George Pelecanos - Down By the River Where the Dead Men Go

“I’ll be all right. It’s just that, you know, I don’t want anybody thinkin’ I’m some kind of punk. See what I’m sayin’?”

“We’re just businessmen selling this stuff,” I said. “So relax.”

“ ’Cause I ain’t no punk,” Donny said, unable to give it up. “I ain’t never had nothin’ back there didn’t belong back there. Fact is, I’m so tight, it hurts me to fart.”

“Shit,” Darnell mumbled.

“Now, women?” Donny continued, moving forward and leaning his arms on the front seat. “I get me some women. Had me this girl last night, this freak from Dundalk?”

“Told you he was from Baltimore,” Darnell said.

“Anyway,” Donny said, “in the beginning, this freak didn’t want to come over to my place, on account of I’m on the… slight side. Maybe she thought that meant I was light in other ways, too. See what I’m sayin’? But when I unspooled that motherfucker”-and here Donny imitated the sound of a line being cast-“the freak says, ‘Goddamn, Donny, where’d a little man like you get so much dick?’ ”

“Step on it,” LaDuke said, “will you, Darnell?” Darnell gave the Ford some gas.

The only sign outside the Hot Plate said NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES, BOOKS. The address, however, jibed with the one given to me by Gerry Abromowitz, so Darnell parked the car on K. We left him sitting behind the wheel, reading a paperback on the teachings of Islam, and went inside the shop.

The first section of the store featured racks of daily newspapers and magazines, weeklies and monthlies, all of the legitimate variety. The clerk behind the counter did not so much as look up when we entep wimore,”red. We went through another open door, into a considerably livelier and more populated section where the real business was being conducted.

A couple of employees-one skinny, one fat, there never seemed to be middle physical ground in places like these-were ringing up sales and keeping an eye on the display floor. Donny immediately went to a rack containing shrink-wrapped magazines whose covers almost exclusively featured women with extralarge lungs. McGinnes seemed more interested in the business aspect of things, wondering aloud how the “profit pieces” were merchandised. LaDuke stood with his hands in his pockets, clearly disgusted at the sight of middle-aged men eye-searching the mags that specialized in man-boy action. Most of the activity seemed to be in that area of the store. I waited for one of the clerks to get free, the pock-faced, skinny one, and announced myself. The kid punched an in-house extension, spoke to someone on the other end, pointed to another open door, and told me we could “go on.” I got everyone together and we went through to the back.

We entered a large warehouse arrangement where three men sat in an office area in front of computers, taking orders over the phone. I guessed that the mail-order end of things was Tobias’s biggest number, the on-line factor a big element in the company’s growth, a way for pedophiles and other pervs to home-shop and network coast to coast without fear of exposure. Progress.

Bernard Tobias stepped out from a row of shelves. He was short and dumpy, but clean, the kind of man who has a wife and kids and a house in Kemp Mill or Hillandale, complete with ashtrays stolen from Atlantic City hotels and clown prints hung on the bathroom walls. He would have told you that he was providing a service, a form of release for those “poor slobs” who “have a problem” with kids, and that maybe, just maybe, it was safer to sell a magazine to a guy who could take it home and jerk off on some boy’s photograph, rather than have him out prowling the local video arcade, trying to hand quarters out to someone’s son. I hadn’t come here to judge him, though, only to get some information: I smiled warmly and shook his hand.

“Ron Roget,” I said.

“Bernie Tobias,” he said, and looked expectantly at the rest of my group.

“My associates,” I said, presenting them with an elaborate swing of my hand. “Mr. Franco, Mr. Magid, and Mr. Jefferson.”

The names were characters from the film The Dirty Dozen. After a pointless argument on the drive over-McGinnes wanted to be Jefferson, but Donny, of course, wouldn’t let him-we had agreed on the aliases.

“I’ve heard of you guys,” Bernie said, scratching his head.

“Of course you have,” Donny said. “We’re large.”

“Follow me,” Bernie said, and we all walked through the warehouse aisles to an open area that looked like a small-timer’s idea of a meeting room. We took seats around a shiny oval table, with Tobias in the sole chair with arms. There was a desk near the table. Plaques of some sort hung on cinder block. A wooden shelf over the desk contained a row of trophies.

“Thank you for seeing us,” I said. “I can see you’re very bus’ hand. y.”

“Business is good,” Bernie said, his fingers locked and resting on his ample belly. “You say you guys are out of Philly?”

“South and Main,” Donny said.

“I’d give you a card,” I said, “but the truth is, we didn’t come prepared for this. We’re on a kind of vacation here.”

“A retreat,” McGinnes said.

“Down south,” I said.

“Miami,” LaDuke said, probably just wanting to hear his own voice.

“ South Miami,” Donny said, as if he had ever been out of the Baltimore-Washington corridor. “South Beach.”

“We got a boat down there,” McGinnes said.

“A yacht,” said Donny.

“So,” I said, “we were passing through town, heading south, and I thought I’d look you up, make an introduction.”

Bernie Tobias looked at Donny and McGinnes, back at me. “What exactly is it that you and your associates do, Mr. Roget?”

“Ron,” I said.

“What do you do, Ron?”

“Like I told you on the phone, we cater to the NAMBLA crowd-man-boy discipline, that sort of thing.”

“In what capacity?” Bernie said.

“We’re producers,” I said. “We specialize in the type of product you specialize in, on the distribution end.”

“And how do you know of me?”

“The network,” I said mysteriously, and with a wink.

“But we ain’t no punks, now,” Donny said.

“It hurts him to fart,” McGinnes said, giving a quick head jerk toward Donny.

Bernie Tobias looked oddly at Donny, and then the phone rang on his desk. He excused himself, got up to answer it. LaDuke and I simultaneously shot killer looks at Donny and McGinnes. Tobias raised his voice into the phone, hung it up, and returned to his seat.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really don’t have much time today. There’s a lot going on.”

“We won’t keep you,” I said. “But I just wanted to let you in on what we’re doing. As far as production values go, we’re doing the highest-quality videos for the broadest customer base of anyone else on this coast.”

“But I’m very satisfied with what I have,” Bernie said. “I deal with only a couple of suppliers. They’re local, so there’s never any problem in getting merchandise quickly. And they know just what I want-this discipline th dihey knowing is really taking off for me right now, I’m telling you. It’s legal, too-no penetration shots, no actors who are obviously underage.”

“Not obviously underage,” LaDuke said.

“Well, you have to know how to straddle that line, don’t you?”

“Of course,” LaDuke said, struggling to form a smile.

“Your suppliers,” I said, “they wouldn’t be the Brontman Brothers, out of Northwest, would they?” I had seen a sign for Brontman Bakers on a storefront on the way downtown.

“No,” Bernie said, distracted by Donny, who had gotten out of his chair and picked up one of Tobias’s trophies off the shelf. “I don’t even know them. Look, Mr.-”