Hard Case Crime: Choke Hold

by Christa Faust

  One of the other kids on the line leaned in and spoke out of the corner of his mouth.

  “Kenner said he’d marry you after he fucked you? What a coincidence, that’s what he told me, too!”

  Other boys in the line started to snicker and Cody lunged at the sarcastic kid. Hank caught Cody and dragged him back just as a hulking security guard in a nylon jacket started making his way towards us.

  “Is there a problem?” the guard asked.

  “No sir,” Hank replied. “No problem.” He slowly loosened his grip on Cody, then let him go. “Ain’t that right?”

  “Right,” Cody said, turning away, shoulders sagging. I could see the frustration in his eyes, the pain. But he bit it back. “No problem,” he told the guard.

  The guard walked back over the steps leading up to the large caged ring a group of staffers in All American Fighter crew t-shirts were setting up.

  For a few minutes, nothing happened. The boys in the line talked and jostled each other. Tools clanged as the cage was assembled. There was a crackle of walkie-talkie static. Cody stood apart from us, silent and looking down at his shoes.

  Then out of the crowd of boys, Madison. She turned every head in the room, but not because of her tiny shorts. It was her face.

  I knew that face too well. Black eyes. Swollen, split lip, her cute little lip ring torn out. She was crying, running to Cody and throwing herself sobbing into his arms.

  “I’m so sorry, Cody,” she said. “I didn’t want to tell them where you were, but they made me. You need to get out of here!”

  Cody was losing it. I could see that. He had held it all together, sucked it up and kept going because his big chance was waiting on the other end. Now it was all falling apart.

  “Stay with him,” I told Hank, taking Madison by the arm and guiding her to the door.

  “Listen to me,” I said to her. “Things are going bad here, and I want you as far away from us as possible when that happens. Go find casino security and have them call the cops. Don’t go anywhere alone until the cops get here. Not even to the bathroom, do you hear me?”

  “Cody?” she called over my shoulder. He wouldn’t turn to her voice.

  “Go now,” I said. “Hurry.”

  She looked up at me, eyes bruised and wet with tears.

  “Tell him I’m sorry,” she said. “I tried not to tell them.”

  It killed me to hear her say that. I wanted to sweep her up in my arms and tell her I understood so well it hurt, but there was no time.

  “Go,” I said again.

  She ran.

  I went back to where Hank was trying to talk Cody down. Cody had that thundery look, like he was gonna start throwing shit.

  “We need to leave,” I said. “Now.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Cody said. “Not till I have a chance to talk to Kenner.”

  That’s when Navy Track Suit and his sulky little brother showed up on the far side of the room, chatting up one of the headset girls. The little brother looked over and saw me. He made his forefinger and thumb into the shape of a gun and pointed at me, then winked.

  “Now, Cody,” I said.

  No more argument from him. The three of us backed together out the door, turned towards the casino floor and walked right past the bleached-blond teenage killer who’d tried to run us off the road outside Duncan’s Diner.

  27.

  “That’s the guy,” Cody said to Hank once we’d swiftly put some distance between us. “Holy shit, that’s him! The guy from the diner!”

  The blond kid was standing by an ATM talking on a cellphone, bookended by a pair of new teenage compadres to replace the ones that had been killed.

  “But Lovell’s dead,” Cody said. “He couldn’t have sent these guys.”

  “Lovell may have been a lying S.O.B.,” Hank said, “but maybe he was telling the truth about not having a hand in that business.”

  “So who...?” Cody began.

  “We can think about that later,” I said as the blond kid glanced over in our direction. The look of surprise when he spotted us would have been funnier if I didn’t know that he was here to finish the job he’d fucked up before. “Right now we just need to get the hell out of here.”

  The blond kid was standing between us and the main entrance. We couldn’t go back the way we came because the Croatians had come out of the conference room behind us and were turning their heads back and forth like bloodhounds casting for a scent. I looked around, too, and spotted a large banner featuring a surgically enhanced platinum blonde whose candy pink lips matched her tiny bikini. Beneath her in lurid pink letters: AVN ADULT ENTERTAINMENT EXPO.

