Pimp (16 page)

Sebastian learned all over again the humiliation of being fucking nobody and resolved there in the lobby of the German departure lounge, “I will be a bloody contender, I will get a slice of movie action if I have to kill somebody.”

He tried for an upgrade at the gate, but his upper crust accent held no weight with the frau from Lufthansa.

The flight was awful, just poverty with wings. And he watched as they drew the curtain on Business Class as Jane and others freighted smoked salmon, champagne—on frigging ice too! And, oh Jesus, oysters. Economy class got plastic sandwiches and dire coffee, with a fee for headphones to watch Adam Sandler in some ghastly two-year-old flick.

Sebastian fumed.

Beside him was a fat guy from Ohio, who had been to the Frankfurt Book Fair. The guy babbled on about hot books and hotter chicks, and Sebastian suddenly perked when the guy mentioned book rights for an international bestselling novel named
Bust
.

It was a sign. An omen, a nudge from dark forces that he needed to get his shit together.

In L.A., Jane asked if he’d like to go for a drink before he headed off? Meaning, hit the road cowboy.

He kissed her hand, said gallantly, “It has been fun, madam, but I feel I should go meet someone who is not getting the old-age pension.”

Then he hired a cab to follow her Town Car home. Watched her have the driver carry suitcases into her pink chateau. He let her get settled, i.e., remove the layers of shite on her face, drop some of her anti-aging pills. He was seriously enraged, the cunt had used and abused him, and in an Irish accent, from his Angela days, he swore: “I will not be fooking cast off.”

His comprehensive education not a complete waste, he jimmied the back door, moved silently towards the lounge where she was predictably watching one of her old movies, circa 1968. He grabbed her from behind, muttered, “Your contract has expired, love.”

But who knew the old buzzard had so much spunk? Fought like a lunatic and they fell, struggled, smashed, nigh death-danced all over the lounge, with glass, ornaments, cushions flying. She nearly got the upper hand too, having kneed him in the balls. But instead of delivering the
coup de grâce
, she opted for a speech. Fucking actors, can never resist a scene. As she intoned, channeled a very bad Desdemona, he reached for a poker and smashed her face, over and over, until he sighed, “Who knew she had so much blood in her?”

He ransacked the place, got money, jewelry and even the keys to her sporty Monte Carlo. As he crunched out over the broken glass and debris, he looked back at the twisted body, said, “Been fun, doll,” and headed out to be a star.

* * *

Having read online that
Bust
was being produced by Darren Becker, Sebastian began stalking the chap. He followed him and his lover—yes, Becker was indeed a shirt lifter, but who wasn’t in this place?—to his office, to the studios, to tennis, to the gym, and to various high-end restaurants. Darren was living the life Sebastian was desperate to live, and would be living soon.

Sebastian had read that
Bust
was in need of a screenwriter.

Deciding that it would be best to meet Darren naturally, Sebastian used a stalker’s trick he’d read about once in some thriller he’d nicked from Waterstones, and got a job working at Darren’s gym.

One morning when Darren arrived, Sebastian was there, handing him a towel saying, “Darren Becker, is it?”

Darren squinted, said, “You are…”

“Sebastian. We met, oh I don’t know when was it, ten years ago?”

“We did?”

“You said you were a huge fan of my writing.”

“I did?”

“Yes, you called me the next Beckett, I believe it was. Not Samuel, Simon of course. Well, hardly matters now, does it? I happened to hear through the ol’ grapevine that you’re producing
Bust
, and I just want to throw my hat into the ring, so to speak.”

“Is this some sort of joke?”

“Pardon?”

“I have no idea who the fuck you are, some fucking towel boy at the gym.”

Americans and their horrid manners. Why Sebastian had always thought they should’ve banned John McEnroe from Wimbledon.

Properly, Sebastian said, “I told you, I’m Sebastian… Sebastian Child. Perhaps you know my brother, Lee? As in Jack Reacher?”

“I hated that fucking movie,” Darren said, trying to get by Sebastian.

Sebastian wouldn’t move, said, “I haven’t had my big break yet, but I assure you nothing will get in my way.”

“Maybe Lee’ll let you write the next Reacher,” Darren said, “but there’s no way in hell you’re writing
Bust
.” He pushed by Sebastian and headed to the steam room.

