THE FOURTH WATCH (47 page)

He could have been anywhere between fifteen and
thirty years old. He had shoe polish black hair with green spikes
standing up out of it like horns. He was rail thin and wore a
black, sleeveless Grateful Dead wife-beater with a skull emblazoned
on it and skintight black Speedo bicycle pants with green side
stripes to match his horns. His face was long and narrow, his
eyebrows plucked to pencil lines and spiked with thin metal studs.
He had a large nose ring in each nostril with big chains running
from them to hooks in the center of half-dollar sized, bone-white,
earlobe stretchers. His skin boiled with acne. To Walter it looked
like somebody had used a nail gun on his face. When he opened his
mouth to say, "Can I help you?" Walter could see that his tongue
was impaled with a golden nail.

Walter stood gawking at him.

"Can I help you find something, sir?" the
creature asked again. He said 'sir' like 'thir', no doubt because
of the tongue nail.

Walter approached the counter
cautiously. "Um, I'm looking for a movie. You have a movie, I think
it's called,
Cleopatra and the Palace
Guard
?”

The thing grinned at him and said, "Precious
Package - what a rack!"

Walter blinked at him. "Huh?"

"That's her name, the broad in the movie,
'Precious Package'"

"Yeah?"

"Sure." The demon shook his head, chains
rattling like Jacob Marley climbing stairs.

"What?" Walter said.

"You guys are all alike is all. You want the
commercial stuff, the big hits. That chick was gonna be a big star.
She was bold, do anything, had those tits, that ass, and she could
act."

''No kiddin'?" What a freak show this kid is,
Walter thought.

''Nope. She made four movies
-
Cleopatra
was
the last. Big talent."

"What else was she in?"

The kid was showing off now. "First
one was a supporting role,
Bushmaster
with Wendell Wang. Wang
was on the downside of his career, but he still could bring them
in. She got a AVN award for her performance, 'Best Oral,' I think.
Next she did
Lickety
Split
, that was a lesbian fuck flick, but
smokin' hot! Ouch!" the ghoul grabbed his nuts and rolled his eyes.
''Next she did
A Well Holed Putz
, kind of a country club spoof...old rich guys
going cross-eyed getting smoked by hot young chicks in the locker
room. Blue haired old ladies shocked at their randy husbands, that
kind of thing. Then she did
Cleopatra
,
and that was it." The kid shrugged his
shoulders, what could you do.

"'Precious Package' you say?" Walter said.
"What happened to her?"

The creature shrugged again. ''Nobody knows.
Just kind of dropped of the face of the earth. I heard she took a
private flick that she didn't know was a snuff film and that was
the end of her. That's just a rumor though, I never heard of anyone
that saw it. Maybe she got married," the kid said,
grinning.

Walter was thinking he might be right. "Well,
you're a hell of a salesman young ... er ... man. I'll take all
four - if you got' em."

The ghoul-child scratched his
cheek, chains rattling. Walter winced, his skin crawling, thinking
about what might have come off under those fingernails. "I think we
do.
Cleo
will be
the only one on DVD. The older ones are VHS."

"That's okay," Walter told him, “I got
both”.

"Let me see." The kid let himself out of his
cage and went around the shelves collecting the movies. When he got
back he said, "You're in luck! We got' em all. You're not a member
though, right?"

"Right."

"I'm gonna need a credit card then."

Walter took out his wallet and handed it over.
"Put it on the gold card," he said smiling.

As the kid packed up his movies Walter said,
"Hey, what's her real name? I mean 'Precious Package' ain't it, am
I right?"

"Don't know. You know how secret these broads
are? They think they're gonna be soccer moms someday. Hope nobody
recognizes them once their knockers start to drop." The kid
shrugged his shoulders at the uncertainty of life. He handed Walter
his package. "Enjoy."

*****

WALTER LIVED IN
a studio apartment on the third floor of a small three-decker
up on Bell Hill. It was well lighted with an open layout and had
big windows looking out on the park around Bell Pond. Wide-board,
pine floors, cathedral ceilings, skylight, newish kitchen and bath,
a good place. He had a big screen T.V. and surround sound system to
go with it, lots of high-tech computer gear too. It was comfortable
and messy. He didn't care, nobody ever came over.

Walter microwaved a bag of popcorn and poured
himself a big Diet Coke with lots of ice. While the bag spun and
sputtered in the microwave he was thinking. He was pretty sure it
was going to be her, but not certain. She lied to him about knowing
Genetassio. Why would she do that? She was evasive while making
believe she was being cooperative. What else was she lying about?
He didn't like her instinctively. She was ... what? .. predatory,
maybe.

He decided to watch the movies in
order. He dumped the popcorn in a bowl, salted it, and put it and
the coke on the coffee table and clicked the system over to VHS. He
fed
Bushmaster
into the machine and sat back with the remote.

Even though there was a “PLEASE REWIND” sticker
on the cassette, it had been ignored by the last patron of The
Stolen Kiss. The screen came to life with an oriental man banging
away at a redhead. Her back was arched, her arms thrown back behind
the pillows, her pale knockers jouncing with every thrust, her
mouth open in mock lust. Walter watched for a minute, then hit
rewind, and watched everything move backward at high speed. He was
thinking and distracted, and the next thing he knew there was a
dark-haired woman blowing the gook. Walter hit play and watched,
but her hair was hanging down and he couldn't see her face. He hit
rewind and the action jumped backward again, the broad honking away
in double time. At one point she pulled her mouth off of him and
smiled seductively at the camera. But the perspective was from the
man's position, and his prick was sticking up in front of her face.
It was an impressive prick. Statuesque really. Walter hit pause and
then chuckled to himself when he realized he was trying to look
around the guy's dick to see her face. He hit rewind again and
watched as she got dressed backward. Eye-patch sized thong sliding
back up over creamy thighs, tits going back into a thin, lacy bra,
shirt and skirt going back on with lots of help from Mr. Long Wang.
Both of them quick-stepping backward into the living room, shy
sideways glances over wine glasses, small talk, then both of them
back to the door and her out. But he couldn't tell. He watched her
stand on the stairs and look at her face in a compact mirror, then
go backward down the stairs and across the sidewalk to her
car.

