High Life (21 page)
The tape had been silently humping away through all of this. Bella killed it, took it out of the machine, and put it back in the cupboard. When she sat down again she looked pensive.
“This conversation is happening sooner than I’d planned. Please promise me you won’t let it change things between us.”
“How bad can it be?”
“Not bad, just … unusual. You might see me in a different light.”
“I doubt it.”
Bella read my face, evidently found what she wanted, and went on in a rush.
“I opened the Brentwood clinic shortly after I qualified. At first it was just somewhere to pass time. But it didn’t stay that way. I became fascinated by what I could do to the patients. Given the right type of person and the right lies, they’d agree to anything. It began with examinations—unnecessary rectal probes, vaginal swabs, colonoscopies … But, eventually, nothing is ever enough and I moved on to minor surgical procedures—small operations I had no medical reason to perform. Or qualification. I’m not a surgeon.”
“How did you know how to do them, then?”
“At that level it’s only really a question of mechanics. Once you know the layout of the body and the basic procedures it isn’t too hard. And I enjoyed the challenge of working things out.”
“And it was sexual for you?”
“Of course. Sex is just one body doing something to another. Most people limit themselves to what they believe is normal. I have a broader definition of the word, that’s all.”
“Was Powell involved in the clinic?”
“No. Our medical partnership came later, when I realized I was risking exposure. A clinic is never free of scrutiny from one board or another and it was only a matter of time before someone made a complaint. If I was going to continue to indulge myself I had to move out of the public arena.”
“That’s what the homeless thing is about? A safe way for you to get off?”
“I do also provide a valuable service.”
“But essentially …”
“Essentially, yes, it’s for my own pleasure.”
“What does ‘minor surgical procedures’ cover?”
“Vasectomies, mole removal, an appendix occasionally. Often I don’t go beyond the examination stage. But for all of it I need to maintain my influence over Powell. I need the technical assistance he can give—he is a surgeon—and I need him to find the patients in the first place. He’d never do it otherwise.”
“So you’re going to keep having sex with him?”
“For the time being. But nothing lasts forever. You can handle it, can’t you, Jack?”
She said this as though she were already sure of it.
“I can handle pretty much anything.”
“Thank you. You should come and watch me with a patient one night, you’d enjoy it. We have a one-way mirror setup. They do the most absurd things for money. Sometimes I think the essence of human nature is venality.”
“Whose idea was it to tape the sessions with Daddy?”
“Mine, of course. But he sneaks in here and takes a copy of everything I have. He’s duplicated my entire collection. I suppose it makes him feel as though he can see into a part of me.”
I drove the 850ci. Bella sat in the passenger seat wearing a short iridescent spandex dress she’d picked up at some late-opening store at the Wilshire end of Third Street Promenade. It wasn’t particularly slutty, but at least it cost less than five hundred bucks. She wanted to get into a group sex thing and we were out trawling for a victim.
It was too early for the drag to yield much—only about eight
P.M.
—so we parked and hit a triple-X store on the outskirts. Inside—a few guys checking cassette covers with tunnel-vision intensity, avoiding any sort of contact with each other. Bella stood next to one of them—skinny, mid-forties, eyes tight in his head, the need for a fuck like a smell around him. She reached down a tape and lingered over the come shot on the front. The guy noticed her and I guess he thought it was pretty weird, a woman in that sort of place. When she touched his elbow he almost ran for the door. But Bella smiled and talked fast and nodded at me. He didn’t need much persuading.
The three of us took a cab to some shitty motel on the strip. His name was Rudy and he whined on about how his wife hadn’t let him fuck her since a year ago when they had a kid. He was a weak, greasy man who looked like he ought to be wearing a raincoat. We got a ground floor room at the rear of the block. I pulled the curtains but they didn’t fit too well and I was worried about the parking lot being right outside. No one else gave a shit, though, so I figured the best thing to do was get on with it—get Bella satisfied as fast as possible and get back to Malibu.
We left the lights on and stripped down. The guy had a hard-on before he got his pants off. He lay where Bella told him to, on his back on the bed, dick sticking up dark and painful. Bella said she needed a piss first and went into the bathroom, but she didn’t close the door completely and through the crack I saw her loading a syringe from a clear glass vial with blue writing on it. She hid it in a towel which she dropped on the floor beside the bed just before she climbed on top of Rudy and stuck his dick in. When Bella was set I got behind her, greased up, and worked my way into her ass. Over her shoulder I could see Rudy’s face moving through expressions of rapture—this kind of scene must have fritzed his head every night as he jerked off in front of the mirror. I could feel his cock moving on the other side of her colon wall.
