PREVIEW SECTION FROM REVOLVER

CHAPTER ZERO - LES ENFANTS TERRIBLE
SATURDAY 20th AUGUST 1977

EDINBURGH – THE STATION HOTEL, ROOM 302 : LATE NIGHT

Miles Davis was tossing out ‘Bitches brew’ in a stunningly pure clarity from the high end portable tape deck that Lennie Mann never seemed to travel without these days. It filled the hotel room that overhung Waverley Station and somehow obliterated the almost quaint, tourist oriented, wallpaper and conservative furnishings that decorated the large chamber.
Lennie Mann was a native, West Coast American exported to the UK via London and now running his operations from Glasgow. Tall, well built and black, the Ex-Angel was more than casually attractive, not merely because he was so well built but because he was so gorgeous. All his features were almost model like – not that there were too many successful black models in the land of the ‘WASP’s’, equality didn’t run to things like that in the land of the free. Big eyes, big mouth, big teeth and big hair was merely an obvious assessment, in detail he had a look that women tended to find hard to resist... and there had been so many of them to date. Lennie cared little for his looks – he simply took them for granted and kept moving forward or moving on.
The imposing black had a pale blue suit on, white shirt and shiny shoes. With a smile he poured another couple of glasses of 20 year old Scotch out, as he faced John Savage across the table.
Savage took his glass, nodded his thanks and checked his watch, Dresses in dark trousers and light blue shirt, his jacket hung over the back of the sofa he was sitting on, and mirrored the one that Lennie sat on, facing him.
John Savage may have been born on the wrong side of the tracks in Easterhouse during the late forties, but in the here and now it was impossible to guess. Dark haired and with dark looks, his slim frame was deceptive because he was in top physical shape and composed mainly of sinew and muscle, even his face had a hard strength to it. With sweeping dark eyebrows and dark eyes his cheeks were full and tight, the jaw was heavy set and his nose appeared small and rounded giving a handsome disposition to his countenance. Savage’s hair was light brown with the hint of silver appearing at the temples giving him the illusion he was a shade more mature than he appeared and at the same time it lent a distinguished, statesman like impression of authority that worked well for him in the media business he ran. John Savage looked good to man and woman alike, possessing the rare gift of having an image men envied and women wanted to own – none of this disturbed the man in the slightest.
“What time did you say Ruth was coming back, Len?” Savage asked in a cultivated tone that failed to betray his roots of origin.
The tall, handsome black shrugged and ran a hand through his newly shorn, afro style hair.
“Dunno, man, when she gets together with that Cindy chick they just seem to burn up time. Never seen two girls who can spend so much time together doing nothing but partying... well, over here anyway – knew a lot like that in LA and NY. She’ll be back when she’s back!”
Savage leaned forward with a grin on his face.
“I can’t believe you’re still with her, Lennie!”
“I’m never ‘with’ any girl, man – they’re just there at the same time as me!”
The pair laughed and Savage nodded, he knew Lennie all too well not to get what he was saying.
“So, no wedding bells?” Savage said and was unable to halt his laughter.
“Man! You are one sick ‘SOB’! Get Real – it’s a big world and we’ve got a lot of living to do.. I’m just trying to play my part. But – little Ruthie does have some... serious skills, for such a young chick! Talented, very talented. A lot more... capable than the most of the Mommas back in Oakland!”
“You ever see any of those guys these days, speak to them? Find out if the heat’s died down over the years?”
Lennie nodded and took a belt of his amber nectar.
“Yeah, ran into Chops when I went to Manchester in June. Didn’t spend too much time going back over the past... but, I don’t think anybody cares what I’m doing or where I am any more. Big Freddie’s still in Lompoc – still running things from the inside, but they don’t care much now. The Angels went Corporate, a long time ago - it’s all money now, not like the old days. Good luck to them, man – a lot of good guys but some of them just didn’t have... ‘vision’!”
Savage smiled wryly.
“Whereas you had too much?”
The men laughed to one another at the unspoken commonality which had brought them together all those years ago in South London. Even in the here and now, it had united them again for the Pyramid project, but they wanted something purely of their own – as ever. Their eyes were on the future in areas that had nothing to do with their everyday business associations, both men shared a common hunger that even now they were investigating.
Lennie smiled back and shook his head, pointing his finger slowly before he began to talk again.
“I’ll never forget that time you went to that little club in Islington.. man, you got too much vision that night!”
Savage dropped his head and began to laugh heartily.
“Oh, Jesus... do you have to remind me? Not a sight I want to remember – there was no way that major Honey looked like anything other than one hundred percent woman! You were just lucky she didn’t try to head off with you... so you were as taken in as I was and don’t deny it!”
Again they dissolved into laughter.
“Still think about ‘her’, Sav?”
