The Detective & the Pipe Girl (13 page)

22

T
here was a guy I needed to talk to. His name was Marlon Pucci. Marlon was a New York City mob guy who had gotten out of the business by the skin of his teeth and had moved to Oceanside, California, just north of Carlsbad, to retire. His mob name was Marlon the Marlin. Why? Because his claim to fame was that he killed a guy once and took the body way out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to dump it. So, thus, the seafaring nickname. Look, I didn’t make it up. It doesn’t really make sense. It’s not like Marlon was some waterman. He was a New York mobster who hung around a pool hall in polyester pants and pleather blazers.

But the thing is, he sort of started becoming his nickname. Retrofitting. Even before he moved to Oceanside, back in New York, he started talking about retiring on a boat, about the freedom the sea offered. He even got an anchor tattoo on his left forearm. His friends would say: “Marlon, you know nothing about the ocean, fishing, boats, anything. You’ve been out in the ocean literally one time, and it wasn’t to enjoy the fucking freedom of the sea. It was to dump a dead body so you didn’t go to prison. What are you talking about?”

And Marlon would say, “Yeah, well, nobody knows anything about anything. I’m Marlon the Marlin. So fuck you. I’m retiring on a boat.”

He had a point.

So these days he lives on a sailboat in a nice little marina in Oceanside with his wife, Fran. I don’t think they’ve ever taken the boat out into the Pacific. They’ve never put the sails up. They just live on it happily in the marina. They have drinks in the evening. They watch the sunsets. Occasionally, they leave the boat and hit the bars and restaurants of Oceanside.

Marlon had hired me once a few years ago. He’d found a little trouble in his new trouble-free life. Well, his wife had found some trouble anyway. They had called me. I drove down. And Marlon was straight with me. Told me he’d had a criminal past, had served time even, but that he was done with that now. And that his wife needed some help. Her son from her first marriage was missing. I gathered quickly that it was an addiction thing, and that he owed some people some money. I tracked him down, living in a disgusting house in L.A., out of his mind on meth. I brought him to Fran. She wept when she saw him. So did Marlon. They straightened out his debts for him and the kid, Robert, cleaned up for a bit. These days, I believe he still has some problems. But Robert keeps in touch with them and he hasn’t gotten into money trouble with bad people again. And most important, Fran knows where he is.

And Marlon? He still answers my call when I have a question for him—because I’d helped out his lady.

Marlon the Marlin is in fact straight up now. Out of the crime game completely. But like all these guys, he’s still got his ear to the ground. And like most of these guys, he likes to gossip. And he knows what’s up, even in L.A. That’s why I took the 405 South, to the 5 South, to the Tamarack exit to Carlsbad. Then up the PCH a bit to the coastal California town of Oceanside. Shops, restaurants, blondes in bikinis. All set on a hill funneling down to the Pacific. So charming, so California, so I think I’m going to move here when I retire and live on a boat like Marlon the Marlin.

I pulled into the Oceanside Marina, parked, walked down the docks, and found Marlon’s beautiful forty-five-foot sailboat. It was 2 p.m. Marlon was sitting on the boat, shorts, no shirt, boat shoes, enjoying the sun, having a cold beer. In that moment I thought: Marlon was getting the last laugh. He couldn’t sail, he didn’t know anything about boats, didn’t know anything about the sea. But who cares? Look at the guy. Happy as a clam. And decidedly, one hundred percent Marlon the Marlin.

“John, my boy, welcome aboard.”

I smiled, hopped on the boat, sat down, was immediately handed a cold Coors Light. Yep, another thing this former murderer got right. Marlon was a deep tan. And he had become kind of a fat skinny guy. Or a skinny fat guy. No, he was a fat skinny guy. Skinny bird legs, ropy arms, a little old man gut. But I could tell looking at him that he was still strong. And when you looked into his dark eyes, mostly they were friendly, but every so often you could see a flare of history and suspicion and darkness and toughness that comes only from firsthand experience. He had a little bit of Neese in his eyes. You better be really careful if you decide to fuck with Marlon Pucci. Chips down, he’d abandon the trouble-free life and cut your throat in a second.

But right now? He was smiling, nice as hell, happy. And I noticed he’d gotten a mermaid tattoo on his right shoulder. All right by me. I like mermaids. You already know that.

“What can I do for you, John?”

“I have a question for you.”