Bella ground away for a while, dangling her tits in his face, then lay right down on top of him like she wanted to snuggle her face into the hollow of his shoulder. But I saw her hand reach for the syringe, and while the poor bastard had his eyes closed she stuck it into a vein in his neck.
Rudy yelped, but that’s all he had time for. The drug wasn’t tardy. His eyes rolled back and his face seized. Best of all, as far as Bella was concerned, he went into a rapid series of convulsions. I was a little freaked and my dick started to shrink, so I pretended I’d finished and pulled out. I watched Bella shake her head and yell as he pistoned away at her cunt. She came with a scream and swung herself off him. As his dick slid free it started to spurt, I couldn’t believe the amount he got rid of.
His jerks got slower but more pronounced, muscles locking harder each time, taking longer to relax for the next spasm. Until his body froze into a curve, supported only by his shoulders and heels. He looked as though he’d been electrocuted. His dick was still hard and there were sheets of come over his belly and the tops of his thighs. Bella was absently wiping herself with the towel.
“I think he’s stopped breathing.”
She cursed lightly, like this was only a minor inconvenience, and pushed down on his stomach to straighten him out. She put her mouth on his and gave him a couple of blasts. The sound of air going into his chest was hollow and sad.
“Here, you do this, he needs cardiac massage. Five breaths then let me pump. Don’t worry, he’ll be all right.”
I did what she said and it felt like I was blowing into the hold of a ship, something I could never fill up if I stayed crouched over him forever. We took turns doing our thing. I was getting worried the guy would die, but Bella didn’t seem fazed in the slightest. Her movements were sure and professional and after a minute Rudy started to splutter and breathe, even though he was still unconscious. As soon as this happened Bella turned away from him and began dressing like he wasn’t in the room. I yanked my clothes on in about five seconds flat and stood waiting by the door. Bella took her own sweet time.
“Relax. He’ll be out for two hours at least. I hope you feel proud of yourself. You helped save his life.”
“Let’s just get out of here.”
“Is anything wrong?”
“It wasn’t really what I was expecting.”
“He’ll be all right. The drug’s only dangerous with heart conditions.”
“How do you know he doesn’t have one?”
“He’s breathing.”
“But you didn’t know that before you gave it to him.”
“You can’t have excitement without risk.”
“Should we call an ambulance?”
“I’m ready now. Come on, we’ll get a cab on the next block.”
We left Rudy where he was. His hard-on had gone and he looked kind of pathetic lying there covered with spunk, but at least he was alive. Outside I thought about going back to check on him, but Bella had already flagged a cab, and I was too worried about getting busted.
When the cab started to roll I asked to be dropped in Hollywood. Bella looked upset and told the driver to pull over. We got out and talked in whispers on the sidewalk.
“What’s the matter, Jack?”
“We almost killed that guy.”
“No we didn’t.”
“What do you mean, we didn’t?”
“He was healthy enough, there was very little chance he’d sustain any permanent damage.”
“It didn’t look that way to me. Jesus, I thought he was going to snap in half.”
“Aren’t you going to come home with me?”
“I need some downtime. I mean, Jesus … Besides, I have to test for Channel 52 tomorrow. Burbank’s closer from my place.”
“You spoke to Welks? That’s great. You should have told me.”
“I was going to wait and see how it went first.”
“Come back to Malibu, you can take the limo tomorrow.”
“It’d be better if I didn’t, really. Just for tonight.”
“I’m sorry, Jack. I thought it would excite you.”
I was tempted to give in, but I had to think of the future. A little bit of playing hard to get could go a long way. At least that’s how it went on TV. Plus, I knew I’d need pills to make it through the test, and Malibu wasn’t the place for a poor boy to score.
“Will you come to the house tomorrow? After you’ve finished?”
“Sure.”
“How are you going to get to the studio? You don’t have your car.”
“Cab, I suppose.”
“Take mine. This too.”
She handed me the keys to the 850ci and a wad of hundreds.
We kissed and she got back in the cab and drove away. I stood looking after her, wondering if I’d done the right thing. It was a fine line to tread.
I took a cab back to the drag and picked up the Beemer. Alone behind the wheel, smelling the leather, feeling the incredible grip the car had on the road, I knew I wasn’t going to let anything on earth fuck up my chance at Bella.
Ryan chopped lines out, straight onto the Formica of the table in the kitchen.
