Pimp (14 page)

The voice sounded familiar, but Larry wasn’t sure why.

Took Larry a moment to regroup. He said, “Look, the boss is dead, it’s fuckin’ over, so let my fuckin’ wife go.”

Silence, then, “The fuck you talkin’ about?”

It was Mo or Jo—the skinny one, not the Spanish, non-Mexican guy.

Tired of being manipulated, Larry said, “Look, the game’s over. You can tell my wife that too because I know she’s in on it.”

“Man, you crazy,” the guy said.

“You don’t understand,” Larry said, “the boss is gone now. I killed Geronimo.”

“What?”

“The guy you’re working for, Dr. Hoff. Bill. Or The Hoff, as he called himself.”

“Hef? Like
Playboy
?

“No,
Hoff
, like the guy who was fucking my wife.”

“The fuck is Hoff, man?”

Larry, a dread slithering along his spine, tried, “Your boss?”

“My boss is right here next to me, yo.”

Shit. Had Larry killed the wrong guy?

“Hey, Larry? You ready to play some ball now or what?”

This was a nightmare to end all nightmares. But—silver lining, he could use this twist in the movie too. Killing the wrong man? Oh yeah, people would eat this shit up.

Maybe my future starts right now.
J
OHN
G
ARFIELD IN
The Postman Always Rings Twice

Mo had it all figured out. Once they got the money from that Larry Reed motherfucker, they’d take out the boss too. Hell, why the fuck not? Mo liked even numbers a lot more than odd. Mo never was too good at math in school—or maybe the problem was he wasn’t in school all that much at all—but he knew 85K split two ways was a lot more than 85K split three. But can you even split 85? He thought you could only split even numbers. Fuck it, man, if there was an extra dollar, he’d keep it, and they’d go down to Meh-hee-coe. Man, eighty-five thousand dollars is like a million pesos down there. Money’s worth more below the border, he didn’t know why everybody didn’t want to move down there. Why waste your time with dollars when you can have pesos?

Mo’s plan: they could use some of the cash to buy a ranch-type hacienda or whatever they were called, then use the rest to see how they might take on part of the cartel’s business. Stay small but profitable. He’d need Jo for the heavy lifting, the guy was dumb as shit, but you don’t got a wingman, who else gonna take out the trash?

But Jo, man, he’d been sniffing round Larry Reed’s wife, going, “Can’t wait to taste a piece of that meat” and “Bet the lady be tastin’ sweet” and “There’s a sweet hole down in that basement and I’m gonna plug it.”

Disrespectful-to-women shit like that.

Mo was southern, and all southern boys are gentlemen. He didn’t mind that talk when it was for show, like at the producer’s house. But that was just to put on a show, to scare the dumb guy.

Mo went to Jo, “You talk to your momma with that mouth?” and Jo said, “If I wanted to fuck her, I would.”

Jo was so stupid, it was impossible to have a sensible conversation around the man.

Mo was from Tennessee, hundred miles outside Memphis. Mo was the type of guy who’d kill a man who looked at him funny—and he had, seven times. Make that eight—there was that guy who gave him queer looks at that honkytonk back home. But women, man, he didn’t never kill none of them. Women were sacred to Mo. He didn’t understand how any man could ever hurt a woman. Women were a gift from God. Just look at them—how soft and gentle they all were, with all them curves. A woman was like a beautiful white mountain. Not that women had to be white, he wasn’t no redneck—at least not when it came to fucking. He’d fuck any woman, no matter what color. Like at ho houses, some guys would only pick the white girls, but Mo went black, Chinese, Mexican, didn’t matter to him. But most of the guys Mo knew growin’ up went around hating niggers.

That’s one reason why Mo took off for Los Angeles. He had big dreams and he knew none of them would come true if he stayed in the back country with a bunch of morons his whole life.

The thing that surprised Mo most about L.A.: there were just as many morons out here as back home. Different kind of morons though, ’cause back home people were dumb and knew it, but out here people were dumb and acted smart. Putting on a front, always like a movie camera was going and they were, what, actors? Mo could see through all that fake though. People out here with their clothes and their cars and their perfect teeth, acting like they knew everything about the world. Whenever Mo saw one of them Hollywood dickbags he would be laughing his ass off inside, knowing the truth even if nobody else did.

