The next day started with a welcome change of pace. Outside the quiet town of Clearview ticked along in its usual fashion, except this time without a single raindrop in sight. The sky was blue. The air was breezy. Whilst the clouds up above seemed to look down on us with a newfound bright, fluffy charm. Folk took to the streets and waved to their neighbours as I watched the world unfold from my window. It was the kind of day where all was well, and nothing would seemingly get in my way…
…until the phone rang, that is.
“Lucky…detective Lucky, is that you?”
I was midway through pouring myself a nice, hard-hitting morning coffee to help wash away the cobwebs. That’s when I heard it.
“Yes…” I replied, still a tad bleary-eyed as I waited for the half-price caffeine to work its magic, "...yes, it's me. Who's speaking?"
“Good. I’m calling on behalf of Lawrence Leroi.”
“Wait, really…?”
“Come down to the studios south of the commercial district. The big red warehouse plot next to the car park. Come alone.”
“Ok…” I said tentatively, unaware of just who I was speaking to.
“We’ll talk then.”
The line immediately cut dead after that.
Without thinking I set my coffee aside and grasped frantically around my office for a clean pair of trousers. I have been referring to that place as ‘my office’ for some time now, but in reality it was more of a workstation, bedroom, and overcrowded storeroom all wrapped into one. I played host not to some plush high-rise pad overlooking the surrounding area from the best vantage point in town. Nor did I inhabit some immense towering condo, designed to host the best in late night parties and champagne-fuelled celebrations. Far from it, in fact. I had but a small room to myself up there on the third floor of the building. With two dry cactuses for a garden, an en-suite kitchen no larger than a broom cupboard, and a rickety fire-escape for a balcony.
Before heading for the door I took a brief look at the man staring back at me in the bathroom mirror. I could not help but feel slightly let down by what I saw; an uninspiring guy in his mid-thirties who looked younger than he probably should have, appearing as if he could not remember the last time he had a good meal inside him. My hair stuck out like wiry shrub from beneath the rim of my hat, whilst the stubble on my chin amounted to little more than baby fluff even on the best of days. The rest of my office was a state…just like me, with unopened boxes cramming the middle of the room, and a set of dirty sheets hastily flung over the pull-out sofa in the corner. It was high time I got out of there.
With everything that had taken place over the last few days, however, one thing had become decisively clear. I needed to focus. I needed to step my foot on the gas and get this investigation back underway again. That’s what I kept telling myself. Finding Coburn was all that really mattered. He was the reason I had started this undertaking in the first place, this grand ol’ dance in the dark. I vowed not to leave town until I found out what happened to the guy...
*
Soon enough I had arrived, just outside the studio. Suddenly it felt like I had been waiting in my car for far too long again...
Leroi’s studio was on the other side of town. A large rectangular building adjacent to a big open-plan carpark, as instructed by the blunt voice on the other end of the telephone. I eventually stepped out of the vehicle and straightened my jacket, taking one last look at myself in the rearview mirror. The situation had barely improved in the slightest.
But it would have to do.
Pretty soon I laid my eyes on all manner of vehicles whilst venturing across the car-park. Pick-ups, hatch-backs, crossovers…all presented in varying makes and models. There was even a sparkling pink race-car stationed behind the neighbouring fence within the inner-sanctum of the complex. I quickly moved on ahead and thought little of it.
As I walked through the sliding doors the unsubtle wash of the nearby air-conditioning unit sent wintry winds through my face and hair. It reminded me of how surprisingly warm it could get in Clearview, without the splash of puddles underfoot and the constant rain clouds rumbling over your shoulder. Aside from an old electrician tending to some lighting at the far end of the warehouse, however, there was hardly anyone else in sight.
But then I heard a voice.
“Next!”
Someone had called out from a small make-shift reception desk to my left. It was the voice of a rather austere looking man, leaning up against the wall and looking right at me. He was incredibly tall in height, almost freakishly so, wearing a well cut suit over his slim body and a gleaming pair of black leather shoes. I noticed that the man was newly clean shaven, and wore thick rimmed glasses beneath his shiny bald head.
