Pain Killers (28 page)

“Good work.”

“Not really. I found his canceled checks.”

Just then we heard peals of laughter. A car full of white teenagers whooped it up at a red light beside us. The driver wore his L.A. Kings cap sideways. He worked a gangster lean and gunned the engine.

“BMW M6, convertible,” Tina said. “A hundred and thirty-nine thousand dollars.”

When the driver saw Tina staring, he flipped her off.

“Oh yeah, baby,” Tina moaned, “my daddy runs a studio and I’m all pimped up and I take biology at Crossroads with Dustin Hoffman’s nephew.”

I glanced past her. The acned Romeo behind the wheel started smooching a cheerleader, holding his extended middle finger behind her head. The hip-hop consumers in the backseat hooted appreciatively. A whiff of weed drifted up at us.

Tina looked over at me. “I bet if he had some kind of little accident, he wouldn’t file a police report. Even if the kush was medicinal.”

When the light changed, Tina sharked the car forward a length and cut left. The Beemer swerved to avoid her and jumped the curb, clipping a trash bin and a mailbox before screeching to a bumper-dragging stop a few feet from a bus bench.

Tina continued at the speed limit, composed as a soccer mom on Xanax.

“Was that necessary?” I said.

“I’m helping the economy,” she replied. “The front end alone is going to give a body shop work for a week. So what were you saying?”

“You might want to get on the freeway. I doubt Ferris Bueller and his pals got your license number. But it might be a good idea to put some distance between you and your moving violation. For fuck’s sake, Tina!”

She rolled her eyes. “Could we just go back to what we’re talking about?”

“Fine. I was saying I still need to do what I said I was going to do. Find out more about Mengele.”

“Have you Googled him?” Tina shuddered. “The fan sites are really creepy.”

“How’s his Facebook page. That’s what I need to know about. The new Mengele. The one who’s up there bragging in Quentin—and the people colluding with him, for whatever un-fucking-godly reason. We have him picked up, we might never know what his deal is—and who he’s got deals with. It might be Zell, the warden…who the hell knows?”

“It’s pretty easy to discredit a ninety-seven-year-old war criminal who’s been taking meth.”

“If it is meth. As opposed to, say, crystallized Gypsy adrenaline.”

“Nice.”

“I’m not making it up. But why discredit the prick when you can just kill him? Anybody with something to hide gets wind Dr. Death is on the hook, all they gotta do is blow on him and he’d keel over. I only have till tomorrow morning. I wanted to see you; now we need to meet with what’s-her-name, the born-again hooker who did Mengele.”

“Cathy,” she said. “Only…there may be a problem.”

Tina chewed her lip and clamped the wheel a little harder.

“I know you, baby. When you say ‘little problem,’ grown men duck. You have a previous engagement or what?”

“Not me, but Cathy, the girl…”

“All I want to do is meet her. Ten, fifteen minutes.”

“You can meet her,” she said, “she just might not be there, if you know what I mean…. After her date with Mengele, she started hitting the crank pretty hard. Oh!”

As was her manner, Tina changed the subject on a dime. She unclamped her purse, digging through God knows what, and held up a black T-shirt.

“You like?”

“Please tell me that isn’t Zell’s.”

“Of course not. It’s James Perse. Come on, take the coat off. And lose the face beaver.”

“What, you don’t think I look biblical?”

“You look,” she said, “like what would happen if Lincoln had unprotected sex with Bette Midler.”

This seemed like a good time to try chewing my mustache, just to see what Mengele got out of the practice. But I stopped as soon as I started. The lip fur got wet right away, and after that it was like nibbling a damp sweater. Tina saw me chomping and made a face. “That is really disgusting.”

“I’m just trying to see why
he
does it. What’s so disgusting about it?”

We swung into the freeway on-ramp and got in line behind a Hummer. Tina took a sidelong glance and considered. “You know how hypnotists in movies are always telling volunteers to act like chickens? You look like some hypnotist told you to eat pussy.”

“Only you,” I said, and fingered the tainted fur away from my mouth. “Maybe it’s different when it’s your own hair.”

As the Prius idled behind the tank-sized Hummer Tina gunned the engine, an eager puppy snapping at a bear. When it was our turn to go, she reached over and ripped off the beard, then floored it and shot onto the 405. For a few seconds it hurt so much I went blind. Then I saw pain stars on the inside of my eyelids. I had to wipe tears off with my sleeve.

