bitch was too much of a pussy to come himself, so he sends those bozos. I don’t know the two ink monkeys, but the cute guy, that’s Mitch Magnum’s kid. Hung like his old man and just getting started in the business. Christ, what a fucking waste.” She shook her head. “Then those cops showed up and the whole thing went to hell.” She wiped her mouth on her forearm. “Look at my carpet. It’s ruined.”
“Come on, Didi,” I said. “We gotta get you out of here.”
“You cut off all your hair,” she said, patting the back of my head with her good hand. “I don’t know, honey. It kinda worked for Belladonna, but I don’t think I like it on you. It makes you look... too dykey.”
“I’ll grow it back when all this is over, I promise,” I said. “Now come on. Get up off your fat ass and let’s get the hell out of here.”
“I can’t, Angel,” Didi said, swallowing hard and pushing her sticky hair out of her eyes. “You go on.”
“I won’t leave you,” I said, grabbing a silky fistful of her negligee. “Come on.”
“Look, honey,” Didi said, gently pushing my hand away. “I can’t go anywhere like this. More cops are on the way, right? They’ll take me to the hospital and get me fixed up. You can’t go with me to the hospital, you’d get arrested.”
“Bullshit,” I said, feeling panic-stricken and desperate. “No.”
“Go on,” Didi said, pushing me away, but there was no strength in it. “I’ll wait here. Maybe that sexy Detective Erlichman will show up and rescue me.” She touched her sweaty hair. “How do I look?”
“You’re a bloody mess, Didi!” I said, my throat clenched almost too tight to speak.
“Yeah well,” Didi replied with a shaky smirk. “At least I got on something nice. Let this be a lesson to you, Angel. Always wear something nice, just in case. You never know when you’ll get taken to the hospital and meet a well-hung doctor.”
I looked down at my loose, unflattering t-shirt and jeans and was suddenly crying.
“Aw knock it off, willya?” Didi said. “I didn’t mean what I said about your hair. It looks okay, really. I just need some time to get used to it, that’s all. Now get out of here already. If you get yourself arrested on my account I’ll kick your ass myself. One handed, even. Go!”
That’s when I knew that she was dying. I could see it in her face, in her bright glassy eyes and tight smile. She had already lost way too much blood. There was no way she was going to make it.
I had always heard the word anguish, but I’d never really understood what it meant until that moment. Didi was the last connection I had to my old life. The last tie to who I’d been before all this. My house and my business were gone, but up until that moment, I could still count on Didi to back me up no matter what anybody said. I’d had no idea how much I needed that until I felt it slipping through my fingers.
“All right,” I said, turning to leave with a cold vacuum under my sternum. I couldn’t bring myself to say
I paused by the door and looked back. Didi was resting her cheek against the toilet seat, her face turned away from me. I could hear sirens in the distance. What else could I do? I got the hell out of there.
When we got back to the motel, there was no way I could sleep. I felt like I might never sleep again. When I refused to take the only bed, Malloy shrugged and took it himself without comment. He kicked off his shoes, took off his jacket, and put his gun and holster on the bedside table. He was asleep almost instantly, still dressed and on top of the covers. He lay straight as a board, on his back with his hands loosely clasped on his chest like a funeral parlor corpse ready to be viewed by the grieving family. He didn’t snore. The only indication that he was still alive was the gentle rise and fall of his chest.
I just sat in that uncomfortable chair and didn’t think. I waited for the sun to come up.
In the morning, the shit with Didi was on the news. She was already dead in my mind so when the inflatable blonde newslady announced that former porn star Diane Kellick, also known as Didi DeLite, had been shot to death in her Winnetka home, I felt nothing. They showed some old stills of Didi looking foxy back in the day with her blonde Farrah hair and sly smile. She would have been happy to be remembered that way. Handsome Detective Erlichman came on saying that they were currently unsure of the connection between the deceased guitarist of a local band called Smackdown and missing murder suspect Angel Dare. I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“What’s so funny?” Malloy asked, coming out of the bathroom and rubbing the silver stubble on his chin.
“Nothing,” I said. I shrugged. “Everything. I don’t know.”
“We’ve got that address from the drivers license,” he said, putting on his jacket. “You ready to pay Jesse Black a visit?”
“I’ve been ready all night,” I said. It sounded great. I hoped it was true.
“According to his model release,” Malloy said, sipping 7-Eleven coffee as we waited to get on the 101 freeway, “Jesse Black is really Christopher Aaron Mezger. Born February 10, 1986. Currently residing at 1889 Draco Way. That’s up in the West Hills near Bell Canyon Park. Nice.”
I nodded, forcing myself to drink my own coffee, even though it tasted like hot varnish.
“For now, we just scope out the place,” Malloy said. “Watch him and see where he goes. Who he’s got with him. We need to figure out his routine so we can figure out how to get him alone.”
“Right,” I said. My head hurt. I knew it was going to be difficult not to blow the bastard out of his boots the second I set eyes on him again.
Jesse’s house was beautiful and trashed. There were beer cans and discarded clothes and cigarette butts everywhere. Jesse’s Ferrari was parked half on the driveway and half on the front lawn. There were several other expensive cars parked with varying degrees of competence all around the front of the house.
Malloy parked on the other side of the narrow street. As we watched, a pair of girls, one blonde and one brunette, came out the door and wobbled down the walkway. They were built like greyhounds with implants and still dressed in expensive clubwear that was way too slutty for 9AM. You could see they had probably looked pretty good the night before, all made up and displayed under low-watt bar lighting. In the harsh light of day they looked rode hard and put away wet, raw red stubble burn around their mouths and raccoon smears of mascara all around their squinting eyes. Eventually the two of them found their way to a sporty little BMW two-seater and drove away.
Malloy and I waited. Several other young, attractive people came out of the house in various states of intoxication. It was nearly two hours before Jesse made an appearance.
He was wearing black-and-red track pants and a skintight tank top. His face looked pale, hung-over and puffy but he still looked beautiful.
Just seeing him made my heart twist savagely inside my chest. It felt almost like a toxic kind of crush. I wanted to kill him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.
I might have done just what Malloy told me not to do, might have gotten out of the car and plugged the fucker right there in his driveway, but he had another guy with him. A black guy with a shaved head, an unattractive face and an astoundingly ripped and flawless body. The black guy was also wearing workout duds and it was no stretch to figure the two of them were going to the gym.
Malloy and I followed Jesse through his day and rapidly discovered that he was almost never alone. From the gym he and his buddy went to a pricey organic health food cafe called PURE where they met up with three gorgeous, interchangeable blondes. The buddy went off with two of the girls and Jesse took the third. They made a pretense of shopping along Ventura Boulevard and then she blew him a little in the Ferrari in the parking lot of the Bed Bath and Beyond. Jesse dropped her off back at the cafe and then headed over to a car repair place where he left the Ferrari and was picked up by another beautiful girl, a lush, full-figured Latina with a face like a young Sofia Loren. The caliber of tail that guy was getting was really unbelievable.
The new girl drove him out to the Vixen Video studio in Van Nuys. He dry-humped her for nearly half an hour before she let him out and drove away. He adjusted himself unselfconsciously and headed in to the studio. A few minutes later, I spotted hot Asian newcomer Heidi Ho lugging her gig bag across the parking lot. He wasn’t inside long, just long enough to shoot one quick scene. When he came out, yet another beautiful girl picked him up, this one a tan, athletic fitness model type. She, too, made out with him for several minutes before dropping him back at the garage. Once he had his car back, he picked up a male friend at a coffee shop a few blocks away. The kid
