Wednesday night...
He spends the better part of three bloody hours talking to people about Ivy St. Claire. He starts out at The Lux, looking for Fiona "Foxy" Fiero, as Orlando had suggested. He hadn't found her there, hadn't found anyone there who would admit to anything (of course, isn't that always the way).
So he'd started at one end of the strip and is just fucking working his way up.
The good news is, he has every appearance of actually doing his job, so he plans on crediting this as one of the two nights on the street to appease Redden. He cant' really avoid at least one weekend night, so if he can't find her, he'll get another chance on Saturday.
He doesn't like it, though. Not enough time. Not enough fucking time, and if he doesn't start sleeping soon, he's seriously going to consider going out nights and seeing what he can find out.
Orlando hadn't known a whole lot about Ivy St. Claire. She'd been before his time when she'd worked for Johnny, and Orlando is a DBY exclusive commodity, as are both Keira and Nic.
According to Johnny, most studios have a couple of exclusive actors/actresses, at least to begin with. People like Orlando, for example, who Johnny says will be a star if he wants to be, sign on with one studio exclusively for a set number or years (two or five, usually), and afterward either stick around because they're happy there, or go on to the bigger studios. Some of them go freelance, get agents, and go wherever they want, from studio to studio, and those are the talents that are usually the biggest.
Orlando, according to Johnny, had never signed such a contract. He stays at DBY because he's happy there, though Johnny thinks he could make far better money if he got himself an agent. Not that Johnny wants him to.
"Boys like Orlando and Nic," Johnny had said, cig hanging out of the corner of his mouth, somehow drinking out of a bottle of Corona without even removing the cig, "and girls like Keira, they can make real money in this business, man, if they want. They're fuckin' quality, y'know? They've got 'it,' man, a commodity, the commodity, and I'm lucky to have them. They stay at DBY because they don't care just about the money, and I respect that, yeah, and I care about them, too."
Bill gets that completely, of course. He gets it to a disturbing degree, in fact.
It is very clear to him how DBY can quickly become an integral part of your perception of yourself. A family.
Bill hasn't actually discussed it with Keira, but he guesses it's probably the same with her. God knows she's gorgeous enough to become one of the darlings of the industry, if she had wanted that. And Nic… Nic's only done a few films, all of them for Johnny (and Bill has somehow managed not to see any of them, to his great delight), but Bill guesses that Nic will have the chance to go the multi-company route, if he wants it.
Bill isn't exactly an expert -- though at this point, he's seen enough fucking porn to feel like he's getting there -- and he hasn't actually seen Nic on film, it's true, but he'd seen Nic live and in person, and he thinks he's just as compelling as Orlando, if not as traditionally beautiful.
And there's Joshua, but Bill isn't sure about him. Had there been a last name, when Nic had introduced them (so to speak) at Johnny's party? He can't remember. He fishes in his coat pocked for his flip top notepad, and jots down the name. Something else to follow up on, when time permitted. He folds the bottom left corner of the page up and all the way to the right edge of the page (left corner for pages with things that require follow up, right corner for things that are complete), and slips the notebook closed before sliding it back into his pocket.
Earlier in the day, Bill had taken advantage of his cover (by which he actually means he had used it exactly as it is meant to be used) to call around to a few of the other studio's Ivy had worked for in the past, just to see if any of them knew where she could be found. He hadn't expected much, and he hadn't gotten much. He did find out that Ivy hadn't gone back to porn once her husband had died. Bill isn't sure if he'd expected her to or not -- a lot of that really depended on her late husband's family, he supposes, on whether or not they are still supporting her, whether or not they had forbidden her to do so (because in the eyes of many Mafioso families, marrying into the family is no different than being a blood relative) -- but as far as he can tell, she has stayed out of the business.
Which will make it harder of course.
He already knows she's no longer living in the house she and her husband had occupied at the time of his death, but that's about the extent of what he knows.
He's on his fourth bar now, some ratty little place up the block from the Lux and on the same side of the road, as Bill can't be arsed to cross against traffic at this particular moment. He's on duty, technically, and he's already spotted both uniforms and plainclothes detectives, so he can't afford to be sloppy. Thus he doesn't order the whisky he wants when he gets to the bar, and settles for ordering an ice water instead.
The bartender gives him an impatient look, and Bill rolls his eyes and barks, "Charge me rent for the glass if you can't stand to part with it, motherfucker, just give me a drink."
Apparently that's what it takes to get good service in this fucking place. Or possibly Bill is just a little bit "tetchy," as his Gran would've said.
The bloke next to him (he has pale green hair which perfectly matches his pale green eyes, is dressed entirely in what appears to be shiny black vinyl, and has rings on every finger, as well as one in his lip, his left eyebrow, and a stud in his left nostril) laughs and grins at Bill, and says: "C'mon, Paulo, give him a break, yeah?"
