Pimp (22 page)

He crushed some speed ampoules, put them in a blender with pineapple, Red Bull, and sheep urine. The sheep urine was a tip from Gwynne, before she
consciously uncoupled
from the Coldplay dude.

Going
Taxi Driver
, he muttered, “Every muscle must be tight,” as he put the concoction on warp speed and watched as the whole mix whirled.

He was dressed in khaki combat shorts and a black T with the words
LET IT BE…LET THAT SUCKER SLIDE
across the chest. His feet were pushed into Huaraches, loose Mexican sandals he’d bought in Cancun while working on his last script. It had been called
Fast Track
, and was, let’s face it, a total ripoff of the ill-fated HBO series
Luck
, based on a self-published book by some has-been New York City crime writer. The writer had been e-mailing Bill lately, and contacting him on Twitter and Facebook, trying to arrange a time “to hang out” during his next trip to L.A., but Bill had been blowing the jackass off. Yeah, like he needed to hang out with some hanger-on novelist, when he was finally making it onto the Hollywood A-list, getting rez’s at the best restaurants and partying with Nic Pizzolatto.

As Bill gulped the foul beverage, he remembered hanging on the set of
Luck
, for research—writer code for stealing ideas—and shooting the shit with Dusty, that’s Dustin Hoffman to the plebs, and what a fucking shame it was that
Luck
had been cancelled just because, get this, a few freaking horses got hurt. Boo hoo, Jesus Christ, did they ever count the death toll after a John Wayne western?

In the large right pocket of the awful shorts, Bill had a long lethal blade with a gold handle and a precious stone embedded in the handle. A gift from a nephew of Ortega’s. Oh yeah, Bill knew the players. As in speed dial to the maddest and most juiced honchos, guys Bruce Willis would piss himself to know. The drink shot into his bloodstream, giving his heart a wallop, making him feel like the Irish psycho in the
Bust
screenplay.

The doorbell shrilled, and fuming, wired, murderous, he let the cop in.

“I’m Miscali,” the prick hard-assed, then pushed by him, no like,
hello, how you doing
, and insult to fucking injury, walked over to the
Bust
screenplay and, Bill couldn’t fucking believe it, began to read.

Bill took a moment of sheer incredulity to assess the guy. Where the fuck did he find that shitty suit? If he’d worn that suit in the eighties it would’ve been ten years out of style. Was there an auction of the old wardrobe from
Barney Miller
? In L.A., where pretty much anything went fashion-wise—see Brad Pitt—this suit screamed,
Shoot me now.

Miscali sneered, “So you’re glorifying that psycho Fisher, the man responsible for the death of my partner, one of New York’s finest ever?”

The drink took Bill for a momentary mellow stroll along his pride in the work. He said, “I’m working on the part where a cop gets iced and dumped in a lot in Harlem—that your partner?”

And Miscali did the worst thing of all, he sneered. You could see the contempt dripping off him. He snarled, “Exploitive sensationalist bullshit. You get off on killing? Are you writing a movie or the script for a snuff film?”

The insult pushed Bill to instant aggression. He fingered the blade, went, “What’re you implying?”

“You get ideas in your head, when you’re writing this shit, maybe you get the urge to act some of them out.”

“That’s the way you think it works?” Bill asked. “All writers are killers?”

“No,” Miscali said, “only some of them.”

Bill lost it, went, “Cut the shit, I never even knew Mo!”

Jesus, he thought, did I really say that?

Miscali was all attention, moved right into Bill’s face, pushed, “Mo? What’s that story?”

Bill, knowing he couldn’t take it back, went on a mad whim, went, “
Love
the suit.” And the tiny voice in his head snapped, “Bill….
Bill
, what the hell are you doing, you don’t want to antagonize this guy.”

But he did, he truly did, and added, “In that outfit, you’d be a natural on Jerry Springer.”

Let the insult hover. Miscali eyeballed him, his face red, a mix of shame and rage entwined. He said, “Think you and me, pal, we might take a run down to Hollywood South, drop you in a cell with some Crips, give you some material for the…” Indicated the screen. “…
screenplay
.”

The contempt that had just been dripping before leaked all over that word, and then the knife was out and with a Red Bull-fueled ferocity and speed-induced grunt, the blade was above Miscali’s groin and was cutting, moving fast, shredding, all the way up to the cop’s throat. Miscali let out a howl of sheer and utter shock, and Bill stepped back as a literal geyser of blood shot into the air, splattered his newly art deco’ed ceiling. Then with a slight whimper, the cop collapsed in a bloodied mess on the floor.

