Money Shot E-Book

Christa Faust

• Herausgeber: Hard Case Crime
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 327

Beschreibung

Voted the #1 Hard Case Crime Novel of All Time and nominated for an Edgar Award, the latest edition of Christa Faust's debut features an early preview of her next novel featuring lurid protagonist Angel Dare. THEY THOUGHT SHE'D BE EASY. THEY THOUGHT WRONG. It all began with the phone call asking former porn star Angel Dare to do one more movie. Before she knew it, she'd been shot and left for dead in the trunk of a car. But Angel is a survivor. And that means she'll get to the bottom of what's been done to her even if she has to leave a trail of bodies along the way…

Leseprobe

Acclaim for Christa Faust’s MONEY SHOT...

“Money Shot is a stunner, careening along with a wild, propulsive energy and a deliciously incendiary spirit. Laced with bravado and loaded up with knockabout charm, Christa Faust’s Hard Case debut is the literary equivalent of a gasoline cocktail.”

—Megan Abbott

“I was sucked into the tight, juicy Money Shot, from the ripping car trunk start to the hard-pumping climax. This novel is so convincing that you want to believe Faust has been an oversexed, naked killing machine, at least once.”

—Vicki Hendricks

“Money Shot is smart, stylish, insightful, fast-paced pulp fiction with razor sharp humor and a kick-ass heroine. Christa Faust is a super crime writer.”

—Jason Starr

“Money Shot makes most crime novels seem about as exciting as the missionary position on a Tuesday night. The results are stunning.”

—Duane Swierczynski

“Wonderfully lurid, with attitude to spare and a genuine affection for the best of hardboiled traditions. Christa Faust is THE business.”

—Maxim Jakubowski

“Christa Faust writes like she means it. Money Shot is dark, tough, stylish, full of invention and builds to one hell of a climax.”

—Allan Guthrie

“Christa Faust proves she can run with the big boys with this gritty thriller set in the darkest places of the porn industry. I loved it!”

—McKenna Jordan, Murder By the Book

“Never has an avenging Angel been sexier. Money Shot leaves you spent and wanting more.”

—Louis Boxer, founder of NoirCon

“Sam?” I called when I got to the top of the steps.

“Come on in.” Sam’s voice came from the far end of a long hallway.

There was a partially open door with a bright light inside and I walked toward it. There were no fat yellow cords duct-taped to the floor, no adjacent rooms full of giggling girls powdering their implant scars and gluing on false eyelashes. There was no one hanging around smoking or talking on a cell phone. Just that long empty hallway. I like to think I was starting to wonder a little at that point, but I didn’t leave. I just pushed the door the rest of the way open and went right in.

The room at the end of the hall was mostly empty, except for a large wrought-iron bed with a bare mattress covered in plastic. Sam stood against the far wall, beside an empty fireplace. There were two other men I didn’t recognize, but I didn’t get much of a look at them because Jesse was right by the door looking delicious, dark hair tousled and blue eyes smoldering, ready to go. He wore leather pants that hung so low on his lean hips that you would have seen his pubic hair if he hadn’t shaved it off. His sleek, lanky torso was bare and sheened with sweat that highlighted the symmetrical perfection of every muscle. He stepped up to me, gave me an appreciative once-over and smiled.

“Angel Dare,” he said. “Wow. You look amazing. This is gonna be awesome.”

Then he punched me in the face...

