I left them to it and killed what was left of the day in a bar on the promenade. Around seven I used the card Rex had left me and made a call.
Chapter Eleven
Bel Air Escorts was a telephone service with the end of the line in a Wilshire district apartment. Nice area—wide road with no loiterers, wide balconies, plenty of glass. Hardly Bel Air, but clean and quiet and anonymous—fine for a business that dealt in take-out sex.
My intercom buzz was answered immediately—they were expecting me. Up fifteen floors in a mirrored elevator that smelled of pine disinfectant. Deep-blue carpeting along the hall. No people, no sound. Faceless and sanitized, like the passage-ways of a hotel. I pressed a white button next to the door and waited.
A lean, bald guy in leather trousers and a black vest opened up. He had the air of a favored slave, proud and dedicated, but kind of reined in. We walked down a hall of closed doors to a room that had probably been a bedroom but was now converted to an info-teched office. Minimalist decor—gray slate floor, white walls, a big carbon fiber desk across one corner, a spray of black twigs in a smoked-glass vase. The windows were opaque, tinted slightly orange by streetlight from the road below.
There were two people in the room: a sleek Latin guy about forty tapping away on a laptop behind the desk, and a girl with perfect blond hair and an even better body sitting on a black leather couch placed midway between two of the window panels. She wore a tight red lycra minidress and held herself with confidence. Thousand bucks a night, for sure.
The Latin exited from his screen and slid his eyes over me.
“You know Rex?”
He had a rough voice, like his throat had been damaged in some youthful Central American skirmish. And I didn’t like his eye contact either—too direct, too long. No one asked me to sit down, so I stood in front of the desk feeling uncomfortable.
“Er, yeah. Rex said he thought I’d be okay at this kind of work.”
“And what kind of work would that be?”
“The kind Rex does.”
“Be more precise.”
“Well, hustling, I suppose. Going around to people’s places for sex.”
“Oh, no.” The Latin shook his head sadly. “Oh, no. That is not what Rex does at all. Hustling—”
“Rex fucks people for money. He said I should get in touch with you.”
“Do not interrupt me. I am making a point. This is an operation with class, there is no room for the hustling mentality. My clients pay a lot of money and they expect something more than ten minutes in the back of a car. I am not in the business of selling what can be found on any street corner.”
“Okay.”
“Understand also that sex is sometimes only part of what you will be paid for. Some clients wish to be accompanied to dinner or to a party first. You must be discreet and pleasant, even if they are old or unattractive. Can you do this?”
“I can do anything you want.”
He nodded to the girl on the couch. She stood up and moved close.
“Good. Indulge me.”
“How do you mean?”
“Grace.”
The girl took the hem of her dress and peeled it up over her head. She was naked underneath, tanned without break from head to toe, pussy hair shaved into a tight wedge.
“You’ve taken me a little bit by surprise. I’m, er, not exactly sure—”
“If you can’t do it here, how can I trust you to perform in the bedroom of a rich woman whose looks are nowhere near as … perfected as Grace’s?”
This wasn’t the same as the night with Rex. This was cold and demanding and hadn’t had time to grow into shape. And my blood was relatively free of liquor and drugs. The potential for humiliation was high, but I had no choice. I needed money. And more than that, I’d committed, up at the Hollywood Bowl overlook, to a certain kind of life, and this was one of the ways it was lived. If I backed away now I’d be forced to reevaluate myself, and I had nowhere left to reevaluate to.
Grace came close, she smelled of something dark and expensive. She smiled a small kind of smile that didn’t help much.
When she pulled my jeans down the air in the room felt unpleasantly cool on my balls. I pressed against her, seeking heat. Hard back under my hands, firm ass, breasts against my chest. If I could jerk off in front of Ryan, I had to be able to do this.
I blanked out the Latin and the bald guy and pushed my face into her hair. When I touched her she was wet. She made a small sound of pleasure. It sounded so genuine, so wanting, that the primal fuck—urge overrode my worrying brain and pumped my cock full of blood.
She put a condom on me with her mouth and we fucked standing up, me behind and her bent forward, hands braced against the edge of the Latin’s desk. He watched me carefully over her shoulders, but not like it was giving him a kick.
When it was over the bald guy gave us both a small towel. Grace wiped herself, pulled her dress back on and took her place on the couch. She didn’t light a cigarette and she didn’t fix her makeup. She just sat there, letting her eyes drift around the room.
“How fast do you recover?”
“You want me to do it again?”
The Latin smiled, slightly.
“I have a job for you. Tonight. A nice job. Big house, good money, not too bad looking. Start you off easy.”
The clearance guys had done their work well, the apartment was gutted. They’d left the phone and the light bulbs, but that was about all and I had a momentary pang when I realized I’d forgotten to tell them to leave the TV—a friend in the corner would have been nice while I got ready.
The Latin’s gig was a deep night number—dick on call to chill some woman when she got home from a premiere or charity function or a Hills party where absolutely everyone was there, darling. Or whatever. That meant I had some hours to kill—time to take a stab at tracking Joey down. I showered and changed, then started on bloodstream preparation.
