“Sixteen footer,” said Trunk. “Desmond always was steady.”
“Where did you run into—”
“Warehouse district, but don’t expect to find him there—he moves around like a Mexican jumping bean. Felix Watson shoots porn films. That’s how I bumped into him again. He’s smarter now though, strictly three pieces of picture ID for the talent, and all his permits in place. Couldn’t touch him.” Trunk grinned, and Jimmy glimpsed again the man he had once been. “You should have seen his face when he saw me walking into the warehouse. It was almost worth having to cut him loose.”
“I’m going to find him.”
“He’s a freelancer. I asked around—nobody at the department has a line on him.”
“I’ll find him.”
“I believe you just might.” Trunk watched Desmond and Napitano approach. “Desmond showed me that picture of you and the girls in the magazine, all of you naked as jaybirds. You know, when I started out working vice, that magazine would be strictly under the counter. Now it’s on display at the supermarket, just fun and games.” He turned to Jimmy. “Good thing I’m dying. I live much longer, I’d be out of a job.”
Chapter 33
“Hey, I know this guy.” Rollo leaned his head out the window as Jimmy parked. “Wayne! Dude!”
Wayne looked up from his magazine, a crew-cut muscleboy sitting on a steel equipment crate, catching rays in a tank top and shorts. He waved at Rollo and stood up.
“Lucky break, Jimmy,” said Rollo, as they crossed the street. “Wayne’s cool.”
The house was in an upper-middle-class section of the San Fernando Valley, a two-story job on a cul-de-sac, a rental van in the driveway. Every house on the block had a swimming pool in the backyard, with high fences and hedges to guarantee privacy. It was a mind-your-own-business street, sunny and safe and clean, just like every other street in the Valley—one of the reasons this area just over the hill from L.A. had become the porn-production capital of the universe. Rollo had never heard of Willard Burton, or his new name Felix Watson either, but he had crewed plenty of porn flicks, shooting cutaways and facials. It didn’t take too many calls before he got the address of today’s shoot.
Wayne tossed down the current issue of
Honcho
as Jimmy and Rollo walked up, a six-packed stud on the cover. Wayne was shorter up close, with a hyperdeveloped torso, veins snaking across his biceps and innocent Bambi eyes. “Hey, Rollo, they didn’t tell me you were crewing today.”
“I’m not,” said Rollo. “Social call. What about you? They got you doing security now?”
“Nah. I’m driving the gear, running errands, whatever. I like the goatee, by the way.”
Rollo tugged at his new facial hair. “Thanks. This is my friend, Jimmy.”
They shook. Wayne had a small hand, but Jimmy could feel the lifting calluses across his palm, right under the fingers. “Felix working today?”
Wayne nodded. “You know Felix?”
“I need to talk to him.”
“You’re not police, are you?” Wayne pulled a carefully folded sheaf of papers out of his back pockets. “I got all the paperwork—”
“I told you, Jimmy’s with me,” said Rollo. “You heard anything about Nikki Sexxx? Somebody said she moved to Maui with an investment banker.”
“He wasn’t a real banker,” said Wayne. “She’s back on the circuit.”
Rollo brightened.
“All she got out of Maui was a tan,” said Wayne.
“Don’t give me that look, Jimmy,” said Rollo. “I
miss
her.”
“Of course you do. She stole your passport and traveler’s checks, left you in the middle of Costa Rica, and ran off with a guy in white Guccis. If she had shot your dog too, you’d probably want to marry her.”
“I feel your pain, Rollo,” said Wayne. “My ex was competing at the Natural Bodybuilding Championships last weekend. I watched him start his posing routine, and I just started bawling. I had to turn the TV off.”
“Love’s a bitch,” said Rollo. “I still got one of Nikki’s Anabolic box covers, even though they spelled her name wrong.”
“Too many consonants,” said Jimmy.
“No,” said Wayne, “Nikki don’t mess with that stuff anymore. Strictly girl-girl scenes.”
Jimmy stared at him.
“Girl-girl?” Rollo pushed back his glasses. “I could live with that.”
Wayne opened the door. “They’re out by the pool. I really admire your camerawork, Rollo. The shooters Felix uses are pathetic. Half the time they miss the money shot, then the talent has to do it again, and it’s never as good the second time around.”
“Do you know what Felix looks like?” Jimmy asked Rollo as the door closed.
“He’ll be the asshole with the big mouth, just like every other porn director I ever met.”
They made their way through the house, following the noise, stopping in the kitchen. Through the sliding-glass doors they could see a three-man crew—two video cameras, and a single lighting/sound tech—hovering around a fourway on the steps of a small kidney-shaped swimming pool. A pudgy man with a ponytail and a safari jacket stood on the pool apron, fingering the gold chain around his neck as he gave orders.
Rollo looked at Jimmy. “I rest my case.”
