Pimp (25 page)

“Yo, I don’t know what you on, but you both fucked up,” Eddie said. “I gave Larry Reed seventy-five grand to be executive producing a TV show, the next
Prison Break
. Now Larry ain’t giving me my money back, so if you’re Sean Mullen you got two choices. Make me executive producer or give me my fuckin’ money back in cash, same cash I gave Larry Reed.”

“A man with a gun aimed at his head shouldn’t be making demands,” Brandi said.

Eddie knew he could take the guy out and then take Brandi out too. Ain’t no porno bitch gonna outshoot Eddie Vegas.

He was about to do it, too, when the guy held out his hand—not the one with the gun—and had a white pill for Eddie to take, asked, “PIMP?”

“Oh, shit, so that’s what y’all on,” Eddie said. “Yo, I don’t take that crazy shit.”

“Yeah, well the rest of the country does,” the guy said. “PIMP is the new E, the new Lodes, hell, the new Nirvana, and… ready for this…it knows how to take care of you.”

Eddie had heard that
It knows how to take care of you
shit on the street, said, “I don’t need no PIMP lesson, man. I need my fuckin’ money.”

“Guess it’s time to fess up,” the guy said. “My name’s not Sean Mullen.”

“Oh yeah, it ain’t?” Eddie thought he was full of shit.

“It’s Max Fisher.”

“What?” Eddie said.

“You know me,” Max said. “You were a co-executive producer of the TV show based on my fucking life.”

Eddie stared at the ugly guy and now he saw it. Under the fat and all that red. Under the surgery scars.

Shit.

“Man, it’s really you,” Eddie said, lowering his gun.

“Yep,” Max said.

Eddie, awestruck, went, “I heard about you for years. Man, you a motherfuckin’ legend on the street. How you broke outta Attica, said fuck you to all them Aryan bitches.”

“Yeah, ’tis been a wild ride,” Max said, talking weird again, with that accent.

Max and Brandi had lowered their guns too.

“Damn, I should be gettin’ your autograph,” Eddie said. “Nobody believe it when I tell them I met Max Fisher.” Then he had his iPhone out. “Can I get a selfie?”

“Sorry,” Max said. “No pics.”

“I get it, I get it, it’s cool,” Eddie said. He was so nervous around Fisher it was hard to talk. Like that time he’d met Ricky Martin.

“I want to make a deal with you,” Max said. “The truth is I’m not only a TV producer, I’m a PIMP dealer. In fact I’m responsible for the PIMP explosion around the country.”

“Wait,” Eddie said, “so you’re tellin’ me that’s what you been doing all this time when the cops are lookin’ for you and you most wanted? You’re dealing PIMP?”

“Yep,” Max said.

“Most wanted and dealing PIMP?” Eddie said. “Oh, shit, that’s cold.”

“I need a guy like you in my operation,” Max said. “If you forget about
Bust
and the seventy-five grand I’ll give you PIMP distribution rights for all of the west coast. Does that put wood in your chinos?”

Eddie thought it over for maybe a few seconds, then asked, “Will I be like,
Scarface
?”

Max smashed a glass, cut into Eddie’s face, straight line down his cheek, then cold-ass as shit went, “Yeah, but not as good looking.”

The next day all hell broke loose, and the thing is I should have seen it coming.
R
OBERT
W
ARD
,
Red Baker

Max had known he’d hit it big in L.A.—’cause he hit it big wherever he went—but he hadn’t known he’d hit it, like, this big. His life, alas, had been like a fairy tale, and like a trip to the VIP room at a strip club, it had a happy ending.

It was like he and Angela had dreamed it up, years ago in Manhattan, when she was his secretary and he was CEO of a computer networking company. He’d thought all they’d have to do is off his bitchy wife and they’d live happily ever after, and okay, okay, things hadn’t been exactly happy, and they’d left dozens of bodies in their wake, but they were here happy now, living the dream, and that was all that mattered, right? Fuck the past. Didn’t the Buddhists say that?

