Immortality Is the Suck (29 page)

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floor, miraculously keeping her glass upright, and then surprised me by

planting her well-shaped fanny on my knees. “Oops, am I too heavy for you?”

she said.

“Only your ass,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to move her off of me.

“Freeway said you have nalga de angel.”

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A. M. Riley

She leaned back, batting thick black eyelashes up at me, her eyes

sparkling. “You think he'd be my boyfriend, Snake? Because, damn, I could

use one lately.”

“C'mon Alli, slide over.” I pushed her off of me. Alli was just joking around,

I hoped. But I was still relieved when my cell phone rang.

“Yeah.”

“Adam? Thank God,” said Albert.

“Albert? Fuck. I thought you were done for. Where are you?”

“The Flaming Tart on Vermont. It's an hour to sunrise,” said Albert.

“Where are you?”

The last time I'd seen Albert, he'd been trying to cut my head off with a

sword. I wasn't giving him Alli's home address. “I'll meet you at the Tart,” I

said.

“Who was that?” asked Alli as I pocketed my cell phone, standing and

picking up my jacket.

I should have been warned by her expression, but I was too edgy from

hunger and the impending sunrise. All of my nerves were jangling. “I've got to

meet this guy.”

The sparkle in her face immediately fell flat. “Of course.”

“Alli, I meant to call you before this. And I'll call you again soon. We'll have

a drink or something, I swear. But this connection might know something that

could help me stop the war.”

“Oh, right,” she said. “The supposed OMG war, which prompted you to

call me at three a.m. And then, true to form, chicken out.”

“Chicken out?”

Alli followed me to the door. “Give me a call when you make up your mind,

Adam.” And she shut it in my face.

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201

Chapter Twenty-one

Okay, I know what she's talking about but that's not the issue here. I had

had to come up with something when Alli and I were living in the same house.

Our friends and family drifting away. A beautiful, sexy woman walking around

in her Victoria's Secret underwear, giving me those looks.

So I developed a crippling fear of commitment. Which also helped explain

my infrequent but necessary forays over to Peter's. I was a real slut, is what I

was. Horrible boyfriend material. I had thought that had cooled her ardor

somewhat, but I guess not.

But that's not the issue, as I said. What's at issue is I've been trying to

ring the bell, sound the alarm, and rally the troops. And I'm left feeling like the

proverbial twat that cried wolf.

Nobody believes me. Wait, Adam, maybe that's because you've been lying

to them for years? Self-examination was creeping around the corner and

coming at me again.

So I outran it. I climbed on my bike and peeled out down Sunset, hung a

left and then another onto Santa Monica, so that I could approach the Flaming

Tart from its back alleyway.

Nothing looked amiss at first glance so I tried to enter through the back

door. I was repelled by a man with shoulders broader than mine wearing high

heels and a tight leather miniskirt who informed me that I had to pay at the

front to get in.

Albert was waiting for me at the door, though.

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A. M. Riley

He embraced me as if he hadn't tried to kill me and said, “This is the only

bar I
know
we won't see any OMG.”

The Flaming Tart was a drag bar during working hours. A cute little

neighborhood drag bar where the “girls” put on a show that was more an

homage to the concept of drag. Most of them barely concealed their masculinity

and a few even brought girlfriends to see them perform.

Albert was right about bikers. You'd have to dose them with GHB and hold

a revolver to most of their heads to get them to even walk into a place like this.

It was long after the bar must legally close, and the Tart had devolved to

its other identity. An all-night diner. So Albert ordered some kiddy cocktail that

was an unnatural shade of pink and I ordered a Coke. “Unopened,” I told the

waitress.

“Sure, honey,” she said, batting thick fake eyelashes at Albert; a luscious

meal practically thrusting her silicone bosoms in his face. She was a

temptation to
me
, hungry now to the point of near insanity, but Albert

appeared calmly oblivious.

Albert looked good. Plump, pink, and rested.

“Where are you getting your blood?” I asked when the waitress had left.

He looked mildly surprised. “Blood banks. Their security sucks, 'mano.

Listen, I'm leaving town.”

“Good idea.” The waitress returned and plunked a cold, wet can of diet

Coke down in front of me. She placed a strong, brown hand on one narrow hip

and said to Albert in a sultry falsetto, “My shift's over in five minutes. Can I get

you anything else?”

Albert looked her up and down. His expression was insulting. “No sé.”

After our angry server had stomped off, I said, “Where are you staying?”

“Anyplace I can find, 'mano. You?”

“I might know a place,” I said. “You turn me on to blood, I'll share a

mattress in the dark with you.”

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203

“Sounds sexy, you fucking marcena. Don't get ideas.”

“In your dreams, asshole. It's almost sunrise; let's get out of here and you

can tell me what you have planned.”

“I'm thinking you might be up for it too.” He threw down a wad of money.

Used-looking bills of small denominations. I wondered where he was getting it.

“Well, cool then. Let's roll.”

* * * * *

“It's completely dark and nobody comes down here,” I said. I'd stopped at

the Seven-Eleven and picked up some supplies. We'd popped open Albert's

supply of blood and guzzled it down as soon as we'd entered the room. The first

rush had passed, and now I lit the thick votive candles and set them in a row

against the far wall. St. Jude, St. Joseph, and the Virgin of Guadalupe leaped

in shadows and light across the dirty floor.

I threw the cheap sheets across the mattress and lay down fully clothed,

folding my hands across my chest. My hard-on was raging, but I felt

disinclined to do anything about it at the moment. Actually, just the thought of

it made me think of Peter and that thought made me feel more sad than sexy.