Mo made money like he’d been doing back home—little dealing, little protection, little GTA. Only had to kill people once in a while. Struck out twice but, like a cat, he was good at burying his shit, and he never went down for killing nobody.

Mo had met Jo on a job, hired to kick the shit out of some dumb Hollywood fuck who owed money for coke. Mo thought Jo was all right, except for the way he treated women.

Driving in Santa Monica, passing a pretty blonde in a bikini, Jo yelled out the window, “Yeah, baby, sit on my face with that shit, I wanna taste you.”

Mo grabbed Jo, nearly crashed the damn car, said, “The fuck you talkin’ to her like that for? That there’s a woman. She’s sacred, man.”

“You crazy, yo?” Jo said. “Almost gettin’ our asses killed just ’cause I was talkin’ to a bitch.”

“Tellin’ a woman to sit on your face ain’t talkin’ to her,” Mo said.

“Where I come from it is,” Jo said. “Different rules in Colombia, kid.”

The fuck did that mean?

Mo said to Jo, “The fuck does that mean?”

Jo said, “Go down to Colombia someday, you find out.”

This was the kind of stupid talk that made Mo’s head want to explode. The man wasn’t even from Colombia and he was talking about Colombia rules? Jo was
part
Colombian and part something else, maybe American Indian, and was born and raised in goddamn Phoenix. Mo’s family went back to France, but you didn’t hear Mo saying, “Different rules in France.”

Shit.

So now when Mo told Jo to chill with the nasty talk about the producer’s wife, and Jo went, “Different rules in Colombia, kid,” Mo was ready.

Went, “I don’t give a shit what the rules are in Colombia, where my people come from in France, we respect women. When I fuck a woman, I thank her afterwards, call her ma’am, even if she is the biggest ho at the ho house. You understand what I’m sayin’ to you? You have a woman tied up in your basement, you understand that even though she’s a hostage, she’s still a woman, and as a man you respect that, ’cause that’s what men do.”

Jo stared at Mo, dumb look, then went, “You some kinda faggot?”

Mo punched Jo in the face—heard the crunch, saw the blood. Man, Mo loved red, had to be his favorite goddamn color.

Then he grabbed a sixer from the refrigerator, settled in to check out some Netflix.

Neo-noir is suicidal loners and unhinged nymphos with nothing but past and no future.
K
URT
B
ROKAW

“Executive Producer.”

Angela rolled the words round in her mouth, like a cinematic blow job, but one she’d initiated. She checked the mirror, and fuck, she already looked different. She had a sharp, stately look, like Michelle Obama—well, Michelle Obama with makeup. Hmm, maybe Executive Producing and acting was just the beginning. Maybe after a few blockbusters, and Oscars, she could announce she’s leaving acting and producing to embark on a career in politics. Hey, if a foreign bodybuilding maid-fucker could be governor, why not her?

With producers and a studio on board, all they needed was a writer. Angela, wanting to flex her power as Executive Producer, announced to Darren Becker, “I want to bring in my guy.”

They were in Darren’s home office, posters from
Casablanca
,
Vertigo
, and
Titanic
of course. Were they in every producer’s office? Larry’d had the same posters in his office.

“Who’s your guy?”

Angela was lost, didn’t actually have anyone in mind, then on a whim, said, “He wrote a script I was involved with while I was working for Larry.”

“Whoa, I told you, no Larry,” Darren said. “The guy’s the kiss of death. If Larry gets involved this project will sink so deep James Cameron won’t be able to find it.”

“This has nothing to do with Larry,” Angela said. “It’s the screenwriter of a script I loved, but the project fell apart.
Spaced Out
.”

“Who’s the writer?”

“Bill Moss.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Exactly,” Angela said. “I know Larry didn’t pay him anything.”

“He wrote it on spec?” Darren laughed. “Moron.”

“Right,” Angela said. “So if we offer him to write for minimum he’ll be over the moon.”

“Love it,” Darren said. “You’re already thinking with your producer’s hat on. Try to keep costs down and fuck the writer, that’s the way to do it. But how do you know he’s right for this? I mean
Spaced Out
was a space movie, right?”

“I’m telling you,” Angela said, “it’s the cosmic twin of
Bust
.”

