Porn King

by John C. Holmes

  None of the stolen money was earmarked for Nash. Part of it went for heroin; the rest went to pay off another powerful drug source. I’ll call him Sam. The Wonderland people were into Sam for $125,000, and he wanted his money back. Hardly a day went by that Sam wasn’t on the phone to Billy or Ronny demanding to be paid in full. There were loud, screaming arguments followed by quick, desperate departures into the streets for money. One call ended with Sam demanding that they come up with the cash within a week. If they failed to deliver, he threatened to knock over the Wonderland house. Sam always made good on his threats.

  As the due date drew nearer, Billy and Ronny, especially, became more frantic than ever. Raising the enormous sum of cash that they needed through their daily heists was impossible, which left them not only clawing at the walls, but at each other. There was only one way that they could make Sam’s deadline, they figured, and that was by getting their guns and jewelry back from Nash and fencing the goods for an astronomical amount. They became obsessed with the thought.

  “There’s only one hitch,” I told them. “Nash won’t part with anything until you repay the thousand dollars he loaned you.”

  Billy and Ronny weren’t the least bit concerned about the money. They wanted only to get their hands on the merchandise.

  I listened but said nothing to Nash, not until the Wonderland men started making threats of their own. “Tell your connection that we want our stuff back or there’s going to be trouble,” they said. “Let him know we’ll pay up after the sale is made.” They were feeding me a line of crap, but I wasn’t about to argue with them, not with “Killer David Lind” breathing down my neck. Nash would never see his money. Sam would get it. Or they’d shoot it on drugs.

  Nash took the message from Wonderland in stride. “Those assholes don’t scare me,” he said with a smirk. “They don’t even know how to find me—and you’re not going to tell them, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Good—then stay calm and stop worrying.”

  That night, Billy, Ronny and David Lind devised a plan to get their merchandise back—by ripping off Nash’s house—and I was to help them gain entry. The idea was for me to get Nash to open his front door while they hid in the bushes. Once the door was open, they’d rush him and storm inside.

  The plan was CRAZY—and full of holes. For one thing, Nash rarely opened his own door. For another, no one answered the door without a gun in his hand. Even if they were able to get inside, they’d run headon into Nash’s bodyguards, including his main man, a 300-pound black sludge named Diles.

  “It won’t work,” I said, emphatically. “There will be a bloody shootout. You’ll never get out alive.”

  “We’ll make it!” David Lind growled, flexing his muscles.

  “Don’t count on it,” I said, sharply. “The guy lives on a cul-de-sac. The police will be there in thirty seconds. Even if you do get out, you’ll be trapped. The only way to make it work is to sneak in, and catch everybody by surprise.”

  “Then figure out a way,” Billy said, anxiously. “Just get us into that goddamn house!”

  “Yeah, you get us in,” David Lind snapped, “or we’ll blow your fucking head off!” He sounded desperate enough to do just that.

  “Okay, calm down,” I replied. “I’ll see what I can work out.”

  I had no intention of doing anything. I’d already done enough to help them. Too much!

  Thank God Nash was on my side. “The Wonderland people are getting way out of hand,” I told him. “They want to come here and hold you up. Their serious and they are packing heavy and pissed off.”

  The little Arab was on a freebase jag and hadn’t slept in ten days. “That’s your problem,” he hissed, half out of his mind.

  “They’re coming to get their goods,” I shot back, “and they’ll do anything to get them.”

  Nash’s face reddened. “Get the hell out of my life! The guns are mine now. The jewelry’s mine. Fuck off!” He started to lunge for me but I backed away, and then made for the door. It was no use arguing with him in his present state.

  I couldn’t let the matter drop. Somehow, I had to make Nash listen to me. There had to be a way out to avoid the bloodbath that was set to take place.

  I returned to Nash’s house twice more that day in the late afternoon to warn him once again (if anything, he was even less receptive), then in the evening to try a different approach. “If the Wonderland people can’t pay you,” I said, “I’ll raise the money. Let me pay off their debt.”

  “Sure….fine,” Nash snickered, “but you waited too long.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The agreement was for one week. Now the price has doubled.”

