Sick City (20 page)

· · ·

Randal was rummaging around in the bag. Over the past few days they had managed to work their way through most of the drugs. The idea that the drugs would soon run out was finally forcing them into action. The tape would have to be sold as soon as possible.

“So you're living with a crackhead. And what?”

“Well, after six months or so, we were out of control. I mean, he had this great place in Earls Court, and it was just trashed, you know? It was a beautiful place. But we managed to make it look like the filthiest fucking squat you have ever seen in less than a fucking year. I mean, the place was
destroyed.
All we did was smoke and fuck. It was happy times.

“But it all fell apart . . . one night we had a big argument, and I ended up threatening to kill him. He said I was a junkie and I was stealing his money and that I was only with him because he was famous. He accused me of pawning one of his gold discs. I flipped the fuck out. We'd been up for days, you know? I was out of my mind on coke. I had him by the throat, naked, and was dangling him over the edge of his balcony. We were like six floors up. He was screaming, begging for his life. This was in a pretty nice neighborhood. The fucking neighbors called the cops and, well, as you can imagine, it ended pretty badly. The fucking
News of the World
were camped out there, the fucking BBC—I mean that story had everything. It was on the front covers for the next week and a half. He was big news already, always in the
Sun
, the
Daily Mail
, all of that bullshit. Now it was out that he was gay, that he was smoking crack, and of course it came out that I was a prostitute.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. After everything came out, he wanted it all back. The car, the apartment he'd rented for me. The jewelry. All of it. I told him to get fucked. I mean, my fucking life was ruined. I could never go home again. I was never out to my parents; we just didn't talk about it. When I turned fifteen I got the fuck out of Belfast and never came back. Now I was the most famous male prostitute in England. I wasn't about to be made homeless as well.”

“He'd already stopped paying the rent on my flat, and they started eviction proceedings. He threatened me, said he had some heavy friends, but I thought he was full of shit. Simon was a poseur. He liked to surround himself with all of these pretend wannabe East End gangster types, but it was all just for effect. He was just a middle-class pop singer who got off on slumming it.”

“One day, I'm getting out of bed and I heard a
boom
. Like my whole fucking bedroom shakes, shit comes flying off the walls, the whole bit. I thought there'd been an earthquake or something. I look out the window and people are running down the street covered in blood, screaming, car alarms are fucking going off all over the place. . . . You see, the night before I couldn't get parking on my street, so the car was two streets over. There was this old lady who lived in my building, Mrs. Sharkey, and she always parked right in front. Irritating old bitch, always banging on the fucking ceiling when I was listening to music. Where her car should have been, there's just a big hole in the ground with black fucking smoke spewing out of it. Glass and fucking metal everywhere. I realized that the cunt had tried to have my car bombed. Only the fucking arseholes he hired to do it blew up the wrong car. Mrs. Sharkey happened to have the same make and model as me, and when she turned the key in her ignition—
boom
. Blew her to fuck. I packed up and left the city that same day.”

“Shit, did they ever get him for that?”

Jeffrey laughed.

“No, that's the kicker. They blamed the IRA, and the fucking peace process that everybody had been talking about in the news all year suddenly fell apart. The En-glish thought that the IRA were launching a new campaign, and the IRA thought that the Brits had done it to discredit them. And all of it was because I had a fight with my boyfriend.”

“So, what— You think that he might have something to do with this? He's come to fucking Los Angeles to kill you because of a ten-year-old lovers' spat?”

“Not him. Simon OD'd two years after all of that. But before I left London I tipped off the cops, mentioned a name that was close to him. A fucking psychotic bastard called Greebo, who was one of Simon's gangster friends. I heard he was sent down after I split London. I mean, he could be out of prison by now. Who knows what he's capable of? People like that . . . they don't let shit go.”

“So what do we do now, man?”

“We need to sell the tape and get the fuck out of here. It's the only way.”

The last of the cocaine was cut out into two fat lines. He handed the straw to Jeffrey. Jeffrey snorted it, rubbed his nose a little, and passed the straw over. Randal finished the rest.

“Pretty good shit,” he said.

“I know.”

“We can't fuck around anymore. We have to take care of business. I need to make a call. I know one guy who I'm pretty sure is gonna be able to help us. But I'm warning you—he's a whack job. He's for real—his family has been in the movie business for as long as anyone can remember . . . but he's kind of a black sheep.”