“Bugger off, only in my nightmares. Jaqueline Bisset comes in, all hot and bothered, starts to unpeel and then... bang, meat and two veg! Cold sweat material, real scary stuff!”
They were still laughing when the phone rang. Lennie picked it up.
“Yeah?” he asked with his Californian drawl oozing out.
“Mr. Mann? There’s a gentleman at reception asking for you... a Mr. Chance!”
Lennie smiled. “Send him right up! Thanks.”
Savage nodded and took another sip of his whisky.
“That him?”
Lennie nodded and went over to the door. A couple of minutes later the man appeared at the door, in one hand he carried a sizeable suitcase and in the other a dark attaché case.
Larry Chance was a short man in his early thirties with cropped, receding, blonde hair appeared at the door, dressed in dark trousers and a casual checked sports jacket. The man wasn’t fat but he certainly wasn’t the figure he had been only five years ago – where there used to be a defined waist now there was nothing that demarcated the relief between hips, waist and chest.
“Lennie, sorry I’m a bit late but there was a lot of conversion to do!” the man outside the room said in a Manchester accent.
“No problem, man, we’ve got all night. Come on in.”
Savage watched him enter, put the cases down by the table and take a seat.
“Larry, this is my friend and associate, John Savage... John, this is Larry Chance!” Mann stated as he went for another glass and poured a hefty belt of whisky into it.
Chance and Savage shook hands as Lennie returned and they all sat down again.
Chance smiled as he took the glass and tossed half of it down without tasting it. The man had a curious looking face that seemed to be made of spare parts or leftovers of pieces that didn’t fit into someone else. He looked like an identikit image gone wrong, but he had bright eyes and seemed very personable for someone who spent most of their time hustling and bouncing from one project to another.
Mann and Savage sipped at their drinks as they sat facing the new arrival.
“How was your trip up, Larry?” Mann asked.
“Jesus, the roads up here once you pass the border – it’s like you’ve gone back to the middle ages. Took two hours longer than I thought. I estimated an hour and a half maybe two hours, and it was over three and a half.”
Savage smiled wryly. “From Manchester? You expected to get to Edinburgh in an hour and a half? What do you drive, a Ferrari?”
Chance shook his head. “No, got rid of that a while ago... drew all the wrong type of women – gold-diggers. No, it’s just a Lotus I drive now!”
Savage smiled again but said nothing, the casual reference to his car made a little impression on him as he expected the guy to suggest he drove an old Ford Zephyr or Zodiac.
Lennie chuckled and turned to Savage.
“Beautiful vehicle, man – all black with a tiny gold stripe along the side. It was what got us talking when I went to Manchester last month. Good car to carry good fortune! So, Larry, what did you bring for us?”
The man drained his glass and raised his hands, then he dragged the large case round and placed it carefully on the table. With a couple of pops he flipped the case open to reveal a pile of equipment - all laid out in a stencilled, foam protection filling.
“Right, gentlemen! Here we are – state of the art technology in home entertainment. In five years time every home will have these... it’s going to revolutionise the way we live. A portable video recording and playback system. The large unit is the recorder-player, the second one is the battery converter-charger, and the third piece is the tuner.. for recording from television. As you can see, unlike the Phillips system, this is smaller, top loading, portable and able to work from its own rechargeable battery and uses cassettes... like bigger versions of the one your Miles Davis tape is on right now. Good choice, Lennie – you can never go wrong with Miles... he’s like God, fashions come and go but people always go back to the master!”
Lennie Man smiled and Savage made a tiny shake of his head as he started to warm to the quirky character with his fast talk and buzzily animated manner.

“Let me top up your drink, Larry!” Mann stated.
The blonde man shook his head. “No thanks, not until I get the work done. One’s enough until this is all set up for you because there’s a lot to explain and then break down how this can be the time to get into the future, before it comes for you. I’d sooner be in front of the train than on it!”
Savage couldn’t help himself.
“Larry... wouldn’t that be dangerous, being in front of a train as it’s heading towards you?”
“No, no no no! You just get off the tracks... that’s the beauty of it. It can only go where the tracks tell it to go, but I can move out its way!”
Lennie laughed as he watched his friend’s face.
“Yeah, didn’t really think about it enough from that perspective, Larry!” Savage said protractedly.
Chance looked up seriously with a deeply inquisitive countenance, before his face broke into a ridiculously radiant smile.
“I’m kidding! Do you think I’d be crazy enough to stand in front of a train? Why would I buy a Platform Ticket for that journey?”
The men all laughed as Chance’s strange humour.
“Right, gentlemen, before I get off track... can I set it all up for you and talk as I do this?”
The men on the sofa smiled and nodded, topped up all their glasses again and watched the man at work. Chance went over to the television set, unplugged the aerial cable and jammed another one back in.