"Whatever, Billy," Paulo growls, but he snatches a glass out from behind the bar and a few seconds later, Bill has a glass of ice water.
"Thanks," Bill says, nominally to both of them, and takes a long drink. When he looks back over at the bloke (Billy?) next to him, he's still smiling broadly at Bill. Well what the hell. He might as well start questioning the friendly faces first.
Before he gets the chance, though, the bloke (a kid, really, maybe twenty-two or -three, it's hard to tell with all the metal in his face and the thick black eyeliner deepening the lines of his eyes) laughs delightedly, and demands, "Man, what are you doing here?"
Eh? Bill thinks. "Drinking ice water," he says simply, and Billy throws his head back and laughs. Wait a minute, Bill thinks, something turning over in his head, something familiar about this bloke's laugh. "Billy," Bill says aloud, trying to jog his memory.
"Yeah, man," he agrees, still laughing, and claps Bill on the shoulder.
"Billy. William." Bill narrows his eyes, and Billy laughs again, nodding frantically, and then Bill has it. "Holy shite, Hoyle, you look like a bloody rentboy!"
He laughs again, head thrown back, mouth open wide, and Bill can't help it. He laughs too, because sometimes the world is just too fucking ridiculous for anything else. "That's the point, Boyd, that's the fucking point!" and they both howl.
"What the fuck, Boyd?" Billy manages eventually, once most of the amusement has passed (though he's still chortling occasionally into what looks like a long island iced tea, but Bill would bet money is not). "What the fuck are you doing here? Last I heard, you were UCN!"
"Transferred out," Bill says. "A few months ago. Lost my cover. What about you? Mate, you were on the fast track in the Chop Shop last I checked, what the bleeding fuck are you doing with all that shite in your face?" He keeps it low, just as Billy had, because in a place like this, even if you weren't actually working, you didn't fucking advertise what you did for a living, not even with slang. Though Bill thinks Hoyle is working right now.
"Same thing I was doing then," Hoyle grins, nodding at someone across the bar. "Just not at a desk, man."
"Fuck you!" Bill says, but he's actually really fucking pleased for Hoyle. Undercover Homicide is a bitch and a half to get, takes real balls and real fucking brains, and Bill had always liked Hoyle better than any other cop he'd ever trained. "Good fucking show!"
Hoyle grins broadly back at Bill, but Bill doesn't miss the way his eyes dart around the room, a careful tabulation of what's going on around him. "What the fuck are you doing here?" he asks again, but this time there's a little more emphasis on the question, a little worry mixed in with it.
"Nothing to do with you," Bill assures him. "Vice. I'm looking for someone. I can bugger off if I'm screwing with something you've set up."
"No, man, no," Hoyle says quickly. "Someone here? I mean, someone you think hangs out here?"
Bill hesitates, then shrugs. "She could," he admits. It's not that he doesn't think he can trust Hoyle, not at all. It's just that he's working off the record, and he can't afford for it to come up in casual conversation, so to speak. Hoyle arches a brow at him -- the pierced one, which makes Bill snort laughter, he can't fucking help it, he remembers Billy Hoyle as a scrawny kid in a dark blue uniform, so clean cut he squeaked, still only needing to shave a couple of times a week -- in silent question, and Bill shrugs. "I'm not sure where to find her," he says. "I'm gumshoeing it."
Hoyle nods thoughtfully. "Yeah, okay," he says, and leans full body into Bill. "Just go with me here," he murmurs close to Bill's ear. Bill bites down on the urge to snicker and slides an arm around Hoyle's waist to support him. "I can't really chit chat, I'm supposed to be working this room," he whispers, half nuzzling at Bill's neck. "Bait with a capital B, if you get me. I'm going to give you a token to get into the back, though, and I can meet you there in a few. Gimme… oh, wait til you see me vanish and give me ten minutes from there. Got it?"
"Aye," Bill murmurs back, and doesn't pull away when he feels Hoyle sliding something into his pocket.
"Okay, kiss me," Hoyle says, grinning evilly, and leans in quickly and lays one on Bill, open mouth and everything.
"You little bastard," Bill mutters against his lips, and he can fucking feel the little twat laughing.
"Tsk tsk, you have to act like you like it, lemme see your skillz, yo," Hoyle grins, and pulls back.
Bill smirks at him, and mutters, "I'm going to kill you later," only barely moving his lips.
"Police brutality!" Hoyle snorts softly, gives Bill another smacky kiss, this time on the cheek, and saunters off.
Bill watches him admiringly, because the simple fact is, Hoyle is fucking good at his job. He's pulling off something Bill doesn't think he'd be able to manage himself -- and Bill knows Hoyle's pretty little wife Jeanie, which only makes it more impressive -- and no matter how much fucked up shite he's got in his face, that demands some bloody admiration.
