What Will You Look Like When You Die? Part 4/5 (fiction)

January 30, 2009

A Joe Downing mystery

The following is a fictional mystery short story:

The Harbor freeway in Southern California has little to recommend it. Harbor City, Torrance, Long Beach, Compton, etc, who cares? Mostly looking down on two- or three-story industrial-style buildings, a sort of behind-the-scenes view you could do without. Lots of smog, even in December. Clear weather today, nevertheless, above the ugly city. Twenty-five miles brought me to beautiful Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards. I fingered the address as I drove, looking down, running red lights: 21A Wilshire. There had been very little traffic on the freeway by standards here, since it was Saturday, luckily, and Wilshire itself was only moderately busy this afternoon at 2:30.

I entered a non-descript building in the general neighborhood of Macy’s. No signage outside, but in the gloomy lobby, dating back to the war most likely, there was a little black board with white letters behind plastic glass: Sedgwick Institute: Suite 22. I hoped someone would be home. A musty smell permeated the dark hallway as I emerged from the carpeted staircase. I knocked on number 22 and waited. Absolute silence. I didn’t drive all this way for stairmaster exercise: I knocked repeatedly. No answer.

I tried the door: uh-uh. I picked the lock, looking both ways before crossing, with a long, narrow screwdriver, more like a needle: bingo. I was in. I entered a cluttered office, upon opening the lightweight, brown door, and saw a big, central desk, no computer but a phone, T.V., and DVD player, and creaky-looking book-shelves along the side wall crammed with VHS tapes and DVD’s. A smallish room, with a closed door in the middle of the back wall. Loose  papers and books and files and binders stacked haphazardly on the floor everywhere. The door in the back opened quietly, and a dour, elderly, and anxious-looking woman came out bravely. “How did you get in here?” she asked cautiously. 

“Oh, I just walked in,” I responded matter-of-factly, motioning to the door behind me for some reason. The woman took on a blank look that said, “I thought I locked it…..I know I locked it.”

“What do you want with us?” she said. A little non-plussed, I replied,

“Oh, nothing much, I’m just working on a project about exotic film. I’m not a cop or anything. Just a private…..uh, citizen, an interested party.” She looked relieved. I had stumbled on the shibboleth. I went in for the goal line.

“Is Mr. Sedgwick in? May I please speak to him?” She smiled and giggled, briefly and quietly. Everything she did was done quietly. Then she became serious and respectful:

“Mr. Sedgwick has passed away. Years ago.” Then motioning, she continued, “But he left us this wonderful Institute which proudly bears his name, and, of course, his Foundation.”

“He has a Foundation, too? In his name, I mean?”

“Oh, yes, young man, to fund deserving efforts within the genre.” (Within the genre?) “Mr. Higginbotham is in — would you wish to interview him?”

“Oh, absolutely, I would wish to interview him — I’d be delighted! This is good fortune beyond what I expected. I’m Joe Downing.” She disappeared inside, for quite a long time, and I sat on the couch thumbing through magazines from a small coffee table: Persons of Porn, Cinema Exotique, Film Comment, suchlike. The woman finally returned, shut the door, and said,

“Mr. Higginbotham will be with you shortly, Jimmy.”

“It’s Joe.” She looked up again, sitting at the desk now, confused and sheepish, returning from some private sojourn. “Of course, I’m sorry.” After a few more interminable minutes waiting in uncomfortable silence, a clock ticking away in case you had forgotten about time being short, the phone rang on her desk, she talked a bit with Mr. H., and I was up to bat. As I got up, she rose, too, and spoke to me in a halting, haunted manner, almost in a whisper, so hushed and solemn was her voice:

“Jimmy…..be careful of women. They’re bad. They’ll hurt you…..” She searched my face for an answer to an ancient question, a question that preceded me, that’s for sure. A soul deep in pain, perhaps, or just a scatterbrained oldie, who knows? Maybe a woman who was never able to face the world. She had failed someone long ago, perhaps, and now remorse was her overriding emotion. She certainly was sincere. I said nothing, but only nodded gravely, feigning assent the best I could, and went in to interview Higginbotham. I never learned her name, let’s just call her…..Theodora.

Inside the inner office, the contrast to Theodora was extreme: Higgy was an enormously cheerful, robust, sixty-five year old, and he shook my hand gladly, even gratefully. He wore a suit and tie. They were happy to get visitors, if they weren’t out looking to do them harm. There was a brilliant red carpet underfoot, pretty new. A big desk with a DVD player and an illuminated T.V. was near a curtained window that looked down on Wilshire. A lonely whoosh of a car went past. The office was old and dowdy. One of the football games was on the tube with the sound off, it looked like in re Cardinals v. Eagles. All right — my type of guy. I watched a running play into the line — no gain. “You’re writing an article on exotic film, Mr. Downing?” he began, and I turned away from the game.

“Well, I’m in the mere project phase right now, you understand, in the rudimentary, preliminary stage, if you will, doing the backround research and the legwork.”

