Blue Murder

CHAPTER 6

Warehouse Productions got its name from its address, a converted warehouse in northwest Miami. The ground floor had been remodeled into a theater, showing mostly pictures made elsewhere in the building. The second floor was divided into two parts: the studio proper — offices, a single huge sound stage, cutting and screening rooms — and a bar serving free beer to those with a ticket stub from the theater downstairs.

Traditionally, porno films have played to an audience ninety-nine percent male. The customers arrived alone and sat in alternate seats. Armand Baruch was trying to break this chessboard pattern and fill the empty seats with women, doubling the capacity of the house. To a degree, he had succeeded. Boys were beginning to bring dates, which had rarely happened in the past. A few adventuresome married couples came to see what it was like. Baruch laid out a little money among the night clerks of the Collins Avenue hotels, who recommended the Warehouse to their tourists, and all at once it became a hard place to get into.

When the drive-ins around the edges of town met the competition by screening blue features, Baruch added an enormous, dimly lit parking lot, enclosed within a strong fence. This was one of the few parking lots in Southern Florida with trees and secluded bays and dead ends. The local uniformed police were given a small retainer to ignore the occasional whiff of burning hash that drifted over the barbed wire. Internal security was enforced by young men with the tans and builds of lifeguards — which was what most of them would have preferred to be — wearing luminous orange armbands.

The usual traffic flow at the Warehouse was from the theater to the parking lot, then to the bar, then back to the parking lot. The movies continued till two. The bar closed at three. All cars had to be gone at four thirty.

Shayne, arriving at the peak of the evening’s activity, parked as close as he could get to the main building. Outside the ticket office, he studied the cast lists at the bottom of the posters, looking for a movie with an actress named Lib in it. A Lib Callahan had appeared in two, Erotic Commune and Loves of Countess Dracula.

To be admitted to the bar, he had to buy a theater ticket, but he bypassed the ticket taker and went directly upstairs. The bar was long and curved, with the price of the drinks chalked on the mirror behind the bottles. Most of the customers were drinking beer. Theoretically no one under twenty-one was allowed to view the raunchy Warehouse films — signs were posted saying this — but again, the police had more important things to think about, such as how to send their children to college on the meager salaries paid them by the city. In spite of the recent innovations, the Warehouse complex still did a brisk singles business. Not all the women, by any means, were hookers. There was a small, crowded dance floor. The air conditioning was overloaded, and the backs of the dancers, swaying in time to a heavy beat, were patched with sweat.

Shayne walked the length of the bar, seeing no one he knew. Coming back, he picked a wall phone off its bracket and dialed. A woman answered, and Shayne chatted for a moment before asking for Max. This was an old friend, who had tended bar in most of the big hotels and was now business agent in the bartenders’ local.

“Haven’t had a good poker game in months,” Max said. “Let’s include Tim Rourke this time, because Lucille tells me I’ve been losing too often.”

“Any night next week,” Shayne said. “Let me know where and when. I’m out at the Warehouse — working, not playing. I need a sponsor. Do you know any of the bartenders here?”

“I must, but they don’t stay long. The paydays haven’t been too regular lately. Let me think.”

“They’re doing good business tonight.”

“That’s at the retail level. It’s the movie company that’s in trouble, according to the story I get. A young guy named Harvey. Sort of baldish in front, with a drooping moustache.”

“I see him. If I put him on, will you give me a reference?”

“Anything in particular?”

“Just that you know me, and I’m not too interested in any of the minor crimes.”

“You mean you’re not a narc or a vice cop. Sure.” Shayne left the phone hanging and shouldered in to the bar in front of the moustachioed bartender.

“If your name’s Harvey, somebody wants you on the phone.”

The bartender looked across at the phone, wiping his hands on his apron. “I keep telling the chick not to call me here.”

He left the bar by the service end and picked up the phone. After a word or two he turned to look at Shayne. Shayne nodded. He came back and Shayne ordered a drink.