“Yes…” I responded after some time, walking over with perhaps more confidence than was necessary, “…I’m here because I wanted to speak with…”
“Name?” spoke the man coldly.
“Lucky.”
“Oh, it’s you…” he said, “…follow me.”
I did as the man instructed. His voice eventually struck me as the same one that had spoken over the telephone earlier that morning, but he never did make any light of the fact. Instead we trundled up a small flight of steps towards the upper gantry in awkward silence. He then showed me towards yet another make-shift office overlooking the rest of the studio.
“Come in…” he said, pointing me towards an old leather chair and handing me a warm glass of water, “…take a seat..”
The room was peculiarly adorned to say the very least. A large reproduction print hung on the wall opposite, depicting a row of plump palm trees that were both cheap and tacky. To the left sat an ancient looking water dispenser which hummed away quietly, whilst on my right, a battered fan spun in slow, monotonous fashion as it struggled to keep up with the heat. In the middle was a desk, with two heavy-backed chairs staring right at me.
One belonged to the prudish gentleman who had brought me up from the lower floor. In the other sat a rather bizarre individual, known as Lawrence Leroi...
“Lucky!” he cried loudly, stepping up from his chair enthusiastically, “…how are you, my boy? How’s this town been treating you? Much better than it's been to me, I hope!”
I smiled weakly, trying not to look too closely at the director’s glaring platform shoes.
“All good…” I mumbled, “…I guess.”
Leroi grinned as he adjusted his sunglasses, “…all good sounds great to me! I trust you’ve already made your acquaintance with my lawyer here. Mr. Wilson Whitlock; the best attorney extraordinaire money can buy! Or so he keeps telling me…”
The tall man in the suit nodded briefly before looking away.
“Not much for conversation this one…” spoke Leroi jokingly, “…anyway, take a seat Lucky. I can pour you out something a little stronger if you wish? I have a fine concoction of refreshments just waiting for you in my cooler over there…”
Whitlock was sitting beside a large freezer that had been turned on its side. For a moment I sought to indulge myself, to let loose all of a sudden in front of my newfound acquaintances. But then, for the benefit of professionalism…
...I thought better of it.
“I’m fine.”
“Your choice…” he said, waving a freshly sourced bottle in my direction, “…you don’t mind if I partake in a little myself though, do you? Lord knows it's been pretty hectic around here of late…”
“Be my guest.” I responded, shrugging my shoulders.
“Good. We’ve much to discuss.”
Leroi was something of a showman. Whether it be through sourcing the finest array of vintage liquors he could get his hands upon, wowing his respective guests with several accolades plastered throughout the room, or simply showing off his brand new pink racer stationed out in the car-park, he remained keen to emphasise only the most remarkable characteristics of his life.
In-fact, talk of Leroi’s shiny pink race-car came to the forefront almost as soon as I had taken up a seat in the faded leather armchair…
“What did you think of my little Barbie then, Lucky?” spoke the self-assured little man upon settling down with a full glass of brandy.
“Barbie…?”
“Yeah, that’s what I call her…” he continued buoyantly, “…she’s a four-door ’72 series. Must have only gotten hold of her about six or so months ago. She’s a little rough on the turn at times, but I dunno…handles far better than my wife, I’ll tell you that much. Wouldn’t you agree, Whitlock?”
The lawyer said nothing once again, leaving me to somehow step up in his place.
“The car…” I began somewhat ponderously, “…a present from the wife perhaps?”
“No, no, no…” Leroi replied curtly, “…I’ve got to stop saying that, old habits die hard don’t they? No, she’s my ex-wife. Today Lucky, you find a man married only to the industry that continues to wring his neck, that being the industry of high-quality movie-making, of course!”
“Of course…”
“Anyway…” he posed, finally putting talk of his overpriced vehicle to one side, “…it’s a great car. You should think about getting one yourself one day, Lucky. But for now, we've important matters to tend to...”
