlfriend, some tartans and tweeds for the healthy outdoor feel, and lots of those pastel, satiny ones like poor old Wayne and that girl were posed against in those last pictures. Me and my leather were taken against pastel blue. I should think I looked great.”

“You're getting a taste for this business.”

“It's the cash they hand you in a brown envelope at the end of the sessions.”

And Charlie rang off, obviously highly pleased with himself. He had certainly given me something to go on. I got straight on the phone to the Elephant station, and told them to give the relevant
parts of Charlie's description to the boys on the beat and see what they made of it. In fact, two days later I was looking at a list of four possible locations sent me from the Elephant station, when Charlie rang again.

“I want to see you.”

“Proper see? Meal?”

“Yeah. I want to talk.”

“Right. I've got to be here till two a.m. tonight, bet I should be able to take an hour off early evening. What about six-thirty at the Knossos?”

We struck lucky at the Knossos. It was only just open, and the atmosphere inside was funereal. Mr. Leonides, in fact, sported a black armband, and I supposed he had catered for a Greek funeral earlier in the day, and not a very jolly one either. The kitchen, however, did not seem to be affected, and the Dolmades that we began with were excellent. I stuck to lager because I was on duty, but Charlie insisted on a half-bottle of wine. We didn't talk until we were well settled into our food.

“What's happened?” I asked.

Charlie took a sip of his Bull's Blood.

“It was yesterday, when I finished work. Sometimes I go through the whole evening shift till nine—evening's our busy time, especially just after the working day finishes. More often, though, I finish at six, and one of the chaps takes over—one of the muscle boys wanting to earn a bit and train at the same time, or the boy you call the Anatomy Lesson. Well, last night I finished at nine, and I was just about to leave the office and lock up when I saw he was waiting for me in the corridor.”

“Who? Vince?”

“No. Mick Spivey. I don't like this organization: it seems like the dirtier the job, the lower down the person who undertakes it. Todd Masterman delegates the dubious stuff to Vince Haggarty, and Haggarty delegates the practically untouchable stuff to Mick Spivey. Anyway, Mick looks the part to a T, and very out of place in a gym: barbel curls and cross-bench pullovers couldn't do much for
him,
I'm telling you. Anyway, he said he was pleased to see I was free—though he obviously knew I would be, and obviously knew the night I would be working late. I felt I had been watched. So he said would I care for a drink?”

“You're really getting out of the wholewheat and tomato juice circuit,” I observed, watching him pour his second glass.

“I never was in it. So we went along to the Horse and Plough, strolling along in the dark, and we chatted as if there was no ulterior motive around in the world, and Mick asked me how I'd enjoyed the sessions so far, and I did my gushing schoolgirl act, about how great it was, and how I was looking forward to seeing myself in the mags, and what a great photographer Vince was, and how great he made me look, and I sickened myself, but that got us to the Horse and Plough, and the custom was fairly thin by then, because the theatres weren't out yet, and we found a table to ourselves. Mick insisted it was his treat, since he'd asked me along, and he got two pints, and later another two, and I let him, because I felt I'd earned that just by listening to his voice, which sounds like a pen nib scratching on glass. When we were halfway through the first pint, Mick said: ‘I'm glad you're enjoying the sessions, because Vince thinks you're good. Says you've got talent. And I agree.' So I smiled a Cheshire cat smile, said ‘Gee, thanks,' and waited.”

“Then Mick said casually: ‘We've got something coming up a bit out of the ordinary, if you're interested.' And I said: ‘You know I'm always interested.' ‘This one's for the fladge market,' Mick said, looking at me from under his eyelids, but real sharp. ‘Lord, man, don't you ever make anything with straight sex?' I said, but laughing. ‘Give me a break some time! You must have lots of dolls lining up to appear in a bit of good, old fashioned bedroom sex. Why not do some of that for a change?' ”

“Good,” I said, when Mr. Leonides, who had been fussing round the table as he brought our lamb, had gone. “You didn't jump straight into it. That's right. But do you think the character you're playing would have understood what the fladge market was?”

“We're pretty wised up in Brixton. And all sorts of things circulate there. I thought I shouldn't jump into it shouting ‘Hooray! My life's ambition!' though.”

“Oh no. Absolutely not.”

“Anyway, then Mick started to explain. They'd been operating now as a going concern for five or six months, and as far as straight sex was concerned, they'd got a great little store of reels, with all the usual variations, and most of the obvious colour combinations. They were doing roaring business, especially in the video trade, and those films were going round and round like a fairground horse. Of course, he said, some of their early films were pretty amateur—”

“I can imagine,” I said. “I've seen some of that kind of film.”

“—so they'd need renewing eventually. Mind you, I think he was
just saying that to keep me interested. I suspect most of their customers don't give a monkey's how amateur the thing is, provided they see what they paid to see. Anyway, the gist of the situation is that they're going all out after the other markets now.”

“I can imagine,” I said. “What role in this fladge epic does he have in mind for you? Will you inflict, or suffer?”

