Too Many Cooks (20 page)

The world seemed to shift. “Me? No. Should I?”

Klaw chuckled. “As a matter of fact, yes. She's become somebody now. The wife of a hotshot restaurant owner. Her name's Lacy LaTour.”

Angie kept her face immobile. “Oh? Well, I never heard of her. I don't have to take that photo. Any one will do, as long as it's old. ‘Oldies but Goodies,' that's what my boyfriend says. But then, he's sixty-five, so that's probably why he feels that way. I don't care myself. Any age is—”

“Shut up!” Klaw turned to Dwayne. “This the first time you've seen this broad?”

“No. She was here once before, saying she wanted to be in a movie.”

“Be in a movie?” He looked her up and down, then burst out laughing. “Don't that beat all?”

“On second thought, I don't want to anymore. My boyfriend's a big fan of these movies, that's all.”

“That so? And what's this boyfriend's name?”

Her mind went blank. Some big writer. Started with an S. Shakespeare? Shaw? Shelley? Sartre? What the hell had she said? “Steve,” she answered.

Dwayne looked puzzled. “Wait a minute, that doesn't sound right.”

Angie could have sunk through the floor. Who'd have thought a porno counterman had nothing better to do than remember her tall tales?

“You're lying,” Klaw said. “All this boyfriend jazz is nothing but an excuse.”

“An excuse?” Her voice was tiny. Klaw couldn't possibly know about Paavo or her restaurant background, could he?

He folded his arms. With his tan, muscular upper body and short fair hair, he looked like Mr. Clean. “You're just some rich bitch who wants a little fun. A thrill. You want to make one of these movies, but you don't have the nerve to come right out and say it. I've seen your type before. Plenty of times. And I can be
very
accommodating.”

She felt herself pale. “It's not true.”

Klaw laughed, then wrapped his arm around her waist and led her down the long hallway. “I know women get cold feet all the time. But looking at you, I know you got what it takes to be a star. You got class, something lacking in lots of these films. Let's see how you do on camera.”

Angie couldn't even believe this man was touching her, let alone taking her anywhere. She dug in her heels. “Let go! I've changed my mind.”

“So you want to get rough? I can oblige you in that, too.”

She was shocked. “This is no game.”

“You're good. I like the tone. You'll be great on camera. The equipment is ready and waiting for us. Freddie will take you to a set. I'll be right behind you.”

Angie paid no attention to the mountain of a man who stepped her way but did get the fleeting impression of a Vegas casino bouncer. “You can't do this to me!” she yelled at Klaw.

Klaw yanked her in front of him so hard and so fast she nearly fell over. He gripped her neck with his
long, hard fingers. She froze as they began to tighten.

Panic filled her as she stared into eyes as flat and devoid of feeling as those of a dead fish. She pushed hard against him, but it was like hitting a steel door. Suddenly, laughing, he relaxed his grip. She drew in deep, gasping breaths, unable to think but only to feel complete disbelief and panic.

He waited only a few seconds before he shoved his thumb under her chin and roughly lifted it, forcing her head back, her face upward. He leaned forward, his nose almost touching hers.

“I'm the director. That's like God around here. Life and death are in my hands.” His fingers ran along her neck again, then dipped lower to stroke her collarbone. “So remember, I can do anything to you I damn well please.”

Paavo knew a waste of time
when it kicked him in the face, and this was a waste of time. The accounting books from Italian Seasons were spread over his desk. Leaning back in his chair, he rubbed his eyes. Clearly, Chick Marcuccio hadn't been cooking his books, and from the profits he saw coming in, Chick hadn't needed to.

His gaze moved from the accounting books to a stack of folders from files about cases that had been closed out, plus a few magazine articles. His review of the Sheila Danning case had led him into general reading about the world of pornography from both sides of the camera as well as a number of case studies from Vice, Homicide, and Missing Persons.

The women in these stories were universally so incredibly naïve he had trouble believing they were real, until he remembered that a certain miss he was close to also surprised him with her naïveté. Even the hard ones, though, the ones who grew up with abuse
and drugs and sold their bodies from the time they learned they were salable, still seemed to have some hope that acting in these films could offer a way out, a way to riches or an escape to the kind of life they could only dream of. They were in it for the money, only to find that the money was hardly enough to buy the escape offered by drugs.

The male actors in these films, on the other hand, Paavo found to be a complete enigma. He couldn't begin to comprehend what kind of sickness might lead a man to perform on camera like that.

His telephone rang.

“Smith here.”

“Officer McGifford, Berkeley. We just spotted aforementioned female going into building on Dwight Way. Reporting as instructed, sir.”

“The woman with the Ferrari?”

“Yes, sir.”

“She's there now?”

“She just walked in.”

“Thank you.”

