“Fine,” she said shortly. “Then let’s go back to your, uh, lounge and talk.”
“This way.” Yarrow led them down the hallway and into a luxuriously appointed room set up like a mini theater. There was a huge screen on the far wall and plush brown leather theater seats which reclined, were lined up across from it.
“Nice,” Cassie remarked, walking over to examine the screen.
“This is my viewing room—where I view my work before I release it.” There was a note of pride in Yarrow’s voice.
“I take it you’ve been in business for a while?” Cassie raised an eyebrow at him.
“Since the eighties, my dear—the golden age of pornography.” He sighed theatrically. “Of course, the market is flooded now—there’s so much amateur crap crowding the Internet. But there is still a market for good fetish pornography. People with a certain kink want to see it done well, with all the correct props. It’s a niche market, but it serves me well.”
“Would part of that market happen to be films about underage girls?” Cassie asked, raising both eyebrows this time. “Amelia told us that you’d invited her to star in one of your films—you’re damn lucky she turned you down.”
“Yes, well…” Yarrow squirmed a bit. “There’s certainly a market for girls who look underage. But I thought you wanted to know about The Beast?”
“We do,” Stone growled. “Tell us.”
“Well, to begin with, I only met him a few weeks ago,” Yarrow said quickly. “I was at the Velvet Noose, scouting for fresh talent when he walked over and introduced himself. He said he’d heard I made a certain kind of entertainment and he wanted in. Naturally, I was intrigued. I’d tried to recruit Kindred warriors before—they would be a massive draw because of their size, you know—but I’d never found one who was interested.”
“Was he actually Kindred, though?” Stone demanded, frowning.
Yarrow shrugged.
“Well, as far as I could tell, he was. He was certainly big enough.” He eyed Stone up and down and then looked pointedly at his crotch. “If you know what I mean.”
“I take it you’re not just talking about his height,” Cassie said dryly. Like most women, she’d heard rumors that the Kindred were extremely well-endowed. She’d never asked Stone if it was true, of course. It would have been rude and racist and they didn’t talk about that kind of thing. But she would be lying if she said she hadn’t at least wondered about it.
“Of course I’m not just talking about his height!” Yarrow exclaimed. “He was fourteen inches, uncut! Do you know how rare that is? I knew at once that I had a star on my hands.”
“Well now your star has blood on his hands,” Cassie pointed out. “So where can we find him?”
Yarrow shook his head.
“I honestly don’t know. He never gave me an address or told me where he was staying or where he was from. And he never gave me any name but ‘The Beast’ either.”
“So no résumé, no background, no address and yet you were willing to work with him, anyway?” Cassie demanded.
“Again…his cock was fourteen inches long,” Yarrow emphasized. “I would have worked with the Devil himself to film a cock like that! It was like he had a baseball bat between his legs.”
“Okay, we get it,” Cassie said dryly. “So how long did you work with him?”
“No more than two or three weeks,” Yarrow said quickly. “We did some of our work here in my playroom but then we found a lovely new venue.”
“Amelia’s house,” Stone growled.
“The natural light in the drawing room there is just…” Yarrow pressed his fingers and thumb together and kissed them expressively.
“I don’t think it was natural lighting The Beast was after,” Cassie said, frowning. “Not after what he did to the girl he murdered.”
“I am…very sorry to hear that.” Yarrow shook his head. “I did have to rein him in several times and explain that domination isn’t really about violence—it’s about control.”
“Did he ever use a drug or any kind of mind-altering substance on any of his, uh, co-stars during filming?” Cassie asked. “Our witness said she saw him inject the girl he killed with something that seemed to make her want to be hurt.”
Yarrow frowned.
“Now that you mention it, he did say that he had something that would make the girls we were filming more, er, eager if you know what I mean. But I have a strict, no-drugs policy on all my sets. For legal reasons, you understand. I don’t want anyone saying they were drugged and made to do something they didn’t agree to,” he added.
“Makes sense,” Cassie said. “Did he show you the drug he wanted to give them?”
Yarrow shook his head.
“No, that was the end of the matter. After that, he just did the scenes as I had written them. Well, mostly. As I said, he tended to go a little overboard with the violence sometimes and I had to rein him in.”
“Did he only do BDSM scenes, then?” Cassie asked.
“Not at all—I had him do some vanilla scenes as well. Mostly ‘huge cock into tiny pussy’ type stuff.” He shrugged. “Needless to say, he was a natural.”
“I’m sure,” Cassie said sarcastically.
“Did he mention a ‘Gozer?’” Stone asked. “The witness also mentioned that name.”
Yarrow shook his head.
“Sorry, that doesn’t ring a bell. He just showed up for work on time and did what I asked him to. He was the perfect star, really he was.”
“Until he committed murder,” Cassie reminded him. “We’ll need a complete list of the girls he worked with. Once we ID the victim, we’ll want to know if she’s on it.”
“We’ll also need to see his work,” Stone said sternly. “All of it.”
“All of it? But that’s quite a lot of footage,” Yarrow started to protest.
Stone took a step towards him, glaring down at the other man. Yarrow paled and nodded quickly.
“But doable—absolutely doable. Just give me a moment and I’ll put everything I have on a flash drive. Brutus, bring me a drive,” he added, looking at his bodyguard.
“Right away, Mr. Yarrow.” Giving Stone a narrow look, the bodyguard left and came back quickly. He handed the small drive, which was shaped like a disk with FY embossed in gold script on it, to his boss.
“Thank you, Brutus.” Yarrow picked up a laptop lying on one of the theater seats. He was about to start transferring files when Stone said,
“No. We’ll take the whole thing.” He reached for the laptop.
“What? No!” Yarrow became visibly upset and tried to pull it away. “This is months worth of work!” he protested as Stone pried his fingers off the laptop and tucked it under his arm.
“And you’ll get it back—once we finish our investigation,” Cassie told him. “But for now, it’s evidence in a homicide investigation.”
“Let me at least copy the files I need for the next few days!” Yarrow begged.