Money Shot

24.

The drive to Didi’s house in Winnetka was tense and silent except for the rush of wind through the broken rear window. I was still reeling from the kiddie porn thing, but there was no room left in my head with all the fear for Didi and the aching guilt for dragging her down into this nightmare.

When Malloy pulled up in front of Didi’s house, I could see a yellow Hummer parked in her driveway, looming over her little Saturn like a giant Tonka toy. The front door was open, just a crack.

Malloy gestured toward the gray Caprice parked across the street. The car was empty. “That’s the same tail that was on Didi when she came by my place.”

“The cops?” I said. “So where are they, inside? Maybe they already saved Didi and we can just...”

The flat crack of a gunshot echoed through Didi’s house, followed immediately by another.

“Goddamn it!” Malloy said, tossing me a gun and swiftly drawing another. “Come on.”

No time to think. No time to do anything but grab the heavy gun out of my lap and follow Malloy.

Inside Didi’s cozy and familiar house, I felt a swift emotional sucker punch, a kind of bone-deep longing for Didi and my former life that was so powerful it made me nauseous. She had this big lacy teddy bear stuffed full of potpourri that sat on a shelf above the television. I always used to tell her that was the dumbest, ugliest thing ever, but she loved it. Now the familiar warm spicy peach smell of that potpourri bear was like a dead lover’s perfume. I was glad it was so dark, because the walls around me were covered with framed photographs and every single one of those photos would have torn my heart out. In the dark they were just squares of glass.

I could hear a commotion toward the back of the house, in the playroom. Didi was like me but even more so: I never liked to actually sleep with anyone, but she took it a step further. She didn’t allow her lovers into her bedroom at all. Didi and I have both been accused of having intimacy issues, but hey, when you show the world your private parts for a living, you need to find other ways of maintaining your privacy. Didi did it by having two totally separate rooms, one for sex and one for sleeping. The room for sex—the playroom, as she called it—was probably originally a rec room or family room of some sort. When she’d turned the little house into her own swinging bachelorette pad, she’d converted it into a groovy love lounge right out of one of her movies, circa 1979.

As I followed Malloy down the narrow hall, the sweet peachy scent was overwhelmed by something more raw and visceral. In the playroom, we entered a scene that would dig its way down into my brain and stay there for the rest of my life.

There were five men in the room. Three were dead and one was working on it.

The guy who was still hanging in there was some tattooed pretty boy who looked like he was in a band that would never get signed. He was in the far corner trying to get up on his hands and knees and not having much luck. He had been shot in the throat and was making weird squeaky sounds that might have been funny but weren’t.

The dead man to his left was well dressed in a Hollywood wannabe kind of way. He was tall and model-hunky and looked familiar. I was pretty sure he was in the business. Judging from the amount of extra weight inside the left leg of his tailored trousers, I’d say it was in front of the camera. He didn’t seem like he belonged in this amateur hour clusterfuck.

The other two dead guys were obviously the plain-clothes cops from the Caprice. One was slumped over the padded love swing, chains clinking like the ghost of Jacob Marley as he swayed gently back and forth. His right shoe had fallen off, revealing a crumpled black sock with a small hole at the end. The hole wasn’t big enough for his whole toe to poke out yet, but it probably would have been by the end of the shift, if he had stayed alive to keep on wearing it out. The other cop was on the floor about six feet from his partner, on his back. A leather wallet with a badge inside lay inches from his open hand.

The one unharmed guy in the room was crouching over the cop on the floor. He looked like he might be a bandmate of the dying pretty boy, also heavily inked, only not as pretty. Probably the drummer. He had what looked like a bloody white club held high over his head like a caveman. When he spotted us, an odd little grunt escaped his lips and he let the weapon drop.

When it hit the floor, the club jumped and started buzzing like an angry hornet, skittering across the carpet and dragging a long white tail behind it. I realized then that it was a vibrator. I don’t know why, but I felt compelled to catch it and turn it off. It was something to concentrate on other than the nightmare around me. I tucked the gun into the back of my jeans and was about to grab the bloody vibrator by the cord and pull the plug out of the wall when Malloy shouted.

“Don’t!”

I jumped, heart revving in my chest.

“Don’t touch anything,” Malloy said through his teeth.

