It bugs the hell out of me how beautiful she is. I’ve seen friends go through this. Falling for porn girls can be like mainlining Twinkies. It’s usually more about addiction than nutrition. Both are sweet and oh so irresistible because they can’t help it. Then you get jealous or she gets bored and the sugar rush ends. The crash hits and there you are, depressed, toothless, alone, and with crumbs in your sheets. I don’t need to take Brigitte to Donut Universe. She is Donut Universe.
Or maybe I’m just full of shit, spooked by her ballistic beauty, and looking for an excuse to run away like a kid who’s never figured out how to talk to girls.
“You still haven’t told me why you came down.”
“I wanted to see more of L.A. than the inside of a limousine. And our conversation was cut short at the party. I heard that I missed all the fun when you and Mr. Macheath left.”
“Fun like a bullet hole in my side.”
Her eyes widen.
“Really? Let me see.”
Okay. Maybe I was too harsh. Maybe she’s more than donuts after all.
I stand and pull up my shirt. She gets off the stool and squats on her haunches so she can get a better look at the damage. We’re getting a lot of looks from around the bar and this time I can’t blame them. This crowd probably thinks I get medical exams from porn stars every night. It’s better than them knowing most of my social life is drinking and watching The Killers with a dead man’s head.
“Do you always heal that quickly?”
“Not lately. But I’m hoping that’s fixed.”
“So do I.”
“Do you know anything about the guy they were talking about at the party, Spencer Church?”
“Why do you want to know about him?”
I shrug.
“Because I’ve been drunk and out of touch for a long time and I’ve missed a couple of hundred things. A woman came in here asking me about her missing kid. Then I hear that other people are turning up missing. The truth is, I don’t give a rat’s ass about Spencer Church, but someone tried to make my boss disappear the other night and I got shot for it. If Church did disappear, I want to know who took him or if he did it on his own.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t know him well. I know that some of Simon’s friends bought drugs from him.”
“Did he burn any of them? Take their money and not deliver?”
“Not that I know of.”
“I never heard of a Sub Rosa dope dealer before. I guess they had to be there, but I never thought about it till now.”
Carlos sets down two glasses of brown beer nearby and comes over to us.
“Did I hear you talking about Spencer Church?”
“You know him?”
“Hell yes, I know that prick. He’s an ice-cream man and a bad one. He used to sell his shitty product out of my bar, meaning when people came back to complain, I’m the one that had to hear about it, not him. He is totally, one hundred percent banned from any building I happen to be in.”
“Good policy.”
“Except that that ratfuck concha piece of shit just walked in.”
“Spencer Church is here?”
“A couple of minutes ago. He’s at the end of the bar. You can’t miss him. Skinny blacked-eyed junkie that looks like a scarecrow with a migraine.”
I look at Brigitte.
“I’m going to go talk to this guy.”