High Life (10 page)

Chapter Ten

Dead beat. Late night back at the apartment. Head still swaddled in smack. The place looked worse than ever, dingy under light from a naked bulb. Even the furniture was unpleasant to look at. One piece in particular, because Ryan was sitting in it. Flabby body sagging into cracks between cushions. Same black suit, a clean white shirt, hair slick and gleaming, flat against his head.

“What the fuck—”

“Hiya, Jackie. Where you been? I was out in the car, but you took so long I thought I’d come in and make myself at home.”

“What do you want?”

“Oh, touch base, look the place over … Where were you?”

“Out.”

“Put a bit more effort into it.”

“I was with friends.”

“So soon after Karen’s death? My, my. Got a drink?”

“What?”

“A drink. Liquor, booze, firewater.”

“It’s like three o’clock.”

“So we’ll have a three o’clock drink.”

Arguing obviously wasn’t going to make things any easier, so I got Southern Comfort, ice, and glasses from the kitchenette, poured a couple of drinks, and sat down on the bed, opposite him.

“Is this going to take long? I’m tired.”

Ryan ignored me and scanned the room.

“Not much to show for a life, is it?”

“No, it’s not.”

“You should have tried harder, Jackie, given her something better. I would have.”

He drifted off then for a couple of seconds, like he was remembering something. When he came back he wasn’t any better. He knocked back his drink and screwed up his face like it was painful going down.

“I heard they make this stuff from orange peel.”

He poured himself another and looked at me speculatively.

“Know what I used to think about when I was fucking her? I used to think what it’d be like having her all the time, like you did.”

“It was less fun than you might imagine.”

“Yeah, she said your relationship wasn’t too hot. But that sort of thing don’t mean shit after fifty. You get someone her age who ain’t hideous and you’re ahead of the game. It makes it like you haven’t got old. Feels good just walking down the street like that, believe me.”

“How interesting.”

Ryan moved surprisingly quickly for a fat man, lunged forward and dragged me upright. His fingernails scratched my chest. The back of my head hit a wall.

“Don’t ever think I don’t matter. I spent thirty years shoveling shit in this town and at the end of next year I’ll get a pension for it that’ll rent a two-room dump and buy a piece of secondrate ass once a month. Facing that, Jackie, I won’t take attitude off some waster fuck like you.”

If we’d gone head to head I would have come out on top, easy. But he was a cop and he had a gun. So I stood there and let him breathe heavily into my face. A few seconds later he went back to the couch and sat down abruptly, rubbing his chest.

“Get me some water.”

I brought him a glass. He took a few sips then put a pill under his tongue. His face looked congested.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Pour me a drink.”

“You think that’s wise?”

“Yeah, it’s wise. Pour me a fucking drink.”

I splashed out Southern, trying to figure if his dying in the apartment would be a good thing or a bad thing. Ryan held it up to the light.

“I gotta cut back on this shit.”

“You get the results from my sample yet?”

“Maybe …”

“Or maybe you never put it in to be checked.”

“Oooo, now what does that mean?”

“I called your station. You’re not on the case. You don’t even work homicide.”

“Jackie … That wasn’t very smart. That wasn’t very smart at all.”

“I didn’t say anything to them, but I mean, shit, you work porn or something.”

“If you ever do anything like that again, I’ll kill you.”

“I want to know what the fuck’s going on.”

Ryan sucked in a breath and held it for a moment. He let it out slowly.

“So you can understand, so you can appreciate the potential for something very bad happening to you, I’ll outline the situation. I knew Karen, I already told you. I see some crime-scene photos on a desk and I find out she’s dead and that no one can get a handle on who she is. I not only know who she is, but I know plenty about her background. Probably more than you, Jackie. I know she’s married ’cause she told me, and I know where she lives because I followed her home one time after I’d fucked her. Call it idle curiosity. I know other things too, but I’m not homicide, I’m minor vice. So I got a choice. Let the murder guys have what I know and hope they don’t fuck it up. Or go out on my own and make sure things get done properly.”

“But why? So you knew her. Big deal. I don’t see the motivation.”

“Well that’s something you’ll have to puzzle over, ain’t it? And while you’re puzzling, it’d be smart to remember that me not being hooked up with the department on this one don’t have too many advantages for you. I don’t have to worry about all those pesky regulations and codes of practice, get my meaning?”

“I figured that when you made me wank in the car.”

“I needed a sample. Don’t worry, it didn’t go to waste. I might be operating unofficially, but I got people who owe me favors.”

“Then you know it wasn’t my spunk in Karen. You check my alibi too?”

“Yeah, I spoke to the guy. You got lucky both times.”

“Then why are you still hassling me?”

