Hard Case Crime: Money Shot (10 page)

“That’s something to do with record keeping, right?” Malloy asked.

“It’s basically just another way to make life hard for godless smut peddlers,” I said. “Now not only do you have to have all your drivers licenses for all your talent—scanned, not just photocopied—but you also have to put your physical address on the beginning of every DVD and on every Web site. Not a PO box, but the actual physical location where the records are kept. You also need to put a real legal name as the custodian of records and guarantee that person will be at the listed address to make the records available for a minimum of four hours every business day. There’s more, but that’s the part that’s gonna help us.”

“God,” Didi said. “I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be grateful for 2257.”

“Right,” Malloy said. “So if we go out and rent
Naughty Teens
17, we’ll get the address of the guy who made the video?”

“No,” I said. “We’ll probably just get the address of the PDM office. But what we can do is show up during the allotted four hours and get a drivers license for Kimberly or Lia or whatever her name is.”

“Outstanding,” Malloy said.

“What else?” Didi asked.

Malloy reached into the desk drawer and took out another pack of cigarettes. He offered one to Didi and she took it, letting him light it for her and then fanning the smoke away from me with one ring-heavy hand.

“Well,” Malloy said. “I don’t know about you, but I’d like to know what happened to that briefcase.”

“Who cares,” I asked. “For all we know, they’ve found it already.”

“If they had,” Malloy said. “They wouldn’t have gone after Zandora. You want to know what I think?” He lit a cigarette for himself. “I think the blonde hid the briefcase somewhere in your office, probably in the bathroom, and then someone else found it, after the first round of goons had split but before they went back to toss your place while you were at the phony shoot.” He sucked smoke and squinted at Didi. “You don’t have it, do you, Didi?”

“Fuck off, Lalo,” Didi said. “If I had it, don’t you think I would have mentioned it by now?”

Malloy shrugged.

“Just asking,” he said.

“So who all was in the office that day?” I asked. “It was pretty busy wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Didi said. “I’m so frazzled right now, though, I can barely remember.”

“Got a surveillance system in your office?” Malloy asked.

I shook my head.

“I’m pretty sure there’s a security camera in the lobby,” Didi said. “I have no idea who keeps the tapes.”

“I’ll see what I can find out,” Malloy said.

No one said anything for several minutes. Malloy and Didi smoked. I looked at the image of Jesse Black on the screen. My head hurt.

“Okay, look,” Malloy said, crushing out his cigarette. “I think we oughta call it a night. Didi, remember what I said. Spread the word that you’re paying me to look for Angel.”

“Sure,” Didi said, taking my hand. “I just hate to leave you alone, honey, what with everything that’s happened.”

“I’m not alone,” I said. “I got Malloy.”

“Okay,” Didi said, “But the next time I come by, I’ll bring some ginger snaps or something.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come by again,” Malloy said, shaking his head. “It’s too risky.”

“Are you sure?” Didi asked. “I mean...”

“I’ll stay in contact by phone,” Malloy replied, gently taking Didi’s arm and maneuvering her toward the door.

“I’ll be fine, Didi,” I said, wondering if that were really true.

“Okay then, honey,” Didi said. She reached out and grabbed Malloy’s wrist. “You watch over her good, you big lug, or you’ll have me to answer to.”

“You got it,” Malloy said.

I stayed in Malloy’s bedroom while he let Didi out. After a few minutes of doing things I couldn’t see, Malloy came back into the bedroom with a Thai takeout menu. It felt weird to be alone with him again and I felt strangely self-conscious about sitting on his bed. The cover image for
Naughty Teens 17
was still on the screen of his laptop.

“You want me to order some food for you?” he asked.

I looked up at him standing there holding the menu and I was hit with a sudden powerful urge to pull him down on the bed with me. It was a bad idea and I knew it, but I always react to stress that way. I looked down at my hands.

“What about you?” I asked. “You’re not hungry?”

“I don’t want to order enough food for two people now that Didi’s gone,” Malloy said “It would look suspicious.” I’ve got stuff to eat in the fridge. You know, guy food. Lunch meat. Frozen stuff. Nothing I’d offer to a guest.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”

“You oughta have something,” Malloy said.