“You enjoyed that,” I said when I could see again.

Tina cackled. She changed lanes with abandon and recited like a schoolgirl, “‘Bliss like thine is bought by years / Dark with torment and with tears.’”

“Now you’re busting out Def Leppard lyrics?”

“Close. Emily Brontë.” She ran her fingers down my cheek and I winced. My face felt like it had been dragged over a cheese grater, then steam ironed and doused with hot sauce…. When I could speak again, I remembered the shirt I was twisting in my hands and held it up. “So who’s James Perse—and why do you have his shirt?”

“It’s not his shirt, you idiot. He’s the designer. They sell him at Barney’s. I found an old credit card and got myself a gift certificate. Then I bought something for you.”

“Thanks,” I said, gingerly touching my cheek to see if I was bleeding. “Sometimes I forget how thoughtful you are.”

Tina leaned over and kissed me, right where it burned. “You’re welcome, baby. Now relax. They can’t arrest you for wearing something that costs over twenty dollars.”

Reverend D’s Reseda crib was a two-story slats-falling-off-the-roof semi-dump next to a 7-Eleven in Van Nuys. The rev financed it with joint grants from ex-president Bush’s Abstinence First Foundation, the Family Research Council, and State of California Prop. 486, which allocated funds for halfway houses and prison work-fare programs.

“Four girls bunk upstairs, four down. Two to a room,” Tina said, giving me the tour. “Then there’s the reverend’s office-slash-bedroom.”

“Sounds very Hugh Hefner.”

“Yeah,” said Tina, “it’s just like the mansion, except skanky and in the Valley. With no grotto.”

Stepping over a teddy bear with a cross on his chest—“Watch out for Jesus Bear!”—we entered the reverend’s spiritual headquarters. I AM CHASTE! was painted on the cottage cheese ceiling, directly over a water bed with a giant Ten Commandments scroll propped behind it. Two cameras on tripods rested against a backdrop of Golgotha on the wall opposite.

On a battered metal desk I found a stack of Christian Fun Girls video offerings, old-time VHSs. On the first box, a buxom Latina in a toga stared off the cover, her collagened lips parted suggestively as she stole a sloe-eyed glance over her shoulder at a manly Roman soldier. I saw the title and held it up for Tina. “
Spermin’ on the Mount
? Are you fucking kidding me? This is a genre?”

“Hey, I’m not saying it’s on par with
Rapture Babes,
okay?” She indicated the boxed set underneath.
Rapture Babes
I through IV featured a bevy of wholesome, panty-clad Midwestern girls who would have been carded had they tried to buy cigarettes. And the director’s comments. The corn-fed talent gazed heavenward, arms over their heads and clothes in a heap at their feet, as though ready to ascend and back that thing up for the Lord. The back of the box showed one doe-eyed blond believer, on her knees in front of the Son of God, who resembled Steve Railsback playing Manson in a TV movie. “Tina, listen to this. ‘What girl wouldn’t want to give a lap dance to Jesus? Well, Tammi Nelson is about to get her chance.’”

“I’ve seen that one,” she said. “Jesus tipped big.”

I tossed the videos back on the desk, beside a motel Bible. “How much money does he pull in turning out young churchgoing girls?”

“He doesn’t exactly turn them out. He’d tell you he was putting the shield of Christ between their legs.”

“
‘Ladies—why settle for regular old panty shields when you can get…the Shield of Christ!’
Actually, that sounds pretty good.
I’d
buy it, if I had a Christian vagina. I didn’t even know He had a shield.”

“You haven’t read the New Testament. Anyway, he makes most of his money from downloads. I mean the reverend, not Jesus.”

“Either way. Religion’s kind of like the ultimate free download.”

Tina gave me her patented eye-roll. “Heavy. We supply content for a dozen different Christian sex sites, including a bunch we run out of here. Studio’s upstairs.”

I unfolded a glossy brochure featuring thumbnails and titles. “So if I’d sodomized you in the snailback, I’d have ended up in one of these?”

“‘The loins, the place of the Last Judgment.’ William Blake,” she intoned. “There are a lot of ways to be saved.”

“I’m getting that. You didn’t answer the question.”

“Okay, then. No. You would not have ended up on video.”

I was ready for some righteous indignation; now I felt shunned. “Why not?”

She hesitated, then closed the file drawer with a bang. “Because the lens cap was still on. I was so excited to see you, I got sloppy.”

