The McBain Brief (5 page)

            
34 THE LOFT—INT—NIGHT

            
The Girl is becoming acquainted with the Leading Man.

            
They do sexual intercourse together.

During all of these scenes, Ben, Solly, and I were sort of what you might call off-stage actors, or, since this was a movie we were making, I guess you would have called us off-
camera
actors. That is to say, we were in the script even during those first two weeks of shooting, but all you did was hear our voices. And though you never actually
saw
any of us, you knew there was a director there, and a cameraman, and a writer, which was the beauty part of the script, the play-within-a-play aspect. It wasn't until
after
those two weeks of shooting that any of us would appear on camera as real live actors, which was what the script called for because, you see, there was supposed to be intensely personal human relationships developed between the girl and the people making the movie—the movie itself was supposed to become an artistic microcosm of life itself, if you know what I mean. In other words, the girl was supposed to perform with her leading man only during the early parts of the movie, and then become gradually involved with the people working with her, and do on camera with them what she had earlier been doing with him, but more. I know that sounds complicated, but it was in Solly's script, and when we explained it to the girl, she said, “I don't understand. Does this mean I have to do this with Solly in front of the camera?”

“Not Solly
himself,
” I said. “The writer of the movie.”

“Solly
is
the writer of the movie,” she said.

“In real
life,
he's the writer of the movie,” I said. “But in the movie, he's only
pretending
to be the writer of the movie.”

“And we're supposed to do it here? In the loft?”

“Yes. The loft is where we're shooting the movie, and what happens is that during the coffee break, The Girl gets involved with The Writer, and this leads to a beautiful sex experience for both of them.”

“But Solly is
bald,
” she said.

“My dear,” I said, “you'd be surprised how many bald men go to see pornographic movies. There are at least millions and millions of them.”

“If we could afford an actor to play the part,” Solly said, “we'd hire him in a minute. But that would only cut into our profits.”

“I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, Solly,” the girl said. “It's just I have never balled a bald man in my life.”

“There is always a first time,” Solly said.

This was at one a.m. in the morning at the start of the third week's shooting. Ben had told the girl he needed to reload the camera, and he was in the bathroom now, with the light out. We had sent Harry home at midnight. He had gone reluctantly, it seemed to me, but I didn't yet suspect anything was developing between him and the girl. All I knew was that he had done his job very realistically during those first two weeks, and we were ready to phase him out since his services were not too strenuously required during the remaining eighteen weeks of shooting. In fact, as I explained to the girl, she was supposed to become more and more involved with the people making the film, and less and less involved with her leading man, until the very end of the picture when she got married.

“Married?” she said. “To who?”

“To Harry. We have a nice little scene where you get married at the end. But that's after you have sort of experienced all different kinds of sexual experience and gratification with the various men working on this film, which experience provides the bedrock of a good marital relationship later on.”

“You mean, sort of, I learn different things from them, and this prepares me for being like a good wife to Harry later on, is that it?”

“That's it
exactly,
” I said.

“That's beautiful,” she said, and she began to weep.

Ben came out of the bathroom, camera in hand. “All loaded,” he said, “and ready to shoot.” He looked at the girl. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Everything's fine,” I said. “Solly, are you ready?”

“Ready,” Solly said, and began taking off his clothes.

We worked very hard during those next few weeks, both on camera and off. Now that we were really
into
the movie, so
to speak, the hours got longer; we would start work at eight and sometimes not finish till three or four in the morning. You have to remember that we were all holding daytime jobs, and I mention this only to explain our dedication to the project. And besides, this was still costing each of us close to forty-two dollars a week because, since we were gentlemen, we agreed to continue paying Harry his twenty-five a week even though his services would not be required on the picture again till we came to the very end of it. We explained to the girl that the end might be some time away, since whereas she was doing an excellent job and we were all very pleased with her (including
Ben,
who had preferred a redhead for the part), we were nonetheless not getting
exactly
the kind of professional footage we wanted, and this might require shooting a great many scenes over again, maybe even three and four times. So this would probably take us past the twenty weeks we were hoping for.

The girl said this was okay with her, she was as interested in doing as artistic a job as the rest of us, but it would help if she understood a lot of the words in the script, like sometimes Solly's descriptions were very artistic but a little difficult to understand. We asked her to point out a specific instance in the script, and she said, “Well, like this one.”

            
174 THE LOFT—INT—NIGHT

            
The Girl is clad in leather straps.

            
She does fellatio on The Cameraman.

“I just don't know what he means by ‘clad in leather straps,'” the girl said.

“We'll show you the costume when we get to it,” I said.