The next day, Sebastian was unceremoniously fired from the job at the gym and knew Becker was behind it. He resolved right then that he’d kill the bastard, preferably in some homoerotic way, the way Tom killed Dickie in the Ripley film. But how would he get Darren out to sea in a rowboat to crush open his skull with an oar? Well, he’d have to sort that part out, wouldn’t he?

A couple of days later, he was waiting outside Darren’s house in Beverly Hills, when he couldn’t believe his bloody eyes. It couldn’t possibly be her, after all these years, could it? After all he’d shot the mad Irish cow at point-blank range in the chest, left her for dead outside the gas station in Canada. But it was her—same blond hair, same luscious bosom. He should’ve expected she’d survived. The Irish, they’re so dreadfully hard to stomp out. The Brits had been trying to off the lot of them for years by secretly urinating in exported Guinness, warming it up properly, but the Irish suckers keep popping back up like roaches post-apocalypse.

When she entered the house, he rushed over to peer in through a window. Good Christ, she was servicing Becker, bringing flashbacks to Sebastian’s own time with her in Santorini. Ah, the memories of young love! It made sense that she was getting it from Becker as Sebastian well knew that if anyone could turn a gay man, it was her.

Sebastian did the only sensible thing under the circumstances—began to diddle himself. He was British, so he felt shame for the act, of course, and moaned “So sorry” as he came all over the bushes.

Later, ’round lunch time, Angela headed off and Sebastian pursued. He had so many questions and so few answers. What had Angela been doing all these years? How had she wound up in L.A. with Darren Becker? Did she have some involvement in the TV show?

He followed her up to the Chateau Marmont. Finally, a proper establishment, Sebastian was back in his element. He trailed, watching as Angela was seated at a table, and then as some horrendously dressed man arrived. Crikey, he was in trainers!

An hour later, Sebastian was in the lobby, momentarily distracted, when he was suddenly face to face with her. The rage in her eyes terrified him and instincts screamed,
Run!
, so he slipped away. Obviously she hadn’t forgiven him just yet for that shooting business in Canada. This complicated things, but he knew he could win her over; after all, the Sebastian psychopathic charm was impossible to resist.

As always, all he required was a plan.

The deal with noir is whoever you meet on page one is completely fucked and it’s only going to get worse.
J
IM
N
ISBET

Larry was sitting in the In-N-Out Burger on Sunset, nursing a cup of truly shit coffee, looked like the spillage from the Gulf of Mexico, when two cops entered, fucking CHPs.

One was younger, crewcut, Larry could cast Newman in
The Hustler
. The other was mainly bald but blond, maybe a Redford type, so it would have to be present-day Redford, i.e., Redford with the fucked-up looking face.

Larry was so nervous he felt like he was going to puke the coffee right back into the mug. They were here for him, he was sure of it. They weren’t looking at him, they were looking up at the menu, but they were just playing cool. Any second now they’d attack him, pin him to the floor and cuff him like he was in a fucking rerun of
COPS
.

They must’ve found Dr. Hoff’s body; why else were they here? Larry knew he couldn’t survive prison, he’d have to go out
Bonnie and Clyde
style. Only problem was he didn’t have a gun. Well, he’d do something, throw the coffee in their faces, to incite them and get shot. It could be like that movie he’d fast-forwarded through the other night—
Fruitvale Station
. Cops these days were trigger happy and—who knows?—maybe they’d even make a movie about Larry, he’d be a fuckin’ martyr.

But the cops didn’t attack Larry or try to shoot him. They bought their burgers and shakes and returned to their patrol car without even looking at him.

Larry knew he wasn’t exactly in the clear. He was in some shit up to his eyeballs and there was no way out now, he was D.O. fuckin’ A. He’d left Doctor Hoff’s body in the house with the letter opener still in his chest. He’d developed enough cop projects over the years to know how to wipe down a crime scene, and he’d spent a couple of hours cleaning up prints and any other trace he was there. But he’d also developed enough crime shows to know that it was only a matter of time till he got caught. In procedurals there was always a bust at the end, and cops these days with their fucking forensics, databases, DNA and whatever other new bullshit had come down the pike were so far ahead of the criminals it was a miracle half the country wasn’t in jail. He didn’t think he was on any surveillance video, but he knew they’d catch on to him eventually and his only chance was to run.

