The Cinema Files s1 p4

Cinema Files
page 4, chapter 4

Ectoplasmic Exploitation

I was standing in the far left room of the store, the dramas and crime section, about a hundred movies piled around my feet on the floor; cleaning the shelves when Vincent came in.   "I brought you a coffee and a muffin." he called out to me.  Turning, I tried my best not to trip over the unorganized mess. "So, you going to tell me what that little exchange was with the reporter?"

"What exchange?" I said eyeing the banana muffin with eagerness. My stomach had betrayed me the second I walked into the main area of the store and had grumbled like a motor. The coffee smelled like liquid gold as I sniffed the steam flying out of the top of the cup. It made my stomach grumble even louder.

"The guy was practically sitting in your lap back there. You didn't tell me you were dating anyone." Vincent leaned against the main rack of dvds, sounding almost hurt.

"I'm not. He's just my new neighbour. He moved into the apartment across the hall."  I stopped talking only long enough to shove half the baked treat into my mouth. Taking a sip of the way too hot still coffee, I nodded halfway to myself. "And what I didn't get to tell you because he was in the coffee shop this morning, is the dvd we found." I put down the half muffin, moving around the check out counter, gesturing for him to follow me to the little closet-office. I grabbed up the dvd we'd discovered in my aunt's storage locker and loaded it into the dvd player. Vincent blushed clearly not wanting to watch it. "Check this out. Okay, so clearly this was to some extent pornographic right."

"I don't want to see it. Really, I may never want to see a porno again thanks to that." Vincent replied gesturing to the dvd cover.

"Well, you need to see this one because..." I hit the fast forward a few minutes before hitting the play then pause. "it's not one of mine."  Vincent smirked sideways at me. "I mean, it's not the store's. It doesn't belong to us."

"But it's got the store's label on it?" he looked at me shaking his head in confusion.

"Exactly. But it's not one of ours. Look around you, what do you see?"

"Movies. Hundreds and hundreds of movies. Dvds, blu-rays, everywhere." he gestured then with both hands making large circles his fingers spread.

"What kind of movies? More specifically, what kind do you not see here? What are the only two types of movies we do not carry?"

"Anime and pornography." He said suddenly closing his eyes, slumping at the knees. Vincent relaxed suddenly as he realized it was a clue to something. "Hey, wait a minute. I recognize him." he pointed then to the screen. "Isn't he that land developer who just signed the big contract with that hotel guy?"  I nodded.

"This is amateur stuff. I'm guessing homemade sex tape. And by the looks of it, not something he'd want getting out there to the public." I turned off the dvd player, removing the dvd. "I think my aunt discovered it while investigating someone else, and needed a place to hide it. Hence the store's stickers on the case."    Vincent took the movie case from me, looking closely at the cover.

"Ingenious. But why the title? Why not just grab a blank cover?"   We both stared again at the title of it. The Master of Forgotten Wishes vol 8.

"That I haven't figured out yet."

It was just before 10pm, and I was ready to close up the store for the night, my last customers having been almost two hours earlier; when the phone rang.  "Hello Nosferatu's Video."

"What part of keep your nose clean do you not understand?"  It was Detective Whitechapel. "I just spent half the day dodging some reporter who has gone on record quoting you as a source on this investigation. He's been up my arse all day on this, following me around."

"Oh."

"Oh? That's all you've got to say for yourself is oh?" he took a breath and what sounded like a long gulp of something. "The official ruling hasn't been declared yet. As far as things are concerned, this reporter shouldn't even know there was a body."

"But he came to us. He showed up at the coffee shop before it was even open, asking to see both Vincent and myself." I wrapped the phone cord around my finger as I waited to be yelled at again. But Ryan instead just let out this deflated sigh, and I could just picture him rubbing his face in tired frustration. "You sound like you haven't slept yet?"

"I haven't." he snorted into the phone. "In fact, that's as far as this conversation is going to go right now cause I'm hanging up and going home for the night. No more talking to reporters understood. In fact, you see him again cross the street, run far far in the other direction."    I agreed leaving out the fact the new reporter was also my new neighbour.


Tune in again for another installment of the Cinema Files starring your heroine...me(straight up story. oh goody, a scandal.)