SOME OTHER HARD CASE CRIME BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:

THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART by Lawrence Block

THE GUTTER AND THE GRAVE by Ed McBain

NIGHT WALKER by Donald Hamilton

A TOUCH OF DEATH by Charles Williams

SAY IT WITH BULLETS by Richard Powell

WITNESS TO MYSELF by Seymour Shubin

BUST by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

STRAIGHT CUT by Madison Smartt Bell

LEMONS NEVER LIE by Richard Stark

THE LAST QUARRY by Max Allan Collins

THE GUNS OF HEAVEN by Pete Hamill

THE LAST MATCH by David Dodge

GRAVE DESCEND by John Lange

THE PEDDLER by Richard S. Prather

LUCKY AT CARDS by Lawrence Block

ROBBIE’S WIFE by Russell Hill

THE VENGEFUL VIRGIN by Gil Brewer

THE WOUNDED AND THE SLAIN by David Goodis

BLACKMAILER by George Axelrod

SONGS OF INNOCENCE by Richard Aleas

FRIGHT by Cornell Woolrich

KILL NOW, PAY LATER by Robert Terrall

SLIDE by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

DEAD STREET by Mickey Spillane

DEADLY BELOVED by Max Allan Collins

A DIET OF TREACLE by Lawrence Block

MONEY SHOT

byChrista Faust

A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-040)

First Hard Case Crime edition: February 2008

Published by

Titan Books A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd 144 Southwark Street LondonSE1 0UP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should know that it is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

Copyright © 2008 by Christa Faust

Cover painting copyright © 2008 by Glen Orbik

Author photo by Jim Ferreira

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-392-2

Cover design by Cooley Design Lab Design direction by Max Phillips

www.maxphillips.net

Typeset by Swordsmith Productions

The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

Printed in the United States of America

For Richard S. Prather Words don’t die.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

1.

Coming back from the dead isn’t as easy as they make it seem in the movies. In real life it takes forever to do little things like pry open your eyes. You spend excruciating ages trying to bend your left middle finger down far enough to feel the rope around your wrists. Even longer figuring out that the cold hard thing poking you in the cheek is one of the handles of a pair of jumper cables. This is not the kind of action that makes for gripping cinema. Plus there are these long dull stretches where people in the audience would probably go take a piss or get popcorn, since it looks as if nothing is happening and they figure maybe you really are dead after all. After a while, you start to wonder the same thing yourself. You also wonder what will happen if you throw up behind the oily rag duct-taped into your mouth or how long it will take for someone to notice you’re missing. Otherwise you are mostly busy bleeding, trying not to pass back out, or laboriously adding up the cables, the stuffy cramped darkness, the scratchy carpet below and the raw hollow metal above to equal your current location, the trunk of an old and badly maintained car. That’s what it was like for me, anyway.

I’m sure you’re wondering what a nice girl like me was doing left for dead in the trunk of a piece of shit Honda Civic out in the industrial wasteland east of downtown Los Angeles. Or maybe we’ve met before and you’re wondering why it hadn’t happened sooner.

My name’s Gina Moretti, but you probably know me as Angel Dare. Don’t worry, I won’t tell your wife. I made my first adult video when I was twenty, though I lied on camera and said I was eighteen. It was volume one of Marco Pole’s now-famous amateur line, Brand Spankin’ New. My scene was just one of five but there’s no question that I stole the show. What can I say? I know where my strengths lie. I had a contract with Vixen Video less than two weeks later and before I knew it I was on the Playboy Channel doing soft-focus video centerfold segments for more money than I earned in a year back home. A porno Cinderella story, but unlike so many of the girls I worked with, I was smart enough to stay off drugs, save every penny, and get out before my pussy turned back into a pumpkin.

Problem was, I just couldn’t stay retired. Like a pro wrestler or a jewel thief, I was a sucker for an encore. I had no idea when I said yes to Sam Hammer that I’d end up stuffed in a trunk.

Sam’s an old friend. One of the few genuine good guys left in the biz. Kind of a cross between Santa Claus and John Holmes. He must have been pushing sixty, burly and cheerful with a silver ponytail and neatly groomed beard. He was the kind of guy that always had a sofa to crash on or a shoulder to cry on, a loan till your next check or a guy he knew who would fix your toilet for cheap. I’d say he was like a father to me, but that would sound kind of weird since we did a few scenes together, back before he started working exclusively behind the camera. Never mind how long ago. He had been a perfect gentleman too, easygoing, respectful and reliable as clockwork. No easy feat before Viagra became the backbone of the industry, so to speak. Back when you actually had to count on feminine wiles to make the trains run on time, a man like Sam who could stand and deliver on cue was worth his weight in gold. Now you have guys popping Viagra and Cialis like tic tacs and shooting Caverject directly into the equipment to get things up and running. Better loving through chemistry.