  “How am I going to come up with that much cash, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Wait another week and the price will be three thousand.”

  “Damn it, we’re running out of time! Give me the guns now and there won’t be any trouble. I’ll see that you get paid.”

  Nash started to curl up on the couch, and then changed his mind. Calling to one of his bodyguards, he announced, “Close up and lock everybody out. I’m going to bed.” Turning on his shiny, black elevated heels, he disappeared in the direction of his bedroom. The little bastard! Over the past year I’d given him over a half a million dollars. He’d taken everything I’d ever owned. He owed me, and yet he wouldn’t trust me for a lousy grand or two.

  “Waiting for something?” a voice asked from behind me. It belonged to Nash’s top gun, Diles.

  “I have to hit the head,” I told him, “then I’m out of here.” He shrugged and stood his ground to await my return.

  The guest bathroom was at the far end of a long, dimly lit hallway. While I was in that end of the house I passed a dark, unused bedroom. I went inside and unlocked the sliding glass door that opened directly onto an outside patio.

  “This is the gate,” I said, retracing the lines on a hastily drawn diagram with my finger. “Jump over it—don’t open it—and take the path that leads around to the back of the house. And here…”—I choked momentarily on the words; my throat and lips suddenly bone dry—“…is the door to the back bedroom. Just slide it open and go inside.”

  My head throbbed. My body trembled with fear. No longer was I the gofer, running goods and messages between battlefields. I had willingly, spitefully, become an integral part of the plan. The floor felt like quicksand. With each move I could feel myself sinking deeper and deeper.

  “Where’s our stuff? Where’s he stashing it?” Billy wanted to know. His words were slurred. He looked a mess.

  “How the fuck do I know?” I answered, testily. “You wanted me to find a way to get you inside—and I did. Want me to go over it again?”

  I looked into the faces of Billy, Ronny, David Lind and a young man they called Apache Kid, who’d been brought in as their driver. Apache Kid owed Wonderland a great deal of money; he had been told that he could pay off his debt, and make a few bucks as well, if he’d come in on the Nash job. The four men were staring blankly, as if I’d just spoken to them in some foreign tongue.

  “Two things,” I said quickly. “Remember to break the glass and rip the screen on the sliding door to make it look like you broke in. I don’t want to be tied into this. And no rough stuff. No one gets hurt. Understand?”

  Did I really believe that these people had heard a word I’d said? Or that they’d try to avoid a shootout? They were addicts, desperate and violent. Any one of them would have killed his own mother if she had gold in her teeth. The fact is, I wanted to believe that they could pull it off without any problems. In my own mixed-up mind, my future was at stake. The success of this job would be my ticket out. Once it was over, I’d never get involved again. Or so I kept telling myself.

  “Something’s wrong,” Barbara said in a low voice. “Why are they taking so long?”

  “Quit bitching,” Joy moaned. “I’m sick enough without listening to you.” She made a move for the televisi
on remote, and then pulled back. She didn’t have the strength; she’d been throwing up all morning.

  It was nearly 9:30 A.M.; the men had left for Nash’s shortly after 8:00. Barbara had reason to be concerned. If things had gone smoothly, they should have been back before 9:00.

  A half hour later, we heard the sound of screeching tires outside as a car roared to a stop. “We did it! We did it!” Ronny hollered as the men raced through the front door and upstairs into one of the bedrooms. They each carried huge plastic bags filled to overflowing.

  By the time Joy, Barbara, and I joined them; the bags had been emptied on the bed. It looked like they’d cleaned Nash out. There were bundles of money, pouches of cocaine and heroin, bags of jewelry and precious gems, wristwatches, cameras, and the guns. Over a quarter of a million dollars in cash and loot!

  “Did you cut the screen and break the glass?” I asked uneasily.

  Ronny, David Lind and Apache Kid were too busy congratulating themselves to answer. Billy was on the phone calling every drug dealer in town. “We just knocked over that little Arab fart,” he shouted, “tied him up and told him he was maggot meat unless he handed everything over to us. You should have heard him whimper. He begged us not to hurt him.”

