The card said only ELIAS PUDD in black Roman letters. There was no telephone number, no business address, no occupation. The back of the card was completely blank.
“Your card doesn't say a lot about you, Mr. Pudd,” I remarked.
“On the contrary, it says everything about me, Mr. Parker. I fear that you are simply not reading it correctly.”
“All it tells me is that you're either cheap or a minimalist,” I responded. “You're also irritating, but it doesn't say that on your card either.”
For the first time, Mr. Pudd truly smiled, his yellow teeth showing and his eyes lighting up. “Oh, but it does, in its way,” he said, and chuckled once. I kept the gun trained on him until he had climbed into the car and the strange pair had disappeared in a cloud of dust and fumes that seemed to taint the very sunlight that shone through it.
My fingers began to blister almost as soon as they had driven away. At first there was just a feeling of mild irritation but it quickly became real pain as small raised bumps appeared on my fingertips and the palm of my hand. I applied some hydrocortisone but the irritation persisted for most of the day, an intense, uncomfortable itching where Mr. Pudd's card, and his fingers, had touched my skin. Using tweezers, I placed the card in a plastic envelope, sealed it, and placed it on my hall table. I would ask Rachel to have someone take a look at it while I was in Boston.
7
I LEFT MY GUN BENEATH THE SPARE TIRE in the trunk of the Mustang before walking to the granite masonry bulk of the Edward T. Gignoux Courthouse at Newbury and Market. I passed through the metal detector, then climbed the marble stairs to courtroom 1, taking a seat in one of the chairs at the back of the court.
The last of the five rows of benches was filled with what, in less enlightened times, might have been referred to as the cast of a freak show. There were five or six people of extremely diminished stature, two or three obese women, and a quartet of very elderly females dressed like hookers. Beside them was a huge, muscular man with a bald head who must have been six-five and weighed in at three hundred pounds. All of them seemed to be paying a great deal of attention to what was going on at the front of the courtroom.
The court was already in session and a man I took to be Arthur Franklin was arguing some point of law with the judge. His client, it appeared, was wanted in California for a range of offenses, including copyright theft, animal cruelty, and tax evasion, and was about as likely to avoid a jail term as mayflies were to see Christmas. He was released on $50,000 bail and was scheduled to appear later that month before the same judge, when a final decision would be made on his extradition. Then everybody stood and the judge departed through a door behind his brown leather chair.
I walked up the center aisle, the muscular man close behind me, and introduced myself to Franklin. He was in his early forties, dressed in a blue suit, under which he was sweating slightly. His hair was startlingly black and the eyes beneath his bushy brows had the panic-stricken look of a deer faced with the lights of an approaching truck.
Meanwhile Harvey Ragle, who was seated beside Franklin, wasn't what I had expected. He was about forty and wore a neatly pressed tan suit, a clean, white, open-necked shirt, and oxblood loafers. His hair was brown and curly, cut close to his skull, and the only jewelry he wore was a gold Raymond Weil watch with a brown leather strap. He was freshly shaven and had splashed on Armani aftershave like it was being given away free. He rose from his seat and extended a well-manicured hand.
“Harvey Ragle,” he said. “CEO, Crushem Productions.” He smiled warmly, revealing startlingly white teeth.
“A pleasure, I'm sure,” I replied. “I'm sorry, I can't shake hands. I seem to have picked up something unpleasant.”
I lifted my blistered fingers and Ragle blanched. For a man who made his living by squashing small creatures, he was a surprisingly sensitive soul. I followed them both out of the courtroom, pausing briefly while the old ladies, the obese women, and the little people took turns hugging him and wishing him well, before we crossed into attorney conference room 223 beside courtroom 2. The huge man, whose name was Mikey, waited outside, his hands crossed before him.
“Protection,” explained Franklin as he closed the door behind us. We sat down at the conference table and it was Ragle who spoke first.
“You've seen my work, Mr. Parker?” he said.
“The crush video, Mr. Ragle? Yes, I've seen it.”
Ragle recoiled a little, like I'd just breathed garlic on him.
“I don't like that term. I make erotic films, of every kind, and I am a father to my actors. Those people in court today are stars, Mr. Parker, stars.”
“The midgets?” I asked.
Ragle smiled wistfully. “They're little people, but they have a lot of love to give.”
“And the old ladies?”
“Very energetic. Their appetites have increased rather than diminished with age.”
Good grief.
“And now you make films like the one your attorney sent me?”
“Yes.”
“In which people step on bugs.”
“Yes.”
“And mice.”
“Yes.”
“Do you enjoy your work, Mr. Ragle?”
“Very much,” he said. “I take it that you disapprove.”
“Call me a prude, but it seems kind of sick, besides being cruel and illegal.”
Ragle leaned forward and tapped me on the knee with his index finger. I resisted breaking it, but only just.
“But people kill insects and rodents every day, Mr. Parker,” he began. “Some of them may even derive a great deal of pleasure from doing so. Unfortunately, as soon as they admit to that pleasure and attempt to replicate it in some form, our absurdly censorious law enforcement agencies step in and penalize them. Don't forget, Mr. Parker, we put Reich in jail to die for selling his sex boxes from Rangeley, in this very state. We have a record of penalizing those who seek sexual gratification by unorthodox means.”
He sat back and smiled his bright smile.
I smiled back at him. “I believe it's not only the state of California that has strong feelings about the legitimacy of what you do.”
Ragle's veneer began to crumble and he seemed to grow pale beneath his tan.
“Er, yes,” he said. He coughed, then reached for a glass of water that was resting on the table before him. “One gentleman in particular seems to have serious objections to some of my more, um, specialized productions.”
“Who might that be?”
“He calls himself Mr. Pudd,” interjected Franklin.
I tried to keep my expression neutral.
“He didn't like the spider movies,” he added.
I could guess why.
Ragle's façade finally shattered completely, as if the mention of Pudd's name had finally brought home the reality of the threat he was facing. “He wants to kill me,” he whined. “I don't want to die for my art.”
So Al Z knew something about the Fellowship, and Pudd, and had seen fit to point me in Ragle's direction. It seemed that I had another good reason for going to Boston besides Rachel and the elusive Ali Wynn.
“How did he find out about you?”
Ragle shook his head angrily. “I have a new supplier, a man who provides me with rodents and insects and, when necessary, arachnids. It's my belief that he told this individual, this Mr. Pudd, about me.”