Bust
had been picked up by Netflix, who’d already greenlit three full seasons of the show. Paula had written a great pilot and early buzz was that the series would be a surefire hit. Max and Angela, still known to the world as Sean and Brandi, had been taking meetings with executives. Thanks to years of hiding out, watching TV shows and movies, Max was like a fookin’ natural in the movie biz. As it turned out, dealing PIMP and making television had lots of similarities. It was about the product, all about the deals. And he knew as much as these studio fucks about dealing. Maybe more.

On the first day of principal photography, Max and Angela were on the set, holding hands and getting goosebumps, while hearing the director, Bryan Singer, scream, “Action!”

The set was the pizza place in Manhattan, where Max hires the hit man, Thomas Dillon, to kill Max’s wife. Ah, memories. Colin Farrell was Dillon and Paul Giamatti was Max. Max had thought George Clooney would be more of an aesthetic fit but he had to admit Giamatti had him down cold.

Angela—still known to the world as Brandi Love—had been cast as Angela. Max thought Angela looked the part, and those tits looked better than ever, but in her first scene with Giamatti, in a recreation of Max’s old office in Manhattan, she delivered her lines in such a stilted way everyone winced. The fucking gaffers, even. It didn’t get better as the day wore on. It was obvious that Giamatti was frustrated with her and that everybody thought she was awful.

During a break, execs from Lionsgate and Netflix met with Max in private, telling him that they all thought Angela had to be taken off the show.

“We already have a yes from Lindsay Lohan’s people,” the Lionsgate exec said, “and Colin refuses to work with Angela anymore.”

“I hate to put it so bluntly,” the Netflix exec said, “but Brandi sucks. Either she’s off the show or we can’t continue with the production.”

Max didn’t like the disrespect from the Netflix exec, or the threat, and made a mental note to hire somebody to kill the guy’s dog or cat at some point to send a message. But he told them he agreed that Angela had to go and he’d break the news to her tonight.

Max waited till later that evening when they were home at their new estate in Beverly Hills. After their nightly routine of sex and P—he had taken to calling the drug P, a single letter like some stars just used a single name, like Madonna or Rihanna—he broke the news to Angela that she was off the show.

He cut to the chase with, “You’re gone, girl.”

Okay, okay, so Max had done perhaps a wee bit more P than he’d intended and was bumping in his mind from elation through paranoia to outright delusion. He was dressed in a pair of white chinos, a white T with the words
YOU GOTTA KILL THE FLING YOU LOVE
, and a white windbreaker with gold trim, not unlike Elvis before he bought the farm on a toilet seat. He looked in the mirror and what P showed him was Tony Manero. The reel of
Saturday Night Fever
looped in his head. He said, “TCB.” If Elvis hadn’t quite left the building, he would soon.

Max was so out of it he failed to remember that Angela was right along with him on the P train. If the shit made him crazy, it wired Angela to a whole new level of batshit nuts.

“Gone girl?” Angela said, scratching herself like a gorilla with jock itch. “Who’s gone girl?”

Max, under a giant disco ball, said, “You, you’re off the show. Lindsay Lohan’s replacing you.” He flashed back to his time as a CEO and said, “You’re terminated, my sweet bitch.” Then he was at a pub in Galway and Angela was the shite-slow barmaid, and he went, “Ya old cunt, get me like, double Jameson on the rocks and you know, like, maybe before the fooking sun sets,” and he snapped his fingers.

Even off in the stratosphere on P, he knew he’d made a huge mistake. Not by firing her, but by snapping. He’d forgotten the golden rule of never, ever snap at an Irishwoman.

Sure enough, Angela moved right in his face, went, “Hey, cocksucker, have a drink of this,” and Max felt the jolt in his head, his neck snap back, and knew the cunt had shot him.

He emitted a tiny, “Duh?” and, like a deflated balloon, crumpled to the floor.

* * *

The P said to Angela,
It is what it is
. And she answered, “Ah, shit the fook up.”

She had the double Jameson, her mind a mix of utter blankness and fierce practicality, urging,
Get….get….get rid of the body
.

She answered aloud, “Okeydokey.”

In a purple haze, she got Max in the front seat of her car, propped him up like a passenger, blood only slightly leaking down his jaw. But some Dark Gods were minding her, it was dusk and she got him to the L.A. River, humming,
Drop kick me Jesus tru the goalposts of life
.

