The X-Rated Corpse Page 3

  "Hey? What's that? Violet, you say? The girl's dead. Fine actress, beautiful female. Marvelous figger. But she's dead."

  I smiled thinly, sensing a mutual ground on which to talk. And he hadn't called the butler to have me thrown out. Not just yet.

  "I saw Violet before she died. Just before. She wanted you to give me something of hers that you had. Something she wanted very much. I told her at the time it was none of my business. But all of a sudden, I feel like it is my business, Mr. Zangdorfer."

  The blue eyes really studied me for the first time. They had the untroubled serenity of the truly old. I could see more intelligence than the needle-stuck-in-the-record voice had indicated up until then.

  "I've got nothing that belonged to Violet Paris," B.Z. said with stern and patient strength and dignity. He dropped the act, just like that. The outer facade of wheezing, crochety oldtimer.

  "You have, Mr. Z. A film. Something you put together about ten years ago. I want you to give it to me now. So I can burn it and destroy it forever. The girl's dead now. Let her rest in peace."

  A chuckle echoed dryly in the library as if it hadn't come from his stooped, old man's body. As if it hadn't emerged from B.Z.'s ancient chest. The silence that followed the chuckle was deadly.

  "You're sure I have it, eh, young fellah?"

  "I'm sure."

  "And you figger to keep on pestering me, no matter how many times I tell you that the girl was filling your ears with claptrap?"

  "Something like that," I admitted, keeping my ears tuned for sounds of his private militia or cavalry coming. He was far too smug, just too self-enjoying to put up with me much longer.

  "Tell me this, squirt," he cackled, almost with wonder in his tone at my gall. "If I wouldn't give it to her while she was alive and kicking, why should I give it to you now she's dead? Answer me that one, eh? And make it good. My patience is about worn out."

  When you suddenly see a face up close which you have known all your life only through the media of movies, newspapers and TV, it hits you with amazing swiftness how well you know that face. Even though the expression on Bennett Zangdorfer's map had a wicked cast now, he was as familiar as a picture of Santa Claus. But he had given me the answer I had come for. And I knew what I had to do.

  He had made the decision abruptly very easy.

  "Because," I said, "you and I both know that you killed her. With that silly prop knife of hers that wasn't a prop anymore. You drove it into her chest because you couldn't persuade her to disillusion you about your non-existent sexual virility. You're an old man, B.Z. A sick old man. You can't get it up anymore so you play at games with porno movies. And chase after women young enough to be your granddaughters. It's about time you realized the well ran dry years ago and sat down like a nice old boy to enjoy what's left of the rest of your life. I don't think dirty old men arc funny anymore. The police don't either."

  Bennett Zangdorfer rose up before me like a storm cloud. His kind old face was a mask of beetling red. His veined, gnarled hands had become clenched talons, knotted with eighty-three-year-old fury. For one fast second, I thought he was going to come at me. The full length of his tall, stooped figure was seething. Boiling like something about to explode. In maybe six decades of Yes Men, nobody had talked to him that way. Nobody. I tensed in my chair, ready for anything.

  "You—you—" His voice cracked, then lifted in full wheezing volumes. "—Get out—get out of my house! I'll show you who's old! Well ran dry, eh? —I've had more women in my day than you'll ever meet on the street! Get out, I say——"

  "No doubt," I said. "Aspiring actresses who wanted parts. Women so happy to be with The Grand Old Man. Anybody with a bankbook can find enough women to salve his male ego. But to hell with the sermonizing—right? I'm not leaving this house without the film first."

  "The film—?" In the middle of his apoplexy, he stopped fuming. At the height of his roaring rage, he calmed down. Magically. A crafty exhilarated gleam shot out of each blue old eye. "Yes—the film! Tell me, young fellah, what would you give to see that picture, eh? Here—now—right this minute—hehhehehheh——"

  His cruel laugh was something out of an old horror movie. I held back a foolish shudder. But there was madness in the old man, all at once. It stuck out all over him like spots on a kid's face. Those tell-tale measles of temporary insanity.

  I played a different card, not knowing how much time I had.

