TWENTY-THREE
By the time Louie Sinreich arrived at the bungalow off Franklin, the firemen had extinguished the living room blaze. The producer responded to the LAFD inspector's queries by saying that the place hadn't been rented for months and suggested that squatters had started a fire with the videos for warmth. The fire inspector doubted the pock-marked man was telling the truth. 911 had received thirteen calls from this address from its well-known inhabitant over the last six months, yet he wrote up the homeowner's explanation, because the place being uninsured against fire ruled out arson and the only real damage was to the living room and several hundred porno tapes.
Once the firemen and police left, Louie tallied his losses at around $30,000, mostly due to the LAFD's going nuts with water or the axes. He had bought the house cheap from an actor down on his luck, so he was still ahead of the game, but what hurt most was that Louie had picked Che Chasta up when she was down, He had made her a star again, had her a felony charge dropped, and she had repaid him by stealing the master cassettes from her Golden Classic's series, which were worth millions over the long run. He slammed his fist into the wall of her undamaged bedroom.
"You fuckin' bitch."
The restraints were attached to the bedposts. Someone had to have freed her. Louie went to the video camera. The tape was still inside. It had to hold the identity of this meddler. Before he could review the action, the contractors arrived to begin the initial repairs to the bungalow. They haggled with the price for an hour and then Louie drove to the Encino Hills, his horn warning other motorists to stay out of his way the next couple of days.
The night was well into its first hour by the time he arrived at his house. Louie stripped off his smoke-tainted clothing in the hallway. Wrapping a towel around nhis waist he walked into the kitchen. His bodyguard was stuffing a huge roast beef sandwich into his mouth. He had had a better day than Louie.
"What you looking at?” Louie demanded, wanting to take out his anger of anyone.
"Nothing." Jimmo wished the producer had shown up a few minutes later, so he could have finished his meal in peace. "How bad was it?"
"Bad." Louie paced back and forth across the spotless tiled floor, until the rage subsided to a less-than-homicidal level. "How are our guests?"
"The guy downstairs is out like you left him. I dropped his car back at the rental office. No one saw me come or go."
"Good." At least Louie could count on Jimmo. "What about the girl?"
"She came over about a half-hour ago and I sent her into the bedroom." Jimmo figured the skinny girl to be another prospect for Louie's stable of starlets. "No phone calls either."
"Finally some good news.” Louie could do without another crisis today and told his bodyguard, "You can go home now. I'll see you tomorrow."
"If you need me, just call," Jimmo offered, wrapping up his sandwich.
"I think I can deal with the upstairs guest by myself."
Once Jimmo drove away, Louie opened the basement door. A shaft of light from the kitchen fell on Driscoll's motionless body. Louie climbed down the steep stairs and crossed the cement floor to a medicine bag, from which he took out a syringe to load with 5cc of Morphine and 3cc of Dirsed. He tapped the glass cylinder to dislodge any air bubbles and Driscoll sat up and flicking a finger at the inside of his elbow, so a bruised vein swelled with anticipation of a shot.
"Nice outfit."
"I was wet."
"Is it raining outside?"
"Do you care?"
"No, I don't care about nothing."
"You really like this shit?" Louie wasn't into any drugs other than speed.
"I like it and you know what I even like being here. Chained to the wall like Popeye Doyle in THE FRENCH CONNECTION. You know where the big French dealer locks him in a room and gets him addicted."
"All I can remember is the car chase."
"No one can drive like that under the El, but, if I were Popeye, I would have never escape from the drug den." Driscoll half-heartedly tugged at the chain on the wall. "Not from paradise."
"This isn't a permanent situation.” Louie wasn't going to support a junkie cop in his basement for the rest of his life.
"You could always let me go."
Louie had seen too many dogs turn on their master to take such a risk. "I think we'll wait for your partner."
"Good by me.” He squeezed his hand to pump more blood into the vein. "You know you're like a candy-striper with that needle."
"You think you can do better?” Even chained and drugged Driscoll was dangerous, so Louie slid the syringe across the floor. "Have yourself a party."
