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"I suppose you've figured out that you're not opening this dump?" Damien's asking. "The silent partners have already been consulted on this minor decision. We've taken care of Burl, and JD's been fired too. He'll actually never work anywhere in Manhattan again because of his unfortunate association with you."

"Damien, hey," I say softly. "Come on, man, JD didn't do anything."Advertisement

"He has AIDS," Damien says, slipping on a pair of black leather gloves. "He's not going to be around much longer anyway."

I just stare at Damien, who notices.

"It's a blood disease," he says. "It's some kind of virus. I'm sure you've heard of it."

"Oh, yeah," I say uncertainly.

"Baxter Priestly's with me now," Damien says, getting ready to make an exit. "It somehow seems..." He searches for the right word, cocks his head, comes up with "appropriate."

Juan shrugs at me as he follows Damien and the goons out of the club and I pick up one of the photographs of Lauren and me and turn it over as if there might be some kind of explanation for its existence on the back but it's blank and I'm drained, my head spinning, swearing "fuck f**k f**k" as I move over to a dusty sink behind what would have been the bar and I'm waiting for the director to shout "Cut" but the only sounds I'm hearing are Damien's limo screeching out of TriBeCa, my feet crunching what's left of the mirror ball, sleigh bells not in the shooting script, a buzzing fly circling my head which I'm too tired to wave away.

4

I'm standing at a pay phone on Houston Street, three blocks from Lauren's apartment. Extras walk by, looking stiff and poorly directed. A limousine cruises toward Broadway. I'm crunching on a Mentos.

"Hey pu**ycat, it's me," I say. "I need to see you."

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"That's not possible," she says, and then less surely, "Who is this?"

"I'm coming over."

"I won't be here."

"Why not?"

"I'm going to Miami with Damien." She adds, "In about an hour. I'm packing."

"What happened to Alison?" I ask. "What happened to his fiancee?" I spit out. "Huh, Lauren?"

"Damien dumped Alison and she's put a contract out on his head," she says casually. "If you can believe that, which I actually can."

While I'm processing this information the cameraman keeps circling the pay phone, distracting me into forgetting my lines, so I decide to improvise and surprisingly the director allows it.

"What about... what about when you get back, baby?" I ask hesitantly.

"I'm going on location," she says, very matter-of-fact. "To Burbank."

"For what?" I'm asking, covering my eyes with my hand.

"I'm playing the squealing genie in Disney's new live-action feature Aladdin Meets Roger Rabbit, which is being directed by-oh, what's his name?-oh yeah, Cookie Pizarro." She pauses. "CAA thinks it's my big break."

I'm stuck. "Give Cookie my, um, best," and then I sigh. "I really want to come over."

"You can't, honey," she says sweetly.

"You're impossible," I say through clenched teeth. "Then why don't you come meet me?"

"Where are you?"

"In a big deluxe suite at the SoHo Grand."

"Well, that sounds like neutral ground, but no."

"Lauren -what about last night?"

"My opinion?"

A very long pause that I'm about to break when I remember my line, but she speaks first.

"My opinion is: I guess you shouldn't expect too much from people. My opinion is: You're busted and you did it to yourself."

"I've been... I've been under... a lot of pressure, baby," I'm saying, trying not to break down. "I... stumbled."

"No, Victor," she says curtly. "You fell."

"You sound pretty casual, huh, baby?"

"That's what people sound like when they don't care anymore, Victor," she says. "I'm surprised it doesn't sound more familiar to you."

Pause. "There's nothing, um, very encouraging about that answer, baby."

"You sound like your tongue's pierced," she says tiredly.

"And you exude glamour and, um, radiance... even over the phone," I mumble, feeding another quarter into the slot.

"See, Victor, the problem is you've got to know things," she says. "But you don't." pqdm.com