Bill muttered, “Holy fuckin’ shit.” Then, to an unseen audience, “Did you catch that?”

Bill blacked out for a few hours but came to, hours later, in a junk-filled lot in downtown L.A., Miscali’s feet sticking out of a nearby dumpster. Jesus Christ, Bill hoped nobody had seen him come down here. Fuck it, he decided, he had to trust his unconscious mind. It was what had gotten him this far, as a writer and as a killer, and it would take him the rest of the way to the top.

As Bill slunk away, he thought of Miscali’s Macy’s bargain shoes sticking out like a beacon, hearing Hannibal Lecter’s line to Clarice about her footwear, and he whispered—to himself, to the world—“No fucking doubt, I’m movie literate.”

I like you, Guy. I’d do anything for you.
P
ATRICIA
H
IGHSMITH
,
Strangers on a Train

Fantastic news! Angela had accepted Sebastian’s friend request and posted a smiley face on his page with:

BRANDI LOVE: Great to hear from you, Sebs, been way too long!

He knew she wouldn’t be able to resist his British charm. He IM’d her:

SEBASTIAN CHILD: I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist my British charm!

Rather long pause, then:

BRANDI LOVE: What can I say? Love has no logic.

SEBASTIAN CHILD: So I gather you’re willing to let bygones be bygones, my Love? (pun intended)

BRANDI LOVE: You know how I can’t resist a Brit with wit.

He was trying to think of the perfect, well, witty response to this, when he got:

BRANDI LOVE: When I can see you? There’s so much I want to say.

A moment later, it was

BRANDI LOVE: Is now too soon?

Squeezing his legs in an incompetent attempt at tempering his suddenly burgeoning excitement he typed:

SEBASTIAN CHILD: Not soon enough!!

Sebastian, driving in the latest car he’d nicked on his way to the rendezvous—fittingly a Cougar—was elated. Not only was he eager to give Angela the fuck of her life, he was equally overjoyed about the dollar signs in his future. His stalking of Becker hadn’t panned out, but he’d found a way in to
Bust
nevertheless. If he wasn’t the most resilient, most resourceful man on the planet, he wanted to meet the man who was.

The meeting spot was a dreary motel on the outskirts of town in God knows where. It didn’t occur to him to wonder why she’d suggested meeting in such a remote locale; he assumed it was because she was anticipating a night of uncontrollable ecstasy and wanted to do it in a suitably lurid venue.

She’d IM’d him a room number as well, and he knocked.

When he saw her there, in practically nothing save a lacy garter, it seemed as if no time had passed. They could’ve been back at Santorini, locking eyes and fates for the first time.

He was pressing her up against the wall, kissing her madly, saying, “I don’t know why I shot you. I need you so desperately. I must’ve been insane.”

Was this a dialogue from an old film? If it wasn’t, it should have been. One of those gothic stories by a Bronte that he could’ve written himself if he’d been alive then and put quill to paper.

He ravished her so many times he lost count.

In their blissful exhaustion he whimpered, “You’re all I’ve ever wanted. How’ve I lasted these years without you?”

Then Angela said, “If you want to prove your devotion to me, and redeem yourself for what you did, you’ll do one thing for me now.”

“Anything, darling,” Sebstian said, wanting her again, feeling once again as if he were in that Bronte story. “Just say it.”

* * *

Sebastian had to pinch himself: everything was going to be fucking hunky dory. He actually said that aloud, not realizing that nobody had used that expression since Bowie was young.

Google Earth, God bless ’em, provided directions to Darren Becker’s house. The small matter of a weapon. He’d gone to a seedy dive off Wilshire, a place where you could buy weapons, dope, and passports. Sebastian could fall in love with this town.

A weasel of a guy slipped onto the stool beside him, asked, “You a Limey?”