“I’m trying to find a girl named Lib Callahan,” Shayne said. “She’s been in Warehouse films — that’s all I know about her. I’m hoping she may be drinking here tonight.”

“Lib Callahan,” the bartender repeated. “Is it all right to use your name?”

“No. I just want somebody to point her out to me.”

Harvey conferred with the other bartenders. Then he tried one of the lightly clad waitresses, who looked around the room and pointed to a far-off table. The bartender returned to Shayne.

“Dark hair, in a pink dress. Big coin earrings. All the way over in the corner, under the Jean Harlow poster. Drinking stingers.”

Shayne took his drink with him, leaving an extra bill on the bar. The four-man rock group was leaving the pedestal, to be replaced by another, equally scruffy. The girl under the poster seemed almost too young to be legally admitted to her own films. Her face showed a trace of sullenness in repose, but when she spoke she bounced in her chair, her earrings jangling. Shayne caught her eye and grinned.

“You were in that vampire movie. Of course you weren’t wearing those earrings, or anything else either.”

There was an odd assortment at her table, a middle-aged couple in resort clothes, two younger women holding hands, a heavy-set man with a face like roast beef, a puff of gray hair at the collar of his open shirt. He had his hand casually on Lib’s shoulder, one finger inside the fabric of her dress.

“One of your fans, Lib,” he said, giving it a sarcastic edge.

“It’s the first time it ever happened,” the girl said with enthusiasm. “A total of nine pictures, and nobody ever came up to me before. This may be the turning point.”

“It was beautiful,” Shayne told her. “And if you don’t think you made an impression on me, hold your breath and I’ll tell you your name. Lib” — he looked at the ceiling for help — “Calhoun. Am I right?”

“Close!” the girl said, delighted. “Very close! Callahan. Now if you tell me you’re a legendary Hollywood producer looking for talent—”

“Do I look like a movie producer?” Shayne said. “Just a humble member of the rank and file. Would anybody object if I…” He summoned a waitress. “Get us some more drinks here.”

He stole a chair from a nearby table and shoehorned himself in between Lib and the brilliantly clothed tourists, whose name, they told Shayne almost immediately, was Fox, Tom and Clarice, from Passaic, N.J. They were in town for ten days, staying at the Fontainebleau. They had three children. He was in footwear.

The red-faced man, on the other side of Lib, kept his hand on her shoulder, as though asserting a claim. A high school guidance counselor, he was named George.

“I have a question,” Shayne said to the girl. “You probably get asked it all the time—”

She groaned. “If you knew how often, lover. Does acting in this kind of movie turn me on?”

“You guessed it.”

“I usually say yes,” she said, taking her answer seriously. “The camera gives it a little extra something. You aren’t balling just one guy, you’re balling the audience. The young guys who haven’t found out yet how a woman reacts. Those lonely old guys who want to remember what it was like. The guys in between, who are working up to making it with somebody in real life. The first couple of times were tremendous! Real fireworks. But the funny thing was that it didn’t look that marvelous on the screen. Now I’ve got it so it looks convincing—”

“You certainly do,” Shayne said.

“But it’s less fun personally. All those stops and starts. I haven’t had an honest-to-God explosion in months. Just that teentsy-weentsy flutter.”

“That’s too bad,” Shayne said, and George, on the other side, was equally anxious to sympathize.

The Passaic, N.J., people were smiling brightly. The female orgasm was probably seldom mentioned in casual conversations in Passaic, N.J. Drinks arrived. After tasting hers to make sure it was what she had ordered, Lib asked Shayne to dance.

He stood up. “I’m willing to try. Don’t expect too much.”

She ran her fingernails through George’s haircut, and she and Shayne joined the group on the dance floor. There was so little room that all they could do was move from one foot to the other in time to the music.

“One thing, Mike,” she said in his ear. “That vampire picture hasn’t been released yet, so where did you see it?”

“I got your name off a poster downstairs.”

