I punched 9-1-1 on the grimy keypad. A woman came on the line, asking about the nature of my emergency. I told her I had been shot and gave the address of the mercado. She told me to hold on, that help was on the way.
Hearing this, my body wanted to pass back out. Mission accomplished, right? Time to lie down and wait for the cavalry. But my mind wouldn’t shut up about what had happened, fighting to make logic out of the madness. I thought of feisty little Didi giving those goons what for in my office and was suddenly very afraid for her. I had to make sure she was okay.
Even though I have a great memory for numbers and addresses, it took me a minute to pull my own calling card number out of the numb mush of my brain. As soon as I did, I phoned Didi’s home and her cell. Nothing. That scared me even worse, since I knew Didi to answer the phone any time, day or night. Even on the toilet or in the heat of her frequent intimate liaisons. And no, I didn’t want to leave a message. What I had to say was for her ears only. Paranoia coiled around my aching ribs, making it even harder to breathe. No sign of an ambulance. I couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to Didi. I needed to call someone to go check up on her, to make sure she was okay. There was only one person I could think of who would be awake, willing and able. I called Malloy.
Lalo Malloy was the new guy, since Daring Angels’ faithful security escort Joe Saturnino got married and moved to Florida. I always employ a guy part-time to drive my girls to gigs with new production companies and hang out while they shoot. I like an older guy, reliable and mature enough not to go all gaga over the girls, but still intimidating enough to make sure no one thinks to try anything funny with my models. I pay a small hourly wage and the girls top it off with tips. Not bad for a part-time gig.
Malloy was an ex-cop like Joe, though he looked much more like a thug. Six-two, thick through the shoulders and the middle and pretty much everywhere else. Olive drab eyes that sized up the world through a taciturn tough-guy squint. Buzz-cut hair gone solid silver and under it a face like a police sketch based on the descriptions of terrorized victims. His left ear was slightly cauliflowered, just enough to let you know that he was no stranger to knuckles. His look was perfect for the job and he came highly recommended by Joe. They had been buddies back in the old LAPD days and had both left the force under less than sterling circumstances. I didn’t ask and they didn’t tell.
“Lalo’s okay,” Joe told me with a smirk the day he introduced us, faking a punch to Malloy’s meaty shoulder. “For a Hispamick.”
“A what?” I had asked.
“His daddy was Irish,” Joe explained. “And mama’s Mexican. A Hispamick.”
Malloy himself seemed neither amused nor annoyed by the joke. He just shrugged and put his big hands in his pockets.
He’d been driving my girls for almost two months and I still didn’t really know him all that well. He wasn’t an easy guy to get to know. Came in, did his job and left. Solid, but not much for casual conversation. I felt really strange calling him in the middle of the night like this, but there just wasn’t anyone else. It took me several wrong numbers to get him on the line. He picked up on the first ring.
“Malloy,” he said, like he was still answering the phone at the Homicide desk.
I had no idea what the hell I was going to say to him.
“Malloy,” I repeated, feeling like I had forgotten how to speak. “It’s... I...”
“I’ll call you back,” he said suddenly and hung up.
Baffled, I stared at the dirty blue receiver in my hand, then slowly put it back on the cradle. I leaned over the handle of the shopping cart and maybe grayed out for a little while, but then the phone rang, scaring me and making me jump. It hurt.
“Malloy?” I said into the phone.
“Angel,” he replied. I could hear traffic in the background. I figured he must have gotten the number off caller ID and then gone out to a payphone. “You wanna tell me what the hell is going on?”
I felt suddenly sure I really was going to black out. What the hell was going on? I didn’t even know where to begin.
“Angel,” Malloy was saying. “Angel, are you there?”
I tried to tell Malloy about the blonde and the briefcase full of money and Jesse and the blue Civic. I can’t imagine I made much sense, but eventually Malloy got the gist of it.
“Did you call an ambulance?” he asked.
It took me a minute to answer that. Did I call an ambulance? Things were getting woozy and confusing and I just wanted to lie down.
“Yeah,” I eventually said, or must have because then Malloy was telling me to get the hell away from the mercado, to hide from the ambulance.
“Hide from the ambulance?” I said. Nothing seemed to make any sense. “But why...”
“Angel,” Malloy said. “If you let them take you to the hospital, you’re going to be arrested for the murder of Sam Hammer.”
7.
“Angel,” Malloy was saying again. “Angel.”
His voice sounded so far away that I thought I was still on the phone until I felt his hands on me, wrapping a rough blanket around my body and lifting me like a tired kid. I have no idea how I got away from the phone and the mercado but I did. I also had no idea how Malloy found me, but he did. I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life. I would have kissed him if my lips hadn’t felt like I’d just kissed a belt sander. He bundled me into the passenger seat of his blocky old SUV.
Things went all non-sequential and confusing again. The next thing that seemed solid was me in a doctor’s office. I was lying on one of those examination tables with the paper that rolls down to cover it fresh for each patient. There were stirrups, like at the gynecologist. My trash bag dress was gone and I was wearing one of those backless deals they give you in the hospital. I seemed relatively clean and odor-free, but the cacophony of pain made it hard to concentrate.
I rolled on my side, briefly breathless from the effort. That’s when I noticed a tan leather locking restraint hanging from the nearest stirrup. I frowned and looked around.
There were three other restraints hanging from the table, plus a thick leather strap that presumably buckled around the waist. Beside the table was a stainless steel tray on wheels, filled with terrifying antique medical instruments. There was a red rubber enema bag on a pole by my head. The glass-front cabinet against the opposite wall was filled with boxes of needles and bags of saline solution and clear plastic speculums and catheter kits and medical staplers. Above the examination table was a large framed photograph of an icy blonde in skintight white latex. Her waist was corseted down to insect proportions and her long legs were laced into thigh-high boots. She held a hypodermic needle the size of a .357 Magnum.
I struggled to sit up, dizzy and sick but then Malloy was there and so was the blonde, although she was dressed down in faded jeans and a white t-shirt. Her pale, shiny face was free of make up. She was still stunning.
“Angel,” Malloy said. “Lie down, will you?”
“Where the hell am I?” I asked. “This isn’t a hospital.”
The blonde smiled. Malloy shook his head.
“It was this or Tijuana,” he said.
I didn’t want to lie down but my body overrode my brain and I fell back on the table. I looked up at the photo.
“You brought me to a dominatrix?” I asked, pressing my thumb and forefinger into the corners of my eyes and then flinching at how much that hurt.