Hard Case Crime: Money Shot (25 page)

This was not my problem. I was done. I’d had my revenge and Malloy was wrong. It wasn’t empty. It was strange and scary but still sweet, just like I’d wanted it to be. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life now and frankly, I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. I’d won. No one had believed I could do it, not even me, but I had. I’d beat that bastard and made him pay for what he did to me. I was free. I had one hundred eighty thousand dollars in the trunk of Vukasin’s car. So why couldn’t I stop thinking about Lia?

Am I sorry about the choice I made? Do I ever wonder what my life would have been like if I had taken the money and fucked off to wherever? Sometimes, sure. I mean, I think about it. I’ve got to do something to pass the time.

But I couldn’t just fuck off and leave them. I guess that makes me a softie or a sucker but I just couldn’t let it go, any more than I could have let Ridgeway live. I walked over to Vukasin’s car and got the duffel bag out of the trunk.

The warehouse next door apparently housed an operation that imported tropical fish from all over the world. Walking in through the open door, I was hit with this strange and powerful smell. Brine and fish and bleach. There was a guy with a machine gun waiting to greet me inside. A dour, bloodless shark in a good suit.

“Mr. Ridgeway sent me,” I said, offering up the duffel bag like a sacrifice.

The door guard unzipped the bag for a quick look at the contents. Then he nodded and reached out to undo the trench coat, rough hands sliding over the sides of my body. It took a minute to register the fact that he didn’t want a date, he was just frisking me. He quickly found and pocketed Vukasin’s gun.

“Go ahead,” he said with a heavy accent. It sounded like Lia’s.

I had no idea where I was supposed to go, but didn’t want to ask for directions. Strolling along the shadowed rows of small water-filled Plexiglas cubes, I noticed that each cube held a single sad and gorgeous aquatic prisoner. They watched me, silent and goggle-eyed as I passed. I think even they knew I had no idea what I was doing. I made my way toward the only furnished area in the enormous warehouse space, a cluster of cheap folding chairs and a card table that held a coffee carafe and some plastic spoons.

Past the table was a doorway leading into some kind of carpeted office. There was a light inside. I couldn’t think of what else to do, so I went in.

Inside the office were six girls and a man. The girls sat on a long couch, huddled together like nervous rabbits. They wore cheap dresses and looked dirty, with unwashed hair and sticky, sleepless eyes. The man was standing. He was older, tall, bald and stone cold. I could see war atrocities in his flat gray eyes. He seemed to be human shaped, with two arms and two legs and all the standard equipment, but there was nothing human about him at all. I got the feeling that this guy would watch a girl strip or watch her die with the same expression. There would be no manipulating this man with feminine wiles. My only chance here was to give him the money and hope for a fair deal.

I handed over the duffel. The man counted the money faster than a casino machine and gave a curt nod.

“Keys,” he said, putting out his hand.

I froze. What keys? Was I supposed to have keys? I groped desperately through my brain for the answer that would keep me alive. Then I thought of the van. The van full of outgoing girls. That was the trade, right? One hundred and eighty thousand dollars plus six used girls for the six fresh ones. He clearly wanted the keys to that van. I didn’t have them.

The gig was up. There was nothing I could do to trick this guy. No lie I could cobble together that would explain why I didn’t have the keys to the van. I just shook my head, looked at the floor and waited to die.

Amazingly, I didn’t. Instead of shooting me in the face, the man simply nodded, grabbed one of the girls off the sofa by the arm and left.

For a long time, I just stood there, staring at the five remaining girls. I was baffled by this turn of events until I realized it was just a cold-blooded display of sexual economics. When the six used girls were removed from the equation, the man had simply subtracted a single new girl from the deal. One fresh girl was worth six used ones. Unbelievable. I really hoped the girl he took back hadn’t been Lia’s sister.

“Ana?” I said, scanning the girls’ thin and haggard faces for a family resemblance. “Ana Albu?”

A brunette in the middle said something I didn’t understand. She couldn’t have been older than fifteen and didn’t look anything like Lia.

“Ana?” I asked again, pointing to her barely developed chest.

She nodded. “Ana,” she said, pointing to herself.

I heard sirens. I still had no idea what the hell I was going to do.

I suppose I could have made a run for it, but where could I go? What was I going to do once I got away? I had no money anymore. No clever plan. Everyone I cared about was dead. I was tired. Bone weary and close to total physical collapse. I had done what needed to be done and now I had absolutely nothing left.

I motioned for the girls to follow me. The door guard was gone. We were alone in the big echoing warehouse except for the rows and rows of beautiful sea creatures waiting to be sold like the girls had been.

Out back, the van full of used girls was still there. I could see red and blue lights from police prowlers swarming all around Sneaky Pete’s. I guess I was getting better at breaking glass, because it only took one try to smash the passenger side window with my leather-wrapped fist.

I brushed fragments of safety glass from the front of the trench coat, popped the locks and opened the sliding back door. The girls inside didn’t move or react at all.

They looked awful. Pale and scrawny, riddled with track marks and sores. Their lifeless eyes barely seemed to register my presence. They wore identical sweatpants, t-shirts from the 99-cent store and plastic flip flop sandals.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Some of their heads turned toward my voice. Most didn’t. None of them got up or made any move toward the door.

“Come on, hurry,” I said. I made to grab a scabby arm on the girl closest to the door and then lost my nerve.

I backed away from the van. The new girls behind me all looked at me, bewildered and unsure.

“All right then,” I said. “Anyone who’s coming...”

I left the van door open and headed back over to Sneaky Pete’s. The new girls followed me but none of the ones from the van did.

There was a group of cops standing outside Sneaky Pete’s talking to the manager.

“That’s her!” the manager said, pointing a finger at me.

“Ma’am,” a young black cop said, stepping cautiously forward while several of his pals drew down on me with guns and steely stares. “I’ll need you to come with me.”

“Sure,” I said. “Have you got room in your squad car for all my friends?”

He eyed the nervous girls as he pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt.

“And while you’re at it,” I told him as I let him cuff my hands behind my back. “A Romanian translator would probably be a big help. A doctor, too. There’s six more in the van next door and fifteen out in the Valley.”

Now that it was finally over, I felt nothing but a numb sort of relief. I couldn’t find the energy to wonder about the future. About a trial and jail and the media circus and all the madness that I knew was waiting for me. All I knew was that in some weird way, I was glad I hadn’t run. I was glad that, after all the different people I had been forced to be, I could be myself again. I could be Angel Dare again.

I’d take the rap for Jesse and Ridgeway fair and square, but I’d fight tooth and nail against Ridgeway’s kiddie porn frame-up and I’d beat it if it killed me. I’d never be able to go back to the business, but hell, maybe I’d end up even more famous by the time this was done. I’d go from “Didn’t she used to be...?” to “That’s her, that’s Angel Dare.” Maybe it wasn’t exactly the type of fame I’d always wanted, but hey, no publicity is bad publicity, right? Isn’t that what they say?

The cop who cuffed me read me my rights and asked if I understood. I told him that I did and that I wanted to talk to Detective Erlichman.

“What do you want to talk to Erlichman for?” he asked, maneuvering me none too gently toward a waiting squad car.

“He’ll want to talk to me,” I told the cop.

“Why is that?” he asked, grasping the curve of my shorn head and pushing me down into the back seat of the cruiser.

I looked up at him, at all the cops and reporters, the bikers and gawkers gathered around to see what all the excitement was about.

“I’m Angel Dare,” I said.

I can’t say the look on the cop’s face made it all worth it, but it sure made me smile.

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