Hard Case Crime: Fade to Blonde Read Online Free Page B

man, tall and very good-looking, I guess Mattie told you he was supposed to be a leading man. But I guess he was like me. He couldn’t act. And he strikes everyone who meets him as awfully nice, and he was nice to me. I told him I’d have dinner with him, and then we had another dinner after that, but by then I’d found out a few things about him. He’s a gangster,” she said.
    She said gangster as if it were her vocabulary word for the week.
    “He makes pornographic movies,” she said, “and sells them, or charges money to show them, I guess is the way it works.”
    “He the one you made the movies for?”
    “No. Not him. And I told you, I don’t ever want any more of that. Not ever. That’s why it was so horrible when I found out. I didn’t know if he liked me or if he was just trying to get me into one of his movies. I didn’t care. I told him I didn’t want to see him again. And he, he just went crazy. He just, do I have to tell you the sorts of things he said?”
    “I don’t know yet. You’d had two dinners?”
    “I didn’t sleep with him, if that’s what you mean. I’mno virgin, Mr. Corson. I suppose anyone who wanted to has a right to call me a whore. And that’s why I want to get out of all this, and start over, and have a life where no one has any right to call me that.”
    “So he went crazy. What did you do?”
    “I ran out of the place. I didn’t know what to do. He’d made all sorts of threats, and I knew he was someone who could have people hurt, have anybody hurt he wanted. So I went back in, and I told him I was sorry I’d hurt him, and that I never meant to. I told him I’d stay with him all weekend and do anything he wanted, and that way he could see I was no one to be obsessed over and get me out of his system, and afterward he’d let me go. Everyone always thinks I’m going to be so wonderful, and then they find out I’m not at all. I don’t ever, well, I’m just not very good. You can see I’m telling you everything, Mr. Corson.”
    “What did he think of your offer?”
    “Oh, it was awful. It was worse than before. For a minute I almost thought he’d started beating me, hitting with his fists, but he was just talking, saying things to me I didn’t think anyone could ever say to anyone. Wild things. And that’s when he said about the lye. He said if I didn’t want him, he’d make it so no one ever wanted me. Oh, it was horrible.”
    “How’d you get free?”
    “I just walked out. He didn’t try to stop me. I didn’t know what I was doing. I felt he’d already thrown acid in my face, that he’d burned me all away. I was shaking, and on the way home I almost had a wreck.”
    “When did you sell him your car?”
    She blinked. “That was on our first date. I told him I was worried about money, and he said I shouldn’t ever have to worry about anything, and he gave me a check right then and there, and by the next time I saw him he’dtalked to one of his lawyers and fixed the whole thing up. That’s why I didn’t go to bed with him, the first night. Because he’d just given me money.”
    “When was the last time you saw him?”
    “Nine days ago. I spent the rest of the night just shaking, with a chair jammed under the doorknob, and the next morning I packed a bag and left. I was way up in Pasadena, in a much nicer house than this, but I thought I’d better go way across town and find someplace really cheap, because I wasn’t going to go back to work either. I just never went back to Ciro’s.”
    “What name do you use here?”
    “Rebecca Stevens. Do you think that’s too close?”
    “No, I think that’s all right. He’s not going to go house to house looking for Rebeccas.”
    “Do you believe me a little now?”
    “That about describes it. What were you thinking I could do about it?”
    “Well,” she said, looking happier, and set her pen to the paper. “First of all, he owns a nightclub.”
    “Part of one. The Centaur.”
    “That’s