Read Online Suicide Hill by James Ellroy - Free Book Online

Outcall; Wet and Woolly Massage; Satan’s House of Sin. This time the words didn’t blur. He pulled out a handful of Louie Calderon’s twenties and walked through the nearest door. A bored black man behind a desk looked up as he entered and said, “Yeah?”
    Rice held the photo of Vandy and a double saw under the man’s nose. “Have you seen this woman?”
    The man put down his copy of the Watchtower , grabbed the twenty and looked at the snapshot. “No, too good-lookin’ for this jive place. If you want to pork this kinda chick, I can fix you up with a cut-rate version gives mean head.”
    Rice breathed out slowly; the red trapdoor behind his eyes eased shut. “No thanks, I want her. Got any ideas?”
    The man stuck the twenty in his shirt pocket. “I don’t know what places got what quality pussy, but I know this jive place ain’t got nothin’ but woof-woofs. You just keep walkin’ and whippin’ out that green, maybe you find her.”
    Rice took the man’s advice and walked east. He showed the snapshot to every doorman and bouncer at every sex joint on the row, handing out over three hundred dollars, getting nothing but negative head shakes and a consensus that Vandy was too foxy to be doing either Strip outcall or street hooking. After four straight hours of breathing nothing but sleaze, he got coffee at the All-American Burger and sat down at an outside table to think.
    He came up with facts that he trusted. Louie and his friends were solid; if one of them saw Vandy out here in whore makeup, it was probably true—without him to look after her she was a stone self-destructor. None of the massage and outcall slimebags he’d talked to had I.D.’d her—and it was to their financial advantage to do so. Louie’s friend had seen her sometime last week, probably right after she visited him and cleaned out the pad. It all felt right.
    Rice looked at his watch: 3:30, the whores thinning out as the traffic on Sunset dwindled. The only hookers still working were black, and unlikely to have info on Vandy—she avoided all jigs like the plague. Draining his coffee, he stood up and started for the car. Then he saw an incredible redhead walk over to the curb and stick out her thumb.
    Rice moved fast, running to his car and pulling up in front of the girl, cutting off a slow-trawling Mercedes. The redhead looked in the passenger window distastefully, then back at the status car. Rice yelled, “A c-note for ten minutes,” and the girl hesitated, then opened the door and got in. Rice handed her a wad of twenties as the driver of the Mercedes accelerated and flipped them the bird.
    The redhead stuffed the money into her purse and poked a finger at the tufts of foam sticking out of the seat. “This car sucks. Can we go to a motel or something?”
    Rice turned around the corner, then pulled over to the curb and flicked on the dashboard light. “I don’t want to get laid, I just had a feeling you could help me find this woman.” He handed her the photo of Vandy and watched as she examined it, then shook her head.
    â€œNo, never. Your chick?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œShe a working girl?”
    Rice swallowed a wave of anger. “Yeah. I’ve heard she’s been doing outcall around here, but nobody recognizes her, and I believe them.”
    The redhead scrutinized the snapshot, then said, “She’s real cute. Too classy for most of the places around here.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, ‘most’?”
    â€œWell, there’s this high-line place a couple of blocks from here, off the Strip. They run only really foxy chicks, to these movies and rock big shots. I worked out of there for a week or so, then I quit. Too much of a drug scene. I’m into health food.”
    Rice felt his skin prickle. “What’s the name of the place?”
    â€œSilver Foxes. No