Free Pimp by Ken Bruen Page A

think I’m going to go over there, seduce this fookin’ guy, for a
part
, you’re mad. I’m a player, goddamn it, not a whore. Well, I have been a whore—but not anymore, I’m a Hollywood player now, and ya better get used to it, I’m co-executive producing with you, Larry.”
    “Whoa, baby, take it easy there, using your brain like that, you might pull something.” He smiled, loving how fucking witty he was, making a crack he’d made thousands of times before. Then said, “What do you know about producing, sweetheart?”
    “After spending a few days with you, I apparently don’t have to know much. At least I know how to turn on a fookin’ PC.”
    “Okay, okay, you can produce, you can produce,” Larry said, just wanting to shut her the fuck up, the Irish accent grating on him. He figured they could deal with it later and he’d rip the dumb bitch off on the points. He’d drop her down to associate producer, or the ultimate bullshit, co-producer.
    “That’s not all,” Angela said. “If I’m going to sleep with him I’m going to star in the show too. No one can play Angela better than me.”
    “Honey,” Larry said. “Producing’s one thing, but I have no control over the casting, that’s up to the studio and the network.”
    “A moment ago you were promising me a part on the show!”
    “
A
part, sure—not the fucking lead. I can get you an audition, but that’s it.”
    “You mean I have to audition to play myself?”
    Larry smiled, went, “Welcome to Hollywood, sweetie.”

SEVEN
    Women can be tricky.

N ORMA B ATES
    In the cab to Darren Becker’s house in the Hollywood Hills, Angela was dressed in a black faux-leather short skirt, white silk top, and black-patent drill heels, and felt almost like in the glory days of real hotness. A surge of confidence was aided by a few fast lines of coke. Time to manipulate and seduce.
    “Fookin A,” she said, an in-joke to herself, a dark legacy from the days she first encountered Max Fisher.
    Phew-oh, a time that was. A blend of hot sex, wild schemes, and of course Dylan. Ah, the mad Mick. If he was capable of loving anything save his shitty poetry, it might well have been Angela. Too many years, too much poverty, too many escapades had blotted out the negative side of the crazy Irishman, so that now she tended to color him as
a lovable scamp
—a psycho scamp, but lovable. It was one of the myriad lies she sold her own self just to keep some semblance of sanity. And all the years of utter mayhem that slid down the pike after—jail in Greece, a savior who was a dead ringer for Lee Child, and then being shot in Canada by the dead ringer…
    Drink Canada Dry
. She had sure tried to.
    Literally at death’s door, she had been rescued by a mammoth guy who made his living pretending to be Bigfoot. And she’d thought,
Once, just fooking once, couldn’t Brad Pitt be in her rescue
, but no, the freaking luck she had, she’d gotten Bigfoot.
    He took her to a local hospital with a story of how a Bigfoot hunter had shot at him, but hit her instead. They had to remove one of her lungs, but in the end it was the Bigfoot guy who really took her breath away. He was such a sweet guy and, silver linings, he was big in other departments—turned out the big feet, big cock adage was true—and she almost forgave the insanity of being shacked up with an urban legend. It may even have lasted for a time but wouldn’t you know, the guy was so convincing that a mild accountant from Toronto bagged him on a slow weekend.
    On the phone to his wife yelling, “I tagged Bigfoot.”
    She going, “Try tagging your big mouth.”
    So Angela, sighing anew, took the stash of cash Bigfoot had amassed and went to London. She hadn’t been charged with any crime, no one knew she’d helped Max and his gang escape from prison, so she was free and clear, bought a one-way ticket for London.
    One-way because she knew there was a good chance she’d wind up in jail her own self.
    She was