I still had some of the three hundred I’d earned with Rex, plus the cash from the contents of the apartment, and as it looked like I’d be getting more tonight, I decided to blow a little of it down at the beach front.
I could have had coke, but I went for sulfate instead—bathtub amphetamine. Quarter the price and a lot less fun, but it had its advantages. Half a gram would wire you all night and make you horny as hell. It also gave you a stressed-out edge that communicated itself to people, made it harder for them to be certain of your reactions. Just right to fritz Joey if I found him.
Back at the apartment—a couple of lines, two Southerns, and a Bud took me close to the terminal velocity of mood necessary to make it out into the city and do the things I’d set for myself. A minute of air punching to limber up in case Joey got difficult. Almost there, almost there … Something missing … Yes, a cigarette! Stick one in and fire it up. Check eyes in the mirror—yep, pupils at maximum dilation, skin tight, jaws clenching … Ready to energize.
Into the Prelude. Driving felt like fun, but all the other cars were going so goddamn slow. I tailgated along Lincoln. Everything was crystal, like the air had been sucked out of the spaces between things, like that awful, beautiful clarity you get in pictures taken from the space shuttle.
Litany in my head; take it easy, take it easy, watch that car ahead, that other guy’s making a right, tap brakes, indicate, smooth swoop around, straighten up, take it easy, next guy ahead, pass the sucker, no competition, nothing touches this Jap technology. Switch lanes, switch lanes again, perfect highway positioning. At one with the car—a Zen state inside a machine from a polluted Zen race.
Pico Boulevard, a tertiary road, narrow but pretty straight and not too busy. Fine for dawdling along, looking for a place I’d never been. Four blocks past chunky Santa Monica College, on the corner of Clover Field Boulevard, I found Bar Ramses. Like Jimmy said, bullshit Egyptian—plaster Pharaohs on either side of the door, floor to ceiling windows in the shape of ankhs, hieroglyphics over everything.
I parked in the
lot out back—not much light, plenty of trash—and did another line. By the time I got out of the car I was grinding my teeth and the booze in the bar had as much pull as the possibility of finding Joey.
Inside. Not what the flashy front suggested, just a neighborhood bar. Booths, wall alcoves, a couple of pool tables in the rear, a scratched-up open space where the clientele danced sometimes perhaps. A lot of tobacco smoke and very little mineral water.
Scanning didn’t do any good, so I chilled at the bar with shots of vodka until I’d had enough contact with the barman to feel comfortable asking about Joey.
It went easier than I’d thought it would—no movie-style shifty eyes or sudden tightening of the mouth, no dive under the counter for a gun. Just: “Joey? Yeah, he’s around. Try back there by the pool tables. Middle booth.” Bit of a letdown, really. I’d been all set to faze him with something neat about old buddies or wanting to pay back a loan.
Joey was sitting by himself. He had a bottle of beer and a contact mag in front of him. Steve’s description was accurate, the edge of his left ear was rimmed with nickel-sized silver hoops and the bottom of his face ended in a triangle of dark hair. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and he was short and scrawny, a lot smaller than me. Things looked good.
He jerked when I sat down opposite him.
“This is private, fuck off.”
“Hi, Joey. How ya doin’?” Big smile.
“Do I know you?”
“No, but we’re connected.”
“I don’t know you, but we’re connected? The fuck’s this, a game show?”
“I want to ask you something.”
“I don’t do handouts. Fuck off.”
“Steve gave me your name.”
“Who?”
“English Steve, long black hair. Hangs out with Jimmy.”
“Never heard of him.”
“I don’t want to be indelicate about this, Joey, but you used to buy from him. All I want is some information, it’s important to me.”
“I could give a fuck.”
Being reasonable obviously wasn’t going to get me very far. Time to push a little harder and hope my balls held up.
“Could you give a fuck about telling the IRS how you financed this place? Or the police maybe?”
“I could give a fuck about calling some friends over.”
Joey jutted his chin at a group of men playing pool.
“Remember the story you told Steve?”
“I told you, I don’t know Steve.”
“Don’t be a prick. I can freeze you with a word.”
“Yeah?”
“Kidneys.”
Joey stepped his attitude down just a notch.
“What about kidneys?”
“Removal. Selling. Don’t act stupid, I haven’t done this sort of thing before. I might flip out at any moment and get all amateur and violent. Tell me how to connect and I’ll walk out of here. That’s the last you’ll hear of it.”
“I can’t tell what I don’t know.”
Enough was enough. I leaned across the table, took hold of his Hawaiian lapels, and pulled. The material made a nice ripping sound and buttons flew out of the booth. I ran my hand down the skin of his chest, down the left side of his guts, down to the scar that ridged his pasty white skin.
“Hey, fuck off, man!”
He started to push himself upright, ready to make an unwelcome scene. I didn’t have much choice, I hit him hard enough to make his mouth bleed.
Hitting someone was new to me, but it meshed perfectly with the way things had been going since Karen’s death. I’d seen the situation a million times on TV so I knew it was the right thing to do—I didn’t feel bad about it at all. I guess I was growing as a person.
