Death of a Blue Movie Star Read online

  Now, porn was virtually homemade, with dozens of small companies in the business. They shot on tape, never on film. A producer was somebody with five thousand bucks, a good source of coke and six willing friends. There were few superstars like John Holmes or Annette Haven or Seka or Georgina Spelvin. Shelly Lowe was as famous as anyone. (With a tough glance at the camera: "Hell, I've got five hundred films under my belt. So to speak.") But stars' fame was limited to New York and California mostly. In Middle America Shelly Lowe was just another face on the boxes of tapes offered for rental in curtained-off corners of family video stores. If she'd been in the business in the mid-seventies she would have done live appearances at theater openings across the country. Now, that didn't happen.

  Making a film was easy: A three-person crew rented a loft or took over somebody's apartment for two days, set up the camcorders and lights and sound, shot six to ten fuck scenes and twenty minutes of transitions. The script was a ten-page story idea. Dialogue was improvised. In the postproduction house two versions were edited. Hardcore for sale to the adult theaters, mail order, peep shows and video stores; soft for sale to the cable stations and in-room hotel movie services. Movie theaters weren't the biggest outlet for adult films anymore; they went out of business or put in video projection units, then went out of business anyway. But people rented porn tapes and took them home and watched them. Four thousand X-rated videos were made every year. They had become a commodity.

  "Mass production. It's the era of pornography as Volkswagen."

  "What about you? Like personally?" Rune asked. "You get forced into the business? Were you like kidnaped? Molested when you were ten?"

  Shelly laughed. "Not hardly. I wanted to do it. Or maybe I should say that the pressures were subtle. I wanted desperately to act but I couldn't get any legit jobs. Nothing that paid the rent. Porn was the only job I could get. Then I found that not only was I acting but I was making great money. I had control. Not only creative control but sexual control too. It can be a real high."

  "Weren't you exploited?"

  Shelly laughed once more, shook her head. Looked straight into the camera. "That's the myth of pornography. No, we're not poor farm girls who get enslaved. Men have the power in legitimate films but in porn it's the other way around. Just like with sex in real life: It's the women who're in control. We have what men want and they're willing to pay for it. We make more money than men do, we dictate what we do and what we don't do. We're on top. Forgive the joke."

  Surprise in Rune's voice: "So you like the business?"

  A pause and the sincere eyes glazed back easily into the Betacam's expensive, glossy lens. "Not exactly. There's one problem. There's no sense of ... beauty. They call them erotic films but there's nothing erotic about them. Erotic connotes emotional stimulation as well as physical. Close-ups of people humping isn't erotic. I think I said this to you before: The business has a real low common denominator."

  "So why have you stayed with it?" Rune asked.

  "I do some legitimate theater now. Not much but every once in a while. And most I've ever made has been four thousand dollars a year. Making porn, I made a hundred twelve last year. Life's expensive. I took the path of least resistance."

  Shelley slumped an inch and Rune noticed something. The tough, flirty woman who'd begun talking, the Shelly with the facts and figures, the Shelly with the newscaster's grit in her voice, wasn't the same person who was talking now. This was someone different: softer, sensitive, thoughtful.

  Shelly sat up, crossed her legs. She looked at her watch. "Hey, I'm beat. Let's call it a wrap for tonight."

  "Sure."

  The hot lights went dark and made tapping noises as they cooled. Immediately Rune felt the chill of the evening envelop them.

  "How did it go, you think?" Rune asked. "I thought it was super.

  Shelly said, "You're a very easy person to talk to."

  "I'm not even using any of my questions." Rune sat in the lotus position and flapped her knees up and down like butterfly wings. "There's so much material ... and we've hardly started talking about you yet. You're so good."

  "You're still interested, we can go to that party."

  "You bet."

  Shelly asked, "Use your phone?"

  "Sorry, remember? I'm Miss Incommunicado."

  "A ship-to-shore radio. That's what you need. Then let's stop by the studio for a minute? I've got to see if there's a shoot scheduled for tomorrow." She noticed Rune's small JVC camcorder. "Why don't you bring that. You can do some taping at the party."