“’Cause things are never as simple as they seem. Time of death can be thrown off by a lot of things, maybe you kept her in the fridge a few days before you dumped her. And your come? You could have had an accomplice and it was his. Doesn’t stop you being involved. You know something, Jackie, and I’m going to keep turning up and turning up till I find out what it is.”

“This is insane. I could call your station right now and get you seriously fucked up.”

“But you won’t. One, you’d have too much explaining to do—like why you didn’t report her missing, like why you lied about her tattoo, like why the whole thing seems to mean nothing to you. And two, because I’d kill you. You think things are insane now? Wait till I really get pissed.”

He pushed himself to his feet, but he must have done it too fast because he had to bend at the waist and take a few deep breaths. He straightened after a while and blinked rapidly a couple of times.

“Fuck, I must be getting old. Got any coke?”

“I wouldn’t give you the steam off my shit.”

He laughed at that, then ran his hands over his hair and pushed his way through the door.

Look out world, asshole reentering.

I slept and the night rolled over into day like a dog. Another postmeridian awakening—sunshine on empty bottles, tangled clothes. I dozed while the temperature rose.

Sometime around one Royston phoned and whined about his money. I told him I had it and to come around tomorrow morning. He sounded pleased and tried to act like we were buddies again. I hung up on him, then dialed the number of a house clearance company.

Sucking cathode. Lucky people on the screen, going back to their trailers after each take to be pampered, to rally the army of friends and associates necessary for the movie-star night ahead. Or to hold conversations on their cell phones that would shift large amounts of money and equipment around the world, conversations that would affect the lives of other men.

I burned up an hour with longing. I dreamed I was one of them. But after a while it got too painful.

To distract myself I bagged up Karen’s stuff and took it down to the garbage drum at the back of the building. I heaved the bags over the steel side and looked in after them. One of them had split and spilt its contents across a previously dumped family of cats. The animals were rotting and badly torn. I stood there watching maggots crawl over panties, cheap cosmetics, Kotex … Then I got in the car and caught a movie at a multiplex on Third Street.

The clearance team turned up at the end of the afternoon, some cowboy outfit that worked off hours and didn’t ask questions as long as they made a profit. I put the stuff I wanted to keep in the closet and told them to take everything else. They offered me four hundred and seventy-five bucks, not a huge sum for the contents of an apartment, but it didn’t seem too bad to me, considering none of the stuff was mine.

I left them to it and killed what was left of the day in a bar on the promenade. Around seven I used the card Rex had left me and made a call.

Chapter Eleven

Bel Air Escorts was a telephone service with the end of the line in a Wilshire district apartment. Nice area—wide road with no loiterers, wide balconies, plenty of glass. Hardly Bel Air, but clean and quiet and anonymous—fine for a business that dealt in take-out sex.

My intercom buzz was answered immediately—they were expecting me. Up fifteen floors in a mirrored elevator that smelled of pine disinfectant. Deep-blue carpeting along the hall. No people, no sound. Faceless and sanitized, like the passage-ways of a hotel. I pressed a white button next to the door and waited.

A lean, bald guy in leather trousers and a black vest opened up. He had the air of a favored slave, proud and dedicated, but kind of reined in. We walked down a hall of closed doors to a room that had probably been a bedroom but was now converted to an info-teched office. Minimalist decor—gray slate floor, white walls, a big carbon fiber desk across one corner, a spray of black twigs in a smoked-glass vase. The windows were opaque, tinted slightly orange by streetlight from the road below.

There were two people in the room: a sleek Latin guy about forty tapping away on a laptop behind the desk, and a girl with perfect blond hair and an even better body sitting on a black leather couch placed midway between two of the window panels. She wore a tight red lycra minidress and held herself with confidence. Thousand bucks a night, for sure.

The Latin exited from his screen and slid his eyes over me.

“You know Rex?”

He had a rough voice, like his throat had been damaged in some youthful Central American skirmish. And I didn’t like his eye contact either—too direct, too long. No one asked me to sit down, so I stood in front of the desk feeling uncomfortable.

“Er, yeah. Rex said he thought I’d be okay at this kind of work.”

“And what kind of work would that be?”

“The kind Rex does.”

“Be more precise.”

“Well, hustling, I suppose. Going around to people’s places for sex.”

“Oh, no.” The Latin shook his head sadly. “Oh, no. That is not what Rex does at all. Hustling—”

“Rex fucks people for money. He said I should get in touch with you.”

“Do not interrupt me. I am making a point. This is an operation with class, there is no room for the hustling mentality. My clients pay a lot of money and they expect something more than ten minutes in the back of a car. I am not in the business of selling what can be found on any street corner.”

