“Protection,” explained Franklin as he closed the door behind us. We sat down at the conference table and it was Ragle who spoke first.
“You've seen my work, Mr. Parker?” he said.
“The crush video, Mr. Ragle? Yes, I've seen it.”
Ragle recoiled a little, like I'd just breathed garlic on him.
“I don't like that term. I make erotic films, of every kind, and I am a father to my actors. Those people in court today are stars, Mr. Parker, stars.”
“The midgets?” I asked.
Ragle smiled wistfully. “They're little people, but they have a lot of love to give.”
“And the old ladies?”
“Very energetic. Their appetites have increased rather than diminished with age.”
Good grief.
“And now you make films like the one your attorney sent me?”
“Yes.”
“In which people step on bugs.”
“Yes.”
“And mice.”
“Yes.”
“Do you enjoy your work, Mr. Ragle?”
“Very much,” he said. “I take it that you disapprove.”
“Call me a prude, but it seems kind of sick, besides being cruel and illegal.”
Ragle leaned forward and tapped me on the knee with his index finger. I resisted breaking it, but only just.
“But people kill insects and rodents every day, Mr. Parker,” he began. “Some of them may even derive a great deal of pleasure from doing so. Unfortunately, as soon as they admit to that pleasure and attempt to replicate it in some form, our absurdly censorious law enforcement agencies step in and penalize them. Don't forget, Mr. Parker, we put Reich in jail to die for selling his sex boxes from Rangeley, in this very state. We have a record of penalizing those who seek sexual gratification by unorthodox means.”
He sat back and smiled his bright smile.
I smiled back at him. “I believe it's not only the state of California that has strong feelings about the legitimacy of what you do.”
Ragle's veneer began to crumble and he seemed to grow pale beneath his tan.
“Er, yes,” he said. He coughed, then reached for a glass of water that was resting on the table before him. “One gentleman in particular seems to have serious objections to some of my more, um, specialized productions.”
“Who might that be?”
“He calls himself Mr. Pudd,” interjected Franklin.
I tried to keep my expression neutral.
“He didn't like the spider movies,” he added.
I could guess why.
Ragle's fa?ade finally shattered completely, as if the mention of Pudd's name had finally brought home the reality of the threat he was facing. “He wants to kill me,” he whined. “I don't want to die for my art.”
So Al Z knew something about the Fellowship, and Pudd, and had seen fit to point me in Ragle's direction. It seemed that I had another good reason for going to Boston besides Rachel and the elusive Ali Wynn.
“How did he find out about you?”
Ragle shook his head angrily. “I have a new supplier, a man who provides me with rodents and insects and, when necessary, arachnids. It's my belief that he told this individual, this Mr. Pudd, about me.”
“Why would he do that?”
“To divert attention away from himself. I think Mr. Pudd would be just as angry with whoever sold me the creatures as he is with me.”
“So your supplier gave Pudd your name, then claimed not to know what you were planning to do with the bugs?”
“That is correct, yes.”
“What's the supplier's name?”
“Bargus. Lester Bargus. He owns a store in Gorham, specializing in exotic insects and reptiles.”
I stopped taking notes.
“You know the name, Mr. Parker?” asked Franklin.
I nodded. Lester Bargus was what people liked to call “two pounds of shit in a one-pound bag.” He was the kind of guy who thought it was patriotic to be stupid and took his mother to Denny's to celebrate Hitler's birthday. I recalled him from my time in Scarborough High, when I used to stand at the fence that marked the boundary of the football field, the big Redskins logo dominating the board, and get ready to face a beating. Those early months were the hardest. I was only fourteen and my father had been dead for two months. The rumors had followed us north: that my father had been a policeman in New York; that he had killed two people, a boy and a girl—shot them down dead, and they weren't even armed; that he had subsequently put his gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. They were made worse by the fact that they were true; there was no way of avoiding what my father had done, just as there was no way of explaining it. He had killed them, that was all. I don't know what he saw when he pulled the trigger on them. They were taunting him, trying to make him lose his temper with them, but they couldn't have known what they would cause him to do. Afterward my mother and I had run north, back to Scarborough, back to her father, who had once been a policeman himself, and the rumors had snapped at our heels like black dogs.
It took me a while to learn how to defend myself, but I did. My grandfather showed me how to block a punch and how to throw one back in a single controlled movement that would draw blood every time. But when I think back on those first months, I think of that fence, and a circle of young men closing in on me, and Lester Bargus with his freckles and his brown, square-cut hair, sucking spit back into his mouth after he had begun to drool with the joy of striking out at another human being from the security of the pack. Had he been a coyote, Lester Bargus would have been the runt that hangs at the margins of the group, lying down on its back when the stronger ones turned on it yet always ready to fall on the weak and the wounded when the frenzy struck. He tortured and bullied and came close to rape in his senior year. He didn't even bother to take his SATs; a new scale would have been needed to assess the depths of Bargus's ignorance.
I had heard that Bargus now ran a bug store in Gorham but it was believed to be merely a front for his other interest, which was the illegal sale of weapons. If you needed a clean gun quickly, then Lester Bargus was your man, particularly if your political and social views were so right wing they made the Klan look like the ACLU.
“Are there a lot of stores that supply bugs, Mr. Ragle?”
“Not in this state, no, but Bargus is also regarded as a considerable authority nationally. Collectors consult with him on a regular basis.” Ragle shuddered. “Although not, I should add, in person. Mr. Bargus is a particularly unpleasant individual.”
“And you're telling me all this because . . . ?”
Franklin intervened. “Because my client is certain that Mr. Pudd will kill him if someone doesn't stop him first. The gentleman in Boston, who has acted as a conduit for some of my client's more mainstream products, believes that a case with which you are currently involved may impinge upon my client's interests. He suggested that any assistance we might be able to provide could only help our cause.”
“And all you have is Lester Bargus?”