Chapter 16

P&C Films had its office in what they're calling a strip mall the past few years – I grew up with the term "shopping center." It was one of those retail locations that might have been nice once, but had turned ratty, with dirt and leaves in the corners, half the storefronts empty, and the parking lot cracked and falling to pieces. Porn isn't about the front – unless you're talking about Playboy or Penthouse or something like that – but about the product. A porn video might look like it's taking place in a 50-bedroom mansion, but if you could see behind the camera it would be bare and dull and quite probably in a pretty poor section of town. Porn is about raking in the dough, not about spending it. The only time you'll see a nice façade is when the people in charge want to make their junk attractive.

I parked right in front, next to Cecelia. We got out together, and marched to the door together. Without planning it, we were as coordinated as a pair of federal suits – not that you'd ever get me into a suit. I swore off of those things the day I resigned from the police department in Red Hawk, Oklahoma, and that was in August of 1988.

Cecelia pulled the door open and stalked in. I followed behind, sending my eyes around. There was a cheap desk, an old military surplus job like I'd had before I met Cecelia and she bought me the nice one that currently sits in my office. Somewhere along the line someone had painted it a hideous shade of orange, but that was peeling and the original government gray was showing through in strips. There was nothing on top of the desk, and no one behind it.

Cecelia marched down the hall, and yanked open a door on the right. She'd obviously been paying attention when we'd been working together – I know her, and her natural inclination would have been to knock. She stuck her head in, and pulled it back out, leaving the door open. That was definitely one of my tricks – I learned manners from my aunt and uncle by means of a paddle, but I've found that there are occasions when deliberate rudeness has an effect.

There was another door a few steps further on, in the left-hand wall. She pushed it open, and stepped in. I planted myself in the doorway looking over her shoulder. There was a beefy man behind a desk there, another military surplus job. He looked like he'd once been strong, but had let himself go – perhaps he'd played football in college. He was completely bald, though I could see a fringe of stubble and knew that he shaved his head. Most people who do that, I've noticed, would be bald or at least balding if they didn't.

He was glaring at Cecelia. "Who are you and what do you want?" he asked, with a couple of foul words for emphasis.

Cecelia held out a copy of The Terrified Child. "Tell me about this person," she said.

"Get out." He used the same foul word.

Cecelia tossed the picture on the desk. "I plan to remain right here until you disclose what you know about this poor girl."

"I'm calling the cops."

I wondered how Cecelia would handle that. The natural reaction of a law-abiding person to such a threat is to cease his violation – in this case, to leave. Cecelia might have experienced such a desire, in fact I expected that she certainly had, but if so she didn't show it. "Please, call them. And while they're here, I'll pass on to them information currently in my possession which makes you a suspect in a case of child pornography." And she borrowed one of my lines. "I would have to consult the New Mexico criminal code to be certain, but I believe you would face charges of child molestation, child abuse, and kidnapping at the very least. At least some of your employees – on permanent staff or by means of contracts – would also come under the purview of the law, if only on a charge of criminal sexual contact of a minor." I could never have uttered that stuffy legal phrase with a straight face or without blushing, but Cecelia made it sound ominous. She waved a hand at the phone. "I wish you would call the police. I have quite a fund of facts to present to them."

"I know—"

"I could name people I know," Cecelia said, the interruption right out of my own deliberate rudeness manual, though she was using the tactic more than I do. "They are not relevant here, however, and neither are the people you might have intended to threaten me with." She stepped toward the desk. "Either call the police or cooperate with me – or I shall call them myself."

He took his hand away from the phone. "What do you want to know?"

Cecelia simply stared at him – at least from behind it sure looked like that's what she was doing. His reaction confirmed it. He began sweating, and fidgeted in his chair, and finally couldn't take it any more. "Okay, okay, you wanna know about this kid." He slapped at the photograph on the desk. "Yeah, I've used her. So what? She's always ready to give in to whatever man wants her." His actual words were far more vulgar.