This was clearly a guy full of energy and spark. He wore an awfully outdated ponytail like some kind of middle-aged rocker, one that failed to hide the unmissable bald spot in the middle of his head. A man trying to hold onto every last vestige of youth he could cling to, he dressed proudly in low-cut v-neck with a flourish of bristly chest hairs creeping out from underneath. Leroi was contrastingly short in stature when stood next to his lawyer, and was rarely seen without a pair of dark sunglasses covering his eyes regardless of the weather. What struck me most about the guy, however, was just how happy he was to see me.
But just who was this Lawrence Leroi character, exactly? And why had he asked me to see him down at his studios that morning? The answer lay very much with the unknown whereabouts of our elusive missing actor. I’m talking about Coburn, of course...
“You know who I am right?” spoke Leroi from the other end of the table, “…and I assume you know why I called you here today?”
“I have an idea…”
“Good…” he said, “…then I’m glad you and I are both working from the same page.”
Lawrence Leroi was a director, as fate would have it. One who specialised in cheap straight-to-rent movies that were largely erotic in nature. He was a seedy little guy making seedy little movies that no one seemed to care for. But that all changed once he got his big break on the silver screen with the memorable title, Give Me All You Got, a low-rent action piece starring guns, girls and a whole load of greasepaint. It launched his status from anonymous nobody, to everyone’s favourite forgettable minor somebody. And now he was in Clearview it seemed, seemingly hating every minute of his time there.
First Coburn. Then Renato. And now, him...
“I suppose you’ve heard about all the accusations by now, Lucky?” the director asked somewhat coyly, sharing a brief glance with his lawyer before awaiting my response.
He was right to assume as such. Though this was not a man who garnered a great deal of respect or attention for his movie-making prowess, I had indeed heard all about this particular director. For once upon a time, back when this whole thing started, Leroi had been considered perhaps the main suspect in Coburn’s disappearance.
That's right. Leroi showed up in Clearview not long before Coburn first went missing, funnily enough. And whilst the pair had never officially spoken to one another in friendly conversation, or exchanged as much as a simple handshake, for that matter, folk could not help but put two and two together. You know how people are, though. Everybody thinks they are an expert when the life changing accusations don’t apply to them…
Although the speculation was largely driven by the press, as opposed to Officer Dirkdale and the Clearview Police Department, the x-rated director was nonetheless brought in for questioning and held for some time. In the end, however, Leroi's alibi held up successfully. He was cleared of all wrongdoing and swiftly released without any further action, forcing the cops back to square one again.
“I wasn’t even in Clearview at the time!” Leroi was quick to point out, “…I was attending premiers in the Big City and drinking carver on the red carpet when all that business with Coburn went down! As well as that, I might add…I’d never as much as spoken to the guy whilst I was here. Never even looked at the man!”
“That’s right…” his lawyer confirmed coldly.
“But you know what the press are like…” Leroi continued, “…bunch of no-good parasites, the whole lot of them! Never let the facts get in the way of a good scandal piece, do they?”
Leroi returned to a media frenzy when he came back to finish his latest movie in Clearview. The press would not leave him alone; either because they truly suspected the director of heinous wrongdoing, or because they simply enjoyed prodding the short ponytailed man in his cheap Hawaiian shirts and laughably fake suntan.
I for one suspected the latter. That is why Leroi had taken to having his lawyer follow him around wherever he went about his business. And that’s why I, the same guy clambering around town claiming to be a first-rate private investigator, was currently sitting opposite the under-fire movie-maker in his stuffy little office.
“So you see my predicament…” the director proceeded, “…I’m due to launch my next movie right here in Clearview, at the grand re-opening of the cinema complex in Town Square! Sure, I would go back to the Big City tomorrow, if I could. But the plans have already been laid, Lucky. Contractually speaking, I have no choice but to finish what I've started...”
“Sounds exciting…” I said.
Leroi nodded, “…but everyday I spend here it's like there’s this monkey on my back, and it just won’t go away. If no one turns up to my movie premier on the back of this, I’m done. That’s my career over! How’s a guy supposed to work around here with all those vultures swarming about the place, eh!?”
