Eye Candy (45 page)

The next night, he went out.

And the night after that.

And the night after that….

He visited every topless and all-nude dance club he could find. Girls of all shapes and sizes led him upstairs, downstairs, into back rooms and into private booths where they stripped for him, rubbed their bodies against him, and cajoled him into just one more dance. He even paid extra to take a shower with a tall girl named Jasmine. But as he stood in the emerald-tiled shower stall with Jasmine, so high and drunk he could barely keep his eyes focused on her as she slid her soapy breasts all over his body, the only thing he could think about was how much he wished he were showering with Candy, for it was an activity they had never shared.

Each club, each night, weekdays and weekends alike, Danny went in with hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars in cash. He came out with nothing. He was often blind drunk, and sometimes fell down in an alley beside the club, or somehow managed to find the quiet interior of his car. He instructed the car to drive home, where it would park in the garage, and where he would sleep until morning.

He drove downtown and wandered both by car and on foot, craning his neck up at the skyscrapers so tall he could not see their uppermost floors. He explored the dark and busy streets of Chinatown, Koreatown, Little India, and Little Prague. All of them featured full-service massage parlors where happy endings were standard fare. Despite many high and intoxicated efforts, he could never bring himself to go inside and experience it for himself.

One Monday night, he found himself sitting in the 76 station on Sunset and North Laurel. He waited while his car’s power cell was filled by the robotic arm.

He took a deep breath of fresh air. Internal combustion engines had been made illegal in California more than two decades prior. Air pollution had ceased to exist in Los Angeles within mere days of the law taking effect. Los Angeles was now revered worldwide for its air quality. People traveled from other countries to enjoy the subtle mixture of ocean breeze and fresh pine forest.

“Your automobile is now charged,” intoned the digitized voice of the robot arm.

“Thank you,” said Danny.

“You’re welcome.” The arm retracted and stowed itself in its place on the small concrete island.

Danny verified that his credit card was charged $7.19. Crisp red digits scrolled repeatedly across the front of the transparent card:
Norm’s 76 . . . 7979 Sunset Blvd Hollywood CA . . . $7.19 . . . Thank You!
A few cents more than a usual fill-up, but still reasonable. After the discovery of the Higgs Boson, a method for producing nearly-free energy had been discovered. The great oil companies had scrambled to build particle colliders-cum-power plants, and in less than two years the tidal shift away from fossil fuels was complete. Driven entirely by consumers, everything from cars to houses to shopping malls to orbital hotels to lunar colonies were quickly converted, modified, or updated to utilize the new power source. Initially, Danny had heard reports on the radio stating that colliding particles of the magnitudes required to create the Higgs Boson could, and the emphasis was on
could
, cause some teeny, tiny glitch, and could open up a black hole which would swallow the earth and everyone on it. They’d actually said that on the radio.

But everyone loved their new, clean, cheap electricity, and so far the whole black hole thing hadn’t happened.

Danny sat behind the wheel, not moving. He didn’t know where to go.

Across the street was The Laugh Factory. According to the black electronic letters glowing on the large digital marquee, Poodle Raw was headlining. Probably trying out new material on a small, Monday night crowd.

Poo was a 75-year-old cyborg who looked like he was in his thirties. He liked to riff on childhood and adolescence and sex and growing up, as well as all manner of 1980s pop culture innuendo, the stuff of Poo’s youth before he’d gotten his metal (sometime in his sixties, if Danny recalled correctly) and made himself virtually immortal.

Poo was the first person on earth to get one billion friends on both Facebook and Twitter (and a person he still was, for cyborgs were a legally protected class, according to
Kaiser Permanente v. Browne 2022
, and the U.S. Supreme Court). Poo’d starred in more than 500 movies, more than any other actor in history, and, according to
Fortune 100 Magazine
, was so wealthy that he now donated 99 percent of his earnings to charity.

Danny’s two favorite Poo films were one in which he fell in love with a girl but could not have sex with her because of a curse placed upon him stipulating that every woman he slept with would fall in love with and marry the
next
man
she
slept with.

The other one was the movie where Poo was elected as Earth’s representative to visit another planet and its inhabitants. Of course Poo mucks it up by having sex with far, far too many aliens, but he saves the day in the end, like all good heroes should.

While Danny sat staring at the Laugh Factory, two teenagers strolled the sidewalk across the street from the service station. They were heading south, towards Sunset Boulevard. A couple of white kids wearing brand new expensive shoes. One of them carried a brown paper sack in his hand.

The teens stopped in front of The Laugh Factory. They looked around, up and down the street. The teen holding the paper sack drew his arm back and whipped the sack into the air. The sack hit the electronic marquee and brown sludge splattered Poo in the face.

The teens laughed, high fived, and hurried up the sidewalk.

Apparently they weren’t fans.

Danny toyed with the notion of popping into the Laugh Factory. He decided against it. He wanted to cruise the streets of L.A. with the top down, feel the wind in his hair, dream about Candy, and be completely fucking depressed. Perhaps he would park somewhere up in the hills, high above the city. He would sit and smoke and listen to the radio and worry about Candy.

“You okay, mister?”

The station attendant stood beside Danny’s convertible. A black baseball cap worn backwards covered his head. Long brown hair hung from beneath the cap. He wore a black tee shirt with a digital image of a rock band moving on it. It looked like a music video of a man in a hospital bed, with a mask strapped to his face, while his armless, legless body squirmed about. Danny stared at it, transfixed.

Finally, Danny looked up at the attendant’s face.

“Dude, you alright? You need a tow or somethin’?”

“No.”

“You been sittin’ here for forty-five minutes.”

