Money Shot

23.

I must have fallen asleep in the dim, musty cave of our room at the Palmview because it seemed like I’d only closed my eyes for a minute and Malloy was back. He brought Thai food, water and cigarettes.

“So?” I said. “Tell me.”

“Eat first,” Malloy said, offering me a takeout box and a plastic fork. “You haven’t eaten all day.”

I had been feeling kind of hungry right before the whole crazy shootout business and when I opened the little white box the fragrant, spicy steam brought it back in spades. I didn’t even know what I was eating, but I wolfed it down.

Malloy ate too, slow and silent. His shoulders were hunched, eyes narrow and distant, looking at nothing while he chewed. I thought maybe there was something on his mind, something that wouldn’t leave him alone, but it was so damn hard to tell with him.

“Well,” I finally said. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“Okay,” he said, setting down his paper box of noodles and wiping his lips with a crumpled napkin. “For starters, the license for Lia is phony. Amanda Rose Temmens died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome at the age of five months.”

“No shit,” I said. “So does this mean we can blow the whistle on the guys who made the video?”

“We could,” Malloy said. “But I’m guessing the boss of this racket is way too sheltered to get popped. PDM would go down for distributing, maybe take a fall guy or two with ’em, but the D.A. would never get close to the boss.”

“Okay,” I said. “What else?”

“Well, my buddy who ran the license recognized the photo of Lia.” Malloy said. “Apparently a Jane Doe came in after getting hit by a city bus on Vanowen and Vesper. The driver and several witnesses claim that she threw herself in front of the bus deliberately.”

“He’s sure it was Lia?” I asked, incredulous.

“The incident occurred half a block from your office less than five minutes after you say she went out your bathroom window. It’s gotta be her. Her face was smashed up pretty bad, but they had a sketch done based on her bone structure and get this: They put the sketch out to see if anyone could ID her and a guy came forward. This guy, Jaime Martinez, claims he met her the night before she came to your office. Picked her up in a bar. She told him her name was Brittany.”

I snorted and shook my head.

“Anyway,” Malloy continued. “This Martinez guy took her back to his place. He said she acted real nervous and didn’t have a car. When he left for work the next morning, he told her she could stay for a few days if she wanted to. She was gone when he came home.”

“So,” I said, trying to piece together what had happened, “she’s with this Vukasin, the guy in the organization who she got to ‘like her like a girlfriend,’ when she steals the briefcase and bugs out. She can’t get far with no car, so she ducks into a bar and picks up a guy with wheels. Gets him to take her to his place.”

“When he goes to work the next day,” Malloy said, “she starts snooping around, trying to come up with a plan. Maybe she finds the guy’s porn stash and recognizes Zandora. Maybe she calls around and gets your name. There’s a whole lot of maybes there, but somehow she finds her way to your office. Then those guys show up. Maybe someone she talked to tipped them off or maybe she took a taxi and they found her through the cab company. Either way she’s fucked. She sees them coming, stashes the case and tries to make a run for it. When she realizes she can’t get away...”

“Jesus,” I said softly.

I tried to imagine how desperate she must have been to throw herself in front of a bus instead of allowing those bastards to get her back. How she must have been hoping with everything she had left in the last seconds of her life that her message had gotten through. That a childhood friend she hadn’t seen for more than ten years would somehow find a way to help her kid sister. She could never have guessed how the events she set in motion would take down everyone around her.

I grabbed a bottle of water and twisted it open, taking a long drink.

“There’s more,” Malloy said, taking out a pack of cigarettes from an open carton. He lit one and put the pack in his pocket. “It’s bad.”

“Bad?” I asked, frowning. “Bad how?”

“I ran into Erlichman,” he said. “He told me they confiscated your computer and sent it off to some company that searches around for hidden or deleted stuff. I don’t really know exactly how it works but that’s not the point. The point is, they found some photos. Young girls, Angel. Real young.”

“Son of a bitch,” I whispered. I set the water bottle down hard, and stood, feeling like I’d taken a stiff kick to the chest.

