"I will."

"So, you about ready?"

"Where we going?"

"My place."

Grace swallowed the rest of her vodka, placed the gla.s.s down on the bar. "I was watching you this afternoon, Larry, standing over that hot sink. I like to see a man sweat. I like the way it smells."

"That a fact."

She leaned in to him so that her cheek touched his. She had a cheap permanent with damaged ends, and her hair smelled of chemicals.

Grace whispered, "Looking at you made me all wet."

Farrow stabbed out his cigarette. He signaled the bartender and said, "Let's go."

Farrow lived in a stone house fronting the Edward River. His efficiency was on the third floor at the rear of the house and held a double bed, bathroom, and porcelain kitchenette. The room's one window gave to a view of a cobblestone alley.

Grace sat naked on Farrow's bed, drinking red wine from a goblet. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were huge and heavy, with pink nipples as large as English m.u.f.fins. She sucked in her stomach, watching him walk toward her in his underwear.

"You stay in shape," she said.

"Sit-ups and push-ups," said Farrow. "Every day."

"How long you been doin' that?"

"Long time."

"I gotta start doing something to break a sweat."

"Start right now."

She giggled and licked her lips clumsily. "This wine is yummy."

"You like it, huh?"

"I don't know good from bad, to tell you the truth."

He stood before her and said, "Really."

"I hope it's not expensive wine," she said. " 'Cause I'm gettin' ready to waste a little. Hope you don't mind."

Grace got up off the bed. She took a long sip of wine and spit it out onto Farrow's chest. She put the goblet on the nightstand. She got down and licked the dripping wine from his stomach up to his chest. She licked his nipples and pulled down his underwear and played with his b.a.l.l.s. He had an erection now, and he pushed her down on the bed.

Grace's head bounced on the mattress one time, and her eyes grew wide. "You like to play rough? I like it rough, too, Larry."

He pulled her to the edge of the bed so that her legs hung off the side. He f.u.c.ked her like that, watching himself slide in and out of her, keeping his eyes there, imagining he was banging one of the many trophy wives he had seen walking through the lobby of the hotel. Thinking of doing those rich women the way he was doing Grace made him go even harder. He flashed on the reverend's pale face and got short of breath. He took Grace's hand in his own and worked his thumbnail under hers. His thrusts lifted her back off the bed.

"s.h.i.t, yeah," she said, spittle forming around the edges of her mouth. yeah," she said, spittle forming around the edges of her mouth.

When she came she sounded like a woman giving birth, and in the middle of her spasms Farrow ripped her thumbnail clean off. As she screamed, Farrow shot off inside her with a violent shudder.

He withdrew and stood over the bed. Grace was crying, thrashing her head from side to side. Blood snaked down her meaty forearm.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Grace, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize what I was doing, I was so excited..."

"Aaaah, G.o.d," said Grace. "G.o.d, G.o.d, G.o.d..."

"I've got some medical tape and disinfectant in the bathroom," said Farrow. "I'll be right back, and we'll fix you up."

In the bathroom, Farrow could hear Grace muttering the word "f.u.c.k" over and over again. He looked in the vanity mirror. Tears had formed in his eyes. His lips were twitching, and he put his hand over his mouth.

Farrow turned the bath spigot on full so that Grace could not hear him laugh.

ELEVEN.

ROMAN OTIS DROVE south on Sepulveda, past gas stations, pager shops, drive-throughs, and big box retailers. The people weren't beautiful here, not like the blondes and moussed boys of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, and trash littered the gutters and the small squares of worn gra.s.s fronting the boxy apartment units and Spanish ramblers along the boulevard. Otis pa.s.sed beneath the freeway and drove into the lot of a garden apartment complex situated beside a dry drainage ditch with old tires and discarded toys lying in its bed. south on Sepulveda, past gas stations, pager shops, drive-throughs, and big box retailers. The people weren't beautiful here, not like the blondes and moussed boys of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, and trash littered the gutters and the small squares of worn gra.s.s fronting the boxy apartment units and Spanish ramblers along the boulevard. Otis pa.s.sed beneath the freeway and drove into the lot of a garden apartment complex situated beside a dry drainage ditch with old tires and discarded toys lying in its bed.