Sam Hammer shoots were always a blast. No pressure. Sam was married to all-natural triple-D legend Busti Keaton, star of the Topsy Turvy series and Battlestar Gazongas. She would cook huge amounts of the best down-home comfort food and fuss around the set making sure nobody was too hot or too cold or uncomfortable in any way. I’ve been on plenty of jobs that were just jobs, or worse. Hammer shoots never felt like work. More like big happy Sunday barbeques where they just happened to be filming people having sex.

Sam could have easily made the jump to Hollywood. He had a great eye for composition and wrote witty, original scripts that actually kept your finger off the fast forward button. But we all knew that he would never leave the Valley. Sam was a lifer. He liked being around naked girls way too much to go legit. So many smut directors are nothing but jaded hacks who spend most of the shoot snorting lines or talking on their cell phones, but not Sam. His enthusiasm was infectious.

When he called, I was having one of those days. Those sneaking-up-on-forty days when I can’t stop looking in the mirror. Comparing what I see now to the image of that perfect, flawless little twenty year old bouncing around on top of Marco Pole for digital eternity. I’m in better shape now than I ever was, working out six days a week and kickboxing to knock out stress, but all the crunches in the world can’t reverse gravity, or crow’s feet, or the fact that I have to use the hair dye that advertises “100% gray coverage!” Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a pretty iron-clad ego, but I run Daring Angels, a high-class adult modeling agency out in Van Nuys, and being around all those gorgeous nineteen-year-olds sometimes gets to me. Makes a girl feel like yesterday’s news.

When Sam called, I was standing in the full-length mirror beside my desk, topless and sideways. I have always been proud of the fact that I never had my tits done. I’ve seen way too many beautiful women ruined by ghastly, wall-eyed Frankenstein implants. Yet, on that day, I was hefting my assets in the palms of my hands and wondering if maybe they could use a little surgical pick-me-up after all.

I called my receptionist, personal assistant and all-around Mom Friday into my office. Didi was big back in the Deep Throat days, though if you saw her now, you’d never know it. She was fifty-two, five feet even, with a plain, sweet face like your favorite teacher, but underneath that G-rated exterior was an old-school porn veteran who talked about sex like other people talk about the weather. She had a rich, phone-sex purr of a voice and she got asked out on dates nearly every day by the men who called to book girls. More than half of the time she said yes, and though they may have done a double take when she showed up, I doubt any of those guys were sorry by the end of the night. Didi was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I don’t even want to think about how I would have run Daring Angels without her.

She came in the door with her sparkly vinyl purse on one arm and the other arm sliding into the sleeve of her pink leather jacket.

“What’s up, boss?” she said. “I’m just out the door. Got a hot one lined up tonight.” She looked down at my exposed breasts and rolled her eyes. “Would you stop it already! You do not need a goddamn boob job.”

I grinned. “Go on, Didi. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She blew me a kiss and split. I turned back to the mirror. I knew she was right, but still...

When I heard my phone’s electronic chirp, I jumped a little, feeling like I’d been busted somehow.

“Daring Angels,” I said.

“Angel, baby.” Just hearing Sam’s familiar growl was enough to cheer me up. “How you doing, beautiful?”

“Never better,” I replied, turning away from the mirror and grabbing my push-up bra off the back of my chair. “You?”

“The usual,” he said. “You know. Making dirty movies.”

“How’s Georgie?” I asked, holding the phone between my cheek and shoulder and hooking the bra around my ribs.

Georgie was Busti Keaton’s real name. I should have noticed the tight little pause and the pinched tension in his voice as he answered much too quickly.