A quick glance at the bar, no one seemed to be paying much attention. But Joey looked like he might be thinking about yelling, so I talked fast.
“This kidney thing connects to a murder, and if I don’t get what I want you’re going to find yourself involved. I got one super-fuck cop on my ass about it and he’d just love to get a taste of you. You want to lose your liquor license? Man, it’d be gone the day he came to see you. Now sit down and we’ll talk about that scar on your belly.”
The mention of cops took the wind out of Joey. He wiped blood off his lips and dropped back into his seat.
“I don’t know nothing about a murder.”
“I asked about kidneys.”
“So I sold one of them. Big fucking deal. The bread was too good to pass up.”
“More.”
“Like what?”
“Like, Joey, where you went to do it, who did it, how I find them. That sort of thing.”
“That’s going to be difficult.”
“You got a phone in here? Maybe we need someone who’s better at asking questions.”
“Fuck, man, I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know any names or places.”
“Tell me how it fucking went down, then.”
“Jesus, okay …” Joey raised his hands like he was placating an aggressive retard. “Fuck … A while back I wasn’t setup like I am now. You know the drag?”
“Yeah.”
“I used to hustle down there. I ain’t proud of it, but I didn’t have a place to live, no family to go to, I was hungry most of the time—”
“I don’t give a shit if your dog just died. Get on with it.”
Joey looked vicious, then made me wait while he took a slug of beer and sloshed it around his mouth.
“One night this Jaguar pulls up, I think the guy wants to trick and he obviously has bread. But it don’t turn out like that, the guy says straight off he ain’t interested in sex. He works for a rich doctor who gives free health care to homeless people and he’s out looking for someone to take up the offer.”
“What was the offer?”
“Go with the guy back to the doctor’s clinic, get a free checkup, some immunization shots, pills if anything’s wrong. Plus a bed for the night and two hundred bucks in the morning. I jumped at it. Two hundred was a lot of money to me then. So I get in the car and after we’ve been going a while he gives me this bag thing to put over my head so I can’t see where we’re going. If I don’t do it the deal’s off ’cause the doctor wants to stay anonymous. I figure what the fuck, a guy in a Jag ain’t a serial killer, right? Anyhow, I do it and nothing happens and we get to where we’re going. He don’t let me take the bag off till we’re inside so I don’t know where we are.”
“How long did it take to get there?”
“’Bout a half hour.”
“What did it look like?”
“Some kind of private place. No windows, not very big, bits of medical stuff all over the place. He locked me in a room and a coupla minutes later this woman comes in, but she’s got one of them doctor’s masks on, so I don’t get a look at her face. She tells me she’s the doctor and takes some blood and piss and asks me a bunch of shit—medical history, do I have any living family, etcetera, etcetera. Then she makes me strip and gives me an examination. I knew right then something weren’t straight. The way she handled me—made me bend over, stuck her fingers up my ass, checked out my balls. She was getting off on it, man. Anyhow, at the end of it she says I don’t need any medication, but would I like a sedative to help me sleep. I say, what have you got? She only lays some morphine on me. Can you believe it? Then she says she has to think about the results of my examination and leaves. Back comes the old guy and takes me to another room with a bed in it. Again he locks the door and there’s no windows, no way to get out. I figure, so what? Just bang the shit, wait till morning, and collect my two hundred. If they’ve got some security hang-up, it ain’t my problem. Next morning the doctor chick, still with her mask, tells me she’s looked at my results and there’s a proposition. I can take the two hundred like they promised and get a ride back to town, or I can donate one of my kidneys and get thirty grand for it. Thirty fucking grand!”
“Donate it to who?”
“Who knows? Some rich bastard who needed one, I guess. She showed me this operating theater they had there and gave me this spiel about how you can live just the same with one as two. Everything was too real to be weird, I mean they had all these machines and everything. So I said yes. It happened the next day and I stayed about two weeks healing up—wasted on morph the whole time. Then they let me go. With thirty grand in cash. And get this, the night before the operation she came into my room and fucked me. Kept her mask on like always, but she had some bod.”
“Could you identify her?”
“Not her face, anyhow.”
“What did the old guy look like?”
“Tall, thin. About fifty or sixty. Excellent hair, all silver, hadn’t lost a strand. If you want to find him, look for that hair.”
“You ever see him again?”
“No. I got this place, I don’t need to be doing with the drag anymore. Hear about him, though.”
“From who?”
“Fuck, just hustlers. Sometimes a couple come in, they talk, I listen when I can be bothered. I hear mention of a silver-haired guy in a Jag, gotta be him.”
Joey leaned back and drank beer. He’d got his confidence back with the telling of his story.
“You wanna give out with this murder business?”
“No.”
“I figured. What about the cop? I don’t want him around here fucking up my life.”
“So long, Joey.”
I headed for the door. He shouted that I was a cocksucker and a few heads turned, but nobody stood up.
I sat in the car and slow-breathed. My hands were shaking but I felt pretty good about the way I’d carried things off. Playing strong-arm wasn’t something I was used to and it had been a lot harder than it looked on TV maintaining the necessary aggression.
High Life Page 10