Paavo hung up the phone. I'll kill her! he thought. He'd told her not to go back to that place. Did she listen to him? Did she
ever
listen to him?

He looked at the files he'd been reading and a shudder went down his back.

 

“She's all yours, Freddie.” Klaw pushed her into the bearlike arms. She tilted her head back to see a man about her age, curly brown hair, dark eyes, wearing a white sports jacket and a red shirt open at the neck, showing off a thick gold chain. A scar across
his top lip caused it to pucker at one side, as if in a perpetual sneer.

“I want to leave,” she said.

Freddie really did sneer as Klaw smirked and waved his hand, telling Freddie to take her away. The big man began to lead her, but when she pulled back, he took her arm and dragged her along as if she weighed no more than a rag doll. She yelled at him to let her go, but he paid no attention.

He pushed her into the cubicle where they'd been filming the last time she'd been there and flipped on the light switch. Angie could hear the expected sounds from the other cubicles as she faced Freddie. An eight-millimeter camera stood in the center of the room, while tall spotlights pointed down at the big brass double bed.

“You've got to be joking,” Angie said.

“Mr. Klaw never jokes,” Freddie answered.

She was impressed he could say so many words at once without drooling. “I hate to tell you, but I get stage fright. I'm leaving.”

“You can't go until Mr. Klaw says.”

“Watch me.”

She started toward the door.

Freddie stepped in front of her, his arms folded.

She took a side step.

So did he.

Quickly, she glanced around and saw that the back wall also had a door. She spun around and bolted toward it. Freddie ran after her.

She grabbed the doorknob just as Freddie's hands took hold of her waist. She turned the knob, but the door didn't open. Freddie tried to drag her away.
Putting both hands on the knob, she pulled harder. So did Freddie. Clutching the knob, she tugged at the door with all her might. Freddie wrapped his arms around her waist, trying to haul her away. Her feet lifted right off the floor. But she wasn't called stubborn for nothing.

 

Their footsteps echoed on the wooden stairs as Paavo and Yosh hurried up to the porno studio. A dark-haired man stood behind the counter talking to a blond man whose back was to them. Then the blond man turned around.

Paavo felt as if someone had plunged him into ice. For an instant, time stood still and he was fourteen years old again: afraid, grieving, filled with cold black hate.

It had been too many years, Paavo told himself. His eyes were playing tricks on him. Or his imagination was.

His memory had to have faded from the time he first searched for this man. No, not
this
man, but someone who resembled him. The flat gray eyes weren't really the same, were they? Nor was the big mole on the man's cheek. This couldn't be the man he'd searched for, for so long.

He was stockier than Paavo remembered, and his hair was a little thinner, a little shorter, a lot blonder, but that was all. The protruding lower lip, the heavy-lidded, darting eyes, the mole—they were the same.

“Axel Klaw,” the man said, holding out his hand. “What can I do for you?”

Paavo tried to shake off the feeling, but it was as if
he were looking at the man through a microscope and all his features were enlarged and overwhelming. Paavo could barely stand to touch the offered hand. “Paavo Smith, Homicide, SFPD. This is Inspector Yoshiwara.”

Klaw shook hands with both. “What seems to be the problem?”

Suddenly the past vanished, and blood rushed to Paavo's head, throbbing and pounding its way through him. Angie! She was here, with this man! Klaw stepped back from the icy force of the blue eyes focused on him.

“A young woman was seen entering these offices. We're here to pick her up,” Paavo said. The chilled, unemotional voice seemed to come from someone else, not himself.

“Many young women come in here.”

“She's little—”

“Most of my women are short. They aren't your typical models, you see.”

“Dark hair—”

“More common than blond.”

There were more questions, lots more questions that he wanted to ask, that he would ask. Someday. Soon.

“Her name's Angie.”

“Doesn't ring a bell, Inspector.”

The same smirk. Years ago, he hadn't been able to stop his sister from going off with this man. The coincidence was almost too much, yet he'd known every minute of his life that someday their paths would cross again. He just never bargained on Angie being in the middle when it did. It was like being caught in a nightmare.

“You damn well better get some bells ringing.” Each word was spoken with chilling exactness even as Paavo took the front of Klaw's shirt and jerked his face nearer.

“Hey, there, copper. I ain't done nothing. You've got no right—”

“I got every right, Klaw. She came in here. I want her
now
.”

“Look, inspector, these broads, they all change their names anyway. I mean, none of them who come here tell the truth, so I don't pay attention to what they say. If a young woman wants to work for me”—he smiled—“
with
me, I got to be a most obliging fellow.”

A muscle in Paavo's face twitched at Klaw's words. “Her anonymity won't protect you, Klaw. You get her now or you won't be able to jaywalk without doing time. Is that clear? You want to be shut down? It's the easiest thing in the world.”