I wanted him to put down the menu and put those big, calloused hands up my skirt. I wanted him to get rough, to make me forget.

But I was still pretty sore from my date with Jesse. It was good to have that as an excuse not to make a pass because I really didn’t want to think about the fact that I wasn’t all that sexy anymore. The fact that Malloy would probably be totally turned off if I came on to him. At best he’d feel sorry for me.

“No thanks,” I said instead. “I’m fine.”

Malloy nodded.

“Well,” he said. “If you change your mind later you can go ahead and help yourself.”

I wondered if he was still talking about food.

Although I was exhausted, I was way too jittery to really sleep. I dozed on and off on Malloy’s couch all night, flickering television inanity unable to compete with the jumbled emotions in my head. It didn’t help that I seemed to be on virtually every channel, more so on the flashy, shallow “entertainment” news shows than the supposedly legit outlets, but even the almighty CNN seemed to be unable to resist running a few carefully cropped clips from
Double Dare
and footage of me at the AVN awards with a very young Jenna Jameson. They also showed a ton of footage of the two cops who seemed to be in charge of bringing me to justice. One was black and a little nerdy-looking and tended to keep his mouth shut. The other was white, blond and athletic and looked like an actor playing a cop. The camera loved him.

But the footage that really got under my skin was a quick shot of Sam’s wife Georgie looking pale and numb as she was hustled from a car to some dull, official-looking building. Sweet, busty, hippy-dippy Georgie who wouldn’t hurt a fly and really honestly believed that love could change the world. I guess she had learned the hard way that the opposite number was much more efficient. Not hate of course, which is sort of like love’s twisted sibling, but cold, heartless disregard for human life.

Sam had told me that the man who set up the phony shoot “had Georgie” but he clearly didn’t have her anymore. Had he just let her go after he had her husband killed? I suddenly wanted desperately to find Georgie and talk to her, find out what she knew, what had really happened, but the fact that she probably believed I had killed Sam left a hollow ache under my ribs.

I searched around the channels for an old movie with no commercials. Something sweet and silly with no guns. I found a musical with Cyd Charisse and turned the sound down low, trying not to think. It didn’t work.

I couldn’t get a fix on how to feel about Malloy. I wanted to slug him and fuck him and get away from him and be rescued by him all at the same time. I felt surrounded by him, here in his place where everything smelled like he did. I wondered why he was going out of his way like this to help me—he didn’t know me that well and certainly didn’t owe me anything. I wondered if he was sleeping on the other side of the bedroom door, or lying awake like me. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to creep into his bedroom or sneak out the door, so I just stayed on the couch and pulled my knees up to my chin.

I didn’t know if I wanted Malloy or not, but I did know the one thing I really wanted. Sure, I wanted revenge and I wanted to clear my name, but more than anything else, I just wanted to go home.

If I had lost everything in a flood or an earthquake, I would be sad, but I could eventually let it all go and find a way to start over. But my things weren’t destroyed. They were sitting there in my house, just the way I left them. The coffee cup I hadn’t washed. Fruit from the farmer’s market that would just go bad. The book I was reading. My dirty laundry. My vibrator—God, did I leave it on the bed or put it back in the drawer? Would the cops staking out the place bother to water my plants?

Worse, what was going to happen to my little house on Morrison Street now that I was a fugitive, wanted for murder? I’d never had a relationship that lasted even a tenth as long as my relationship with my house, my own private sanctuary where everything was just the way I liked it. When I bought that house, it was a cheap 70s fixer-upper with ugly shag carpet and a leaky chimney. I gutted the place and redid everything from the ground up, made it my own. My mortgage was less than three years from being fully paid off. And didn’t the cops seize your property if you were involved in a criminal investigation? I wasn’t sure, but it killed me to think that after all the money and hard work I’d put into that place, those bastards could take it away just like that. Somehow, that hurt much more than what Jesse had done to me.

When the sun finally came up, Malloy came out of the bedroom. He was wearing gray sweatpants and a clean white t-shirt and he didn’t look tired or rumpled or like he had just woken up. He looked the same as ever. I must have looked awful with my hair all snarled and sticky black eyes squinting against the sun. I felt like deep-fried shit.