“Can we trust him?”

“Yeah. I've known him for years. He's a fuckup, but he isn't a liar. But before I can deal with him, we're gonna need more drugs. A lot more drugs. You need heroin, right?”

“Yeah. More heroin.”

“Okay. Heroin. Speed. You want coke?”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Okay, let's do this shit.”

Randal felt that familiar old excitement rising in his chest. He picked up his cell and started making the calls.

When Spider had originally answered the door and ushered them in, Trina wrinkled her swollen nose and whispered to Pat, “Jesus, it stinks in here.”

She was right. Spider's apartment was a filthy, shambolic mess. He lived in a two-bedroom apartment in a run-down housing complex near Sunset and Bonnie Brae. Over the years the clutter inside had spread over every available surface: stinking clothes lay in unwashed heaps on the floor, and dishes with weeks-old food caked onto them piled up in the sink. The bedroom had gotten so filthy that Spider had abandoned it and moved into the spare room, where he slept on the floor.

Sometimes he'd consider moving the clutter from his abandoned bed so he could sleep on it again, but where would he put it all? Anyway there were more important things to consider. Like drugs.

· · ·

In the weeks since Tyler's murder drugs were all that Spider could think about. Having a steady connection for meth had given Spider's universe gravity. With Tyler gone, Spider had devolved into a kind of feral state. He pined for Tyler's steady supply like a mourning widower. He didn't shave, his teeth went unbrushed, and the smell of his own body odor had become metallic, more pungent than usual.

With the arrival of Pat, all that had changed. Spider was so concerned with the meth that he barely acknowledged Trina's presence, beyond nodding, “Hey girl,” totally unfazed by her out-of-the-blue appearance in his apartment.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Trina asked. Spider's face was still fucked up and bruised, one ear swollen and fat like a cauliflower, the cheeks raging purples and yellows, one eye cut and swollen almost shut.

“Got mugged by a fucking spic. What happened to you? You get a nose job or something?”

Trina put a protective hand to her nose, still painful and taped up.

“Yeah. Nose job . . . ,” she said.

After the small talk and introductions, Spider stood in his ramshackle bedroom, his chin pointing upward, looking at his exposed throat in the mirror, as his trembling hand guided a needle loaded with Pat's meth into the fat jugular that ran down to his collarbone. He was talking the whole time.

“Ya gotta be careful going here. Hit my goddamned artery once. I knew straightaway, pulled out, and the fucking blood was GUSHING outta me. I ain't kidding. Happened in the bathroom. If you peek around there ya can still see the stains. I mean that shit went everywhere. I scrubbed it off the best I could, but that was, shit, like a month ago, and I'm still finding bloodspots. On the fucking ceiling, behind the toilet, I mean, shit, man, it looked like fuckin'
Psycho
in there or some shit. . . .”

Pat watched Spider's shaky attempts at getting the needle into his vein, and an amused grin half formed on his mouth. Trina had to avert her eyes. She looked over to her left and saw a stack of porno:
Rectal Research
,
Twink Destroyer
,
Skater Boi Gangbang
,
Ali Baba and the 40 Cocks.
Catching her looking at one of the boxes in the mirror, Spider stopped what he was doing and said, “Some fucking friend of mine was crashing here, and he left a bunch of faggot porn. If you want it you can take it. I don't need it.”

“No, thanks. I'm all good for gay porn, Spider.”

Spider rolled his eyes and got back to work. With a grunt, he finally got a hit, and the black blood flowed lazily into the syringe. He pushed the shit in slow and easy. He withdrew the spike and leaned back against the wall, tilting his head a little, applying pressure to the injection site with his thumb. A thin train of black blood trickled down his Adam's apple.

He felt the rush, a tidal wave of pleasure building inside of him. He knew immediately that the stuff was top quality. His body reacted as if he had just skydived out of an airplane: a rush of adrenaline, terror, and pleasure that was almost overwhelming. He felt his skull crack wide open, and his brain expanding like a wet sponge. He trembled, his eyes fluttered inside his head, and he murmured, “Oh, that's GOOOD shit, man. That's fucking GOOD shit. . . .”