  “This way,” I said.

  We walked as fast as we could without looking like we were running, working our way through the clattering, jangling guts of the Sands and into the gigantic adjacent convention center. There was already a huge line waiting to get in. Mostly men. As I passed, a wash of excited whispers spread through the line. Austin, my former WitSec marshal, would have had a heart attack if he’d seen me here. Talk about contact with people from my former life.

  AVN stands for Adult Video News. It’s basically the porno Variety. The AVN Expo is the largest American event in the industry. You could also call it a gathering of the 30,000 people most likely to recognize Angel Dare.

  I grabbed Cody and Hank and pulled them over to a large doorway labeled TRADE ENTRANCE.

  “Name?” the bored-looking girl behind the welcome table said. Just my luck that she was the one out of 30,000 that had no idea who I was.

  “Angel Dare,” I said, looking back over my shoulder. The men who wanted us dead couldn’t be far behind. It was just a question of which set would arrive first—and whether we could get past this woman before then.

  She chewed her large, fruity wad of gum as she scanned the list on her clipboard. I felt panic building beneath my sternum. I could see the Croatians now, coming across the crowded lobby, working their way towards the entrance. I hadn’t spotted the Mexican kid and his buddies yet, but that didn’t mean they weren’t here.

  “I’m not seeing that name,” she said. “Who are you with?”

  “She’s with me,” said a deep, honeyed baritone as hands wrapped around my waist from behind.

  I turned to a face I hadn’t seen in ages. Larry Lynsky, also known as Marco Pole. The man I did my first scene with. His Brand Spankin’ New series was one of the longest running and most popular amateur lines of all time. When we did our scene, he was in his late thirties and looked like a tattooed Errol Flynn. Now he’d packed on at least seventy-five pounds and lost most of his hair, but he still wore his trademark fedora and his eyes still had the same Mad Hatter sparkle. Beside me, I could feel Hank tensing up. I really hoped he wouldn’t blow it with another violent burst of irrational jealousy.

  “Marco,” I said. “It’s great to see you.”

  “Angel, dollface,” he said. “You can’t imagine the things I’ve heard.”

  “I’ll bet I can,” I said.

  “Well you’d better fill me in,” Marco said as he took my arm, patting my hand and leading me past the flummoxed girl with the clipboard.

  “She can’t go in if she’s not on the list,” the girl whined.

  “Miss Desmond can!” Marco said with a flourish, dismissing her with a wave of his fat, ring-covered fingers and leading me through the doorway to the expo floor.

  “I thought you said Dare,” she called after us.

  “That’s not nice, Marco,” I said. “I’m hardly the Norma Desmond of porn.”

  “Of course not, dear,” he said. “But none of these bubbleheaded young things appreciate my Sunset Boulevard references like you do.”

  I turned back and saw that the Croatians had just arrived at the desk. They were pointing in my direction and, god bless her, the gum-snapping gatekeeper was stonewalling them. She pointed to the long snaking line in front of the public entrance and a pair of large men in security jackets stepped up to ma
ke sure there was no trouble. The Croatians backed away, smiling and showing their palms. With luck, they’d be stuck waiting on line long enough for us to find another way out. Of course, once we got out of the convention center we’d be facing a bigger problem: getting out of Vegas.

  “Tell me,” Marco said. “Who are your friends?”

  “This is Cody...” I paused. “Cody Ventura.”

  Marco raised his eyebrows and dropped his gaze to Cody’s package.

  “Thick Vic’s kid?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Take after your father, do you?” Marco asked Cody.

  “I got a big dick if that’s what you’re asking,” Cody said, annoyed, still reeling from the AAFC letdown. But annoyance wasn’t the only emotion he was displaying—I saw his head involuntarily swiveling to follow all the g-string-clad, highheeled starlets walking the aisles.

  “I’m running a live fan-fucker cam,” Marco said. He winked at me. “Don’t tell security.” Then back to Cody: “You up for a quick scene, kid?”

