Skinflick by Joseph Hansen

holding her in your arms. You walk into camera range right past here, got it? You stop where the tape is on the floor. Only don’t look down for it, this time, okay? Feel it with your toes. You’re stunned. No expression. That ought to be easy. Just stare at the Inspector. Junie, you’ve passed out from pain, remember? So let your head hang back, way back. Be dead weight in his arms, right?”
    “Aw, Spence.” The naked boy trudged back to Dave.
    “It’ll be over before you know it,” Spence said.
    “I hope you’ve got a truss in that trunk,” Harold said.
    “That would look fetching in the sex scenes,” Spence said. “Bend your knees when you lift her. You’ll be fine.”
    Junie grinned. “Be thankful he never makes retakes.”
    “Never use that word in my presence,” Spence said.
    “Do I have to pick her up now?” Harold said.
    “Once for practice,” Spence said. “You don’t have to carry her till Hardcock comes in and starts looking around.”
    “Yeah, looking around slowly, ” Harold said. He blew air out through his nose. Disgustedly he got into a half crouch and held out his arms. “Come on, Pudgy.”
    But Junie saw Dave. “There’s a strange man here.”
    “What?” Spence saw Dave too. He came over. “This is a closed set,” he said. “What do you want?”
    “To know where Charleen Sims is.” Dave took out his wallet and showed Spence his license. “She told people she had a job in films. You’re Spence Odum, right? She’s got a poster from one of your productions on a wall over her bed. In an apartment she left hurriedly ten days ago and hasn’t come back to. I don’t suppose your posters get around much.”
    “We’re very big in Possum Stew, Arkansas,” Spence Odum said, “and Gopher Hole, Nebraska. But not in Ninevah and Tyre.” He gave his wristwatch a pained look. “Listen, I’m on a very tight budget. I can’t hang around talking. Who?”
    “Charleen Sims,” Dave said, “or maybe Charleen Dawson.”
    “Never heard of her,” Spence Odum said.
    “I’m suffocating back here.” The middle-aged man opened the painted cardboard door in the painted cardboard flat. “If I have to turn this knob, I’ve got to use my right hand. The gun will have to be in my left hand.”
    “We’ll run through it,” Odum called without turning.
    “Blond, small, slender,” Dave said. “Possibly as old as sixteen but she looks twelve.”
    Odum clowned shock, eyes wide, fingers to mouth. “But—but,” he stammered, “that’s—why, that’s—degenerate!” He held an open hand out to the naked young people who laughed. “Do I look like that sort of man?” He turned to the big brick room, holding out his arms. The cameraman was grinning. So were the boys stowing the mummy case in a corner. “Do you see anything decadent about this operation, anything depraved?” He turned back to Dave, taking off the slouch hat, clutching it to his breast “I hope you won’t spread that opinion around. It could ruin my future with Walt Disney Productions.”
    Junie giggled. Harold and the crew guffawed.
    “It’s Charleen’s future that worries me,” Dave said. “She’s mixed up in murder. She may even have been murdered herself. Now, do you know anything about her?”
    The laughter stopped. Odum looked sober. “No. I don’t. I never met her, never heard of her. I don’t know where she got the poster. Everybody rips everything off these days. You know that. I wouldn’t use her. Too young. Truth.” He turned away, turned back. “Why would somebody murder her?”
    “Because she saw Gerald Dawson murdered,” Dave said.
    Odum moistened his lips. “Superstar Rentals?”
    “The place you get your stuff from,” Dave said.
    “I don’t know the girl,” Odum said. “Believe me.” He read his watch again. “Look, will you get out, now, please?”
    “I’ll be back,” Dave said and left.
    Blinded by sunlight, he was inside the Triumph before he noticed that Randy was in it