Pimp

Sixteen

Larry was sitting in the In-N-Out Burger on Sunset, nursing a cup of truly shit coffee, looked like the spillage from the Gulf of Mexico, when two cops entered, fucking CHPs.

One was younger, crewcut, Larry could cast Newman in The Hustler. The other was mainly bald but blond, maybe a Redford type, so it would have to be present-day Redford, i.e., Redford with the fucked-up looking face.

Larry was so nervous he felt like he was going to puke the coffee right back into the mug. They were here for him, he was sure of it. They weren’t looking at him, they were looking up at the menu, but they were just playing cool. Any second now they’d attack him, pin him to the floor and cuff him like he was in a fucking rerun of COPS.

They must’ve found Dr. Hoff’s body; why else were they here? Larry knew he couldn’t survive prison, he’d have to go out Bonnie and Clyde style. Only problem was he didn’t have a gun. Well, he’d do something, throw the coffee in their faces, to incite them and get shot. It could be like that movie he’d fast-forwarded through the other night — Fruitvale Station. Cops these days were trigger happy and — who knows? — maybe they’d even make a movie about Larry, he’d be a fuckin’ martyr.

But the cops didn’t attack Larry or try to shoot him. They bought their burgers and shakes and returned to their patrol car without even looking at him.

Larry knew he wasn’t exactly in the clear. He was in some shit up to his eyeballs and there was no way out now, he was D.O. fuckin’ A. He’d left Doctor Hoff’s body in the house with the letter opener still in his chest. He’d developed enough cop projects over the years to know how to wipe down a crime scene, and he’d spent a couple of hours cleaning up prints and any other trace he was there. But he’d also developed enough crime shows to know that it was only a matter of time till he got caught. In procedurals there was always a bust at the end, and cops these days with their fucking forensics, databases, DNA and whatever other new bullshit had come down the pike were so far ahead of the criminals it was a miracle half the country wasn’t in jail. He didn’t think he was on any surveillance video, but he knew they’d catch on to him eventually and his only chance was to run.

Before leaving, he’d smashed some breakables, ransacked the place a little to make it look like a robbery. In the bedroom, he found some cash, about five hundred bucks, in a sock drawer and thought, What the fuck? and pocketed it. After all, he was already a killer, on his way to hell, so what did he have to lose?

And he’d run. But where had it gotten him? Now he was down to his plan B, or was it C or D? He was losing track.

His brilliant plan was to meet Eddie Vegas’s guy at the In-N-Out Burger and get the seventy-five grand. He’d then hand over the seventy-five grand to the kidnappers and get Bev back. Then — assuming he hadn’t been arrested or killed by this time — he and Bev would fly to Brazil. He had some moolah offshore, not enough to finance a movie but enough to survive for a few years. By then hopefully he’d drop dead and not have to come up with another plan to make money.

He knew the odds of this working were slim to none, especially since he still had no way of contacting the kidnappers. He considered ditching Bev and just running away to Brazil right now, before he was on the airport’s do-not-fly list. He didn’t love Bev and she sure as hell didn’t love him, but okay, yeah, he cared about her. Even though he never wanted to see her again, he wanted to know she was safe.

Then Larry saw a big lanky white guy, ruddy face, approaching in, Jesus Christ, a circa-Midnight Cowboy fringe jacket and from its odd aroma, it hadn’t been washed since Jon Voight wore it. But this guy looked older than Voight, and he looked like the other guy, not Jim Carrey, from Dumb and Dumber. Daniel Craig? No, but there was a Daniel in it.

“You Larry?” the guy asked.

Larry had been expecting a Latin guy, like Vegas, but this guy didn’t look like Cheech or Chong. His breath smelled like whiskey and he looked like he’d been drunk since 1985. Not the Dumb and Dumber guy — Nick Nolte, that’s who he’d cast. If Nick wasn’t busy having a mug shot taken.

“You with Vegas?” Larry asked.

“Why else would I be at a fuckin’ In-N-Out Burger?” the guy said.

There was pretention in his voice, the Midnight Cowboy acting like Larry was Ratso Fuckin’ Rizzo.

“Cool,” Larry said because he wanted to come off as a hip, with-it dude and “cool” was the only word he could come up with. “Can I, um, get you a coffee?”

“Ain’t here to socialize, pops,” he said.

“Mullah’s in the case.” Mullah? Larry felt like he was in Straight Time, that Dustin H flick about the ex-con. And pops? Larry was five years older than this guy, tops. Okay, maybe ten, but pops?

Looking at the suitcase, paranoia took hold and Larry wondered if the guy had stuffed a small Arab in there. He couldn’t resist and corrected, “Moohla.”

Got a blank hillbilly stare, like the bumfucker from Deliverance.

“Wanna count it?” the guy asked.

Larry nearly said, It’s ok, I trust you, but how fucking dumb would that sound? Instead he went dumber, said, “Eddie’s family to me.”

The guy walked out.

Larry opened the briefcase expecting a) an explosion or b) a red light like in the Tarantino flick. Instead he saw neat stacks of twenty- and fifty-dollar bills.

So far, so good. Larry had the ransom money and while Eddie Vegas would be more than upset when he found out he wasn’t buying into a piece of Bust, he was buying into a piece of Jack Shit, by the time he connected the dots, Larry and Bev would be on the beach in Ipanema, sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them.

Again the problem occurred to him that he had no way to contact the kidnappers, but even this problem seemed resolved when he saw a new note on his car:

Larry looked in every direction — nothing unusual. He was glad he had a meeting spot finally, but he was paranoid as hell. How the hell did the kidnappers know that he’d be at In-N-Out Burger? Did Eddie Vegas, or one of his Winter’s Bone goons, kidnap Bev? Was he about to give the money back to the same guy he’d just gotten it from?

This idea didn’t seem to make any sense. It was more likely that somebody else had kidnapped Bev and had been following him all over L.A. But if somebody was following Larry did that mean that person had seen him kill Dr. Hoff?

Without thinking it through any further, Larry drove to Beverly Hills to deliver the money. He could barely control the steering wheel; his hands were sweaty and his heart was on frigging fire.

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.”