He’d rolled up while I was parking in the lot out back of my building and told me he felt good enough to party. So now we were bent over, hoovering caine through a couple of Bella’s hundred-dollar bills. When he finished, Ryan didn’t bother to give his back. I didn’t say anything, I was too busy worrying about exactly where in the course of the evening he’d latched onto me.
“I’m curious about those wheels downstairs, Jackie. In fact, tonight I’m curious about a lot of things.”
“You know whose they are.”
“I know who owns them. What I don’t know is how come you’ve got them.”
“We were out. I wanted to come back here, she didn’t. Just worked out more convenient this way.”
“You two must be getting close. You have a good time tonight?”
“It was okay.”
“A woman like that, it’s gotta be more than okay. What did you do?”
“This and that.”
“The same old same old, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s an uphill fucking struggle with you, boy, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You ain’t the only one with a new toy.”
Out in the main room Ryan picked up a bag he’d left by the door and took out a snappy new video camera, the small tourist kind you could hold with one hand.
“Like it? Took it off a hooker who had this idea she was going to try out the personalized end of the porno market. Thought it might come in handy for what we talked about last time.”
“Which was?”
“Your high-ass Malibu bim. Don’t tell me you forgot.”
“We didn’t talk about anything.”
“Yeah we did—the blackmail thing.”
“You talked about it, not me. I don’t want any part of it.”
“Well, now, after tonight you don’t have a choice. You took a couple of big steps backward in that motel room.”
I wanted to say something smart and relaxed, but I suddenly felt too nauseous to open my mouth.
“Let me illustrate.”
Ryan fucked around with a couple of leads and the TV, then used the camera to drive the minicassette. On the screen a cross of peeling paint blurred out of existence as focus went beyond a window frame and through a gap between badly patterned curtains. A cheap motel room—three people on a bed. Me, Bella, and Rudy.
“Fuck.”
“Fuck is right, Jackie.”
“Listen, I didn’t know she was—”
“Let’s just watch it. Excellent picture quality, wouldn’t you say? Amazing what these Japs can do.”
He killed the tape after Bella finished dressing.
“That’s one good fucking body. Shame I couldn’t get more of your cock going into her, but I was kinda limited for angles.”
“I didn’t know anything about that injection. All she said was she wanted to get it both ways. Jesus, I almost shit when I saw what she was doing. If I’d known—”
“Slow down, Jackie. This doesn’t have to be a problem for you. It can go two ways. First, I could add it to the wino thing and all your other bullshit and let it find its way into Karen’s file back at homicide. Or—”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.”
“But you were there and you didn’t try to stop her.”
“But we brought him around. If we wanted to hurt him why would we do that?”
“Yeah, she was cool there. That guy dropping out didn’t faze her a bit. She got paramedic training or something?”
I thought for a second about telling him Bella was a doctor—like there was no way she was going to let somebody die and the guy was never in any danger—but with the surgical slant on Karen’s killing I figured it would do more harm than good.
“How would I know?”
“What about the shit she hit him with? What was that?”
“Look, Ryan, I don’t know anything about her. She’s just someone I fuck, okay?”
“I’m glad you feel that way, Jackie, ’cause it brings me to the second option you got.”
He stopped to cut out more lines on top of the TV. When he’d done his share he started pacing the room. I could see his jaws clenching under the soft fat of his cheeks. He looked wired enough to start shadow-boxing.
“Yeah, your second option would be a much smarter choice. Ready? We show the tape to Miss fucking Vernier herself. Whaddya think?”
He stopped in front of me with an expression on his face like he really expected me to agree with him.
“Whaddya say, Jackie? That bitch would lay out big bucks to squash something like this.”
“You’ve got the tape, you don’t need my permission.”
“But I want you involved. It’d buy a lot of goodwill—something you need right now. Plus, I’ll give you a cut.”
“Fuck, no one got hurt, no one got ripped off. Can’t you just leave it?”
“Jackie, I’m gonna get something out of this one way or the other. Me? I’d rather have the money, but …”
“What do you need me for?”
“To explain things, to smooth the way. You tell her you saw the tape and a genuine threat exists. Then, when we meet, we don’t have to fuck around so much.”
“You want to meet her?”
“I ain’t about to let you do the negotiating. Come on, it’ll be fun, something we can share. Like we shared Karen.”
“We didn’t share Karen.”
“Our cocks were going the same place. I’m giving you a chance, Jackie, you oughta take it. All you gotta do is set up a meeting.”
He moved behind me and started rubbing my neck.
“Yes or no? Some money from a cunt who can easily afford it, or a shitload of hassle vis-à-vis the murder of your wife.”
“I don’t know when I’m seeing her again. It might take a few days.”