Дональд Джеймс - The House of Eros

‘OK.’ he said. ‘I’m making it clear, right? Mr Tron sent you over here because I once played stud in some of the early Eros numbers, but that’s when me and Eros parted company. Early days, understand? A boy, a girl and a bed. Before Stevenson started taking special orders.’

She found it difficult not to react to the sound of the name, not to ply him with questions, but she nodded calmly. ‘OK’ she said, ‘I understand. Early numbers.’

He relaxed. ‘There was nothing to it,’ he said. ‘Stevenson had the camera equipment, Vietnam had the girls and there were a few hundred crazy young deserters like me running around in Saigon trying to earn a dollar. When Steve offered us work we thought we were in paradise. When he told us what work it was we knew we were.’

‘Just good fun.’

‘Believe me,’ he said. ‘Ver’ straight. We were making them for the guys out there in the bamboo. They were one step from sex education.’

‘And then?’

‘Then the numbers started becoming heavier. Scenarist stuff, you know what that is?’ Her eyes on him, she shook her head. ‘It’s when the customer gets to write the scenario, get it? That’s when the crazies move in. That’s when the producer also starts to make big bucks. But sometimes the crazies are very crazy. They like very crazy things up there on the silver screen. You get me?’

‘Who were these customers?’

‘In Saigon, anybody. An American general, a Swedish aid administrator, a British diplomat, a Frenchman, an Australian…’

‘And Vietnamese?’

‘Sure. Ministers, police chiefs… they all paid a small fortune to write up their own private little fantasies. But it was rough, rough stuff Nan. Not long before Steve asked me would I do a snuff. You know what that is? You kill the girl under you, the girl you’re humping. Every second script was asking for it. Men are just wonderful. I said no. Definitely no. I wasn’t going to throttle any girl for some crazy to get off on.’

‘What did he say to that?’

‘He didn’t like it. He came on strong about them only being bar-girls, short shelf life. He was crazier than the guys who wrote the scenarios.’

She nodded, wishing she’d asked for a drink to quell her uneasy stomach.

‘I got out when he put it to me straight. Either I snuffed the next girl on camera or he’d hand me over to the MPs. I was so scared I gave myself up. Naturally I wasn’t telling anybody I’d spent my time over the wall making art movies. I served three years in Leavenworth and came back home to New York a much wiser man.’

‘And Stevenson?’

‘Never saw him again.’ He grimaced. ‘I’d like to. If only to wrap him in a blanket and drop him deep in the East River. For all those young Viet chicks…’ He stopped. ‘No offence. Somehow, you look different.’

‘What was Stevenson’s name?’ she said. ‘His first name?’ Charlie Mandrake shrugged. ‘We called him Steve. Never thought about a first name.’

‘What was he, a newsman?’

‘He was a sort of hustler. I think he was into whatever made him some money. He came over as a freelance newsman, but he never got near the bamboo.’ Charlie swigged hard at his Scotch. ‘Old Tron warned me you could be interested in something other than collector’s items. What is it? Stevenson himself?’

She nodded. ‘Stevenson himself,’ she said. ‘What was he like?’ Charlie strolled across the big room. ‘A bucket of charm. When he laughed the world laughed with him.’

‘And when it didn’t?’

Charlie swung round savagely. ‘The guy made snuff movies, for Christ’s sake. Real snuff movies. Doesn’t that say it all?’

‘Are you going to help me, Charlie?’

‘You want him? Right?’

‘I want him.’

He stood looking down at her, twisting his tumbler in his hand, until her relentless stare made him turn away. ‘OK, Nan Luc,’ he said. ‘I won’t ask what happens when you find him.’

She waited while he poured himself another Scotch. ‘Did you ever use the Eros Bar?’ she asked him.

He came across the room, his drink in his hand. ‘Not a lot. The MPs swept it pretty regular. Guys like me, deserters, we mostly stayed way over in Cholon.’

‘Did you know a girl named Louise at the Eros?’

‘Louise Hyn? She worked on camera couple of times with me. We knew each other, yes.’ He laughed. ‘Then she got herself an MP and a ticket to New York.’

‘I think she lives in New York now?’

He swung himself up to sit on the window shelf. ‘What’s Louise to you?’

‘Louise Hyn is my aunt. She could help me find Stevenson.’

‘Her husband’s a cop.’ Nan Luc shrugged. ‘Even now my life’s open to interpretation, Nan. I don’t want cops around me.’

‘Is it possible Louise kept contact with Stevenson?’

‘It’s possible.’ He hesitated. ‘OK, I used to see a girl named Mai Su. Vietnamese married to an Italian guy. Years ago, when I just came out of the stockade. I needed money and she offered me a few days’ work on camera. Needs must… She and I did a few numbers together. The earth didn’t move for the producer so he found himself another couple. I hadn’t seen Mai Bassano for years until a couple of months ago. Then I saw her twice.’ Nan waited. ‘Riding in an old convertible in the Bronx. I was over there a few mornings later looking over a property and I saw her again. This time she’s got my old co-star, Louise, in the passenger seat. They’re held at a stop light on the Grand Concourse.’

‘Did you speak to them?’

‘I was two floors up. I yelled down hullo to Mai Su, hullo to Louise. Mai Su waves. Louise looks up and I’ve known guys owe me money more pleased to see me.’

‘You don’t know where she lives?’ He shook his head. ‘Where can I find Mai Bassano?’

‘I’ve got nothing against Mai. I wouldn’t like to be married to her but I got nothing against her.’

‘Nor have I, Charlie,’ Nan said. ‘Nothing against Louise either.’

‘Just Stevenson.’

‘Just Stevenson.’

He nodded, taking a deep breath. ‘When I knew Mai her husband’s family ran a place called the Palermo Luncheonette over in the Italian neighbourhood, Belmont.’

The trees masking the parking lot at the Meyerick County Club were sparse and leafless. The wind that came off the Meyerick Hills brought the threat of snow. Local stations warned of only twenty-three shopping days to Christmas.

Every time the warm voice of DJ Artie Sandella reduced the shopping days by one, Cy’s stomach turned over. Twenty-three shopping days to Christmas. Twenty-two shopping days to the fund vote that could tear his life apart.

He was finding it more and more difficult now to read the thoughts of the fund trustees when he met them at the club or at one of the cocktail parties which were a feature of the long run up to Christmas in Meyerick County. Oliver Digweed was rock solid. But the Anderson brothers were as unpredictable as ever. And, most of all, Mary was not yet back from Europe.

Across the parking lot he saw the Reverend Hector Hand approach. ‘Hullo, Cy, hullo,’ he called from a few yards away. Then he dropped his voice conspiratorially, ‘I came down specially to see you,’ he said.

‘Let’s go in and have a drink, then,’ Cy steered him by the elbow towards the entrance to the club.

‘No, I won’t go in,’ Hector said. ‘I’ve got lunch in Meyerick. Let’s just talk out here.’

‘If that’s what you want. What’s on your mind, Hector?’ They began to pace the parking lot.

‘The annual meeting, Cy. Christmas Eve.’

‘What’s the problem, Hector? Savary is going to bleat a little more, Mrs Rose will look disapproving and we’ll be voted through.’