Out of a mix of absolute boredom and relative tedium, I went back to the office and caught up on my paperwork. Maddy would be pleased with me in the morning. Two yawningly dull hours later, I was ready to hit the Village and took a cab downtown.
The front of The Greenwich Bar looked like any other building in the row; the only thing that differentiated it from its neighbors was the large number of people stood inside, visible from its larger-than-average windows. The other difference, of course, was the sign saying: The Greenwich Bar.
Opening the door, I realized this was one of those places where the hep cats hung out, which meant I stood out like a nipple on a cold, dark night. I scanned the room for Alex and, sure enough, he was propping up the far left of the bar. He was sat on his own with a bottle of imported beer in front of him, his body facing the bar itself. Alex was chilling, hugging a drink, waiting for the world to happen around him.
I sashayed over and sat down beside him, as a patron had just stood up and vacated a stool. While waiting my turn, I ordered the same beer as Alex.
“Snap!” I said as I turned my head towards Alex and raised my bottle in his general direction.
He looked at me like I was a plate of cold sick, so I averted my gaze and carried on drinking in silence. This would be harder than I thought and I’d been waiting hours for the game to even start. Damn the sonofabitch.
“Did ya hear about the Yankees?”
Steely silence still.
“Don’t talk much, do ya?”
Alex half-turned his head in my direction and shifted his eyes towards me, then reversed the action without changing his expression or uttering a single word. Nice job.
“Will you talk to me if I said that I’m here on behalf of Dorothea?”
A half-smile ripped across his lips and he turned to face me.
28
“FIGURED IT WAS that or you were hitting on me. Didn’t mind either, just wanted to know which.”
“Yeah, right. You’re not my type - far too much dick for my taste. No offence, mind.”
“None taken, buddy.”
“Call me Jake.”
“Whatever. So what have you got to say for yourself - on behalf of Dorothea?”
“She’s asked me to help you and she iron things out between you’s two.”
“Fine. She gives me the money and we are free and clear.”
“There are two problems: first, you shouldn’t have filmed her and, second, she’s not paying for the film. Instead, you will give me the negatives and any processed film and then you will be free and clear.”
“No dice, daddy-o. That film is worth a damn sight more than a thousand and I’m doing her a favor.”
“I think it only fair to let you know, at this point, I know some people who can ensure you eat hospital food for several months to come and they would be happy to visit you to make sure you comfortably remain sucking through a straw all that time.”
“It’d be cheaper to pay me my money though, wouldn’t it?”
Alex had a point. Anyone I hired to lean on him would end up costing me a grand at least - if they were any good, which they would need to be. There is a gulf of difference between leaning on someone to break a few bones and killing them by crushing their windpipe. And not all operatives can do the former with sufficient professionalism and not end up doing the latter by mistake.
“Let’s split the difference. We’ll pay you five hundred and I won’t send you to Mount Sinai.”
“Nice idea. Give me the thousand and I’ll take my chances you won’t waste good money after bad. One thousand spondulix and not a penny less.”
Haggling in a bar when I had no money on me, well not that much, and he didn’t have the materials on him seemed pointless so I took the conversation to the next stage - and dealt with the details of the negotiation once we both had some skin in the game.
“Look, we can talk about this for days, so let’s just do a deal and move on in our lives. If I bring the money, will you bring the original negative and all prints you’ve made?”
“Sure thing, buddy. A deal’s a deal with me.”
“Good. It’ll take Dorothea a few days to get the cash together. Where’s your place so we can do the deal in private? I’m not taking out a thousand dollars from my pocket in some dive bar in the Village, y’know?”
“Sure thing, let’s keep this all pleasant, right?”
“Damn straight.”
Alex gave me his address, schmuck, and we agreed I’d come over in three day’s time at four in the afternoon. That way, he’d know he’d be awake. Must be a hard life being an extortionist and pornographer. I sank my beer and left, throwing a dollar tip onto the counter for the bartender.
THE NEXT DAY, I visited Dorothea to tell her I had a plan to get the film back without her having to lay out the dough. Although she was sceptical, she was calm and avoided the need to spend most of her time bawling her eyes out. This also gave me another chance to be near that chest of hers. On this occasion, I noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath her roll-top jumper - I detected the shape of a nipple or two through the material. I didn’t think it was my imagination, anyway.
For two long days I did nothing for the case because that is precisely what needed to be done. All that mattered was what happened when Alex and I met up again. My plan was simple and deliberate and I didn’t need any practice before it began. The good thing was I could charge Dorothea for each day I was reading the newspaper and placing the odd bet on the horses. A guy has to earn a living somehow.
Then the moment came for me to leave the office and get to work. Alex lived on the lower east side, Avenue B to be precise, which back then was far from the throbbing metropolis. Not even the cockroaches lived there because even they had standards. But it created housing opportunities for the less choosy of New York’s population. And Alex was definitely one of those. From what Dorothea told me, she made me think that the apartment where the dirty filming had occurred was a long way from here, but the truth was that it was on Avenue A, so by alphabet city’s hierarchy, Alex was slumming it.
