Pimp

Twenty-Six

Fantastic news! Angela had accepted Sebastian’s friend request and posted a smiley face on his page with:

He knew she wouldn’t be able to resist his British charm. He IM’d her:

Rather long pause, then:

He was trying to think of the perfect, well, witty response to this, when he got:

A moment later, it was

Squeezing his legs in an incompetent attempt at tempering his suddenly burgeoning excitement he typed:

Sebastian, driving in the latest car he’d nicked on his way to the rendezvous — fittingly a Cougar — was elated. Not only was he eager to give Angela the fuck of her life, he was equally overjoyed about the dollar signs in his future. His stalking of Becker hadn’t panned out, but he’d found a way in to Bust nevertheless. If he wasn’t the most resilient, most resourceful man on the planet, he wanted to meet the man who was.

The meeting spot was a dreary motel on the outskirts of town in God knows where. It didn’t occur to him to wonder why she’d suggested meeting in such a remote locale; he assumed it was because she was anticipating a night of uncontrollable ecstasy and wanted to do it in a suitably lurid venue.

She’d IM’d him a room number as well, and he knocked.

When he saw her there, in practically nothing save a lacy garter, it seemed as if no time had passed. They could’ve been back at Santorini, locking eyes and fates for the first time.

He was pressing her up against the wall, kissing her madly, saying, “I don’t know why I shot you. I need you so desperately. I must’ve been insane.”

Was this a dialogue from an old film? If it wasn’t, it should have been. One of those gothic stories by a Bronte that he could’ve written himself if he’d been alive then and put quill to paper.

He ravished her so many times he lost count.

In their blissful exhaustion he whimpered, “You’re all I’ve ever wanted. How’ve I lasted these years without you?”

Then Angela said, “If you want to prove your devotion to me, and redeem yourself for what you did, you’ll do one thing for me now.”

“Anything, darling,” Sebstian said, wanting her again, feeling once again as if he were in that Bronte story. “Just say it.”

Sebastian had to pinch himself: everything was going to be fucking hunky dory. He actually said that aloud, not realizing that nobody had used that expression since Bowie was young.

Google Earth, God bless ’em, provided directions to Darren Becker’s house. The small matter of a weapon. He’d gone to a seedy dive off Wilshire, a place where you could buy weapons, dope, and passports. Sebastian could fall in love with this town.

A weasel of a guy slipped onto the stool beside him, asked, “You a Limey?”

Sebastian was gobsmacked. Really now, who since Terence Stamp used limey? It was like pre-Hugh Grant hooker days. Sebastian squared his firm jawline, his mother used to say “Boykins, it’s your best feature.” Dear old Mum, batshit now, thinking she was the Queen Mum, and legless before noon. Sebastian looked at the guy, straight from central casting as a bad un. Sebastian moved his accent up a notch, not too much, like an oar length at Henley Boat Race. Ah, those were the days, straw hats, strawberries and cream, fair damsels in white flimsy dresses and croquet in the background. Sebastian had never been within a fart of that event but saw his Merchant Ivory movies. He intoned, “My good fellow, might one tempt a chap to a libation?”

Too much? A tad. The guy who, get this, was wearing a Lance Armstrong bracelet — really, man? The guy went, “The fuck is a libation?”

Yeah.

Long story mercifully edited, Sebastian scored a .9MM and a bag of the new wonder dope, PIMP. Now dressed to assassinate, sweating in black track gear and watch cap, he fingered the nine, a surge of sheer joy, adrenaline, and down-home psychosis shooting through his veins. PIMP rules.

His mind was tick-tripping like a demented cheap watch. He flashed through the first killing he’d done, the details blurred by the drug and only a false elation and a blend of rush and terror lingering. He moved the nine to his left hand, muttered, “You are better than Tim Henman, you are the Federer of murder.”

Giggled.

And like a comic-book character, slapped his hand over his mouth, banging his recently capped front teeth with the gun barrel. Spat, “Shit hurts.”

Then the front door opened and there was Becker, letting a Lab off a leash, urging, “Good boy, go water the garden,” and Sebastian, in a sudden wave of PIMP-induced ferocity, leapt from the bushes, screaming holy heaven, screaming, “Water this, you wanker.”

Missed with the first two shots, as Becker, transfixed, went, “Wanker?” Then, “It’s you — from the health club!” and the third shot went through Becker’s mouth, hurling the back of his head against the stucco Spanish door frame.

Sebastian stopped, “Holy fuck, Jesus, sorry ’bout that, I mean...” and let off two more rounds, taking Becker’s legendary groin to Ensenada and parts west.

The sound of the gunfire had momentarily deafened Sebastian and he thought, Dammit, forgot the earplugs, then saw two large shapes whirl out from the doorway, big bruising shapes, and he whined, “Jesus, Angela, you didn’t mention, like... bodyguards.”

He fired off an optimistic round and the guys hesitated, and who knows, Sebastian might have actually got away, but, yeah, the dog. Had a piece of Sebastian’s honed ass, sinking deep and hard.

Sebastian roared, “Ah for fuck’s sake, that’s not fair, that’s hardly fucking cricket!”

The second guard, apparently a student of Asian hard-core martial-arts movies, had gone into the house and grabbed a faux Samurai sword, and with one fierce leap and lunge, severed Sebastian’s elegant head from his shoulders. His head, doing what his body had failed to accomplish, made it on to Wilshire, where a U-Haul carrying a coyote and his crew squashed it to multicolored paella.

A kid across the street was getting it all on his smartphone, muttered, “Hashtag WayCool, way better than Grand Theft Auto 2.”

And lest we ever forget, this is Hollywood, the kid sold it to the new tabloid show from Jerry Springer’s production company and made his first Spielberg steps into the biz.

Everyone a winner.