Threads

Copyright 2022 by Bryan Cassiday

Chapter 1

Renowned fashion designer Max Reed was strutting around the crime scene directing his models where to stand near the corpse that sprawled in a pool of coagulated blood on Wilshire Boulevard’s sun-splashed sidewalk in West LA.

“Don’t get too near the corpse,” said Lt. George Macready of the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division in a brown blazer, his badge fastened to his leather belt, watching a slender blonde model wearing a filmy chiffon dress that fluttered in the breeze strut in her stiletto heels closer to the stiff.

“We have a film permit,” said Reed, a muscular guy in his early forties wearing jeans, Nikes, an olive drab wife beater, and a black Windbreaker with the image of a human skull silkscreened on its back.

Known as the crassest designer in the world, Reed was also the richest, worth more than a billion dollars. The tabloids dubbed him “The Vulgarian” for his exploitation of tastelessness. The most beautiful supermodels in the world were standing in line dying to work for him. At five nine, he had a thuggish hatchet face like a muscular version of Jean-Paul Belmondo, green eyes, a Roman nose, sensual satyr’s lips, and cropped blonde hair.

His mother was a French model, his father a British barrister. The family immigrated to the United States when Reed was but a child. He grew up in a tough neighborhood in Chicago, where he was bullied because his neighbors considered him an outsider. He lifted weights in self-defense. He wasn’t interested in athletics, though. His sole interest was fashion, despite his parents’ desire for him to become a doctor.

Encouraged by his parents, Reed moved to LA to attend the prestigious UCLA Medical School. He promptly dropped out, figuring professors focused on teaching students how to become teachers, which was not his goal in life. In any case, he discovered he had no interest in a medical career. He couldn’t stand seeing sick people day in, day out. He wanted to see beautiful people wearing beautiful clothing. He wanted to make a splash in the fashion world.

He started small, designing sweaters and booties for pet dogs and cats. The sweaters and booties caught on, and he moved onto fashions for humans. Which did even better than his pet apparel.

And here he was at the top of his game, married and divorced three times, with one of the most profitable lines of fashion in the world, right up there with Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Chanel.

Middle-aged, Lt. Macready had short dark hair and a port-wine stain on his wrinkle-creased forehead. He gave Reed a dour stare.

“I’ll have you know this is an active crime scene,” he said. “We don’t want anyone contaminating it. Keep your models away from the corpse.”

“I have a permit to film here,” said Reed, withdrawing a document from his Windbreaker and waving it in Macready’s face. “Signed by the mayor.”

“I don’t care if the president signed it. Don’t get near the corpse,” said Macready, brushing the document away from his face.

“The mayor’s gonna hear about this,” said Reed, face twisted in anger.

“The permit says you can shoot near the crime scene, not in it.”

“We need to get as close as possible to the stiff for verisimilitude.”

“I don’t give a damn about verisimilitude. I represent the law. It’s illegal to contaminate an active crime scene investigation.”

Reed searched Macready’s face. “You don’t look well, Lieutenant. Your face looks wan. Aren’t you getting enough?”

“Enough?”

“The wife, you know.”

“I’m not married,” said Macready, his expression wooden.

“Ah, that explains it. I find that getting laid stimulates my imagination and unclogs my creative juices so I can create masterpieces of art in the fashion world.”

“You call filming a porn ad at a murder scene a masterpiece? I call it sick.”

“It’s not a porn ad, Lieutenant. My ads appear in the most prestigious magazines in the world, including Vogue, Cosmo, Harper’s Bazaar, Paris Match, and Elle, to name a few. Let me clue you in, Lieutenant. Those aren’t skin magazines.”

“Your ads are torture porn, if you ask me.”

“Every time you open your mouth, you show your ignorance of art.”

“Look, you jumped-up smut peddler, I’ll bust you if you get too close to the murder victim.”

“I need that stiff and the blood around it in my shoot. It’s essential to my art,” said Reed, using his hands to frame a picture with his model and the corpse in it.

“To sell a dress? You gotta be shittin’ me.”

“A dress?” said Reed, widening his eyes. “It’s not just a dress, it’s a work of art. All of my creations are works of art. The world’s richest people buy them. The nouveau riche adore me. They hang on my every word.”

“It just shows money can’t buy taste.”

Reed flung up his arms in disgust. “How can I discuss high art with a troglodyte?”

Macready eyed Reed suspiciously.

“Caveman,” explained Reed.

“Calling me names isn’t scoring Brownie points for you.”

