Rich took over. “Mr.…Brian, we’re here on another matter.” Rich glanced to Olly, who already had his phone out. “Are you familiar with this video?”
Olly held the phone out as the clip fragment played.
Brian took it and played the thing again. “Yeah, I recognize it. That’s Hairy Harry, poor bastard. Best sound man I ever had. It was his last shoot.” He looked up, eyes narrowed. “How did you get this?”
Rich knew he had to proceed carefully and not bring his sister’s name up. “Someone tried to sell us this movie.”
“That makes no sense. We never released it.”
“You didn’t?”
“The production was cursed from the start. Equipment troubles, actors bailing, a disaster from start to finish. We only shot a scene and a half when Harry had a heart attack right there on the set. He was rushed to the hospital and later had triple bypass surgery. Now he lives in Riverside with his sister. Retired.” He shook his head. “By the time we found a new sound guy, one of the girls dropped out, and we had to replace her too. Finally finished the shoot, but before we even could edit the film together, we found out the new girl, Kandy Hart, was only seventeen. Fuck me sideways with a hockey stick. She looked twenty-five and had the driver’s license to prove it. How was I supposed to know it was her sister’s?” Brian scowled. “Goddamn mess. But it was a sign, I knew it then. I haven’t tried to shoot another lesbian flick since. It was a bad idea to begin with. Totally different audience. I’ve stuck to cocks ever since. Stick to what you know, right?” He handed the phone back to Olly. “Who could’ve—” Brian’s face turned puce, and he slammed his hand on his desk. “Son of a bitch! Jimmy. I’m gonna kill the motherfucker!”
“Jimmy?”
“James Boyd. He was an intern till I fired his thieving ass. His job was to convert our older movies that we’d shot on film to digital. So he had full access to the archives.”
“You have archives,” Rich said, surprised.
Brian took affront. “Why wouldn’t we? Only the Library of Congress allowed to have them?”
Rich backpedaled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. Why did you fire Jimmy?”
“For stealing. Small stuff started disappearing, then I caught him trying to walk away with a camera. I shouldn’t have taken him on in the first place, but he gave this sob story about not having the money to finish film school. I have a soft heart, unfortunately. Goes with a hard cock.” He winked.
Rich, who’d felt hot under the collar ever since they’d entered, thought he might spontaneously combust. He took a deep breath. “Do you have an address for this Jimmy?”
Brian leaned back in his chair and scrutinized Rich and Olly—but mostly Rich—through narrowed eyes. “Who are you, and what do you want it for? No, wait. I don’t want to know.” He picked up the phone. “Linda, you got that little bastard Jimmy Boyd’s address? Yes, I’ll wait.” He pulled out a notepad and picked up a pen. A moment later, he scribbled an address on the paper and hung up. “Here,” he said, ripping the page out and handing it to Rich. “I don’t know how he pissed you off, but when you find him, break his other kneecap for me.”
They thanked him and got up to leave, but he called after them. “Hey, and if you change your mind about acting, you know where to find me. I could always use a ginger.”
Rich couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He could hear Olly quietly chuckling.
“You watch porn?” Rich asked in the car. He turned the AC on full blast.
Olly pulled something out of his pocket, leaned across Rich and stuffed it into the glove box. Rich saw a flash of red. “Sure. Don’t you?” He took out his phone and entered Jimmy Boyd’s address into a GPS map app.
“Not really. Especially not gay porn.”
“Your loss.” Olly looked up. “This isn’t far, just over in Glendale. We could drive over there right now.”
“Let’s do it.”
After about twenty minutes of navigating on surface streets, Olly pulled into a tiny residential pocket between warehouses, office buildings and the freeway. He pointed at a brand-new construction on the main road. “This whole neighborhood is Disney, except for the DreamWorks campus down the road.”
“You know this stuff.”
“Used to date a guy who worked for the rat. It didn’t work out. This is it.” Olly pointed at a squat house. An old orange Chevy Camaro, not in the best shape, was parked in front, so Olly pulled over farther down the street, and they walked back.