“Fine, she’s real good. Listen, Angel, I got a favor to ask.”

“Anything, Sam,” I said, turning the bra around and slipping my arms through the straps, settling everything into place. I eyed my reflection. Much better.

“I’m shooting with Jesse Black,” Sam told me. “I had a new girl flake on me and we’ve only got the location for another two hours.”

I nodded and leaned over my laptop, calling up my booking calendar.

“Okay,” I said scanning the schedule. “Zandora Dior and Kyrie Li are both out of town featuring, but Sirena, Coco Latte and Roxette DuMonde are available, or I’ve got this new kid, Molly May. She’s a knockout, a legit redhead—carpet matches the drapes. Fresh, petite girl-next-door type but she also glamours up real nice. She’s only a B-cup, though. It’s not a busty line, is it? Bethany Sweet is my only current double-D and she’s booked today.”

“Actually,” Sam said. “Jesse asked for you.”

“Come on,” I said, laughing nervously and turning back toward the treacherous mirror. “Sam, you know I’m retired.”

“Angel, please, I really need your help on this. Jesse is threatening to walk out on me and I promised him I’d get him any girl he wanted. He wants Angel Dare. He says he cut his teeth on your movies, that you were his favorite since he was fifteen.”

Now you have to realize that Jesse Black was probably the hottest new male talent in the biz. He was twenty-one, Hollywood handsome and legendary below the belt. The bluest blue eyes. Bad boy smile. More than half the women who who’d come to me looking for work in the past six months said they got into porn specifically because they wanted to work with Jesse Black. Now Jesse Black wanted to work with me.

“It’s pretty short notice, Sam,” I said, already finding my mind shamelessly wandering over the details of Jesse Black’s famous anatomy.

“No anal,” Sam replied. “Just a simple little boy/girl scene with a facial pop. I can give you fifteen and a cover. It’ll be like old times.”

I had to admit it was appealing. It’d be a phone-in, plus Jesse Black, plus helping Sam, plus an easy fifteen hundred bucks and a big fat box cover ego boost. Proof I’ve still got it. I could feel my resistance wearing down fast, but I had to keep trying.

“I don’t have a current test,” I said. “It’s been almost seven months.”

“You can just fax it in to me by Monday,” Sam said. “Look, I’ll make it two grand.”

“Sam... I...”

“Okay, twenty five, what do you say? I’m in a jam here, Angel. My last three videos tanked and if I screw this one up too, I’ll probably get shitcanned from Blue Moon. But with Angel Dare and Jesse Black on the box cover, I got a sure thing.”

He was starting to sound desperate. If it had been anyone else, I probably would have held my ground, but Sam had always been there for me whenever I needed anything. No questions asked.

“Okay, Sam,” I said. “Jesse knows I’m condom only?”

“Sure,” Sam said. “It’s no problem. Look, I’ll put him on, okay?”

“Wait,” I said but it was too late.

“Angel?” a new voice said. “Is this Angel Dare?”

“In the flesh,” I said. “This Jesse?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Angel Dare, wow. I can’t believe it’s really you.”

“It’s me alright,” I said, having no idea what else to say.

“God, you’re so hot,” he said. “I swear I must’ve worn out, like, three copies of Double Dare. That scene you did with Nina Lynn in the shower.” He made a breathy little purring noise. “Damn.”

“Thanks,” I said, eyeing my reflection again. Back when I shot Double Dare, Jesse probably still thought girls were icky. It seemed so wild that a toddler like him would have the hots for me. “You’re not so bad yourself, kid.”

“Will you do it?” he asked. “Please say you’ll do it. It’ll be like my best fantasy come true. Me and Angel Dare.”

“Well...” I said.

“I’ll make it good for you, Angel,” he said, voice raw and earnest, like my first boyfriend. “I promise.”

“Put Sam back on, okay?” I said.

There was some quick shuffling and then Sam’s voice came back on the line.

