LITMIR.BIZ

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you are! You don’t even know they’re cranking out fuck films right below your feet!”

      What could I say? The hard truth I had to face just about every day was that I was not born to be a private investigator. I’m not tough, and I try to avoid mean streets whenever possible. I even try to avoid mildly disagreeable streets. I’ve been in only one fight in my life, in ninth grade, and then I beat my attacker’s fist with my nose so brutally that he had to put a band aid on one knuckle. I, meanwhile, went to the emergency room. But having been laid off three years ago by the Law Offices of Zacharias & Flynn, and finding that no other law firm in town was particularly interested in me, there was precious little else I could think to do. PI licenses aren’t all that hard to come by—in fact, I hear in L.A. they’re easier to get than a building permit—so here I am. A guy’s gotta live.

      Or die trying, a voice intoned. Robert Mitchum, ladies and gentlemen. Very mordant, Mitch, very witty; now please go get stoned and leave me be.

      I could not so easily wave away Nora’s point. I should have been able to figure out they were shooting shag films down there. If the smile etched on the guy’s face wasn’t enough of a clue, there had been a fairly constant stream of young women hanging around the hallway. Had I really thought about it, maybe I might even have realized that “Triex” is a spelled-out form of “XXX,” the traditional advertising rating for skin flicks. But I just didn’t put X, X, and X together. She’s right; a helluva fine detective I am.

      “I really have to get back to the shoot, Mr. Beauchamp,” Nora Frost said, rising and heading for the door.

      “Please call me Dave,” I said. For five grand in advance she could call me Hitler McAsshat. “Might I come along? To the shoot, I mean? You could introduce me to the twi…I mean, to the boys.”

      “Fine, but haul it.” Nora was back to being all-business.

      I closed the door behind me but did not lock it. There was precious little to steal in there anyway. Even if someone cared enough to lift the laptop, the insurance would pay for a newer, better one.

      Sheez, I did pay my premium, didn’t I?

      While we were waiting for the elevator (I would have preferred the stairs, but it was her choice), I said: “I don’t want to intrude, but the more information I have, the better. You mentioned that the boys’ father died.”

      There was a slight pause, before she said, “That’s right.”

      “What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

      “He was killed in Afghanistan. He died fighting for his country.”

      “Oh, I see. Again, I’m sorry.”

      “I try to honor his memory rather than grieve his death.”

      “Do Burton and Taylor go to public school?”

      “Are you kidding me?” The elevator dinged, and then the door opened and we stepped in. Nora jabbed the button for the first floor. “LAUSD stands for the Los Angeles Unionized Sewer Department,” she said as the door slid shut. “I wouldn’t let my babies anywhere near a public school in L.A. They’re tutored at home. But since it’s summer now and school’s out, they’re on break. I like to give them the same advantages of common kids.”

      The elevator door opened and we stepped into the hallway. The former Triex studio was at the end of the hall; the door was open, and through it I could hear a hubbub of voices. Nora marched straight in and I followed. Inside the suite were about a half-dozen people, all of whom stopped talking and practically snapped to attention at the sight of Nora. Only the fox, frankly, did not seem give a damn.

      Instead of the drop ceiling that existed in my office, there was no ceiling in this mini-studio, only a lighting grid. The lights that hung there were focused on a long, semi-circular piece of muslin, on which was painted an English pastoral landscape, filled with hills and hedges, with a stately manor house etched into the background. Two young boys stood in front of it, and between them was the fox, resting comfortably on the floor. They were not identical twins, but rather fraternal. The truth was they did not even look all that much like brothers. One was on the tall side for an adolescent and slender, with sharp features and a focused expression, while the other was slightly shorter, a little rounder, and had a faraway look. What linked them was dirty-blonde color of their hair and their light blue eyes, which gave them a certain coldness that wasn’t conducive to becoming teen idols. Even though they were dressed in classic fox hunting outfits—round, helmet-like hats, red coats, jodhpurs and tall boots—they looked convincingly like a pre-teen version of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

      The fox, which was standing in between them actually seemed glad to see me, and strolled over to accept a scritch between the ears. Maybe she wasn’t aware that the bowl of milk I gave her was going to result in grievous stomach troubles. However, Harvey the fox wrangler, the guy in the Jungle Jim outfit who had shown up in my office, suddenly materialized at my side. “Now what do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

      “He came with me, Harvey, so leave him alone,” Nora snapped. Then turning to the boys, she cooed: “Taylor honey, Burton darling, this is Mr. Beauchamp.”

      “Hello,” they said in perfect unison. Okay, so they were twins after all.

      “Hey, guys. Having fun?”

      They looked at me as though I’d asked a question in a foreign language.

      “Must be kind of cool, working with a real fox and all,” I went on.

      Taylor, the taller one, said: “It would make a nice pair of gloves.”

      “Honey!” Nora shouted. “Don’t make jokes like that!” Turning to me, she added: “They have a unique sense of humor.”

      The boys glared back at me with all the humor of a plane crash. I glanced over at Harvey, who looked like he wanted to backhand the little cyborgs, but knew he could not. He was on Mommy’s payroll like everyone else here, including, soon, me.

      “All right, talk to me, somebody,” Nora shouted, clapping her hands. “Where are we? Are we finished with this?”

      A man dressed in white linen slacks and shirt with a light meter around his neck—presumably the photographer—came up to her. “I think I have what you want,” he said. “Come over to the laptop and take a look.” Nora followed him over to a table on which sat a portable computer and intently examined a slideshow of photos.

      “They’re grinning,” she said. “Why are they grinning? This is a serious poster, for Christ’s sake!”

      “We took a variety of poses and expressions,” the photographer explained.

      “No…no…no…no…Jesus Christ, Jerry, why would you take a picture like that? Burton looks likes a zombie!”

      I glanced over at Burton and found myself agreeing with her assessment.

      “You’ve been wasting my time and money!” Nora shouted. “You should go back to the fucking DMV!”

      Jerry the photographer sighed, and then said: “Just look at the others, Nora.”

      Glaring at the laptop like she was trying to burn holes through it with her eyes, Nora snapped: “No! No! No! Hell no! Jesus, God! No! Wait, that’s it. That one there.”

      “There are more—”

      “Why are there more? You should have stopped after this one and not wasted everyone’s time! This is the one. Look at that…even the fox looks like he’s pleading not to be killed.”

      My guess is by that point the fox was pleading to get away from the lights and the noise.

      “Put that one on a memory stick and I’ll take it with me,” Nora told the photographer. “All right, everyone, it’s a wrap.”

      There seemed to be a collective sigh of relief in the room as the harsh photographic lights were clicked off and

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