“So it’s all about making money for you, then? Anything for a buck?”
“Ah, well…” he drawled. “Perhaps there’s a little more. He’s invested rather heavily in my industries. He’s the silent controlling partner behind Hardcore, and one might consider him as silent executive producer, if you will, for the cinematic ventures. On occasion, he opts to have a more, shall we say, personal involvement in the—ahem—artistic offerings. My tastes run a bit more mainstream, but I know enough not to judge him. You might be wise to take that lesson, and just keep your fucking nose out of business where you don’t belong.”
“I see.” But I got him here. “So you just provide the… actors for his ‘special productions,’ then? Did you choose Tania, or did he?”
“Tania. No, Tania was right up his alley. The perfect girl. Money hungry, willing to do anything for it, sign her life away—figuratively speaking, of course. She also was fairly deeply in debt. I was helping her out, giving her another way to make some significant extra money on the side. I merely provided an introduction, and they took it from there.”
“You both are sick individuals, you know that, right? You lead a girl to her death, and you kill Manny for—”
His face shut down, and his voice went cold. “I don’t know what or whom you are talking about, Mr. Parker. But I do think you are way out of line. Best to forget any unpleasantries that occupy your limited mental space and move along, young Parker. It is always the healthiest option.”
“Just so you see how I got this straight, Joey.” Oh, he didn’t like my use of the familiar. I thought I might keep using it. “You put Tania with Fielding to do the movie. Fielding calls the shots. Tania just happens to die, through… unplanned loss of blood. Fielding exits the scene; you call Manny in for cleanup. Yeah, I know all about that. Only, Manny sees what went down and freaks out—which, I want to point out here, is a normal reaction to seein’ somethin’ like that. You shoot him in the head so he won’t cause a problem, and make Clav do cleanup on both of ’em, which implicates him. So then you hold the whole matter over Clav’s head as blackmail, and my whole MC is payin’ the price now. Do I got it right?”
“When you put it that way, yeah, you do, Dom. I’m a fucking genius!” And he had himself a good deep belly chuckle. He bought his own shit. What a fuckwad.
I decided to throw out a tangent ball while he was in this open, self-congratulatory mood. “What ever happened to Zoe? To Clav’s daughter? ’Cause I know you got that hold, too. Where is she? What did Fielding do with her?”
And here little Joey lost his humor. “I keep my nose out of that shit. That’s not my business; that’s all Fielding. When we have a problem with a girl getting herself a little too deep with the drugs, or when Fielding takes a special interest in one of the girls, it’s best to let him handle it his way. I don’t ask ’cause I’m smart; I don’t want to know. You won’t find answers, anyway. He’s got a labyrinth of ventures in this house of mirrors. You would do best to take my advice and…” He broke out into another crazy nasal chuckle. “Make like that James Bond movie. Live and let die.”
“So she’s dead, then? You tellin’ me Zoe’s dead?”
“I did not say that. You gotta listen, dude. I don’t ask. I don’t know where she is. I don’t know where he takes them. I only know…” His gaze drifted away, and then he shook his head.
“What? Spit it the fuck out! What do you know?”
“Listen, all’s I know is that he likes to fantasize about having a sex slave. He talks about it all the time. Sometimes it sounds like he actually has one; sometimes it’s more like he’s talking hypothetical-like. So there’s that.
“But then, also—and again, I want to stress here that I don’t know—he talks about selling. Selling girls. But it all is like, hypothetical, right? I don’t know anything. And I am smart enough not to want to know. I keep my nose out of that shit. I run Hardcore, I make the movies, and I sell them. I don’t deal with any of that other stuff, and I don’t know anything about it.”
Shit. Well, at least Ronn admitted so much that he completely backed up Pres’s story and situation. Hell, I realized there had been a part of me that hadn’t wanted to believe Pres’s story. It was just too outlandish, too over-the-top. But there was no doubt any longer.