“I’ll get coverage on the script asap,” Larry said, “but Lions-gate has some ideas themselves, heard Ethan Coen’s name kicked around. But Coen’s quote is a fortune. They’ll like that we can lowball this…what’d you say his name is?”

“Moss,” Angela said. “Bill Moss.”

“Mr. Spec,” Darren said, and left the room shaking his head and laughing.

Angela knew it would put her in total control of the project if she got the job for her guy, but how to get him? Like the old joke, the bimbo goes to Hollywood and sleeps with…
the writer!
Hey, they say there’s truth in every joke, right?

Angela was imagining the look on Larry’s face when he read that Bill Moss was writing
Bust
. It would be another kick in the balls, and that’s the type of ego-driven head game that the New Angela thrived on. That’s right, Angela was a player now. Suck on
that
, Larry Reed.

But this was what an Executive Producer took care of. Smooth and cajole. Get them together in a room and she’d weave her witchy spell. Getting Bill on the phone, not so easy. Had to go through a manager and two agents, but Angela slalomed through the obstacles like a Hollywood pro.

They met at the Chateau Marmont. On the way in she spotted several hot Hollywood couples: Will and Jada, George and Amal, Leo and Tobey, the Teen Mom and James Deen. Clint was at a table with some young blonde, and was that Al Pacino in the corner or was it some other guy with too much plastic surgery? Angela made these star sightings with her peripheral vision, of course. She wasn’t some wannabe; she was one of them now. Let them stare at her, and she knew they were. They were all thinking,
Is that Brandi Love, the new A-List producer I heard all the buzz about?
She was surprised Leo wasn’t rushing over, asking for an autograph.

She sat at the table, and in true Hollywood fashion ball-busted the waitress, demanding room-temperature water with a slice of organic lime. When the waitress brought the water she had a sip, then grimaced and said, loud enough that those around her and the lurking paparazzi, could hear, “This is not room temperature. It’s seventy-seven degrees here, and this water is seventy or below.”

The waitress, an obviously frustrated, jealous actress, apologized and went for a new glass.

Then in walked a guy, long hair uncombed, unshaven, wearing old jeans and a hoodie. Was the restaurant about to be robbed?

“I’m Bill Moss,” he announced.

Didn’t have the A-list look Angela was expecting, but what did she expect from a mere writer? She was the Executive Producer and he was merely the talent. It was okay for him to look like shite. Besides, Angela had screwed worse—she saw a flash of Max Fisher, fake hair melting, dripping down his forehead, but struck it from her mind quickly.

Her first words to Bill Moss: “You are going to be shit rich.”

It was a grabber.

First his grim face nearly smiled, then settled into constant disbelief, and he said, “Yeah, right, and the check’s in the mail, just like Larry Dickfuck Reed, when he promised me Guild minimum and the first rewrite, and he didn’t pay me jack shit. He jerked me around for years when that project was in development, told me it was my ticket out of the telemarketing cubicle, and guess what, I’m still in the telemarketing cubicle.”

She turned on the full-heat voltage, right in his crotch space, asked, “You want to hear me out or not?”

Managing to make that sound like, “You want to fuck me every which way but loose?”

The waitress brought a water. Angela sipped it and muttered, “Acceptable.”

Bill ordered a lemonade.

Then Angela said, “I just need your focus.” Again with the subtext of,
Put it to me, big boy
.

You want to hook a writer, quote lines from his past glory, can’t fail. It didn’t. He actually let his body move from tense to interested, asked, “So you really liked
Spaced Out
, huh?”

She looked on the brink of multiple orgasm, gushed, “Liked… liked? I got down on my knees and worshipped that script. When the alien says to the hero, ‘I feel your pain. Your pain is my pain,’ I wept buckets.”

“Wow, really?”

Sold.

She ran an outline of the
Bust
story, then the hook, “It needs a writer of extraordinary sensitivity and vision to bring this to glory.”

She thought she may have overpitched but there are two types who will buy this shite fully—writers and wannabe writers.

He was on board. Asked, “That fucking piece of shit Larry Reed won’t be involved, right?”

“No, I guarantee it.”

“Am I gonna have full freedom?”

She smiled, asked, “Is Barack black?”

Bill was getting into it, promised, “I’m right on this sucker.”

She fluttered her eyelashes, said shyly, “You
are
the man, Bill.”

And he fucking believed that too.

She had asked him, “How do you define film?”