“And also,” she said, “it would help if I could see some of the
scenes we already shot, so that I could know what I was doing right or doing wrong.”

“That's very bad for an actress,” I said. “It only makes her self-conscious. Just take our word that you look beautiful and entirely convincing. I think I can say, in fact, that even in those scenes where Solly or I were handling the camera while Ben was working with you, even
those
scenes came out beautiful.”

“Even the close-ups?”

“The close-ups are particularly beautiful.”

“Well, okay,” she said. “But this scene we're supposed to shoot tonight, the one where I'm supposed to be between you and Solly?”

“Between The Director and The Writer, you mean.”

“Yeah, you and Solly,” she said. “I want you to know that I can't even draw a straight
line
with my left hand. So I don't know how I'm supposed to do this both together. I might get mixed up.”

“Just do your best,” I said. “Believe me, you're everything we hoped for. You're making our dream come true.”

“Well, thanks,” she said, and lowered her eyes. “And I want
you
fellows to know something, too. And that is that I think you really are trying hard here not to make a cheap or dirty picture. I think it's marvellous the way you pay so much attention to detail and want to get things absolutely right. I really do hope we make lots of money on it, but that's not the important thing. The important thing is that I got a chance to work with professional people who really
care.
That, to me, is very very important, and I just wanted to thank you.”

And that was when Harry the dope stepped in and ruined the entire thing.

He called me
at Benjamin Brothers Apparel, and left a message that I was to return his call right away. When I got back off
the road, it must have been three or four o'clock in the afternoon. I called him up, and he said he wanted to meet me for a drink before we began shooting that night. I thought for a minute that maybe Ben had forgotten to send him his twenty-five dollar check, and I asked Harry if that was the problem, but he said, “No, no, I got the check, it's something else.” So I agreed to meet him at a bar near the loft, though to tell the truth I wasn't too anxious to talk to him. We were supposed to shoot a very delicate scene that night in which The Director and The Girl experiment with a great many interesting and artistic approaches to exploring personalities through sexual experience, and I wanted to prepare myself for it by taking a little nap before I reported for work.

Harry was already sitting at a table when I came in. I walked over, pulled out a chair and sat down. He stared at me for a long time, the dope.

“I can guess what the problem is,” I said. “You're wondering when you'll be back in the movie again. Well, I'm happy to tell you it's going along splendidly, and it'll seem like no time at all till we shoot that big wedding scene.”

I smiled at him. He was still staring at me.

“That's not what I want to talk about,” he said.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“There is no film in the camera,” he said.

“What?”

“There has
never
been any film in the camera.”

“That's ridiculous,” I said. “Who told you that?”

“I found out for myself.”

“How did you find out?” I said. “And besides, it's a lie.”

“It's not a lie,” Harry said. “Do you remember going out for
hamburgers last night at two in the morning? Do you remember that?”

“I remember it.”

“I sneaked into the loft.”

“You
didn't
sneak into the loft. We locked the door behind us.”

“I went up the fire escape and in through the window. There was no film in that camera.”

“That's because we were finished for the night. Ben had already unloaded.”

“You were not finished for the night. You came back to the loft at precisely three-ten a.m.”

“At which time Ben probably
re
loaded the camera.”

“There was no film any place in the loft. I looked all over the loft. There was no film. None. Now I understand why Ben always went into the bathroom to reload. You are
not
shooting a movie there,” Harry said.

“Of
course
we're shooting a movie.”

“You are paying a girl fifty dollars a week so that the three of you can indulge whatever bizarre sexual fantasies you have, sometimes seven and eight hours a night, every day of the week including Saturdays and Sundays.”

“We are doing nothing of the sort.”

“That's
just
what you're doing,” Harry said. “You are treating that girl like a common streetwalker, except that you'd have to pay a streetwalker more than you're paying her. It's obscene,” Harry said.

“Harry,” I said, “don't be a dope.”

“I am not a dope,” he said, “I happen to be a very highly regarded insurance adjuster. And anyway, I wanted to see you today only to tell you it's finished.”

“What's finished?”

“The picture's finished, the whole set-up is finished. I've already discussed it with her, and she's quitting. In fact, she's
already
quit.”

“You've discussed it with the girl?”

“I've been seeing her regularly. I've been seeing her every day. She told me what was going on, and that was when I got suspicious and decided to check up.”

“Harry,” I said, “don't be a dope. If that's what you suspect . . . if what you suspect is that the three of us figured out a scheme to get a little sexual pleasure at a minimal weekly cost . . . if that's what you suspect, which is a lie, we'll be happy to cut you in on the deal, we'll put you back in the picture starting tonight. I'll ask Solly to rewrite the script so that there's a great deal of action between The Girl and The Leading Man, we'll do that right away, if that's what you suspect, though of course it's a lie.”