So he'd started at one end of the strip and is just fucking working his way up.
The good news is, he has every appearance of actually doing his job, so he plans on crediting this as one of the two nights on the street to appease Redden. He cant' really avoid at least one weekend night, so if he can't find her, he'll get another chance on Saturday.
He doesn't like it, though. Not enough time. Not enough fucking time, and if he doesn't start sleeping soon, he's seriously going to consider going out nights and seeing what he can find out.
Orlando hadn't known a whole lot about Ivy St. Claire. She'd been before his time when she'd worked for Johnny, and Orlando is a DBY exclusive commodity, as are both Keira and Nic.
According to Johnny, most studios have a couple of exclusive actors/actresses, at least to begin with. People like Orlando, for example, who Johnny says will be a star if he wants to be, sign on with one studio exclusively for a set number or years (two or five, usually), and afterward either stick around because they're happy there, or go on to the bigger studios. Some of them go freelance, get agents, and go wherever they want, from studio to studio, and those are the talents that are usually the biggest.
Orlando, according to Johnny, had never signed such a contract. He stays at DBY because he's happy there, though Johnny thinks he could make far better money if he got himself an agent. Not that Johnny wants him to.
"Boys like Orlando and Nic," Johnny had said, cig hanging out of the corner of his mouth, somehow drinking out of a bottle of Corona without even removing the cig, "and girls like Keira, they can make real money in this business, man, if they want. They're fuckin' quality, y'know? They've got 'it,' man, a commodity, the commodity, and I'm lucky to have them. They stay at DBY because they don't care just about the money, and I respect that, yeah, and I care about them, too."
Bill gets that completely, of course. He gets it to a disturbing degree, in fact.
It is very clear to him how DBY can quickly become an integral part of your perception of yourself. A family.
Bill hasn't actually discussed it with Keira, but he guesses it's probably the same with her. God knows she's gorgeous enough to become one of the darlings of the industry, if she had wanted that. And Nic… Nic's only done a few films, all of them for Johnny (and Bill has somehow managed not to see any of them, to his great delight), but Bill guesses that Nic will have the chance to go the multi-company route, if he wants it.
Bill isn't exactly an expert -- though at this point, he's seen enough fucking porn to feel like he's getting there -- and he hasn't actually seen Nic on film, it's true, but he'd seen Nic live and in person, and he thinks he's just as compelling as Orlando, if not as traditionally beautiful.
And there's Joshua, but Bill isn't sure about him. Had there been a last name, when Nic had introduced them (so to speak) at Johnny's party? He can't remember. He fishes in his coat pocked for his flip top notepad, and jots down the name. Something else to follow up on, when time permitted. He folds the bottom left corner of the page up and all the way to the right edge of the page (left corner for pages with things that require follow up, right corner for things that are complete), and slips the notebook closed before sliding it back into his pocket.
Earlier in the day, Bill had taken advantage of his cover (by which he actually means he had used it exactly as it is meant to be used) to call around to a few of the other studio's Ivy had worked for in the past, just to see if any of them knew where she could be found. He hadn't expected much, and he hadn't gotten much. He did find out that Ivy hadn't gone back to porn once her husband had died. Bill isn't sure if he'd expected her to or not -- a lot of that really depended on her late husband's family, he supposes, on whether or not they are still supporting her, whether or not they had forbidden her to do so (because in the eyes of many Mafioso families, marrying into the family is no different than being a blood relative) -- but as far as he can tell, she has stayed out of the business.
Which will make it harder of course.
He already knows she's no longer living in the house she and her husband had occupied at the time of his death, but that's about the extent of what he knows.
He's on his fourth bar now, some ratty little place up the block from the Lux and on the same side of the road, as Bill can't be arsed to cross against traffic at this particular moment. He's on duty, technically, and he's already spotted both uniforms and plainclothes detectives, so he can't afford to be sloppy. Thus he doesn't order the whisky he wants when he gets to the bar, and settles for ordering an ice water instead.
The bartender gives him an impatient look, and Bill rolls his eyes and barks, "Charge me rent for the glass if you can't stand to part with it, motherfucker, just give me a drink."
Apparently that's what it takes to get good service in this fucking place. Or possibly Bill is just a little bit "tetchy," as his Gran would've said.
The bloke next to him (he has pale green hair which perfectly matches his pale green eyes, is dressed entirely in what appears to be shiny black vinyl, and has rings on every finger, as well as one in his lip, his left eyebrow, and a stud in his left nostril) laughs and grins at Bill, and says: "C'mon, Paulo, give him a break, yeah?"
