“A hired killer is a stranger to the victim,” he said.
“Right. Hired to do it by somebody the victim knows, or maybe loves. Do you live here alone?”
He shook his head. “No, my fiancée lives with me.”
“Where is she now?”
“Downstairs. In the club.”
“Why?”
He lighted up a fresh Camel with the naked-girl lighter. “She’s one of the dancers. That’s how we met. I cast all of the dancers myself, just like I pick the centerfolds.”
“She still dances? Engaged to the boss?”
He nodded, shrugged. “Likes to keep her hand in.”
I didn’t figure her hand was what she was keeping in, but I let it go.
“What’s her name?”
“Mavis Crosby. That’s her real name, doesn’t use a stage name, which is rare. She’s from around here, like I am. Brimming with ideas for the magazine. Country girl but you’d never know it. She just oozes sophistication.”
Something about that didn’t sound so appealing.
I asked, “You two get along? No fights? No arguments?”
He smirked, let smoke out his nostrils. “Well... every couple has those. But I don’t hit her. I tried that once and she let me know I wouldn’t try it again else she’d kill me.”
He hadn’t even noticed what he said.
“She was abused as a kid,” he went on. “Her father banged her ten ways to Sunday and her momma didn’t give two shits about it. Of course, that’s true of most strippers and pretty much all hookers.”
“You plan to have her sign a pre-nup?”
His head reared back, as if ducking a punch. “Hell no! I love her.”
“What happened to Dorrie?”
His eyes widened. “How... how do you know Dorrie?”
“I’m a Climax reader, remember? You met her in junior high, both thirteen when you first made it, in a hayloft — classic. The star-crossed romance fell apart when you dropped out of the seventh grade to travel with a carnival. Ran the Tilt-a-Whirl, right? Got together years later, childhood sweethearts who got married, and then you did that photo layout of her, in an early issue?”
“Oh, yeah.” He almost seemed embarrassed, but also a little impressed by this loyal reader’s recall. “Well, see, I published a letter from a guy pissed off because his honey posed nude for us — he wanted to know how I’d like it if my girlfriend or wife posed bare-ass naked in some grotty magazine for other guys to jerk off to. So I had Dorrie pose so I could say, well, I like it just fine! Jerk away! But that... that’s only part of the truth.”
“What’s the rest?”
He lifted a shoulder and put it down. “I didn’t have to pay Dorrie for posin’, and those were early days. She was fine-looking and didn’t mind showing it all to the world. Said that someday she’d be happy she had photos of herself when her boobs were perky and her ass was tight. She’s a great gal, Dorrie.”
“But you broke up anyway.”
He nodded, sighed smoke. “Dorrie couldn’t handle my appetites. I don’t believe monogamy is a natural state for the male of the species. I have too many opportunities and I don’t feel like turnin’ ’em down.”
“But aren’t you planning to marry, what’s her name...?”
His grin for the first time revealed a lascivious streak. “Mavis. Yes. Mav doesn’t believe in monogamy either, and likes makin’ it with other ladies, which doesn’t bother me one little bit. Sometimes I just watch, other times I join in.”
“Where does this leave Dorrie? Out in the cold?”
His palms pawed the air. “Oh no, no way, not at all. We’re getting a divorce and Dorrie will be well taken care of. She be swimmin’ in alimony, and that’s how I want it. We didn’t have kids, so no child support. But a great settlement. Hey, we’re still friends. We just grew apart, and it wasn’t just my more forward sexual attitudes. See... she married me when I was just this sleazy guy runnin’ strip clubs, and then when we started the magazine, and it really took off, she didn’t keep up. Maybe couldn’t keep up.”
“Keep up with what?”
He spread his arms and turned up his hands. “With me, I guess. I’m a reader now. You saw those books in my study! I know more about the law than most lawyers — I have to, with all the legal battles I’m fighting. I’m practically a goddamn constitutional scholar, when it comes to the First Amendment. I’m starting to be known as a battler for Civil Rights, and that’s really big for a backwoods Southern boy, bein’ all for the gays and all for the blacks. You’re a Climax subscriber. Do you read my editorials, or are you just there for the pussy?”
“I take it all in, Max, including ‘Dickhead of the Month’ — Gerald Ford, last time, right? But how does Dorrie feel about being left behind in a cloud of social commentary?”
He waved that off. “I told you, man. We’re friends. We’ll always be tight. And she’s been well taken care of. Talk to her and see!”
“I plan to. I may need your help coming up with an excuse to bother her... but I plan to. Who else is in your inner circle?”
I had all that intel from Broker on key figures, photos included, but I wanted to hear it from Climer.
He gulped some more Bud. “Well, cousin Vernon, of course. He’s Vice President of Climax Enterprises. Mostly he runs the clubs, but he’s involved with the magazine, too. In the early days he dealt with both the printer and distributors. Still handles the latter.”
“You’re friendly?”
“Tight! Like brothers. We grew up together. And don’t forget, I made him rich. Who doesn’t love somebody who made ’em rich?”
And who didn’t resent somebody who made them rich?
I asked, “How did you come to grow up with Vernon?”
“My folks were in the moonshine business in the hills. A still blew them to high Heaven or maybe Hell. I was, oh, thirteen. Vernon’s mama and papa, my aunt and uncle, took me in. I told you, my aunt owned a bar and, after the navy, I bought her out and that’s where it all started.”
“How did you wind up publishing a magazine?”
Another shrug. “Well, at first it was just a newsletter with nude pics of the dancers, saying which club they’d be at. To stay legal, we added more copy, little articles about the girls. And then the newsletter turned into a little slick flier, and then that became a magazine. I got some investors together and put the rest of the first issue on my credit card and Vernon’s, and we sold fifty thousand copies out of the gate. Rest is history.”
“No other business partners you haven’t mentioned?”
“No. Just Vernon and me. And he still owns a third of Climax Enterprises, ink.”
“No mob money?”
“Hell no! I wouldn’t touch it.”
“I need to know, Max. Mobsters love to invest in porn.”
“Not my porn!”
But the Broker was an investor — did Climer really not know the nature of some of the money that got him off the ground?
I asked him about the staff of the magazine, looking for Broker’s quisling, but Climer insisted they were all longtime friends from his club business who, like him, had learned how to put a publication together by trial and error. No one had been fired from this inner circle, and no one currently appeared disgruntled. Beyond that, Climax Magazine was a huge success that they’d been in on the ground floor of, and none of them had any reason to bitch, much less want the Big Daddy responsible to get dead.