“Coffee?” he asked, unfazed as he ambled into the kitchen. “Sorry, I don’t have any Sweet’N Low.”

“Black is fine,” I said. “Do you mind if I jump in the shower?”

“Go right ahead,” Malloy said, his wide back to me as he filled the carafe of the coffeemaker with bottled water. “You’ll find clean towels in the cabinet to the left of the sink.”

Malloy’s bathroom was pristine and nearly empty. I carefully avoided looking into the mirror and concentrated on snooping around instead. You can tell a lot about a bachelor by his bathroom. Apparently Malloy was completely immune to the latest craze for marketing
XXXTREME
ultra-studly chick-magnet grooming products to insecure men. The last bachelor bathroom that I had been in had been cluttered with body spray and shower gel and crotch deodorant with names like
JACKHAMMER, MAGMA FORCE
, or
BLAST OFF
. Not here. Beside the faucet on the tiny sink was a bottle of store-brand antibacterial hand soap. Nothing else. Malloy’s medicine cabinet contained no surprises. There was nothing odd, unique or amusing anywhere to be found. No Viagra or Rogaine or Preparation H. No Vicodin or Prozac or AZT. He could have been anybody.

Inside the shower stall, the white tile looked as sterile as an operating theater. The stainless steel gleamed. On a narrow, built-in shelf sat a bottle of dandruff shampoo and a plain white soap dish containing a large green-and-white bar of Irish fucking Spring. I didn’t realize they still made that shit.

I stripped down and turned on the hot water in the shower. While I waited for it to warm up, I lost the battle to avoid looking in the mirror.

I guess you could say it was getting better, but it was still horrible. The swelling had gone down and my right eye, which had been swollen almost completely shut, was now open. The color palette of my bruises had shifted from lurid purple to more muted tones of ochre and bile. I wasn’t going to be winning any beauty contests any time soon.

The water was hot by then so I slipped in and goddamn, that was good. It was the first real shower I’d had since Jesse and it did wonders to improve my mood. By the time I was done, I almost felt like I could beat the bastards who did this to me. I felt like I could win. Must have been the Irish Spring.

When I got out I found a black mug of black coffee waiting for me on the coffee table. Malloy was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper.

“Hey,” I said softly, pulling the white towel tighter around my body and picking up the mug. “What should I wear? The dress or the jeans?”

I don’t know why I asked. I was a big girl and I’d been dressing myself without Malloy’s advice for more than 35 years. In spite of everything, it was still way too easy to cast Malloy in the hero/Daddy role. I really needed to watch that.

He looked up at me and the fact that I was only wearing a towel registered in his eyes. He looked back down at the paper. I scanned his face for any reaction at all, any tiny hint of a response to my near nakedness. He hid it well, but there was an undeniable tension in his jaw and shoulders. It could have been any number of things, but I desperately wanted it to be desire. It was as if I needed some kind of proof that I was still just a little bit sexy in spite of everything. Realizing that I had been fishing for a reaction, I felt suddenly pathetic, like a junkie combing the carpet for a dropped crumb of dope.

“For now just put the jeans and tank top from yesterday morning back on,” he said, sipping his coffee without looking up, giving away nothing. “I have an idea.”

That’s how I wound up dressed like a boy.

Malloy pulled the SUV into the lot of a shabby North Hollywood mini-mall that contained a purified water retailer, a 98-cent store, a restaurant that offered
“especialidades Oaxaqueños,”
and a tiny barbershop. Malloy took a spot in front of the barber.

There was a Spanish sign above the door. The window featured a sinister, weirdly proportioned painting depicting a pair of floating scissors hovering behind the small, disembodied head of what looked like a child with a mustache.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked, running my fingers nervously through my hair. Malloy had made me cut off my long nails at his apartment and my newly blunt fingers felt foreign against my scalp. “You know, I’m about as far from a boy as you can get without being pregnant.”

“Sure I’m sure,” Malloy said, taking my arm. “Come on.”

“It’s closed,” I said, pointing to a hand-lettered sign that read
CERRADO
. “It’s a Sunday, isn’t everyone supposed to be at church?”