Debbie Doesn't Do It Anymore (9780385538398) Read Online Free PDF

living perpetrator.”
    â€œCan I be straight with you, Perry?” I asked.
    â€œSure.”
    â€œDo you recognize me?”
    â€œUm … no. Not personally.”
    â€œDid some of the other cops last night make jokes?”
    â€œUh …”
    â€œIt’s okay. I’m not shy. I take off my clothes in front of a camera and fuck for a living. That’s the kind of business we’re in—me and Lana … and Theon too, when he was alive. We’ve all met thousands of girls like the one from last night. With most of them I’m more likely to remember if their ass stank than their names.
    â€œA dozen girls like that flutter around me every single day. To tell you the truth, Theon might not have known her name. And even if he did it wouldn’t have been a real name. Nobody gives their real name—no, no, no.”
    He picked up on the reference to Fats Waller with a Lana-like smile and glanced down at his hands.
    â€œYou listen to Waller?” His words told more than they asked.
    â€œMy father loved old-time jazz. I used to sit on his lap and listen with him.”
    Our eyes met and I saw that he was experiencing hunger that was unfamiliar to him. He felt a connection with me and that made him uncomfortable.
    â€œYou like being a policeman?” I asked to relieve his tension and to explore it at the same time.
    â€œI used to.”
    â€œNot anymore?”
    â€œI still do the work,” he said. “I think it’s important but I care too much. A cop can’t really care. We come across a dozen tragedies every day.”
    â€œI know what you mean.”
    â€œYou do?”
    â€œWith me it’s even worse. I have to pretend to care and I don’t give a shit.”
    â€œI better be going,” he said.
    He stood up.
    I nodded.
    He turned.
    I wanted to say something: the kind of words that held out hope for a next meeting.
    He walked the distance to the kitchen doorway and I remained silent, telling myself that it wasn’t the time and he wasn’t the man.
    â€œDeb!” Lana yelped maybe three minutes after Perry had gone. “We have to get to work. It’s a ten-o’clock call.”
    â€œI thought you quit the business?”
    â€œUh … um … But Linda expects us.”
    â€œI thought you were breaking up with Linda?”
    â€œI am but … but this is our job.”
    The bewildered look on her childlike face was perfect. Decisions and actions didn’t have anything to do with each other in her mental life. She was a kid, from Ohio I think, who was still looking for the magic door that led to a place where things fit together because you wanted them to.
    â€œTell Linda I couldn’t make it today,” I said.
    â€œShe’s gonna be mad.”
    â€œMy husband died last night, honey. He was electrocuted in the bathtub where he was fucking an obviously underage girl. The police are questioning me. Richard Ness is on my ass. And in the meanwhile I have to bury Theon. You tell Linda that, and then, if she gets mad, you tell her to bring her skinny ass and her razor blade over here.”
    â€œO-okay, Deb. Don’t be mad at me. I wasn’t really thinking is all. Do you need a ride somewhere?”
    â€œBack to my car?”
    â€œIt was parked on the street and so I gave Linda your keys. She said she’d have someone drop it off in the afternoon.”
    â€œThat’s okay then. I’ll take Theon’s Hummer.”
    â€œDo you want me to stay and help you?”
    I could have said yes but that would have torn Lana apart. She had to go back to Linda and the set. She had to do what she was told because that was how she had survived all these years.
    â€œNo, baby,” I said.
    â€œWhat are you going to do?”
    â€œWhat every girl does when she needs to think.”
    â€œHairdresser?”
    I smiled and she did too.
    Half an hour after