He buzzed me into his building and I made my way up the stairs, strewn with needles and winos sheltering from the rain and the rest of the world.
On the third floor, I came upon his apartment. I knocked and waited. And waited. About thirty seconds later, there was Alex, stood in a tee shirt and slacks with nothing on his feet.
“You got the money?”
“I’m here, aren’t I? You lettin’ me in or what?”
He shrugged and walked away from the door, leaving me to push it open fully and close it behind myself. As soon as I entered the room, the sweet smell of reefer engulfed me and I could taste the smoke it was so thick, even though there was nothing lit that I could see. Chances were Alex took so long to come to the door because he was finishing a spliff. No matter.
“SO WHERE’S THE money, man?” he enquired, with a directness I could have predicted, but displayed his youth and impatience. An older man would have schmoozed a little before we got down to business.
A black cat slunk across the room and hopped onto a window sill above a radiator. It owned this apartment and Alex was just the latest to rent it out. The cat licked itself and then settled down to sleep.
“You got any cameras set up here, Alex?”
“What? Hee, hee. No man, we’re cool.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want to end up in no skin flick like Dorothea,” I said with a note of whimsy in my voice, because I needed Alex to feel at ease with me. We hadn’t got on too well the last time and I wanted today’s conversation to be a lot more pleasant.
Alex gave another one of his empty half-smiles and I realized this was the most positive emotion he showed. His brain was dulled by the amount of marijuana cigarettes he smoked. He flopped onto his couch, slumped almost horizontal with his legs apart.
“Okay. You got my money?”
“Well, do you have the negative and prints, otherwise there’s n
o cash coming your way.”
“Be cool. I’ve got it all in the apartment. Let’s see the money and I’ll get the stuff.”
I placed my attaché case on the table in front of the couch and sat in a chair opposite, so the table stood between Alex and myself. Pulled out a little key and unlocked the case and flipped the lid open. I could see the brown envelope and the hand gun, but Alex could only see the lid of the case.
With the envelope placed on the table, I thought now was the time to want to see the goods. Alex nodded and went to another room - the bedroom I assumed - and returned with a shoe box. He sat back on the couch and put it on the table near him.
I pushed the envelope over to Alex and he reciprocated with the shoe box. I took off the lid and saw a set of 16mm reel cans. While Alex just sat there, I opened the reels and held each up to the light to make sure I wasn’t getting stiffed. Then I found the negative reel. This was much harder to check, but with a bit of imagination you could tell all was kosher.
Alex took the envelope and ripped it open and looked inside, then scrunched up his face.
“What’s this, man?”
HE PULLED OUT a handful of rectangular pieces of paper the size of dollar bills, but made from cut up magazines. I grabbed the gun from my still-open case and stood up, pointing the barrel directly at him.
“Alex. I offered you five hundred dollars for the materials but you refused. That offer has now closed. The price has now reduced.”
“Hey, man. Just spread some bread, you know. No need to get heavy.”
“You created this shitty situation for yourself when you filmed Dorothea and tried to blackmail her, scumbag.”
“Take the film. Jesus, man. Just take the film. I don’t need this shit.”
I picked up the shoe box and poured the contents into my case, while still aiming square at Alex, only diverting my gaze for the shortest amount of time possible to make sure the reels fell into the case and not onto the floor.
Sat in the chair again and, still looking at Alex, I cast my hand down on the case to close the lid. Then I felt along the edge until I was able flip both locks shut. I didn’t make the mistake of messing about with the miniature key, because that would be far too fiddly, while training a gun on the guy.
Holding the handle, I stood up.
“Stay sat down and everything will be cool. Otherwise a world of shit will descend on you. A world. Of. Shit.”
Alex put his hands up in surrender. Didn’t look like I was getting any trouble from the pothead. I shuffled backwards to the door and turned to leave and put my hand on the door latch. Then I remembered the other part of my contract and let go of the door and strolled back to Alex.
“Dorothea asked me to do two things,” I snarled.
“Get this filth back to her.”
“You got that, man, you got that!”
“And to teach you a lesson.”
“A lesson. What the fuck does that mean, man?”
I RAISED AN eyebrow and, still leaning over him, I wondered myself what exactly I meant, because until I got to the door, I clean forgot about the punishment. And, to be honest, I wasn’t too sure how serious Dorothea was on this, because she had spent quite some time sobbing her eyes out about how much she still really liked him, even though he was a dirtbag. Then it dawned on me.
“Are you left or right handed?”
“Huh?”
“You heard me, don’t fuck me about.”
“Right handed?”
I grabbed his right hand and slammed it palm down onto the table. Then I took the butt of my gun and smashed it onto his fingers. He just plain screamed and I hit him on the side of the head with the gun butt to shut him up. Certainly didn’t want any company showing and he slumped back in the chair, unconscious. I smashed down on his fingers again to make sure they were well and truly broken. Then I checked out the apartment to make sure there wasn’t any trouble hiding in any of the other rooms. All clear.