I nodded and bit my lip. The vibrator continued its mindless racket. The guy crouching over the dead cop stared at Malloy with big blank eyes.

“Okay, genius,” Malloy said, drawing a bead between the kid’s wide eyes. “You want to tell me what the fuck happened here?”

“They... I...” was all the kid managed to say before he scrambled backwards off the dead cop and started puking down the front of his trendy faux vintage t-shirt.

“Lovely,” Malloy said. “Looks like we missed this party.”

“Where’s Didi?” I asked. “Didi!”

The bathroom door on the other side of the huge circular bed was halfway open and there was blood on the doorframe.

“Didi!” I called again.

“Hurry up, Angel,” Malloy said quietly. “There’ll be probably be backup soon.”

I ran to the bathroom and pushed the door the rest of the way open with the toe of my sneaker.

Didi was crouching by the toilet, holding one hand over the bowl. There were long streaks of crimson all down the front of her white, marabou-trimmed negligee. Her face was icy pale and sheened with sweat, her lips blue under smeared pink lipstick. The hand she held over the toilet had something horribly wrong with it, but I couldn’t stand to look too closely. The bowl was full of blood.

“It’s about fucking time,” Didi said. “Will you look at this?” She lifted her hand, or what was left of it. “That little prick shot me in my goddamn hand.”

I ran to her and put my arms around her. She felt cold and slick, like some kind of sea animal.

“They said they were friends of Jesse’s,” she continued, leaning heavily against me. “Chickenshit son of a bitch was too much of a pussy to come himself, so he sends those bozos. I don’t know the two ink monkeys, but the cute guy, that’s Mitch Magnum’s kid. Hung like his old man and just getting started in the business. Christ, what a fucking waste.” She shook her head. “Then those cops showed up and the whole thing went to hell.” She wiped her mouth on her forearm. “Look at my carpet. It’s ruined.”

“Come on, Didi,” I said. “We gotta get you out of here.”

“You cut off all your hair,” she said, patting the back of my head with her good hand. “I don’t know, honey. It kinda worked for Belladonna, but I don’t think I like it on you. It makes you look... too dykey.”

“I’ll grow it back when all this is over, I promise,” I said. “Now come on. Get up off your fat ass and let’s get the hell out of here.”

“I can’t, Angel,” Didi said, swallowing hard and pushing her sticky hair out of her eyes. “You go on.”

“I won’t leave you,” I said, grabbing a silky fistful of her negligee. “Come on.”

“Look, honey,” Didi said, gently pushing my hand away. “I can’t go anywhere like this. More cops are on the way, right? They’ll take me to the hospital and get me fixed up. You can’t go with me to the hospital, you’d get arrested.”

“Bullshit,” I said, feeling panic-stricken and desperate. “No.”

“Go on,” Didi said, pushing me away, but there was no strength in it. “I’ll wait here. Maybe that sexy Detective Erlichman will show up and rescue me.” She touched her sweaty hair. “How do I look?”

“You’re a bloody mess, Didi!” I said, my throat clenched almost too tight to speak.

“Yeah well,” Didi replied with a shaky smirk. “At least I got on something nice. Let this be a lesson to you, Angel. Always wear something nice, just in case. You never know when you’ll get taken to the hospital and meet a well-hung doctor.”

I looked down at my loose, unflattering t-shirt and jeans and was suddenly crying.

“Aw knock it off, willya?” Didi said. “I didn’t mean what I said about your hair. It looks okay, really. I just need some time to get used to it, that’s all. Now get out of here already. If you get yourself arrested on my account I’ll kick your ass myself. One handed, even. Go!”

That’s when I knew that she was dying. I could see it in her face, in her bright glassy eyes and tight smile. She had already lost way too much blood. There was no way she was going to make it.

I had always heard the word anguish, but I’d never really understood what it meant until that moment. Didi was the last connection I had to my old life. The last tie to who I’d been before all this. My house and my business were gone, but up until that moment, I could still count on Didi to back me up no matter what anybody said. I’d had no idea how much I needed that until I felt it slipping through my fingers.

“All right,” I said, turning to leave with a cold vacuum under my sternum. I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye or see you later or anything like that so I didn’t say anything more at all.

I paused by the door and looked back. Didi was resting her cheek against the toilet seat, her face turned away from me. I could hear sirens in the distance. What else could I do? I got the hell out of there.