A fuck of a tune to hum.

Then in a P-fueled surge of energy, humped him over the bridge and into the river, where he made an almighty splash, something he’d always wanted. Then she dumped the gun she’d used, the dainty .22 she’d bought for protection and been carrying strapped to her thigh—’cause you always gotta watch your back in this town—in there with him.

As she drove off, she crooned, “He got the goldmine and I got the shaft.”

The moon played out over the surface of the water and later Angela realized if she hadn’t been so far gone on P, and had been playing real close attention, she might have seen the slight bubbles hitting the surface and easing out like sad credits on a sadder movie.

I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.
F. S
COTT
F
ITZGERALD
,
The Great Gatsby

Angela was living the dream. She was helming
Bust
, the hottest TV show in the country, which had been nominated for nine Golden Globe Awards, including Best Television eries—Drama, and she was part of the hottest gay couple in Hollywood. Yep, Angela and Paula were an item, the last lesbian power women of Hollywood, the Ellen and Portia du jour. They’d been featured in all the major mags and had had an exclusive, invitation-only wedding back on Lesbos. She had been to rehab to get off PIMP and tearfully told her story of overcoming her addiction to Oprah. She made Oprah cry when she talked about the abuse she’d suffered from Max Fisher and the other men in her life, and how the experiences had driven her to porn and prostitution. But when Angela talked about her meteoric rise to the top of Hollywood the audience gave her a standing O and Oprah shed tears of joy. Book rights to Angela’s life story had been sold at auction to St. Martin’s Press with Paula as the ghostwriter, and a film was in development at Universal with Angela —AKA Brandi Love—executive producing.

Speaking of Love, Angela was in love with Paula, considered her her latest soul mate, but Angela also loved that she was taking a break from men, who’d caused so much havoc in her life. As Angela often told her new A-list friends, the best part about Paula was she didn’t have a dick, and without a dick you can’t get fucked.

On Golden Globes night at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, Angela and Paula were making a big splash. They’d already told the fashionistas at E! what they were wearing—Angela in Herrera and Paula in Dolce & Gabbana. Arm in arm during their entire stroll along the red carpet, they stopped for photos every few seconds and to do an interview for Ryan Seacrest. Then they posed for cast photos with Paul, Lindsay, and Colin, waved to John Stamos, Tom Hanks, and, of course, Jodie Foster, and chatted with other celebs including Jennifer Aniston and her new ex-boyfriend—both huge
Bust
fans—and with Robert Downey Jr. and his wife, Susan. Angela had a new movie project in development with Robby so it was all smiles but, the truth was, she was planning to dump the project in the morning. Robby was hot but not hot enough to get in on the Brandi Love bandwagon.

Angela didn’t want the night to end; she wanted the red carpet to stretch on for eternity. It was hard not to get emotional as she flashed back to the journey that had gotten her here: New Jersey, Dublin, New York, Greece, Attica, Butt Fuck Canada, London, and finally Hollywood. Her life had been like the most challenging maze in the world with so many dead ends, but she’d finally found a way out and emerged onto the red carpet of the Golden Globes. It felt a lot like destiny.

It felt a lot like destiny
. Great line, she’d have to remember to remind Paula to include this in the book.

Then Paula said: “Oh my God, I can’t believe who I just saw.”

Angela was smiling for a paparazzo, maybe the image for the next cover of
People
, and then noticed Paula staring at something in the distance.

“Who?” Angela asked. She couldn’t see for herself, more flashes blinding her.

“It’s impossible, of course,” Paula said. “I have to be imagining it.”

“Who?” Angela asked again, hoping Paula had spotted Brad Pitt. Angela imagined convincing Brad to ditch Angelina later at the after-parties. Would Angela swing back the other way for Brad? Hell, yeah. For all her big talk, she was getting bored with being a lesbian, and writers could be depressing as hell. Besides, it was about time to reinvent herself again and fook Brangelina. Brangela had a better ring to it.

“Brad Pitt?” Angela asked.

“No…”

Angela was smiling for another photo and only turned to look after Paula said:

“…Phil Hoffman.”