Then I picked up the envelope and scooped up all the bits of paper and put them in my case. Next I wiped my prints off the table and any other surface and, using my handkerchief, I left the apartment and closed the door behind me.
It was late, so I scooted home and snoozed until the morning, having cleaned Alex’s blood from the sides of my gun.
The following day, I visited Dorothea to give her the good news and all the reels I’d taken from Alex. She thanked me and came in for a hug and I let her breasts rest against my chest for slightly longer than was appropriate between a private investigator and his client: one second.
She paid me for the last three days’ work and we said goodbye. Six months later, I was at a stag night and a projector was brought out and pointed at a white wall. The lights were taken down and the film kicked off.
It started with a long shot of a girl, fully clothed mind, walking into her bathroom and slowly taking her clothes off. First her roll-neck top, then she pulled down her miniskirt. Next she took off her bra and panties and then she turned to camera and beckoned someone to join her.
I nearly dropped my beer because there was Dorothea’s chest in all its full glory. I had had those nipples nestling my chest only a few months before.
Nobody came to join her so she stepped into the bath by herself and lathered up the water and rubbed the soap all over her body. You could see that her hand was underwater between her legs for quite a while and her head went backwards like she was experiencing sheer delight. It was hard to see because of the distance from the camera to the bathroom, but what your eye couldn’t see, your imagination took care of.
Then a jump cut and Dorothea was lying on a bed - must have been the other camera position that Alex had used. There was a guy humping her with a number of cuts. Each time they had different sheets, different clothes being taken off, so this was clearly the best showreel Alex had put together from his time with Dorothea. And, inter-cut with these mid-shots, were a series of close-ups of hardcore dick-and-pussy action, which were obviously not of the same bodies and distracted me from the reality of what I was watching.
We watched her being fucked from behind; we saw her jiggle up and down, riding her man like a bronco. That was my favorite bit because we got to see those breasts bounce up and down, over and over. Man, what a chest that girl had.
The final section got all kinky as Alex tied Dorothea to the bed with four scarves, two for her wrists and two for her ankles, and then proceeded to go down on her and come all over her torso. He undid her arms and she rubbed and wiped his spunk all over those tits of hers.
And nowadays there’s all these discussions about how women are exploited in porn, but man, the one thing I knew for certain was that Dorothea was up for everything that I was watching.
How Alex had hidden extra copies from me, I don’t know, but that was the only time I ever saw that film on a stag night. I never saw Dorothea again, except in my dreams.
PART TWELVE
SEATTLE 1975
29
WITH THE MYSTERIOUS contents of the bag in my hand and staring at Simone at the bottom of the stairs, as I prepared to walk down the steps, I remembered the only time we had met before when she was an adult. This was a meeting that, as far as her father was concerned, never happened. I mean it just did not occur, got it?
I was in Seattle on yet another missing person case: more of a runaway than an actual missing person. The kid - Darryl Pierson - had left a note before he flew to say he was off to Seattle because it was all not fair. Yada, yada. We’ve all heard it a thousand times before.
Good ol’ Jake was despatched to get the boy back, which meant I had a free flight and some paid time to find a boy who wanted to be found. Big whoop. And because he was a teenager, and it was the high days of disco, I figured the best place to go to find him was a club. So it was I found myself holding a Polaroid and showing it to every bartender in every bar in town - or at least that’s how it felt.
The kid was very early twenties, which meant h
e would have no problem hiding in clubs every night, hanging out with the cool kids of Seattle. Besides, he had no family in the area, so there must have been a pretty good reason for choosing this city and I guessed the pretty good reason was a pretty piece of ass. Darryl wouldn’t have been the first guy to travel thousands of miles for a babe - and he wouldn’t be the last.
His parents were unaware of this possibility. Their only thought had been that he wouldn’t complete his degree and that he would tailspin into oblivion, crashing and burning into some hippy commune in San Francisco, eventually. As soon as they voiced these concerns, I had my doubts. If you intend to not be found and want to start a fresh life somewhere, you tend not to leave breadcrumbs to your first port of call on your journey. Darryl just wanted attention and to have fun for a short while.
But his parents were willing to give me money to follow him and bring him home and I rarely argue with President Jackson, especially when he appears in an envelope with several of his friends.
So it was that I stood at the threshold of the Swinging Cabriolet, one of the hippest venues in Seattle, hoping to spot Darryl somewhere in the crowd. I’d hit five or six venues every night for a lifetime and was tired of being stared at by bunches of college kids with a beer in the hands.
I made my way to the main dance floor, keeping a look out for any male Caucasian who might have fitted Darryl’s description and also, inevitably, keeping an eye on the female talent, bobbing up and down around me, wearing those tight-fitting hot pants that were all the rage then. They left nothing to the imagination, so I concentrated on Darryl while drooling at the sexy young dames.
The bartender there was no help either. They never were, but I got him to pass the Polaroid round to the others behind the bar just in case. But nada.
The Case Page 16
