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  That's when her career began to really take off. She became a name-recognized asset, something rarely accomplished in this industry where too often the women seemed interchangeable (and disposable). Her name appeared above the title. She got offers to make live appearances. She made decent money. But she still didn't like the way they treated her: "Just lie on your back and kick up the high heels. Okay, bring the camera in closer between her legs." And she noticed that, at the end of the day, it was those cigar-chomping producers, the talentless money men who you might pay to put their clothes back on, who were driving the Caddys and playing high stakes poker at the Sands.

  So she decided to do something about that, too.

  "All right," Gina said, breaking her out of her reverie. She had a coat over her arm and purse in hand. "The captain's bed set is ready to shoot. Everyone's been told to be ready to do 42B at nine o'clock sharp."

  "Excellent. And Gina?"

  "Yes?"

  "I don't want to have any more problems with John's… mmm, problem. Time is money. Let's have a stunt double ready, okay?"

  Gina arched an eyebrow. "A stunt member?"

  "Exactly. We haven't cast Longsword's mate yet. Get someone who can perform both functions; we won't have to pay him any more than scale, no matter how many parts we give him."

  "I think I know someone who'll do it. I can send him over tonight if-"

  "I'll be here. Still got mounds of paperwork, and I want to check the set. Don't want any eleventh hour mistakes tripping us up. If we stick to our schedule, we could be filming the money shot by Friday." The money shot was industry slang for the climactic on-camera ejaculation, the scene most viewers seemed to live for.

  "Shaving a week off the shooting schedule. That'll make your investors happy."

  "That's how you keep investors. Make the call, then give yourself a rest. You've earned it."

  "Will do. See you in the morning, boss."

  Boss. Now that was a word she liked to hear. As long as it was in reference to herself.

  When she formed her own production company-the first porn actress ever to do so-the hooting and hollering could be heard all the way to the Hoover Dam. But she knew she could do it. If those slimy silk-shirt stogie-chomping slobs she'd been working under for years could do it, why couldn't she? She was smarter than all of them combined, and she'd managed to bankroll enough savings to make it happen. Well, to make one film happen. Like a high roller at the Flamingo, she put all her chips on one number on the roulette wheel.

  She gave it a lot of thought before she spent a penny, which again put her heads and tails above most of the porn producers out there, who thought if you just got some guy with a prodigious member and a woman who'd invested heavily in silicone, put them in a room together with a shoddy video camera, then packaged it with a title parodying the latest Hollywood hit, or playing on some cliche male fantasy (sorority girls, cheerleaders, nurses, women behind bars…the banal list was endless) and shipped it off to the usual distributor, that was good enough. And in truth, it was good enough, apparently, to make some bucks and keep the boys in business. But she wanted to do better than that. She wanted to make real movies. She wanted to be the Louis B. Mayer of skin flicks. To bring that off, she needed…something different. Some gimmick. A fresh approach. A new…something. But what? She spent months contemplating-until she finally figured it out. She knew she couldn't eliminate porn movies-and she didn't really want to. What she wanted to do was to make them her own.

  The traditional view of porn movies was that they were made by men, for men, that they existed solely for the purpose of male gratification. Frat houses, bachelor parties, lonely guys in hotel rooms. According to statistical studies, the average pay-per-view hotel porn movie is watched for twelve minutes. Yes, that's how long it took viewers to get what they wanted out of the film. That's why the flicks almost always started with close-up oral sex-before you even knew who the characters were or what the story, if there was one, was about. These films usually put the female characters in demeaning roles that suggested that they lived solely for the purpose of gratifying the always dominant male. What if just once, Danielle thought, someone made a porn movie for women? A movie that showed a woman in the dominant role, taking her carnal pleasures whenever and however she wanted them? A porn movie made by the women, of the women, and for the women. That idea appealed to her.

  The question was: Would it appeal to anyone else?

  Every investor she approached thought it was far-fetched. Impossible. She didn't give up. She'd talked to women who worked in adult gift shops and they told her that increasingly it was couples, not grimy unshaven brutes, but couples, who were coming in to rent porn flicks. The mail order people told her the same thing: more and more, watching porn was a couples activity. Almost fifty percent of all erotic films were rented by women or couples.

  That knowledge gave Danielle power.

  She set up her studio, DannyDunn, on the south end of the Strip, outside the City of Las Vegas limits, because the nebulous anti-prostitution laws in the city raised the possibility of legal trouble if some court ruled that the actors were really prostitutes because they took money for having sex. Sort of. The first film from DannyDunn Inc. was set in the wilds of the Congo. It was a Tarzan riff-she played a Jungle Girl, a latter-day Nyoka who was raised by wild animals after her explorer-parents were killed. Tom Matheny, one of the hottest new hunks on the circuit, played a shipwrecked archeologist, washed onshore near the Jungle Girl's home and thrust into a series of dangerous and sexy adventures, culminating in his capture by Tra, the Queen of the Lion People, who tried to force him to become her mate, the sire of a new generation of stout-hearted men to rule her lost kingdom.

