AFTERMATH – DAVID CARRADINE MORGUE PIX
BY ANTONIO PINEDA
Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread. I stride across the opulent lobby of the Swissotel Nailert Park, take the lift to the 5th floor, where investigative journalist Mark Ebner admits me to his suite. He has had dinner with Dr. Pornthip, the famous Thai forensic scientist the night before. He found her to be a dissident voice, who questioned the ambiguities in the Carradine case. Pornthip has been a thorn in the side of authority in a conformist culture. She is an attractive woman, a bit of a local celebrity cum personality. She however stands by auto erotic asphyxiation.
Ebner is no stranger to the true crime story. His book, entitled Six Degrees of Paris Hilton, examines the sordid sex, drugs and crime scene of Hollywood. In a sense he has reinvented the noir crime novel. It is a non fiction work, the names have not been changed to protect the innocent. He is a hard boiled, old school investigative journalist.
There is a knock on the door. Mark gives entry to the mysterious Monsieur X. He is revealed to be Guy Armand Montblanc. He is tall and angular, with a head of wavy chestnut coloured hair, and an ariaticratic air. Guy claims to possess pix of Carradine at the morgue. Although Mark and I are casually dressed, Guy is tres chic in a gunpowder grey suit. He affects no necktie, a gold chain around his neck supports a tiny gold penis. He is fluent in English, French, Russian and German.
Over coffee and cookies, we engage in small talk. Mark engages us once again in his dominatrix conspiracy theory, compounded by David Winters Katoey theory. Guy lights a cigar. Mark, who is teetotal, indulges in his last worldly pleasure, a menthol cigarette. Guy tells a charming story. While escorting a legendary British popstar about Bangkok recently, they picked up two lovely ladies. They went back to the 5 star hotel . The girls handcuffed he and the popstar with their hands above their heads. The girls concluded the experience with good old fashioned oral sex. It all comes off with soap and water, mes cher amis.
Mark encountered a curious scene in the hotel garden, which is also the grounds for penis shrines. He saw an elderly lady wandering about there. She was followed by a large retinue of cats. She laid down a banquet of cat food. The cats ate and cavorted among the penis shrines. Freud, Nietzche and Sartre would have had a literary and philosophical field day with this scene.
The ancient Greeks composed a quadrant of 4 male godheads. These were Zeus, Apollo, Hermes and Dionysius. The rites and rituals of phallic worship were ascribed to Hermes. In India, they worship the lingam of Shiva. Penis shrines are a reflection of an old culture, in Thailand there is no shame or guilt attached to this form of phallic worship. In the USA they just arrest one for deviant behaviour.
Time for the moment of truth. Guy sits on the computer and brings up pix of Carradine . The body is laid out in state. The rope is still tied from neck to genitals, although the genitals are covered up. Guy states the cord is still tied to his testicles. Mark sees a ring on his finger and claims it to be scarab. Guy disagrees and says it is the Cross of the Royal Knights of Malta. The sides of the body are covered in fading tatoos.
There are ligature marks around the neck. Blood stains the neck and backs and sides of the hair. Mark examines the stains carefully. He states that there may be signs of physical trauma to the head. Carradine has been cut open from stem to stern, and then sewn back again. Perhaps organs have been removed for the toxicology report. Guy runs pix of different shots and angles. It is a sad testament to the life of a brilliant cineaste.
Mark claims the hotel manager stated that room 527, where Carradine died is no more. The entire floor has been renumbered, the room has disappeared. It is a scenario straight out of the X Files, or The Twilight Zone. If there was blood at the scene of the crime, there may have also been follicles, fibres and blood splatter. Curiouser and curiouser. Wierder and wierderer.
The seance is over. Mark Ebner must catch his plane to Los Angeles, where he will report his conclusions for Maxim magazine. The enigmatic Guy Armand Montblanc is on his way to Paris, then London where he will shop the pix to the tabloids. So my dear Watson, is this the hand of the nefarious Moriarity, a serial killer on the loose, a suicide, a mysterious bondage and domination game gone wrong, or a sado masochistic murder in the best tradition of Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger. That my dear Holmes, is a question that may remain unanswered, the sands of time may erase all clues, Carradine may be consigned to many cases that to Scotland Yard, like that of Jack the Ripper, remain unsolved.