“I don’t know…” I countered suddenly, “…folk around here don’t seem to care much for what happened to Coburn, as far as I can tell…”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I’ve spoken to enough people. I don’t think a single one of them has even mentioned your name…”
It was true, in my ongoing quest for Coburn’s whereabouts few had raised the name ‘Lawrence Leroi’ as a potential point of contact. Most folk in Clearview did not even seem to know who he was anymore. At least, that’s the impression I was given.
Somewhere deep inside, that hurt the director a little. I could tell his ego had already taken somewhat of a beating judging by the current mess he was in. Yet, at the same time, Leroi seemed equally relieved by what I was saying.
“Is that so…?” he pondered aloud.
“Yep. People are too caught up with the Wolfman stories to pay much attention to Coburn right now. That’s my reckoning at least.”
“Say…” spoke Leroi, scratching away on his greying facial hair, “…you don’t think this Wolfman character got to Coburn, do you? That would make a whole load of sense, no?”
It was a curious suggestion, one I had not given much thought to up until that point.
“I don’t know about that…” I said, shrugging my shoulders for the second time, “…it's plausible, I guess. But it seems like a long shot to me. Coburn went missing over three months ago after all…”
"What if Coburn is the Wolfman? Did you ever think about that, Lucky?"
"Maybe. But again, I don't know. It's been quite some time since Coburn disappeared. Plus, the descriptions given don't seem to match up at all..."
“You’re right…” Leroi sighed, “…too obvious.”
“It could be linked, maybe…”
“In any case…” the director pressed on, “…that’s not what I brought you here to discuss.”
The little man finished off the rest of his drink and whispered something in his lawyer’s ear. Whitlock then took to his feet and left the room, only to reemerge soon after with a red file under his arm and a skinny blonde kid by his side.
“Don’t mind Billy…” spoke Leroi, as the kid removed the empty glasses from his desk and disappeared out the door, readjusting his glasses as he went, “…‘Billy Quick-Fingers’ I call him, because the boy can never seem to stand still for more than two seconds! He’s always up to something, that one…”
“Right…” I answered slowly.
“The boy’s been working as my part-time assistant here in Clearview…” he continued, “…but he ain’t much of one I gotta say. You get what you pay for I guess…”
The kid most likely heard the comment on his way out the room. I barely had the chance to look him in the eye, he was gone so quickly. But I suppose Leroi must have preferred it that way.
“Anyway…” the director proceeded, taking the first swig of his new drink before setting it back down on the table with a noticeably sour face, “…where were we? Ah yes, the bank statements.”
Whitlock opened up the file and presented its contents face-up on the desk, all without a single flicker of emotion creeping across his stony face.
“Tell me Lucky…” spoke Leroi openly, “…what do you know about a young lady by the name of Lucy Labelle?”
Lucy? My Lucy!? What business was it of there's to talk about Lucy...?
Leroi launched a subtle smile in my direction, paying close attention to my reaction as he mentioned her name, “…ah, so you know her then?”
“I know of her…” I said, “…yes.”
“Well that’s a good start…” the director prompted, “…who could miss a knock-out broad as adorable as her? Am I right, Lucky? Eh…?”
I nodded, feeling the temperature beneath my collar rise as the director spoke. Hearing another man talk about Lucy like that made me feel more than just a little uncomfortable, especially coming from someone as crudely mannered as Leroi.
“What we know about Ms Labelle is this…” he continued, “…she was Coburn’s last known girlfriend right before he disappeared. Coincidence? Maybe…I’ll let you be the judge of that, but just wait ‘till you take a look at these bank statements of hers. They make for quite intriguing reading, I think you’ll agree…”
The lawyer subsequently thrust the aforementioned papers under my nose.
“This girl has been collecting payments from three unnamed sources every fourteen days...” the ponytailed director declared, “…see for yourself. There's no mention of who is doing this, or what the money is for, but every two weeks it's right there in black and white. Regular payments, all pretty sizeable in nature. And so far no one has even blinked an eye.”
“Just how did you get a hold of these…?” I asked curiously, but Leroi never did give me an answer.
“If you ask me…” he said, “…someone out there is lining her pockets to keep things quiet.”
“They could be from anyone…” I protested, “…her mother back home perhaps?”