“Right – just now we have the Phillips Two Thousand system of video, but it’s bulky, glitchy and expensive – too expensive for easily affordable home use. Over and above which, product is hard to come by and you’re really limited to recording television – obviously, in this country with only three television stations running at about ten hours of programming a day, it means that unless you want to watch a lot of ‘Crossroads’, ‘Coronation Street’, ‘Z Cars’ or the Test Card, then you are looking to use it for films. Great if you want to see things five years after they came out and aren’t the type of thing that might offend public taste... you know like ‘Clockwork Orange’ or something – which is, of course, a masterpiece... or would have been if Kubrick had the brains to read the book all the way to the end or got a copy that didn’t have the final chapter excised, because that was the whole point of Burgess’s book – to show mindless youth violence is nothing more than a cyclical social trend which integrates and is part of society, like a rite of passage to adulthood, and once reached is discarded and taken up by the next generation. Anyway, we won’t be seeing it on our screens in our lifetime probably – we have to go to Paris to see this almost classic, because it’s played there in some cinemas, day in and day out since its release... so, obviously there are lots of people who think it is a classic even though the real end of the film is missing. The Japanese did get to release it briefly on a thing called Disco-Vision – but it still doesn’t have the end on it – and this is a big disc like an LP but it plays pictures.. but that doesn’t really matter because you can’t record on it and it’s a different format for playing in this country and needs a hertz converter which is also very expensive although the quality is stunning. Not many people have seen this thing but it is shown briefly in ‘Airport 77’ when the Stewardess slots one of themSo, here we are looking at how to control the future of home entertainment!”

The man continuously set up the equipment as he talked while Mann and Savage sat on the sofa shaking their heads to one another with a little grin of derision, diluted by some admiration for the unusual hustler.
As the man stopped talking and seemed to have plugged all the bits into one another, Lennie waved to him.
“Come and have a drink, Larry... that’s got to be tiring!”
Larry looked over with furrowed brows and debated whether he meant setting the equipment up or his pitch about contemporary entertainment in the UK. Suddenly all three broke out laughing and Larry collected his drink from Mann’s outstretched hand. With hardly a pause, Chance continued.
“This system is a new type, we’ve just had Betamax coming onto the market back in ’75 derived from the Industrial U-Matic format – all of this is from Japan, naturally, and although Betamax is theoretically higher resolution they can oly record for about an hour per tape, this new system just released last year, VHS by JVC, is going to be the world dominator – it’s user friendly and the medium is much more appealing because you can record up to four hours per tape. In Japan, although like here is still expensive, the prices are falling... the same way televisions and radios and stereos dropped in price the longer they were on the market and the greater the number of manufacturers who produced units. So, VHS uses, let me get this out for you...”
Chance grabbed the attaché case and flipped it open to reveal a stack of large ‘video-cassettes’ some of which were in boxes with full artwork and details, where others were simply in branded cases with names like Akai and JVC.
Holding one aloft, he continued.
“... VHS uses these! One day the major film and television companies will be putting our their archives on these for people to buy and play in the comfort of their own home. So, product will be available and there will be a massive market for it!”
Savage nodded his head to Mann, because despite the Mancunian’s quirky delivery, what he said made absolute business sense. Both the men were intrigued and wanted to hear more.
Chance looked at their faces and knew he had an audience.
“So, large domestic audience, growing as prices fall to make the hardware accessible to the common man and desperate for product to view on their home entertainment systems. But this product, as far as retail sales is concerned, isn’t where the future lies, the hardware itself and its technology is already tied up with the Japanese manufacturers... so where does that leave us?”
The two men looked quizzically to one another... Chance had just spent a substantial chunk of time getting them hooked only to suggest that there was no way to compete with the multinational corporations who would be an oligarchic controller of hardware and its product.
“Nowhere?” Savage suggested.
“Wrong, there’s going to be a lot of money to be made when this revolution starts, and most of it will go to big business... and unless you have millions at your disposal then you can’t compete. If I had the capital to do it – I’d already be investing. No, there’s a market that will have no bottom and will take a long time before the big business companies get on board... and it’s this...”
Chance went over to the technology and switched the television on, pressed the test signal, tuned the video output until two white bands against a pure black background came up and switched the test signal off. On the large unit he pressed the chunky key at the front to bring the tray up, loaded the videocassette in, manually closed it and hit the ‘play’ button before dimming the overhead light, killing off Miles Davis and returning to the sofa.
All three waited for something to happen outside of a little buzz and some shimmering sparklies which flitted about the screen.
“Gentleman, welcome to the future – a world where a fortune is just waiting to be made... for those who have the vision to see it!”
The word ‘Taboo’ came up on screen in bold red lettering before cutting to a large plush room and a pretty woman in a short dress entered, then sat down on the sofa. It wasn’t long before two men came in, dressed in police uniforms and asking her to accompany them to the station for questioning. The woman’s response was to suggest that she could help them if they helped her out of this jam... and soon she was unpeeling the dress from herself and unzipping them as the hardcore pornography began.

