“Yeah, it fits.” He thought about this a moment, then added, “Two of the other victims were in the business. The one that got away from him was, too.”
“The lucky one-she still in it?”
“Last I heard. But she might be dead now for all I know.”
“Still doesn’t mean anything, Harry.”
“What?”
“The porno. Still doesn’t mean it was the Dollmaker. The real one, I mean.”
Bosch just nodded. He had an idea about something to do on his way home. He went out to his Caprice and got the Polaroid camera out of the trunk. In the squad room, he took two shots of the face in the box and put them in his coat pocket after they developed.
Edgar watched this and asked, “What’re you going to do?”
“Might stop at that adult supermarket in the Valley on my way up to Sylvia’s.”
“Don’t get caught in one of those little rooms with your dick out.”
“Thanks for the tip. Let me know what Mora says.”
Bosch worked his way on surface streets up to the Hollywood Freeway. He went north and then exited on Lankershim, which took him into North Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley. He had all four windows down and the air was cool as it buffeted him from all directions. He smoked a cigarette, flicking the ashes into the wind. There was some techno-funk jazz on KAJZ so he turned the radio off and just drove.
The Valley was the city’s bedroom community in more ways than the obvious. It was also home to the nation’s pornography industry. The commercial-industrial districts of Van Nuys, Canoga Park, Northridge and Chatsworth housed hundreds of porno production outfits, distributors and warehouses. Modeling agencies in Sherman Oaks provided ninety percent of the women and men who performed in front of the cameras. And, consequently, the Valley was also one of the largest retail outlets for the material. It was made here, it was sold here-through video mail-order businesses also nestled in the warehouses with the production outfits, and places like X Marks the Spot on Lankershim Boulevard.
Bosch pulled into the lot in front of the huge store and appraised it for a few moments. It had formerly been a Pic N Pay supermarket, but the front plate-glass windows had been walled up. Under the red neon X Marks the Spot sign, the front wall was whitewashed and painted with black figures of naked and overly buxom female figures, like the metallic silhouettes Bosch saw all the time on the mudflaps of trucks on the freeway. The men who put those on their trucks were probably the same guys this place catered to, Bosch figured.
X Marks the Spot was owned by a man named Harold Barnes, who was a front for the Chicago Outfit. It grossed more than a million dollars a year-on the books. Probably another one under the counter. Bosch knew all of this from Mora of Ad-Vice, whom he had partnered with on some nights while they both were on the task force four years earlier.
Bosch watched a man of about twenty-five get out of his Toyota, walk quickly to the solid wood front door, and slip in like a secret agent. He followed. The front half of the former supermarket was dedicated to retail-the sale and rental of videos, magazines and other assorted adult-oriented and mostly rubber products. The rear was split between private “encounter” rooms and private video booths. The entry to this area was through a curtained doorway. Bosch could hear heavy-metal rock music coming from back there mixed with the canned-sounding cries of phony passion coming from the video booths.
To his left was a glass counter with two men behind it. One was a big man, there to keep the peace; the other was smaller, older, there to take the money. Bosch knew by the way they looked at him and the skin stretched tight around their eyes that they had made him as soon as he had come in. He walked over and put one of the Polaroids on the counter.
“I am trying to ID her. Heard she worked in video, do you recognize her?”
The small guy leaned forward and looked while the other guy didn’t move.
“Looks like a fucking cake, man,” the small guy said. “I don’t know any cakes. I eat cakes.”
He looked back at the big guy and they exchanged clever smiles.
“So you don’t recognize her. What about you?”
“I say what he says,” the big guy said. “I eat cakes, too.”
This time they laughed out loud and probably had to restrain themselves from exchanging a high five. The small guy’s eyes sparkled behind rose-tinted glasses.
“Okay,” Bosch said. “Then I’ll just look around. Thanks.”
The big guy stepped forward and said, “Just keep your gun covered, man, we don’t want to excite the patrons.”
The big guy’s eyes were dull and he set out a five-foot zone of body odor. A duster, Bosch thought. He wondered why the small guy didn’t fire his ass.
“No more excited than they are,” Bosch said.
He turned from the counter to the two walls of shelves that were lined with hundreds of video boxes for sale or rent. There were a dozen men, including the secret agent, looking. Appraising the scene and the number of video boxes, Bosch somehow was reminded of how he once had read all the names on the Vietnam War Memorial wall while on a case. It had taken several hours.
The video wall proved to be less time consuming. Skipping the gay and black performer videos he scanned each box for a face like the concrete blonde’s or the name Maggie. The videos were in alphabetical order and it took him nearly an hour to get to the T’s. A face on the box of a video calledTails from the Crypt caught his eye. There was a nude woman lying in a coffin on the front. She was blonde and had an upturned nose like the plaster face in the box. He turned the box over and there was another photo of the actress, on her hands and knees with a man pressed up behind her. Her mouth was slightly open and her face was turned back toward her sex partner.
It was her, Bosch knew. He looked at the credits and saw that the name fit. He took the empty video box to the counter.
“’Bout time,” said the small guy. “We don’t allow loitering here. The cops give us a hard time on that.”
“I want to rent this.”
“Can’t, it’s already rented. See, the box is empty.”
“She in anything else you know of?”
The small guy took the box and looked at the photographs.
“Magna Cum Loudly, yeah. I don’t know. She was just getting started and then dropped out. Probably married a rich guy, lots of them do.”
The big guy stepped over to look at the box and Bosch stepped back, out of his odor zone.
“I’m sure they do,” he said. “What else was she in?”
“Well,” the small guy said, “she had just made her way out of the loops and then, pfffft, she’s gone.Tails was her first top billing. She did a fabulous two-way inWhore of the Roses and that’s what got her started. Before that it was just the loops.”
Bosch went back to the W’s and found the box forWhore of the Roses. It also was empty and there were no photos of Magna Cum Loudly on it. Her name was last billing on the credits. He went back to the small guy and pointed to theTails from the Crypt box.
“What about the box, then? I’ll buy it.”
“We can’t sell you just the box because then how do we display the video when it comes back? We don’t sell many boxes here. Guys want stills, they buy magazines.”
“What’s the price of the whole video? I’ll buy it. When the renter brings it back you can hold it for me and I’ll come pick it up. How much?”
“Well,Tails is popular. We’re going with a $39.95 price tag but for you, Officer, I’ll give our law enforcement discount. Fifty bucks.”
Bosch said nothing to that. He had the cash and paid it.
“I want a receipt.”
After the purchase was completed, the small guy put the video box in a brown paper bag.