It got the bouncers up in his face. They said he was bothering the girls. They ushered him into a different back room than the ones where you had sex. They worked his gut and kidneys for about five minutes. It was nothing compared to what the MP’s used to do to him when he was fucking around off base. He kept asking about Ellie and Johnny and the bruisers just looked at him like he was crazy. They tried to drag him out the back door into the alley but they hadn’t hurt him nearly as bad as they’d thought. He walked out on his own power past the madam, asked her the question too, and saw no flicker of deceit in her eyes when she said she didn’t know. He described Ellie to her. She said there were lots of girls who fit that description and he figured she was right. The bouncers started getting itchy to kick the shit out of him again and got in close, breathed threats in his ear.
Total bust. Grey grabbed a cab home.
Ellie was still out cold but he didn’t like the idea of leaving her on the couch alone until morning, so he changed her dressings and carefully hefted her into the bedroom. He crawled in beside her and made sure he laid far enough away from her that he didn’t accidentally roll over and re-open her wound.
At three in the morning he got up and pissed a little blood. He checked Ellie’s bandages again and got her to wake up long enough to give her the antibiotics. In a stupor she said, “We’re both naked.”
“Yeah.”
“Did we have sex?”
“No.”
“Do you want to?”
It was a tough question to answer, even if he did consider her to be his sister. It wasn’t kink. It wasn’t fetish. He loved her. He hadn’t loved anyone else in a very long time and a need to hold on to and be held by someone you loved was almost overpowering. While he stood there thinking about it she passed out again and solved the problem.
In the morning when he woke she was gone.
So were the pills, some of his clothes, and the rest of the stash from the bottom of his closet.
She left a note saying:
Thank you. I love you. Forgive me. I’ll see you again one day.
He called T.S. and asked, “My sister. What name did she perform under?”
“Give me a second.”
Grey could hear T.S. rummaging through his porn collection. Grey knew it was extensive but it sounded like T.S. was climbing over boxes, digging through two or three closets, unlocking trunks.
“No, not this one…no…no…Assbusters 7, this it?…no…no…Cum Home for Christmas…this the one?…wait…no…Sidesaddle Sally…Knee-deep Throat…Teen Cum Dumpsters…no…”
“T.S., you don’t have to read all the-”
“Here it is. Teen Ball Busters 2. Yeah. Her name is…Eva Rains. That’s right, now I remember. She did a lot of movies with Harvey Wallbanger, him and his twelve-inch wonder of the world. I think they were a couple. You know, in real life.”
“Thanks.”
Grey called Pax’s U.S. number and left a voice mail. If he wasn’t in the hot zone he’d call within the next day or two.
It took less than two hours. Pax said, “You should’ve phoned sooner.”
“I had my hands full.”
“Tell me everything.”
Grey told him everything and Pax said, “Wait for me.”
“I’m not sure that I can.”
“I’ll be done with this leg of my tour in less than three months.”
“That’s too long. I have to do something.”
“All you have to do is wait for me. In fact, you don’t even have to do that much. You can forget it ever happened, go on about your business.”
Pax was too kind to tell him that he would probably just fuck things up. “You know I can’t do that.”
“Then sit tight and just wait.”
But Grey hadn’t been able to do that either. He checked the phone book, found nothing. He checked the Internet, found about ten thousand websites devoted to Eva Rains. The message boards went on and on. The fanboys were some seriously fucked up individuals. Half of them wanted to marry her, half of them wanted to plow her to death.
Grey scoured the streets. He watched Premium Friends. He tried it again and the bouncers sapped him and left him lying on the edge of the East River.
He waited for her to find him again. But she was gone.
He had to move, even if he went nowhere fast.
So he sold the big entertainment system and the rest of his belongings, cleaned out his bank account, and drove across the country, heading west, killing time, meeting women who wanted to off their husbands. The coast pulled at him, like lips sucking out venom. He got closer and closer. He did his best to wait for Pax. He probably would’ve held out until Pax was back in the States if he hadn’t met Kendra and been led right to the town where he wanted to go. He was going to visit Harvey Wallbanger and his twelve-inch wonder of the world. It was just the way it had to be.
11
Kendra had been right, Monty didn’t want to turn over the contact info for the porn actors where Harvey Wallbanger would be listed under his real name.
“You took my gun, didn’t you?” Monty asked.
“Yeah,” Grey admitted.
It got Monty sort of dancing around his office, on display in the big fish bowl. “You going to shoot some porn actress? That it? You that kind of crazy? See her screw fifty other guys on screen but you figure she’s yours, you love her, you’re going to save her, set her up in house and home, she’s going to be mother of your kids? That what you’re after?”
Grey wasn’t sure how many questions that was, so he hoped one answer would cover them all. “No.”
“What’s it all about?”
“Do you really need to know, Monty?”
“I think I do.”
Monty had the list right there on his desk. Grey could’ve just chopped the guy in the throat and walked out with the information while Monty crawled on all fours gagging and barking like a dog. But Grey didn’t feel the need to go that way and decided to just lay it out. Maybe Kendra was right, he was getting into character, running his lines, finding out who he was, or who he was supposed to be.
“Okay then,” Grey said. “My sister was in the biz under the name Eva Rains. She and a guy named Harvey Wallbanger were apparently a real-life couple. She left porn, probably due to drugs. She dropped a rung on the ladder and came to New York, maybe to be an escort. She was hurt badly by someone she called Johnny. Then she vanished on me. Maybe she’s back in L.A. So I’m here to see if I can get a line on her. I want to talk to Harvey. That okay with you, Monty?”
A couple of famous actors that Grey recognized walked by on the other side of the glass wall. Just a few months ago he might’ve gone after them for an autograph, talked up what his favorite scenes from their films were. But his DVD collection was scattered across six pawn shops in Manhattan now and his love for film seemed to have gone with it. He couldn’t stop thinking about the collapsed veins and the tracks between Ellie’s toes. He thought of Ellie’s dog tasered to death by the cops. It seemed to be a metaphor for something but he didn’t know what. He wondered if Harvey had really cared about her and failed to protect or if he’d only been another part of the problem. Grey’s thoughts were splashing everywhere like a wave hitting the rocks.
Monty was talking. “-hand you his name and contact info, I want you to promise me that you’re not going to-”
“Monty, just give me the-”
“-go psycho and start blasting away.”
“I told you, I’d deal with it.”
“And what’s Kenny think of this bold plan?”
Grey finally understood that Monty was stalling because he was putting together his own scheme.