“Look, buddy—”
“My name is Everett Larkin.”
“Your name could be Richard Nixon or King George III for all the shits I give. I’m in LA and you don’t have jurisdiction. Goodbye.”
“If you hang up, I’ll call again,” Larkin warned. “It makes no difference to me. I’m getting paid to hit the redial button.”
“I haven’t been to New York in at least a decade,” Byrd snapped. “If you’re trying to collect on a parking ticket from when you were in grade school—”
“Mr. Byrd—”
“Drop it in the fucking mail and find someone else to harass.”
“I’m not a traffic—”
“Do you even know who I am? I manage some of the biggest names in the business today. Gorgeous women you rub one off to when your wife’s not looking. Women you could onlydreamof being with.”
“If you’d be so kind as to stop interrupting—”
“My day begins at the ass-crack of dawn,” Byrd continued. “I’m over here juggling the careers of twenty-five fucking people until well after you’ve been tucked into bed for the night. And the one morning I try to catch forty winks, some snot-nosed cop’s got nothing better to do than—”
“Mr. Byrd,” Larkin snapped, sounding every bit his affluent upbringing. “I’m a detective with the Cold Case Squad, not some rookie fresh out of the academy. I investigate the homicide cases everyone has forgotten about, given up on, and abandoned.Iam the voice of 9,028 murder victims still awaiting justice, and I don’t sleep because of it. Now, according to your website, you represent retired adult entertainment star Candace Ward-Flynn. Is this correct.”
The silence on the other end was so alive and so uncomfortable, it was practically tangible. Eventually,warily, Byrd said, “That’s right.”
“And according to a number of interviews she’s taken part in, Mrs. Ward-Flynn once worked at the Dirty Dollhouse here on Broadway.”
Byrd admitted, “Uh, yeah…. That was Candi’s first gig, back in the ’70s. But why’re you asking about that?”
“I’m investigating the suspected homicide of a woman who was found in the same building. Circumstances would suggest her death occurred around the time the Dollhouse closed on New Year’s Day, 1989.”
“Candi was making movies by ’79.”
“She was on friendly terms with the owner, though.”
“Are you asking or telling me?”
“Both.”
Byrd snorted. “She kept in touch with Vinny, yeah. We all did, right up until his heart attack. Candi moved out here to The Valley in ’85—cost of living and Hollywood adjacent, you know? But whenever she went home to visit, we’d organize ‘Bomb on Broadway’ nights at the Dollhouse. She stayed in Manhattan after retiring.”
“I’d like to make an appointment to meet Mrs. Ward-Flynn,” Larkin said. “It would be beneficial to my investigation if I was given the opportunity to speak with someone who had firsthand experience of Times Square at this moment in the city’s history.”
“Is… is she a suspect or something?”
“She might be a witness.”
Byrd sounded more alert and less petulant when he said, “I guess I could set up something… but she’s flying to Vegas tomorrow. Candi’s hosting the twentieth annual XVA.”
“What is the XVA.”
“X-Video Awards,” Byrd answered. “It’s the Oscars of porn.”
“Ah.”
Sheets rustled and Byrd grunted like an out-of-shape man struggling to rise from his bed. “Let me put you on speaker so I can check her calendar… okay, so… she’s got today blocked out. Mani-pedi and hair appointment. And she’s catching a car at three tomorrow for JFK, so I can ask if she’d be willing to talk to you before then. Otherwise this’ll have to wait until next Tuesday.”
“Please do that,” Larkin said, and then provided Byrd with his cell number. “One last question, if I may.”