“I love her,” Harry said.

“You what?”

“I love her. I've asked her to marry me.”

“Harry,” I said, “that's in the
movie!
”

“It's in real life, too,” he said. “She's going to marry me, we're leaving this city as soon as you and I are finished with our talk here. You just try to go anywhere near her, or telephone her, or
anything,
and I'll call the police. I'm sure what you did here was illegal. You signed a contract with her, and also with me, and we're supposed to get a percentage of the profits on this movie you were making without any goddamn
film
in the camera!”

“Harry,” I said, “you can't fault us for a small oversight like forgetting to put film in the camera.”

He hit me in the nose then, and broke it.

I will never forgive Harry. Never. I don't mean about the nose
because to tell the truth my nose was never such a prize to begin with, and besides, they taped it up nice, and the bones knitted, though a little crooked. I am talking about the way he ruined our dream. Solly tells me the best laid plans, and all that, but it doesn't make me feel any better. And Ben has been going around town telling anybody who'll listen that the idea was his to begin with, which it wasn't, and anyway that's not the point. The point is he's killing any chance we might possibly have of finding ourselves
another
girl, and making
her
a star, too, when if only he'd shut up . . .

Ah, what the hell.

That's show biz.

T
hey were telling the same tired jokes in the squadroom when Randolph came in with his prisoner.

Outside the grilled windows, October lay like a copper coin, and the sun struck only glancing blows at the pavement. The season had changed, but the jokes had not, and the climate inside the squadroom was one of stale cigarette smoke and male perspiration. For a tired moment, Randolph had the feeling that the room was suspended in time, unchanging, unmoving and that he would see the same faces and hear the same jokes until he was an old, old man.

He had led the girl up the precinct steps, past the hanging green globes, past the desk in the entrance corridor, nodding perfunctorily at the desk sergeant. He had walked beneath the white sign with its black-lettered DETECTIVE DIVISION and its pointing hand, and then had climbed the steps to the second floor of the building, never once looking back at the girl, knowing that in her terror and uncertainty she was following him. When he reached the slatted rail divider, which separated the corridor from the detective squadroom, he heard Burroughs telling his old joke,
and perhaps it was the joke which caused him to turn harshly to the girl.

“Sit down,” he said. “On that bench!”

The girl winced at the sound of his voice. She was a thin girl wearing a straight skirt and a faded green cardigan. Her hair was a bleached blonde, the roots growing in brown. She had wide blue eyes, and they served as the focal point of an otherwise uninteresting face. She had slashed lipstick across her mouth in a wide, garish red smear. She flinched when Randolph spoke, and then she backed away from him and went to sit on the wooden bench in the corridor, opposite the men's room.

Randolph glanced at her briefly, the way he would look at a bulletin board notice about the Policeman's Ball. Then he pushed through the rail divider and walked directly to Burroughs' desk.

“Any calls?” he asked.

“Oh, hi, Frank,” Burroughs said. “No calls. You're interrupting a joke.”

“I'm sure it's hilarious.”

“Well, I think it's pretty funny,” Burroughs said defensively.

“I thought it was pretty funny, too,” Randolph said, “for the first hundred times.”

He stood over Burroughs' desk, a tall man with close-cropped brown hair and lustreless brown eyes. His nose had been broken once in a street fight, and together with the hard, unyielding line of his mouth, it gave his face an over-all look of meanness. He knew he was intimidating Burroughs, but he didn't much give a damn. He almost wished that Burroughs would really take offense and come out of the chair fighting. There was nothing he'd have liked better than to knock Burroughs on his ass.

“You don't like the jokes, you don't have to listen,” Burroughs said, but his voice lacked conviction.

“Thank you. I won't.”

From a typewriter at the next desk Dave Fields looked up. Fields was a big cop with shrewd blue eyes and a friendly smile. The smile belied the fact that he could be the toughest cop in the precinct when he wanted to.

“What's eating you, Frank?” he asked, smiling.

“Nothing. What's eating you?”

Fields continued smiling. “You looking for a fight?” he asked.

Randolph studied him. He had seen Fields in action, and he was not particularly anxious to provoke him. He wanted to smile back and say something like, “Ah, the hell with it. I'm just down in the dumps”—anything to let Fields know he had no real quarrel with him. But something else inside him took over, something that had not been a part of him long ago.

He held Fields' eyes with his own. “Any time you're ready for one,” he said, and there was no smile on his mouth.

