The Late Show (Renée Ballard #1)(62)

“What’s up?” he said. “You checking condoms?”

“No, I don’t care about condoms,” Ballard said. “I need to talk to Beatrice Beaupre. Can you get her, please?”

He shook his head.

“Nobody named that here,” he said.

He started to pull the door closed but Ballard grabbed it and recited the description she remembered from Beaupre’s DMV records.

“Black female, five foot ten, forty-four years old. She might not be using the name Beatrice.”

“That sort of sounds like Sadie. Hold on.”

This time Ballard let him close the door. She clipped her badge to her belt and turned her back to the door as she waited. She noticed that two of the warehouses across the street had no outside signage either. One of them had a strobe light over the door as well. Ballard was at ground zero for the billion-dollar-plus industry that some said kept the Los Angeles economy rolling.

The door finally opened and a woman fitting the description in the DMV records stood there. She wore no makeup, her hair was pulled back in a haphazard knot, and she wore a T-shirt and baggy workout pants. She was not what Ballard expected a porn star to look like.

“What can I do for you, Officer?”

“It’s Detective. Are you Beatrice Beaupre?”

“I am, and I’m working. You need to state your business or be gone.”

“I need to talk to you about Thomas Trent.”

That hit Beaupre like a swinging door.

“I don’t know anything about him anymore,” she said. “And I gotta go.”

She started backing inside and pulling the door closed. Ballard knew that she had one shot and that it might risk the whole investigation if she took it.

“I think he hurt someone,” she said. “Badly.”

Beaupre paused, her hand on the knob.

“And he’ll do it again,” Ballard said.

That said it all. Ballard waited.

“Fuck,” Beaupre finally said. “Come in.”

Ballard followed her into a dimly lit entry with hallways that went right and left. A sign with an arrow said the stages were to the left and offices and craft services to the right. They went right and along the way passed the man who had originally opened the door to Ballard.

“Billy, tell them we’re taking a fifteen-minute break,” Beaupre said. “And I mean fifteen. Don’t let anybody leave the stage. In ten minutes, start Danielle fluffing. We shoot as soon as I get back.”

They next passed an alcove set up with a kitchen counter covered with baskets of snacks and candy bars as well as a coffeemaker. A long cooler was open on the floor and filled with water bottles and cans of soda. They went into an office with the name Shady Sadie on the door. The walls were lined with posters from adult film features that showed nearly nude performers in provocative poses. It looked to Ballard from the titles, costumes—what little there was of them—and poses that the videos slanted toward bondage and sadomasochistic fetishes. A lot of female domination.

“Have a seat,” Beaupre said. “I can give you fifteen minutes and then I have to shoot. Otherwise it will be like herding cats out there.”

Beaupre sat behind a desk and Ballard took the chair opposite her.

“You’re the director?” Ballard asked.

“Director, writer, producer, cinematographer—you name it,” Beaupre said. “I’d do the whipping and fucking, too, but I’m too old. Who did Thomas hurt?”

“At the moment he’s a person of interest. The victim was a transgender prostitute that I believe was abducted, raped, and tortured over a four-day period and then left for dead.”

“Fuck. I knew he would do it one day.”

“Do what?”

“Act out his fantasies. That’s why I left him. I didn’t want him acting them out on me.”

“Ms. Beaupre, before we go on, I need you to promise that what we talk about here will be kept confidential. Especially from him.”

“Are you kidding? I don’t talk to that man. He’s the last person on earth I would talk to.”

Ballard studied her for signs of deception. She saw nothing that dissuaded her from proceeding. She just wasn’t sure where to start. She pulled out her phone.

“Do you mind if I record this?” she asked.

“Yes, I do,” Beaupre said. “I don’t want to be involved in this and I don’t want a recording floating around out there that he might one day hear.”

Ballard put the phone away. She had expected Beaupre’s response. She proceeded without recording.

“I’m trying to get a bead on your ex-husband,” she began. “What kind of guy he is. What would make him do something like this crime. If he did it.”

“He’s fucked up,” Beaupre said. “Simple as that. I make S and M videos. The action is fake. The pain is not real. A lot of the audience knows that and a lot don’t want to know that. They want it to be real. He’s one of them.”

“Did you meet because he was interested in your videos?”

“No, we met because I wanted to buy a car.”

“He was the salesman?”

“That’s right. I think he recognized me but he always claimed he didn’t.”

“From directing?”