Fed up with Macready, Reed instructed his cameraman where to put his camera in order to include the corpse and its blood behind his high-cheekboned model, Brigitte Jadot, who was standing in front of the corpse looking bored. Her famous luminous blue eyes could change from translucent to dark depending on her frame of mind.

“I’m losing the mood,” she said, and fluffed her full blonde hair, her eyes darkening.

Brigitte, one of the highest paid supermodels in the world at the tender age of twenty-five, had trouble acting glamorous in such an unglamorous setting as a recent murder scene on the mean streets of LA.

“Take a step to your left, Brigitte,” said Reed, nudged the photographer out of his way, and peered through the viewfinder of the camera mounted on a tripod. He studied the composition of the layout. “That’s better. I can see the corpse’s head and some of the blood behind your stilettos.” He looked annoyed. “What I’d really like to see is the head right next to your right stiletto. Take two steps backward closer to the stiff.”

“Nix that,” said Macready.

Brigitte stopped in her tracks, unsure what to do, almost tipping over on her stilettos as she was making up her mind whether to take a second step closer to the corpse.

“You’re making my shoot impossible, Lieutenant,” said Reed.

“That’s nothing,” said Macready. “You’re making my job impossible.”

“This film permit cost me good money,” said Reed, withdrawing the document from his Windbreaker’s pocket and brandishing it in front of Macready.

“Tell it to your buddy, the mayor. I’m not letting you contaminate my murder investigation here.”

Balling his fists in suppressed fury, Reed told his photographer, “Shoot Brigitte where she’s standing. Ready, Brigitte, dear?”

“Wait a second,” she said. “My stiletto almost fell off.”

She shifted her foot in her Max Reed stiletto to make the fit more comfortable.

“Now look sexy,” said Reed. “You’re selling my beautiful dress. Hold your hands behind your head like I told you.”

Brigitte struck a pose, clasping her hands behind her head and tilting it off to the right toward the corpse sprawled in its blood on the sidewalk. She hung her crimson lipstick-smeared mouth slightly open.

“Did you ever consider silicone injections, baby?”

Brigitte rolled her eyes.

“Does he treat everybody this bad?” Macready muttered to the uniform near him.

“Keep the pose, baby,” said Reed. “Keep the pose.”

Brigitte instantly reset her pose, as if she had never changed it.

“Perfect,” said Reed. “Stop picking your nose and adjust the scrim on her left,” he told the longhaired twentyish grip wearing jeans and a cobalt T. “She’s getting too much sunlight on her hair.”

The grip adjusted the silk scrim to diffuse the sunlight.

“It’s all yours, Johnny,” said Reed. “Stop leering at her crotch and start shooting.”

Johnny Wikowski, the salt-and-pepper-haired photographer pushing forty, snapped multiple photos of Brigitte, coaxing her to change her pose slightly after taking several shots. He continued snapping groups of photos with each new pose she struck.

Macready looked on with nausea. “Are you trying to get your customers to throw up? Is that the point of these revolting photos? Did you sell your decency for a few bucks?”

Reed waved dismissively at him. “You’re a beer-bellied slob with no concept of art.”

“Do any of you ghouls care even one iota about the homicide victim?”

Reed ignored him. “Let’s get it done, people. What’s wrong, Brigitte? Did you find out your boyfriend’s gay?”

“A gnat flew in my eye,” she said, squinting her right eye, which began to tear, smearing her makeup.

“Break time. Debbie, help Brigitte.”

Debbie Hernandez, the thirtyish makeup artist, wearing a loose blouse, jeans, and jogging shoes, hurried to Brigitte’s side, inspected Brigitte’s watery eye, and wiped the tears away with a handkerchief.

“Your ass looks like a cement mixer,” said Reed, watching her jog toward Brigitte.

“How can any of you stand working for this shitheel?” said Macready.

“They know which side their bread’s buttered on. Unlike you.”

“I wouldn’t work for you if you paid me a million bucks.”

“You’re not worth a million bucks. And you do work for me because you work for the mayor, and the mayor said I could shoot here.”

“What kind of strings did you pull to get him to cave?”

“At least he’s worth pulling strings for. You, on the other hand, have the value of a toad.”

“I’m not playing nursemaid for you clowns any longer,” said Macready, flushing with indignation. “Time for you to pack up and scram. Nobody gives me any lip and gets away with it.”

“I’m gonna see to it personally that the mayor fires your sorry ass,” said Reed.

Fit to be tied, he stalked off with his film crew toward their vans parked along the side of the street guarded by moonlighting cops.