“Come on, Angel,” Sam said. “Make the kid’s day. He’s gonna start humping me if you don’t get here soon.”

I sighed and grabbed a pen.

“What’s the address?”

2.

The location was one of those sad old mansions in Bel Air. Ostentatious, but had seen better days. Money is so fickle here in L.A. and a big old house is like an aging mistress with a plastic surgery fetish. It’s more economical to just buy a cheap, flashy new one than keep on renovating the old one. Otherwise, you wind up renting the place out for porn shoots just to break even on the roofing bills.

There was a pair of twisted pomegranate trees guarding the open gate and the ground beneath them was gory with broken crimson fruit that crunched and splattered under the wheels of my little black Mini. Pulling into the wide circular driveway, I kept expecting to spot Norma Desmond burying her pet chimpanzee in the overgrown rose garden. I felt better once I saw Sam’s red ‘84 Corvette with its vanity plates that read HAMRXXX. It was parked near a massive wooden door that looked like it ought to open into a medieval Spanish dungeon. I parked behind Sam and got my old shoot bag off the passenger seat. There were a few other cars I didn’t recognize in front of Sam’s, a generic mid-sized rental and a tricked out, over-the-top black Ferrari that had to be Jesse’s. Car like that just screamed dick-for-hire. Parked directly in front of the Ferrari was the battered blue Honda Civic with which I would soon become so intimately familiar.

I’ve spent a lot of time since then going over and over those short minutes in the driveway, wondering why I didn’t sense something wrong, why I just waltzed right in like some barely legal bimbo from Indiana. I try to tell myself it was because I trusted Sam, because he was my friend for nearly twenty years, but if I’m honest I have to admit that was only part of it. The simple truth is, I had a girl boner. All the blood had run out of my brain and down between my legs. I’d had this semi-regular thing with a rockabilly bass player that had lasted nearly six months, but it had recently gotten stale and predictable and I’d decided it was time to move on. It had been three weeks since I’d gotten any new action. Now I found myself in a ditzy hormonal fog, gone blonde at the thought of putting Jesse Black’s lean, hard, twenty-one-year-old body through its paces. So I walked, crotch-first, right into a trap.

The wheels of my little roller suitcase bumped along over the cracked pavement and the lonely echoing sound seemed way too loud in the deserted courtyard. The door wasn’t locked. I thought they might be shooting some dialog or pick-up footage so I didn’t knock. I just slipped quietly inside.

The first thing I noticed was that there was no furniture. It was a huge, hollow room with a cathedral ceiling, Spanish tile floors and a massive iron chandelier on a chain that looked like something Zorro would use to swing over the heads of the bad guys. There were several large windows, but they were covered with opaque plastic, letting in only a soft, muted fraction of the afternoon sun. It smelled like fresh paint.

“Angel?” Sam’s voice called from the top of an elegant, curving staircase. “That you?”

“Yeah,” I replied, squinting up the stairs.

“We’re up here,” Sam said.

I pushed down the telescoping handle on my case and hefted it to carry it up the stairs. Luckily, it was just the small shoot bag and nearly empty. Sam said I’d only need lingerie and heels so I had run by the house on my way over and thrown together a couple of sets and stockings to give him some options. It’s been years since I had my shoot bags packed and ready all the time, everything organized into neatly labeled Ziploc bags and categorized with titles like fetish, slut, or GND, which stood for Girl Next Door.

“Sam?” I called when I got to the top of the steps.

“Come on in.” Sam’s voice came from the far end of a long hallway.

There was a partially open door with a bright light inside and I walked toward it. There were no fat yellow cords duct-taped to the floor, no adjacent rooms full of giggling girls powdering their implant scars and gluing on false eyelashes. There was no one hanging around smoking or talking on a cell phone. Just that long empty hallway. I like to think I was starting to wonder a little at that point, but I didn’t leave. I just pushed the door the rest of the way open and went right in.