"Whatever, Billy," Paulo growls, but he snatches a glass out from behind the bar and a few seconds later, Bill has a glass of ice water.
"Thanks," Bill says, nominally to both of them, and takes a long drink. When he looks back over at the bloke (Billy?) next to him, he's still smiling broadly at Bill. Well what the hell. He might as well start questioning the friendly faces first.
Before he gets the chance, though, the bloke (a kid, really, maybe twenty-two or -three, it's hard to tell with all the metal in his face and the thick black eyeliner deepening the lines of his eyes) laughs delightedly, and demands, "Man, what are you doing here?"
Eh? Bill thinks. "Drinking ice water," he says simply, and Billy throws his head back and laughs. Wait a minute, Bill thinks, something turning over in his head, something familiar about this bloke's laugh. "Billy," Bill says aloud, trying to jog his memory.
"Yeah, man," he agrees, still laughing, and claps Bill on the shoulder.
"Billy. William." Bill narrows his eyes, and Billy laughs again, nodding frantically, and then Bill has it. "Holy shite, Hoyle, you look like a bloody rentboy!"
He laughs again, head thrown back, mouth open wide, and Bill can't help it. He laughs too, because sometimes the world is just too fucking ridiculous for anything else. "That's the point, Boyd, that's the fucking point!" and they both howl.
"What the fuck, Boyd?" Billy manages eventually, once most of the amusement has passed (though he's still chortling occasionally into what looks like a long island iced tea, but Bill would bet money is not). "What the fuck are you doing here? Last I heard, you were UCN!"
"Transferred out," Bill says. "A few months ago. Lost my cover. What about you? Mate, you were on the fast track in the Chop Shop last I checked, what the bleeding fuck are you doing with all that shite in your face?" He keeps it low, just as Billy had, because in a place like this, even if you weren't actually working, you didn't fucking advertise what you did for a living, not even with slang. Though Bill thinks Hoyle is working right now.
"Same thing I was doing then," Hoyle grins, nodding at someone across the bar. "Just not at a desk, man."
"Fuck you!" Bill says, but he's actually really fucking pleased for Hoyle. Undercover Homicide is a bitch and a half to get, takes real balls and real fucking brains, and Bill had always liked Hoyle better than any other cop he'd ever trained. "Good fucking show!"
Hoyle grins broadly back at Bill, but Bill doesn't miss the way his eyes dart around the room, a careful tabulation of what's going on around him. "What the fuck are you doing here?" he asks again, but this time there's a little more emphasis on the question, a little worry mixed in with it.
"Nothing to do with you," Bill assures him. "Vice. I'm looking for someone. I can bugger off if I'm screwing with something you've set up."
"No, man, no," Hoyle says quickly. "Someone here? I mean, someone you think hangs out here?"
Bill hesitates, then shrugs. "She could," he admits. It's not that he doesn't think he can trust Hoyle, not at all. It's just that he's working off the record, and he can't afford for it to come up in casual conversation, so to speak. Hoyle arches a brow at him -- the pierced one, which makes Bill snort laughter, he can't fucking help it, he remembers Billy Hoyle as a scrawny kid in a dark blue uniform, so clean cut he squeaked, still only needing to shave a couple of times a week -- in silent question, and Bill shrugs. "I'm not sure where to find her," he says. "I'm gumshoeing it."
Hoyle nods thoughtfully. "Yeah, okay," he says, and leans full body into Bill. "Just go with me here," he murmurs close to Bill's ear. Bill bites down on the urge to snicker and slides an arm around Hoyle's waist to support him. "I can't really chit chat, I'm supposed to be working this room," he whispers, half nuzzling at Bill's neck. "Bait with a capital B, if you get me. I'm going to give you a token to get into the back, though, and I can meet you there in a few. Gimme… oh, wait til you see me vanish and give me ten minutes from there. Got it?"
"Aye," Bill murmurs back, and doesn't pull away when he feels Hoyle sliding something into his pocket.
"Okay, kiss me," Hoyle says, grinning evilly, and leans in quickly and lays one on Bill, open mouth and everything.
"You little bastard," Bill mutters against his lips, and he can fucking feel the little twat laughing.
"Tsk tsk, you have to act like you like it, lemme see your skillz, yo," Hoyle grins, and pulls back.
Bill smirks at him, and mutters, "I'm going to kill you later," only barely moving his lips.
"Police brutality!" Hoyle snorts softly, gives Bill another smacky kiss, this time on the cheek, and saunters off.
Bill watches him admiringly, because the simple fact is, Hoyle is fucking good at his job. He's pulling off something Bill doesn't think he'd be able to manage himself -- and Bill knows Hoyle's pretty little wife Jeanie, which only makes it more impressive -- and no matter how much fucked up shite he's got in his face, that demands some bloody admiration.