“I need to speak with Elextra, George,” I said. “It’s about her old roommate, Crystal.”
“Oh shhit, Cshtal,” Elextra exclaimed as the name penetrated her drowning awareness. “How ish she?” George squeezed Elextra’s arm tightly, and the porn actress squeaked in pain and shut up.
“You don’t get shit but dead unless the three of ya get the fuck outta here right now,” George said, putting the best dangerous mobster look he could on his spray-tanned face.
“We got no beef, George,” I said, “but we need to talk to the lady. You hurt her like that in front of me again and we will have a problem. This won’t take long. We’ll be on our way before your little blue pill kicks in, promise.”
“Always did have a way with interviews,” Dragon muttered.
Wilde had been on a low boil before we even came into his world; now he was hot. He started to rise, his hand slipping into his baggy pants pocket. Vigil took two steps and clasped George’s wrist while still in the pocket. Vigil’s other hand rested under his jacket.
“You pull that .38 out, George, and I’ll have to shoot you in the gut, so don’t. Ease off the grip and take your hand out nice and slow.” George’s anger guttered a little, but not much. He removed his empty hand from his pocket and sat down, glaring. Vigil released his wrist and stepped back.
“He’s good,” Dragon said to me. I sat down opposite the porn producer, Dragon and Vigil at my back.
“I don’t know who you fucks think you are,” George began, “but you’re diggin’ your own fucking graves here. You’re not LAPD, I fucking know every one a’ the swinging dicks on the Pussy Patrol, so you’re not vice. Did Gregor send you? You tell that Vladimir-Putin-looking sonofabitch he’ll get his goddamned cut! I got production overhead! I got fucking Vegas up my ass for their cut too!”
“We’re not vice or with the Russians,” I said. “All we want is to know what Elextra can tell us about Crystal Myth. That’s it, then we’re gone.”
George sat and looked over to his girlfriend. Elextra was so out of it, I wasn’t sure she had comprehended the conversation going on around her. I placed a finger on her tumbler of scotch, smeared with her lipstick, and uttered a single word.
“Sobrii,” I said. The glass was now empty, and Elextra blinked several times and then winced as if she had been struck.
“Ow, fuck!” she said. “My fucking head! I think I’m gonna puke! It’s so fucking loud in here, Georgie!”
“What is this shit?” Wilde said, backing up a little. “You one of those gonzo freaks, those Satanists, whadda they call that shit, ‘grotto,’ or somethin’? You part of Blue’s crew? Buncha weird-ass fucks.”
Dragon leaned down to my ear. “Why the hell haven’t you ever used that to sober up?”
“Why the fuck would I?” I said and then leaned forward to Elextra. “Okay, Elextra, we’re looking for Crystal. We think she might be in a lot of trouble. Can you tell me anything about where she might have gone to, who she could be with?” Dare’s eyes were clear now, focused. She reached for a glass of water and nodded as she drank.
“Yeah, Crystal, Crissie, yeah. We were roommates back when I first came to L.A.,” she said. “She introduced me to Georgie.”
“Spooky fucking little bitch,” George said, nodding. “I worked with her for a while, but she thought she was fuckin’ Meryl Streep … shit, like I couldn’t buy twenty pieces of ass just as good, better even—”
“Georgie,” Dragon said, interrupting the pornographer, “shut up.” Wilde began to say something to Dragon, but she let a tiny sliver of her mask slip, and George paled, even through his orange tan. “Go, Elextra,” she said.
“Yeah, well, she was kinda … different, sad a lot of times, like she didn’t belong here, or anywhere. She was a good friend. One time this guy, he hurt me real bad, and Crissie, Crystal, she did some kinda witch stuff and she made me feel all better. Not just made the hurtin’ stop, she made me feel, I don’t know, special, safe, like when you’re a little kid, sleeping in the backseat of the car, y’know, and you just know everything is gonna be okay. You know what I’m talkin’ about?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“That loony cooz was into all kinds of witchcraft and shit. Thought she was too fuckin’ good to spread her legs and—”
“George,” Dragon said. “You’re doing that thing again that makes me want to nail your head to the table. Close your gassy trap. Go on, Elextra.”
“Well, she was into some weird shit. She told me she was like, not human, like a fairy or something. Oh, and Crystal wasn’t her real name…”
“We had our suspicions about that,” Dragon said looking at me and raising an eyebrow. “Go on.”
“Yeah, well, she kinda gravitated into the gonzo porn, y’know, all the weird kink stuff. It pays better, but I always kind of got the idea it wasn’t about the money for her.”
“What was it about?” I asked.
“I think she kinda wanted to die,” Elextra said, her eyes falling to the table. “I don’t think she had any family, nobody, y’know, real. If you ain’t got some kind of anchor, something real, away from all this … it will eat you up.”
“Oh, look who’s suddenly a P-H fuckin’ D,” Wilde said. “What the fuck would you know