Just then they heard a loud crash. Screams and shouts rang out, and then another crash. It sounded like the filming of
Debbie Does the Terminator
.

Paavo and Klaw ran down the hall, reached the doorway, and stopped. What had once been a movie studio, all carefully partitioned off, looked like the set of a biblical epic: Jericho after the walls came atumbling down. Partitions had fallen, lighting equipment was strewn on the floor, and cameras knocked from their stands lay broken. A bewildered jumble of voices filled the dusty, poorly lit room. Paavo and Klaw glanced at each other briefly, each expecting the other to offer information, and then surveyed the ruins.

Dazed actors scrambled to their feet and quickly
covered themselves with their hands, protecting their professional assets. Shrieking actresses sat bolt upright on the beds and couches they'd been performing on, holding sheets and clothing under their necks, either because of newfound modesty or to keep the dust and dirt off their well-oiled bodies. Cameramen and stagehands stood stupefied, as if wondering how to begin to put things back in order.

A bruising hulk of a man pushed a slab of plywood off himself and struggled to his feet. He brushed off his once-white sports jacket and reached up as if to be sure the thick gold chain still dangled from his neck.

“Freddie,” Klaw thundered, “what the hell's going on here? How'd you do all this?”

“Me? I didn't do nothing! That dumb broad tried to go through a phony door, for chrissake. She wouldn't let go, and she pulled down the whole goddamn set. Then they all started falling.”

Klaw turned purple. “Can't you do anything right?”

“Where is she?” Paavo demanded.

“What?” Freddie frowned at Paavo.

“I said where is she?”

Freddie turned and looked down at the plywood and scratched his head. “I don't know. I kinda lost track of her.”

“Goddamn!” Paavo ran to the area where Freddie had been. “Angie!” he shouted, then started looking under plywood and partitions. He shoved some out of the way as he called Angie's name, needing to find her but almost afraid of what he might discover when he did. “Yosh!” Paavo yelled for his partner. “Get in here! Help me find her.”

“Look at this mess,” Klaw bellowed. “She's done a
Thelma and Louise
on me.”

“They make films for us?” Freddie asked.

“Who?”

“Thelma and Louise.”

“Shut up, jerk. Do something about this.”

“Let me shoot her, boss,” Freddie pleaded.

“You don't know where she is.”

“I could find her.”

Klaw told Freddie he couldn't find an intimate part of his own body.

“That's not so. You're hurtin' my feelings.”

“What the hell do I care how you feel?”

“Paavo,” Yosh called. “Stop. Look who I found.”

There in the doorway, beside Yosh, stood Angie. Relief surged through him.

“She snuck out the back,” Yosh said, “and would have been long gone except I told her you were in here looking for her.”

Paavo climbed over the mess. “You okay?”

She nodded and stared at the warehouse. “Now I know how the domino theory works.”

Paavo saw that despite her flippant words she was frightened. He touched her arm. It was ice cold. His throat tightened so he could scarcely speak. “Come on, Angie. Let's get out of here.”

“These people are all crazy,” she said.

The way she trembled as they passed Klaw made Paavo murderous.

“These broads.” Klaw chuckled after them. “They all think they're gonna be Linda Lovelace, but then they get scared and freak out. Too bad. I thought this one showed real talent.”

Paavo stopped at the top of the stairs and looked back. “Klaw, you're going to wish you'd never said that.”

 

“Is she all right?” Yosh asked when they were on the sidewalk.

“She seems pretty woozy. I'll take her to the hospital,” Paavo said.

“No, Paavo,” Angie said. “It was scary when all that stuff started to fall, but luckily most of it landed on Freddie first. He made a good shield. I'll be all right.”

“I want to be sure.”

Angie began to chuckle, and then she laughed so hard the tears ran down her cheeks.

Paavo put his arm around her, holding her close, a worried frown on his face. “Calm down, Angie. You're all right now.”

“I'm not hysterical,” she said, when she could talk again. “At least, I don't think I am. It's just that when the partitions started going down, I saw—well, let's just say I didn't think anybody could do that.” She chuckled. “Then I started running.”

Paavo arched his eyebrows.

She leaned against Paavo's broad chest, enjoying the security he offered. “I'll tell you about it someday. But you'll think I was hallucinating.”

Yosh whistled softly. “Remember, Paav, it's standard procedure to share what you learn with your partner.”

“Let's call it privileged information,” Paavo said. “I'll use Angie's car for now. In the meantime, why
don't you start the paperwork for a search warrant on that place? I plan to go through it with a fine-tooth comb.”

“No sweat, partner. Take care of her, and I'll call you soon as I get it. And don't forget you can tell me anything, privileged or not. I mean, I'm always eager to help.”