Bosch was waiting in front of the SFPD headquarters when Ballard pulled up in her van. He eyed the boards on the roof racks as he approached and opened the door. Ballard noticed that the bruise under his eye was now a deep purple and he had a row of butterfly sutures on his upper left cheek.
Bosch got in and checked out the back of the van while pulling his seatbelt over his shoulder.
“Is this like a Scooby-Doo van or something?” he asked. “The surfboards and stuff?”
“No,” Ballard said. “But I thought if I brought my city ride, our guy might see it and rabbit before the interview.”
“You have a point.”
“Besides, it saved me having to go into the station. I called to check on the ZooToo murder book and it hasn’t landed yet. On Saturdays they cut the courier runs in half.”
“‘ZooToo’?”
“It was the name of the tattoo shop where the murder went down.”
“Got it.”
“So, do you think it was wise to be standing out front of the police station like that?”
“If you’re not safe at a police station, then where are you safe? Anyway, how do you want to handle this guy?”
Ballard had been thinking about that for the thirty minutes it took her to get from Hollywood to San Fernando.
“This guy isn’t going to know what this is about,” she said. “So I’m thinking we identify ourselves upfront and draw him in with the Good Samaritan play.”
“‘Good Samaritan play’?” Bosch said.
“Come on, you must’ve done it a million times. Make the guy think he’s helping the police. Draw him in and lock in his story, then turn it upside down. He goes from hero to zero.”
Bosch nodded.
“Got it,” he said. “We always called that the rope a dope.”
“Same thing,” Ballard said.
They discussed the play further as Ballard drove across the north end of the Valley toward Canoga Park, the community where more than half of the world’s legally sanctioned pornography production was located.
They arrived at Beatrice Beaupre’s unmarked warehouse twenty-five minutes before Kurt Pascal was due. Beaupre opened the studio door. She was black with startling green eyes that Ballard thought were probably contacts. The short dreadlocks were new since Ballard had last seen her. She looked past Ballard at Bosch and frowned.
“You didn’t tell me you were bringing somebody,” she said.
“This is my partner on the case,” Ballard said. “Detective Harry Bosch.”
Bosch nodded but remained quiet.
“Well, just as long as we’re clear,” Beaupre said. “I run a business here and I don’t want any trouble. To me, a man means trouble. We already have one coming in, so you, Harry Bosch, you chill out.”
Bosch held his hands up in surrender.
“You’re the boss,” he said.
“Damn right,” Beaupre said. “Only reason I’m doing this and putting my neck out is because your partner saved my skinny ass from death’s door last year. I owe her and I’m going to pay up today.”
Bosch looked at Ballard with a raised eyebrow.
“She saves more people than John the Baptist,” he said.
The joke fell on deaf ears with Beaupre but Ballard stifled a laugh.
They walked past the door to the room Ballard remembered as being Beaupre’s office and continued down a hall, passing a framed poster for a movie called Operation Desert Stormy, which depicted porn star Stormy Daniels straddling a missile in a bathing suit. Ballard scanned the credits for Beaupre’s name but didn’t see it.
“Was that one of your movies?” she asked.
“I wish,” Beaupre said. “All of Stormy’s flicks are in big-time demand. I put the poster up for appearances, you know. Doesn’t hurt if people think you have a part of that action.”
They entered a room at the end of the hallway that was carpeted and had a stripper pole on a one-foot-high stage. There were several folding chairs lined against one wall.
“This is where we do casting,” Beaupre said. “But most of the time it’s for the women. Men, we go off reels and reps. But I figure this is where you should talk to the guy. If he shows.”
“Do you have reason to think he won’t?” Bosch asked.
“It’s a flaky business,” Beaupre said. “People are unreliable. I don’t know anything about this guy. He could be a flake and a no-show. He could be right smack on time. We’ll see. Now I got a question. Am I supposed to be in here with you all?”
“No, that’s not necessary,” Ballard said. “If you can send him back here when he arrives, we’ll take it from there.”
