Angela pushed Max away, attempting to fix her clothing while he, showman supreme, bowed, hollered, “Coming soon to a theatre near you!”
Then he turned to Angela. She expected words of love, got, “Aren’t you some cunt?”
Took her a moment, then she posed on her right foot, did a mini pirouette, and blasted him a right hook that lifted him off his feet. He sprawled in the dust, spat out some blood, snarled, “That all yah got, Angie?”
Well, no.
Kicked him in the balls. When he recovered some from that, he held up a hand, gasped, “Can a guy buy a gal a drink?”
He could.
Considerably the worse for wear, they ended up in a small bar that advertised, Happy Hour All Day.
Angela sneered. “Just like our respective lives.”
They grabbed a back table, dim lit to downplay their bedraggled appearance, and Max tried to put his hand up her skirt.
The waitress, standing before them, noticed and instead of calling the cops, smiled, said, “Second marriage huh?”
Max ordered a Long Island Tea and added, “Don’t skimp on the rum.”
Angela had a large Jameson with Coors Light.
Max laughed, said, “Light? Gotta watch the waist, eh babe?”
She looked at him, really looked, said, “I guess being schizoid, you’re eating for two? One of them Orson Welles?”
He laughed, said, “Love it when you talk dirty, Angie.”
The drinks came and Angie raised her glass, said, “Slainte.”
Max, draining most of his first, burped, said, “To soul mates.”
Angela, despite her turmoil of feelings never ever succumbed to sentiment, muttered, “Whoever the fuck they might be.”
The waitress smiled, gave Angela a thumbs up, said, “You said it, sister.”
Angela, never big on sisterhood either, smiled nicely, said, “Fuck the hell off.”
Germaine Greer would have been proud.
Naomi Wolf, hmm, not so much.
After a couple of drinks and reminiscing about the bad old days, the conversation turned to Bust.
“It’s our baby,” Max said. “We should be running the show.”
“Trust me,” Angela said, “I’d rather it be me and you than these Hollywood fucks I have to work with. I’m sick of their fookin’ coconut water and fake smiles and dumb script notes.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Max said. “Bring me on board.”
“It’s not that simple,” Angela said. “We already have five Executive Producers, not including the execs at Lionsgate and whatever studio gets on board.”
“Sounds like we have to take some people out,” Max said.
Agreeing, Angela went, “Well, Darren Becker controls the property equally with me right now, so if something were to happen to Darren you could take his place.”
“I’ll get it done tonight,” Max said.
“Too dangerous,” Angela said, but she thought his assertiveness was fookin’ hot. “You’re a wanted felon. But I know the perfect man for the job.”
Max got his hand under her skirt now, all the way up, and said, “Maybe we are soul mates.”
It felt good with Max back inside her; it felt right.
“Mates, yes,” she said. “Souls, not so sure.”
Twenty-Four
Noir is the swift kick in the nuts you get just as you are about to cross the finish line to win the race.
The murder of Sister Alison, in broad daylight in a famous Manhattan church, was the story of the year. The Mayor and even the Pope were outraged, and the public wanted justice.
Miscali was on the firing line for his C.O. who opened with, “The fuck is with nuns being offed on my patch?”
Miscali liked things to be at least technically accurate, dared, “Actually, sir, just one nun, and it’s the church’s patch.”
His C.O. went ape, screamed, “Freaking sarcasm, from a dumb flatfoot who’s always a day late and many fucking dollars short.”
Miscali saw many things wrong with the sentence but decided to forgo any further correction, went with, “I’m on it, sir.”
Later, Miscali tracked down a witness, an old woman who claimed she’d seen a heavyset, red-haired man leaving the church who looked like “Satan himself.” Some grainy video of a guy who could’ve been the man the old woman had described was picked up by a security camera near the church. Watching the video, Joe had a nauseous feeling, something churning in his gut and he wasn’t sure why.
In bed, in the middle of a sleepless, acid indigestion night, it hit.
He watched the video again and muttered, “Philip Seymour Hoffman.”
Then Joe remembered a guy bumping into him on the street the other day, maybe last week. It was all coming into focus, like a Polaroid he wasn’t sure he wanted to see. The party invite, PIMP, the murders in Harlem and Brooklyn. Had Max Fisher been living right across from the precinct?
Joe rushed to the bathroom and threw up the veal parm special he’d had before sleep. Fisher was like Jason from Friday the Thirteenth, no end to his sequels. Put even Rocky to shame, even if you counted De Niro and Stallone in that lame one-last-pull at the franchise tit.
Joe called Leonard, got him up to speed.
“Jesus Christ,” Leonard moaned, half asleep, “not with your Fisher obsession again.”
“I’m tellin’ you,” Joe said. “This time’s different.”
“That’s what you said before you flew to Boca on the Department’s dime.”
“I’ll be by in ten.”
Joe and Leonard went to the apartment building across from the precinct, asked about the tenant in the penthouse.
“Sean Mullen,” the doorman said. “Lovely man. Moved out yesterday.”
Joe and Leonard rode the elevator to the penthouse. Buzzed, no answer. Thanks to 9/11 and ass-fucking civil liberties there was a law in New York that cops could enter an apartment with no warrant if there was a suspicion of drug use.
Joe said to Leonard, “I smell pot, don’t you?” and he busted down the door.
The place was huge, but empty.
“Wow,” Leonard said, “just the other night the place was rockin’.”
But then, in the empty master bedroom, in the middle of the floor, Joe saw it.
“Holy fuckin’ shit,” he said, bagging the evidence.
“What’s holy shit?” Leonard said. “So you found some book.”
“Not any book,” Joe said. “This is Bust, the bestselling book about Max Fisher.”
“This is shocking.” Leonard smirked. “You know how to read?”
“I don’t have to read, I read the papers,” Joe said. Then, realizing the stupidity of this, covered with, “Don’t you get it? That’s why Fisher was living here, right across from us, and that’s why he left the book. He’s trying to fuck with my head.”
“And it’s working. Joe, seriously, I’m talkin’ as a friend here. You need a vacation.”
“Fuck you,” Joe said.
At the precinct, Joe updated his C.O., starting with, “We have a witness.”
The C.O. blessed himself with scorn dripping from every movement, said, “Al-ee-fucking-looyah. Do tell me you at least talked to her, or is that way too much to hope for?”