“Okay.”

“Understand also that sex is sometimes only part of what you will be paid for. Some clients wish to be accompanied to dinner or to a party first. You must be discreet and pleasant, even if they are old or unattractive. Can you do this?”

“I can do anything you want.”

He nodded to the girl on the couch. She stood up and moved close.

“Good. Indulge me.”

“How do you mean?”

“Grace.”

The girl took the hem of her dress and peeled it up over her head. She was naked underneath, tanned without break from head to toe, pussy hair shaved into a tight wedge.

“You’ve taken me a little bit by surprise. I’m, er, not exactly sure—”

“If you can’t do it here, how can I trust you to perform in the bedroom of a rich woman whose looks are nowhere near as … perfected as Grace’s?”

This wasn’t the same as the night with Rex. This was cold and demanding and hadn’t had time to grow into shape. And my blood was relatively free of liquor and drugs. The potential for humiliation was high, but I had no choice. I needed money. And more than that, I’d committed, up at the Hollywood Bowl overlook, to a certain kind of life, and this was one of the ways it was lived. If I backed away now I’d be forced to reevaluate myself, and I had nowhere left to reevaluate to.

Grace came close, she smelled of something dark and expensive. She smiled a small kind of smile that didn’t help much.

When she pulled my jeans down the air in the room felt unpleasantly cool on my balls. I pressed against her, seeking heat. Hard back under my hands, firm ass, breasts against my chest. If I could jerk off in front of Ryan, I had to be able to do this.

I blanked out the Latin and the bald guy and pushed my face into her hair. When I touched her she was wet. She made a small sound of pleasure. It sounded so genuine, so wanting, that the primal fuck—urge overrode my worrying brain and pumped my cock full of blood.

She put a condom on me with her mouth and we fucked standing up, me behind and her bent forward, hands braced against the edge of the Latin’s desk. He watched me carefully over her shoulders, but not like it was giving him a kick.

When it was over the bald guy gave us both a small towel. Grace wiped herself, pulled her dress back on and took her place on the couch. She didn’t light a cigarette and she didn’t fix her makeup. She just sat there, letting her eyes drift around the room.

“How fast do you recover?”

“You want me to do it again?”

The Latin smiled, slightly.

“I have a job for you. Tonight. A nice job. Big house, good money, not too bad looking. Start you off easy.”

The clearance guys had done their work well, the apartment was gutted. They’d left the phone and the light bulbs, but that was about all and I had a momentary pang when I realized I’d forgotten to tell them to leave the TV—a friend in the corner would have been nice while I got ready.

The Latin’s gig was a deep night number—dick on call to chill some woman when she got home from a premiere or charity function or a Hills party where absolutely everyone was there, darling. Or whatever. That meant I had some hours to kill—time to take a stab at tracking Joey down. I showered and changed, then started on bloodstream preparation.

I still had some of the three hundred I’d earned with Rex, plus the cash from the contents of the apartment, and as it looked like I’d be getting more tonight, I decided to blow a little of it down at the beach front.

I could have had coke, but I went for sulfate instead—bathtub amphetamine. Quarter the price and a lot less fun, but it had its advantages. Half a gram would wire you all night and make you horny as hell. It also gave you a stressed-out edge that communicated itself to people, made it harder for them to be certain of your reactions. Just right to fritz Joey if I found him.

Back at the apartment—a couple of lines, two Southerns, and a Bud took me close to the terminal velocity of mood necessary to make it out into the city and do the things I’d set for myself. A minute of air punching to limber up in case Joey got difficult. Almost there, almost there … Something missing … Yes, a cigarette! Stick one in and fire it up. Check eyes in the mirror—yep, pupils at maximum dilation, skin tight, jaws clenching … Ready to energize.

Into the Prelude. Driving felt like fun, but all the other cars were going so goddamn slow. I tailgated along Lincoln. Everything was crystal, like the air had been sucked out of the spaces between things, like that awful, beautiful clarity you get in pictures taken from the space shuttle.

Litany in my head; take it easy, take it easy, watch that car ahead, that other guy’s making a right, tap brakes, indicate, smooth swoop around, straighten up, take it easy, next guy ahead, pass the sucker, no competition, nothing touches this Jap technology. Switch lanes, switch lanes again, perfect highway positioning. At one with the car—a Zen state inside a machine from a polluted Zen race.

Pico Boulevard, a tertiary road, narrow but pretty straight and not too busy. Fine for dawdling along, looking for a place I’d never been. Four blocks past chunky Santa Monica College, on the corner of Clover Field Boulevard, I found Bar Ramses. Like Jimmy said, bullshit Egyptian—plaster Pharaohs on either side of the door, floor to ceiling windows in the shape of ankhs, hieroglyphics over everything.

