4
EDMUND DALTON’S VIDEO CAMERA EQUIPMENT WASN’T professional quality, but it did the job, and most of his film work was better than the average in the “industry,” as he liked to call it. His artistic sensibilities made up for a lot, and his last film had a couple of subtle touches that he was really very proud of. It was a shame that he couldn’t talk about them to anyone, but he had never found anyone worthy of sharing his secrets. The camera had a wide-angle lens, and it picked up images in a moderately dark room. It stood on its tripod in the corner of what, for a Huntington Beach condo, was a large bedroom. The far wall of the bedroom was blank and white, clear of furniture, pictures, or anything else. The carpeted floor at the empty end of the room was covered with heavy plastic, and the plastic was covered with more carpet. He adjusted the angle of the camera one last time, set the remote control on the night-stand by his bed, and walked up the hall past the bathroom, which doubled as a photo lab for developing black-and-white prints. There was only a single window in the bathroom, which could be blacked out in a moment with a pull-down shade. On the long counter, past the double sinks, sat an enlarger and chemical trays.
The second bedroom, what he liked to call the library, stood at the far end of the hall. There were custom-built wooden shelves along one wall of the room, decorated with crown moldings and turned posts and brass fixtures, the shelves holding books and videocassettes and statuary. The bottom shelf of the unit was six inches off the floor, its bottom edge hidden by molding. He removed a bronze buffalo from one of the bottom shelves now, got his fingers in behind the shelf, and pushed a hidden spring latch. The back edge of the shelf bumped up so that he could get his hands on it and lift it out of its depression. There was an open area beneath, with a couple of dozen videocassettes lying on edge, all of them encased in plastic boxes, which were slid into bags containing stuffed manila envelopes. He considered the titles, smiling with amusement—Mary Pop-pins, Pollyana, Pippi Longstocking, Snow White, Cinderella…. Finally he picked out Pippi Longstocking, took it out of its case, and plugged it into the VHS machine beneath the big-screen television. He settled down in his chair and sorted through photos from the envelope while the film ran through ten minutes of blank tape.
THERE WAS A GIRL WHO FREQUENTLY HITCHHIKED ON THE Highway in the morning, usually from the Sunset Beach area down toward Huntington. Edmund had seen her a half-dozen times. Inevitably she wore tight short-shorts and a tie-dyed t-shirt and carried a bag on a shoulder strap. She wore calf-high fringed leather boots, too, like a hippie. It was hard to tell how old she was without slowing down to look, which up until now he hadn’t done. But despite the sixties getup, she had the obvious look of a young prostitute.
He spotted her this morning on the south side of the Highway at Goldenwest Street, and he pulled over to the curb, tapping his horn. He ran the passenger side window down, watching her in the rearview mirror as she ran toward the car. He expected her to solicit him right through the window, but instead she pulled the door open and climbed in, tossing her shoulder bag to the floor.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Sure.” He glanced at her. She was older than he’d thought she was, and she had the pale, thin look of a druggie. Still, she could pass for sixteen in the right light and makeup. He fought down a nervous thrill, his imagination already running….
“Where you going?” she asked him.
“South,” he said. “How about you?”
“South’s fine.”
They drove along in silence for a few moments.
“Nice car,” she said.
“Thanks. It gets me around.”
“Shit. It gets you around?”
“You don’t like it, you shouldn’t have accepted the ride.” He smiled at her, as if he were kidding, but that kind of disrespect from a lowlife ticked him off.
“Whoa,” she said. “Don’t go off on me. I didn’t say I didn’t like it. Do you want a date?”
“A what?” The question caught him by surprise, and at first he didn’t quite know what she meant. He realized then that she smelled like marijuana smoke and patchouli. The smell irritated the hell out of him, just because of what it meant about her lifestyle. He’d have to make her take a shower if things worked out—which they would.
“A date. You know. Do you want somebody?”
He looked at her again, harder now. She was built pretty well, for a skinny girl, and she had a hungry look in her eyes, as if there was nothing about her that money couldn’t buy. With the right coaching, though, she could look hippie-innocent enough. And he could do her hair up in braids, too, like his old friend Pippi. He ran names through his head. Cinderella? Not hardly. Sleeping Beauty? He might be able to do something with that.
“I might want a date,” he said. “How about we stop by my place?”
“Fine with me,” she said, settling back in the seat.
He nodded and turned left at the corner, heading up toward his condo. He had half expected her to suggest a place, which he wouldn’t have agreed to, since he didn’t actually want a date, not in the way she meant it. Anyway, he needed his camera equipment and the rest of his tools. On the other hand, right now he had to behave like a perfect gentleman, because he wanted her to be willing, up to a point. He wondered what he’d give her to make her willing beyond that point. Sometimes the promise of money only took them so far. Pills would take them farther. But there were other times when he had resorted to unfriendlier forms of persuasion, which itself could be very nearly an art form. He didn’t want bruises, although he found a certain look of raw fear to be pleasing, and he was becoming a master at generating that fear simply by particularly graphic threats concerning what might happen without a little bit of cooperation. By then, of course, if their mouths were taped shut, and they’d already been separated from their clothing and their pitiful dignity, they were generally open to suggestion.
And then there had been times when he had been forced into an act of particularly persuasive violence, which was regrettable only because of the money it had cost him in the end. Buying silence turned out to be more expensive than he would have thought. The film that had resulted from that experience, however, was first rate, and he almost hoped that his highway hippie might need some of the same persuading before they were through. He looked her over again, and she stared back at him.
“Can you do me a favor?” he asked when he pulled into the long driveway that led to the parking garages.
“I guess. What kind of favor?”
“Duck.”
She hunched down without asking why, and he heard her giggle from where she crouched on the floorboards. “Why don’t you just flip the neighbors off?” she asked. “I can’t believe how some people let other people manipulate them.”
“Neither can I,” he said, punching the garage door opener and swinging around into the dark garage. “Neither can I.”