"Be right back," said Otis, smiling, checking his gold tooth out in the rearview.

Gus Lavonicus watched Otis step along the walkway toward the apartments, not too fast, and not like he didn't have somewhere to go, either. He wore reverse pleated slacks, a lightweight sport jacket, a nice black polo shirt underneath, soft Italian loafers, those shades of his that adjusted their tint to the light, that ID bracelet with the funny inscription, and a previously owned Rolex watch. Otis had style.

Lavonicus looked down at his plain blue pants and the black size-eighteen work boots he ordered special from the Real Man Big and Tall catalog. It wasn't like a guy his size had many choices.

Maybe Cissy would look at him with a fresh set of eyes if he dressed sharp like her brother Roman. Probably not. It seemed lately that nothing about him could make Cissy happy. She was having a change of life. Her periods seemed longer, and when she was having them she was meaner than any woman he'd ever known. He had asked her to look into some of that period medicine he'd seen at the drugstore, and at the suggestion she threw a fit. She screamed at him like his mother used to scream at him back in the mountains of Eastern Europe. Ah, his mother was a real screamer, too - he'd sworn he'd never marry a woman like that.

When Lavonicus played for the Spirits of St. Louis, Cissy would wait for him outside the locker room with all the other basketball wh.o.r.es. But Cissy was different - she had love in her eyes for him then. He guessed he was never happier, playing ball and getting paid for it and falling in love with Cissy back in 1975.

Those were a nice bunch of guys on that team, crazy but nice. They knew how to get him pumped up for the game. The coach would tell him that a player on the opposite team had laughed at him, called him r.e.t.a.r.d Man or something like that. A hard feeling would develop in his stomach, and he'd tell the coach he was ready to go into the game. He'd find the player who'd laughed at him and submarine that player as he went up for a rebound, step on his knee, maybe, when he was down on the court. Sometimes he'd just go ahead and drive a hard elbow into the player's Adam's apple if he could get away with it, or knock the player into the scorer's table when he was trying to save a ball from going out of bounds. After those things happened he would often be sat down, and upon his return to the bench his teammates would slap him five, laugh about it, pat him on the back. By then he'd feel a whole lot better. He'd look for Cissy in the stands - the Spirits were only drawing three thousand fans a game then, so it wasn't hard to spot her - and she'd give him a broad wink. Those were really good times.

He smiled and felt his eyes grow heavy. When he opened his eyes it was to the sound of the car door opening and closing, and Otis was beside him in the driver's seat.

"Got 'em," he said, tossing a small gym bag over his shoulder.

"Where to now?"

"Back across town to Silver Lake," he said. "Lonnie Newton's crib."

Lonnie Newton was a small-change c.o.ke dealer who had experienced a run of good luck in the past six months. Roman Otis had staked the original thousand that had put Newton in business, but as yet Newton had not repaid the debt.

Newton lived in a two-bedroom rental house set on a hill in Silver Lake, at the top of c.u.mberland Avenue. Otis drove the Lincoln over the crest of c.u.mberland, took it down where the road snaked along and narrowed for the next fifty yards, parked behind an old import with Jersey plates. A dark-haired woman got out of the import and gave Otis the fish-eye as she walked to her house.

"Whatever, baby," said Otis, taking a .45 from the gym bag, checking the load, and slipping the gun inside his jacket. He waited for the woman to enter her house. He waited for "Ladies Night" to end on the radio. He said to Lavonicus, "Come on."

They walked back up c.u.mberland.

"Here it is," said Otis, nodding at a narrow set of concrete steps that pitched radically up the hill and ended at a small house.

"I can only do this one time," said Lavonicus. "My knees, bro."

"Only gonna do it once," said Otis. "I promise you that."

They went up the steps, pa.s.sing hibiscus and pine and a huge avocado tree whose top rose twenty feet above the roofline of the house. As they stepped onto a wooden deck they could hear the thump of ba.s.s coming from behind the side door.

Otis knocked on the door. He waited and knocked again. The door opened, and a tall, lean young man stood in its frame. The young man frowned first, then smiled.

"Lonnie Newton," said Otis.

"Roman. Heard you were lookin' for me."

"Guess that pager of yours don't work so good."

