“Does the name Lori Doone ring a familiar note?” Guthrie asked.
“Mr. Lamb, I do hundreds of videos,” Farley said impatiently. “I really can’t remember the names of all my subjects.”
Sounds like a ruling monarch, Guthrie thought, but did not say.
“During the Gulf War,” Farley went on, “I must have shot a hundred videos. In January of ′91, when things really heated up over there, I couldn’t keep count. I don’t know how they played them, they must’ve had VCRs there in the desert, to show them on, don’t you think? Otherwise why would all these women be coming to a professional photographer to have videos made? I had girls in here who wanted to talk sexy to their boyfriends on camera, wives who wanted to look glamorous for their men far far away, even mothers who wanted to send something more personal than a letter. I had all kinds coming to me.
“This wasn’t the Gulf War,” Guthrie said.
“I know. I’m only saying.”
“And Lori Doone didn’t come to you,” Guthrie said.
“She didn’t? Then why...?”
“You went to her.”
Farley looked at him again. Long and hard this time.
“Are you a policeman?” he asked, sounding suddenly cautious.
“No, I am not,” Guthrie said, and took out his wallet to show his private investigator’s ID card. “I’m working this privately,” he said, and winked as Farley had when he’d mentioned the future bride in Korea. “Anything we say is privileged and confidential.”
“Mm,” Farley said, not winking back, and managing to convey in that single mutter an iciness as vast as a Norwegian fjord.
“Perhaps I can refresh your memory,” Guthrie said.
“I wish you would.”
“Lori Doone was modeling lingerie at a place called Silken Secrets on the South Trail?”
Ending his sentence in a question mark. The prod.
“Don’t know it,” Farley said.
“Last March?”
“Last March or anytime.”
“You came in one night...”
“I did not.”
“...and asked her if she’d care to pose in her lingerie for a video you were making? You said you’d pay her...”
“People pay me for making videos, not the other way around.”
“Pay her a thousand dollars,” Guthrie went on, undaunted, “if she’d...”
“Ridiculous.”
“...masturbate for the camera for a half hour.”
“You have the wrong...”
“While you taped her.”
“I’m sorry, your information is wrong.”
“There are three other girls on the tape, Mr. Farley.”
“I don’t know anything about such a tape.”
“I have their names. They all work for Buttercup Enterprises. I can track them down.”
Farley said nothing for several moments. At last, he said, “What are you looking for, Mr. Lamb?”
“I told you. Information.”
“Gee, and here I thought it might be money.”
“Wrong.”
“What kind of information?”
“How many copies of that tape did you make? How many did you sell? And have you still got the master?”
“None of that is any of your business.”
“Right, it isn’t. Miss Doone says one of the girls on that tape is only sixteen years old.”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Oh, you remember the tape now?”
“How much are you looking for, Mr. Lamb?”
“Say that one more time, and I’ll find it insulting.”
Farley looked at him.
Guthrie nodded encouragingly.
Farley kept looking at him.
At last, he sighed.
Guthrie waited.
“I made and sold fifty copies,” he said at last.
“For how much a copy?”
“Twenty bucks. Which was very reasonable for an hour-long video.”
“I feel certain.”
“Of professional quality.”
“Who’s complaining?”
“I am. I expected to sell five hundred.”
“You made only fifty copies, but you expected...”
“I made copies as the orders came in. Stupid I may be, but dumb I’m not. I had a four-thousand-dollar initial investment, a thousand to each of the girls who posed. Plus the cost of the raw stock. And my time. And the black vinyl cases. I printed the photo insert for the cover myself. Even so, you add all that up, I was maybe in for five thousand bucks. I figured if I could sell five hundred copies of the tape, that would’ve been a hundred-percent return. Espresso joints make ten times that.”
“Who’d you sell the tapes to?”
“Who knows? I took ads in all the girlie mags. That’s right, I forgot the cost of the goddamn ads. I was probably in for six, seven thousand. Man.”
“Sell any of these copies to locals?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, did you or didn’t you?”
“I’d have to look at my files. I’m pretty sure most of the responses came from states where there’s more livestock than people. You’d be surprised what evil lurks in the heartland.”
“How’d you like to cut your losses?” Guthrie asked.
“How so?”
“Sell me the master at cost.”
“Nossir.”
“How much then?”
“Seven grand.”
“Why do I keep thinking of that sixteen-year-old?”
“Nobody on that tape is sixteen.”
“Try a girl named Candi Lane.”
“Seven sounds reasonable.”
“Five sounds even more reasonable.”
“Make it six.”
“Done.”
“Cash.”
“Forget it.”
“Is she really only sixteen?” Farley asked.
“I didn’t know how high I could go,” Guthrie told me, “and I didn’t want to lose it by having to check with you first.”
I was wondering what he’d have done if it had been his own money.
“That’s fine,” I said. “I told you to get the master, and you got the master.”
I still hadn’t heard that there were fifty copies out there.
I heard that now.
“Yeah,” Guthrie said, and shrugged.
Six thousand dollars, I was thinking. With fifty copies still out there alive and kicking.
“Twenty bucks a throw, he got for them,” Guthrie said.
“Should have met us first,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Could’ve sold us the whole batch, plus the Brooklyn Bridge.”
“I thought six was a bargain,” Guthrie said, somewhat petulantly. “This tape ever showed up in court, Miss Commins would’ve sizzled.”
“What if one of the copies shows up in court?”
“That isn’t likely.”
“It’s possible.”
“Anything’s possible. Genghis Khan could show up in court. But it isn’t likely. Especially since only one of the tapes is in Calusa.”
“What are you saying.”
“I’m saying only one of the copies is here in Calusa.”
“How do you know that?”
“I got a list from Farley.”
“A list of what?”
“The people who ordered the tape from him. Guys from all over the country. Even some women. Only one of the customers was from Calusa.”