The fourway on the steps consisted of three skinny women with fake breasts and a compact man with an enormous penis. The cameraman shooting close-ups kept bumping the actors with the camera lens as he circled in, a lit cigarette jutting from the corner of his mouth. The actors straddled each other, looking at the director for instructions, their feet slipping on the wet sides of the pool. It looked like a drunken game of Twister.
“You bring the Snapple?”
Jimmy turned and saw a nude woman next to the open refrigerator, chewing gum like a pile driver, a bottle blonde with huge breasts and no pubic hair. A large black widow spider tattoo walked down her flat belly, its legs reaching her hipbones, its jaws just above her vagina.
“We’re supposed to get Snapple on the set, but all they have is diet.” The blonde cracked her gum. “I don’t drink diet.” The gum popped, louder this time. “Hey! Quit looking at my cunt. You got the Snapple or not?”
“Ah . . . no,” said Jimmy.
“Tell Felix I’m not doing my scene without my Snapple,” said the blonde, stalking out.
“That was
scary,
” said Rollo.
“Definitely.” Jimmy heard a splash on the other side of the glass, and cursing. He saw one of the women and a cameraman floundering in the pool, while the male star was climbing the steps, howling, holding his penis with both hands. The director shrieked at them. Jimmy slid open the glass door. “Hey, Felix?”
“Who wants to know?” said Watson.
“Bitch broke my dick!” shouted the male star, bent over, still clutching himself.
“Put some ice on it.” Watson pointed at the cameraman wading up the steps. “Careful with the equipment, douchebag. You cost me my damage deposit, it’s coming off your salary.” He turned back to Jimmy and Rollo. “Who the fuck are you?”
Jimmy smiled. “Relax,
Willard.
”
Watson jerked, his second chin jiggling. The three-carat chunk of cubic zirconium in his right earlobe sparkled in the sunshine. “Ten-minute break,” he said, staring at Jimmy.
Jimmy watched the male star holding a handful of ice cubes under his swollen purple penis, while the three women hovered nearby, stifling giggles.
“Dude’s johnson looks like a Japanese eggplant,” said Rollo, half in awe, half in sympathy.
Watson’s face was smooth and pink as a pig’s ass. “You must have me confused with someone else.”
“If you say so,” said Jimmy.
Watson shoved his hands into his safari jacket. “I’d like the opportunity to clear up any misunderstanding.”
“Smile.” Rollo took Watson’s photo with a small digital camera, then took another one for insurance, catching Watson’s shock and fear.
“Give me that,” Watson said as Rollo slipped the camera back into his pocket. He actually snapped his fingers.
Jimmy laughed. “That’s okay, Willard. We’ll send you some prints when they come back from Fotomat.”
“Take five,” Watson called to the crew, following Jimmy and Rollo inside. “Wait! Don’t go. What do you want?”
“World peace,” said Jimmy.
“I’d like to be six inches taller,” said Rollo.
Watson faked a smile. “Either of you ever had a porn queen?” He nodded toward the swimming pool, his eyes the color of dirty ice. “It’ll change your life. They do things no normal woman would even think of.”
“What do you know about normal, Willard?” said Jimmy.
“I—I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me that,” Watson said softly. He beckoned Jimmy and Rollo into the living room. “Let’s get comfortable. No sense talking where the whole world can listen in.” He sat on a plastic-covered sofa, the plastic squeaking. “Willard Burton is ancient history, dead and buried. My name is Felix now. Felix the Cat.”
“I know who you are.” Jimmy sat next to Watson, close enough to smell his sweat and bad cologne. “I know what you did too. I know that you turned Heather Grimm over to a talent agent—”
“Heather who?”
Jimmy grabbed the gold chain around Watson’s neck and pulled him forward so he hit his face on the granite coffee table.
Watson sat back up, stunned. “What—what did I do?”
“Tell me the name of the talent agent,” said Jimmy.
Watson gingerly touched the gash over his eyebrow, stared at the blood on his fingers. “
Look
at this.”
Jimmy yanked the chain again, not hard enough to bang Watson into the table again, just hard enough to let him know he was considering it.
Watson waited until Jimmy let him go. “Please don’t hurt me. I have a heart condition.”
“No shit,” said Jimmy.
Wayne opened the front door and peeked inside. He waved to Rollo, then closed it again.
“Maybe you didn’t know what was going to happen to Heather.” Jimmy let it sink in. “That’s as sympathetic as I’m going to get, Willard. I know this big old cop—he sweet-talks people into telling him what he wants to know. Never raises his voice, never raises a hand—that’s what he tells me, anyway. But me, I haven’t got his patience. So the next time I ask you a question and you don’t answer, I’m going tear off that earring of yours.”
“Really cheap zirc, dude,” said Rollo. “You should invest in a better fake.”
Watson looked from one to the other. “I—I don’t even know who you are.”
