Phantom Angel by David Handler Read Free Book Online Page A

bed in a way that I guess was meant to be artful. The photos were no more revealing than anything you could see in Playboy .
    â€œShe’s some little sweetie, isn’t she?” Philly Joe’s tongue flicked over his lips in a most unappetizing way. “And all natural, too. Those boobies are a hundred percent real.”
    The second photo gallery had been shot on the deck of a sailboat at sea. The clear sky and sparkling water were blue. The deck was white. And Boso was oiled up and golden—an All-American dream girl captured in an array of poses that managed to not only demonstrate how limber she was but to offer a dozen different unobstructed views of her hairless hoo-hoo.
    Philly Joe sighed contentedly. “Like I said, it’s a genuine rosebud.”
    My eyes scanned the boat for a name or registry, but I found nothing. I also studied the coastline in the distant background. It looked vaguely familiar. “Can I see the video now?”
    It was brief, less than two minutes long. Boso was stretched out in a lounge chair applying baby oil to her naked self, rubbing it slowly and seductively over her small breasts and flat stomach. The lounge chair was parked on the balcony of a high-rise hotel or apartment building. There was a planter box behind her and a sliding glass door next to her. She was wearing a pair of mirrored sunglasses, which interested me greatly.
    â€œCan you e-mail me the links to all of those, Philly Joe?”
    â€œOn their way as we speak,” he assured me, tapping away.
    â€œTell me about these good girl Web sites. Where do they originate from?”
    â€œProbably some guy’s basement in Croatia,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “A lot of these girls are from the former Soviet Republics.”
    â€œThis one’s from the republic of Louisiana.”
    â€œReally? We have a Louisiana right here in the good old … Oh, you’re pulling my pud, aren’t you, you little wisenheimer.”
    â€œWhat’s in it for the guys who run these sites? If you can access this stuff with a click, I mean.”
    â€œWhat we just looked at is considered promo material. They’re hoping you’ll ante up thirty-nine dollars a month for membership in their Gold Club or Premiere Club or whatever the hell they’re calling it. That gets you access to live streaming webcam videos and private online chats. Private sex shows, too, or so they promise.”
    â€œYou’ve never antied up?”
    â€œBenji, I’ll be seventy years old in a few weeks. There’s more free porn available on the Internet than a man my age can shake his stick at, you should pardon the expression.” Philly Joe twitched his nose at me again. “Boso’s a tasty little piece, my young friend. It’s only a matter of time before she loses her virginity. They’ll have to turn her out. Won’t be able to help themselves.”
    â€œI know that.” I set four fifty-dollar bills down on the table. “Are you still going on auditions?”
    â€œAre you kidding? I’ll still be going on auditions when I’m on life support. Hey, I hear they may be reviving The Odd Couple . Don’t you think I’d be a perfect Felix?”
    â€œI think you could play the hell out of Felix.”
    â€œDoc Simon liked my work, you know. That’s what he said to me when I was in his show. He said ‘I really like your work, son.’ Did I ever tell you that?”
    Honestly? He’d told me that three times. This made four. The old man clung to the playwright’s forty-five-year-old compliment like it was a life raft. But I wasn’t about to take it away from him. Nope, not me. “You never did, Philly Joe,” I said. “That’s a hell of a thing.”
    â€œA hell of a thing,” he agreed, beaming at me as I went out the door and left him there.
    *   *   *
    â€œMORRIE FRANKEL HAS PHONED