  What the hell was going on? “Ronny, the sliding glass door!” I repeated. “Did you break it?”

  Ronny ignored me. He was tuned into Billy, listening to the sordid retelling of the past few hours, and he was cracking up with laughter.

  “Yeah, the little squirt got down on his knees and begged us;” Billy went on. “We should have shot him instead of that tub of black shit…sure; we shot Diles—left him in a heap on the floor!”

  Jesus Christ!

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The worst had happened, the absolute worst thing possible, and Billy was letting the world in on it (Nowhere does news travel faster than in the drug world). He might as well have called in the reporters. I felt sick.

  The story was told and retold, each time with more bizarre embellishments, before Joy finally yanked the phone out of Billy’s hand. It wasn’t his uncontrolled yapping that had her at his throat; she was used to that. Rather, she was desperate for her split of the drugs. The loot, all of it, was to be divided into unequal shares, the bulk going to the original members: Billy, Ronny and Joy. No mention was made of Sam or the $125,000 they owed him. Screw Sam! Screw Nash! Screw the world!

  While the haul was being divided up, the room was chaotic. Everyone was shooting drugs and scurrying around, yanking clothes from the drawers and hangers, and wildly stuffing them into open suitcases. Billy and Ronny made calls to the airlines in a frantic attempt to arrange outof-town flights for the following morning (they were so stoned, and totally disorganized, that leaving that day never came up). Billy and Joy were heading for Hawaii; Ronny and Susan were going back to Sacramento. David Lind and Barbara were already halfway out the door to some unknown address in Pasadena.

  I was going nowhere fast, and the thought had me in a cold sweat. The heist had turned into a monumental fuck-up. It didn’t take a lot of brains to know that my ass was in the wringer. NO, my life was on the line. Nash had to know of my involvement. And after the stupid phone calls, it wouldn’t take Sam long to make the tie-in.

  I had to get away too; if not out of the city, then away from Wonderland.

  8

  Dawn and I had been involved in a lengthy, torrid relationship during the late 1970s. The hot times were over, at least for me, but we’d remained friends. I’d started calling Dawn, as well as other old girlfriends, shortly after I became a fixture at Wonderland, especially at night when the house rocked with strangers and blaring music. Time alone, or with no more than one other person, has always been important to me. I’d screwed up my life, but I still cherished moments of peace and privacy now and then. The calls had resulted in invitations to come over, and I’d stay for a night or two. Perhaps these ladies expected more from me than I could deliver; if not the old flame, then certainly a pilot light. Since I’d buried myself in drugs, no one could get a rise out of me. Dawn didn’t mind. That is, she didn’t complain and she made no demands. Her only request was that I come to her whenever I grew restless at Wonderland. The door to her apartment in West Los Angeles was always open to me; she made no secret of that. She seemed content just to have me back, hanging around, sharing her bed. Her craving for sex was relentless. Had I been into bondage, she would have made the perfect slave; she gave so completely of herself. Nothing pleased Dawn more than pleasing her partner. No matter what! No matter who!

  After fleeing the Wonderland house, I turned in desperation to Dawn. She was staying with her girlfriend in a small apartment. I picked her up there and without a word of explanation, and no questions asked, we checked into a motel on Wilshire Boulevard near Santa Monica as Mr. and Mrs. Black. The accommodations weren’t much, a hole-in-the-wall room and bath furnished in 1940s California “modern,” but neither were the rates. Aside from that, the location was good. Across the street was a supermarket, open all night. Less than a mile away, on the other side of the Veteran’s Administration property, was the San Diego freeway and a fast exit out of town, if necessary.

  The motel was a change of scenery and little else. I could not escape the sound of Nash’s voice or the penetrating stare of his eyes. He was with me constantly. Was I to disappear for the rest of my life, with images of Nash haunting me, or try to clear my conscience? Suddenly, I felt compelled to talk with Nash, to let him know that in spite of what happened, I tried to keep him from getting hurt. Above all, I didn’t want him blaming me—or coming after me! In the past, whenever Nash had problems with anyone, he’d ask me to “grab a piece” and come help him save his life. Now, there was no mention of trouble. “Everything’s fine,” he said, lightly. “Come on up.”