  "Great." Rune packed the small camera. "You think they'll mind?"

  Shelly smiled in a way that was also a shake of her head. "You'll be with the star, remember?"

  Lame Duck Productions' soundstage was only three blocks from Rune's company.

  Both were located in Chelsea, a neighborhood that changed block by block--while L&R's building sat next to an overpriced, gentrified restaurant, Lame Duck's squatted in a gray and greasy stretch of Korean importers and warehouses and coffee shops. Rune smelled garlic and rancid oil as they walked along the street. Cobblestones shone through the asphalt. Battered cars and delivery vans waited for another day of abuse on the streets of New York City.

  They walked into the lobby of the building, stained with the residue of a thousand halfhearted moppings. Shelly said, "I'll be right down. I just have to check the scheduling board. Is it too dark to shoot some exteriors?" She nodded toward the video camera.

  Rune said she would.

  The security guard said, "Oh, Miss Lowe, phone message for you. It says urgent."

  Shelly took the pink message slip, read it. She said to Rune. "Be right down."

  Rune wandered along the sidewalk outside. She held the camera to her eye but the low-light warning flashed through the eyepiece. She put it back into her bag. The garlic was making her hungry and she wondered what there was to eat at pornographic film parties.

  Food, like everybody else, girl. What do you think? Shelly's just like anybody else. She--

  "Hey, Rune!" Shelly's voice filled the street.

  Rune looked up but in the gloom couldn't see which window she was calling from. Then she saw the actress outlined in a third-floor window. She called back, "What?"

  "I'm shooting at eleven tomorrow. You want to watch?"

  "I guess," she said quickly and then just as quickly realized that she did not in fact want to see the shoot. "You think it's okay?"

  "I'll make it okay. Let me make this call. I'll be right down." She vanished inside.

  This could be totally weird. What was the set like? Would the crew seem bored? Did the sets turn into one big orgy? Maybe some of the actors would proposition her--though if all the actresses were tall and blonde and beautiful like Shelly that probably wouldn't be a problem. Did men and women just walk around naked on the--

  The ball of flame was like a ragged sun, so bright that Rune instinctively threw her arms up over her eyes, just saving her face from the bits of concrete and glass and wood that hurtled into the street, on the heels of a roar so loud that the slap of the concussion landed like knuckles all over her body.

  Rune screamed--in terror at the thundering volume and in pain as she slammed into a battered Chevy van parked on the curb.

  Smoke rising, flames ...

  For some time Rune lay in the gutter, her head wedged against the concrete curb, her face resting in a patch of oily water. The ringing in her ears so loud she thought a steam pipe had ruptured.

  God, what happened? A plane crash?

  Rune sat up slowly. She brushed at her ears. They felt cottony, stuffed with ash. She snapped her fingers near them; she couldn't hear a sound. Not her fingers, not even the huge Seagrave fire truck as it braked to a halt ten feet from her, whose siren was probably screaming loudly.

  She stood, supporting herself on the van. She was dizzy. She waited for the sensation to pass but it didn't and she wondered if maybe she had a concussion.

  Rune wonde
red too if there was something wrong with her vision--because she found she was focusing perfectly on two things at the same time: one near, the other far away.

  The close object was a feather of thin paper, gilt-edged and printed with fine lettering. It sailed decorously down past her cheek and slipped away in the uneasy current of air.

  The other thing Rune could see all too clearly, even through the column of black smoke, was the hole in the third floor of the building in front of her--the cavern that had been the office where Shelly Lowe had been standing to shout to Rune what would be, apparently, the last words she'd ever say.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Their faces were stone.

  Rune sat in the back of an NYPD patrol car, the door open, her feet on the ground outside, and wiped at her tears. She was aware of the two men who stood five feet away, watching her, but she didn't return their gaze.

  The fire was out. A foul, chemical reek filled the air and a film of smoke hung over the street like an oily fog.

