Blue Murder

CHAPTER 7

They went in Shayne’s car.

His car phone rang before they had cleared the parking lot. It was Tim Rourke, but Shayne told the operator he was busy, and would call back. Tom Fox, the Passaic footwear man, had had a phone installed in his own car and he was having trouble with it. Police calls kept breaking in. Shayne discussed the problem with him until Mrs. Fox interrupted to ask if there would be pot at the party.

“God, I hope so,” Lib said fervently. “But Armand’s been so broke lately…”

She took them to a house in Coral Gables, a pseudo-Moorish structure with arches and ornamental towers, dating back to the days of the 1920s boom, when people had had live-in servants instead of repairmen. It was now a warren of apartments, each with its own entrance. Armand Baruch, the sex-film impresario, had a lease on the top floor, a long climb up an outside staircase.

One sniff as they entered told Shayne that pot was indeed being served. The Passaic couple debated whether or not, offered a joint, they should accept. Mrs. Fox thought they owed it to their children to find out what the fuss was all about.

“But we start with booze,” Lib announced.

Music came out of several speakers, the volume turned low. They went into a bare room, with a spiral staircase rising to a railed balcony, off which were several bedrooms. There was a cluster of studio lights in one corner, a big Mitchell camera on a tripod, mounted on a crab dolly. Shayne’s impression, looking around, was that the male guests averaged out a dozen years older than the females, almost always the case at show business parties. If the women weren’t younger, they looked younger. Most had year-round tans, but if they were permanent residents of Miami, they stayed on paths seldom traveled by Shayne and his friends.

A bronzed young man wearing his hair in a pony tail, with the armband that marked him as a member of Warehouse security, gave Shayne two looks, the first one casual, the second hard and suspicious. Shayne grinned amiably.

“Nice night for a party.”

“Every night’s a nice night for a party,” Lib said.

The bottles and ice were in a narrow kitchen. She was fixing drinks when a dreamy young man separated himself from a group and came to embrace her. He was wearing sandals and a striped robe. He had so much hair on his face that nothing showed except a furrowed forehead and a pair of pale eyes. His gestures were languid.

“Baby,” he said, brushing his hand across her breast. It was the voice on the tape, introducing the pornographic slides sent to Congressman Tucker. “Have you told these pleasant people about the specialty?”

“Not yet, Armand. Don’t you think it’s better to lead up to it gradually?”

“No, plunge right in.” He turned with a sweep of one arm. “I am Armand Baruch, known to my own flacks as king of the blues. And I have a setup here that may turn out to be the most terrific innovation in the industry since the wide screen. Is anybody old enough to remember the candid photographers who used to take pictures on Collins Avenue?”

He was looking at Mrs. Fox, who shook her head.

“This is my first trip.”

“Armand, let me get the drinks,” Lib said.

“Continue.” Baruch produced a burning cigarette from one of his wide sleeves and drew on it greedily. “You don’t happen to be a grasshead, do you?”

He was still concentrating on Mrs. Fox, who answered, “Not generally, but I may be about to become one! If you’ll show me how.”

“The main thing, dear, is that you don’t want to waste any.”

She did what he told her, but coughed up most of her first lungful of the forbidden smoke. With the second she did better.

“Sidewalk photographers,” Baruch went on. “A good business in its time. Killed by the Polaroid camera. People on vacation like to take something back to prove where they’ve been. Films are more of a problem because of the processing time. But people know they can trust me. I’m in the yellow pages. If I don’t deliver, the Better Business Bureau knows where to find me.”

“This is small stuff for you, isn’t it?” Shayne said.

“You wouldn’t say so if you knew my cash position,” Baruch said sadly. “The bastards have got me tied up. It’s like this,” he said, focusing again on Mrs. Fox. “I have cameras I’m not using. A cameraman I keep on the payroll because he’s the best in the business. A Moviola and editing facilities just sitting around. To add to all that, I have a God-given talent that’s unemployed too much of the time. I can make you a good price. We shoot in either eight or sixteen. You wouldn’t want thirty-five, because these are really home movies, to be shown in the home. But of professional quality is the difference, made by professionals. We’ll cut it and edit it for you. Do you understand what I mean? We shoot as many takes as necessary and use only the best, eliminating the footage that doesn’t seem to work. Color? Included in the price. For a few pennies extra, we’ll add title cards and a sound track.”