  Everything’s fine? After he’d been tied, beaten and robbed? I knew he was putting on a face. I knew he was aware of my involvement, yet he said nothing. For five minutes, we played word games over the phone. He’d invite me to “come on up” and I’d be noncommittal. Finally, he insisted. I couldn’t refuse, nor did I want to. If I were to save my life, I had to plead my case.

  Nash met me at his front door, not with a greeting, but with the butt end of a .357 across my face, splitting open my lower lip. Blood oozed down the front of my shirt, and Nash smiled.

  His look was chilling and evil.

  I stood in Nash’s doorway, momentarily reeling. The blow caught me by surprise, but I didn’t lose my senses. “You said you’d back me up and you didn’t,” I lashed out. “I tried to warn you three times. Three times! People were going to be killed, and I didn’t want that. I had to do something!”

  Nash waved the pistol in my face. As I backed away, two of his bodyguards grabbed me. Greg Diles appeared from nowhere, looking fit as ever. He taped my wrists behind me. I was dragged into the living room, dropped into a chair, and held at gun point.

  “Don’t bother to explain, you asshole,” Nash hissed. “Those fucking friends of yours told me everything.”

  “They’re not my friends. They’re scum!”

  “Scum like you! You set me up!”

  “I didn’t want…”

  “Shut up!” He shrieked, flapping his arms wildly. Suddenly, he dropped to his knees, cowering as he looked up at me. His eyes overflowed with tears and great gobs of saliva dangled from his open mouth. He cried uncontrollably for several moments before turning savage again. Leaping to his feet he began pacing like a panther in a cage waiting for the meat to be tossed in. At one point, he hurled a large cut crystal bull, worth many thousands of dollars, in my direction, smashing at my feet. I’d been around my stepfather when he had his raging fits. I’d seen heroin junkies at their worst—swinging in behavior from supreme arrogance to sniveling low-life without warning. But I had never seen anything like this. He stood before me, so close that I could feel his foul breath beating against my face. “Did you know your friends were shooting
up while they were here?” His voice was low now, barely audible, as he growled out the words. “Did you know they were shooting my stuff, taking turns going into the back bedroom…the room with the unlocked glass door?” “The door?” I repeated, unconvincingly.

  “Don’t give me that shit!” he blared, storming about the room again. “I know what you did. Your friends told me everything!”

  “Nothing would have happened if you’d kept your word,” I pleaded. “Did you know they forced me to the floor and made me beg for my life…?”

  “I saved your fucking life!”

  “…and how they shot at Diles? The pricks would have killed him if they hadn’t been so wired.” Nash stopped in his tracks and raised his arm in Greg Diles’ direction. “Show him, show him!” He barked at the big black man. “Show this turd where they hit you.”

  Diles kept the gun trained on me while he lifted his shirt with his free hand. I saw no sign of a wound, only traces of powder burns along one side just above his waist.

  “I thought he was dead!” Nash screeched. “They tried to murder him. They humiliated me. They ripped me off!”

  “I brought some of the stuff back,” I said. “My split to prove to you that…”

  “What? Where?” he said quickly, cutting me off.

  “Outside…in my car.”

  Diles tore the tape from my wrists and shoved me out onto the driveway. As I climbed into the car to retrieve Nash’s goods, I noticed his small hand reach for something in the front seat. It was my address book, containing the names of every person I knew in the whole world: friends, relatives, business acquaintances. “That’s mine,” I said.

  “Nothing is yours anymore,” Nash answered.

  Diles led me back into the house, and for the next eighteen hours I sat with a gun pointed to my face. From one of the other rooms, I could hear Nash on the phone. He was making call after call in French, Arabic, English—he spoke six or seven languages—to girlfriends, customers, and business associates, telling that he was holding John Holmes captive (and why), and inviting them to “come on up” to see his latest prize. What was it with these people, I wondered, that they had to spout off like giddy teenagers after a hot date? Why couldn’t they keep their mouths shut?