Free Point Doom by Dan Fante Page B

had to talk to someone who knew me and knew what to do. I was sure Bob could help and tell me how to handle the feelings.
    When Bob answered I knew by his voice that I’d woken him up. “Hello, this is Bob,” he wheezed.
    “Bob, it’s JD.”
    “Hey, buddy, how are ya? It’s late. What’s up?”
    “I had a fucking drink! That’s how I am. I’m crazy.”
    “Hey, my friend,” he croaked, “that’s what we alkies do. We drink. So, tell me what happened.”
    “I ordered dinner at this restaurant in Santa Monica, and a plain tonic water with lime. The waitress brought me a gin and tonic by mistake.”
    “And you drank it?”
    “No. I took a sip and swallowed it but I didn’t drink the rest.”
    “That ain’t no slip, JD. You didn’t order the G&T to get drunk, did you?”
    “Hell no!”
    “Just get to a meeting. You’ll be fine.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Call me in the morning, JD. It’ll all be okay.”
    Then Bob hung up.
    THE HOOKERS NEAR Rose Avenue are mostly black because that area of Venice is near Ghost Town, where all the crack and meth dealers operate.
    The girl I stopped to pick up was on the short side. She had beefy thighs with a close-cropped afro, big knockers, and fake gold hoop earrings. She looked to be an ethnic mix of black and something else. Asian—maybe Chinese.
    I lowered the power window on the passenger side of the Corolla and she leaned in. “Hi babe, half and half is fifty,” she whispered.
    “Get in,” I said. “You get a hundred more if you’ll lick my asshole first.”
    “Uu-huh, you a spender. I likes spenders. Deal. My name’s Dawn. What’s yours, honey?”
    “I’m JD. And I’m in love already.”
    ON MY WAY back through Santa Monica toward Malibu, an hour later, I swung off Lincoln onto Colorado Boulevard, then turned onto Ninth Street. I was feeling okay again after talking with Anderson, and the sex with chubby Dawn had been the tie-breaker.
    As I was crossing Broadway, headed up Ninth, another car, what looked like a black four-door Beemer, almost sideswiped my Corolla demo. The other driver hadn’t even paused for the stop sign and might have clipped me if I hadn’t jerked my wheel the other way. L.A. has crazy drivers.
    My plan, now that I had a nicer ride, was to leave Mom’s Honda parked on Ninth Street until my day off on Wednesday, then drive her into town with me to pick up her beast and return it to her garage. The goddamn People’s Republic of Santa Monica is well known for its brutal alternate-side street-cleaning tickets, so if you are parked on the wrong curb on street-cleaning day, you’re screwed. The ticket is seventy-nine bucks. So I wanted to be sure the Honda was parked legally and okay.
    As I drove down the block I saw flames thirty yards away. A car was on fire.

NINE
    W hen I got closer to the flames, I could see that it was Mom’s red Honda, my car. The hood and roof were ablaze.
    I parked a safe distance away, got out, then approached the Honda. There was an acrid smell. Several solid streams of flame covered the hood and roof and the front bumper was burning too. Apparently, some jerk had squirted lighter fluid or something similar on the beast, then lit it up—some kind of idiot-style, high school prank.
    The rear section of the Honda had only one strip of flame on it, so my first thought was to get my gun. I’m a guy who has been charged with felony drunk driving and I know that, in California, I will instantly go back to the slam if I’m caught with an unregistered piece.
    I opened Mom’s trunk, grabbed the gun, tucked it into the back of my pants, then pulled out a couple of grimy car towels I stored there to dry the Honda off after I’d washed it.
    I threw the towels on the car’s trunk and roof. Half a minute later some of the flames were extinguished.
    Who the hell would want to torch my fucking car? Why? Maybe it was that fat prick Fernando, carrying a grudge and still PO’d after I’d got that big sale. If it