  Rune's face and elbows had been cleaned and bandaged by the EMS attendants. They used Band-Aids. She thought they would've used something more elaborate but they just scrubbed the skin, slapped on flesh-colored strips and went upstairs. They walked slowly. No one up there needed their talents.

  She pressed the shredded wad of Kleenex into her eyes one final time and looked up at the men, who were dressed in dark suits. "She's dead, isn't she?"

  "You 're shouting," one of the detectives said.

  She couldn't hear her own voice--her ears were still numb. She repeated the question, trying to talk more softly.

  The question surprised them. One had an expression that could have been a faint smile. He said something she couldn't hear. Rune asked him to repeat it. He said, "She's extremely dead."

  It was confusing, talking to them. She caught fragments of phrases, missed others. She had to look at their eyes to make sense of what they were asking.

  "What happened?" she asked.

  Neither of them responded. One asked gruffly, "What's your name, miss?"

  She told them.

  She heard: "Not your stage name, honey, not the one you use when you're up on the silver screen, your real name." He gazed at her coldly.

  "Rune is my real name. Wait.... You think I worked with Shelly?"

  "Work? You call it work? What does your mother say about your career?"

  Anger burst in her face. "I'm not a porn actress."

  The other smiled. "Well, I guess that's not too hard to figure out." His eyes scanned her body. "So whatta you do for the company? Get coffee? Do makeup? Give the actors head to get 'em up before the shoot?"

  She started up. "Listen--"

  "Sit down." He waved her back into the car. "I've got a lot better things to do with my time than talk to one of you people." His partner didn't seem as angry but he wasn't stopping the man's tirade. "You want to do this kind of bullshit with your life, encouraging people to get diseases and things, fine. It's a free country. Just don't expect me to like you and tell you how sorry I am your friend got blown the fuck up. Now, I wanna ask my questions and get the hell outa here. So tell me what you saw." A notebook appeared.

  She was crying again, messy, sniffling tears, as she told them what happened, about the party they were going to, about Shelly getting a phone message, Rune waiting for her downstairs.

  Rune said, "I saw her in the window, then the room exploded." She closed her eyes. The blast replayed in slow motion; she opened her eyes again. The scene continued, vivid, in her mind. "It was ... it was so loud."

  The one who was taking notes, the mean one, nodded and slipped his pad into his coat pocket. "You didn't see anybody else?"

  "No."

  He turned to the other with a feigned frown of thought. "Maybe we should take her up to see the body. She could ID it."

  "Yeah, with that blast, the ME's office'll have a bitch of a time. You can be a big help. Come on, Miss Porn, you've got a strong stomach, don't you?" He took her by the arm, pulled her from the car.

  The other was grinning. "Half her skin's blown off and the rest is pretty burnt." He pushed her toward the doorway.

  A voice behind them: "Howdy, gentlemen. What's up?"

  Cowboy stood on the sidewalk, moving his knuckles slowly along the rim of his baseball cap. He glanced at Rune, then back to the cops.

  A detective nodded toward her. "Eyewitness. We were just--"

  Rune pulled away, stepped toward Cowboy. "They were going to make me go upstairs and look at Shelly's body."

  Cowboy's brow creased. "Were they?"

  One of the cops shrugged, a grin on his face.

  Cowboy said, "They took it out ten minutes ago, sent it to the ME's office. You guys saw it go."

  The detectives grinned. "Having a little fun is all, Sam."

  He was nodding, not pissed, but not smiling back either. "You finished with her?"

  "Guess."

  "Mind if I talk to her for a bit?"

  "She's all yours." The detective turned to her. "We'll want you to sign a statement. Where can we get in touch with you?"

  Rune gave them the phone number of L&R Productions.

  Climbing into their unmarked car, one detective said, "I hope you consider this a lesson, young lady. Get your life together."

  "I wasn't--," Rune began. But they slammed the doors and sped off.

  Cowboy was studying her face. "Not too bad."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "The cuts, I mean. You were lucky. It'd been on ground level, you might not have made it."

  Rune was staring at the smoldering hole, where firemen had set up portable lights in metal cages hanging from scorched wires and conduit.