An hour later the men were sitting around the table, drinks before them and animatedly discussing the potential areas that might be worth investing in to capitalise on the wave that was coming over the next few years.
Savage nodded in agreement and raised a hand.
“Sure, Larry, I can see that there’s serious money to be made, but it’s going to take some time for the market to catch up. Right now it’s an investment that won’t be returning a lot of revenue until this bites into the domestic market.”
“Agreed – but by the time the market is right, this area will be loaded with businesses getting on the bandwagon.. investors with enough cash to throw the massive sums of money they’ll need to force their way into a growing, saturated market. Getting in on the ground floor is the only way to ensure you’re well ahead of the competition without having to sell everything you own to stay competitive. And.. there are ways to capitalise on the technology now.”
“Like what, man?” Lennie asked
“Duplication units, rooms filled with domestic VHS or Betamax machines receiving input from U-Matic or industrial video output. Find the countries that this stuff is already growing in. Japan, the USA, European countries – anywhere, and do duplication in their formats... NTSC, Pal, Secam, whatever – and wherever any jobs can be sourced. The other thing is conversion to U-Matic masters... remember there are a host of Blue Movie film companies out there who are going to go bust unless they get their film stock footage onto Videotape. Because whether they know it on not – film is deader than day-glo Loons. All the equipment we need has a variety of uses and potential financial return. I’m telling you, gentlemen, if you think about this for a few days, I guarantee you’ll see it in sound economic terms.”
Savage looked at Lennie reflectively, saw the eyebrow flicker and the twinkle in his eye and he knew he was interested... just as Savage himself was. The quirky man from Manchester was a visionary, like themselves.
“He’s right, Lennie, I think this could be something we could do and make some real money on.. if we give it enough thought. Maybe we should sleep on it and get together for lunch tomorrow?” Savage suggested.
Chance looked at the two men, reflectively.
“I have to head back down to Manchester!”
“Tomorrow?” Savage asked
The blonde man shook his head. “No, now. I brought this stuff up because Lennie had paid upfront for the system and a consultation. The gear arrived this afternoon... yesterday afternoon, as it’s now Sunday, and I got in my car to bring it up!”
The other two men smiled, Chance clearly didn’t linger when there was a job to do.
Lennie nodded his thanks before he spoke.
“Listen, Larry, why don’t I get you a room for the night and we can start running numbers and ideas later at lunch... whaddayasay?”
“This is worth taking some more time to hammer out, Larry!” Savage added.
Chance looked from one to the other and then shrugged. “Sure, I was only going to meet a cutie for some deeply pleasing, sexual gratification tomorrow. That is... today!”
“Cool!” Lennie laughed
“Hell, Lennie... “ Chance said, “I forgot to bring your camera up from the car!”
“My camera?” Mann asked, uncertainly.
“Yeah, to go with your system. Still not great technology because some of the high Lux cameras cost more than this entire system... but it’s adequate. You’ll be able to start filming your life!”
Savage laughed at the thought of the things that neither man wanted committed to record. But Lennie looked thoughtful and began to smile.
“Can I use it in here, can you set it up?”
“Sure, that’s what it’s for! Want me to grab it right now?”
“Would you mind, Larry?”
“No problem – give me five minutes.”
And with that Chance headed out the door as Lennie got on the phone to reception to book another room for the man from Manchester. As he put the phone down he and Savage smiled at one another.
“So, Sav, what do you think?”
“About him or the idea?”
“Both!” Mann nodded pouring the last of the bottle of Whisky into the three glasses.
Savage tilted his head and grinned.
“He’s a crazy man! But seems pretty smart – he could front this and let us run things from behind the scenes. I think it has potential... you?”
“I’m already there, brother. Now it’s just how much and who does what... I guess we’re going into the Porno business. I know a lot of guys in New York who made some serious money in that game... aside from the fringe benefits!”
Savage laughed and shook his head. “Jeeze, Lennie, you never stop do you?”
“Like you do? That’s some trail of hot babes you’ve furnished us with over the last six or eight months, man!”
“Fringe benefits!” Savage laughed.
They were still laughing when there was a knock at the door and chance returned with a box about the size expected to house a pair of boots in. He went straight to work, plugging it in and checking the iris before he switched the television back on and aimed at the men.
“What do you think?” he asked them, nodding back to the black screen.
“There’s nothing on it, man!” Lennie stated
“Yeah, there is!” the man replied.
Mann and Savage looked at one another.
“There’s nothing there that I can see, Larry” John Savage stated patiently.
Chance peeked from behind the camera with a smile on his face.
“Yeah, there is... a black cat in a coal hole at midnight!”