The room at the end of the hall was mostly empty, except for a large wrought-iron bed with a bare mattress covered in plastic. Sam stood against the far wall, beside an empty fireplace. There were two other men I didn’t recognize, but I didn’t get much of a look at them because Jesse was right by the door looking delicious, dark hair tousled and blue eyes smoldering, ready to go. He wore leather pants that hung so low on his lean hips that you would have seen his pubic hair if he hadn’t shaved it off. His sleek, lanky torso was bare and sheened with sweat that highlighted the symmetrical perfection of every muscle. He stepped up to me, gave me an appreciative once-over and smiled.

“Angel Dare,” he said. “Wow. You look amazing. This is gonna be awesome.”

He reached down and squeezed his most famous feature through his tight leather pants. Then he punched me in the face.

3.

I wasn’t out cold, but it hurt like hell and everything went red and swimmy. I could feel rough hands on my body, wrenching my clothes and throwing me down on slick, crinkly plastic. Scratchy rope around my wrists and ankles and my first semi-delirious thought was, Bondage, are they crazy? You can’t shoot bondage and sex in the same scene!

Then the pain kind of tightened and focused down to a nasty throb in my left cheekbone and temple and I was able to see again, to put my mind to the task of moving beyond the holy shit phase and into working out exactly what sort of trouble I had gotten myself into. I should have known something wasn’t right about this set-up as soon as Sam gave me the Bel Air address. Nobody in porn ever goes over the hill for anything if they can help it.

Near as I could figure, I was tied in a sloppy and unimaginative spread eagle, face up. My shirt and bra were shoved up under my chin and my skirt was torn up to the waist. I had no idea what had happened to my panties. Jesse stood over me to my left with the kind of lobotomized expression men get when they have their hands in their pants. Behind him was one of the two strangers. Thick and dead-eyed with skin the color of boiled potatoes and a build like a rhino on steroids. He was wearing tight leather gloves and did not have his hand in his pants. He had Sam by the arm, holding him near the bed like a naughty kid about to be punished.

“They have Georgie,” Sam said, his voice barely audible. “I’m sorry.”

The rhino gave Sam a casual cuff to the side of the head that would have knocked him to the ground if the guy hadn’t been holding him up.

“Jesus!” Sam said.

“Shut up,” the rhino said, mildly, like he was ordering a beer.

Sam squeezed his eyes closed and hung his head.

I was about to say something really stupid that involved the rhino’s mother when the other guy came forward, sliding slowly into view on my right. I knew then that the rhino was the least of my worries.

This guy was the type you don’t even see. Invisible, just a guy like a hundred other guys. Medium build, brown hair, forgettable features above a forgettable shirt and a forgettable tie. But once you did notice him, once you saw past the bland, everyman veneer, once you looked in his eyes, you saw this was a very bad man. He gave off a powerful alpha vibe that all the other men in the room deferred to without hesitation. There was no question that he was the boss.

“Where is the money?” he asked.

I didn’t even bother to say what money or anything at all. I just squinted at him, silent and furious and wondering what it was going to take to get out of this in one piece.

The boss tilted his chin toward me.

“Ask her,” he said.

Jesse smiled and gave me a tight right to the belly.

I had a few panicked seconds where I was sure I was about to puke. My body fought to curl up around the pain, but my limbs were tied so I stayed splayed, drowning in nauseous agony.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, or tried to. What came out was more of a breathless wheeze with no consonants.

“A girl came into your office with something that didn’t belong to her,” the boss said. “A briefcase. She left without it. It isn’t anywhere in your office or your house. Where is it?”

It all came back to me in a sickening rush. That girl. The anxious blonde with the Dracula accent who came to my office just before lunch, about six hours before Sam’s call. The one who was looking for one of my models, Zandora Dior.

“Lia,” she said her name was, sitting there on the other side of my desk and seeming lost inside an extra large Lakers t-shirt.