  “Scene?” Cody said.

  “You want to fuck a pretty girl?”

  I could see from the expression on his face that, having been whipsawed all morning, he’d finally been asked something he could answer definitively and with confidence. “Yeah,” he said.

  “On camera, you understand,” Marco said.

  Cody looked at me, almost like he was asking permission.

  “Right now,” I said, “being on a live webcam might be one of the safest places you could be.”

  “You okay with interracial?” Marco asked. “I got this gorgeous black girl, looks like a supermodel and fucks like the Tasmanian Devil.”

  “Sure,” Cody said. “Why? Are there some guys that won’t do it with black girls?”

  “Crazy, huh?” Marco said. “The way I see it pussy’s pussy, be it black, white, yellow or green. How about you, handsome?” Marco asked Hank. “Wanna join in for a DP?”

  I had to smile at Hank’s shocked expression.

  “Just Cody,” I told Marco.

  Marco nodded. “No problem.”

  Looking over at Hank, I could see he’d interpreted what I’d done as a demonstration of loyalty and that instantly made me wish I’d kept my mouth shut. The longer I let this go on, the harder it was going to be to break it off. Of course, that depended on my living long enough to break anybody’s heart, which right now didn’t seem too likely.

  We walked with Marco over to the PoleHer Productions booth. There were two girls sitting behind the table. One tall, black and lithe, the other a buxom redhead.

  “Girls,” Marco said. “I brought you a present.”

  The girls stood and came around the table to coo over Cody.

  “Cherise St. Croix, Sunny Dee, this is Cody Ventura.”

  The black girl, Cherise, put her hand on Cody’s action and purred.

  “Mmmmmmm,” she said. “Nice.”

  “How old are you, honey?” Sunny asked.

  “Eighteen,” Cody replied, eyes riveted on the big dark nipples poking up through Cherise’s flimsy lacy top.

  “License,” Sunny said, holding out her sparkle-nailed hand.

  Cody shot an anxious look back at me. I nodded and he dug out his wallet, handing over his driver’s license. Sunny pulled out a large, professional quality camera, laid Cody’s license out on the table and shot several photos.

  “Come on, baby,” Cherise said, placing that familiar blue diamond-shaped Vitamin V on Cody’s tongue. “I’ll take good care of you.”

  She kissed him and then led him off into an enclosed private area behind the booth.

  “So my dearest,” Marco said, “where have you been keeping your gorgeousness?”

  “Marco,” I said. “You know I love you, but now is not the time for catch-up.”

  “What is it?” Marco said. “What kind of trouble are you in, beautiful?”

  “The kind you don’t need,” I said.

  The last thing I wanted was to get him involved in this mess. I’d brought too much pain to too many of my friends by involving them in my troubles.

  Looking down the line of booths, past a fucking machine and a display of dreadfully realistic, corpse-like sex dolls, I saw a familiar flaming phoenix logo.

  “Hank,” I said. “Stay here with Marco and wait for Cody. I’ll be right back.”

  “But you said we oughta stay together,” Hank said, scarred brows knitting anxiously. His anxiety clearly wasn’t limited to my personal safety.

  “Marco,” I said, more for Hank’s benefit than my own. “Try to keep the girls off him while I’m gone.”

  “I’m not making any promises,” Marco said. “You know how they are.”

  I smiled, trying to bury my own anxiety. I knew what was coming and wasn’t happy about it. But the man behind that phoenix logo had the resources to help us get out of the country and might be persuaded to use them. He was also one of the only people in this room who I wouldn’t mind putting in the crosshairs of not one but two groups of killers.

  I walked down the aisle, passing girls posing with eager fans and banners advertising surefire ways to double your online traffic. I could sense a ripple of recognition as I walked, but nobody stopped me.

  The tiny Latina working the booth looked appallingly young. Her narrow chest was flat as a boy’s and she stood with a childish, swayback posture. The bruises on her neck were so faded that I might not have noticed if I didn’t know what to look for. Below the image of the phoenix, the banner hanging above her head said ASPHYXXX in gory, dripping death metal lettering.