“That’s Rollo, he’s the sensitive, artistic one. I’m Jimmy, the troubled loner with a bad temper. Does that help?”
“Jimmy killed a man once,” said Rollo. “It was self-defense, but a thing like that changes a person. It
did,
Jimmy, it changed you.”
“Yeah, Felix, it’s too bad you didn’t meet me a couple years ago. I was a sweetheart then. I would have brought cake and cookies, asked you pretty please.”
“I see.” Watson squirmed. “Well, you were right before—I
didn’t
have any idea what was going to happen to that girl. It was just an innocent business transaction. I mean, who knew Walsh was going to smash her brains out? A man with that kind of money, and fame— why not just beat her up?” He looked at Jimmy and decided he wasn’t going to get an answer to that last question. “The agent’s name was April McCoy.”
“I want to talk with her.”
“You’ll have to shout.” Watson laughed, then thought better of it. “She’s—uh—dead.”
One of the cameramen came in from the kitchen. He looked at Jimmy, then turned to Watson. You okay, Felix? Your lip is bleeding.”
“What
is
it?” hissed Watson.
“T-Bone’s salami is swolled up awful. He wants a ride to the emergency room.”
“T-Bone can wait,” said Watson. “Go get Wayne and tell him to saddle up.”
“Wayne don’t like tunafish—”
“I don’t care what Wayne don’t like. Give him a couple Viagra and tell him to do it for the home team.” Watson waited for the cameraman to walk away, then turned back to Jimmy. “The night Heather was murdered, the same night, April took a swan dive out the window of her office. Eight stories, straight onto the sidewalk. TV said it was suicide, but I packed my bags and hit the road, Jack.”
“Who were you afraid of? Walsh had already been arrested.”
Watson felt at the gash over his eyebrow with a forefinger.
Jimmy sat beside him on the couch. “It wasn’t April’s idea to send Heather to the beach house. It was someone else’s.
That’s
who you were afraid of.”
Watson nodded. “I saw Heather’s face on the nightly news, and I
knew
it was a disaster. Then when I read about April the next day . . . Suicide? I knew her better than that. Whoever paid for Heather wanted to make sure it didn’t come back on him. Tossing April onto her face was a smart move.” He looked at his pure white Keds. “I should have kept going. My problem is I really like L.A. The sun and—”
“Who paid for Heather?”
“How should I know?”
Jimmy grabbed the chain again, the gold links cutting into Watson’s soft neck as he tried to pull away.
“You think April was going to tell
me
?” groaned Watson. “We were strictly cash and carry. She had a legitimate agency, teenage talent mostly, actors and singers nobody ever heard of—”
Jimmy cut him off with a light tug, watching his eyes. Out on the front porch, he could hear Wayne arguing with the cameraman. “As soon as you saw Heather’s face on TV, you knew it was a disaster. What was
supposed
to happen that night?”
Watson fidgeted. “Most of the girls I sent to April were strictly fun and games. A few promises, maybe a shopping spree at the Galleria or a trip to SeaWorld, and everyone has nice memories afterward. I have a good eye. April respected that. No one ever got hurt.”
“Heather got hurt.”
Watson didn’t know what to do with his hands. “Heather was different.” He peered up at Jimmy. “What are you picking on me for? Walsh is the one who killed her, not me.”
Wayne and the cameraman came inside, then headed out to the pool.
“Good luck, dude!” called Rollo.
Jimmy gave Watson’s necklace another tug. “Did April ever brag about her contacts in the movies?”
“All the time, but it was just talk. April always had some excuse why her kids lost out on the big part.” Watson blinked “Could you
please
let me go? I’ve already got whiplash from an auto accident last month. My chiropractor says I have nerve damage.”
Jimmy released him. “Did she name names?”
Watson rubbed his neck. “What names?”
“Did April ever talk about knowing Mick Packard?”
“Packard?” Watson shook his head. “Is he still alive?”
Jimmy could see that he was telling the truth. “What did you mean before, ‘Heather was different’?”
Watson leaned forward, proud to share now. “There’s wolves and lions and then there’s the cute and cuddly animals that get ripped to pieces. Most of April’s private clients were vanilla—they preferred cute and cuddly. You know, cheerleader outfits, Little Bo Peep.”
Jimmy held his temper. “I’ve seen Heather’s photo. She was no victim.”
Watson nodded. “You got a good eye yourself. The malls are filled with cute and cuddly, but Heather was a special order. April wanted young but able to pass for legal. Someone
experienced
and smart, someone who wouldn’t melt under pressure.”
“You believe this guy, Jimmy?” said Rollo. “He’s pimping out little kids, but he acts like it’s somebody ordering a laptop with extra RAM and a CD burner. What’s
wrong
with you, man? I’m no Boy Scout, but you—I’ve stepped in fresh dogshit I liked more than you.”