  "You old fool. Two to one there isn't any film. This whole thing was made up to make you seem virile. You're just an old, bent, dried-up lech. A fogey, first class, for all your money and power. You dirty old characters kill me—" I ran on in that vein, the words sounding preposterous in the luxuriant trappings of the library. B.Z. was staring at me. Swaying, waving his old claws, snarling. It was a transformation worthy of Jekyll and Hyde. The classic reversal.

  "I'll show you—sit right there! You'll see—you young bastard! Old fogey, eh? Lecher, am I? Well, see what you think of this—my word is my bond! Built the greatest studio in the world on that—and I had Violet Paris as no one has ever had her——! See for yourself—"

  The library was rigged. A modern, technological marvel.

  It became Instant Projection Room in nothing flat.

  Bennett Zangdorfer lurched forward, batted something on the projecting corner of one of his mammoth bookcases. And a hidden assembly line of sheer wizardry opened up. The room plunged into darkness as great rustling drapes shot across the windows, blotting out the sunlight. I jumped from the chair. A mechanical, whirring noise throbbed from the wall behind me, accompanied with a pale cone of amber light. The long nose of a movie projector loomed from a drop-out panel of a book case. Before me, a firm beam of smoky-white illumination poked across the library atmosphere, caught the far wall and stayed there. Immediately, a four by four square of film frame came into view. Like a magic act whipped up in seconds.

  B.Z. was the magician par excellence.

  Par pornography.

  I dropped back into my chair, slowly.

  I couldn't take my eyes off the far wall.

  Behind me, Bennett Zangdorfer was cackling like a ghoul.

  Violet Paris, years younger and perhaps twice as sensuous because the knowing innocence was still visible in her face and form, was shaking her dark-haired head and settling back on a leather lounge in an office somewhere. She was wearing a miniskirt and a silken blouse which caught every rounded line and promise of her anatomy. The office looked like the set of one of those old B movies from the Thirties.

  But the location didn't matter.

  As with all skin flicks, action spoke louder than words.

  And the Hero and the Heroine are all. Or should be.

  Violet Paris began to undo the buttons on her silken blouse. There was a trace of sadness and resignation on her lovely young face, if you were looking for expressions. And then the blouse was gone and so was the mini and she lay back on the leather lounge. There couldn't have been many women under the great blue sky more superbly endowed.

  I got an ache in my brain just looking at her.

  The pale blur of her perfect flesh was a mockery, now.

  Another figure crossed into the frame, from Stage Left.

  A tall, distinguished old man with snow-white hair. The air of distingué and culture was ridiculous in the face of the man's complete nudity. Suddenly, I was aware of the sound track. A low complement of string instruments, mooding the scene and the setting, with Swan Lake, of all pieces of music. The greatest mockery of all. Tchaikovsky shamed.

  Bennett Zangdorfer was hung like a horse. A war horse.

  But he wasn't hanging at all. His erection was rude. Obscene.

  As it always has to be when private parts aren't private anymore.

  He bent down over Violet Paris on the leather lounge. The face of the seventy-three-year-old laughing boy was leering. He said something then and it leaped off the sound track in all its vulgar glory but I wasn't listening. I was watching
Violet Paris. She was smiling, very shakily. Her response I did hear. It was a murmur of half-hearted protest. A spiritless compliment to assuage an old fool's libido.

  ". . . . you really are something, Mr. Zangdorfer. . . ."

  "And I know how to use it too, dearie. Wait and see!"

  Bennett Zangdorfer lowered away to the waiting woman beneath him who had parted her creamy, delectable thighs to accommodate him.

  In the darkness of the library, the hysterical cackle of the present-day Bennett Zangdorfer, began to provide a running commentary as the action of the film unfolded into its inevitable, plotless story line.

  ". . . old, eh? How's that? And that—? Why, you young jackass, she couldn't get enough of me! The great Violet Paris—I made her whimper and ask for more, boy! Look at her twitch—hey? Heheheheh . . ."

  I closed my eyes. The world was a whirring, humming nuthouse.

  ". . . look. There now! Watch what she does for me when I. . . ."

  I couldn't. The nuthouse gates were slamming shut. The music soared.