The other two chuckled at the unhinged blonde man and smiled as he removed the lens cap and they came into clear view on the screen.
“Oh, yeah... so cool!” Lennie breathed.
“There’s a blank tape in the machine – runs for three hours and the beauty is that you can just record over it, just like the audio cassettes on your player over there... cool, huh?”
“Definitely!” Mann grinned. “Hey, Larry, you’re in room 213 and it’s on me... cool?”
“Thank you, yeah and tomorrow ...today, I can tell you about my idea for the specialist film market – Kinky, Fetish stuff like Rubber, Bondage, S&M etc, because the mark up is a lot higher in that area... especially if we start producing and making films ourselves!”
That was the moment where Savage and Mann knew they were going into business with Larry Chance because their eyes reflected the world of possibilities they knew they could market to some of the wealthy associates they both had regular contact with. It was an effort to tone their enthusiasm down as Larry wondered what had sparked their hilarity, watching the two men laugh like they had some years ago in South London when they had both hit on the same idea at the same time... and that had been most productive for them both.
Chance gathered up his attaché case and piled the video tapes neatly on the table as Lennie nodded to his unfinished drink.
“Take your time, man, we’ve got nothing but time!”
“The future will be here sooner than you expect, Lennie! Time waits for no-one!”
Mann nodded and suddenly thought of the Stones and then Angie from Notting Hill – with a wry grin he remembered some of her dextrous abilities and wondered if she wanted to be a film star. He almost laughed aloud at the thought.
Chance drained the glass and smiled before nodding to the tapes.
“Keep them, if you want, Lennie... I ran them off to illustrate the potential – Oh, and just to warn you, the black case has some pretty hardcore stuff on it... seriously kinky, and it’s not to everyone’s taste! I’ve known people to switch off from stuff like that. Takes a lot to shut me down but other people have their own limits. One of my friends, you met him last time, Lennie, Warren... tall guy, big hair – anyway, Warren’s like me, a massive Dianna Devalle fan... I don’t know if you’ve heard of her but she was a cult figure, a model, then actress and finally into some really weird shit! So, like I say, both big fans of her work and life, when we were at some convention thing and met this guy who claimed she had made a private film... a very special film!”
Lennie chuckled, “I can imagine!”
Chance shook his head. “I doubt it, Lennie – I’m messed up in the head and what this guy told me was really off the charts... so..”
Savage’s face was devoid of humour and Lennie suddenly noticed and held up a hand to pause Larry’s story.
“Hey, man, what’s up. You okay? You ill or something?”
Savage shook his head and stared at Chance.
“Do you mean Dianna Devalle... the same girl who did Vogue modelling, starred in ‘Black November’?”
Chance threw his head back and his face positively glowed.
“Jesus, yes, John... I don’t believe it – are you a fan as well? Wasn’t she... not just stunningly beautiful - but what a talent... damn, she was taken too soon, and to go the way she did! Criminal. But I can’t believe you... another Dianna fan. I have just about every photo ever taken of her... the most iconic cult figure since Edie Sedgewick and the Factory girls.”
Savage said nothing, just smiled a little and nodded for Larry to continue his story.
“Wow. Anyway, this guy at the convention says he really enjoyed ‘Black November’ and saw it ,like about, thirteen times at the Art-House cinema, Screen On The Green, down in London. This guy claimed Dianna did some truly, far-out, messed up private S&M sex film for some mega-rich guy when she was spinning out of control and lost all her money, messed up on drugs and all the bad stuff that occurred. So, I say to him ‘No way, no chance she would do something like that – she was too talented and... it was just ridiculous’... the same apocryphal stories that go about saying Marilyn Monroe did a film with a donkey or Jane Fonda was caught on film banging Elvis and Richard Nixon in a threesome - but this character says to me that the guy he knows not only saw it, but had one of only five copies made of it. So that stops me dead. Then I ask him... how can he prove it? He says he has a set of photos from the film and on set as it was being made. Well, obviously, I flipped – told him if he gave me this photoset and introduced me to this friend, that I would give him a copy of the ‘work-print’ of ‘Black November’ with about three scenes and some other bits that never made the final print. This guy nearly bit my arm off... so, sure enough, two weeks later, he turns up on my door with the photoset – about twenty, eight by tens... and I didn’t believe it. I look through them and, at first, I think to myself, this is someone, maybe a double, but it’s not - because about three photos in you can see the black star birth mark and that way the light used to catch her eyes when she did that characteristic tilt of her head... do you know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean!” Savage agreed with a little smile. “So, she really made this film? Did you get to see it?”
“By the time I got to about the seventh or eight photo, I would have sold my mother to see this film – it was the wildest thing I’d seen up till then... very extreme, scary in some ways – some of the photos really disturbed me, but I started to believe it was her. One of the strange things was that she didn’t look as if she was faking what she was doing, it looked like it was part of who she was - but in other pictures there was an immense sadness... whoever directed the thing, no matter how extreme it was, was certainly talented, and even in some of the wildest photographs she still looks like that radiant beauty that all her photographic work captures. Amazing!”