  "What was her name?" he asked.

  "Shelly Lowe. That was her stage name. She was an adult-film star."

  "That was a studio?"

  "Lame Duck Productions."

  He nodded, looking up at the hole in the side of the building. "Another porn bombing."

  "They"--she nodded at the detectives who'd just left--"thought I worked for them."

  "They were giving you the shock treatment. They do the same thing with kids they find with drugs, and hookers and drunk drivers. You humiliate them, they're supposed to change their wayward lifestyle and go back to school or go on the wagon and join the church. I did it myself when I was a portable."

  "A what?"

  "A beat cop."

  She walked a foot or two toward the building, staring at the opening. "I didn't work with her. I'm doing a documentary about her. I don't do those kind of films."

  "I've seen you before."

  "I was at the other bombing, the theater, and I saw you. Then again last night."

  "I saw somebody with a camera. I didn't recognize you."

  "I asked you something and you didn't answer me."

  "I didn't hear," he answered. He touched his ear. "Hearing's not so great. Been doing bomb work for a few years now."

  "I'm Rune." She stuck out her hand.

  His fingers were narrow, but thick with calluses. "Sam Healy."

  Healy motioned for her to step back as several blue-and-white police cars pulled away. Rune noticed that most of the police were gone. Just a half-dozen fire trucks were left. And the blue-and-white Bomb Squad station wagon.

  He stood with his hands on his hips, looking at the shattered wall. He paced up and down.

  "Why is everyone gone?"

  Healy stared at the bricks. He asked, "Did you see a flash?"

  "A flash? Yeah."

  "What color was it?"

  "I don't remember. Red or orange, I guess."

  He said, "Did you feel a chemical irritation, like tear gas or anything?"

  "It smelled pretty bad but I don't think so."

  "No one threw anything through the window?"

  "Like a hand grenade?"

  "Like anything," he said.

  "No. Shelly called out the window, asked me a question. Then she went to ma
ke a phone call. It blew up a minute later. Less, maybe."

  "Phone call?"

  "She got a message that she was supposed to call someone. The guard might know who. But I'm sure the detectives talked to him."

  Healy was frowning. He said in a soft voice, "They sent the guard home. He didn't know anything and didn't say anything about a message. Or the detectives said he didn't. Hey, wait here a minute, okay?"

  He was walking back to the station wagon on his long legs. He spoke on the radio for a few minutes. She saw him put the receiver back on the dash. A young officer came up to him and handed him a plastic bag.

  When he returned to Rune she said, "Second angel?"

  He gave a surprised laugh.

  "I was looking over your shoulder last week."

  He nodded. Then debated and showed her the plastic sleeve.

  The second angel blew his trumpet, and a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood....

  This too was from the Sword of Jesus. He slipped it into his attache case.

  Rune said, "What I was asking a minute ago--where is everybody? You're almost the only cop left."

  "Ah, the word has come down." Healy looked at the crater again.

  "Word?"

  He nodded toward the smoking building. "If, say, a cop'd been killed in there. Or a kid or a nun or pregnant lady, well, there'd be a hundred cops and FBI here right now." He looked at her, the kind of glance parents give their kids during birds-and-bees lectures to see if the message is getting across.

  It didn't seem to be and Healy said, "The word is we're not supposed to waste too much time on people like this. In the porn industry. Understand?"

  "That's ridiculous." Rune's eyes flashed. "What about those people in the theater? Don't you care about them?"

  "We care. We just don't care too much. And you want to know the truth about the patrons at the Velvet Venus? A couple of them were innocent bystanders, sure. But two were wanted on drug charges, one was a convicted felon who jumped parole, one was carrying a ten-inch butcher knife."

  "And if a nun'd been walking by outside when it went off, or on that sidewalk there, she'd be just as dead as Shelly Lowe."

  "True. Which's why I'm saying the we're not going to stop investigating. We're just not going to waste resources."

  Rune was spinning the silver bracelet on her wrist. "You talk like Shelly wasn't a real person. She was, and somebody killed her."