Danny smiled. He found this very funny. “Really?”

“Yeah, dude, really.”

“Time flies when you’re having fun.”

“So, like, what’re you doing?”

Danny sighed. “I’m looking for someone. A girl.”

The attendant walked quickly to the sidewalk, to a row of small vending machines. He tapped a button on a red machine and an e-paper popped up. He removed it from the slot and returned to Danny’s car. “Here you go.”

Danny took the thin sheet. It gave off blue light, yet was also transparent. Electronic words and three-dimensional holographic images moved across the front of it, advertising for liquor stores and other local businesses.

Danny tapped the page numbers on the right-hand side, scanning through the bars, clubs, strip joints, massage parlors, and classified ads featuring beautiful women dressed in lingerie and high heels. The women feigned undressing, blew kisses, and curled their finger in come-hither motions.

Danny tapped on page five.

A jolt went through Danny’s body and soul.

Featured in the largest, most prominent ad, was Candy. Her holographic likeness rose up out of the electronic paper. She wore a lacy black brassiere, sheer, ruffled panties adorned with black bows, and black garters hooked to matching stockings. Purple nail polish adorned her fingertips. Pink lipstick covered her lips. Wild blond hair cascaded down her back.

Danny had never seen her this way. But it was most definitely her.

“What is this?”

“Call girls, man. Hookers. Escorts. You want a handjob in your car behind Pollo Loco, you call someone like her.” The attendant pointed to an overweight woman with mascara stains around her eyes. “You want to get wildly fucked, you call her.” He pointed to a woman with two hands clenched around the anatomically-accurate head of a large strap-on device. “And if you want a G-F-E in a suite at the Ritz, you call her.” He pointed to Candy.

“What’s a G-F-E?” Danny asked.

“Girlfriend experience. They hold your hand and braid flowers in your chest hair. Some real D.H. Lawrence shit. They pretend they like you. Like they’re your girlfriend.” He leaned closer and studied the ad in more detail. “Oh, no, wait. Never mind. It’s just an ad for a company that makes porn. She’s their newest fuck queen. See, her name is right there: Priscilla.”

In the corner of the ad, a company logo flashed,
Vulva
in blue letters, alternating with
Priscilla
in red letters, then a phone number. Danny pulled out his phone and dialed the number. A woman answered on the third ring.

“Vulva Video, go fuck yourself.”

“Excuse me?”

“Vulva Video. Go fuck yourself.”

“Excuse me?”

“Habla Ingles?”

“Yes, I speak English. Why did you tell me to go fuck myself?”

“It’s our new company slogan. We’re trying it out. You don’t like it?”

“No.”

“I’ll make a note of it. How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a girl.”

“Who isn’t?”

“No, I’m looking at one of your ads. I need to find the girl in the ad. It says her name is Priscilla.”

Danny heard the sound of fingers typing on a keyboard.

“Blond or redhead?”

“Blond.”

“I’ve got two blond Priscillas. Is it the one where she’s being strangled or the one where she’s wearing a bra and ruffled panties, with big hair?”

“Bra and panties and big hair,” said Danny.

“Yeah, she’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“It says she was fired. A couple months ago. She didn’t show up to work one day. So after a week they canned her.”

“Do you have any contact information? A phone number or address?”

“I couldn’t give you that information if I had it, but no, I don’t. I don’t even have her real name.”

“Is there anyone there I could talk to, someone who might know where she is?”

“We shoot more than a hundred girls a day. Almost five thousand a month. If you’re looking for talent, I can email you our latest catalogue.”

“No, I need to find this particular girl.”

“Please tell me you’re not her dad.”

“No, why?”

“We’ve had irate fathers show up here with shotguns. Is she your daughter?”

“No, but she’s . . . someone very special.”

“I would help you if I could, but I honestly have no information. Sorry.”

“Thanks, anyway.” Danny hung up.

“Dead end, huh?”

Danny nodded.

“You could always try the Palace.”

“The what?”

“Robot Palace. Up in the valley. They’ve got all kinds of fucked up shit in there. A lot of porn stars wind up there.”

“What do they do there?”

“Have sex with robots, mostly. But some cocktail.”

Danny studied the ad with Candy. It was the most recent image of her, taken sometime after her disappearance. “She’s not a porn star.”

The attendant chuckled. “Sorry, brother. But all evidence points to the contrary. You know her?”

“I used to.”

“She’s hot.”

Danny smiled. His lips and face curved upward to form the smile, but he felt sad inside. “Yes, she is.” He offered his pipe to the attendant. “You want a hit?”

“Shit yeah.”

“Hop in.”

The attendant opened the passenger door and got in.

“I forgot my Vape-a-toke at home,” said Danny “so we have to do it the old fashioned way.”

The attendant took the pipe and lighter from Danny. “There’s not supposed to be any open flame in the station.” He struck the lighter and angled the cone of blue flame toward the bowl. He took a big hit.

“Why?” Danny asked. “There’s no gasoline here.”

“I know,” said the attendant. He spoke in a hoarse voice as he held his smoke. “Old habits die hard.” After several long seconds, he exhaled two white plumes out of his nostrils. “That is some good shit. I’m Owen.” He extended his hand.

“Danny.”

They shook.

Owen held up the pipe. “May I?”

“Be my guest, Owen.”

“Thanks, man. And here I thought it was gonna be just another shitty Monday night at work while my friends were off watching the game.” Owen fired the bowl, inhaled, and held it. “You know, you look familiar.” Owen’s eyes widened and he coughed. He began patting his body, slapping his chest and arms and legs, while coughing out smoke.