Who is Laura from Factotum and what is their importance?

A once beautiful blonde whom Henry Chinaski meets in a Los Angeles bar, Laura has retained long, lovely legs and a firm body, but is obviously an alcoholic. She accepts drinks from Henry until he goes broke, and then takes him to a store to stock his room with liquor, beer, cigarettes, chips, nuts, alka-seltzer, and a good cigar, all charged to Wilbur Oxnard's account. As they lie in bed, Laura worries about crazy men who dismember or disfigure girls they pick up. Henry is inside her before he gets around to asking her name. Laura takes Henry to the peeling, two-story, white house of millionaire "Willie" Oxnard, and introduces him to the affluent, hard-drinking rich set. She naively warns Henry not to go too far as he is "warming" her friends aboard Willie's yacht. The good times end when Willie dies.