Lennie smiled and opened another bottle of whisky for them, noting that Ruth was bound to roll in any time now.
“Well, guys, it’s good to know you have something in common with the stuff you like. And later today, we’ll get back to the main thing we all like – the chance to make money, huh?”
Chance and Mann laughed as they raised their glasses but Savage simply picked his up mechanically and sipped with a faraway look on his face.
“Hey, John, I said ‘money’ and you didn’t look round... now I know you’re ill!” Mann jested as Savage looked up and then back to Chance.
“Was this film real, Larry?”
Lennie rolled his eyes and went over to try the camera out, recording the walls, the others, the drinks, anything, before laughing as he focused on the television screen and found the effect reminded him of how some of his first LSD trips looked when he was still in High School... it was a lot more interesting that a dead, minor film star.
“Well, John, I didn’t believe it until I saw the photos and then I thought, shit... this is real, it’s not just a story. I mean none of this was hinted at in any of the biographies or underground magazines, so that made me wonder, because you’d expect to have heard something about it somewhere along the way. It’s a bit like finding out tomorrow that there’s a fully mastered and unreleased Beatles or Stones album of songs that no-one’s ever heard of... a bit unlikely. But, like I say, I loved the girl’s work, as well as how she looked, and just had to know more. So I told this guy that I’d deliver the copy of the ‘work-print’ to him and he could give me these photos but only if the guy who had the film was there... because he said he’d give me an introduction and I assumed that the film and the photographs probably came from the same source, and the guy who had the film – if he had it and if it was her – was the best bet to learn more!”
Savage was sitting forward on the couch, eager to hear the rest of the strange story as Lennie still played about with the camera.
“Did the guy arrange the meeting?” Savage asked.
Chance nodded.
“So...?”
“So... about a week later the guy just turns up on my door, says he’ll drive me to this little village in South Yorkshire and we can meet his friend because he wants to see the work-print as well, and if I can’t go today then it’ll be too late as the guy’s sold his house and was moving to Australia or New Zealand or somewhere, anyway... I’m just about to go and buy this old Aston Martin to sell on to a client, but I drop what I’m doing and off we pop. End up in this little village, God knows where it was, and meet this old geezer who’s got this 16mm projector set up, ready to go. So we have a couple of drinks, talking about Dianna and this guy, both of them, are itching to see the work-print with the scenes that didn’t make the final cut and with a different running order, you know, a couple of alternate takes. But this guy won’t say how he got the sex film of Dianna... and the house is pleasant but modest, and I begin to think it’s either a fake or this guy stole it or something. The first guy gives me the photos, and I check them – they’re all there and so I lace up the work-print of ‘Black November’ and we sit and watch it for the next 80 minutes. By the time it’s done, we’re all blown away – because she is so amazing in it – and this guy says he wants to run this sex film for us... because he’s going away and we shared something new for him and he wants to do the same. So, I’m buzzed... the guy warns us that some of the stuff in the film is hard to watch but she is amazing in it. He won’t tell us how he got it, but there are four reels of fifteen minute, 16mm colour & sound film and it’s an extreme S&M thing but with incredible production values – like ‘Black November’ ...then he says that he’ll run the whole thing for us but he can’t watch the last reel himself because it just messes him up.. it’s beyond his ability to handle – remember this guy’s no spring chicken. So the man runs it...”
Chance paused for a drink and Savage leaned over, ignoring Lennie filming them.
“Larry, what was in the first reel – what?”
“Sets up the story... she’s an initiate into a New Religion and has to surrender herself to ‘the other side’, to abandon herself and shed the restrictions of her physical shell, sacrifice her body - offer her spirit and soul to a demon basically.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, it was like a clever version of Kenneth Anger shot by Greg Tolland and directed by early Orson Welles – all the nudity and sex in the first reel was total high art style, graphic but arty... there wasn’t too much to get warped about if you’ve watched a lot of German porn before. But the important thing was that... if it wasn’t Dianna, then she had an identical twin!”
“Then it was real?”
Chance nodded his affirmation as he watched Lennie filming them.
“Lennie, I usually prefer being behind the lens!”
Savage paid his friend no attention, keen to hear more of this bizarre story.
“Did you watch the next three reels?”
“Yeah... heavy, wild, extreme, frightening but also kind of brilliant – for a hardcore S&M thing.”
“And...?”