“Are you talking about a movie showing us having intercourse?” Mrs. Fox asked, fascinated.

“In a relaxed atmosphere. We use superfast film, espionage film, we call it, so the lights won’t make you self-conscious. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not talking about anything with more than one person. You can’t shoot one of those off the cuff and make it convincing. Husband-wife stuff. I may make suggestions from time to time, but that’s all they’ll be — suggestions. You do exactly what you’d be doing at home, in your own bedroom, and let me get it on film.”

“My God,” Mrs. Fox said.

“You won’t want to show it to everybody, just a few close friends. Think of it as a permanent record. Twenty-five years from now, when you want to recapture the way it was—”

“No,” Fox said firmly.

“I agree with you, honey,” his wife said. “But let’s find out first how much all this would cost.”

“Pennies,” Baruch assured her.

Lib put her hand on Shayne’s wrist and took him to the main room, where he was given another look by the security youth.

“Do you know that kid?” Lib said as they moved away. “I hope to hell not.”

“He’s seen me someplace.”

“Don’t panic, Lib,” she told herself. “You knew you were taking a chance… How do you like Armand’s idea? I think it’s going to make some bread. And speaking of bread, let’s talk about figures. But we’ve got to move around a little first.”

Unlike most of the others, who had finished their thinking for the day, Shayne was aware of the passing of time. He invested fifteen minutes in establishing that he was an ordinary guest, interested in Lib only for obvious physical reasons, and then he suggested that they leave.

She passed him the joint. Baruch and his cameraman, a gnomish little man barely five feet tall, were preparing a camera setup, and most of the guests had drifted to that end of the room. Shayne was on the floor with Lib’s head in his lap.

“You know Armand got his Tucker Committee subpoena?” she said. “They give him a plane ticket and ten dollars per diem. That’s O.K., they’re subpoenaing everybody. But when they start asking questions, somebody’s going to wonder where they got the information. When I talked to the guy from the committee I didn’t know it was this serious. Now I think it may be time to start traveling. The magic has gone out of my sex life. And I’m scared.”

She lifted to make sure no one was listening. “I mean scared. Did you know a couple of Los Angeles guys are in town?”

“What guys?”

“From some porno operation out there. The sort of creeps who don’t feel complete unless they’ve got a gun on. Armand may be acting relaxed, but inside that robe, he’s twitching and jumping. I’ll tell you when I decided it was time to split. One fellow, who I always thought was around the Warehouse because he dug the scene, he carries a guitar with him everywhere. Except it isn’t a guitar, it’s a shotgun with the barrels cut off. When you see something like that, it makes you think.”

The tanned youth in the ponytail was standing over them. He had taken off both his armband and his shirt, but psychologically he was still on duty.

“I know you,” he told Shayne.

Shayne said easily, “Where are you from, New York?”

“No, here. Miami.”

Shayne shrugged. “I’ve been in town two weeks. Stoned most of the time, I’m happy to say.”

“Jack, will you bug off?” Lib said irritably. “I’ve been rowing upstream all day, and I want to drift. Go watch them make movies.”

“The thing of it is, when I recognize somebody and I don’t know from where, it bothers me.”

“We were thinking about going,” Shayne said.

Lib sat up. “Honey, we can’t yet, before Armand talks to you. He’s looking for somebody to play a part in a picture. That’s why I got you to come.”

“Luckily, I know you’re not serious. I don’t want to look back twenty-five years from now and see how it was.”

“Honestly, it’s easy after the first few minutes. We were supposed to look for somebody with specifications. I was thinking about George, but you’d be better. Let’s go upstairs. We can’t talk with all these people around.”

“You’re wasting your time if you think you’re going to get me into a skin-flick,” Shayne said. “It’s not one of the things I’ve always wanted to do.”