“And no blowback on me, right?” Beaupre said.
“No blowback on you,” Ballard said. “We have you covered.”
“Good,” Beaupre said. “I’ll be in my office. The intercom buzz will go to me and then I’ll bring him to you.”
She left the room, closing the door behind her.
Ballard looked at Bosch and tried to gauge what he was thinking about the setup. She couldn’t read him and was about to ask if he wanted to change the interview plan, when Beaupre stuck her head in through the doorway.
“Imagine that, this guy’s an early bird,” she said. “You two ready?”
Ballard nodded at Bosch and he nodded back.
“Bring him in,” he said.
Ballard looked around at the room. She quickly started moving chairs, putting two side by side and facing a third in the center.
“I wish we had a table,” she said. “It will feel weird without a table.”
“It’s better without one,” Bosch said. “He can’t hide his hands. They tell a lot.”
Ballard was thinking about that when the door opened again and Beaupre led Kurt Pascal in.
“This is Kurt Pascal,” she said. “And this is Renée and…is it Harry?”
“Right,” Bosch said. “Harry.”
Both Ballard and Bosch shook Pascal’s hand and Ballard signaled him to the single chair. He was wearing baggy polyester workout pants and a red pullover hoodie. He was shorter than Ballard had expected and the baggy clothes camouflaged his body shape. His long brown hair was streaked with a slash of red dye and tied up in a topknot.
Pascal hesitated before sitting down.
“You want me to sit or do you want to see my stuff?” he asked.
He hooked his thumbs into the elastic band of his pants.
“We want you to sit,” Ballard said.
She and Bosch both waited for Pascal to sit first, then Ballard sat down. Bosch remained on his feet, leaning his hands on the back of the empty folding chair so he could cut off any move Pascal made toward the room’s door.
“Okay, I’m sitting,” Pascal said. “What do you want to know?”
Ballard pulled her badge and held it up to him.
“Mr. Pascal, Ms. Beaupre doesn’t know this but we’re not really movie producers,” she said. “I’m Detective Ballard, LAPD, and this is my partner, Detective Bosch.”
“What the fuck?” Pascal said.
He started to stand. Bosch immediately took his hands off his chair and stood straight, ready to keep Pascal from the door.
“Sit down, Mr. Pascal,” Ballard ordered. “We need your help.”
Pascal froze. It seemed to be the first time in his life that anyone had asked him for help.
He then slowly sat back down.
“What’s this about?” he asked.
“We’re trying to find a man—a dangerous man—and we think you might be able to help,” Ballard said. “You have a past association with him.”
“Who?”
“Wilson Gayley.”
Pascal started to laugh and then shook his head.
“Are you fucking with me?” he asked.
“No, Mr. Pascal, we’re not fucking with you,” Ballard said.
“Wilson Gayley is dangerous? What did he do? Run a stop sign? Flip off a nun?”
“We can’t share the details of the case we’re working. It’s a confidential investigation and anything you tell us will be confidential as well. Do you know where he is at the moment?”
“What? No. I haven’t seen that guy in a couple years, at least. Somebody had a party for him when he got out of prison, and I saw him there. But that was like three years ago.”
“So you have no idea where he is these days?”
“I have an idea where he isn’t and that’s in L.A. I mean, if he was here, I would have seen him around, you know?”
Pascal shoved his hands into the front pocket of the hoodie. Ballard realized he could hide his hands even without a table.
“How did you know Wilson Gayley in the first place?” Bosch asked.
Pascal shrugged like he was not sure how to answer.
“He was making street movies,” he said. “Shorts. He had a name for them. It was like a series. I think it was called Hollywood Whores or something like that. He hired me in a room like this after seeing my package, you know? And then we went driving around, and he’d pay street girls to get in and fuck me while he filmed it. That was how I got my start in the business, you know?”
Ballard and Bosch stared at him for a long moment before Ballard continued the questioning.
“When was this?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Pascal said. “Ten years ago. Thereabouts.”