But Leroi just shook his head, proceeding to stare at me over the top of his dark sunglasses, “…it’s hush money, Lucky. That’s what they call it. It’s as clear as day.”
I sat there and re-read the papers. First once, then again a second time.
All the while the director and his lawyer watched over me like two beady-eyed hawks awaiting their breakfast. I did not want to believe what they were saying. But even so, the payments recorded on Lucy’s bank statements were odd, and pretty regular in nature too. Perhaps they might have been onto something...
Eventually Leroi started to grow restless.
“Talk to me Lucky. What do you make of all this…?”
“I think it's strange for sure, but there must be some kind of explanation, surely…”
“She shows up in town and then, BAM! Coburn disappears…” the director cried, “…now she’s being paid off by someone, collecting these handouts like ripe fruit in the grocery market! I just think somebody ought to look into this, that's all I’m saying…”
“The police sure won’t…” Whitlock remarked suddenly, with his habit of almost making me jump every time he spoke, “…what with all this Wolfman stuff on their plate, Officer Dirkdale won’t go near this.”
Leroi duly nodded and placed the statements back inside the file.
“Women are dangerous too, Lucky…” he spoke with a warning, “…perhaps even more so than us fellas. I want you to keep a close eye on Ms Labelle, follow her if you have to. There’s good money in this if you manage to turn something up. You have my word on that.”
I thought about Lucy, and whether or not the director had any idea how much that so-called ‘broad’ really meant to me. Her involvement in this town was becoming more confusing by the minute. But alas, I could not just sit there staying silent forever.
“I’ll think about it.” I concluded.
With that Leroi poured himself another drink to celebrate.
“Please do…” he said, his ponytail swaying back and forth behind him, “…remember Lucky, this isn’t about the girl. All I want is for my name to be cleared so I can be done with this whole mess! The cops won't help me. My movie is premiering next month and I can’t have any of these accusations in the press getting in the way of my work, do you understand?”
“Got it…” I said, “…what’s it about, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Leroi gawped back with a puzzled look on his face.
“…your movie I mean.”
“Oh…” he said, with a wink in his eye, “…you’ll have to wait and see I’m afraid, just like everybody else! It will only be the first viewing, you see. There are still some final scenes and last minute touch-ups to complete before the film is finished…”
I smiled, knowing that was all I was going to get out of him.
“Lawrence must keep his ideas close to his chest…” spoke Whitlock calmly, “…through fear of them being stolen. He is one of the most pioneering filmmakers of his era after all, and other directors tend to be envious…”
“All I’ll say is this…” spoke Leroi laughing, “…this movie is going to be a lot more memorable than anything that poser, Raldo Renato, has ever worked on. That’s for damn sure! Can you believe that he’s here in Clearview too!? Part of me hopes that big brute is next on the menu for that nutty Wolfman fella, if you know what I mean!”
Whitlock shot him a look of blatant objection, forcing the director to backtrack on his word.
“I jest, I jest…” he said, still chuckling slightly to himself, “…I’m no fan of Renato, that’s all. I’m sure he pays all those reporters to follow him around like that, you know? It wouldn’t surprise me. I bet he doesn’t even make love to his wife without a few of them set up around his bedroom. Better yet, he probably ignores the wife altogether, and makes love to the camera instead!”
I, too, couldn’t help but laugh at that latest remark.
“Now…” the talkative director continued one last time, “…if I can’t tempt you into having a drink with me Lucky, then my assistant will get the door for you.”
“Thanks…” I said, “…but I’m good for now.”
Leroi nodded and bowed his head, pointing towards the exit as he did so.
“Very well…” he motioned, “….Billy! Get your ass in here now! Our detective friend is just leaving…”
Soon enough the skinny blonde kid arrived and led me back down the stairs, past the seemingly empty studio below us, and out into the carpark. All the while he never said a word. I felt a little bad for him. The boy seemed recognisable, familiar almost. As if I myself had walked in shoes like his not so long ago, and knew exactly how it felt to be treated as such.
But things move on quickly in this life. As soon as I was back inside my car I had all but forgotten about the boy, Whitlock, and Leroi too for that matter.
My mind was far too busy contemplating what to do with Lucy...
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