“She does everything that can be imagined, does it with style and beauty, but does it all at the behest of this weird hooded figure that’s her Guide. She debases herself, publicly exposes her personal hygiene habits, to put it politely, while these Acolytes surround her, is used by them all, multiple partners in every orifice, animals, a wide variety of objects, becomes a human receptacle, is beaten, whipped, does some truly gross things I never imagined outside of special effects and by the end of the third reel her Guide demands she pass the final test and be tortured to free herself from the morals of the civilised world. The final reel is just... in literal terms, it’s unbelievable. The guy who drove me, left the room five minutes before the end of the third reel – I think he was sick. The old guy puts on the last reel and I’m left alone thinking I now have no doubt it’s her and this is a very weird scene altogether. It’s one of the most memorable experiences of my life... because it was unique – thrilling, exciting, arousing and, at the same time, the most repellent thing I have ever been exposed to.”
John Savage’s eyes were sparkling with a strange fire as he listened to Chance’s story. This time he didn’t have to say anything – he just leaned forward and opened his hands, palms up.
“Well, John, if you’re as big a fan as I think... then you won’t enjoy this, because there’s a gross irony to it – a frightening irony, actually. Dianna’s tortured throughout the last reel, seriously sick stuff... and in some ways her greatest performance. Unlike the previous reels – none of the Acolytes are present. The Guide puts her on this metal chair and ties her down before he starts to... decimate her. I felt sick watching it but kept telling myself it wasn’t real, even though part of me knew that some of it clearly was. All these needles are stuck into her, burning steel on her flesh, bizarre instruments put into her and there’s blood everywhere, sexual torture that seemed to be unending until finally she’s a mess - except for these intense, burning eyes that... well, anyway it all leads to this final sacrifice where the guy disrobes, except for the hood, and his organ is like a vessel of all these tiny, sharp spikes and he enters her and this is the point she surrenders to the ‘other side’... the demon thing – screaming as this Guide is fucking away inside her before ‘the transformation’. Now this was the ironic thing, and it was so real I wondered if it was -- to be honest, if I didn’t see the stills showing the make-up test shots, I would have sworn that I witnessed her being murdered. As the Guide is about to impregnate her with the ‘Demon Seed’ and she’s just hanging onto life, gushing blood as he keeps grinding into her ...screaming like a banshee, he takes a razor and slowly slits her throat wide open – there’s the sound of her climaxing and the Guide orgasms into her and then her eyes go a blinding yellow as her blood goes everywhere... even covering the lens and running down it. There’s the sound of thunder and... That’s it – fade to black, ‘The end’ comes up on screen and it flashes a brief moment of ‘Dianna Devalle’ – ‘The Transformation’! as the last bit of film slips through the gate.”
Savage fell back on the sofa. and emitted a huge gasp.
Chance nodded. “Yeah, a lot more intense when you watch it – I still feel the irony of it... you know the fact she actually slit her own throat in real life... maybe the whole thing unhinged her and she used the film as her inspiration for a method of suicide. I don’t know, but apart from how hard it was to watch, it was still an incredible piece of work and she was clearly either a magnificent actress of world class proportions or was really into all that torture and ‘demon’ stuff.”
Savage sat back up and leaned forward again.
“Do you still have the photographs?”
“Yeah, of course, it’s one of the treasures of my collection – especially because of the stuff shot on set and the makeup tests and a couple of candids, as well as the stills taken during the shoot.. oh, and the kind of Promo shot of her sitting on the torture chair... and a funny one of the same scene but her smoking a cigarette with her eyes crossed. Yeah, of course I kept them... there’s only one thing more valuable in my entire collection!”
Savage’s eyes blazed and he stiffened.
“Do you mean...?”
Chance didn’t grin but gave a nod before he told the final part of the bizarre tale that Lennie Mann had no interest in.
“After it was all done, the guy who drove me down and the old geezer came back in. I was speechless at this point and could literally only shake my head as I watched him reverently remove the film and put the entire four reels back into this black box with the photo of her and the title on it... and there was something torn from the base of it, I remember noticing that. The guy was about to put it away when I asked him if he’d consider selling it, since he wouldn’t say where he got this from, because it was undoubtedly Dianna and a unique piece of footage. He shook his head and said it cost him everything, whatever that was supposed to mean, and I assumed he meant that it had been serious money he’d had to pay and that maybe he didn’t steal it after all. I offered him five hundred quid on the spot and he just shook his head. Then I say, ‘I’ll give you five hundred pounds just to let me make a duplicate of it’, and I can see he’s thinking about that. So, he asks me how long it’ll take, and I say, ‘a couple of days’ and he shakes his head because he has to leave in a couple of days. I’m racking my brains and trying to think how I can get him to let me copy this and wonder if I can get back to Manchester, get my friend to open his Film lab for me, work all night and get it back for the next afternoon, when I remember the cash in my jacket... the cash for the car I was going to pick up. I pull the envelope out and grab £750, hold it out to him and say, sell me it, cash in hand, but he just shakes his head... the thing is, though, he’s no longer heading out the door to put it away. So I up the price to a thousand and now he’s thinking about it, there’s only twelve hundred pounds in the envelope and so I take it all out and offer him the lot. The guy who brought me up is standing there with his mouth open, he can’t believe what I’m doing and he says ‘take it’. The old geezer pauses for a minute and then hands me the black box. No Aston Martin for me, but I got one of only five copies of ‘The Transformation’... and that is the pride of by Dianna Devalle collection!”
