The racial slur just makes the fight a happier experience for Moses and he likes the location. Alleys are narrow, lots of hard edges, and usually a dumpster to dispose your trash, and the day he can’t take on a street thug like Vinnie is the day he walks off Crystal Pier and drowns himself.
Moses walks over to the girl. She’s about 5'8” with long, messy black hair that looks unwashed and eyes the color of melting butterscotch. She has a heart-shaped mouth and her nose is slightly bent like it’s been broken once or twice in her life. She’s wearing a wrinkled, red summer dress and scuffed sneakers. Moses guesses she’s in her late twenties.
“My name is Moses Johnson. You okay?”
“Yeah, I think so. Not like I haven’t been roughed up before.” He doesn’t like her laugh, it’s too harsh, and he hears it on too many young girls these days. “Thank you though. My name is Hope. I don’t have any money …”
“Money’s not necessary, just doing what was right. Can I buy you an ice cream? I know a place on the boardwalk that makes a mean cheesecake on a stick.”
“I’d like that. Guys usually want to buy me a drink, get me drunk.” She smiles ruefully and smoothes out her dress.
“Doc told me if I kept drinking my liver would mutate into something out of a Godzilla movie that would stomp on the city.”
Hope laughs and it’s a better one with more life to it, and as she calms down he thinks he can hear Texas in her voice. It’s a short walk on the boardwalk from the south end where he lives by the bay, where most people own their condos. It’s more sedate than the north end where all the rentals and college kids live, but close enough that you can always hear the buzz of activity from the beach, Moses’s favorite thing in the whole world is taking Summer to Belmont Park and doing all the games and riding the Giant Dipper.
Moses and Hope arrive at Sweet Treats and he orders them two chocolate-covered cheesecakes on a stick and they sit on a bench along the boardwalk. She licks her cheesecake and her face lights up in pleasure. He wonders when the last time was that she had a hot meal.
“What was that all about?” Moses asks.
“Why should I tell you? How do I know you didn’t just beat up Vinnie so you can bring me back to Teddy yourself to get paid?”
“You don’t know that, it’s true. What I can tell you is that by the look of your dress and hair, you’ve been living in a car for at least a week and haven’t eaten well for a while. That won’t be the last Vinnie you encounter. Whatever you’re running away from, it’s bad. Pretty soon thugs won’t be paid to bring you back, they’ll just shoot you.” Leedom always said that sometimes the hard truth is better with a potential witness or informant.
He can tell she hadn’t considered that. She looks like she’s suffering from exhaustion and stress and can’t think straight. She starts to shake and he steadies her. “What’s so special about Teddy?” she whispers.
“I’ve been looking for Teddy. He owes me and my bosses some money.”
“Teddy owes a lot of people money. He likes to bet. Who do you work for?”
Moses tells her and she blinks in surprise.
“Well, I didn’t know he owed them money. Porn is a license to print money, I should know. He’s a greedy little bastard.”
Moses shows her his ID card and, not by accident, a picture of his daughter. Most people trust a parent. Leedom always said to use every tool. “I can help you; I’ve caught a lot of bad guys in my time.”
She studies him for a moment and smiles at the photo. “I don’t really know where to start.”
“Why not the basics first? What is it you do, Hope?”
“I was a star, honey. Lotta films in L.A. My name is Hope Love—you never heard of me?”
“I don’t watch much porn, honestly. It gets kinda boring.”
She smiles almost shyly and leans back. “Mama was a hippie, hence the name Hope. I was your average girl from East Texas. Homecoming queen. Class president. Cheerleader. Goooo Panthers! I was at a concert in Austin when this dude approached me. I was a little high, he was a smooth talker. Said I deserved better than hicksville Texas and have I ever considered Los Angeles and making movies? Daddy was a preacher man and thought he could beat the sin out of me. I was just smart enough to know my life was already over and I’d probably marry right out of high school and be fat and drinking myself to death by thirty. It’s not like I was a virgin either. I was on a plane the next day. L.A. was a trip, man. I had never seen so many people. Anyway. It’s always the same story, agents won’t see you, so you get desperate. I agreed to some nude pictures, and it’s not a long slide to doing some freak on camera for four hundred bucks. You figure that’ll set you up for a nice start, until you realize that L.A. is a little bit more expensive than East Texas.”
“You did a lot of movies?” Moses asks, watching some kids run with a kite on the beach. It’s a nice windy day for it.
“Tons. Turns out I had a knack for it. I liked the money and the attention. And the kinkier stuff is where the green is. I made some good bank in a couple years. A ton of features for creepy men. That’s about how long most girls last if you don’t have a major production company behind you. Turns out the smooth guy I met wasn’t a player. I wasn’t fresh anymore. Couldn’t get a deal with the big guys. I looked tired. Everyone had done me. So I started doing gonzo and reality.”
“I’m already lost. Gonzo? Reality?”
“Reality is, like, five minutes of plot. Home video stuff. Straight into the sex. It’s for the freaks. They can watch me sleep with a regular guy as a cheerleader or even a teacher. I was good at it, but gonzo is where the real money is. It’s the crazy stuff.”
Hope pauses to take a bite of her cheesecake and smiles at a little girl running with a puppy on the beach.
“This is wonderful. Anyway, you rationalize it. I can make the rent for the next two months if a couple guys do me at once. Slammed against a wall and punched? Bruises fade and the green makes up for it. Sodomy and rape simulation, you start telling yourself, isn’t that bad. I even did gay-for-pay for a while when people started getting tired of watching me get humiliated. You really never heard of me? That’s kinda sweet.”
They throw their trash away and start walking. The gray is melting away and the sun is peeking through. Hope raises her face to it and smiles.
“L.A. is a rough place. It shows you how ugly it can be, like it’s proud. Here is better.” She stares out into the ocean. “At least San Diego tries to cover up the ugly.”
“How’d you get here?”
“Last year I was preparing to get it on with a midget lady. Hell of a way to turn twenty-eight, huh? That was when I decided to get out. For a laugh I tried to go legit as a sitcom actress, since a couple guys told me I was a good actress and I was dumb enough to believe them. I got beat out by this blond tart, which was literally what the part was, and now it’s the biggest sitcom on TV. I met Teddy at a party and he gave me the same line I got at seventeen, that I could have a better life. And like when I was seventeen, I believed it. We moved to San Diego and it was cool for a while; he did his Internet porn thing and the shoots were actually kinda classy and professional. I was his executive assistant, because I knew the business, and his live-in girlfriend. I loved the city. It’s not like L.A. where you can forget that there’s a beach, it’s everywhere here. It’s the culture. You can actually see the sun. It’s what Texans think of when they imagine California. Like I said, though, San Diego is good at hiding its ugly. Teddy started moving us around a lot, had a bunch of secret phone calls and meetings with creepy men in suits. I heard some things, read his e-mail. I had to get out of there. Teddy’s a respected member of society, gives to charities, has a couple boats, several houses. Lots of powerful friends. Who was I going to turn to for help? I’m just a washed-up fuck star. ”