Porn Star (15 page)

“I have a friend you should see,” Paul said
trying to avoid taking her to the hospital.

“Who?” she asked

“He works for the ambulance, he comes in all
the time, let him take a look first before we do anything.”

“Does he have an x-ray?”

“No, but this will cost me a shit ton if we
go to the hospital. Let me deal with this my way first. You can’t
put a cast on a collarbone anyway.”

“Are you a fucking doctor?” Cassidy snapped
back. “I want to go to the hospital.”

“I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to let my
friend see you first. Just don’t go to the hospital yet.”

“Three thousand,” she replied

Realizing this could cost him his job, Paul
agreed. He’d have to steal the money from the till and keep his
girls and boss from knowing. But the other option would be a
lawsuit that could cost him more than his job. “Wait here,” Paul
said.

“Where else would I go?” Cassidy replied
snarky. “And bring me my money now!”

In the back room, Paul’s friend from the
ambulance took a look at Cassidy’s injury. “She needs to go to the
hospital,” the off duty EMT said. “She is starting to bruise pretty
badly and that bone doesn’t feel right.”

“Fuck!” Paul yelled gritting his teeth.

“Sorry, if I were on duty, I’d have her in
the ER.”

Paul paced back and forth trying to think of
something. He needed to cover this up and make it never happen. He
couldn’t afford to lose this job, his life would be beyond fucked.
“I’ll pay you five thousand cash if you go away,” Paul said to
Cassidy. Pretend like you were never here. Take the money and never
come back.

Cassidy considered his offer and didn’t
immediately reply. This made Paul feel better thinking he might get
away with this.

“I can’t do porn all fucked up and
disfigured, I need to see the doctor,” she replied. She knew she
had nothing to lose, he asked her to audition.

“You can’t see the fucking doctor!” Paul
snapped back.

“Why? Is that how you treat people?”

“I’ll get fired if you go to the doctor,
you’re covered by our liability insurance, but if you decide to sue
I’m fucked.

“I don’t see a problem, you pay me the five
grand and I’ll agree not to sue.” Before the words came out of her
mouth she regretted saying them. Five grand was nothing compared to
what she could be making with a court settlement.

Paul was quick to agree,” I didn’t think of
it that way, five thousand it is and you sign a contract saying you
won’t sue.”

“I may have been a little hasty there,”
Cassidy said. “The injury and all this talk of money has got me
confused. Maybe I should get a lawyer and think about it for a
while. That’s after I get my xrays.”

Livid, Paul grit his teeth and tried not to
explode. “What will it take for this to go away?”

“Seventy five thousand dollars,” she
replied.

Not believing his ears, Paul sat down in his
office chair and started blank at the wall. It was as if he just
heard of his own death diagnosis. “Make it a million, make it two
million, fuck this, I don’t care anymore,” he said and buried his
face in his hands.

“Sorry dude,” the EMT said.

Paul leaned back in his chair, reached into
the side drawer of his desk and pulled out a pistol. He quickly
stuck it in his mouth and shot a hole through the top of his skull
and face planted on his desktop draining blood on his papers.

Cassidy and the EMT looked in horror and
shock not sure what to do now. “I better call this in,” the EMT
said.

“Yeah, you better,” Cassidy said wiping the
bits of brains off her neck and picking them out of her hair.

Then the door to the office swung open and
one of the dancers rushed in. She looked at the mess and asked,
“What happened?”

“He shot himself in the head,” Cassidy
replied.

“Why? Why would he do that?” the dancer
asked.

“Long story, I need to get to the hospital,
my shoulder is killing me, oops, that was the wrong this to
say.”

“Stupid fucker, about time,” the dancer said
in disgust to everyone’s surprise.

“What do you mean?” Cassidy asked.

“That creep was hitting on every women he
could find. His marriage was shit so he tried to get a replacement
and he didn’t give a shit who it was. I was sick and tired of him
constantly telling me how much he loved me. He used that line on
every girl that worked here.”

“Did it work?”