“What kind of vehicle did you use?” Bosch asked.
“Vehicle? It was a van,” Pascal said. “It was an old VW like they had on that show Lost. People always made that connection. Two-tone. White on the top, blue on the bottom.”
“And the women? Who talked them into getting in the van?” Ballard asked.
“That was him mostly,” Pascal said. “He had a silver tongue. He used to say he could sell matches to the devil. But there was no shortage of women who would get in. Most of them were pros, anyway.”
“Prostitutes,” Ballard said.
“That’s right,” Pascal said.
“Were some of them runaways?” Ballard asked.
“I suppose so,” Pascal said. “We didn’t really ask a bunch of questions, you know? If they got in the van, they got paid, and they knew what they had to do.”
“Underage girls?” Ballard tried.
“Uh…no,” Pascal said. “That would be illegal.”
“It’s all right,” Ballard said. “Ten years ago—the statute of limitations has passed. You can tell us.”
Ballard’s statement about the statute of limitations wasn’t exactly true but it didn’t matter. Pascal wasn’t going there.
“No, nobody underage,” he said. “I mean, we checked IDs but somebody here and there could’ve had a phony, you know what I’m saying? Not our fault if they were lying.”
“How often did you do this?” Bosch asked.
“I don’t know,” Pascal said. “A couple times a month. He’d call me up when he needed me. But he was going out with different guys on different nights. To have variety in the product, you know?”
“You know any names of those other guys?” Bosch asked.
“No, not really,” Pascal said. “Been a long time. But Wilson would.”
“But you don’t know where he is?”
“No, I don’t. Scout’s honor.”
He pulled his right hand out of the hoodie’s front pocket and held it up as if to show his sincerity. Ballard noticed that he was getting happy feet—involuntarily shaking his foot as he got increasingly nervous about the interview. She was sure Bosch had picked up on it as well.
“Did you ever see Gayley get mad or upset with any of the women in the van?” Ballard asked.
“Not that I remember,” Pascal said. “So, all these questions. What’s this all about? I thought you wanted me to help with an investigation or something.”
“You are helping,” Ballard said. “I can’t tell you how because of the case, but you are definitely helping. The thing is, we really need to locate Gayley. Are you sure you can’t help us with that? Give us a name. Somebody else who knows him.”
“I got no names,” Pascal said. “And I really need to go.”
He stood up again but Bosch took his hands off the back of his chair once more and moved a few steps toward the door to block Pascal’s angle to it. Pascal immediately read the situation and sat back down. He slapped his palms down on his thighs.
“You can’t hold me like this,” he said. “You haven’t even given me my rights or anything.”
“We’re not holding you, Mr. Pascal,” Ballard said. “We’re just talking here, and there’s no need for rights at this stage. You’re not a suspect. You are a citizen aiding the police.”
Pascal reluctantly nodded.
“I’m now going to show you some photos of individuals and I want to see if you recognize any of them,” Ballard said. “We want to know if any of these women were ever with Wilson Gayley.”
From her briefcase Ballard pulled out a standard six-pack—a file with six windows cut into it and displaying six photos of different young women. One of the photos was a shot of Daisy Clayton that Ballard had gotten out of the online murder book. It was a posed shot taken at her school in Modesto when Daisy was in the seventh grade. She was smiling at the camera, makeup covering acne on her cheeks, but she looked older than her years and there was already a distant look in her eyes.
Another photo was a mug shot of Tanya Vickers, the prostitute who had been with Pascal and Gayley on the night they had been rousted by the cops and their shake cards were written. While their interaction probably amounted to just that one night, including her photo was intended as a test of Pascal’s veracity.
Ballard flipped the cover of the file back and handed it to Pascal.
“Take your time,” Ballard said.
“I don’t need to,” Pascal said. “I don’t know any of them.”
He reached out to hand the file back but Ballard didn’t take it.
“Look again, Mr. Pascal,” Ballard said. “It’s important. Did any of those women ever get into the van with you and Gayley?”
Pascal withdrew the file and impatiently looked again.