Her big green eyes were evasive, her body language tense and urgent. Her frosted blonde hair was obviously expensive, and her thick fake nails were fresh and glossy, but her body was undernourished, toneless and skinny-fat and her skin was bad, broken out around her tiny rosebud mouth. She wore no make-up but I could tell that she would still doll up well enough to shoot for another six months or so. The t-shirt was as long as a dress, nearly covering the tight black skirt beneath and making her look like she had forgotten her pants. The briefcase sat between her big feet. I barely noticed it.

“Do you have ID?” I had asked her, sizing her up, looking at her pale, childish legs and the expensive high heels that were way too dressy to go with the t-shirt. I saw nothing but trouble. “I can’t even take test shots of you if you don’t have an American driver’s license.”

“I am not wanting work,” she said. “I am wanting Lenuta Vasilescu. In the movies, she is Zandora Dior.”

I looked the girl over again, wondering what this was all about.

“Zandora’s featuring,” I said.

Lia frowned like she had no idea what I was talking about.

“She’s out of town, featuring.” I elaborated. “You know, dancing. On the road.”

“When will she be back?” Lia asked.

“Monday,” I replied.

“Oh,” Lia said, looking down at the briefcase and twisting her skinny fingers in her lap like a child. “Can I please have her phone number? We are friends together as children in Brasov. It is very important. I need to speak to her right away.”

Maybe because she knew Zandora’s real name, or because she was obviously Romanian too, or maybe because she looked so small and desperate, like a bird with a broken wing, I impulsively felt like helping her out. There was no way in hell I was going to give her Zandora’s private cell number, but I also wasn’t going to just tell the kid to fuck off with her sitting there looking like she was trying really hard not to bust out in tears.

“Do you want me to give her a message?” I asked.

“It’s...” The girl swallowed hard and looked away. “It’s private.”

“Tell you what,” I replied. “Why don’t you write her a note with your phone number and whatever else. I can fax it to the club Zandora’s booked at and then she can call you.”

“Okay,” Lia said. It was clear that she was not happy about it, but in too much of a hurry to argue. “Can I have paper?”

I gave her a blank sheet out of my printer and a sparkly purple Daring Angels pen. She leaned over my desk and wrote fast and hard, like she was trying to engrave the words into stone. She was clearly writing way more than a phone number. In fact, I didn’t see anything that looked like a phone number at all. Just a crowded block of looping, girly script infested with strange hooks and squiggles. Even upside down, I could see she wasn’t writing in English.

I felt a little weird sending Zandora a note I couldn’t read, but after all, it was only a note. Even if it turned out to be some crazy stalker shit or who knew what else, Zandora didn’t have to respond. It wasn’t like I was giving the girl Zandora’s number or even letting her know which club would be receiving her mystery message. But it should be enough to placate the anxious blonde and get her out of my office. Her wounded bird routine was starting to make me nervous. It made me feel like I’d better look out for cats.

While I whipped up a quick cover sheet and faxed the note off to Eye Candy in Vegas, Lia stood and drifted like a ghost over to the single window, peering through the blinds at the uninspiring view of dull, empty Vesper Avenue below. She stood like that while the fax machine beeped and chugged and the note fed through and spat out below. Then, when she turned back to me, I noticed that her body language had changed in some subtle way. She’d gone strangely stiff and almost formal, like some kind of catwalk Stepford wife. She turned her head on her long neck, expressionless face toward me, eyes looking at nothing.

“Where is the bathroom?” she asked.

“Back through the reception area and to the right,” I told her. “Didi’ll show you.”

She nodded and lifted her note from the fax tray, popping the combination lock on the briefcase and opening it just enough to slip the note in. I couldn’t see what else was inside and I didn’t even really try all that hard to look, but I couldn’t help noticing the combination for the lock. 666. Funny, I wouldn’t have pegged her as a death metal fan.

I watched her slender back as she opened the door. Maybe I thought it was weird that she was carrying a man’s leather briefcase instead of a purse, or maybe I was just glad to see her go. She didn’t say thank you or even goodbye.

Minutes later, two men came into my office.