“Oh yeah, there were a few who fell for it,
and he took advantage of them. Got at least one to leave her
husband for him.”

“What a bastard,” Cassidy replied.

“Yeah, we called him the rat, because he
would sneak around and try to get to these girls while their
husbands and boyfriends were at work or at home. He didn’t give a
shit. Now he got was a rat deserves.”

“No one deserves to die for that, it wasn’t
like he was a child molester or serial killer.” the EMT said
dialing 911 on his cell.

“Maybe not, but I hated him, so did everyone
else who worked here. Always in the dressing rooms while we were
getting ready, making sexual comments, taking pictures of us when
we didn’t know it and posting them online. I’m sure he sat in here
and jerked off watching us on the television monitors.”

Cassidy looked at the huge screen with the
different camera shots of the bar and watched the blood drip down
across the images. “What about his wife?” Cassidy asked.

“Nice lady, takes care of his kids, didn’t
deserve him. He cheated on her every chance he got while she took
care of the house and kids.”

“Well, not anymore,” Cassidy said. “Is there
a shower in here?” and then realized she was in need of a trip to
the hospital herself for her injury and the police would probably
not want her to wash off any evidence from the suicide. But then
the brains really grossed her out and she didn’t want them in her
hair anymore. “Never mind, I better not do anything till the police
and ambulance get here.”

“Can I smoke in here?” Cassidy asked.

“No, this is a no smoking facility, plus you
don’t have anything to smoke,” Detective Bank replied.

Bother Cassidy and Detective bank sat at a
small table in the interview room on opposite sides, the detective
with a notepad and Cassidy scratching her ear.

“I was going to ask for a cigarette, “she
replied annoyed.

“I don’t smoke, I work out four hours a day
and run ten miles a week, it’s a nasty habit.”

“I only smoke when I’m stressed.”

“Try working out, it’s better for you,” the
detective replied. “Now, we need to discuss what happened to the
manager of the stip bar. I need your statement.”

Cassidy sat quiet and thought for a moment.
“Am I being charged with something?”

“No, not yet, I would read you your rights if
you were.”

“Then what am I doing here?”

“It’s an investigation, I need to gather
facts so I can close this case. Can you tell me what happened?

“He shot himself in the head, are you blind?”
Cassidy replied.

“No, I’m not blind, but I need your
statement. The court doesn’t care what I think happened, they care
about facts. Now tell me in sequence, what happened.”

Cassidy had nothing to lose so she decided to
tell the truth as she remembered it. “I asked that asshole for
seventy five thousand dollars or I was going to go the the hospital
and report my injury.”

“What injury?” the detective asked.

“I hurt my shoulder and collarbone
auditioning for a dancing job. He didn’t want me to go to the
hospital so he could avoid putting my injury on the record. When he
realized I might sue, he freaked and shot himself in the head.”

“I see, so you were extorting him,” the
detective said.

“What do you mean?”

“You were shaking him down, it was pay you
seventy five thousand dollars or you fuck him over.”

“He offered me five thousand at first, I just
asked for more.”

“You’re splitting hairs lady, the end result
is the same, you wanted cash to keep your mouth shut, that’s called
extortion. Doesn’t matter who offered who what first.”

Cassidy realized that she may be fucked and
should never have offered up that information in the first place.
“I take all that back,” she said.

“Too late, you’re on video camera,” the
detective replied pointing to the little black dot on the wall.

“Either way, I didn’t put the gun in his
mouth, he did that all by himself,” Cassidy said like a bitch.

“That’s not what I heard,” the detective said
smugly.

“What are you talking about?”

“The other guy in the room, the EMT, he said
you shot Paul in the head.”

Cassidy cocked her head like a rooster and
made a face like she had sucked a lemon. “What the fuck?”

“According to his statement, you got in a
fight over a sex deal, got pissed, found his gun and shot the club
manager in the head.”

“Did you happen to notice the shot went from
his mouth through the top of his head? How the fuck would I get the
barrel of the gun in his mouth?”

