Читать книгу Blood Count - Jack Batten - Страница 11

The busty young woman was swathed in gauze.

“No civilians are supposed to come back here,” she said to Annie and me, flat-voiced.

We were in the corridor behind the Eroticarama’s stage. It had a linoleum floor and pink lighting.

“On business,” I said. “Bart’s expecting us.”

The young woman shrugged. She was chewing gum.

“Which is his dressing room?” I asked.

“With the star back there.”

“You the next attraction out front?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Kind of a dance of the seven veils? That your specialty?”

“Four.” The young woman tightened the gauze across her bosom. “Four veils come off and I’m bare-assed.”

“Right.”

“Which is the point of what they want out there.”

“Bare, ah, assed?”

“Yeah.” The young woman parked the gum behind her ear and walked toward the stage. Her walk had a roll to it, as if she was getting herself into an Arabian Nights mode.

“Bare-assed,” I said to Annie.

“Not exactly the style Salome had in mind.”

The door with the star was on the right at the end of the corridor. Under the star, which was silver and frayed around the edges, someone had taped a piece of plain notepaper that had “Bart the Bulge” hand-printed in block letters.

I raised my arm to knock on the door. Annie wrapped her hand around my fist. “Wait,” she said.

“But I’m geared to strike.”

“Just go where I lead.” Annie’s voice sounded firm. “I think I got an inspiration for how to do this.”

She gave the door four sharp raps.

It opened about a quarter of the way. The skinny kid who’d picked up after Bart on stage was holding the knob on the other side. Up close, he had a case of acne that might have been terminal.

“Hi, I’m Annie B. Cooke, channel eleven television.” Annie spoke in a no-nonsense tone. “We’re researching an in-depth item on adult films. Would Bart be available for preliminary discussions?”

Someone called from inside the room. “Let her in.”

The kid swung the door wide. Inside, the dressing room had cramped dimensions and smelled like a cross between a Gold’s Gym and the men’s cologne counter at Holt Renfrew.

Bart was sitting at a chair in front of a table and mirror against one wall. He was still wrapped in the cloak, and he’d been wiping the silver glitter off his cheeks and eyelids. Without the stage face, the strut and poses, he looked younger, vulnerable almost.

“You’re from TV?” he asked Annie. It had been his voice, an easy tenor, that ordered the opening of the door.

“Annie B. Cooke, and this is my associate, Mr. Crang.”

“I knew it hadda happen, TV come to me,” Bart said. “Can’t pass up a star, what the hell.”

There was a third man in Bart’s entourage. He was probably in his early thirties and definitely weighed in the mid two hundreds. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt in reds and yellows, and he looked like he hadn’t smiled in a decade.

“Yes,” Annie said, “I’m keen on exploring the mystique of adult films.”

Bart grinned. “Annie you said your name is? Okay, Annie, I don’t do adult. I do porno, and I do it good, and I got a lotta people, my audience, who take it serious.”

“Well, yes, point well made. I agree the form has been with us long enough to claim a status as a semi-legitimate art.”

“Since the beginning of movies practically,” Bart said, nodding. “You’ve done, what, some research already?”

“Certainly enough to be aware of your position in the field.”

“Hey, all right.” Bart looked to the large guy, who offered no response I could detect.

Annie and I remained standing. Mainly it was a matter of the three chairs. Bart occupied one. The big guy sat in another, tipped on its back legs against the wall. And Bart’s costume was stacked on the third, the silver shirt and pants, silver vest, the silver-striped briefs. The briefs rested on top, soiled and soggy.

“Listen to this,” Bart said to Annie, “I made a hundred and forty-two movies already, two in one week, scripts, lighting, the whole deal.”

“Remarkable.”

“All porno, a hundred and forty-two of the mothers.”

I spoke up. “Sounds like you’re going for some kind of record.”

“John Holmes, man. He made two thousand two hundred seventy-four. It’s a known fact. Two thousand, two hundred and seventy-four porno flicks. Holmes had the busiest penis of all-time in the industry.”

I glanced at Annie. She made an affirmative nod.

“Am I right or what?” Bart said to Annie. “You’re supposed to be the big expert.”

“I don’t know precise numbers, like the figure you mentioned, but, yes, Holmes established the most prolific career I’m aware of in pornographic film.”

“What’d I tell you?” Bart said to me.

“Holmes had sex with all the leading ladies,” Annie said. “On screen I’m referring to. Marilyn Chambers, Seka, and the woman who got elected to the Italian Parliament, Cicciolina’s her name. All of them. Maybe not Linda Lovelace.”