“Were you looking specially for me, or just somebody who’s been in a porno?”

“Nick Tucker told me to look you up.”

She pulled back, her pupils seeming to turn for an instant into tiny dollar signs. Then she tilted her face alongside his so she could speak directly into his ear again.

“How do you make your living, lover?”

“I’m a private detective.”

“So you really aren’t too interested in whether I’m having orgasms.”

“It’s not the main thing I’m interested in. There’s money available for a little cooperation.”

“Money I like. Nick sent you to the right girl. I’m completely amoral.”

“Completely what?”

“Amoral. That means when somebody makes a suggestion, I look at the pros and cons. The problem is, they’re so uptight about security lately. Notice the cats in the armbands? We’re supposed to go by the rules. If we don’t — zap, bam, pow. Like in the comic books.”

“I’ll meet you later.”

He felt her shake her head. “I don’t know you. It has to be with people around. Wait a minute, I’m thinking.”

She continued to grind slowly against him. The dancers around them seemed completely enclosed in their own electrical field. Lib’s hands moved lightly and absentmindedly on Shayne’s back.

She sent another burst of words into his ear. “How much money, in round numbers?”

“Up to four hundred, depending on what you can give me.”

“And you’re the one who decides what it’s worth? I’ll need something up front.”

“Two-fifty.”

“Three. I’ll drop on you for free.”

“Two-fifty is tops.”

She pulled back for another look. “I hope I’m not going to have trouble with you. What I could do is take you to this party. I’m serious about being careful. They’ll knock my head off if they find out you’re working for Tucker. The Tucker committee — that’s a dirty word around here. And everybody’s extra tense right now, I don’t know about what. Just float along and look drunk and dumb.”

The music stopped and they released each other. A small frown appeared between her eyes.

“George is the thing. I already asked him, and if he goes he’ll want to stick close.”

“I’ll explain it to him.”

“Without making a big noise, Mike? If you bop him or anything, those armbands will be down on us so fast…”

They maneuvered separately to the edge of the dance floor and between the tables. If she was thinking about money now, it didn’t show. She moved lithely, with a bounce, enjoying the crowd, the music, her own health and good looks.

Reaching their table, Shayne sat down beside the guidance counselor. “Lib wants me to break some news. She’s ending the evening with me. She says she likes you—”

“Very much,” Lib put in, the dollar signs in her eyes blinking on and off.

“But I have an angle,” Shayne continued. “I’m about to leave for the Caribbean. Some movie people are going to be along. They’re very minor people, and they probably don’t really know some of the names they drop all the time. But she’s decided she can’t afford to turn it down.”

George’s flush deepened. “You don’t have any boat.”

“She has to believe me until she finds out,” Shayne explained. “As a matter of fact, it’s a charter. We’ll be crowded, and getting dressed and undressed, we’ll catch an occasional elbow. We’ll either be good friends by the time we get back, or we won’t be speaking.”

George pushed back his chair.

Shayne said gently, “Nothing wrong with being a guidance counselor, George, but your school board wouldn’t like to hear you’d been busted for a fight over a girl who’s young enough to be one of your sophomores, upstairs over a theater showing pornographic movies.”

George had had just enough to drink so he believed his masculinity was being threatened. He began to shift. Shayne came to his feet in a fluid motion and kept the smaller man in his chair with a hard hand on his shoulder.

“Especially a fight you lost,” he added.

The tendon under Shayne’s hand was rigid at first. Gradually it relaxed and George reached for his drink.

“The story of my life,” he said.

Lib gathered her things and touched his hand. “I was looking forward to it, but you see how it is.”

“Sure, sure,” he muttered.

Lib had already explained about the party, and the Passaic couple came with them.

“Can you tell me?” Fox said on the way out. “Is there really a boat?”

“Not really. I thought of telling him she’s my daughter, but I don’t think he would have bought that, after the way she was feeling me on the dance floor.”

“What a bastard,” Lib said fondly, hugging his arm.