“Let Armand tell you about it. You can always say no.” Standing up, she wriggled her dress down over her hips. “There’s a water bed. Have you ever tried one?”

“Do you feel like making it three?” the security youth said when Shayne came to his feet. “Or I could get somebody else, for four?”

“Won’t you believe me?” Lib said. “I’m tired.”

Shayne followed her to the circular staircase. He passed a small heap of clothing, which included an orange armband. He picked it up and took it with him.

Upstairs, Lib took him to the end bedroom, where she turned with a shiver.

“This is getting heavy. But I need traveling money. A private detective! When they find that out, I want to be thousands of miles away. I wish I was the type of person who saves money, but it seems to slip through my fingers.” She was taking off her dress. “I’d hate to tell you how little I’ve got in the bank, it’s pitiful.”

“Do you really think all this is necessary?” Shayne said.

Her earrings jangled. “I really do. You don’t have to do anything, and to tell you the truth I sort of hope you don’t. I couldn’t take another miss right now, and that’s probably what would happen. I wouldn’t be concentrating on it, I’d be thinking about that shotgun in the guitar case. I hope you’ve got the two-fifty in cash. Look, get undressed in case anybody comes in.”

Shayne repeated that to see how it sounded. “Get undressed in case—”

“Come on, Mike,” she said impatiently. “You want me to fink on them, don’t you? I’ve got to start thinking of my own skin.”

The skin she was worried about was rapidly emerging from her clothes, which she left where they fell. “Do you want the light on or off? I think off. Then if somebody does walk in they won’t wonder how come we’re just lying there.”

“I’ve got a picture to show you first.”

He selected the clearest of the photographs his client had given him. Lib studied it for a moment.

“Who is it?”

“Mrs. Tucker, I’m told.”

The light went off just as the title of a book on the bedside table registered on Shayne. It was a Modern Library edition of Anna Karenina, the novel Gretchen Tucker had told her husband she was recording for the blind. The door was not altogether closed, and enough light came in so he could see the girl arranging herself on the shifting surface of the bed. He lay down beside her and lurched into a kind of equilibrium.

“Mrs. Tucker?” she said. “Congressman Tucker?”

“For a minute I didn’t think I was going to get a reaction. She’s left home. He wants me to find her.”

“I might be able to help, a little,” she said slowly. “About the bread?”

“Above the two-fifty, I have to be the judge of how much the information is worth.”

“That’s a hell of a deal, Mike. What if you decide it’s only worth a nickel?”

“I buy information all the time. I wouldn’t stay in business if I got a reputation for stiffing people. Plus the fact that it isn’t my money, it’s Tucker’s.”

“Damn it, if I didn’t need it so bad. Armand still hasn’t paid me for the vampire picture.”

She thought they needed another joint. He shifted weight carefully so he could reach the matches. When he struck the match, the bed nearly threw him.

“Mrs. Tucker,” he said. “Have you seen her at the Warehouse?”

“A couple of times. Armand was looking under stones for people with money, and I thought that was it. Now I think she had something to do with X Project.”

“What’s that?”

“He shot it on a closed set. The technical crew was cut way down. He did the sound and lighting himself. We’ve been wondering, naturally, but people remember other times when it happened. Everybody tries to steal ideas in this business. Armand’s been first a lot of times, and when he has something new he plays it close, so the competition can’t beat him out with a quickie.”

“Is the picture finished?”

“I think it must be, or Armand wouldn’t be here. He does his own cutting.”

“Was she on the set?”

“I guess some of the time. I saw her coming out once.”

“Dressed?”

“I didn’t notice. Yes, I did, too. She was in a marvelous striped suit, cool as a gin and tonic. Do I hate women who look cool in hot weather.”

“I hope that’s not all you’re going to tell me about this project. Who else was on it?”

“Funny thing, they were all from away, none of the regulars. He shot long hours, all night sometimes. Frankly, I thought it might be something Tucker and those would be interested in if I could find out, but I couldn’t. The only guy I managed to contact was a fat fellow from New York. And that’s funny in itself. I mean, he looked like an ordinary person you’d see on the street. And maybe that’s the idea, to make it seem more real by using ordinary-looking people.”