  I took out my .45, stood up, my figure blocking the screen as I turned around. I found that light switch on the book case even in all that half-darkness. B.Z. started to shrill in protest and splutter in anger but I did what I had to do. The entire assembly process reversed itself. The long-nosed projector disappeared through the wall, the screen winked out and the rustling curtains shot back into their recesses to allow the sunlight back into the room. The gay sunlight and maybe the fresh air and the ordinary sanity that still makes up most of the universe, in spite of everything. In spite of people like Bennett Zangdorfer and their own little mad cosmic worlds.

  There was a pink telephone on a desk in one corner of the room. I used it while B.Z. stared at me, shaking his old head. His blue eyes were no longer serene. I dialed the Operator and asked for Police Headquarters. B.Z. slowly sank into his antique chair, muttering to himself as if I wasn't even in the same room with him. I wasn't. Not really.

  "—of all the days to give Homer a holiday! Why wasn't he here when I needed him? He could have thrown this young jackass out on his ear—"

  When I hung up the phone and B.Z. had heard what I told the cops at the other end of the wire, he suddenly buried his craggy, classic face in his veined hands. His stooped shoulders shuddered, briefly.

  I looked at him over the barrel of the .45. Regretfully.

  "Why did you have to kill her?" I asked softly.

  His face came up from his hands, at that. The high brow, the kind face, the rocky immortality shone for a brief, proud moment.

  "Why?" he croaked. "Because she called me an old fool. A dirty old man! Just like you did. She laughed at me—me! B.Z.! I couldn't let her do that —maybe I'm not the man I was in that film, young fellah. But I had it longer than most men ever do. Violet could have helped me. She could have restored my manhood. But she wouldn't. She wouldn't! So I tried to blackmail her back into my bed—it should have worked. She had so much to lose. So much to lose—and everything to gain!"

  "You didn't have to kill her. That's no answer. It never is."

  Bennett Zangdorfer shook his head, impatiently. Weary with younger people who never seemed to understand anything. Generation Gapitis.

  His confession was like a litany of disbelief. Of despair.

  As if he couldn't comprehend the world around him. The terrain he lived on. Great wealth should have protected him. It hadn't.

  "—she called me that night. To her place. The Pad, eh? Told me she changed her mind. Hogwash! She lied to me. She hadn't come around at all—she only wanted to ask me once more to give her back the film. The bitch! We quarreled and I struck her when she had the effrontery to call me names. She laughed, too. That perfect, proper grande dame laugh of hers! I couldn't have that. I had to stop that laugh—that was when she came at me with that dagger. That stupid gimmicky prop of hers—well, I—left her there—on the floor. And got back here. I can still drive, you know. My own Rolls. Homer still wants to chauffeur me around but I don't need him to baby me. Oh, he's good enough for running my errands, cleaning out the pool, keeping the machinery in working order but he's like so many young, musclebound idiots! Never will be a real man—he hasn't got the sand for it—"

  "I'm sorry for you, B.Z.," I said. "I really am."

  I meant it, too.

  Bennett Zangdorfer cranked his head and shot me a fierce glare.

  "Sorry's fine, young fellah. But do you understand? That's the ticket? Do you really understand a man like me?"

  "I understand. You just didn't want to grow old gracefully. You were trying to get your hands on something, to have and to hold. And you didn't know what to grab for or when to let go."

  "You're a damn fool," B.Z. snarled. "Should have known better than to ask you. You're no better than that oaf Homer—"

  There was little more to say.

  I wondered how long he would remain sane and untroublesome in the normal amount of time it would take for a police squad car to get up to Laurel Canyon from Hollywood. Far-off Dream Land.

  Violet Paris, notwithstanding, I really did understand Mr. Bennett Zangdorfer, Grand Old Man of the Movie Colony.

  There is no fool like an old fool.

  Especially one whose crotch is where his heart ought to be.

  The Beautiful Black Man

  A police Lieutenant named Ogilvie wanted to see me the next day. I couldn't say No because I hadn't checked out of the Hotel Dunlap fast enough. It was practically an order anyway. I'd been in at the finish of the Violet Paris Murder Case and that made me a four-star witness. I'd bombed out on the Technical Advisor bit for those suspicious independent movie producers anyway so it didn't really matter. Bennett Zangdorfer had spoiled Hollywood for me.

  The town was in an uproar that next morning.