He made his hand into a little handgun, moved his eyebrows up and down, pulled the thumb trigger, and said, “Shoot.”

And then: “Hi, John.”

Fran had emerged from the living quarters of the sailboat. She was absurdly tan, wearing a sort of nightgown slash caftan slash dress. She wore three or four bracelets and two or three necklaces and some big, bright red earrings. And she still had the curly, frizzy blond hair. She was carrying a very large cocktail with an enormous amount of ice.

I stood up. “Hi, Fran.”

“Sweetie. How are you?”

She squeezed my arm. “Mmm. You’re still in good shape, I see.”

“Well, you know, I have to be for my business.”

“Take your shirt off, get some sun,” she said with a salacious flair.

“Jesus, Fran,” Marlon said with a shit-eating grin. “What do you want to do, make a porno?”

I said, “Well, we are on a boat in a marina. Seems like a lot of them are indeed on boats in marinas.”

Marlon ignored me and said to Fran, smiling, eyebrows raised. “One of those pornos where the old fart gets the young stud to come over and take care of his wife. I sit over here and watch in a captain’s hat while this guy goes to town.”

Fran howled with laughter. She and Marlon still had some pop. “Let’s do it!”

“Get out of here,” he said. “Go to the store. Me and John gotta talk.”

“I’m getting wine, a couple jugs of rosé.”

“Sure, sugar, whatever. Get me some beer too. And some Mount Gay.”

He turned to me. “Mount Gay and tonic. That’s what us boat people like.”

I nodded. Fran grabbed my arm again. “Great to see you, John.”

“You too, Fran.”

She looked at Marlon. “You
are
going to take care of me later. Go ahead and take your Cialis now.”

A shark smile appeared on the Marlin. “I already took it. Took two. Now get out of here.”

Fran headed off toward the parking lot. Her nightgown dress thing flowing behind her like a cape, like a superhero.
Alcoholic Mobster Wife Woman to the rescue!

Marlon turned to me, took a big sip of his beer. “Your question?”

“Do you know the name Richard Neese?”

Marlon deflated a little bit. He didn’t know Neese. And he did not like moments that suggested that he was no longer in the know.

He said, “No. Who is he?”

“I’m trying to figure that out. How ’bout this. Have you ever heard the term ‘Pipe Girl’? As it might pertain, I suppose, to criminal activity?”

Marlon smiled, then laughed. He had something on this one. And he couldn’t hide that he appreciated still having some skinny.

He downplayed his excitement and said, “Yeah. Sure. I’ve heard the term.”

“What does it mean?”

“Well, it’s mostly a rumor as I’ve always understood it. But . . .” He leaned toward me just a bit. A mobster shooting the shit with his boys. “Apparently, out here in L.A., a guy decided to do the girl-for-hire thing in a new way. Oldest profession in the world, but with a new twist.”

“Okay. What kind of twist?”

“Well, it’s an interesting idea as I understand it, and I don’t know too much. Nobody does. It’s a rumor. You just hear little edges of it, always a little bit different from what you heard before. But it’s like this. What if you could hire a girl, a beautiful girl, top fucking shelf, do whatever you needed to do, whenever you wanted, get your rocks off, get her rocks off, whatever. But, but. Here’s the twist. The girl comes with a
guarantee
that she’ll never tell anyone. Like, she won’t tell her girlfriends. She won’t fall in love with you and tell your fucking wife. She won’t write it on her goddamn Facebook page. And she’ll never, ever go to the press. The only people who will ever know are you, her, and whoever’s running the ring.”

The Marlin was getting into it. Excited to be imparting this privileged information to me. I didn’t say anything. I just sat there waiting for more.

“Now, we’re in L.A. right. Or you are, I’m on a boat, you know what I’m fucking saying. But the idea is, let’s say a guy is married and is sick of screwing his old lady. Well, he gets one of these Pipe Girls so he can have his jollies and know, I mean
know
, she’ll never say anything and fuck up his marriage. Or, even better, a famous guy gets one of these girls and he knows she won’t go to the press and fuck up his fifty-million-dollar-a-year career. Like, lots of these famous pricks get pros. And it’s all fine and dandy for a while. But then they always,
always
get screwed. And not screwed like a cock in a pussy. Screwed like the famous person moves on from the pro, the pro cashes in by going to the
National
Fucking
Enquirer
. And then all hell breaks loose. And the guy’s whole life goes down the toilet. You know what I’m saying? So just imagine if silence was guaranteed.
Guaranteed
. Imagine what people with money would pay. We’re talking a hundred grand a weekend.”