“You can’t just walk in there,” Didi was saying, but they already had.

The first guy through the door had a distinct Eastern Bloc look to his weasely, intense features. He was deeply tanned, dressed like an Armenian pop star, and had to be a good two inches shorter than me. His tall buddy in the doorway looked more like a corn-fed redneck, with thinning blond hair, cold blue eyes and a fat but powerful body like those guys that pull trucks with their teeth. His simple, all-black clothes were all business. Bad business.

“I don’t book male talent,” I said. “Try Eros over on Sherman Way.”

“Funny,” the weasely guy said. He was clearly the mouth of the two and had a faint, slightly different variation on Lia’s accent. “We’re looking for Lia.”

“Just missed her,” I told them.

“We didn’t see her come out of the building,” the weasel said, eyefucking me like he learned it from TV. “Why do you suppose that is?”

There was a faint shuffling from the bathroom and the weasel snapped his head toward the sound like a hungry predator.

“She had to powder her nose,” he said. “Is that it?”

“Look, I don’t know you or her,” I said. “And I don’t want anything to do with...”

Before I could finish, the redneck strode back into the reception area, past indignant Didi to the bathroom door and kicked it open.

“Hey!” Didi cried.

The bathroom was empty. Lia’s expensive shoes were on the floor by the toilet. The window was open, just enough for an underfed girl to worm her way through. My office was on the second floor. It was a doable jump, though you wouldn’t like hitting the concrete of the parking lot next door. Especially not with bare feet. You’d have to be pretty motivated. She obviously was.

“Listen here, you lousy sons of bitches,” Didi said, fearlessly getting up in the guys’ faces like an angry Jack Russell Terrier. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you have exactly three seconds to get the fuck out of here before I call the cops.”

The men barely seemed to hear her. They just brushed her aside and left without another word.

“What the hell was that all about?” Didi has asked me.

“I have no idea,” I replied, fuming at the broken lock on the bathroom door. “And frankly, I don’t want to know.”

Of course, at that time, I had no idea how right I was. Lying there tied to a bed with sweat all sticky and pooling on the plastic beneath me, surrounded by a variety of extremely bad men, I wanted to know even less.

4.

“Look,” I said with whatever voice I could muster. “I don’t know anything about any money. That girl, she just came and left when those two guys showed up. That’s all I know.”

“Start at the beginning,” the boss said, lighting up a cigarette. “Tell me everything she told you.”

“She didn’t tell me anything,” I said.

“She must have said something,” the boss replied. “What did she want? Not work, obviously.”

Why was that obvious? I had thought she was looking for work when I first saw her. I had no idea how much this asshole knew about what had happened in my office. Was he really in the dark or just looking for me to confirm his suspicions?

“She wanted to get in touch with one of my models,” I told him. “Said they were friends as kids.”

“She wanted to catch up?” the boss asked. “Reminisce about old times?”

I shrugged or tried to. It came out kind of funny with my arms tied out to either side.

The boss nodded, contemplating the smoke from the end of his cigarette. Then he brought the cigarette to his lips and took a deep drag. When he exhaled, two words came out with the smoke.

“Which model?”

I closed my eyes. Zandora was hardly my best friend. She was a shallow bimbo with more designer sunglasses than sense, but she sure as hell didn’t deserve to have this guy after her. The last thing I wanted to do was to drag her or anyone else into this ugly mess. I told myself to hold out, hanging on to the idea that I was protecting Zandora. I needed to at least try and be tough, because I didn’t want to think of myself as the sort of person that rolled over after two punches.

“You’re thinking about being brave,” the boss said, taking another deep drag off his cigarette. “Don’t.”

“Angel, please,” Sam said, his eyes bright and desperate.

“Shut up,” the rhino said again and shot another curt hook at Sam’s temple.

I said nothing. I squinted up at the boss and put what I hoped was a tough expression on my face. He sighed like a disappointed teacher and handed his cigarette to Jesse.