  Role reversal? Yes. But at the same time, Danny was careful not to put the hunk in demeaning roles. She didn't want to trade one half of the potential audience for the other; she wanted everyone. The male lead might be the one getting rescued, but he wasn't portrayed as stupid, weak, or subservient. And when sex happened, it was gloriously passionate. Maybe Congo Conquest was still a low budget skin flick, but it was a low budget skin flick with a story and characters. For the target audience, it was an ideal fantasy.

  And it was fantastically successful.

  Now, six years later, Danny had produced twelve films running the gamut of fantasy themes-Sinbad, WWII spies, science fiction-and now, the pirate movie. She had captured a dependable secondary market via two of the top cable channels, where the sexual content was slightly abridged and the films found an even greater audience. She didn't always star in the pictures these days, but whether she did or she didn't-her name was always above the title. She was well-known in Vegas, often offered opportunities to speak to the more liberal-minded groups or to serve as a resident celeb at poker tourneys and such. Not bad for a girl who'd been desperate, almost suicidal, at sixteen.

  Which was more than ten years, and about four million dollars, ago.

  Enough reminiscing. She had a set to inspect. She pushed out of her chair and Did she imagine that she heard something? A squeaking? She listened hard, but didn't hear anything more. That actor Gina was sending, or any other visitor, would've rung the bell, especially this late at night. Must be her imagination.

  Wasn't it? She froze, listened again.

  Of course it was. She didn't have time for this foolishness. She had a set to inspect. She walked onto the soundstage and gave it a once-over. This would not be the major sex scene between the protagonists of the picture; the pirates would return too early and passion would be exquisitely delayed for another twenty minutes or so of screen time. But she still wanted it to be an arousing scene. Something to work the emotions of the viewers into such a fevered pitch that they could barely restrain themselves from hitting the fast forward button when the dastardly pirates returned. Happily, everything seemed to be in order. Now all she had to do was deal with that paperwork and she could "Excuse me? Are you Ms. Dunn?"

  Danielle was startled by th
e sudden voice out of nowhere. Standing on the set, still lit by the bright overhead lights, it was impossible to see anything beyond the perimeter.

  "Who's there? Are you the actor Gina called?"

  After a moment's pause, the man replied, "Yeah. That's me."

  Danielle walked off the set, shielding her eyes. Slowly, the male figure took shape before her.

  Gina called this guy to be in the movie? Had she totally lost her grip? He was a big man, strong, but much too short. Burly, rather than the thin-hipped lean look women seemed to favor today. Not to be cruel, but he was not remotely attractive: a big pug nose that looked as if it had been broken at least once, pocked skin, short black hair that draped his head like a mop. Mean eyes. Why on earth would Gina pick him unless…

  Two possibilities occurred. Gina might be going for a change-of-pace look, something to differentiate him from the rest of the male cast. He was probably a more realistic incarnation of what a pirate's mate would look like than the rest of the pretty boys in the cast, not that this film had anything to do with reality. Or it was possible Gina had some…inside information. And her choice of this lug had focused more on the need for an impressive stunt member.

  "There will…I'm sure you understand…" She was stumbling for words, and she didn't know why. It wasn't as if she hadn't been through this a hundred times before. Something about him…

  Suddenly she was wishing Gina was still around. "Anyway, you're going to have to audition for the part. For…both parts. If you know what I mean."

  Even though she didn't really want to, she took a step closer, hand extended. "I don't think we've worked together before, have we? I'm Danielle. And you're…"

  The man smiled, a crooked lipless sneer that was truly chilling to behold. "Tucker. Everyone just calls me Tucker."

  11

  I immediately felt a surge of sympathy for Mrs. Asparagita Amir. Just one look at the shabby apartment where she lived and raised four children was sufficient to accomplish that goal. Her three daughters were in school at the moment, but her son, barely eleven months old, was in a cradle on the floor, sleeping soundly. She rocked the cradle as I asked my questions.

  "Do you have any idea why anyone might want to hurt your husband?" I asked as gently as possible.

  "My former husband." She looked at me, her brown eyes small but direct. "No. As I told the detectives, I cannot imagine any reason for anyone to do him harm."

  A natural response. I wasn't surprised. "Did he have a life insurance policy?"

  "I do not think so. If he did, it is unlikely that I would be the beneficiary."

  "But your children-"

  "He did not have contact with the children, after our marriage was discontinued."

  I frowned. "His choice, or yours?"

  She glanced down at the infant in the cradle. She was a petite woman, fragile-looking, and each movement sent a tremor through her entire body. "It is the way of our people. Once a marriage is over, it is over."

  "But you're not in New Delhi anymore. You're in Las Vegas. The United States of America. We have laws about parental responsibility."

  "You must understand…" She paused, her eyes moving downward to the cradle and the silent figure sleeping within. "My husband has been through a very difficult period. Back in our country, he was a civil engineer, an important man with responsibilities. Engaged in important work. But he sought even greater challenges, so he came to the United States to pursue them."

  "It didn't work out?"

