looked barely eighteen and extremely anxious. The two of them bought non-fat soy lattes to go and then headed over to a glass office tower on Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana.
“Holy shit,” I said to Malloy as Jesse and his new friend headed into the lobby of the building. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“What?” Malloy asked, frowning.
“That’s the office of Spotlight Escort,” I said. “They hook up clients with well-known male porn stars. A lot of the guys do it, but I never would have guessed Jesse was gay for pay.”
“No shit,” Malloy said. “That’s perfect.”
“Perfect?” I asked. “How do you mean?”
“I mean that’s how we’ll get him.”
We left Jesse and his nervous friend and headed out to Panorama City. Our destination turned out to be a modest house that could have been any house on any working class street anywhere in Southern California.
Malloy made me wait in the car while he went up the walk and knocked on the door. A tiny, grandmotherly woman with bright orange hair and glasses on a beaded gold chain greeted him and ushered him inside, closing the door behind him. He was gone less than fifteen minutes.
“You want to tell me what that was all about?” I asked when he got back in the car.
“If we are going to rent Jesse,” Malloy said. “We’ll need a credit card. Here,” He handed one of the cards to me. “I got one for you, too. Just in case.”
“Is this a stolen credit card?” I asked, looking down at the card in my hand. The name on the card was Linda M. Kozlen. I just couldn’t picture that old lady selling stolen credit cards.
“Yes,” Malloy replied. “You got a better idea, let me know.”
Malloy used his new card first to rent a Chrysler Sebring and then to book a room at the Woodland Hills Hilton. Then we made a visit to the Home Depot, for supplies.
It goes without saying that the Hilton was better than the Palmview. I almost wished we could stay there. I took advantage of the clean bathroom to have a nice long hot shower. Malloy showered, too, and shaved and then called Spotlight from the hotel phone while I filled up my duffel bag with clean, fluffy towels and complimentary toiletries. It was amazing to hear Malloy’s gruff voice go all soft and tentative, like a first time john.
“Um, yes, hello,” he said. “I would like to book a date with... um.. Jesse Black.”
He arched an eyebrow at me when I came out of the bathroom.
“He doesn’t?” Malloy said. “I see. Well, that’s fine. I just... well, I just want... No, no fetishes.” He paused. “No, kissing isn’t important.” Another pause “Look, I understand, but I really want Jesse.”
I came over and sat down on the bed.
“Right,” Malloy said looking down at the credit card. “Just the one hour. The name is Gerald Selbin. ‘S’ as in Snake, E-L-B-I-N.” He shook out a cigarette. “That’s correct.” He sparked his lighter and dipped the cigarette into the flame. “Visa.” He read off the number and expiration date. “Correct. Yes, I understand that the tip is not included. Hilton Woodland Hills. Room 403. Nine? Perfect. Thank you very much.”
Malloy hung up and shook his head.
“What?” I said. I felt jittery and a little sick from anticipation.
“Jesse doesn’t kiss, doesn’t give head or handjobs, and won’t let guys fuck him,” Malloy said. “Strictly a top, they say.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, remembering his weight on me, his hands on my neck. “He’s gonna bottom to me.”
The wait until nine seemed endless. Malloy and I went over and over the details of the plan. It felt like waiting for my first date. I wanted everything to be perfect.
Jesse was twenty minutes late. By the time he finally showed up I was so high strung I nearly had a heart attack when he knocked on the door.
“Ready?” Malloy asked.
I nodded.
Malloy went to let Jesse in and I backed into the bathroom, closing the door down to a narrow crack I could peek through.
“You Gerald?” Jesse asked. I couldn’t see him yet but just the sound of that lazy, cocksure California voice made my blood boil.
“That’s right,” Malloy said. “Please come in.”
Jesse walked into my thin slice of a view. He was dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt that said STAR- FUCKER. His pretty blue eyes were distant, already deep in hustlerbot mode. This was going to be too easy.
“You look great,” Malloy told him, taking out a hundred dollar bill and setting it on the bedside table. “You’re even better in person than in your movies.”
“Yeah,” Jesse said, looking at the money and then off into space. “Thanks.”
“Could you please...” Malloy said, flawless in the role of the anxious john, “your... I’d like very much to... see it.”
“Right,” Jesse replied, unzipping his fly.
While Jesse was concentrating on priming his pump for the job ahead, I quietly slipped out of the bathroom and pressed the snout of my pistol to the soft place where the back of his neck joined his skull.
“Get your fucking hands where I can see them,” I said.
“Aw, shit,” Jesse said, raising his hands up to shoulder level.
Malloy drew his gun and smiled.
“You remember Angel Dare,” Malloy said. “Don’t you?”
Jesse’s eyes went wide. I pressed my gun harder against his neck.
“Am I still your favorite?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer.
“Okay, listen up,” Malloy said. “The three of us are gonna take a little walk.”
“Can I...?” Jesse nodded down toward his exposed and rapidly shrinking livelihood. “Do you mind?”
“Go ahead,” I said. “You won’t be needing it anymore.”
We walked Jesse down the fire stairs and into the parking lot. I kept my arm around his waist as if he were my boyfriend, gun pressed into the small of his back under his t-shirt. Malloy was close behind.
There was nobody around as Malloy unlocked the new rental car and popped the trunk. Using a white plastic zip strip from Home Depot, Malloy swiftly bound Jesse’s hands behind his back.
“Get in,” I said, jabbing the muzzle of my gun into Jesse’s kidney.
“You gotta be kidding,” Jesse said.
“She’s not.” Malloy said.
“Come on now, Jesse,” I said. “This is plush next to that damn Civic.”
Malloy kicked Jesse in the back of one knee and his legs buckled. He fell face first into the trunk.
“Mother...” Jesse cried, but Malloy tossed Jesse’s legs in after him and closed the trunk on
“Let’s go,” Malloy said.
Another long, silent drive, this one punctuated by rhythmic thumping and muffled curses from the trunk. I put on the radio and tuned to a classic rock station to drown Jesse out. Our destination was a place Malloy knew. A place out in the desert between Needles and nowhere. I didn’t want to know why he knew about that place, but I was glad he did. It was perfect.
When we got there, we spent a couple of back-breaking hours digging deep into the stony, unwilling ground. The desert night was beautiful, cool blue and full of stars, a thousand stars serenely indifferent to what we were
