“Huh?” Rich took a step back to put distance between himself and those lips and forced his gaze to Olly’s eyes. They were gray. Or maybe green.
“There was an envelope in the mail just like this yesterday.” Olly grabbed the orange envelope from Rich’s hand and turned it over. “Huh. No address or postage.”
Indeed, the envelope only had two words—Sandy Baker—scrawled on in thick, black lines. “The motherfucker dropped it off in person. Have you seen anyone lurking around when you arrived?”
“No, but I wasn’t looking for anyone lurking. If only we knew what was in the other envelope…”
Rich was already marching back into the house. He headed straight to his sister’s bedroom but found no manila envelope there. Next he checked every nook and cranny of the house—it took him five minutes tops, considering the lack of furniture. Naturally, he looked both under the lone couch and its cushions. Nothing. Standing in the middle of the living room, he racked his brain to recall if he’d seen the damn thing the day before and where. But instead, he remembered something else. “There was a trash bag here yesterday. Big, black.” He pointed at the floor.
“It’s trash day today—I saw the bin at the curb. Sandy must’ve taken it out.”
Rich sprinted out, hoping he wasn’t late. The blue plastic bin on wheels stood at the edge of the road, as Olly had said, and when Rich lifted the lid, he found the Hefty bag still inside. He didn’t have to dig far to find the manila envelope. From it he pulled a DVD in a cheap plastic case and a printed sheet. The latter contained threats of making the contents of the DVD public, unless Sandy deposited five thousand dollars into a specific public trashcan next to a playground at a place called Griffith Park. Garbage seemed to be the theme of the day.
After marching back to the house, Rich dug his laptop from the bottom of his suitcase. The battery was dead, so he found the charger and plugged the laptop in.
Olly hovered at the threshold of the room. “You think you should be doing this?”
“Some asshole is blackmailing my little sister. You bet your sweet ass I should be doing this.” Rich had a moment of fretfulness over his use of that particular expression, but he swatted it away. “Stop looming. Either come inside or go away.”
Olly swayed, then came in and seated himself on the carpet next to Rich. The MacBook sat on the only piece of furniture in the room, the mattress. The sheet and blanket lay in a messy heap to one side.
Once the laptop had enough power, Rich slipped in the DVD. It contained a single movie file. Rich double-clicked, and the clip began to play. Two girls were kissing and pawing at each other. Naked in a hot tub. One of them was Sandy, came the sickening realization. There was moaning and breasts, and it took all of Rich’s willpower not to look away. The clip was mercifully short. At the sound of a loud crash, the camera whipped around, showing the crew. One guy lay on the ground gulping like a fish out of water, and another stood by, staring. The picture went blank.
“Shit.” Rich dug his tense fingers into his hair.
“It’s not so bad,” Olly started to say, but clamped his mouth shut seeing Rich’s expression.
Rich was thinking hard. So his sister was in a porn movie. Such a cliché, but lots of struggling actresses must’ve gone down this road. She’d dug herself out of it and gotten a role in a popular TV show. So, it was not the end of the world, right? But wait, with the movie role she was after, would this thing ruin her chances? Rich wouldn’t let it. He cast around for the photos. Found them. “You know where Griffith Park is?” he asked Olly.
“I do, but—”
“Can you find this place?” He held up the picture of the supposed drop-off spot.
“Sure, but—”
“We need to take your car.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t have one.”
Rich hadn’t known Olly drove one of those tiny toy things—a smart car—but he should’ve guessed. He felt like a Ken doll in the passenger seat. At least it was a sensible dark blue color. They had a remote chance of remaining unnoticed during their stakeout. Sandy drove a red Fiat—another toy car—with ridiculous racing stripes. She’d be easy to see coming.
“I still think you should first talk to Sandy about this blackmail stuff,” Olly said, pulling into the parking lot across form the playground.
Rich shook his head, steadfast in his conviction. “If she wanted to talk about it, she would’ve. She must be ashamed. Sometimes a person digs himself…or herself into a hole, and the more times go by, the harder it is to ask for help. After a while, it becomes impossible to tell anyone.” Rich was more or less certain he wasn’t talking about himself. “The best we can do for her is to clean up the mess without her knowing anything about it.”