Michael Connelly - The Concrete Blonde

“I say what he says,” the big guy said. “I eat cakes, too.”

This time they laughed out loud and probably had to restrain themselves from exchanging a high five. The small guy’s eyes sparkled behind rose-tinted glasses.

“Okay,” Bosch said. “Then I’ll just look around. Thanks.”

The big guy stepped forward and said, “Just keep your gun covered, man, we don’t want to excite the patrons.”

The big guy’s eyes were dull and he set out a five-foot zone of body odor. A duster, Bosch thought. He wondered why the small guy didn’t fire his ass.

“No more excited than they are,” Bosch said.

He turned from the counter to the two walls of shelves that were lined with hundreds of video boxes for sale or rent. There were a dozen men, including the secret agent, looking. Appraising the scene and the number of video boxes, Bosch somehow was reminded of how he once had read all the names on the Vietnam War Memorial wall while on a case. It had taken several hours.

The video wall proved to be less time consuming. Skipping the gay and black performer videos he scanned each box for a face like the concrete blonde’s or the name Maggie. The videos were in alphabetical order and it took him nearly an hour to get to the T’s. A face on the box of a video called Tails from the Crypt caught his eye. There was a nude woman lying in a coffin on the front. She was blonde and had an upturned nose like the plaster face in the box. He turned the box over and there was another photo of the actress, on her hands and knees with a man pressed up behind her. Her mouth was slightly open and her face was turned back toward her sex partner.

It was her, Bosch knew. He looked at the credits and saw that the name fit. He took the empty video box to the counter.

“’Bout time,” said the small guy. “We don’t allow loitering here. The cops give us a hard time on that.”

“I want to rent this.”

“Can’t, it’s already rented. See, the box is empty.”

“She in anything else you know of?”

The small guy took the box and looked at the photographs.

“Magna Cum Loudly, yeah. I don’t know. She was just getting started and then dropped out. Probably married a rich guy, lots of them do.”

The big guy stepped over to look at the box and Bosch stepped back, out of his odor zone.

“I’m sure they do,” he said. “What else was she in?”

“Well,” the small guy said, “she had just made her way out of the loops and then, pfffft, she’s gone. Tails was her first top billing. She did a fabulous two-way in Whore of the Roses and that’s what got her started. Before that it was just the loops.”

Bosch went back to the W’s and found the box for Whore of the Roses . It also was empty and there were no photos of Magna Cum Loudly on it. Her name was last billing on the credits. He went back to the small guy and pointed to the Tails from the Crypt box.

“What about the box, then? I’ll buy it.”

“We can’t sell you just the box because then how do we display the video when it comes back? We don’t sell many boxes here. Guys want stills, they buy magazines.”

“What’s the price of the whole video? I’ll buy it. When the renter brings it back you can hold it for me and I’ll come pick it up. How much?”

“Well, Tails is popular. We’re going with a $39.95 price tag but for you, Officer, I’ll give our law enforcement discount. Fifty bucks.”

Bosch said nothing to that. He had the cash and paid it.

“I want a receipt.”

After the purchase was completed, the small guy put the video box in a brown paper bag.

“You know,” he said, “Maggie Cum Loudly is still on a couple of our loops in the back. You might want to check it out.”

He smiled and pointed to a sign on the wall behind him.

“We have a no-exchange policy, by the way.”

Bosch smiled back.

“I’ll check it out.”

“Hey, by the way, what name you want us to hold this video under when it comes back in?”

“Carlo Pinzi.”

It was the name of the Outfit’s L.A. capo.

“Very fucking funny, Mr. Pinzi, we’ll do that.”

Bosch went through the curtain into the back rooms and was almost immediately met by a woman wearing high heels, a black G-string and an ice-cream man’s coin changer on a belt, nothing else. Her large silicone-perfected breasts were dotted by unusually small nipples. Her dyed blonde hair was short and she had too much makeup around her glassy brown eyes. She looked like she was either nineteen or thirty-five.

“Do you want a private encounter or change for the video booths?” she asked.

Bosch took out his now thin fold of cash and gave her two dollars for quarters.

“Can I keep a dollar for myself? I don’t get paid nothin’, just tips.”

Bosch gave her another dollar and took his eight quarters to one of the small curtained booths where the occupied light wasn’t on.

“Let me know if you need anything in there,” the woman in the G-string called after him.

She was either too stoned or too stupid or both not to have made him as a cop. Bosch waved her away and pulled the curtain shut behind him. The space he had was about the size of a phone booth. There was a glass viewing window through which he could see a video screen. Displayed on the screen was a directory of twelve different videos he could select from. It was all video now, though they were still called loops, after the 16mm film loops that ran over and over again in the first peep machines.

There was no chair but there was a small shelf with an ashtray and a Kleenex box on it. Used tissues were littered on the floor and the booth smelled like the industrial disinfectant they used in the coroner’s vans. He put all eight quarters in the coin slot and the video picture came on.

It was two women on a bed kissing and massaging each other. It took Bosch only a few seconds to eliminate them as possibly being the girl on the video box. He began pushing the channel button and the picture jumped from coupling to coupling-heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual-his eyes lingering only long enough to determine whether the woman he was looking for was there.

She was on the ninth loop. He recognized her from the video box he had bought. Seeing her in motion also helped convince him that the woman who used the name Magna Cum Loudly was the concrete blonde. In the video she lay on a couch on her back, biting one of her fingers while a man knelt between her legs on the floor and rhythmically ground his hips into hers.

Knowing this woman was dead, had died violently, and standing there watching her submit to another kind of violence affected him in a way he was unsure he even understood. Guilt and sorrow welled up as he watched. Like most cops, he had spent a stint in vice. He had also seen some of the films of the two other adult film actresses who were killed by the Dollmaker. But this was the first time this uneasiness had hit him.

On the video, the actress took the finger out of her mouth and began to moan loudly, living up to her billing. Bosch fumbled with the sound knob and turned it down. But he could still hear her, her moans turned into shouts, from videos in other booths. Other men were watching the same show. It made Bosch feel creepy knowing the video had drawn the interest of different men for different reasons.

The curtain behind him rustled and he heard someone move behind him into the booth. At the same moment he felt a hand move up his thigh to his crotch. He reached into his jacket for his gun as he turned but then saw it was the coin changer.

“What can I do for you, darling?” she cooed.

He pushed her arm away from him.

“You can start by getting out of here.”