“Guy was amazing.” Bart was practically licking his lips. “Too bad he didn’t know about taking care of business, his money, and his health, you know. And he shoulda gone for the big crossover picture. Get X rating plus box office.”

“Came to a sad end, true enough,” Annie said.

“Know what Holmes used to say about his penis?” Bart asked the room. “Bigger than a pay phone, smaller than a Cadillac.”

The skinny kid, hovering behind Bart, made a cackling sound. He seemed to be Bart’s designated laugher. No reaction came from the large guy.

“What’s this about Holmes’s sad end?” I asked.

“John Holmes died two or three years ago,” Annie said. “Of AIDS.”

“Guy was careless,” Bart said.

“AIDS?” I repeated.

“So,” Bart said, addressing himself to Annie, “you want a feature on me, that the plan?”

“Just a sec, Bart,” I butted in. “AIDS. Reminds me of a nice man died the other day of the same thing. Ian Argyll? You ever run across him? Could’ve been at the Purple Zinnia? Bar downstairs?”

The large guy’s chair hit the floor hard on the front legs. The skinny kid’s head swivelled around to me. His face had a stricken expression. Annie didn’t look too happy, either. If I judged the room’s mood correctly, I had rushed too precipitately into the main issue.

“What’s happening here?” The easy sound had left Bart’s tenor.

“You knew Ian Argyll?” I said.

“Where you coming from, Jack?” Bart was definitely upset. “You and the broad?”

I hesitated, searching for an answer to calm the room’s mood. The hesitation was an error in tactics. Bart motioned the big guy out of his chair. Standing up, the guy was tall as well as wide, about six foot four. He gripped my arms close to the shoulders in his two hands and slammed me against the door. My shoes were a foot off the ground.

The big guy’s voice was a rumble. “Go ahead, answer the man.”

Something like a gasp came out of my mouth. The posture the big guy had me in, pinned to the door a foot above the floor, made my shirt ride up my neck. It was cutting off my air intake.

“You want me to tell Axe there to hammer you?” Bart was barking at me from across the room. “How come you’re asking I know the Argyll guy?”

“Hey, your turn, talk.” The big guy, Axe, sprayed me with spittle. “Don’t matter to me, asshole, I have to hammer you.”

I got out another gasp.

Axe shook me. Over his shoulder, I glimpsed Annie in motion. She flitted out of my line of vision. Almost immediately, she was back in sight. Her hand was outstretched, and she held something in it.

“I hammer a guy,” Axe spit at me, “guy stays ham —”

He didn’t finish his threat. Annie’s hand came around in front of Axe’s face. She jammed whatever she’d been holding into the guy’s open mouth. He let go of my arms. I clunked to the floor. Axe was gagging, and his hands clawed at the object in his mouth.

“Honey,” Annie shouted, “open the door.”

I did what I was told and at the same time reached for Annie’s hand. We turned right. It was only a couple of yards to the fire exit at the end of the corridor. We covered the distance, hand in hand, banged on the metal crossbar and hit the outside air at good speed.

We were in an unpaved alley. It was the width of two cars and gritty underfoot. We lit out to the right, south toward Charles Street, weaving past a pair of parked cars.

I risked a glance to the rear.

“Nobody in hot pursuit.” The words came out between puffs.

“Heck with that,” Annie puffed back.

“Not even cold pursuit.”

“Just run.”

We ran across Charles, down the centre of a city parking lot, left at Isabella.

I checked behind us again.

“Nobody,” I huffed.

“Not Axe?”

“’Specially not him.”

“Okay.”

We stopped and did some deep bending from the waist and other cooling-down stuff.

“Bart got a trifle testy when I brought up Ian’s name,” I said after a minute or two.

“Might have been the subtle way you slid into the topic.”

“You think I was too direct?”

“Never mind, fella.” Annie patted me on the back. “You showed there’s a connection between Bart and Ian, and Bart’d prefer to keep it under wraps.”

“About all he’s keeping under wraps.”

We climbed into the Volks.

“A drink?” Annie said. “At my place? Calm the nerves?”

“I agree to the three of those.”

I pointed the car toward Cabbagetown.

“Loved the way you neutralized Axe,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“What’d you stick in his mouth? The thing that got him choking?”

“I thought that was a clever bit of improvisation.”

“Me, too, but what was the thing?”

“Give you a hint.”

“Yeah?”

“It had silver stripes.”