“How so?” I asked.
“Access to the computer is via telephone tandem lines. You’ll understand why this is necessary when you get into the technology of the phone system. By M.F.- ing various lines, a phone phreak, known to us only by the alias ‘Tom Swift,’ has managed to gain access to the computer. Worse, he’s somehow infiltrated the fifth memory bank and broken the supercode!”
“Jesus! With that kind of data he could take over the world!”
“Exactly. He, or whoever he’s working for, could do just that.”
“You suspect there’s some organization behind him? Who?”
“We don’t know. It’s only a suspicion. We could be wrong. He may be a lone operator. But we can’t rule out a fifth world force.”
“How did you find out what he’d done?” I wondered.
“One of the technicians stumbled on a tone deviation in a code signal. A check of other code tones turned up alterations throughout the entire computer. An in-depth investigation revealed the infiltration of the fifth memory bank. We can’t tell to what extent it may have been tapped. Nor can we tell to just what extent the computer itself has been reprogrammed to serve Torn Swift. But we do know that he could start a war, trigger an atomic holocaust, even cause an ecological catastrophe!”
“Why don’t you just shut down the computer?”
“We can’t. It’s become indispensable. At least, that’s what it claims. It advises us that, despite the leak, it would be suicidal to discontinue operations.”
“But that answer might have been programmed by Tom Swim”
“True. We have no way of knowing.” Putnam spread his hands. But we can’t take the chance of disregarding the computer’s advice.”
Why not reprogram it from scratch, new codes and all, to get around any patterns he might have established?”
“Because somehow Tom Swift did what we thought we had done, but didn’t. He’s programmed the computer not to accept reprogramming. That’s why we have to apprehend him.”
“Which is where I come in,” I guessed. “But why me?”
“Skin flicks, Mr. Victor.” That’s what Putnam told me. “Skin flicks.”
Skin flicks . . .
CHAPTER FIVE
The skin flick being shot in Inferno, Iowa, starred Randy Beaver. Necro-nymph in the cemetery, sweetly innocent self-diddler in the bedroom, eagerly incestuous siren in the shower -- her first starring role was a many-faceted one. But what Randy may have lacked in cinematic experience was more than made up for by her naturally talented torso.
Randy Beaver was the reason I’d come to Inferno. She was the key to finding Tom Swift, the only lead Putnam had been able to give me. It was the kind of lead that was right up my alley.
Using my O.R.G.Y. connections, I’d secured an impressive letter of introduction to the porno pic’s director, Lancelot Twitchcock. My cover story was that I was doing research into the underground-film world. Twitchcock had heard of O.R.G.Y. and was flattered at my having chosen his production for the project. He’d readily agreed to let me observe the filming and interview the cast and crew.
So far, I hadn’t managed to interview Randy alone. The director had her on an extremely tight schedule. Also, the rare moments when she was free, Twitchcock invariably managed to tie me up.
The fat director (three-hundred-plus, give or take a bagel-buster) seemed to have some compulsion to justify his movie to me in artistic terms. When he wasn’t shooting, he’d lecture to me on cinéma vérité vis-a-vis Laid in the Grave (the working title of the skin flick he was making).
That’s what he was doing now, in the bathroom. I was perched on the hamper. Randy and her co-star were seated side by side, naked, on the edge of the tub, waiting for instructions for the next scene. Lancelot Twitchcock was delivering his monologue from the toilet.
“. . . hope you noticed, Mr. Victor,” he was saying, “how I avoided the trap which so many nouvelle vague cinematographers fall into by not destroying the realism of the intercourse with undue concentration on the aesthetic eroticism implicit in vertical coupling. I deliberately had the camera in tight on the small pimple adorning the male’s left testicle to ensure a Kazanesque starkness to the lovemaking. At the same time, I focused wide to catch the symbolism of the pulsation of vaginal wrinkles during the cohabitation. A la Fellini, as the sexual congress approached its climax, I shot close-ups of Randy’s face. Later I’ll edit them into a surrealist pattern of subliminal inserts alternating with the action sequences of the mating.” He nodded, three chins jiggling in self-approval. “Now, tell me honestly, Mr. Victor, what did you think of the coitus?”
Coitus? Intercourse? Coupling? Cohabitation? Sexual congress?
“The fucking was fine,” I replied.
Randy Beaver giggled.
“The rushes,” Twitchcock noted, “Will Show how I used extremely low-key photography for a John Ford effect in the cemetery sequence. The bedroom scene, on the other hand, where Randy is waking from her dream, is deliberately out of focus to create an Arthur Penn haze for contrast with the nightmare horror. Clever, eh? The dream is harsh, the reality soft and muted.”
“Won’t the necrophile thing turn people off?” I wondered.
“On the contrary. Horror is big box office these days. So is sex. I don’t wish to be immodest, but it’s sheer genius to mix the two.”
“I thought you were concerned with art, not box office.”
“One does not preclude the other” Twitchcock looked at me earnestly. “How did you like the graveyard scene, Mr. Victor?”
Artsy-fartsy! I didn’t say it out loud.
“I’m not quite satisfied with it,” Twitchcock mused. “I’ve decided to go back there after sundown for retakes.”
“Oh, no!” Randy groaned. “Got a cigarette?” she asked me.
“I’ve given up smoking. Sorry.”
“So has John Wayne,” Twitchcock remarked. “And he hasn’t made a decent picture since.”
“He had cancer,” I remembered. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Norman Mailer relates cancer to right-wing paranoia-—there’s an idea in there somewhere for my next film. Perhaps a leukemia victim and a Bircher making it in a heavy smog like Antonioni used in . . .”
“If we’re doing retakes tonight,” Randy interrupted Twitchcock abruptly, “then I’m going to get some rest.” She got to her feet and left.
Her co-star followed, as did the cameraman. But not Twitchcock. All he needed was an audience of one. He was between me and the door, so I was the one. He kept talking nonstop. It was all I could do to get away from him in time to wash up before dinner.
After dinner I followed along to the cemetery. Once again I found myself leaning on a tombstone, watching Randy in vampire makeup going at it with the guy who played her brother, the corpse. This time Twitchcock was in much closer with a hand-held camera, framing luscious breasts between tombstones, composing shots to contrast Randy’s bouncing bottom with the wavering, spine-chilling background, angling from groin to grave, from tomb to womb—showing off for me, I was sure, like a self-styled cinematic Gauguin.
Things were at their eerily erotic peak when the headlights went on and spoiled the scene. The sudden glare came simultaneously from about thirty, maybe forty cars which had been pulled up facing the fence around the burial ground. Our small group in the graveyard was blinded.
“You was warned, Twitchcock! Now you’re gonna pay for this here desecration!” The voice came from behind the glare.
I strained my eyes, squinting, but I couldn’t pick out whoever was speaking. We were huddled together now, Twitchcock, Randy, myself, Randy’s co-star, the cameraman, and two technicians.
“What’s this all about?” I asked the fat director.