The Last Good Kiss (16 page)

fanatic, the long face unmarked by emotion, so Trahearne and I nodded quickly. His face wasn't unpleasant, just blandly, hysterically objective. Maybe a steady diet of porno flicks had softened his features, but I

couldn't begin to guess what had happened to his

clothes. Perhaps he had slept in his shiny black suit.

Several times. Badly. Certainly he had dined in it. Or

off it. A blossom of tomato sauce with a dried

mushroom bud served as a boutonniere, and his thin

black tie, tugged into a knot the size of an English pea,

as a napkin.

"What can I do for you gentlemen?" he asked as it

became apparent that we hadn't come to discuss the

state of the art.

I showed him my license and explained my business.

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Before I could finish, he scampered to a 5 x 8 file, rifled

it, and came up with both hands full of cards, waving

them at the walls of his small apartment, which were

banked with file cabinets and shelves and stacks of film

cans.

"Animal Passion," he said, holding out his right

hand. "Animal Lust," he added with his left. "Take

your choice, gentlemen. Not a particularly imaginative

title, either of them, but damned popular. " He simpered at his own joke.

"Low, low budget," I said, "with a group grope for a

finale."

"Aren't they all," he said with his frail laugh. "Could

you give me an approximate date?"

"Late sixties maybe. "

"Major actress blonde or brunette?"

"Blonde."

"Right," he said, then replaced the cards into their

file, shuffled them again. "Perhaps this is it," he said as

he read a card, his narrow bloodless lips mouthing a

long number. He dashed over to a stack of film cans

and jerked one out of the middle so quickly that the

ones above it fell down with a neat solid thunk. "If I

remember this one correctly, it's simply trash," he said,

"without a single redeeming feature. Would you like to

see it?"

"You mind?" I asked Trahearne.

"Why should I mind?" he said, looking very confused.

"Your romantic illusions," I said, then laughed.

"Oh," he said, "oh yeah. Those." His confusion

seemed to clear itself up. For him, though, not for me.

"Roll it," he said crisply, and Richter threaded the

film.

It was basic, all right, perhaps even pitiful. It was

Betty Sue Flowers, too. No matter how often I looked

away, when I looked back she was there. She had

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gained enough weight to make her figure more than

Reubenesque , and if she hadn't been able to move it

with some grace , she would have seemed grotesque and

comic as a chubby young housewife clad only in a frilly

apron, her thick blond hair gathered into two unbraided pigtails that framed her fat face.

At least the plot was thin. First, a little minor-league

action with a pair of bewildered toy poodles, then some

major-league work with the neighborhood help: a

postman, a milkman, two meter readers, and a grocery

boy with pancake over his wrinkles. Among the five

men, they had enough beer guts, knobby knees,

blurred tattoos, dirty feet, and crooked dicks to outfit a

freak show. In the finale, as they gathered in a carefully

arranged pile about the kitchen table, they looked even

more distraught than the poodles had, and their faces

contorted with pain as they all tried to come at once as

Betty Sue worked at all of them together. Everybody

was stoned blind, and the crew kept stumbling on

camera or into the lights or jerking the camera in and

out of focus. You could almost hear the sigh of relief

when they rim out of film. The whole thing seemed

about as exciting as jerking off into an old dirty sock.

But Betty Sue, in spite of the fat and her eyes, which

were as blank as two wet stones, had something that

had nothing to do with the way she looked. She seemed

to step into the degradation freely, without joy but with

a stolid determin,ation to do a good job. In spite of

myself, I was excited by her, which made the whiskey

curdle in my stomach. I worked on righteous anger but

only came up with quiet sadness and a sick sexual

excitement. I saw why Gleeson hadn't wanted to talk

about the film; I didn't either. No more than I wanted

to look at a large, ugly scar that split the center of her

pudgy abdomen.

"That wasn't funny at all," Trahearne growled as the

film unthreaded itself and flapped like a broken shade.

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"Don't blame me," Richter said as he began to

rewind it.

"Think I'll hobble outside for a breath of fresh air

and about a gallon of whiskey." Trahearne said as he

heaved his bulk out of the chair.