“What did he tell you?”

“All he wanted to talk about was his off-Broadway roles. I kept trying to get him back to Project X. What was the plot, the theme? He didn’t notice. He just did what they told him. Stand up, lie down.”

“Do you know the names of any of the other actors?”

“One, Maureen.”

“What’s she look like?”

“About my height, dark hair pulled back tight. Somebody said she came in from the coast. I didn’t think she was anything special. Twenty-eight or nine, anyway.”

“Practically through,” Shayne commented.

“Well, in this business, unless the idea of using ordinary people catches on, which I don’t think it will.”

Shifting balance carefully, Shayne worked his pants nearer to the bed and got out his wallet. He turned on the light briefly and found the slip of paper he had taken from Frankie Capp: “M. (from LA) — Rm 14, Modern Motel, after 8.” The M might stand for Maureen.

“Do you know where she’s been living?”

“Some motor inn downtown. There was a party I never got to.”

“Tucker says you know Frankie Capp.”

“I know of him.” She blew out her breath, like a horse smelling something unpleasant. “He’s not around much anymore. He owns a piece of the company, I think. Anyway I told the committee guy that and he just about had kittens.”

There were footsteps on the treads of the spiral staircase. Lib sucked in her breath and rolled quickly on top of Shayne. The water inside its tight plastic sheath attempted to make waves, and for a moment they rocked and plunged.

“Pretend,” she whispered fiercely, her fingernails digging in.

Her heart was banging, and there was an equally strong pulse in her stomach. She was moving rhythmically. Shayne fell into the pattern, breaking off as the footsteps entered one of the other bedrooms. She remained above him. “I wish you hadn’t mentioned Capp. He kills people.”

“He’s never spent a night in jail.”

“That’s what I mean,” she said with a slight shiver.

“Lib, what happens to a Warehouse film after it’s finished, ready to go out to the theaters?”

She resumed her slight fore-and-aft motion. Shayne didn’t cooperate, but the bed seemed to be cooperating for him.

“What was the question?” she said vaguely.

He repeated it.

“There’s a vault,” she said. “First they make a work print and it goes to the negative matcher. One print from the matched negative plus the optical sound track…” She didn’t have her mind completely on what she was saying. “That’s the married print, the answer print. Then they wait as long as they can to see how many dupes they’ll need…”

“Have you ever heard about any of these films being used for blackmail? The Foxes from Passaic. If they aren’t really married—”

“Oh, honey, that’s out of the nineteenth century. Who cares any more?”

It was warm in the room, and she was as slippery as a trout. The water bed was giving them a giddy ride.

Someone else came into the room. Baruch’s voice said, “Turning on the light, O.K.?”

The light flashed on. Lib’s eyes closed, and she gripped Shayne convulsively.

“Not interrupting anything, am I?” the pleasant voice continued. “I want to talk to you about a part we’ve been trying to cast, Mike.”

The bed went on moving for a moment after Lib stopped. Her face relaxed slowly.

“Sometimes I don’t know why I bother,” she said, giving the moviemaker an evil look. “You blew this one, Armand. I told him about the picture, but he’s got this privacy hangup. I was trying to persuade him.”

“Privacy?” Baruch said in the same amiable voice, as though he had never heard the word. “What we look for in our men, Mike, what we pay money for, is physique and staying power. An ordinary four-minute episode — you know we can’t film that in four minutes, it’s more like four hours. Our audiences won’t let us get away with simulation or inserts. They want to see. So we can’t use young kids.”

“He’d be great,” Lib said, coming up on an elbow. “The problem is, will he?”

“The picture’s about pro football, Mike, a football team and a girl. We’ve cast everything but the coach. Most of the scenes take place in the locker room.” He was in a squatting position and he had clearly settled down to stay. “The girl’s a tremendous inspiration to the team. They get to the Super Bowl. I managed to steal some footage from the Dolphins, and we’ll cut that in.”

