It took everything I had not to burst out laughing. That’s what this was about? Macho tough guy Malloy was worried that his dick was too small to satisfy Angel Dare? I can’t tell you the number of times I’d heard those exact words or variations on that theme, but I never in a million years expected to hear it from Malloy.
I reached down and put my hand on what he had. He was no Thick Vic, but like most guys he was selling himself short.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him.
Then I proved it.
After, we lay side by side, close but not touching. I can’t say that I felt like my old self. I didn’t think I’d ever really feel like that again, but I felt like a stronger and more focused version of whoever this new person was. Malloy got up and padded over to the table to get out another carton of cigarettes. He wasn’t some kind of Hollywood muscle boy, but he looked good naked.
“Maybe we should get the hell out of Dodge,” Malloy said, back half-turned as he tore open the carton.
“What do you mean?” I asked, leaning up on one elbow.
“I mean just say fuck it,” Malloy replied, shaking a cigarette loose from a new pack. “Go to Belize or something. I don’t know.”
“You want to run away with me, Lalo?” I asked, smiling just a little.
He shrugged and lit up the cigarette then came back over to the bed, lying back and throwing one thick arm up behind his head.
“Would that be so bad?” he asked.
Would it? He was a good lover. Earnest, quietly intense and focused on giving me pleasure. He was also apparently not into the kind of over-the-top theatrics that seem to be a given these days when everyone has gotten their idea of good sex from porn. Guys get with a porn star and they think that kind of shit is what we really want every day. Here’s a tip for you. We do the things we do in porn because they look good, not because they feel good. Anyone who’s ever done an airtight reverse cowgirl will tell you that, and I’m not just talking about the girls either. Luckily I didn’t have to explain any of this to Malloy. And more importantly, he didn’t try to snuggle. He just smoked and gave me space.
It’s not like I had anything left in L.A. either. Didi was dead. Daring Angels was dead. Angel Dare was dead, or the next best thing. Up until that minute, I hadn’t given any thought to anything but revenge. Could there really be some new kind of life for me now? Some way to start over?
Maybe, I thought, I really should quit while I was ahead. I had one hundred and eighty grand of Ridgeway’s cash as payback for what he put me through. Couldn’t I call it even and disappear? Me and Malloy. Why not?
I knew perfectly well why not. Because as long as that bastard Ridgeway was alive, I would never be at peace. I couldn’t let it go. Maybe I should have, but I couldn’t.
“No,” I said. “I can’t go anywhere until that son of a bitch gets what’s coming to him. I just can’t, Lalo.”
“Getting to Ridgeway isn’t gonna be easy,” Malloy said. “It may be impossible. It’s not unlikely that he’ll get to you first. Guys like him almost never get what’s coming to them.”
“I understand,” I said. “But I have to keep trying. It’s all I’ve got left.”
Malloy nodded, smoked and said nothing. After a minute or two passed, he spoke.
“After my wife left me and took Paloma back to Santa Fe,” he said. “I didn’t date anyone for a long time. I mean sure, I fucked around, but I never let any women get to me. I was drinking back then and didn’t give much of a damn about anything. Then I met someone. She was a pro, you know? A call girl, but she never took a dime from me. Her name was Carla. She was from El Salvador. Long legs. Beautiful. Guys would line up to be with her.”
I didn’t say anything.
“One of her customers killed her,” he said. “Strangled her.” He took the cigarette out of his mouth and touched his lips with his thumb. “We knew who did it but we couldn’t make it stick. He walked.”
I turned to look at him. He didn’t look back at me. His gaze stayed fixed on the water-stained ceiling.
“The guy was this low-rent Hollywood sleazebag,” Malloy continued. “But he was connected. He had good lawyers. Carla, she was just another dead call girl. She didn’t matter, and so the guy walked.”
He took a long drag on the cigarette.
“It took three years, but I got to the guy,” Malloy said. “I took him out to the desert and made him sorry for what he did. Then I killed him.”
Malloy’s cigarette was burned down almost to the filter. He crushed it out in the cheap glass ashtray on the built-in nightstand.
“For those three years,” he said. “I couldn’t think about anything else. Planning to kill that guy ate up every second I was awake and all my dreams too. I had nothing else. I made stupid mistakes on the job. Nearly got myself killed. All because I couldn’t think about anything but how I was going to get that guy. For Carla.” He got out another cigarette and lit up. “The drinking got out of hand. I lost my badge. I deserved it, too. I was a fuck-up and I knew it, but I just couldn’t stop. It was like being in love, you know. Only hate.”
Man, did I know. That was exactly how I had felt about Jesse. I still felt that way about Ridgeway. If you would have told me how much I had in common with someone like Malloy two weeks before, I would have laughed. Now I felt like he was the one person on earth who understood what I was going through.
“When it was over,” he continued, “when I’d watched that fucker take his last breath, I realized I didn’t feel any different. I didn’t miss her any less. I’d devoted my whole life to getting that guy and once it was done, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I thought it would be this great victory but it wasn’t.” He turned to me. “I guess I’m just trying to say that revenge isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. That’s all.”
I sat up and tried to run my fingers through hair that wasn’t there anymore. I knew he was right. I wanted to run away with him and find some new kind of person to be. To start over someplace where no one had ever heard of Angel Dare. I wanted that, but I knew I wasn’t going to have it.
“I know you’re right,” I said. “I do. But I can’t walk away until this is done. Maybe after...”
I trailed off, unable to finish. I don’t think either of us really believed in after anymore.
Malloy looked away. He seemed to be wrestling with something big, trying to find words that just wouldn’t come. In the end he just said, “Okay, Angel. If that’s how you want it.”
“I’ll show you how I want it,” I said.
It was a cheap ploy, nothing but fleshy distraction from all the things I didn’t want to think about. Our hearts weren’t really in it. But we went through the motions anyway, just to have something to do. When it was done, I could feel exhaustion catching up with me. I tried to count the hours since I had last slept, but fell asleep counting.
I slept for what felt like forever and then came awake suddenly to the sound of pounding on the door. I was groggy and stupid but adrenaline quickly got my body clothed and upright. Standing, I realized two things at once. Malloy was gone. So was the briefcase.
I didn’t have time to feel angry or betrayed because I was too busy feeling like I was living my last ten seconds on this earth. I grabbed my duffel off the carpet and bolted into the bathroom. The Mickey Mouse lock on the bathroom door was a joke, but it might buy me an extra ten seconds, which at that point felt like doubling my lifespan. Standing in that shitty little bathroom, I was determined not to die there. I looked up at the tiny window and thought of Lia. I wondered if I would have the balls to throw myself in front of a bus if it came down to that.
Whoever had been banging on the door was in now, and had started on the bathroom door. I had no idea if they were cops or crooks and didn’t care to find out which. The bathroom window didn’t want to open more than a few inches, so I yanked down the shower curtain and wrapped it around my fist. It took more than one punch but eventually the thick, grimy glass gave way. I tossed the duffel ahead of me, hoping with irrational desperation that my blue coffee cup wouldn’t break. I didn’t even feel the jagged glass clawing at me as I squeezed through the window frame.
I had completely forgotten that I fell asleep in the spike-heeled boots until I hit the concrete. One slender, six-hundred-dollar heel snapped off and I felt my ankle twist, sending a jolt of pain up my leg. I looked both ways down the trash-strewn alley. I knew I couldn’t run on a broken heel, so before I could give it too much thought, I