  "No. The prejudice against our people was too strong. Even though we have never been enemies to the United States and have never associated with those who were. The tragedy of 9/11 occurred almost immediately after we arrived in the States. The job that my husband thought he had secured here in Las Vegas disappeared. No one ever said why, but we knew. It was too…how you say?…controversial to have someone from the East in a position of power and prestige while politicians were on television every night, demonizing the third world. He worked very hard to find work in his field, but none was offered to him. Eventually, he was willing to take any job just to support his family, but even that was difficult. Finally he found work at that restaurant."

  So one of the top engineers in India ended up as an assistant manager at a burger joint. Pathetic. "I imagine that put quite a stress on your marriage."

  "Yes," she said simply. "But I was his wife and I remained loyal to him. Such is my duty." I noticed that, although she was conservatively dressed, she was not in the traditional garb of women from her country. A plain dress, no robe, no headdress.

  "He must've been very frustrated. Wracked with guilt."

  "True. But such shame as this can be borne by any marriage with a firm foundation in faith."

  She wasn't giving me much to work with. I decided to push the question, and watched her face very carefully as I did. "Then-why the divorce?"

  Her facial expression was a strange combination of helplessness and unwillingness to defend what seemed self-evident. "He could not care for us. I was not able to earn an income, especially not with my many dependent children. I also could not appeal to the state for support so long as my husband was working, however minimal his income."

  "Divorce was economic survival," I said, swearing once again at how stupid the law could be. "Did he visit often?"

  "No. Although I believe that he wanted to do so. He was…filled with shame."

  "Because of the divorce?"

  "Um…yes, because of the divorce," she said, but what interested me most was her hesitation. There was something she was not telling me.

  "Anything else?"

  "Such as what?"

  A direct approach wasn't going to work. So I tried a page out of Psych 101-change the subject. So you can abruptly return to it later and try to catch her off guard. "Any problems with his co-workers? His boss?"

  "I do not believe so. They knew they were very lucky to have a man of his quality to work for them. He was so…what's the word?…overqualified. Such a contrast to most of the other young people working there."

  No doubt. "Do you suppose some of his co-workers might have been jealous of him?"

  Her eyes diverted downward. As if in recognition of what she had done, she lifted the still sleeping baby into her arms and laid him against her chest. "I believe he was given to some…abuse as a result of the color of his skin. But certainly nothing that would rise to the level of inspiring anyone to do something such as what was done to him."

  But then, what would inspire someone to dip another human being's face into a vat of boiling oil? "Did your husband have much money saved?"

  "None. Most of our savings were spent traveling to America. The rest was used to survive during his long months of unemployment. To feed so many mouths-much money is required. He tried taking a second job, even playing in games of chance. But nothing worked."

  All right, enough with the small talk. The time had come to cut to the heart of the matter. "Ma'am, I don't mean to be rude, but-what was the real reason he was too embarrassed to visit his children?"

  "There is no reason. He was simply a proud man. He did not want to…to seem small before his offspring." But as she said it, I noticed her eyes darting to the left. Which clenched what I already knew-she was lying to me. Hiding something.

  Unlike some behaviorists, I never put all my chips behind NLP-Neuro-Linguistic Programming-a theory based on the fact that we all depend upon an artificial construct-language-to express ourselves. Language centers have specific locations in the brain and when we access different sections, our face and body language reflect it. This gave rise to the visual lie detector test often bandied about in television and movies. If a person's eyes move to the right, they are accessing memory banks. If a person's eyes move to the left, they are engaging their imaginations. In other words, they're lying.

  In reality, of course, it's never that simple. A person might look to the left because they're lying, or it could be a personal tic, or they could hav
e something in their eye, or something could attract their attention. They might be nervous, fidgety. Many people find it hard to maintain eye contact for long. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from a single occurrence. On the other hand, I had a distinct feeling that Mrs. Amir was holding something back. And a gut instinct coupled with a little NLP was more than enough for me to go on.

  "Forgive me, Mrs. Amir, but you're hiding something. I don't know what it is. But I have to insist that you tell me. It could be vital."

  "There is no…no vital."

  "I have to be the judge of that."

  "He-He-He-" Again her head turned away, but this time I had more of a sense that she was struggling for words, perhaps struggling with her conscience, more than she was trying to be deceptive. "He was a proud man."

  "That's a reason why he would insist on seeing his children, not a reason for avoiding them." I stared at her; she seemed to shrink before my eyes. What was it? I thought about her, how she was living, trapped up in this dingy apartment, never seeing the father of her children, making do on whatever the government sent and Or was there an and?

  But why would she hide that? More likely she'd be raising the roof, complaining bitterly that No. I was reading her like a born-and-bred American, which she wasn't. Her culture came with an entirely different set of guidelines. I needed to get out of my usual mind-set and access the proper owner's manual. This divorce hadn't been born of any adultery, disharmony, wanderlust, or even selfishness. By all appearances, it had been mutually agreed upon for the welfare of the children.

  That was the key. The children.

  "Mrs. Amir, how long has your ex-husband been delinquent on his child support payments?"

  She looked up, startled, her eyes riveted to mine. "But-I never-how did-"

  "It doesn't matter. I know. And I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me the truth. How long?"

  "It has been…almost two years now. But-"