I parked in the lot out back—not much light, plenty of trash—and did another line. By the time I got out of the car I was grinding my teeth and the booze in the bar had as much pull as the possibility of finding Joey.

Inside. Not what the flashy front suggested, just a neighborhood bar. Booths, wall alcoves, a couple of pool tables in the rear, a scratched-up open space where the clientele danced sometimes perhaps. A lot of tobacco smoke and very little mineral water.

Scanning didn’t do any good, so I chilled at the bar with shots of vodka until I’d had enough contact with the barman to feel comfortable asking about Joey.

It went easier than I’d thought it would—no movie-style shifty eyes or sudden tightening of the mouth, no dive under the counter for a gun. Just: “Joey? Yeah, he’s around. Try back there by the pool tables. Middle booth.” Bit of a letdown, really. I’d been all set to faze him with something neat about old buddies or wanting to pay back a loan.

Joey was sitting by himself. He had a bottle of beer and a contact mag in front of him. Steve’s description was accurate, the edge of his left ear was rimmed with nickel-sized silver hoops and the bottom of his face ended in a triangle of dark hair. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and he was short and scrawny, a lot smaller than me. Things looked good.

He jerked when I sat down opposite him.

“This is private, fuck off.”

“Hi, Joey. How ya doin’?” Big smile.

“Do I know you?”

“No, but we’re connected.”

“I don’t know you, but we’re connected? The fuck’s this, a game show?”

“I want to ask you something.”

“I don’t do handouts. Fuck off.”

“Steve gave me your name.”

“Who?”

“English Steve, long black hair. Hangs out with Jimmy.”

“Never heard of him.”

“I don’t want to be indelicate about this, Joey, but you used to buy from him. All I want is some information, it’s important to me.”

“I could give a fuck.”

Being reasonable obviously wasn’t going to get me very far. Time to push a little harder and hope my balls held up.

“Could you give a fuck about telling the IRS how you financed this place? Or the police maybe?”

“I could give a fuck about calling some friends over.”

Joey jutted his chin at a group of men playing pool.

“Remember the story you told Steve?”

“I told you, I don’t know Steve.”

“Don’t be a prick. I can freeze you with a word.”

“Yeah?”

“Kidneys.”

Joey stepped his attitude down just a notch.

“What about kidneys?”

“Removal. Selling. Don’t act stupid, I haven’t done this sort of thing before. I might flip out at any moment and get all amateur and violent. Tell me how to connect and I’ll walk out of here. That’s the last you’ll hear of it.”

“I can’t tell what I don’t know.”

Enough was enough. I leaned across the table, took hold of his Hawaiian lapels, and pulled. The material made a nice ripping sound and buttons flew out of the booth. I ran my hand down the skin of his chest, down the left side of his guts, down to the scar that ridged his pasty white skin.

“Hey, fuck off, man!”

He started to push himself upright, ready to make an unwelcome scene. I didn’t have much choice, I hit him hard enough to make his mouth bleed.

Hitting someone was new to me, but it meshed perfectly with the way things had been going since Karen’s death. I’d seen the situation a million times on TV so I knew it was the right thing to do—I didn’t feel bad about it at all. I guess I was growing as a person.

A quick glance at the bar, no one seemed to be paying much attention. But Joey looked like he might be thinking about yelling, so I talked fast.

“This kidney thing connects to a murder, and if I don’t get what I want you’re going to find yourself involved. I got one super-fuck cop on my ass about it and he’d just love to get a taste of you. You want to lose your liquor license? Man, it’d be gone the day he came to see you. Now sit down and we’ll talk about that scar on your belly.”

The mention of cops took the wind out of Joey. He wiped blood off his lips and dropped back into his seat.

“I don’t know nothing about a murder.”

“I asked about kidneys.”

“So I sold one of them. Big fucking deal. The bread was too good to pass up.”

“More.”

“Like what?”

“Like, Joey, where you went to do it, who did it, how I find them. That sort of thing.”

“That’s going to be difficult.”

“You got a phone in here? Maybe we need someone who’s better at asking questions.”

“Fuck, man, I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know any names or places.”

“Tell me how it fucking went down, then.”

“Jesus, okay …” Joey raised his hands like he was placating an aggressive retard. “Fuck … A while back I wasn’t setup like I am now. You know the drag?”

“Yeah.”

“I used to hustle down there. I ain’t proud of it, but I didn’t have a place to live, no family to go to, I was hungry most of the time—”

“I don’t give a shit if your dog just died. Get on with it.”

Joey looked vicious, then made me wait while he took a slug of beer and sloshed it around his mouth.