  It had to be. And not just because they were burying Violet Paris that day. There was something else bothering Hollywood.

  Sixty years of glorious studio history and pride had just been dragged screaming through all the mud there is outside of that South American earthquake. The land of Make Believe had the blind staggers for real. Nothing could ever quite be the same again.

  It all added up to the worst calamity to hit the dream factories since the coming of Television.

  Lieutenant Ogilvie's office was also something new in cop corners. I was shunted into an upper floor tidyland that overlooked a boulevard of palm trees and slow-motion traffic, seen through a picture window. Manhattan Homicide had nothing like Ogilvie's sanctum. Mike Monks wouldn't be caught dead in such a showplace. It was spacious, the walls were cream-colored and the office equipment of chairs, desk, filing cabinets and wastepaper baskets looked like the handiwork of someone with identity problems.

  For a moment, I thought I'd come to the wrong room.

  There was a very tall man seated behind the mile-wide, completely uncluttered desk. A black man with an Afro hairdo, burgundy Mod suit, flowing red-striped tie and sunglasses as big as the Ritz.

  I sat down as he gestured me to the only other chair in the room. He didn't say Hello and I couldn't see his teeth. The fancy nameplate right before me, mahogany textured lucite with neat white letters, said: LT. OLIVER OGILVIE. The whole bit, office and man, was impressive. I didn't think Los Angeles had come that far down the track in Civil Rights. Honest Abe would have applauded.

  "You did it backwards, Noon man," Ogilvie said all at once. The voice, rather than honeyed and congratulatory, was a warning rumble. "But you got it done and we owe you for that much."

  "I had something you didn't. I talked to Violet Paris before she died. Call it privileged information. I acted on it."

  "No sweat, man. Only kicker is all you did was open a bigger can of peas. The lid's blown off this burg, my friend."

  "You'll have to spell that out, Lieutenant. I'm a tourist. I'd have a hard time finding Grauman's Chinese."

  Ogilvie leaned back in a swivel chair, dwarfing it somehow. The Afro was like a totem pole thru
sting up from desk level.

  "Then let me educate you." The voice hadn't lost its rumble but I began to sense that it was characteristic. Like a built-in defense mechanism. "La Vie Hollywood is a rat race like any other big city. This is no longer a simple Murder One. This is now a cabbage patch with thorns. I'm not going to run you back to New York because maybe you got a key in your pocket somewhere. A key maybe you don't know about. You could be more than a prime witness in this case."

  "Keep educating me. I'm a quick learner."

  Lieutenant Oglivie sighed and his face, despite the enormous shades, was a plateau of even, regular lines, all of them uniform and rather handsome the longer you looked at him. The Afro seemed less extreme, too. Just like that, I spotted dim traces of a great weariness in the man. The kind that can only come to hard-working, badgered police officials. For a black cop, it might even be tougher.

  "We used a fine tooth-comb on Zangdorfer's estate. From the basement up. Including the four garages he didn't need seeing as how he only had one car. A '37 Rolls. You came up with the blue film, man. You reported it to Sergeant Madison when he showed up in answer to your phone call Madison's thorough. I got his report and the statement you gave him right here on my desk. So we weren't looking for cereal box tops. Been too much of that bootleg porno in this town. It crosses over into Homicide now and then. So Madison looked. And he looked. Know what he came up with? He found three other rooms rigged exactly like that library was. With three other dupes of the Violet Paris flick. You got that? Four prints of that X movie starring the most famous actress in the world today. Dead or alive. You reading me, man?"

  "Ouch," I said, feeling the ache down to my shoes.

  "At least you didn't say 'Holy Mackerel, Andy!' For that I thank you." His smile was thin and rueful. "You got the picture. If there's four prints lying around Zangdorfer's pad, who can tell how many more are in circulation? And now the dirty old man is dead and that manservant of his is the original see-all-don't-know-nothing Jeeves. As for that muscle-bound young beach bum, Homer Danbury—just a working stiff who buttered his bread with an old jerk who couldn't see the dollar signs in the boy's two eyes. Which brings me and my end right back to the front of the line, again. How many prints are there of Violet Paris' screen test making the rounds? Who's got them? Are they already in the underground movie circuit playing to packed houses nightly? You see the problem, man?"