"Aw, I left that old pager in a club, man, with some freak I was doin' at the time. Got a new pager now. Got a new freak, too." Newton looked Lavonicus up and down and said, "This your partner I been hearing about?"

"Gus."

"Aha, ha, ha," laughed Newton, stamping one foot on the floor. "Ssh, ssh, ssh..."

"You gonna ask us in, Lonnie?" said Otis.

"Better not. I got company."

"We won't be but a minute."

"Look here, man, I ain't got what you're lookin' for. Not here." "Go ahead and ask us in."

Lonnie Newton shrugged and stepped aside. Otis went in, and Lavonicus followed, ducking his head to avoid the top of the door frame.

A small shapely woman in a short black skirt sat on the living-room couch, bobbing her head to the music coming from the stereo. The track featured a vocalist rapping languidly over an easy, scratchy wah-wah guitar with some popping ba.s.s behind it. The woman was. .h.i.tting a blunt and did not look up as the men entered the room.

The living room fronted an open kitchen. A bedroom was set off to the right, and a stairway before it led down to a second bedroom. A bay window ran the length of the living room and offered a panoramic view of the city and mountains beyond.

"Turn that music down, will you, Lonnie?" asked Otis.

"What'samatter, man, ain't you down with it? Or would you rather be listenin' to the Commodores and s.h.i.t?"

"Turn it down. Can't hear myself think."

"Thought you was Cali," said Newton, counterclockwising the volume. He looked at the woman, smiled, then looked at Lavonicus. "How about you, Frankenstein? You into the West Coast sound?"

Lavonicus's ears pinkened and his mouth dropped open as Newton laughed. Otis shook his head. The Newton boy was making a mistake. It was because the woman was in the room. Newton wouldn't show fear in front of his woman; that was understandable. But he was pushing it too far the other way. Some men were stupid like that. Newton was one of those men.

Violence didn't bother Otis, but it was usually messy and often costly, and he preferred to avoid it when he could. He thought he'd give the Newton boy a chance.

"Excuse me, young lady," said Otis to the girl. "Give us a few minutes alone, will you?"

"Go on, girl," said Newton.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the blunt up out of an ashtray and headed toward the stairs.

"Not there," said Newton. "Get in the bedroom."

She went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

"Nice-lookin' lady," said Otis, knowing then that the money was in the bedroom.

"Compton freak," said Newton.

Otis went to the bay window and scanned the view. "Beautiful up here, man."

"Yeah, the neighborhood's red hot. Madonna just bought a house out this way. Maybe I'll stop by and give her one of those personal housewarming presents you hear about."

"Think she'd like that, huh?"

"Pretty as I am?"

Still acting c.o.c.ky, thought Otis. And the woman wasn't even in the room.

"You know, Lonnie, to live in a place like this you must be doin' all right."

"It's a rental. But, yeah, I'm doin' fine." Newton picked a rolled number out of his bag of dope. He lit the fatty and drew on it deeply. "You want some of this?"

"Maybe later."

"Your loss. 'Cause this here is some chronic motherf.u.c.kin' s.h.i.t."

Otis turned from the window to face Newton. "Let's talk business, Lonnie."

"You mean that thousand dollars again? Told you I didn't have it here."

"Where you got it, man, a bank? You got no bank account, Lonnie, so don't be frontin' behind that s.h.i.t."

"Look here, man," said Newton, gesturing with the joint in his hand. "Word is you're out of the loan business, Roman. Most of your clients done, what's that word, reneged reneged on their contracts. It's like any business, you know what I'm sayin'? You make the rules, you got to enforce them. Otherwise, people just won't take you serious." on their contracts. It's like any business, you know what I'm sayin'? You make the rules, you got to enforce them. Otherwise, people just won't take you serious."

"Now you're gonna tell me how to run my business."

"I'm a man. Maybe I'm the only man you been dealing with lately. And, man to man, I'm here to tell you that your business is through. My debt is erased, hear? Not that I plan to forget what you did for me. We'll work out something away from the money side."

"That a fact."

"Look, man, you want my advice, you ought to just go ahead and concentrate on that singin' career of yours. I hear from a couple boys I know down on Sunset that you're not half bad. Your song selection's about twenty years too late, but there's money in that old-school bulls.h.i.t now, you can believe it."