“Who’s playing the girl?”

Shayne was beginning to get the hang of the bed. Baruch passed him a joint. Apparently it was going to be that kind of conversation.

“The girl,” Baruch said. “She has to be small enough to fit inside a locker. I want Lib to do it, but she’s been giving me maybes.”

“Armand, I’m tired of taking my pay in IOUs. I had another call from my father last week. He keeps asking how I can live like this and I tell him I’ve stopped making moral judgments, I do it for money. He’s in advertising, Madison Avenue time, and his big account is deodorants. The commercials are pretty disgusting, but he does it for the money, damn good money, incidentally. But if they only promised to pay him—”

“My dear small child, if you knew how much I have tied up in finished product! Four feature-lengths and five two-reelers.”

“Tied up is it. I have to eat. The restaurants don’t take IOUs.”

“You could stand to lose a few pounds.”

“I disagree with you,” Shayne said. “I think she’s just right as she is.”

“Thank you, lover.”

Baruch took the joint back after it had made the rounds. “A firm offer, Mike. Five hundred, and we can do your scenes in three days. I run a relaxed thing. You’ll have fun.”

“Five hundred in cash?” Lib demanded. “Where did that come from?”

“I’ve got a check in my pocket for six hundred and fifty, drawn on the First National Bank of Passaic, New Jersey, a wonderful, friendly bank. And I’ve got to remember to put it in night deposit in case he stops payment. It was lovely, Mike, the minute they let themselves go. You’d never suspect it from looking at him, but he played that broad like a xylophone.”

“Five hundred for Mike,” Lib said, sticking to the subject. “A hundred and fifty for me? That’s sexist.”

Baruch smiled and waved his hands, making a shape in the air. “Five hundred for you. Money’s on the way. We’ve hit bottom, and now we bounce. I’ll wrap up the football thing first. I’ve shot it in my head already, and I just have to put it on film.” He put a thumb in his mouth and blew a fanfare. “Quiet, everybody. Then The Ways People Love goes into production. I know you’re surprised.”

Lib sat up. “Not that we haven’t heard that announcement before.”

“No, this time it’s really happening. A budget of eight hundred thou, and eight hundred to me is like four million to those Hollywood hacks.”

Lib’s earrings glittered. “Do you mean it?”

“I think so,” he said after considering the question. “Ask me again in the morning. Right now I mean it. It looks very good.”

“And I suppose with that kind of budget you’ll protect yourself by using name people?”

“Unknowns,” Baruch said firmly. “This flick’s going to make it in the art houses, knock wood, and win a few modest prizes, knock wood, and I want to do it with the stock company.”

“You aren’t planning to bring in any overage chicks from Los Angeles? That sort of rubbed some of us the wrong way.”

“There was a reason for that. I forget what it was now.”

He puzzled about it briefly, then gave up and produced another joint.

“Mike, before I space out here. The coach.”

“How many episodes would I have to be in?”

“I don’t lay it out and run set plays,” Baruch told him. “I work from a situation, and see what kind of vibes I get.”

Shayne smiled slowly. “I’d like to ask a few people to dinner when I get back and talk them into going down to Forty-Second to catch a movie. There’s one chick in particular, I’d like to see the look on her face when she sees me up there on the screen. How many lines would I have to memorize?”

Baruch answered after a pause. “I never use a script. As the spirit moves you. Do we have a deal?”

“Let me talk to you in the morning. I want to get an idea what kind of sex you expect me to do.”

“Nothing homo, if that’s bothering you. You’re the craggy old coach. Meat and potatoes.”

The pauses between his words were becoming longer. He stared at the red eye of the cigarette without offering it to the others or raising it to his mouth.

“Wake up,” Lib said. “I want a little more time with Mike. Armand! If you want him to show up tomorrow—”

“I do.”

“Then will you walk the hell out, please? I know you don’t believe this, but some people don’t like to be watched.”

Baruch tipped forward and made it to his feet. “Light on or off?”

“Off,” Lib said. “I keep telling you, I’m breaking him in slowly.”