"You could call it interesting. I'd call it helpful."
He rolled his stool toward the computer screen. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some editing to do before my next appointment."
Jack watched him for another moment, but he decided not to push it. Not yet, anyway. "We're going to find out who raped Theo's mother," said Jack, as he opened the door. "With or without you."
He left and closed the door, leaving Gilford alone in his editing room.
Chapter 41
Five minutes after Jack left: to meet with Lance Gilford, Theo was on his way to Miami Beach.
South Beach was home to what Theo called the succtiful crowd – not merely successful people who happened to be beautiful, but people who found success precisely because they were beautiful. They were everywhere. At any time of day or night, it was impossible to cruise Ocean Drive and Washington Avenue and not see a top model posing for a fashion shoot, a film crew shooting a commercial or telenovela, choreographers whipping dancers into sync for the making of a music video. They worked the lobbies of famous art deco hotels, on busy street corners, and at popular cafes. It could be in English, Spanish, or Portuguese. They came in all races, men or women, their ages ranging from young to younger. Sex selling everything from Gucci to the Gap, rap to reggae, bling to Carrier. Beautiful meant success, and success was beautiful. Succtiful.
"Theo, how you doin', bro?"
Theo hadn't seen Mel Booker in at least a year, right after a failed attempt at rehab. His mood was never predictable, and it was a relief to get the happy "How you doin', bro," coupled with a big hug.
"I'm good," said Theo. "You all cleaned up, finally?"
"Going on eight months now. Nothin' harder than O'Douls. That's why you ain't seen me around Sparky's."
"That's cool. I'm proud of you, man."
Booker worked in a world where sex didn't just sell the product. It was the product. He leased a film studio behind an old art deco apartment building on Washington Avenue. It faced the Dumpsters and the rear parking lot, but the windows were boarded over, so it didn't matter. The lighting inside was entirely artificial, mostly from spotlights so bright that Theo left his sunglasses on. He and Booker were standing behind a seven-foot-high divider that cut across the studio. From the working side, Theo could hear the telltale moans and groans of the film stars – Booker's hookers, as they were known in the industry.
"What you got going on?" said Theo.
"Two chicks, one dude. Typical male fantasy shit. Want to watch?"
"Ouch. Quit twisting my arm."
Booker smiled. "Come on."
Theo followed him around the divider to the working side of the studio. Two fixed cameras were in place, plus one guy walking around with a handheld in order to ensure a tight close-up of two beautiful young women getting way too excited over Zeus's big moment. There was something very robotic about porn in progress, with the director barking instructions, the actors responding to his commands, the cameramen struggling for the ideal angle. It certainly wasn't painful viewing, but on some level Theo thought it should be up there with laws and sausages on the list of things not to watch being made.
Booker lit a cigarette. "This is gonna be a great flick."
"Gee, wonder how it ends," said Theo.
They could talk freely, since all the sound would be dubbed in later. Booker said, "Makes me rich. That's how they all end. At least until they ban porn on the Internet, which will never happen."
"If it does, invest every penny in Bring-Back-Porn-dot-com. It'll be the hottest site in cyberspace. What do you pay these people anyway?"
Booker took a long drag, exhaling as he spoke. "Amber's expensive. Twenty grand. But she'll bend over backward – literally – if I ask her to. Rosa gets about half that."
Theo glanced toward the happy guy in the middle. "What about him?"
"Five hundred bucks. And a free blood test."
The director rose from his chair and shouted "Cut!"
Booker said, "You want to meet the girls?"
They were gorgeous, fit, and probably a couple of soap opera rejects. They climbed off the pool table, completely comfortable in their nakedness, and wiped each other clean. It took more than one towel.
Theo said, "Not this time."
Booker removed his cigarette and cupped his other hand like a megaphone. "All right – girls and Tony. The nurse is here. I need two vials from each of you."
They groaned, but not very much. AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases were the porn industry's biggest threat, and nobody in their right mind worked for a filmmaker who didn't do blood tests.
Theo knew that much about the business of sex, and he also knew how surprisingly tight-knit the porn industry was because of it. Someone like Mel Booker knew everyone.
"So, what brings you here?" said Booker.
"A guy named Lance Gilford."
Booker walked to the coffee machine and poured half a cup, black. Theo declined.
"What about him?" said Booker.
"You know him?"
"Not well, but I know of him. Big-time investor. Mostly edgy stuff."
"How do you mean 'edgy'?"
"He joint-ventures with Reality Bitches, companies like that. It's the kind of stuff I just don't do. Mostly amateur photography. Guys on videotape beating the shit out of their girlfriends. Five punks from a Hialeah gang raping a teenage girl. It's all very low budget but high profit.You put the label 'real' on anything with sex and violence, you get pervs paying through the nose."
Theo reconsidered on the coffee and took a cup. "We talking about the same Lance Gilford? The one I'm after owns a studio called Memories in the Gables."
"Same guy" said Booker. "All his porn is done through off-shore banks and some Costa Rican companies. The studio is a total front."
"Money laundering?"
"It's more complicated than that. He married a minister's daughter, so he would shoot a few weddings and bar mitzvahs to convince his family and friends he's legit."
"A man with two lives," said Theo.
"Yeah," said Booker, chuckling. "But it finally caught up with him. His wife moved out and took off for Europe about six weeks ago. Hiding from the media before the scandal hits, I'm sure. This is gonna be one nasty divorce. Anyway, what's your angle? You looking to do some business with him?"
"Business?" said Theo, giving the word careful thought. "Yeah. You could say that. Him and me got unfinished business."
LANCE GILFORD CANCELED HIS two o'clock appointment. He'd played it pretty cool with Swyteck, but he still had plenty to think about. Pretending to care about some bridezilla's $300,000 wedding from hell was the last thing he felt like doing. He went to his computer and pulled up the Portia Knight rape film.
How could he have missed his own image in the mirror?
Perhaps there was some validity to the notion that he had been so careful to protect his friends that he'd failed to protect himself. He'd been so concerned, in fact, that he even paid off the frat boys to destroy the 1972 composite in the chapter room, just in case. The real explanation for his oversight, however, was far less heroic. He'd made the mistake of editing the film at home. The old sixteen-millimeter footage wasn't digital technology, of course, so it took fairly sophisticated equipment to do the equivalent of digital frame-by-frame analysis. His equipment here in the studio rivaled anything the FBI used. The same could not be said about his two-year-old stuff at home.
"Idiot!" he said through clenched teeth.
There it was, his mug and the Greek letters of his old Pi Alpha Delta jersey right on-screen – his momentary reflection in the mirror, visible only with the kind of frame-by-frame advancement that he could never have accomplished at home.