“Oh, that’s very nice, sir! So, what would you like to know about our ‘Peculiar Institution?’” It seemed a joke that was standard with him. I smiled. He was a good guy, one could tell right off.

“Well, I’d like to know about Hubrisa Williams and Paco Baby and See-Saw Lady…..and Viper, too. All those people.”

“They are fine people. Spoof, too!”

“He’s a little out there, though, isn’t he? With the Witch Trials stuff?” Higginbotham responded slowly and carefully.

“Yes, he has his ‘idiosyncracies,’ shall we say? But then haven’t we all, Mr. Downing?” He chuckled merrily: checkmate. He seemed a well-bred, intelligent man, the exact opposite of Viper.

“But what about Viper? Good guy?” Higginbotham responded in a pained way now, his mood darker:

“He’s essentially a failure. A good man who turned bad. A jealous man who turned to extortion.” Bitterness came into his melodious voice. He had spoken with the conciseness of a telegram.

“You said they were all fine people.”

“A manner of speaking, Mr. Downing, just a manner of speaking. You see, it’s an old habit: exotic cinema thrives on the indirect, on the ironic, on the unstated and on the understated — on the hidden, in short.” I was somewhat dubious about very much being left to the imagination in porn flicks, but I let it go.

“Did Viper want Hubrisa for some movie?”

“Yes, indeed he did, I was informed awhile ago, but she wouldn’t finish it. She has received an offer for a feature film from Miramax, and she decided to abandon Viper’s. Make a clean break immediately.”

“Wasn’t that a little cold for her to do that?”

“Certainly not. It happens often in this industry. We always have setbacks. You have to cope with them.”

“So, she was in the film for a time, though?”

“Yes, Mr. Downing, she certainly was…..what is this about?” Time to move:

“Mr. Higginbotham, I’ll be forthcoming with you….. I’ve been hired as a private investigator, by Spoof, to look into…..a situation involving Hubrisa. That is, Hubrisa is dead, sir, beaten Thursday night, and she passed away yesterday morning. Viper’s an obvious suspect. Possibly Paco Baby, too. Spoof asked me to look into it, sir.” Mr. Higginbotham stared at me, aghast, in disbelief, in pain, in complete grief. Something so horrible couldn’t be true. I looked down at my hands in my lap during the silence.

“This is really too much, Mr. Downing, I don’t believe you. I simply don’t believe you. I will have to ask you to leave now.” I got up, to show absolute compliance and cooperation immediately.

“Spoof really did hire me, sir. I was there when she died, yesterday morning. And now I need to watch Viper’s movie to see if I can nail him for this — or Paco Baby. Spoof hired me, Mr. Higginbotham. I’m so sorry.” Higginbotham glared at me, speechless, from his chair behind the desk. He turned off the T.V. Resignation slowly drifted down upon his overburdened shoulders, and broke his resistance. The natural ebullience of his character turned to sadness and sorrow. He laboriously put his head in his hands. He had had a suspicion something such as this could happen, with Viper’s nature, and then his being ‘jilted.’

“Mr. Higginbotham, you said that Viper turned to extortion? Of who?” Higginbotham wiped his eyes, a good-hearted old man. This Hubrisa was apparently their pride and joy. He was silent a long time. Life was unfair, and he was disgusted by it all, shattered by the parade of revelations. Why do the good find only destruction, while the bad flourish?

“He got to Paco Baby. Paco Baby was an accessory to a murder a couple, three years ago, and Viper found out. Now he owns him. He makes him do anything he wants him to.”

“Was the murder solved?”

“No — only Paco Baby knows who killed this other young woman, a drifter from the Midwest.”

“Was it Viper, maybe?”

“Not likely — Viper found the money inadvertently, and took it. Paco Baby had hidden the money in their little office at the motel, and then came looking for it. Viper figured it out.”

“Oh, nice move…..” I was screaming inside, but stayed calm: “Mr. Higginbotham, I really need to watch that movie now, sir, maybe we can get them for this…..maybe they hid something in the film, just like in the office.”

“Yes, we can, Mr. Downing, absolutely. He submitted it at the last moment for the Wickies.”

“It was finished?”

“I assume it was, I haven’t watched it yet. I only received it this morning.”

“Viper was here?!”

“Yes, he was. Today is the deadline for all submissions. We do allow submissions for a time even after the nominations are announced. It’s just porn, after all.” He smiled some through the somber dejection he felt. He reached across the desk to a plain DVD cover, got out the disk, fumbling it, and it fell onto the red carpet. He really didn’t like Viper. He put the DVD in the drive, we sat back in unison, and the movie began:

Preening Pelican Studios Presents

A Viperworks Production of

A film by the Man of Wrath, Viper

in HD

 

The Bounty Hunters Reloaded

starring Hubrisa Williams as The Neon Death Girl

and

Paco Baby as Sir William Phips

co-starring The See-Saw Lady as The Huntress

and

Viper as The King of England

Written and Directed by Viper

It was a stupid thing, of course, part apocalyptic and futuristic, and part faux-Renaissance. You see, Neon Death Girl had stolen the ‘Crown of Royal Pride,’ and from guess who, and Sir William had been assigned to get it back and ‘correct’ the Neon Girl. Hubrisa was very beautiful, and a not-bad actress. Now, Neon Girl could shoot laser-beams from her right forefinger that could melt iron, and certainly you and me. Sir William was down on his luck as a bounty hunter, though, no successes evidently for a long time, and it was rumoured around the Royal Court that he was washed-up:

KING OF ENGLAND: CANST THOU BRING ME THE NEON DEATH GIRL, AND RETRIEVE THE CROWN OF ROYAL PRIDE, SIR WILLIAM?

