Pimp (17 page)

When Larry arrived he immediately spotted one of the guys who’d abducted his wife—the non-Spanish one. But the guy didn’t look like he did last time, like one of the Crowes in that show on FX. No, he was dressed in an expensive suit, oozing bile and confidence.

He opened with, “I do feel at home here.”

Larry, across from him now, said, “I am so happy for you… Jo?”

“Mo,” Mo said.

“What happened to Jo?” Larry asked.

“Let’s just say he checked outta the hotel early.” Mo smiled, showing his yellowed teeth.

“You should quit that shit,” Larry said.

“Smiling?” Mo asked, still smiling.

“No, smoking,” Larry said.

“Who said I smoke?”

“Your teeth are stained.”

“Maybe it’s from coffee.”

“You should visit a dentist every now and then.”

“You payin’ for me?”

“I think you can pay for yourself now,” Larry said and indicated the briefcase.

Mo waved a slim finger almost in Larry’s face, said, “Uh-uh, none of that bitterness an’ shit, Larry. As my momma used to say, manners cost little, but…” He paused then added, “…attitude cost mo’. Get it, mo’? Like my name?”

Larry was through dealing with freaking lowlife; this was worse than ICM.

“How did you know I was at In-N-Out Burger?”

“Huh?”

“The fuckin’ note on my windshield.”

“The boss handles that shit, I just follow orders.”

“What are you, some kinda Nazi?”

“What’s a Nazi?”

“You don’t know what a Nazi is?”

“Oh yeah, from
Seinfeld
.”

“You been following me around all day or not?”

“Why you care?”

Larry decided that going on about this could only get him into more trouble.

Hoping for the best, he said, “How about we get to down to business?”

Mo smiled. One way or another, Larry was bringing all kinds of weird sunshine into the lives of shitheads today.

Mo said, “So what’re you waitin’ for? Pass it over.”

Larry didn’t budge, said, “You’re fucking kidding, asswipe. First Bev, then the payment.”

Mo shot to his feet, snapped a crisp salute, said, “See you at her funeral then.”

Larry caved, gave him the briefcase, said, “Okay, okay, here… but how can I trust you?”

Mo reached over, lightly took the case, turned to walk, said, “Trust is like a dick, usually stuck in all the wrong holes.”

As Larry drove home, he couldn’t help thinking of a dire script he had once worked on, about a father of a kidnapped girl, the money’s paid but no girl and the father goes mad, winds up in an institution and it spiraled into a
Cuckoo’s Nest
ripoff. They had Anthony Hopkins penciled in but he fucked off and got an Oscar for playing a cannibal.

Back at his house, he was horrified to see blue lights flashing and a fleet of cop cars strewn around his driveway. He got out slowly, his heart pounding, thinking, “They found Hoff.”

He formulated a new plan, because that’s what sharp thinks like him did—they planned. When they told him about Hoff he’d go for one of their guns. He wouldn’t get his hand near the holster before one of the Fruitvale idiots would shoot him and he’d wind up dead. He didn’t know if he believed in life after death or reincarnation or any of that bullshit, but if he lived this life over again he just hoped it would be easier to make it to the top of the movie business next time around.

Two cops approached—why were they always in twos? were they fucking Siamese?—and the taller one said, “You Laurence Olivier Horowitz?”

“Yes,” Larry said, eyes aimed at the holster and gun right there, a few feet away.

“We found your wife,” he said.

Not what Larry was expecting.

“She okay?” Larry asked, relieved he hadn’t gone for the gun.

But the relief didn’t last long.

“No,” the tall cop said.

Larry stuttered, “Y-you mean…”

And the short cop went, “Your wife’s dead, Mr. Horowitz.”

Do I see sheets of plastic in your future?
D
EXTER
M
ORGAN

Mo was jerking off to Season 2, Episode 6 of
Orange is the New Black
when he heard the woman screaming and thought,
Ah, shit, man, makin’ me pause fuckin’ prison sex an’ shit? Damn
.

Headed up into the bedroom to see the woman curled up against the wall, mouth gagged, but her dress hiked up and panties off. Jo had his jeans undone and was sweating.

Mo grabbed Jo by the shirt, dragged him out to the corridor, hissed, “I told you not to be doin’ that shit.”

But something had given Jo a whole new set of cojones.