After he left, I asked Richter if he knew any of the

actors' names.

"Surely you jest," he said. "In this business, only the

creme de la creme have names, and usually they are

assumed. However, I did recognize the chap who

played the milkman-in another context, of course."

"What context?"

"He once ran a pornographic bookstore downtown,"

he said, "and I think his name was Randall something

. . . Randall Jackson. "

"Is he still in town?"

"No, he left after this film," he said, "which was his

single effort. I seem to remember someone telling me

that he was some sort of paperback distribution agent.

In Denver, I think. "

I asked if he knew anybody else or anything else

about the film, but he had never seen the girl again,

which meant that she had dropped out of the business. I

thanked him, then stood up to leave.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?" I said.

"Of course not," he answered pleasantly.

"What are you doing with all these films?"

"Catalogue, classification, and cross-indexing. Pre-

paring for a scholarly study of the decline of American

pornographic film."

"Isn't all this expensive?"

"I have a grant," Richter said blithely. I didn't ask

from whom. I didn't want to know. As I left, he was

humming as he reloaded his projector.

Outside, Trahearne and Fireball were sitting back,

drinking and watching the Sunday traffic on Folsom

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Street-two cabs, a babbling speed freak, and an

Oriental wino. I climbed into the car, wishing I had a

greater variety of drugs with me. Or less blind luck.

"Was that the girl you were looking for?" Trahearne

asked.

"No," I lied. "It looked something like her but it's

some chick named Wilhelmina Fairchild."

"Could be a stage name," Trahearne suggested.

"No," I said. "Richter knows the lady personally.

She's working in a massage parlor over in Richmond.

So unless she's developed a German accent since she

left horne, it wasn't Rosie's daughter. " I wasn't sure

why I lied to Trahearne. Maybe because I was embarrassed for Rosie. Or for myself. Whatever, I didn't want him to know that it had been Betty Sue on the

screen, flickering among so many hands.

"For Rosie's sake, I'm glad," Trahearne said. "I

stopped in her place by accident and drank there a

couple of days because I liked the place and her

bulldog. I didn't talk to her much, but I liked the way

she poured the beer and handled the bar, so I'm glad

her daughter didn't end up like that. Or worse. "

"Me too," I said.

"What now?"

"Palo Alto."

"Why?"

"To talk to Betty Sue's best girl friend from high

school," I said.

"Maybe she's out," he said. "Maybe you should call

first. Maybe we should hang around the city tonight.

Have a few drinks, you know, relax and rest a bit."

"No rest for the wicked," I said , then tucked the

Caddy between a taxi cab and a semi-truck, ripping off

two dollars' worth of Trahearne's tires. "It's a nice day

and a pretty drive," I added as soon as the truck driver

stopped blowing his horn.

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"If we survive it," he said.

"You want to drive this fucking barge?" I asked

angrily, mad about my lie and the movie.

"You just drive it however you want to, son,"

Trahearne said, holding up his hands. "But don't get

mad at me. I'm not in charge of the world."

"Sometimes I can't tell if I'm crazy or the world's a

cesspool," I said.

"Both things are true," he said, "but your major

problem is that you're a moralist. Don't worry,

though."

"Why?"

"It'll pass with age," he said. "But talking about

crazy-what was that fellow doing with all those

films?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

I was partialiy right. It was a nice drive. Except for a

scuffle Fireball had with a large gray poodle who

wanted to sniff his ass at a rest area, and except for the

rich lady in the Mercedes who belonged to the poodle

and who slapped Trahearne when he suggested she

do something impossible and obscene with her lousy

damned play-pretty mutt, it was a lovely drive. But

Trahearne was right about calling Peggy Bain first.

The girl who lived in the apartment address Albert

had given me didn't know where Peggy Bain lived, but

she did know somebody who might. We spent the

afternoon kicking around from apartments to bars and

back again, talking to a long series of people who knew

where she might be. Finally, as we tried the last

possible place, a backyard barbeque all the way up in

La Honda, the sun headed behind the coastal hills and

Trahearne began to whine like a drunken child. He had

forgotten his promise to stay at least as sober as me.

Trahearne and Fireball were as drunk as dancing pigs.

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