“Sure they were,” said Hair. “It’s not exactly hard to tell, man.”
“What kind of clothing did they wear?”
“Regular. Nothing special.”
“Any other distinguishing marks?”
Hair laughed. “Like ‘666’ on their foreheads? Nope, unh-uh.”
“Could you identify them if you saw them again?”
“I dunno.” The pierced tongue slid between his upper and lower teeth. The mannerism formed his mouth into a tragedy-mask frown. “Probably not. I wasn’t really paying
attention to their faces. I was concentrating on getting them the most for their money.”
“But maybe you could recognize them?”
“Why, you have a picture?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, bring one if you get it. Maybe, no promises.”
“The fact they were wearing wigs,” said Milo. “That didn’t bother you?”
“Why should it?”
“Maybe they were hiding something.” Hair laughed. “Everyone in the industry hides something. You never see a chick with a natural rack anymore, and half the guys are wearing wigs and eye shadow. Big fucking deal-maybe they were acting in their own flick, doing it all. That’s the way it is with a lot of these indie things.”
“They tell you anything about the flick?”
“Didn’t ask, they didn’t say.”
“Blood Walk,” said Milo. “Sounds like a slasher flick.”
“Could be.” Boredom had returned.
“They rented fake blood.”
“Couple gallons. I picked out the best we had, nice and thick. Then they butt-ream me like that. Boss loved that.”
“Any hint it might’ve been porn?”
“Anything’s possible,” said Hair. “I know most of the porn people, but there’s always new assholes trying to break in. I don’t think so, though. They didn’t have that virgin porn feel.”
“What’s the virgin porn feel?”
“Stoned-happy on Ecstasy, big fucking adventure. They didn’t say much-thinking about it, they didn’t say hardly nothing at all.”
“Boss take it any further than having you look for them?” said Milo.
“What do you mean?”
“Did he run a trace on them? Hire a collection agency?”
“He put ’em out to collection and when that didn’t work, he wrote it off. We had a good year, I guess he can piss away fourteen grand.”
“Does this kind of thing happen all the time?”
“Getting ripped off? Not all the time, but yeah, it happens. But not usually for this much. And usually we collect something.”
“Do you still have their file?”
“I didn’t throw it out.”
“Could we please see it, Mr…. ?”
“Bonner. Vito Bonner.” He wiped his hands again. “Let me go back and check. They rip someone else off? That why you’re here?”
“Something like that.”
“Man,” said Bonner. “Talk about stupid. We warned the other companies in the neighborhood. Burbank and Culver too.” A black sprig of false hair tickled his chin and he slapped it away. “I think we warned the Valley, too. So anyone who rented to them after that deserves to get cornholed.”
We sat in the unmarked and studied the file. The tab read THIN LINE: BLOOD WALK, BAD
DEBT. The first page was a letter from an Encino collection agency reporting an extensive search, no results. Next came the rental application. Thin Line’s address was listed on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice. Venice phone exchange with the notation that it traced to a pay phone.
“Bit of a drive to Hollywood,” I said. “Especially with rental outfits close by in
Santa Monica. They didn’t want to foul their own nest.”
Milo pored over the form, nodding. The signature at the bottom was hard to read, but a black business card stapled to the file folder said:
Griffith D.Wark
PRODUCER AND PRESIDENT
THIN LINE PRODS
The pay-phone number in the lower left corner. White printing on black.
Old-fashioned camera logo in the lower right-hand corner.
“Bogus phone,” he said. “Scam from the get-go… Wark. Sounds like a phony moniker.”
“Griffith D. W,” I said. “Ten to one it’s an inversion of D. W. Griffith. I’ll also bet the W in ‘D. W.’ was Wark. Not very subtle, but old Vito didn’t catch it.”
“Old Vito probably knows more about Maglites than film history.” He flipped to the next page. “Here’s the bank verification on the deposit check-B. of A. branch out in
Panorama City. These guys were all over the place.”