  “Is Damian here?” I asked her.

  “He is back in one minute,” she replied, holding up one finger. She had a Brazilian accent so thick that I only really understood her from context.

  I waited.

  Here’s the deal with Damian Damnation. He’s the right wing’s worst nightmare, everything they love to hate about porn in one loud, brash, Satanic package. He was just getting into the business when I got out, surfing the wave of the new extreme hardcore subgenre with raunchy, brutally violent series like Full Throttle, Choke it Down and the oh-so-sexy and creatively named Make Her Puke! He was a spoiled rich kid who’d never had to work a day in his life, and despite that fact he seemed hell-bent on publicly humiliating his wealthy parents on a daily basis. Always pushing the limits, flogging the freedom of speech routine till it bled, but underneath all the self-important oppressed genius bluster, the truth was that his stuff just wasn’t very good. Badly shot, carelessly edited and cheaply produced. Plus he was notorious for crossing lines. He’d been arrested twice for obscenity, but it didn’t stick and after his last trial he’d moved down to Sao Paulo, where the rules were less stringent. Amazingly enough I actually knew girls who wanted to work with him. I’d never been one of them.

  But Damian wasn’t the type to take “fuck off” for an answer. He’d been pestering me to shoot with him for years, and the more I told him no, the more determined he became. Well, now we’d find out if the offer still stood.

  “Angel Dare?”

  He was maybe 5’5” in his big stompy boots, one of those skinny little fuckers with a huge cock, the kind you think is gonna fall on his face from the weight of his hard-on. He wore his usual uniform of an obnoxious Satanically themed t-shirt, ill-fitting leather pants and ten pounds of gothy, skull-shaped jewelry. He had devilish red contact lenses coloring his perpetual pot-head squint and had shaved off all his thinning hair since the last time I saw him.

  “Hello, Damian,” I said.

  “Angel Fucking Dare,” he said. “Dude, I thought you were dead.”

  “Me, too,” I told him. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  “Step into my office,” he said, motioning to the small private changing area set up for the girls.

  “I don’t have a lot of time, so I’ll just cut to the chase,” I said. “I need to get out of here. Out of the country. ASAP.”

  Damian was
an asshole—but he did have a private plane.

  “Okay,” he said. “We might be able to work something out.”

  “I’ll shoot for you,” I said. “Five scenes, no holes barred, no charge. I have two friends that need to come with me too. You take us with you when you fly back home. Deal?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” he said, suddenly cagey. “You haven’t been on camera in nearly ten years. I’m gonna need to make sure you’ve still got it. You understand. It’s just business, Angel.”

  I knew he was gonna say that, but it still infuriated me.

  “Of course,” I said. By then he was already unbuckling his pants.

  Damian’s favorite trick was to stuff his cock all the way down a woman’s throat and then use his hand to squeeze her esophagus and jack himself off inside it. I’d done worse for less.

  Over the course of my “audition,” I had moments when I felt cold and efficient, like a robot diligently executing a task too dangerous for humans. But there were other moments, bad moments, when I was overwhelmed with pure, animalistic panic, oxygen-deprived brain screaming, demanding that I fight for air.

  I didn’t fight him. I got through it.

  “Yeah, okay,” he was saying as he wiped himself off on some girl’s crumpled pink t-shirt. “I gotta make some calls,” he said. “Give me your number and I’ll call you after the show closes down and let you know if I’m able to work something out.”

  That “if” made me want to punch him in the face.

  “I don’t have a phone right now,” I said. My voice felt like it had been crushed down to a rough whisper.

  “Oh, well.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Okay, look, here’s what I’ll do,” I said. “I’ll be in the lobby of the Four Queens, standing by the registration desk, at six tonight. Call the desk, describe me to the clerk, and ask them to put me on.”

  He pulled out a Blackberry and swiftly thumbed this information on the tiny keyboard. “Four Queens. Six PM. Gotcha.”

  “Give me your number,” I said. “In case anything changes. I can call from a payphone.”