“And the name?” I said. “Pipe Girl?” I thought I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear him tell me.

“Right. The name. Pipe Girl. Well, you know what a pipe dream is, right? Is a dream that’s never going to happen, because it’s too ridiculous, it’s too perfect. Well, so is a beautiful ten who will give you everything you want and never tell anyone.”

“Right,” I said. “It’s a good name for the service.”

I thought for a second and said, “But here’s the problem. Here’s why I don’t think it can be real. How do you do it? At the end of the day, how do you control who opens their mouth? It’s the one thing no one’s ever figured out—in any field. What, you hire some trustworthy prostitutes? You make them
promise
not to tell? Come on.”

Marlon looked at me. And that flash of darkness crossed his eyes like a wave. The hardened criminal appeared inside him for just a second. And he leaned in toward me just a little more. “Well, John, first, you appeal to the self-interest of the girls. You pay them very well. Change-your-life money. John my boy, self-interest is how you persuade people to do things. But the second thing is how you really make it work. And that’s the other thing about the Pipe Girl rumor. And that is this: If you’re a Pipe Girl and you talk, you die.”

I laughed. “Okay. It’s interesting. But let’s deconstruct this a bit, Marlon. Say a girl goes to the press. You know, performs her services on one of these guys, then goes to the press. And then gets killed. The guy she ratted on will immediately get looked into. Her murder will be heavily investigated, especially if the guy has some notoriety. And so on. It’s a house of cards that you can’t control.”

He looked at me and let out a booming laugh. “Don’t be naïve, boy. When there’s big money involved
anything
is possible. Look, you choose the girls very, very carefully. You make it very clear to them what they are getting into. And, like I said, you make them rich. Not fucking stripper, porno actress, Bunny Ranch money. Not decent condo in the Valley and low-end Mercedes rich. Money to live on for life. Okay? And like I said, you make it very, very clear that if any information leaks
ever
, they will not be pleased with the consequences. And, listen, John, if a girl does talk, you know how easy it is to cover up a fucking murder if you’re good? All right, hypothetical. Girl bangs celeb. Girl talks. Girl gets whacked. Cops look into it. Here’s what you do. You frame the murder on some no-name, low-rent pimp that’s already in business, invent a drug history for the girl, some mental illness, get the celeb to say, ‘I have no idea what she’s talking about, I’ve never seen her.’ Get the actual pimp, the guy who actually did it, to say, ‘Yeah, I knew her, but I’m a businessman, this is ridiculous.’ That’s if the real pimp ever even gets questioned. Which is probably not going to happen. And then? Then it’s over, son. Over. Done. Finito. The cops are moving on. And the truth is, if that
were
to happen, that
one
death makes every other girl in the ring shut up forever. That one murder seals your fucking business plan.”

I said, with very little confidence in my voice, “Well, what if one of the guys talks?”

Marlon laughed for thirty seconds straight. He had tears welling up in his eyes. “I know
you know
how stupid that question is. But I’ll answer it anyway. Guys don’t talk. Period. And even if they did, what, tell a friend, tell the press, what difference would it make? Ever? The girls would deny it. Then the ringmaster would put a gun to the guy’s head. Johnny, there’s no scenario where the guy would tell. The guys you pick for this kind of thing, shelling out the dough to protect their life and whatnot, these aren’t the guys that are going to talk. Or cooperate on some kind of sting or something. Give me a fucking break.”

He paused to laugh again, then said, “What if the guy talks. That’s funny.”

Marlon the Marlin finished his beer and sat back for a moment.

“Sounds like you know a lot about this. Have put some thought into it.”

“Shit. We used to talk about it a lot. Look, I’m making it sound like no big deal, like it would be ridiculously easy. Truth is, it would be tough to do. Quality control is always very hard I don’t care if you’re selling fucking widgets. But it
is
possible. That is for sure. When I heard about this going on out here, you know, from these California guys, I told my boys back in the city. And we laughed about it. But we liked it. As a business. As a business model. You know that saying, ‘It’s just crazy enough to be true’? That’s what the Pipe Girls are. Crazy enough to be true.”