Sebastian was gobsmacked. Really now, who since Terence Stamp used
limey
? It was like pre-Hugh Grant hooker days. Sebastian squared his firm jawline, his mother used to say “Boykins, it’s your best feature.” Dear old Mum, batshit now, thinking she was the Queen Mum, and legless before noon. Sebastian looked at the guy, straight from central casting as a
bad un.
Sebastian moved his accent up a notch, not too much, like an oar length at Henley Boat Race. Ah, those were the days, straw hats, strawberries and cream, fair damsels in white flimsy dresses and croquet in the background. Sebastian had never been within a fart of that event but saw his Merchant Ivory movies. He intoned, “My good fellow, might one tempt a chap to a libation?”

Too much? A tad. The guy who, get this, was wearing a Lance Armstrong bracelet—really, man? The guy went, “The fuck is a libation?”

Yeah.

Long story mercifully edited, Sebastian scored a .9
MM
and a bag of the new wonder dope, PIMP. Now dressed to assassinate, sweating in black track gear and watch cap, he fingered the nine, a surge of sheer joy, adrenaline, and down-home psychosis shooting through his veins. PIMP rules.

His mind was tick-tripping like a demented cheap watch. He flashed through the first killing he’d done, the details blurred by the drug and only a false elation and a blend of rush and terror lingering. He moved the nine to his left hand, muttered, “You are better than Tim Henman, you are the Federer of murder.”

Giggled.

And like a comic-book character, slapped his hand over his mouth, banging his recently capped front teeth with the gun barrel. Spat, “Shit hurts.”

Then the front door opened and there was Becker, letting a Lab off a leash, urging, “Good boy, go water the garden,” and Sebastian, in a sudden wave of PIMP-induced ferocity, leapt from the bushes, screaming holy heaven, screaming, “Water this, you wanker.”

Missed with the first two shots, as Becker, transfixed, went, “Wanker?” Then, “It’s you—from the health club!” and the third shot went through Becker’s mouth, hurling the back of his head against the stucco Spanish door frame.

Sebastian stopped, “Holy fuck, Jesus, sorry ’bout that, I mean…” and let off two more rounds, taking Becker’s legendary groin to Ensenada and parts west.

The sound of the gunfire had momentarily deafened Sebastian and he thought,
Dammit, forgot the earplugs
, then saw two large shapes whirl out from the doorway, big bruising shapes, and he whined, “Jesus, Angela, you didn’t mention, like…bodyguards.”

He fired off an optimistic round and the guys hesitated, and who knows, Sebastian might have actually got away, but, yeah, the dog. Had a piece of Sebastian’s honed ass, sinking deep and hard.

Sebastian roared, “Ah for fuck’s sake, that’s not fair, that’s hardly fucking cricket!”

The second guard, apparently a student of Asian hard-core martial-arts movies, had gone into the house and grabbed a faux Samurai sword, and with one fierce leap and lunge, severed Sebastian’s elegant head from his shoulders. His head, doing what his body had failed to accomplish, made it on to Wilshire, where a U-Haul carrying a coyote and his crew squashed it to multicolored paella.

* * *

A kid across the street was getting it all on his smartphone, muttered, “Hashtag WayCool, way better than
Grand Theft Auto 2
.”

And lest we ever forget, this
is
Hollywood, the kid sold it to the new tabloid show from Jerry Springer’s production company and made his first Spielberg steps into the biz.

Everyone a winner.

You’re no messiah. You’re a movie of the week. You’re a fucking T-shirt at best.
B
RAD
P
ITT IN
Seven

Took Max a while to get Angela to call him Sean. Like, Sean Mullen.

She laughed, said, “Seriously, take it from a gal who has known an Irish guy.” Paused. “Like
intimately
, and you have just the worst accent since Dick Van Dyke tried to do Cockney in
Mary Poppins
.”

Max was pissed on two counts. The accent bit of course hurt his pride—he loved his fuckin’ brogue—and that mention of the Irish prick opened up all sorts of old shit that was best left, well, buried.

He said, “Right, but you, you work it brilliantly as Brandi Love.” His tone leaked sarcasm.

She snapped, “The fuck is that, like a slur?”

He’d done just a wee smidgen of PIMP and was feeling the love, went, “Babe,
c’est il est, il est
.” He thought this meant
It is what it is
, but his mangled pronunciation and syntax would have confused even Carla Bruni.

A ring at the door startled them both. Angela shot him a look, went, “It’s Brandi, remember.”

For a mad moment Max thought she was having booze home-delivered.

She opened the door to a tough-looking broad who showed a badge, said, “Detective Gaylin, LAPD, I’m looking for a Sean Mullen,” and tried to see into the apartment.