My life was over. Period. Daring Angels and everything I’d worked for was dead as dog shit, as dead as I was supposed to be. Drugs, domestic violence, even murder, they were manageable offenses, but you didn’t come back from a kiddie porn investigation. Not in this business. That bland-faced son of a bitch had done me good. He hadn’t just tried to have me killed, he’d driven a stake through my livelihood and salted the earth for good measure. A cold choking fury was bubbling up again, stronger than ever. I wanted to break shit.

“They say you and Sam had a little kiddie porn thing going on the side,” Malloy was saying. “They figure you decided to take Sam out of the loop. A business deal that went south.”

I suddenly noticed how intently Malloy was looking at me. Squinting against the smoke from his cigarette, gauging my reaction.

“What?” I said, anger dangerously close to boiling over. “You don’t seriously believe...”

“You were the one defending those teen girl movies,” Malloy said. “You tell me.”

I didn’t even realize I was going to take a swing until I already had. Malloy was fast, but not quite fast enough and I grazed his stubbled chin with the tips of my knuckles. The cigarette flew out of his mouth and bounced off the carpet. I have no idea what I thought I was going to do, but I flung myself at him, throwing wild haymakers with everything I had behind them. He just grabbed me and spun me around so that my back was to his belly, holding me tight with my arms pinned to my sides. I flailed and kicked, furious and silent except for the harsh sound of my angry breath. I got him a couple of times pretty good on the shins and knees, but he was like a wall, patiently waiting out my tantrum. Eventually I got winded and started to feel stupid.

“You done?” Malloy asked.

“Fuck you,” I spat.

“Look, Angel—”

“Fuck you for even thinking that about me,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had to know.”

He let me go and I staggered away. I turned to face him and then sat down hard on the bed, elbows on my knees as I fought to catch my breath. Malloy sat back down in the chair and rubbed his left shin.

“Look,” Malloy said. “I’m not a nice guy. I’ve done things I’m not proud of in my life but there’s a line, you understand. Anything with kids, little girls like that, that’s over the line. You want to kill a couple of guys who fucked you over, I’ll help you, no questions asked. But I needed to know you wouldn’t cross that line. It’s important to me, Angel.”

“Now you know,” I said, looking up at him with narrowed eyes.

He held my gaze for a long time before he answered.

“Yeah,” he finally said. “I guess I do.”

Neither of us spoke. Outside, someone honked a horn and cursed in Spanish. I could smell thin, acrid smoke that got stronger and stronger and Malloy and I both realized what it was at the same moment.

“Shit,” I said, as Malloy hurried across the room and stomped out the burning patch of carpet that had been ignited by the smoldering cigarette.

I coughed and waved my hand in front of my face while Malloy fumbled with the window, forcing it open.

“What, are you trying to burn the place down?” I asked.

“Probably not the first time someone set the carpet on fire in this joint,” he replied. “Probably not the last either.”

I laughed but it felt forced. The laugh died in my throat and I wrapped my arms around my body. I felt empty.

Malloy just looked out the window with his back to me. Nothing happened for several minutes, and then his cell phone rang.

“What is it, Didi?” he asked when he flipped open the phone.

His face went still and serious as he listened. Without another word, he handed the little phone to me.

“Didi?” I said.

“Angel,” Didi said. Her voice was choppy and full of static. “I got a couple of dickless wonders with guns over here.” There was a thump and clunk that sounded like she had dropped the phone. “Motherfucker!” she hollered. “Go ahead, hit me again you little shit. Hit me all you want, it ain’t gonna make you grow a dick.”

“Didi!” I shouted. “What the hell’s going on?”

There was more static and then a very young-sounding male voice came on the line.

“Yo bitch, listen up,” he said. “You get your ass over here ASA fucking P or your friend Didi is history.”

I could hear Didi cursing in the background.

“Where are you?” I said. “Didi’s house?”

“Just get here,” the kid said and then the call had ended.