I didn’t say anything. Sometimes it was enough just to watch her. Tina raised her chin, flicking her bangs out of her eyes, something she did when she wanted to make a point. Especially when the point was
Fuck you.
Tina stood on her toes and plunged her arm in the top drawer of a filing cabinet, up to the shoulder. She retrieved a few catalogues and tossed them over her shoulders. Finally, finding what she wanted, she yanked her arm and yelped, “It’s a girl!” before throwing a vividly veined, fur-clefted dog toy in my direction.

I caught the thing, which was as nauseatingly moist to the touch as my San Quentin trailer mattress.

“Porta-pussy,” Tina explained helpfully while I held the squishy device away from my face.

“Tell me it’s not damp because it’s been used,” I pleaded.

“Not in a while, anyway,” she replied reassuringly.

I studied the tawny, disembodied fur slit, trying to figure out which side was upside-down—if there
was
an upside-down. “This must be the ultimate dream date for guys who really want to fuck rubber chickens with hair.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” Tina said.

“Who’s knocking it? I’m surprised he’s not selling them for fifty a pop on the yard at Quentin.”

“The Doc Johnson people made a fortune on them in the eighties. But the reverend was first into Christian sex toys.”

“Born-again dildos. Who knew? The man’s a trailblazer.”

“Baby,” Tina huffed, “that stuff’s just for Christian freaks. Once he got the idea of pimping sanctified live vaginas, he forgot about the rubber ones.”

“The only Christian freak I’m really curious about is the reverend. I’ve met him, remember? And now you’re living under his roof.”

“Just while he’s gone. I’m getting five grand a week to play den mother.”

“And doing a hell of a job. Come on, what else? He let you direct?”

“I was going to. We were actually working on a script. A feature. He got financing for race porn. Basically triple-X with an Aryan message.”

“An Aryan message? Look at you, Leni Riefenshtup!”

“Fuck you, Manny. It’s not like they’re really Nazis. I mean, the producer’s a black man, and they’re written and directed by an ex-addict and prostitute with some Canuck in her blood.”

“And let me guess, featuring the ever popular stock character
der Geile Jude.
”

“What’s that?”

“The Libidinous Jew. One of the only things I remember from my brief stint in a college.”

“Come on, we wouldn’t shoot you from the waist up. Where’s your sense of humor? Porn is more mainstream than the Special Olympics. I figured I could do something subversive. We could bill you as ‘the Lion of Zion.’”

“I prefer ‘Hebrew National.’”

“I don’t care if you call yourself Shecky Mazeltov. I just think we could do something subversive.”

“I’m sure that would really impress the cineastes on D Block. Let me give
you
a quote, baby. ‘Self-delusion is the key to happiness.’ Voltaire. It’s the only one I know.”

“Then how come you’re not happy?”

I must have looked stricken. She burst out laughing.

“Just kidding. You’re right. It’s a stupid idea.
Mein Cunt.
Anyway, it’s not going to happen. Not with me. The rev’s shot a lot of white power porn, but usually just sex scenes strung together. He finds film school geeks to work on them.”

“The world’s full of sleazy gigs. They’re the only ones left.” I went back to riffling the reverend’s drawers so I wouldn’t be looking at her when I asked what I was about to ask. I couldn’t help myself. “Tina,” I said, “just tell me you weren’t turning tricks.”

“Honey,” she replied wearily, “do you know how many times you’ve asked me that? I’m strictly in administration.”

“Administration? You make it sound like it’s the gas company.”

“Come on, Manny! I did the hands-on stuff when I was a teenager, okay? You never had a job that made you hate yourself?” She saw the look on my face. “Dumb question.”

“Forget it,” I said. “You know me, I don’t acknowledge my feelings. I just fall off the wagon, then wake up in Cleveland with a bag full of toupees and blood on my pants.”

“So what feelings are eating you up now?”

“Besides what happens in my chest when I look at you? It’s Mengele. Dinah Zell. The whole thing.”

“Gotta learn to compartmentalize, baby.”

“Is that what it’s called?”

I dumped out an envelope of smudgy receipts for “love offerings” made out to Foundation for Christian Love Ministries, another of the reverend’s DBA names.

I stole a glance at Tina. The Björk resemblance disappeared. Pissed off, her face shape-shifted. Took on that that Susan Tyrell/Faye Dunaway kind of scary beauty. Cheekbones of death. Savage in repose.