"You got it." Driscoll shimmeyed the needle into a swollen vein. A red anemone of blood flowered within the glass cylinder, then the ex-cop depressed the plunger to force the narcotic combo into his arm. The drugs hit quick, allowing Driscoll only several seconds to boot the needle several times before he collapsed onto the bed.
"Fucking junkie.” Louie swore, because this was getting expensive and, climbing the stairs, he told himself, "Nobody knows how hard I work."
All those fans at the convention had said how much they would like to have a job, where your day consisted of playing with starlets and shooting films of people having sex. No one outside the industry could fathom the lengths to which he had to go to correct mess-ups like today's fire or his guest in the cellar. It was better that way, if only to protect the guilty, but just once he would like them to spend a day in his shoes and say, "Louie, you're doing a great job."
Today wasn't that once and Louie locked the basement door. He sat at the kitchen table and huffed out two small lines of Speed to take the edge of his fatigue. The sting was worse than ever and he reached inside the refrigerator for a bottle of Viagra. After popping two 100mg Blue Boys, he strode to the bedroom, where a naked female with coal-black hair was watching a lesbian scene between Lena de Gama and Big Josie Cane on the 32"TV. Hearing the man behind her, Alice Bebadd clumsily pushed back the black hair of the wig.
"Sorry, I couldn't wait."
"You like this video?” In the TV's flickering blue light the disguised redhead's body could pass for Lena de Gama, though only just, which was enough for Louie in his state.
"Very much. I'd like to meet her. I mean, she's really hot.” Alice moved over for Louie to sit on the bed.
"If you're lucky, I can get you to do a film with her. She likes girls. Likes them a lot.” Louie caressed her thigh with a disinterested hand and said, "For now you'll have to be satisfied with being in a private film with me. Sort of your debut in the movie business."
"I can deal with that.” Alice spread her legs to show she had shaved off her pubic hair. "I did like you told me."
Louie hated the little vertical mustaches most porno actresses left above their vagina and nodded with approval at the bare crotch. "I hope it feels good."
"No one's complained yet." Alice's liking sex might be wrong, but if everyone else could have a vice, then she could too.
"We'll see, if you can keep your streak going.” Louie went over to the VCR and replaced the Lena de Gama tape with the cassette from Che's bungalow. Alice had not seen any bondage movies, she had expected more action from one and asked, "Is this a S&M film?"
"No, this is a special order from a Japanese client who wants to see a blonde tied up and unconscious."
"Why?"
"Why's a mystery to me, but if someone wants, I give. That's show biz."
"And she's acting?” Alice touched the producer's body, which was as defined as men in underwear commercials with those hard muscles. Louie's face wasn't too good, but she would do anything to assure her getting ahead in this business, although she really didn't have an idea what 'anything' meant yet.
"None better." Louie hit the VCR remote's FF and Alice slid across the mattress to watch the blurred sped-up images of Che's futile exertions against her cuffs. "She's not going to get free, is she?"
"She shouldn't." Louie recalled strapping the cuffs tight, but Che withdrew one hand.
As she reached for the telephone, Louie slowed the video to more closely observe the numbers she was pressing, but could only see that it was a Valley number. When she dropped the receiver on the floor, Louie fast-forwarded the video, until a blonde man entered the room and shut off the camera.
"He's pretty beat up to be an actor," Alice commented, thinking that the blonde man too old for her. Even Louie was old. She thought he might even be 40.
"Once more that's what the client wanted." Louie stopped on the one clear image of this unknown man, who fit Che's description of the battered stranger from the highway. Maybe Che was gone for good, but Louie would bet the rest of his burnt house on this man being with Lena de Gama, for nobody in their right mind would run out of her. Twice this man had interfered with his plans and Louie suspected that he had not seen the last of him, though there was nothing he could about that for the present, especially since the Viagra was coming on strong.
"So you think you're ready for the big time?” Louie shut off the TV.
"I guess so.” Alice lay back on the bed.
"There's only one way to find out.” Louie knelt between Alice's pasty white thighs, for he had come to grips with losing Che's masters and the burnt house. As long as he could get control of the two computer geeks' SINSEX system, his plans for dominating the porno industry were still on track. As for the man, there was nothing he could do about him right now, but once he got his hands on him, then it would be a different story and not one with a happy ending.
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