Case of Lucy Bending Read Online Free PDF Page B

hoping.
"Oh hell no!" Luther Empt said boisterously. "While I was waiting for them to get back to me, I called Lou Man-ata—he handles my legal stuff—and told him what the problem was. He made some calls and got me the name of some hotshot attorney in New York who specializes in obscenity and pornography law. So I called him, made an appointment, and flew up for one day. I laid it right on the line to him and asked him what the risk was."
"I hope he told you to forget it," Holloway said, emboldened by the vodka.
"Just the opposite," Empt said smugly. "He said anyone who claims to understand obscenity and pornography law in this country is a goddamn liar. It changes every time the Supreme Court opens its mouth. Every state has its own laws, every county, city, town, and village. It's a mess. But he said that in the situation I outlined, his best judgment was that the risk to the processor would be minimal. His exact words: 'The risk is minimal.' If I was producing the fuck-'em-and-suck-'em tapes, or transporting them across state lines, the risk would be much more. But as strictly a nuts-and-bolts guy, a processor of an existing product, the legal risk would be minimal."
They drank again. More slowly now because when they looked up, the stars seemed to be swirling, the sky revolving, the whole dark dome of the cosmos tilting in a magical way.
"They came back to me," Luther Empt said in a thickened voice. "They said their people had okayed it. They wanted to hire me. Set up a separate processing corporation. They'd own it; I'd work for them. I said fuck that. I've been an independent too long to go back to the nine-to-five routine. I guess they expected that; they were ready with a fallback offer. I could have my own business, and they'd work on a contract basis. That's what I wanted, so I agreed. Then they showed me the numbers. I almost died. I had no idea the porn industry was that big. I'd need a new factory, machines, more people. With the output they were talking about, I figured it would take an investment of at least a mil to tool up."
"A million?" Holloway cried, his voice breaking.
"On the strength of a mob contract?" Bending asked.
"No, no," Empt protested. "To prove they're serious, they're willing to give me a quarter-of-a-million loan. Straight ten percent. Can you believe that? Only a straight ten. Strictly a loan. No piece of the action. I thanked them and told them I'd get back to them."
Then, Luther Empt said, he went home, sat down with a pocket calculator, and started figuring the numbers. His original guess of a million was close to the mark. Maybe, he said, it would be nearer nine hundred thousand, but with inflation and overruns, a million would be a safer estimate.
With a mob loan, that meant he had to come up with $750,000. He said he could raise that if he put everything he owned into hock: his business, physical plant, his house, his wife's jewelry—everything. But he admitted he was getting a little long in the tooth to take that kind of gamble.
"That's why I asked you to come around tonight," he concluded. "How about each of you taking a third? That means a quarter-of-a-mil each. That, plus the loan, will give us our nut. Each of us will own one-third of the corporation, or the partnership if that's what the tax attorneys recommend. I hate calling this a 'sure thing' because Skid Row is filled with guys who bet on a sure thing. But it's the best chance I've seen since I was running a Three-card Monte game in east Chicago."
Holloway and Bending leaned forward to pour fresh drinks. Luther's pitch had climaxed so abruptly that they were stunned. Both were addled by drink, but sober enough to know that at the moment, they couldn't think straight.
"Look," Empt said, "don't get me wrong. I don't expect an answer this minute. I just want you to think about it. Okay? I know both of you can come up with that kind of loot without hurting too much. That's why I asked you. If you decide yes, that's fine. If