“He's got the crud,” Fields said. “Every month or so, the bulls in this precinct get the crud. It's from dealing with criminal types.”

He recognized Fields' maneuver and was grateful for it. Fields was smoothing it over. Fields didn't want trouble, and so he was joking his way out of it now, handling it as it should have been handled. But whereas he realized Fields was being the bigger of the two men, he was still immensely satisfied that he had not backed down. Yet his satisfaction rankled.

“I'll give you some advice,” Fields said. “You want some advice, Frank? Free?”

“Go ahead,” Randolph said.

“Don't let it get you. The trouble with being a cop in a precinct
like this one is that you begin to imagine everybody in the world is crooked. That just ain't so.”

“No, huh?”

“Believe me, Frank, it ain't.”

“Thanks,” Randolph said. “I've been a cop in this precinct for eight years now. I don't need advice on how to be a cop in this precinct.”

“I'm not giving you that kind of advice. I'm telling you how to be a
man
when you leave this precinct.”

For a moment, Randolph was silent. Then he said, “I haven't had any complaints.”

“Frank,” Fields said softly, “your best friends won't tell you.”

“Then they're not my best . . .”

“All right, get in there!” a voice in the corridor shouted.

Randolph turned. He saw Boglio first, and then he saw the man with Boglio. The man was small and thin with a narrow moustache. He had brown eyes and lank brown hair, and he wet his moustache nervously with his tongue.

“Over there!” Boglio shouted. “Against the wall!”

“What've you got, Rudy?” Randolph asked.

“I got a punk,” Boglio said. He turned to the man and bellowed, “You hear me? Get the hell over against that wall!”

“What'd he do?” Fields asked.

Boglio didn't answer. He shoved out at the man, slamming him against the wall alongside the filing cabinets. “What's your name?” he shouted.

“Arthur,” the man said.

“Arthur
what?
”

“Arthur Semmers.”

“You drunk, Semmers?”

“No.”

“Are you high?”

“What?”

“Are you on junk?”

“What's—I don't understand what you mean.”

“Narcotics. Answer me, Semmers.”

“Narcotics? Me? No, I ain't never touched it, I swear.”

“I'm gonna ask you some questions, Semmers,” Boglio said. “You want to get this, Frank?”

“I've got a prisoner outside,” Randolph said.

“The little girl on the bench?” Boglio asked. His eyes locked with Randolph's for a moment. “That can wait. This is business.”

“Okay,” Randolph said. He took a pad from his back pocket and sat in a straight-backed chair near where Semmers stood crouched against the wall.

“Name's Arthur Semmers,” Boglio said. “You got that, Frank?”

“Spell it,” Randolph said.

“S-E-M-M-E-R-S,” Semmers said.

“How old are you, Semmers?” Boglio asked.

“Thirty-one.”

“Born in this country?”

“Sure. Hey, what do you take me for, a greenhorn? Sure, I was born right here.”

“Where do you live?”

“Eighteen-twelve South Fourth.”

“You getting this, Frank?”

“I'm getting it,” Randolph said.

“All right, Semmers, tell me about it.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I want to know why you cut up that kid.”

“I didn't cut up nobody.”

“Semmers, let's get something straight. You're in a squad room now, you dig me? You ain't out in the street where we play the game by your rules. This is
my
ball park, Semmers. You don't play the game my way, and you're gonna wind up with the bat rammed down your throat.”

“I still didn't cut up nobody.”

“Okay, Semmers,” Boglio said. “Let's start it this way. Were you on Ashley Avenue, or weren't you?”

“Sure, I was. There's a law against being on Ashley Avenue?”

“Were you in an alleyway near number four sixty-seven Ashley?”

“Yeah.”

“Semmers, there was a sixteen-year-old kid in that alleyway, too. He was stabbed four times, and we already took him to the hospital, and that kid's liable to die. You know what homicide is, Semmers?”

“That's when somebody gets killed.”

“You know what Homicide cops are like?”

“No. What?”

“You'd be laying on the floor almost dead by now if you was up at Homicide. Just thank God you're here, Semmers, and don't try my patience.”

“I never seen no kid in the alley. I never cut up nobody.”

Without warning, Boglio drew back his fist and smashed it into Semmers' face. Semmers lurched back against the wall, bounced off it like a handball, and then clasped his shattered lip with his hand.

“Why'd you—”

“Shut up!” Boglio yelled.

From where he sat, Randolph could see the blood spurting from Semmers' mouth. Dispassionately, he watched.

“Tell me about the kid,” Boglio said.