SIR WILLIAM PHIPS: YES, I AM ABLE, YOUR MAJESTY. I AM FOREVER YOURS. YOU OWN ME.

THE HUNTRESS: I, TOO, AM YOURS, YOUR MAJESTY.

KING OF ENGLAND: SIR WILLIAM, REMEMBER: DO NOT FAIL ME AGAIN!

Stuff like that. Pretty bad. Lots of skin from all concerned. Neon Girl nicks Phips in the shoulder with her laser-beam finger as she steals the Crown, and heads for Kazakhstan. He curses her, following her with The Huntress, on horseback. In the climatic scene, in a village in Kazakhstan, Phips comes up behind Neon Girl and cuts off her right hand with a terrible sword, and laughs triumphantly, holding up the hand. The villagers lustily cheer the victory of good over evil. Neon Girl is now powerless against the irresistible force of Phips. She weeps plaintively. Then, abruptly, the scene changes to the very motel room where I had first seen Hubrisa.

I sat up at this point, and so did Mr. Higginbotham. We sat transfixed, in fact: I because I was amazed that this scum would somehow film her after she was dead, and Higginbotham because he had not seen before this how brutally Hubrisa had been beaten. We didn’t speak. Higginbotham was overcome with emotion at seeing Hubrisa in such a state. The King of England speaks in soliloquy at the end, above Hubrisa’s body on the mattress:

“You have succeeded, Phips! She is mine! She did not escape! This witch is finished forever! No one leaves me!”

The last moments had the camera getting slowly closer, sadistically, to Hubrisa’s face. The bruises and blood on her body made you shudder, they were so severe and painful. Higginbotham finally broke his silence, as the movie mercifully ended. ”Now I really know why she wasn’t here Thursday night for the party. She was dead! That monster filmed a dead woman!” Higginbotham spoke in a low, shocked montone. He continued:

“Paco Baby came here Thursday night and said she felt she was too good for us, and she wasn’t coming to the party. But Spoof shot that down immediately, saying that Paco Baby had told Hubrisa she wouldn’t win the Wickie if she didn’t go. From the scuttlebutt lately, Paco Baby knew she didn’t want to win, so he must have told her how not to win: don’t go to the party. They both did this, Mr. Downing.” I agreed, and added:

“Viper must have waited ’til everyone was gone, and then he went on in, beat her, and filmed her. But if he filmed her Thursday night, she still wasn’t dead — I can attest to that, since I saw her alive Friday morning. She must still be alive in the movie.” We reversed the movie back before the last moment. We saw that Hubrisa was motionless, but with her arms down at her sides as she lay on the mattress. Higginbotham studied the fragile figure in anguish. She really did mean a lot to them all. Suddenly I remembered walking into the motel bedroom the previous day with Paco Baby, after he had pushed Spoof. We had found her dead at that point, of course — but her arms were up at her face, then, to ward off blows. They weren’t down at her sides, as here, in the movie.

“She’s not dead here,” I proclaimed as we watched the last scene again. “The coroner’s photos will show her with her arms up to her face. That’s how we found her yesterday.”

“But what does it mean, Mr. Downing?!”

“It means he thought she was dead when he filmed her, when she wasn’t dead: he thought he was safe. He probably was going to claim that he filmed her after the coroner had been and gone.”

“But isn’t that a bit much? Who would believe such a story?”

“He wanted a Wickie so bad, he wasn’t thinking, I guess, but he did it, that’s for sure. Now he doesn’t even have that lame excuse. He felt bulletproof, obviously. But this will put him in stir.” I paused. Higginbotham was mesmerized by the chain of events.

I went on: “It could only be that he filmed this before the coroner’s photos were taken Friday morning, and when she moved her arms, as an argument went on between Spoof and Paco Baby in the living room, she fingered Viper. He can’t claim he filmed this after the coroner got there, since the coroner’s photos are definitely how she looked at the end, and his film shows her differently. He had to have filmed this thing before the coroner. She can’t move after she’s dead, only before: that puts Viper right there at the time of the beating.”

****************************

Tom had been right about most of it, the trip out here to this crazy place had been worth it, and how. I didn’t think McNulty and Vaughan had been out here. So the glue of Icarus had melted once again. I went out of The Institute, past Theodora, who seemed herself again, got into the ‘Vette, and onto the freeway at last. It was 5pm, dark as black satin, and cold. The air bit into me. I named the cities backwards this time as I drove back to Deep Gorge and to my office, to think, to wonder, and to scream.

…..to be continued…..

Tony Downing