He squared up, sneered, “You ain’t my boss, yo, I’m sick of you tellin’ me how to act an’ shit. I go by my own rules, kid, by Colombia rules.”

Mo slammed his fist into Jo’s chest, harder than he intended. Jo staggered back, tottered at the top step, then crashed down the stairs, Mo would swear afterwards he heard a definite
Ker-ast
as the man’s neck snapped.

Mo rushed down but he could see from the angle of Jo’s head that Jo was a goner. Mo had killed men lots of ways but he’d never broken a man’s neck before. That was kinda cool.

If Jo hadn’t disrespected women, Mo may have been upset, or at least concerned, but he didn’t give a shit.

The producer’s wife was on the floor, mouth still gagged, crawling, trying to get to the window. Mo went and grabbed her, said, “Where you going, sweetheart?”

She was crying ’cause of what Jo done to her. She was suffering and Mo couldn’t stand to see her suffer. When a horse is suffering you got no choice, you got to put it down.

“Sorry, I can’t have you go on livin’ with this shame,” Mo said, and he broke her neck.
Ker-ast.

He hoped it was the last woman he ever had to kill, but it had to be done.

He didn’t bother to clean up the bodies, figuring he’d be in Mexico before they started smelling, and then he watched a few more episodes of
Orange is the New Black
in peace and fucking quiet.

Later, he got a text from the boss, told him to go to the Four Seasons to get the money from Larry. Shit, the Four Seasons was fancy, so Mo put on his best suit—okay, his only suit—and went to meet the movie producer.

Mo got a text from the boss:
How’d it go with Larry?

Mo texted back:
meet me right now at the spot important

“The spot” was the meeting spot they’d worked out in advance, at a bar in Venice Beach. The boss thought he was meeting to get his share of the money, but Mo wasn’t planning to give the man nothin’, well, except a bullet it in the head.

On days like today, when they’re talking to me like that, I just feel like killing them. I’m not kidding, I actually want to murder them.
J
ASON
S
TARR
,
Cold Caller

Things were finally coming together for Bill Moss. When he came to Hollywood, fucking sixteen years ago, he got hired to write a screenplay for Fox and he was one of the hottest screenwriters in town. But in Hollywood fifteen minutes of fame lasts about fifteen seconds. In a flash, Fox had fucked up the script, bringing in too many writers to do rewrites, and Bill lost his agent and blew most of his money on gambling, eating out, and hookers. Broke and with few other options, he had to get a temporary part-time job selling discount phone service in a telemarketing cubicle.

The temporary job had lasted seven years. During this time, a producer named Larry Reed somehow had gotten ahold of Bill’s draft of the Fox script and wanted a meeting with Bill. While Bill thought Larry was full of shit, the guy had some serious credits, had gotten that Garofalo movie made, and it wasn’t like other producers were lining up to offer Bill work.

Work
. Well, that had turned out to the ultimate four-letter word, as Larry didn’t pay Bill a cent to write the script for
Spaced Out
. Bill poured his soul into that script, considered it his
meister verk
, or however the fuck they say it in German. Worse, Bill did free rewrite after free rewrite, believing Larry’s bullshit that Travolta and then Tom Selleck were attached. Then Larry stopped taking Bill’s calls and it hit Bill that he had wasted years of his life, working for that jackass.

All sorts of people worked at telemarketing jobs, including the occasional ex-con trying to go straight. Enter Mo, stage left. One night at a bar they were exchanging sob stories when Mo said, “Man, there’s somethin’ I don’t get. This producer fuck, Larry, been fuckin’ you over for years, right?”

“Yeah,” Moss said.

“Then how come you don’t wanna fuck him back?”

A plot hatched in Bill’s brain—better than any other plot Bill had come up with lately. It sounded easy when he laid it out for Mo. Mo would kidnap Larry’s wife, hold her for ransom—the very same seventy-five K Larry had once promised Bill for writing
Spaced Out
. Bill would supply all the information Mo needed, figure out the timing, set the plans, supply the technology they would require, such as it was. Bill would be the boss. Mo would be the muscle.

Mo didn’t tell Bill about involving Jo until later, until after the kidnapping. Bill wasn’t crazy about changing to a three-way split but, fuck it, you didn’t argue with your muscle—not when you were built like Bill was. And twenty-five K would get him out of the telemarketing cubicle for six months. He could try to get a job writing for Nickelodeon. Bill had never written for a kids’ show before, and most of his writing was dark as hell, but he could write a kids’ show. He could write anything if he put his mind to it.