“There ain't nothing to—”

Again, Boglio hit him, harder this time.

“Tell me about the kid,” he repeated.

“I—”

The fist lashed out again. Randolph watched.

“You going to need me any more?” he asked Boglio.

“No,” Boglio said, drawing back his fist.

From across the room, Fields said, “For Christ's sake, lay off, Rudy. You want to kill the poor bastard?”

“I don't like punks,” Boglio said. He turned again to the bloody figure against the wall.

Randolph rose, ripped the pages of notes from the black book, and put them on Boglio's desk. He was going through the gate in the railing when Fields stopped him.

“How does it feel?” Fields asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Being an accomplice.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Randolph said.

“Don't you?”

“No.”

“You beginning to think the way Boglio does? About punks, I mean?”

“My thoughts are my business, Dave,” Randolph said. “Keep out of them.”

“Boglio's thoughts are his business, too.”

“He's questioning a punk who knifed somebody. What the hell do you want him to do?”

“He's questioning a human being who maybe did and maybe didn't knife somebody.”

“What's the matter, Dave? You in love with this precinct?”

“I think it stinks,” Fields said. “I think it's a big, stinking prison.”

“All right. So do I.”

“But for Christ's sake, Frank, learn who the prisoners are! Don't become—”

“I can take care of myself,” Randolph said.

Fields sighed. “What are your plans for the little girl outside?”

“She's trash,” Randolph said.

“So?”

“So what do you want? Go back to the D.D. report you were typing, Dave. I'll handle my own prisoners.”

“Sure,” Fields said, and turned and walked to his desk.

Randolph watched his retreating back. Casually, he lighted a cigarette and then walked out into the corridor. The girl looked up as he approached. Her eyes looked very blue in the dimness of the corridor. Very blue and very frightened.

“What's your name?” Randolph asked.

“Betty,” the girl said.

“You're in trouble, Betty,” Randolph said flatly.

“I . . . I know.”

“How old are you, Betty?”

“Twenty-four.”

“You look younger.”

The girl hesitated. “That's . . . that's because I'm so skinny,” she said.

“You're not that skinny,” Randolph said harshly. “Don't play the poor little slum kid with me.”

“I wasn't playing anything,” Betty said. “I
am
skinny. I know I am. It's nothing to be ashamed of.”

Her voice was very soft, the voice of a young girl, a frightened young girl. He looked at her, and he told himself,
She's a tramp,
and his mind clicked shut like a trap.

“Lots of girls are skinny,” Betty said. “I know lots of girls who—”

“Let's lay off the skinny routine,” Randolph said drily. “We already made that point.” He paused. “You're twenty-four, huh?”

“Yes.” She nodded and a quiet smile formed on her painted mouth. “How old are you?”

“I'm thirty-two,” Randolph said before he could catch himself, and then he dropped his cigarette angrily to the floor and stepped on it. “You mind if I ask the questions?”

“I was only curious. You seem . . . never mind.”

“What do I seem?”

“Nothing.”

“All right, let's get down to business. How long have you been a hooker?”

The girl looked at him blankly. “What?”

“Don't you hear good?”

“Yes, but what does hooker mean?”

Randolph sighed heavily. “Honey,” he said, “the sooner we drop the wide-eyed innocence, the better off we'll both be.”

“But I don't—”

“A hooker is a prostitute!” Randolph said, his voice rising. “Now come off it!”

“Oh,” the girl said.

“Oh,” Randolph repeated sarcastically. “Now how long?”

“This . . . this was my first time.”

“Sure.”

“Really,” she said eagerly. “I'd . . . I'd never gone out looking for . . . for men before. This was my first time.”

“And you picked me, huh?” Randolph asked, unbelievingly. “Well, honey, you picked the wrong man for your first one.”

“I didn't know you were a cop.”

“Now you know.”

“Yes. Now I know.”

“And you also know you're in pretty big trouble.”

“Yes,” the girl said.

“Good,” Randolph answered, grinning.

Actually, the girl wasn't in as much trouble as she imagined herself to be—and Randolph knew it. She had indeed stopped him on the street and asked, “Want some fun, mister?” and Randolph had immediately put the collar on her. But in the city for which Randolph worked, it would have been next to impossible to make a prostitution charge stick. Randolph conceivably had a Dis Cond case, but disorderly conduct was a dime-a-dozen misdemeanor and was hardly worth bothering with in a precinct where felonies ran wild. So Randolph knew all this, and he had known it when he collared the girl, and he sat now with a grin on his face and watched her, pleased by her troubled expression, pleased with the way her hands fluttered aimlessly in her lap.