“You know how many women I’ve fucked in ten years?” he asked. “I can’t remember every—maybe her and maybe her.”
“Which ones?” Ballard asked
Pascal turned the file and pointed to two of the photos. One was Vickers. The other was Daisy Clayton.
Ballard took the file back and pointed to the photo of Daisy.
“Let’s start with her,” Ballard said. “You recognize her from the van?”
“I don’t know,” Pascal said. “Maybe. I can’t remember.”
“Think, Mr. Pascal. Look again. How do you recognize her? From where?”
“I told you. I don’t know. It was from back at that time, I guess.”
“She got into the van with you and Gayley?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve fucked about a thousand women since then. How am I supposed to remember them all?”
“It must be difficult. What about her?”
She pointed to the photo of Vickers.
“Same thing,” Pascal said. “I think I remember her from back then. She mighta been in the van.”
“Where in Hollywood would Gayley stop the van to pick up women for his films?” Ballard asked.
“All over the place. Wherever the whores were, you know?”
“Santa Monica Boulevard?”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Hollywood Boulevard?”
“Sure.”
“How about Western Avenue? Was that a place you stopped?”
“Most likely—if that’s where the pros were working.”
“Do you remember specifically stopping at Hollywood and Western to recruit women for the films?”
“No. Been too long.”
“Do you remember the name Daisy from back then?”
“Uh…”
He shook his head. Ballard knew she wasn’t getting anywhere. She went in a new direction.
“What was in the van?” she asked.
“You mean, like, inside the VW?” Pascal asked.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. Stuff, you know? He always had a fucking carton of rubbers. He had to. And there was a mattress. All the seats were taken out and a mattress was on the floor. And he had extra sheets and all of that. Some costumes. Sometimes the girls would only work if they had on a disguise, you know?”
“How’d he store it?”
“He, uh, he had boxes and cartons and shit that he put it all in.”
“What kind of cartons?”
“You know, like plastic containers for putting shit in.”
“How big?”
“What?”
“How big were the plastic containers?”
“I don’t know. Like this.”
He used his hands to shape a box in the air in front of him. He delineated a square that was maybe two feet by two feet. It would be difficult to fit a body into such a space.
“I really gotta go now,” Pascal said. “I have a wax at five. I’ve got work tomorrow.”
“Just a few more questions,” Ballard said. “You’ve been very helpful. Do you know what happened to the van you and Mr. Gayley used?”
“No, but I doubt it’s around anymore. It was a real piece of shit back then. What else?”
“The films you made in the van with Mr. Gayley, do you have copies?”
Pascal laughed.
“Fuck, no. I wouldn’t keep that shit. But it’s all gotta be out there somewhere on the internet, right? Everything’s on the net.”
Ballard looked at Bosch to see if he had any questions. He gave a quick head shake.
“Can I go now?” Pascal said.
“Do you have a driver’s license?” Ballard asked.
“No, I don’t drive anymore. I Uber.”
“Where do you live, then?”
“Why do you need that?”
“In case we have follow-up questions.”
“You can call my agent. He’ll find me.”
“You’re not going to give me your home address?”
“Not if I don’t have to. I don’t want it in some police file somewhere, you know?”
“What about your cell-phone number?”
“Same answer.”
Ballard stared at him for a long moment. She knew there would be many ways to find Pascal later. She wasn’t worried about that. The moment was more about cooperation and what his refusal meant in terms of her suspicions about him. It was also the moment when she needed to make a decision. If she wanted to shift things and go at him hard with questions about Daisy Clayton and his possible involvement with her murder, then she would need to advise him of his rights to have an attorney present and to choose not to speak to the police. Considering the reluctance to talk that Pascal had already shown, such an advisement would most likely bring the interview to an abrupt end and put Pascal on notice that they considered him a suspect.
She decided it was too soon for that. She hoped Bosch was on the same page with her.
“Okay, Mr. Pascal, you can go now,” she finally said. “We’ll find you if we need to.”