Pat grinned and said, “I only deal with the best shit available. That's the finest-quality crystal meth on the West Coast. My chemist is a fucking genius. Ex-government scientist, top-notch equipment. This ain't no fucking Hells Angels shit cooked up in a trailer park in Riverside. This is fucking grade-A primo methamphetamine.”

“Jesus Christ. Am I glad I met you.”

“So,” Pat said, getting right back to business now that Spider had a taste of the shit, “what do you think about this Jeffrey faggot?”

Spider opened his eyes to slits.

“Why do you want him so badly?”

“He has something that belongs to me.”

“What?”

Pat walked over to Spider. Put his face real close.

“Listen, motherfucker. This ain't twenty questions. None of this is any of your goddamned business. I got an ounce of this shit I'm willing to give you, if you can give me the faggot. You don't have to worry about the wheres and the whys, okay?”

Spider raised his hands and tried to smile ingratiatingly.

“Okay. Look, I don't really give a fuck what you want him for. He's all yours, man. I can set it up, no fucking problem.”

“Good boy.” Pat slapped Spider lightly on his swollen cheek.

· · ·

Pat backed off a little and cast a disapproving eye over the apartment.

“You are without a doubt the messiest fucking speed freak I have ever met. C'mon, sweet cheeks. . . .”

Trina stood and followed Pat to the door. A baggie of Pat's speed lay on the floor, next to Spider's spoon.

“What should I tell him?”

“Just meet up with him. Find out what he's up to; find out where he's staying. That's all.”

Pat opened the door and ushered Trina out into the sunlight.

“I'll be in touch real soon,” Spider said.

“Oh, you'd better.”

And with that Pat was gone, pulling the door closed behind him.

In the bloodred gloom of Musso and Frank's, where the ghosts of old Hollywood jostled shoulders with the tourists and the ghouls, Randal and Jeffrey sat nervously with Stevie Rox, who was currently lifting his shirt to expose a pasty, flabby torso that had a grotesque fresh scar running a good twelve inches up one side.

“Just got the staples out. Brand-new fuckin' liver in there. Got it down in South America. It belonged to some fuckin' eighteen-year-old Mexican kid. . . . The old one was all fucked up. The doctors told me I had to quit drinking and quit doing blow! Can you believe that shit? I pay those motherfuckers Christ knows how much per month so they can dispense their fuckin' wisdom upon me, and the best they can come up with is ‘cut out the booze and the blow'? Fuck that!”

“So, I told 'em I wanted a new liver. I mean, I see all of these fucking moony-looking kids on charity appeals and shit, and they're doling out fucking livers, kidneys, hearts, all kinds of shit to them. So if it's good enough for them, then I'm fuckin' sure it's good enough for Stevie. . . .”

“I mean, these fucking American doctors are such pansies, with their fuckin' rules and regulations. . . . I had to go to South America to get the job done. Money still talks down there, I tell ya. Everything is for sale. They got a better working model for capitalism than we've managed up here, you know what I'm sayin'?”

Despite being born and raised in Los Angeles, Stevie Rox talked in an entirely affected British accent, for reasons that nobody could fathom.

“Sure thing, Stevie,” Randal said. “I hear ya. The health care system in this country is FUCKED.” He peered curiously at the scar. It looked moist.

Jeffrey was sitting there in shell-shocked silence. They had been with Stevie Rox for almost thirty minutes, ever since his pearl-colored limo had pulled up outside of the restaurant. He'd made a big show of getting out with a champagne flute in his hand and a bright orange, seemingly anorexic platinum blond woman with grotesquely enlarged lips and tits on his arm. They staggered in, causing a commotion, Stevie sticking one-hundred-dollar bills into the pockets of the lingering old men in polyester tuxedos who waited tables in the main room, before plunking themselves down at a booth and ordering a bottle of Cristal.

· · ·

“Cristal, and hurry it up! I'm drier than a witch's twat in the desert!” Stevie had roared, before launching into a coke-fueled monologue about the music industry, the facile nature of musicians, how the quality of coke in the city was falling, and now the brand-new liver that he was waving in Randal and Jeffrey's faces. It looked like some kind of huge bloody mouth intent on swallowing them both.

“Jesus,” Jeffrey said.

“Touch it!” Stevie ordered, edging his gut toward him, throwing out his chest.

“No, thanks!”

“Don't be such a faggot!” Stevie howled, loud enough for the whole room to hear. “It's healed up. Touch it!”

