Hundred Dollar Baby

46

"Guy that gave me this tape said if l had a broad, I should watch it with her," I said.

"And I'm the broad you chose?" Susan said. "How flattering."

"I was told the tape was hot," I said.

"Well, then of course you chose me. What is it?"

We were in my living room. Susan had a martini. I had scotch and soda. Pearl had her accustomed two-thirds of the couch, leaving Susan squeezed up against me on the other third. I didn't mind. The videotape was in the player. We were ready.

"I don't exactly know. I haven't seen it yet. But it might be evidence in the Ollie DeMars case."

"Which involves April," Susan said.

"That's the case," I said.

"Do you have any idea, yet, what's going on with her?"

"Other than that she is lying to me?" I said. "No."

"But you think this tape might be a clue?"

"This is one of six that are missing from Ollie DeMars's office after his death."

"Do you have the other five?"

"No."

"So maybe somebody took them?"

"Maybe."

"Well, maybe it is a clue," Susan said.

I picked up the remote.

"And maybe it isn't," I said. "We'll have to watch to find out."

"And it is, after all, hot," Susan said.

I clicked the remote. The tape started. There was no sound, no titles. The picture was in black-and-white and there was no camera movement. A man was having sex with a woman. It took me a minute.

"That's Amy," I said.

"Amy?"

"One of April's girls," I said. "She's a grad student."

Amy was agile and vigorous. The man was maybe fifty, pretty good shape.

"He's quite well endowed," Susan said at one point.

"It's just the camera angle," I said.

Susan smiled. "That aside," she said, "the camera work is not inventive."

I got it.

"It's fixed," I said. "Security camera. Ollie got hold of the security tapes from April's house."

"Security tapes, even in the bedrooms?"

"Apparently. "

"I'll bet the clients didn't know that," Susan said.

"I would guess not."

Several times during the action, Amy's partner was full face into the camera.

"I don't think that's an accident," I said.

"I'd say none of it is an accident," Susan said.

"No, I mean the full face to the camera. I think she maneuvered him into position."

"Blackmail?" Susan said.

"I don't think so," I said. "They start blackmailing clients, pretty soon they won't have any clients."

"What then?"

"Protection. If they have trouble with a client. They have leverage."

Susan nodded. Pearl in her languor had allowed her head to slip off the couch and it now hung almost to the floor. Her feet stuck up in the air as a sort of counterbalance, and her interest in the sex tape seemed minimal. We watched the rest of the tape. It featured Amy and several different men, each of whom was full face to the camera at least once during the proceedings. Finally, it simply ran out.

"You get any tips?" I said to Susan.

"Ick," she said.

"Is that a Jewish word for wow, what a hot tape?" I said.

"No."

"It is a sort of ungainly business, if you sit and watch it."

"It's a participant sport," Susan said. "This, at least, was not tiresomely gynecological."

"Nor particularly contemptuous of the participants," I said. "Most porn is humiliating."

"You don't enjoy it," Susan said.

"No, not much. If someone says, 'I have a nude picture of an attractive woman, wanna see?' I'll say sure. If he says, 'I've got a tape of sex-crazed bitches hungry for hot sex,' naw!"

"I like a man with standards," Susan said. "What do you make of the tape."

"I can see why they would have the security cameras. Even in a high-class house, you get some weird guys. And Ollie must have copped some of the tapes somehow, and probably was going to blackmail April, or the clients, or both."

"He'd have to know who the clients were," Susan said. "I assume he wouldn't recognize them on sight."

"Good point," I said. "Just the tapes, and their potential for damage, might have given him some bargaining edge with April for something."

Susan nodded. Pearl snored faintly.

"Goddamn," I said.

"Goddamn?"

"If there was trouble," I said, "and it showed up on the security monitor, who intervenes."

"Bouncer?"

"In more conventional blue-collar whoring, the pimp sort of serves that function," I said. "Or allows the girls to think he does."

"And here?"

"There is no bouncer."

"Shouldn't there be one?" Susan said.

"Normally, you don't want to have to call the cops in that kind of operation. Unless there's a special arrangement," I said, "a bouncer is cheaper and quicker, raises fewer questions."

"So there should be one."

"Yes, there should be one."

"Does April have a gun?" Susan said.

"She says so, but you don't want to be shooting people, even if you have the, ah, ovaries for it. A murder investigation is ruinous to whorehouses."

"Did she think you would be there to help?" Susan said.

"She was in business up here awhile," I said, "before she came to see me."

"So why is there a security system and no one to enforce it?" Susan said.

"I suppose, with these women, who have a sort of mainstream life when they're not working, that it might help keep them in line."

"Are you going to talk with April about this?" Susan said.

"Not yet," I said. "She's lied to me so much so far that I want to get as much data as I can before we talk."

Susan nodded.

"Why did Ollie take the tapes?" she said. "Did he have access to the names."

I shrugged.

"Do you think Ollie was killed to get these tapes back?"

"It's a question to explore," I said.

"I suppose it is far better than having no questions to explore," Susan said.