“You’re an expert at putting foreign objects
in your mouth, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch.”

“You’re not pinning this on me, I had nothing
to do with him shooting himself, I didn’t know he had a gun. I was
an innocent bystander.”

The detective wrote down a few notes and
looked at Cassidy like she was a lying piece of shit. “Not the
story I got.”

“What is the story you got?”

“That you were fucking him on his desk when
he decided to reduce your pay. You got angry, reached in his desk
drawer, found the gun and shot him.”

“Do you know how insane that sounds? How
would I know he had a gun, and why would I be fucking this guy with
another guy watching?” Cassidy replied lividly.

“You fuck guys all the time from what I
understand on camera with all sorts of people watching. I think
having just one would be sort of a disappointment. He told me that
he was supposed to get fucked next until you decided to shoot the
club owner.”

Cassidy was starting to wonder if her version
of reality was right. Maybe the detective was right all along and
she did shoot Paul over money issues, and maybe the EMT was next in
line to get fucked. But what about the gun? How did she know it was
in the drawer? Did Paul show it to her earlier and she forgot? The
more she thought about it, the more the two stories blurred
together and the less sure she was about either. “If you’re right
about this, my fingerprints should be on the gun, right?” she
asked.

“They are,” the detective replied.

“Was there a camera in the office recording?
Am I on tape?”

“There were cameras in every nook and cranny
in that club, not the office.”

“Why not?” Cassidy asked.

“Who knows, but we checked.”

“So it’s the EMT’s word against mine? A he
said she said.”

“Yes, but we believe his story,” the
detective said staring at Cassidy.

“And you don’t believe mine?” Cassidy
asked.

“It’s a stretch if you ask me.”

“And how do you explain my shoulder injury?”
Cassidy asked.

“Probably slipped giving a blow job in the
alley,” the detective said dead seriously.

Cassidy had sustained injuries in the past
performing sex acts, especially in places she wasn’t familiar with.
It wasn’t beyond belief that should could have injured her shoulder
doing something that required a lot of bouncing around. But it
still seemed wrong to her. “I don’t think that’s what
happened?”

“Then explain your injury to me,” the
detective asked.

Cassidy racked her brain for an explanation.
“I was doing a pole trick, I spun on one pole, leaped fifteen feet
and crashed into another.”

Fifteen feet? That’s longer than any long
jump on record. You expect me to believe that?”

“I used to do that trick once a night back a
few years ago when I was doing more stripping than porn. It’s what
kept the producers coming back to hire me. I do that trick in one
of my DVD’s”

“Show me this DVD,” the detective said.

“I don’t keep copies with me, I’ve been in
over three hundred. I’m not sure which one it was for sure.”

“This story keeps getting more and more
fantastic. I think you like the spotlight and making up shit to
make yourself look far more important than you are. Nobody jumps
fifteen feet, unless you’re shot out of a cannon. Just admit it,
you shot him because he wasn’t going to pay you what you
agreed.”

“I’ve never shot a gun before in my life! I
wouldn’t even know how to use one.”

“Really? It’s pretty simple, you point and
shoot.”

“You make it sound so easy, maybe for you
detective, but if I was going to kill someone in anger, I’d stab
the fucker, or hit him with a rock. That I know I can do.”

“I have an eye witness that puts you at the
scene and saw you shoot the guy.”

“If that were the case, my skin would be
covered in blood, not my clothes.”

“He never said you took your clothes off, you
must have left them on obviously,” the detective said smugly.

“Do you know how the female anatomy works? I
can’t have sex with my clothes on and I wasn’t wearing a
skirt.”

“I don’t care, he will testify that you shot
him.”

“Am I under arrest now?” Cassidy asked.

“Yes, I am placing you under arrest for the
murder of Paul Shick, the manager of the club. I will now read you
your rights. You have the right to remain silent, you have the
right to have an attorney present at questioning, if you can’t
afford an attorney one will be provided for you, do you understand
these rights?” the detective asked.