Jeffrey allowed his fingertips to brush the wound. This satisfied Stevie, who finally allowed his garish silk Gaul-tier shirt to cover his monstrous bulk again.

“Eighteen years old. He was still fresh.”

“Wow, do you know what happened to him?”

“What happened to him? Fuck knows. For what I paid, they probably chloroformed him and snatched him off the fuckin' street. He probably woke up in a bathtub full of ice in a fucking motel in Tijuana. Anyway, it's all rather beside the point now, isn't it, because it's mine, and I can do whatever the fuck I want with it. Funny thing is, ever since getting the liver, I can fuck like an eighteen-year-old, too. Isn't that right, Baby?”

“Oh, yeah,” the girl said in an utterly emotionless West Coast monotone. “He can fuck like an eighteen-year-old. He's wearing me out.”

· · ·

Randal smiled at her.

“We weren't introduced. What's your name?”

“You fucking deaf or something?” Stevie said. “Her name is Baby. Baby, say hello.”

“Hello,” Baby said.

As they guzzled the champagne, the waiter arrived to take their orders. Stevie ordered the minute steak with creamed spinach. Randal and Jeffrey, who were in the bathroom snorting rails of meth just before Stevie showed up, skipped dinner and stuck to booze. Baby asked the waiter if they had any lactose-free cottage cheese.

“Cottage cheese?” the waiter said, incredulous.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . ,” Stevie interrupted, “she's on a diet. Fat-free, fucking lactose-free, something like that. Something that don't taste of anything.”

“No, sir,” the waiter said, “I don't think we have anything like that.”

Stevie pulled out another one-hundred-dollar bill. “Will you send someone out to pick some up from Ralph's?”

The waiter looked at the money, seemingly not comprehending. Stevie sighed and pulled out another bill. He pressed the two hundred into the waiter's hand.

“Very good, sir,” the waiter said.

Baby said, “I want fat-free and lactose-free, okay?”

“Very good.” The waiter nodded and shuffled off, presumably to order some unfortunate dishwasher out into the night to pick up the shit that Baby wanted to eat.

“So, boys,” Stevie said, pouring himself another drink, “what was it that you wanted to talk about? Actually, wait—excuse me.”

He turned to Baby and said, “Hey, honey. Why dontcha go powder your nose or something and let us boys talk?”

“Sure thing, honey.”

When Baby got up and
clip-clopped
toward the bathroom on her red heels, Randal said, “Goddamn, Stevie, you got her well trained.”

“You gotta keep 'em in check, man. So what's the big deal you wanna talk about?”

“It's a movie. Celebrity porn.”

Stevie rolled his eyes. “Seen it, owned it, bought the T-shirt.”

“Yeah, but this one is different.”

“Oh, yeah? Who is it? Britney?”

“Nope. None of that nouveau Hollywood trash. This is a historical document.”

Stevie narrowed his puffy eyes to slits.

“You aren't going to try to sell me that tired old movie of Marilyn Monroe sucking someone off, are you? Because I've seen it, and it's crap. Women didn't know how to take care of a man back then. It was like watching your fucking granny suck someone off! I was watching it thinking,
‘Get it down your throat, love. You're an actress! Act like you're enjoying it!'
Anyway, that fucker is off the market. In the hands of a collector. Some rich superfan who doesn't want old Marilyn's image ruined by a film of her sucking someone's meat torpedo going public.”

Jeffrey leaned forward. “No, Stevie, it isn't Marilyn. This is an original sixteen-millimeter film that has never been duplicated and has been in the hands of the same private collector for decades. And now it has come into my possession. Do you remember Sharon Tate?”

Stevie laughed. “Do I remember Sharon Tate? Let me tell you something, kid. I AM Hollywood. You think old Randy here is Hollywood? My family has owned this fucking town since this place was all orange groves and Indian fucking burial grounds. My lineage goes right back to that fat fuck Arbuckle running around in his ill-fitting police uniforms, whacking some poor bastard on the head with a rubber truncheon. You got me? So, yeah, I know who fucking Sharon Tate was.”

Jeffrey sat back and decided to keep his mouth shut. He found being around Stevie Rox a dizzying business. Randal stepped in, looking mildly amused by Stevie's outburst.