The kidnapping itself couldn’t have gone better, and they were holding Larry’s wife in some basement apartment or some shit. The best part—Bill had hidden GPS in Larry’s car, and had been tracking him all over the city, leaving notes on his windshield. Bill knew it had to be driving Larry crazy. The old fuck was so technologically challenged, he probably had no idea what was going on. Whoever thought revenge wasn’t sweet had never tried to get some.

Then, out of the blue, this chick Brandi Love calls, says she wants to hire him to write
Bust
. Bill did some research saw that
Bust
was a real, big-time book and the dark subject matter was right in his wheelhouse. But why was Darren Becker, a top producer, partnering with Brandi Love, an ex-porn star? Bill rented a couple of the
Brandi with Ginger
movies and there was no doubt she knew how to give head, but did she know how to make a movie?

Figuring the whole thing was worth a laugh, he showed up at the Chateau in an old sweaty sweatshirt and ripped jeans. She fed him some shit about how much she loved his writing, and wanted him on the project, and as the lunch went on Bill started to realize that this deal was real. For some fucking reason Darren Becker and Lionsgate were hell bent on getting him on board.

C.A.A. found out about the deal, and an agent signed Bill and started negotiating the contract. Didn’t take long for word to spread. Within days, Bill’s career had gone from zero to a hundred. It seemed like every studio in town wanted to be in business with him.

Meanwhile, time was running out for Larry. Bill tracked him on GPS to In-N-Out Burger on Sunset and, watching from across the street with binoculars, saw him receive a briefcase, hopefully one full of money, from some older, shady-looking guy who kind of looked like Nick Nolte.

Bill left a note for Larry to be at the Four Seasons in one hour. He wanted the exchange to happen at a public place where Larry couldn’t try anything stupid.

Bill tracked Larry there on GPS, so he knew Larry had shown up. Then Bill texted Mo, asking him how it had gone with Larry, and Mo texted back:

meet me right now at the spot important

This was weird—Mo changing the plan again? Mo was supposed to release Larry’s wife as soon as they got the money and meet at the spot tomorrow. Why did he want to meet at the spot “right now,” and why was it “important”?

Bill drove to the spot, about ten blocks from his place in Venice, at a parking lot behind a dive bar. It was late, after midnight, so there weren’t many people around. He didn’t see Mo’s car. He waited. Too late, he wished he’d brought a knife with him or some other kind of weapon.

Then Mo’s car pulled up and Bill watched him get out. Mo was holding the briefcase, so maybe the panic was for no reason. Maybe Mo would give Bill his twenty-five K and they’d go their separate ways and Bill would become the next Ethan Coen and never have to see Mo and Jo again.

Bill met Mo in the middle of the lot.

“Yo,” Mo said.

Okay, Mo was being polite, that was a good start.

“Yo,” Bill said.

Mo handed Bill the briefcase. It was light; felt like there was nothing in it.

“There’s nothing in it,” Mo said.

Shit.

“What happened?” Bill asked. “Did you get the money from Larry?”

“Yeah,
I
got it.”

Bill didn’t like the inflection, said, “Did you let Larry’s wife go?”

“Can’t do that,” Mo said.

“Why not?” Bill said.

“ ’Cause she’s dead.”

Now Mo had a gun out, aimed at Bill. Bill’s heart was pounding —fight-or-flight, mostly flight, kicking in. But he couldn’t fly faster than a bullet.

Buying time, trying to figure out what the fuck to do, Bill said, “Why’d you kill her?”

“I didn’t
kill
her, man,” Mo said. “I’d never kill a woman. I just put her out of her misery is all.”

“So is that what you plan to do to me too? Put me out of my misery?”

“No,” Mo said. “You I plan to kill.”

Bill knew Mo was about to do it, so he swung the briefcase as hard as he could against the side of Mo’s head. It didn’t do much damage but was enough to distract him, get him off balance, and gave Mo a chance to try to grab the gun.

“Come on, man,” Mo said, wrestling with him for it. “Don’t make this harder than it is.”

The gun fell to the ground and Mo bent to get it. Bill had his hands around Mo’s throat. It felt like a chicken’s neck, more fragile than he’d thought it would, his hands stronger.