Chapter 2

That night, Max Reed presided over his fashion show held in a hangar at the Santa Monica Airport. He was showing his new line of fall fashions at one of his typical lurid extravaganzas that spared no expense.

Strobe lights slashed through the dim-lit hangar as rap music blasted the eardrums of wealthy spectators that sat in tiered seats that formed a circle around the runways. In the center of the hangar loomed a thirty-foot-high human skull, an exact replica of the serial killer Ted Bundy’s skull with the neon shocking pink letters T-E-D erected on top of it.

Statuesque, blank-faced models sporting Max Reed’s latest designs strutted out of the skull’s mouth onto runways that crisscrossed the hangar’s floor as colored spotlights cut across the ceiling like dueling sabers in rhythm with the pulsating music.

Naturally, Reed had the best seat in the house, lording over the spectacle like a king on his throne sitting above everyone else in a diamond-studded cherry picker where he could watch the action.

Sitting behind him was his righthand man thirty-five-year-old Preston Wells, wearing jeans, skinny as a rock star, looking vaguely like a younger version of the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, except Wells wore his brown hair cropped. He wore a necklace of silver skulls draped around his neck over his black T that had a silkscreen of a silver skeleton on its front.

“It’s all about promotion, Preston,” said Reed, gazing down upon his fiefdom of parading models, clad in gold, black, and white outfits designed by him. “Anybody can design clothes. But not everybody can sell them. That’s what separates the men from the boys. That’s why I rule fashion. My sales. Big sales.”

“You got that right, boss,” said Wells, and snorted cocaine off the back of his wrist.

“It’s all about sex and violence. That’s what sells product.”

“I’m into it. You’re on the mark.”

“You better believe it. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be strung out in a gutter lying in your own vomit jonesing and staring at the sun like a halfwit with tears in your eyes.”

“You’re the best.”

“I spend millions to promote my fashion, and buyers pay millions more back to me to buy it. Take it from me, you can’t make big money without spending big money. I got some of the highest paid models in the business dying to wear my latest outfits.”

“We got A-list Hollywood celebs in the audience, too,” said Wells, sniffling and surveying the spectators who watched the spectacular show in awe.

“You know it. Can you believe it? I started out selling booties for dogs, and now I’m selling gowns to Hollywood celebs. I made my dream come true—fashion designer to the stars, more famous than Gucci and Christian Dior.”

“It’s unreal.”

“My father wanted me to go to medical school, and I had the grades to get in, but the idea of treating diseased patients every day turned me off. I wanted a job where I could enjoy life and live it to the limit. As far as I’m concerned, there is no limit. And I’ve proved it. My company Max Reed Enterprises is just getting started. No matter how big it is now, it’s gonna get even bigger, as long as I keep putting on shows like this one with all the glam, glitz, and hoopla.”

Wearing three diamond necklaces Brigitte Jadot strutted out of Ted Bundy’s skull in a silver minidress with a cerise sash tied at the waist. It looked like the minidress was bleeding bright crimson drops of blood. In reality the drops were spangles that gave the illusion of blood. The minidress’s hem was lined with grinning human skulls.

“You gotta be fucking bold with fashion,” said Reed. “People don’t want the same old thing. They want new, outrageous stuff. I dare to give them what they want, and I’m not afraid to break the mold. The other designers are too scared to be daring.”

“You got it right, boss.”

“I don’t blame people for loving me.”

“You’re the best,” said Wells, his eyes watery, looking bored, as though he’d said the same thing a million times before.

Reed sensed Wells’s lack of enthusiasm. “You might amount to something if you had any balls. But you’re such a sniveling pantywaist, you’re going nowhere. Like they say, character is destiny. And, baby, you got none, so guess where you’re heading?”

Wells simmered, but didn’t fire back in kind.

Instead, he said, “I’m following the master.”

“At least you have taste. You know who’s the best.”

“Max Reed,” said Wells.

“Max Reed,” said Reed, his eyes gleaming as he took in the pageantry below him watching it like an eagle from his eyrie, watching the spectators doting on the models strutting his stuff down the runways.

How could life be any better? he wondered.

The roar of Harley Davidson motorcycles yanked him out of his thoughts, as two Harleys trundled out of the skull’s mouth and down the models’ runway. The bearded riders wearing black leather motorcycle jackets decorated with slash zipper pockets on their fronts and the silver image of a human skull stitched on their backs tooled down the runway, revving their nerve-grating engines.