“What we have,” Randal said, “is a twenty-minute film loop starring Sharon Tate, Mama Cass, Yul Brynner, and Steve McQueen. A gangbang. All of them getting high and fucking.”

“How did this come into your possession, exactly?”

“He told you. A private collector.”

“And how did this private collector get it?”

“He stole it. From the Tate house.”

“And how exactly did he manage that, then?”

“He was one of the first people on the scene when they all got wiped out by Manson's goons. This guy was there to take fingerprints and mop the fucking blood off the walls, and he sees a tape. . . .”

Stevie Rox looked over to Jeffrey again. He leaned in close.

“How much did you pay for it?”

“He left it to me. When he died.”

“Generous fucker, wasn't he? What, was he your boyfriend or something?”

“Yeah. He was my boyfriend.”

Stevie nodded slowly. He looked back at Randal. “Have you seen it?”

Randal looked at Jeffrey. Jeffrey shrugged at him. Randal looked back to Stevie.

“Not yet. It hasn't been out of its canister since the early seventies. That shit is fragile. Old. We'd need specialist equipment.”

Stevie finished his champagne. He emptied the bottle into his glass. “So what are you thinking? A collector?”

“Yeah. What about the Marilyn Monroe guy?”

“He's no use to you. He only gives a shit about Monroe. Your best bet is someone who is into the whole Tate legend. That won't be hard. I know some people. I know one guy in particular who might be useful to you. He's a freak. A memorabilia guy. A real fetishist. He's got money, too. But . . .”

“But what?”

“But . . . what's my cut?”

“I dunno, Stevie. If we make the sale . . . five?”

“Fuck off! It's not worth me writing his number down on a napkin for five. You know what this film could be worth? Millions. That sad cunt I knew paid two million for the Marilyn tape. I want twenty-five grand, cash.”

“If he buys it.”

“If it is what you say it is, then he'll buy it. And I want ten percent of whatever the tape sells for.”

“Ten percent? Come
on
, Stevie. . . . How about five?”

“Ten, or I'm getting up and walking out right now. I hope you haven't dragged my arse all the way over here so you can waste my fucking time, Randy. . . .”

· · ·

Randal looked over to Jeffrey. Jeffrey looked over to Stevie's blubbery frame one last time, shuddered, and gave the nod to Randal.

“Okay. Ten percent.”

Stevie nodded, grimly.

“Randal. I've heard stories about you. Understand this: if you try to fuck me on the money, I will have your fucking balls cut off and fed to my shih tzu, do you understand?”

“Stevie, I'm clean. Look at me. I'm just trying to make an honest living, just like you.”

At this there was a commotion as Baby staggered out of the bathroom and knocked into a table full of diners. She straightened herself, slurred an apology, and then continued on to the table.

“Oh, fuck me,” Stevie said.

Her sense of direction was all off. She finally made it back to the booth, her head fell back, her eyes rolled up into her skull, and she was still.

“Jesus,” Jeffrey said, “is she all right?”

“Oh, yeah. She's fine. She does this all of the time. It's the medication she's taking. She'll snap out of it in half an hour or so. Won't remember a thing. Fucking dumb bitch has got bats in her belfry. What a piece of ass, though.”

With this, Stevie Rox wrote a name and a phone number on a napkin. He put his pen away with a flourish and placed a hand over the napkin. He looked at Randal one more time.

“I want my cut,” he said, “I don't want excuses.”

“If this guy buys, you get your money. Come on, Stevie, how long have we known each other?”

“Too fucking long. That's why I'm making sure you understand that I'm not pissing around.”

Randal nodded. Stevie removed his hand, and Randal took the napkin, glancing at it before slipping it into his pocket. The waiter had arrived bringing cocktails, the minute steak with creamed spinach, and a small bowl with a pile of unappetizing-looking white goop in it for Baby.

Stevie nudged Baby. She seemed to stir for a moment. “Wake up, Baby,” Stevie said, “your food's here.”

With that, Baby pitched forward and hit the table with her face, sending glasses tumbling and a steak knife clattering to the floor.

“Thank you,” Jeffrey said, taking his drink from the waiter. He held the glass aloft, over the head of Baby, still facedown on the table.

“Here's to Sharon Tate,” he said.

“Here's to my twenty-five grand,” Stevie Rox gurgled, and they clinked glasses. Baby slept on.