Walter hit play and let it go at normal speed.
He noticed that she was dressed to the nines in a light weight,
charcoal, business getup as she clacked aggressively up the walk on
her heels, then up the stairs, all her parts moving, nice and
slinky. She rang the bell and the camera perspective switched
inside and the bell chimed and the oriental guy, his tie loose, the
cuffs of his white dress shirt rolled on his wrists, looked up from
the newspaper he was reading, frowned, got up and went to the door.
He was a pretty bad actor. The camera moved outside again and the
woman was looking at her makeup in the compact mirror. The door
opened and the perspective switched back to the man - and there she
was.

Walter hit pause and looked carefully. It was
her. The same pageboy cut, same pouty lips, big lavender eyes. Yep.
She'd put on a few pounds, not many, but it was her.

Walter watched the rest of the movie. She was
bare ass through most of it, and he saw her ankles quite a bit,
wrapped as they were around the china-man's head, but there was no
tattoo. He watched the next two films, they were all the same. Lots
tits and ass and imaginative fucking, lots of shy smiling, and
inane conversation, and fake moaning - but no ankle tattoo. He was
starting to second guess himself when he put the Cleopatra film in
the DVD player.

The devil boy was right. Comparatively
speaking, this was a big budget picture. Ellen, or Precious that
is, wore lots of jewels and head-dresses, if nothing else. The sets
were exotic, the music enchanting, the cinematography expansive,
but it was a lot of the same, with her finding creative ways to
mount and ride varying studs in exotic positions. And then, about
twenty minutes into it, there she was with her back arched, and her
thighs clamped around some guy's ears, and the tattoo was there,
the snake coiled around her calf and ankle, its ruby eyes
shining.

Walter watched the rest of it because he
remembered the ... um ... climax, which was Precious handling a
snake, the snake's head going where it shouldn't, her hanging onto
its tail, her finishing, the snake plunging its fangs into her
breast, then dropping to the floor and slithering away as the
credits rolled. All bad acting and trick photography, Walter
decided. In his mind he gave the movie a turkey. The end of the
credits indicated that the movie was made in New York, by something
called Worldwide Cinema, Inc.

Walter thought about that. He
looked for but found no date - copyright or otherwise, He reversed
and checked again. Nothing. He fired up the T.V. again and put the
VHS films back in. He fast forwarded through them to the credits
and every film except
Bushmaster
was made by Worldwide. The Director/Producer was
the same in "Cleopatra' and
A Well Holed
Putz
, some guy named Sonny
Paulson.

It was dark now, after ten o'clock. Walter shut
down the T.V. and put on some music. He stretched his back and went
to the window. The moon looked like an orange rind behind the thick
clouds. Walter couldn't tell how much of the moon he was seeing,
but it was soft on his eyes. He sighed and went back into the
kitchen and put two frozen cheeseburgers in the microwave and
brought up his computer while the cheeseburgers were being nuked.
He searched “Adult Films” and clicked on “The Adult Film Academy”
then “Film Starz”. Pecked in “Precious Package” and got nothing but
her film credits. She did not have her own website. The microwave
buzzed and he went for his burgers and opened a beer. He sat down
and ate next to the computer. He didn't have much hope that the
film studio would still be in business but he punched it in anyway,
and sure enough, they had a website. He put “Precious” in again and
got a lame biography about her favorite foods and the music she
loved and how Latin men turned her on, like that. He went back to
Worldwide Cinema, Inc. and jotted down their address, then went
into a cross directory and got their phone number. He looked at the
clock, eleven now, and decided to call in the morning. Instead he
called Skids, got the answering machine, hung up called again,
answering machine, hung up, called again, same thing, called
again.

Skids picked up the phone and said, "Who the
fuck is this?" .

"Yeah, lick me Skid Mark," Walter said. "Was
that Tell Me in the dumpster?"

"Walter?"

"Was it?"

"Yeah, he ... "

Walter hung up on him and drummed his fingers
on the table for a second. "What the fuck?" he asked the empty
room.

*****

WALTER SET HIS
alarm for nine o'clock. He usually slept 'till eleven. When
it went off he went to the bathroom, used it, brushed his teeth,
padded out to the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee and
dialed the number for Worldwide Cinema. He yawned and scratched at
himself as it rang through.

A male voice said, "Worldwide Cinema, how may I
direct your call?"

"Yeah, Hi, my name is Bob Johnson, I'm an
agent, and I met Sonny Paulson in New York about seven months ago,
and he told me if I ever had any talent ... "

"Please hold," the male voice said and Walter
was listening to a metallic ring that indicated the line had
switched to a different exchange. It rang eight times and clicked
over to an answering machine, "You have reached Paulson
Productions" a young, very valley, female voice said. Walter could
almost hear her chewing gum. "You have reached us after hours and
we can't come to the phone right now, but if you leave your ... "
Walter hung up and called back. Same thing, he hung up again poured
another cup of coffee. He went to the door and padded down the
stairs. He went all the way out to the street, bought a Telegram
out of a box on the corner, climbed back up the stairs, and read
the sports page. Then he dialed Worldwide again.

The same voice answered. "Yeah, I called a few
minutes ago for Sonny Paulson and I. .. "

"Please hold," the guy said, and he was
listening to the metallic connection again.

"Paulson Productions, can I help you?" It
sounded like the gum chewer that had made the voicemail.