Ah, desperation. He loved it.
Max, waited, said, “Sweetheart, I’m gonna do a lot more with you than write a fucking book.”
Max Fisher had to be the smarmiest, sleaziest, most self-deluded guy Paula had ever met – a goldmine all right. She’d been worried, on the way up to Attica, that maybe Fisher would be a disappointment. After all, how could a guy be so far out there, so far gone? But, no, this guy lived up to his rep and surpassed it.
Just arriving at Attica had been such a fucking blast. The walls of the prison seemed to reek of testosterone and she’d laughed, said to herself, “Wanna talk about sperm count?”
She had to put that in the book. But first, Jesus, first, she needed to do another line. Yeah, just to get into the full Max Fisher mindset she’d started doing coke, and the sheer rush of snorting a line outside Attica was incredible. So she did one line, okay four, but c’mon, this is the toughest joint in the whole country and she was about to meet the craziest bastard any writer could dream of.
What was that book called, The Journalist and the Murderer? Yeah, something like that, Joe McGinnis, hottest true crime writer in the biz, two movies made till his subject, the killer doctor – McDonald? – sued him and sayonara Joe. Dealing with these guys was like juggling grenades. But if you could handle it… and she could, she knew she could. Now it was Paula Segal’s turn in the spotlight, on center stage.
The coke kicking in, she took a sip of her stone-cold vanilla latte. (Decaf. She wasn’t reckless. That caffeine was, like, addictive.)
She reached in her glove compartment, the nose candy giving her that icy drip that was pure heaven, and yup, there were her Virginia Slims. A cigarette, even a girly one, and she was so ready to rock and roll.
Oh, she loved Fisher. Who could invent a guy like that? She already had the chapter written in her head where he proposed marriage. Perfect, fucking perfect.
He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her tits. His obsession with busty women had come up during his trial and, okay, she’d expected him to respond more or less the way he had. It’s why she’d worn what she’d worn. But he’d gone further. Three weeks in jail and he was ready to propose marriage to a complete stranger. One with nice tits, but still. Couldn’t this asshole tell she was a dyke now? But if he couldn’t, he couldn’t. Not her fault. It was her right as a journalist to milk it for all it was worth. She decided to string him along, let him think she wanted to marry him. Jesus, how far would a man go just to get laid? But if that’s what it took to get him to open up in a few private sessions, give her some juicy quotes no one else had, baby, let him eye the twins all he wanted. About time they gave her something other than a backache.
Leaving the prison, Paula was shaking, not from fear but sheer hot exhilaration. Well, exhilaration and cocaine.
She did another line then, looking up at the gun turrets, realized she’d better get the car and her ass in gear.
As she pulled out of there, she was debating, Should she reveal in the book that she was gay? Then she thought, How big is the pink dollar? and laughed again, that damn coke. How much did dykes spend on true crime books?
But no, pulling an Ellen might alienate the great white majority. The hell with it, she’d ask her agent what to do, her new agent, not this fucking loser she had now.
Getting back to the motel, she found the coke high, like a sad dick, was wilting and she needed to stay up, stay on top of her game. She thought, Nice cold dry Martini would do the biz, maybe a bit of hot sex. She’d check her trick book But, shit, she wasn’t in the city. Her trick book was back home, and anyone listed in it was three hundred miles away. She needed some rough trade right here, right now. There had to some hot bull dykes somewhere in Attica, New York, right? Every prison these days had a diversity hiring requirement, and those butch female guards had to hang out somewhere.
Her thoughts skipped back, from sex to her book. She could see the dust jacket, had to be black and white, maybe they’d use Fisher’s mugshot. Or maybe she’d just take one herself, how difficult could it be? She had a digital camera.
Then the blurbs! Maybe she could get Dominick Dunne or Sebastian Junger or, better yet, Bill Clinton. He liked to read and, God, he was going to love to read about Max Fisher. Ah, and then, once word of her book got around, people would start asking her for blurbs, Even Connelly and King would be calling her. But she’d adopt a policy of no blurbing herself. Sorry, not even for Laura L.
She said aloud as she was putting on her leather gear, primed for a night on the prowl, something that would have gotten her thrown out of the very bars she was about to visit: “Max Fisher, I love you.”
Eleven
“Ehi, chi ha fascino puo permettersi di camminare impettito, no?”
Sebastian was so bloody happy to be back in old Blighty. Gosh, it was good to speak English with English people. He’d noticed the girl on the plane had spare keys in her bag and stupid cow, her address in Hampstead written right on the fob. Who knows, he might do a little reconnaissance there. He always kept his ears open for useful details. She’d mentioned she worked as a paralegal; perhaps while she was paralegalizing, he could stroll through her gaff, see what other goodies he might liberate.
The prospect of rifling her place tickled his fancy. Nothing like a touch of B-and-E to whet the appetites. He had for the past few years rented a one-room apartment in Earls Court. His parents paid the freight, mainly to keep him out of their home. Patrick Hamilton had written, “Those whom the gods have abandoned are left an electric fire in Earls Court.” It was indeed, depending on your vocabulary, A kip A hovel A dive A shithole
But it was a bolt hole, and it was useful to have an address. It had one wardrobe that held his prized Armani suit, his three pair of Italian-made brogues and, of course, the mandatory striped shirts, all bespoke. And, naturally, an assortment of ties, from Police Federation to Cambridge, Eton and Oxford to the Masons. Vital items for a con man on his uppers.
He needed an infusion of cash, a rather large one. He took out his remaining bottle of Gordon’s Gin – was there any other? – and drat, no tonic or bitters, really, he’d have to take stock. There was a miniature mountain of bills that had accumulated in his absence, and he threw them in the garbage. The upper classes didn’t actually pay for stuff. Really, did anyone ever see Prince Charles worry about the light bill?
He tossed back the gin, said, “Hits the spot, ye gads.”
And went to the bathroom. It was about the size of his cupboard. Shame about the hot water. There is a slight downside to not paying the utilities. He’d have to ring ol’ Mum, get her to post some cheques to these various chappies. He splashed on some Hugo Boss, a fellow had to smell right, and then as he peed, he went, “The bloody hell is that?”
Couldn’t be. But it looked like… were those blisters?
He stood stock still, thinking, Herpes? Him?
“The bitch,” he said, and he slammed his fist into the wall, hurting his knuckles. Then he shouted, “This is just too bloody rich! ”
And in his rage, he made a decision that, by day’s end, would in fact lead to his killing somebody.
He went back to the tiny front room, drank off rather a large measure of neat gin and in a lightbulb moment thought, Hampstead, by golly. Somebody is going to pay for this injustice, this travesty of life.
He went to the pub first, see if any of the chaps were around, maybe hit them for a rapid fifty for cab fare. You didn’t think he was going to ride the tube, now did you? Come on, really, get with the cricket, old bean.
The usual suspects were lined up along the bar and greeted him less with warmth than expectation, expecting that for once he might be flush and stand a round of drinks, they admired his tan, and when he shouted to the bartender, “Pint of your best bitter, my good fellow,” they shrugged, collectively, same old, same old.