Savage was totally silent now, clearly thinking about something.
“If it’s Dianna Devalle, I’ll buy the film from you for three grand!”
“John,” Mann shouted, “have you lost your mind?”
Larry Chance firmly shook his head.
“No. I will never sell this film to anyone, I’ve never even shown it to anyone out of respect for her memory”
“Five grand!” Savage offered.
Lennie Mann almost dropped the camera, and then his mouth dropped open as he heard Chance reject the offer.
“Jeezus, you two are insane! It’s a film about some dead, cult figure... what’s going on in your minds?”
“Five grand for a duplicate of the film, Larry?”
This time Lennie Man couldn’t speak.
“John, I’m sorry but I will never allow this to be duplicated or sold – not for any price!”
Savage nodded and the disappointment was evident.
Chance tilted his head and offered his only compromise.
“Tell you what, John, I’ve never met another Dianna fan who cares as much as me – until now. Come down to Manchester and I’ll run the film for you... that’s the best offer I’ll make because I’ve never even shown it to Warren or to anyone... it was made to be private and I’ve tried to honour that wish!”
Savage looked up with a grateful smile.
“Thanks, Larry... that’d be.. fabulous. Thank you. What day this week are you free?”
Larry smiled with some admiration. “Come back down with me tomorrow, if you want!”
Lennie shook his head. “John, we’ve got a meeting, first thing Monday morning! Setting up that transportation issue?”
“Not now we don’t – you can handle it, Lennie.. if I’m back in time, I’ll be there. Come on, I’d do the same for you. I’m a big fan of Dianna Devalle – I might never have a chance like this again!”
Lennie laughed and pointed at the two of them as he shook his head.
“Fine, Sav, fine... remember you owe me one. You two are gonna get along real well – real well!”
The other two men laughed and nodded to one another.
Chance finished his drink and stood up.
“Right, that’s me for bed, gentlemen. Did you say room 213, Lennie?” he asked.
Mann nodded in agreement. “Key’s at the front desk – anything you need, Larry?”
“No, there’s always a little kit bag in the car in case I get lucky or jammed, It’s got all I need. So, we meet for lunch?”
“Cool!” Mann responded.
“Look forward to it, Larry!” Savage concurred.
“Good night, then!”
And with that, Larry Chance left the room leaving Lennie to stand shaking his head at Savage.
“Man, how could you fall for that pitch? Five grand? Five grand? Have you lost your mind?”
Savage laughed a little, but only a little.
“That was no pitch, and I’m damn sure that film’s real. I can’t tell you how much I want to see it, Lennie – I really can’t!”
“Man, I used to be a big Stones fan... but I wouldn’t pay five grand to be Mick Jagger, much less watch him on film!”
They laughed at the thought of Lennie as Jagger... it might have been a good move for the Stones,
“So, Lennie – are we going into the film business?”
“Yeah, but you’re not making any cash deals until you clear your head of this Dianna Devalle thing, Sav! Although I’d sure like to see some of the tapes we watched tonight with some babe like Cindy in it!”
Savage laughed as he got up, slipped his jacket on and walked to the door.
“Doubtful, she’s starting to get some real high end photographic work – the last thing she’s going to do is peel off for two cardboard cops to play ‘hide the truncheon’! Now that Mara chick... someone like her might be a different story!”
“You’re kidding, John. Right?”
“Not necessarily!”
Lennie looked back suspiciously until Savage laughed as he opened the door.
“Lunch, today, Lennie – that’s when we start making plans! And well done, finding Chance – I think the future’s looking fine. Catch you later!”
“Later, man!” Lennie replied to Savage as he went out the door, pausing as he heard Ruth’s voice.
Ruth looked much more adult than she was in reality, her body was very womanly, appealing and maturely proportioned with no obvious defects, she didn’t have to rely on her many other talents to engage people generally. With long auburn hair and tiny eyebrows that made her eyes appear even larger than nature dictated, their natural sparkle barely revealed the raging fire that was always burning within her. With a slightly rounded, pleasing face, all her facial features had the illusion of presenting a much more mature disposition than reality should have demanded.
With a quick goodnight kiss to Savage she came in the door, loaded and looking hot in a flaming red dress that revealed more than it hid. Before she could say a word, Lennie held the camera up to his eyes and chuckled as he focused in on her.
“Ruthie, baby... how’d you like to be in films?”

PREVIEW SECTION FROM REVOLVER