Before leaving, he’d smashed some breakables, ransacked the place a little to make it look like a robbery. In the bedroom, he found some cash, about five hundred bucks, in a sock drawer and thought,
What the fuck?
and pocketed it. After all, he was already a killer, on his way to hell, so what did he have to lose?

And he’d run. But where had it gotten him? Now he was down to his plan B, or was it C or D? He was losing track.

His brilliant plan was to meet Eddie Vegas’s guy at the In-N-Out Burger and get the seventy-five grand. He’d then hand over the seventy-five grand to the kidnappers and get Bev back. Then—assuming he hadn’t been arrested or killed by this time—he and Bev would fly to Brazil. He had some moolah offshore, not enough to finance a movie but enough to survive for a few years. By then hopefully he’d drop dead and not have to come up with another plan to make money.

He knew the odds of this working were slim to none, especially since he still had no way of contacting the kidnappers. He considered ditching Bev and just running away to Brazil right now, before he was on the airport’s do-not-fly list. He didn’t love Bev and she sure as hell didn’t love him, but okay, yeah, he cared about her. Even though he never wanted to see her again, he wanted to know she was safe.

Then Larry saw a big lanky white guy, ruddy face, approaching in, Jesus Christ, a circa-
Midnight Cowboy
fringe jacket and from its odd aroma, it hadn’t been washed since Jon Voight wore it. But this guy looked older than Voight, and he looked like the other guy, not Jim Carrey, from
Dumb and Dumber
. Daniel Craig? No, but there was a Daniel in it.

“You Larry?” the guy asked.

Larry had been expecting a Latin guy, like Vegas, but this guy didn’t look like Cheech
or
Chong. His breath smelled like whiskey and he looked like he’d been drunk since 1985. Not the
Dumb and Dumber
guy—Nick Nolte, that’s who he’d cast. If Nick wasn’t busy having a mug shot taken.

“You with Vegas?” Larry asked.

“Why else would I be at a fuckin’ In-N-Out Burger?” the guy said.

There was pretention in his voice, the Midnight Cowboy acting like Larry was Ratso Fuckin’ Rizzo.

“Cool,” Larry said because he wanted to come off as a hip, with-it dude and “cool” was the only word he could come up with. “Can I, um, get you a coffee?”

“Ain’t here to socialize, pops,” he said.

“Mullah’s in the case.” Mullah? Larry felt like he was in
Straight Time
, that Dustin H flick about the ex-con. And
pops
? Larry was five years older than this guy, tops. Okay, maybe ten, but
pops
?

Looking at the suitcase, paranoia took hold and Larry wondered if the guy had stuffed a small Arab in there. He couldn’t resist and corrected, “Moohla.”

Got a blank hillbilly stare, like the bumfucker from
Deliverance.

“Wanna count it?” the guy asked.

Larry nearly said,
It’s ok, I trust you
, but how fucking dumb would that sound? Instead he went dumber, said, “Eddie’s family to me.”

The guy walked out.

Larry opened the briefcase expecting a) an explosion or b) a red light like in the Tarantino flick. Instead he saw neat stacks of twenty- and fifty-dollar bills.

So far, so good. Larry had the ransom money and while Eddie Vegas would be more than upset when he found out he wasn’t buying into a piece of
Bust
, he was buying into a piece of Jack Shit, by the time he connected the dots, Larry and Bev would be on the beach in Ipanema, sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them.

Again the problem occurred to him that he had no way to contact the kidnappers, but even this problem seemed resolved when he saw a new note on his car:

MEET MY GUY AT THE FOUR SEASONS IN ONE HOUR

Larry looked in every direction—nothing unusual. He was glad he had a meeting spot finally, but he was paranoid as hell. How the hell did the kidnappers know that he’d be at In-N-Out Burger? Did Eddie Vegas, or one of his
Winter’s Bone
goons, kidnap Bev? Was he about to give the money back to the same guy he’d just gotten it from?

This idea didn’t seem to make any sense. It was more likely that somebody else had kidnapped Bev and had been following him all over L.A. But if somebody was following Larry did that mean that person had seen him kill Dr. Hoff?

Without thinking it through any further, Larry drove to Beverly Hills to deliver the money. He could barely control the steering wheel; his hands were sweaty and his heart was on frigging fire.