“You sleep much?” asked Albert, pulling one of the broken chairs over and

sitting.

“No. But I never did.”

“I can't sleep at all, 'mano. I have crazy dreams.” Albert reached into his

shirt pocket and drew forth a fat spliff.

I eyed the thing as he lit it. “You still get high?”

His scarred eyebrow rose in surprise. “Sí, why would I not?”

“Just doesn't do it for me anymore,” I said, stretching my arms over my

head. When I looked back at him he was eyeing my crotch.

“You got it bad, 'mano.”

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A. M. Riley

“Don't you?”

He shook his head, inhaling so deeply the joint burned almost to his

fingertips. “Don't get me wrong. I'd never say no to a wet pussy, but I never

craved it like you did.”

“You calling me a whore, Albert?”

He flicked the end of his joint on the floor and ground it with the toe of his

tight black boots. “You, who will fuck anything? Sí, puta, and you love it.”

I wondered if Peter thought this too. I'd never made much of a secret of my

twenty-minute suck and fucks around town. I didn't regale him with tales of

my exploits, of course, but I didn't exactly
lie
. Did I?

“Tell me about your plan, Albert.” I shelved the Peter thoughts. Useless

and painful as they were.

“While I was in there, I met a doctor's assistant. He knows their

computers. When the mutiny went down, I helped get him out of there. He

owes me.” Albert rose from his chair and came over to the mattress, sitting

down next to me.

“So?”

“So it takes a lot of money for Ozone to run something like that, 'mano. A

lot
of money. My friend, he says all of the money is in accounts that he can find

with a computer. He can, how do they say it, ax in.”

“He can hack into the accounts?”

“Sí, and transfer funds to us. Then destroy the trail. We take some back

pay, let's say. Go north. Canada, Northwest Territories, Alaska. You know, they

have thirty days of night there, 'mano?”

“Thirty days of sun too,” I reminded him.

Albert unbuttoned his shirt and let it drop behind him. His shoulders were

round and hard and gold in the candlelight.

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205

My erection was throbbing painfully and I let my hand drop, thumb

caressing the hard ridge where it pressed against my zipper. “I could use that

information too,” I told him. “Maybe it's all they need to bust Ozone.”

“I hear maybe Ozone is dust.”

I wish I'd been the one swinging that sword, I thought to myself. “Who's in

charge then?”

“You still playing cop?” asked Albert. He'd focused on the movements of

my hand and his fingers were a play of shadows as he unbuttoned his jeans

and drew out his cock. I couldn't see it clearly but the smell went straight to

my head.

I could barely unzip my jeans, but the moment my cock popped out and I

wrapped my fingers around it, I felt that uncomfortable sorrow well up in me

again.

Breathing faster, supporting his weight with one arm, eyes closed, Albert

jerked himself off. I watched him, painfully horny but unable to bear touching

myself. When he'd finished, hips jerking and sexy little grunts as his cum

dirtied my already filthy mattress, Albert's gaze took in my untouched penis

and then traveled up to my face.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Nothing.” I tried cramming my cock in my pants. I squeezed it hard

enough to deflate it a bit, zipped up, and rolled on my side to face the wall.

“Just don't feel like it.”

Albert made a surprised noise, but in a minute he was elbowing me

sideways so that he could stretch out on the mattress next to me. “So, you

want to run to Alaska with us, Adam? Pick up your sweetheart and ride with

me again, man.”

It was a tempting thought. Ride with my brothers again? Open road,

nothing but me and the bike and the camaraderie? Fuck the LAPD. Fuck Peter.

“I can't,” I said.

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A. M. Riley

“What the hell is wrong with you, Adam? You in love or something?”

“Go the fuck to sleep,” I said. “I'll consider it, okay?”

“Women,” snorted Albert. “It's that undercover cop you were fucking, isn't

it?”

I didn't need to be reminded of my guilt about Alli, on top of everything

else.

“Shut up.”

“Not that I blame you, 'mano. She was
hot
. I would have gone for her

myself but…”

I rolled, grabbed him around the neck, and let my face slide into that

other personality. The one that slithered and writhed seemingly just below the

surface all the time these days. “Shut. The fuck. Up,” I growled.

Albert was sufficiently intimidated. “Sorry,” he croaked. His diamond tooth

flashed in the candlelight. “'Mano, you just need to get off. Let me help you.”

“You touch me, I'll break your hand, 'mano,” I said, and rolled over, facing

the wall again.

A long silence. The undead can be very, very quiet. It still bothered me a

bit. “Sorry, Albert.” I spoke to the darkened wall. “Maybe you're right. Maybe I

just need to get the fuck out of Los Angeles.”

“That's all I'm saying, 'mano,” said Albert.

We were quiet then and eventually I slept. When I woke, Albert was not in

the room. The halogen lights in the stairwell were on, their pale blue light

illuminating the doorway and, after a minute, I heard steel-toed boots

pounding down the staircase.

“It's a beautiful night,” sang Albert, coming into the room with his jacket

flung over his shoulder like some undead lothario. He was flushed and his

black eyes glittered.

I staggered to my feet, searching for the pack of cigarettes I kept by the

mattress. “You killed somebody, didn't you Albert?” I lit my cigarette.

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207

Albert averted his gaze and said, “We should hurry; the nights are short

this time of year.”

* * * * *

enjoy thinking back on, and in Vice I'd bent the rules so far they'd resembled

pretzels. With the Mongols, the line between undercover officer and full-out