“Oh, inflict. I expect suffering would come under the heading of stereotyping—maybe get the film banned by the licensing board. So what he had in mind for me was an amusing little number, probably a fifteen- or twenty-minute job, he said, showing a birching. Me birching a white boy, or maybe two.”

“I see,” I said. “I wonder what Archie the Vice would say to that. Probably shrug his shoulders and say if that was all they couldn't touch Haggarty for it.”

“Well, that's about what I did—shrugged my shoulders, and said I supposed I could do it, at least if they thought I would be convincing enough. Mick Spivey smiled and wheedled, and made me want to throw up at that. But that wasn't the end of it.”

“No?”

“No. Mick leaned forward, all the time watching me with those sharp little eyes, and said: ‘As to it being convincing, you don't need to worry about that. It'll be convincing all right. The trick is, you see, it'll be for real.' Well, that really got me, and I gawped at him quite genuinely. ‘For real?' ‘Yes—at least the first five or six strokes. More, if possible. The rest we fake, and re-use discarded shots from earlier strokes. That way what we show really carries authenticity—the twisted expressions on the boys' faces, the screams, the sweat. It can be very powerful.' Now that really got me. That did turn my stomach.”

“I must say it doesn't do any good to mine,” I said, pushing aside my plate.

“So I said: ‘But who on earth can you get to do it? They must be nutters.' And he sat back in his chair, and smiled, and said: ‘There's hundreds—thousands—of lads sleeping rough all over London. Girls too—we use them as well, quite a bit. They're desperate for money for food, often for drugs. The trick is knowing where to find them, because the police are always moving them on. I've got the trick. They know me. We use them in all sorts of films. Often they're only about fourteen or fifteen, and at that age you can make them look a lot younger. They're pretty desperate, you know—come from shocking homes, do anything for a square meal. We're a sort of charity, in a
way. Like in this case, for example: we pay them for the appearance, then we pay extra for every stroke that's done for real.' ”

“Oh my God,” I said. “I love his charity.”

“He really is a horrible guy,” agreed Charlie, obviously murderously indignant. “I think all this really is sick. They get these poor bloody starving and bewildered kids, and then they do
that
to them.”

“We certainly could get him on a charge for that, and that's some consolation. Pretty obviously they're also involving minors in straight sex films—we can get them for that too. How did the interview go from then on?”

“Well, I reacted normally, and I think that was right. It's not something anyone normal would like doing.”

“Good. I expect yours was the usual reaction.”

“Mick Spivey played down the nasty side. Said they wouldn't feel it next day, they were well paid—five pounds a stroke, it was riches to them, and so on. We went on discussing it for a bit, me making it clear I wasn't jumping over the moon about it, but gradually coming round. I said I was a bit uncertain, because after all there was acting involved, even if it was for real, and I wasn't an actor. Mick said I would do it fine, but if I wanted I could come and see another film of the same kind being made.”

“Ah.”

“He said that, the same evening he had in mind for filming me whopping these boy, there'd be another of the same kind done earlier on in the evening. They really turn them out wholesale, don't they? He said it wouldn't be the same, because this would be just pretend. The scenario they had, he said, was a man being whipped, and you just couldn't risk doing him an injury.”

“Quite apart from the fact that grown men aren't likely to let themselves be whipped for five quid a pop.”

“Exactly—though it was the industrial injuries side that he stressed. He said I could come along early to watch that, and it would give me some idea of the sort of
feeling
they wanted to get into the film.”

“Christ—I can imagine what sort of feeling that would be.”

“Finally I said I thought it probably would be all right—that I'd ring him before tomorrow if I changed my mind.”

“When is this little job set up for?”

“Next Tuesday. So even if I don't do it, they've plenty of time to find a replacement.”.

“No,” I said. “Say you'll do it. From our point of view it's practically an ideal set-up.”

“I don't want—”

“No, of course you don't. What, do you think I am? Say you'll do it, we'll have the joint cased, and the moment the thing starts being for real, we'll come in and take them.”

• • •

Later that night, when I had an odd half-hour free, I drove over the river and down to the Elephant and Castle. Of the four addresses I had got from the local men, only one really matched up to Charlie's description. It was a two-storey warehouse near a little slum of prefabs, but well away from anything else. There were heavy curtains over such windows as there were on the second floor, but they could not hide the fact that there were lights on—very powerful lights, I thought. I parked the car two minutes away, and went up to the building. I walked around, and found at the side a door that led—I could see through a dirty window just beside it—to a flight of stairs. I felt the hinges, and they had had oil applied to them recently. As I stood there in the eerie darkness, with only the sound of the distant traffic to be heard, I realized that remotely, from inside the building, there were coming the sounds of people making love. What sex they were I was not quite sure, though I did suspect they were augmenting their cries, even hamming it up, for the sound-recording apparatus. But I heard enough to convince me that that night, too, Vince Haggarty was making one of his special contributions to British Film Year.