Slide (3 page)

Four

I grabbed her thin wrist, jerking her onto the bed. I was more than brutal, savage really; I didn’t even go through the preliminary of kissing the dumbfounded girl.

C
HARLES
W
ILLEFORD
,
The Woman Chaser

Max’s big plan: mug the chambermaid, use her five bucks to ride the Greyhound outa this shithole.

The maid knocked again, went, “
Hola
,” and Max was ready to rock ’n’ roll. He stuck his hand under his wife-beater like a concealed gun, opened the door, and went, “
Hola
right back atcha, sweetheart.” Then he took a closer look, saw a young smiling pregnant girl holding a stack of towels, and he couldn’t go through with it. What was he gonna do, roll some knocked-up Spanish broad for her last
pesetas
? What kind of guy was he? Okay, okay, he was desperate, but come on.

He took the hand out of his shirt, said, “Sorry, s
eñorita
, it was just a joke,
Avril
fools,” and slammed the door in her face.

What the fuck was he gonna do now? He still needed a way out of this mess. If he had to spend any more time in Alabama his brain would start to erode, he’d become as stupid as that kid at the desk. Next thing, he’d be eyeing sheep.

Okay,
he thought
, Who can I call? Who can bail me out?

He couldn’t think of a single name and, at some point, passed out.

When he woke up, his head was splitting, felt like it was falling off. Then, he realized that was because it
was
falling off. Well, off the bed anyway. Not really, but he was lying on his back, with his head at the foot of the bed, his mouth sagging, like he was doing a backwards, upside-down blow job scene in a porn movie.

He called his bank in New York. He was surprised to find out he only had $632 to his name. How the hell’d that happen? He thought he’d had two grand last time he checked. He arranged to have money wired but since it was Saturday and because he was no longer a preferred client—what the fuck?—he would have to wait until Monday morning before the money arrived.

This was crazy—how would he survive two more days in Robertsdale? He needed food and more booze, not necessarily in that order.

He left the room, headed back to the motel’s office. The sun was as bright as car headlights shining directly in his face. Did the sun, like, ever set in the south?

The blond kid at the desk was on the phone again. Max had to wait till he was off, but this time he had to be polite about it—after all, the kid could be his meal ticket.

When the kid ended the call, Max offered his widest, most congenial smile, and said, “I have a bit of a...um...er...um...problem.”

Max let the smile linger and then realized the kid was looking at him in a weird way. Max was clueless for a few seconds, wondering if staring was another side effect of the kid’s mental disorder, and then realized it was because of the missing tooth.

“Oh, yeah,” Max said. “Cap fell out last night. Fucking dentist. When I get back to the city, his ass is so fired.”

Max continued smiling.

The kid went, “So how can I help you, sir?”

Southerners, they were so goddamn polite. You can stick a knife in a guy’s back and he’d go,
Thank you, sir. Have a good day now, hear?

“Yeah, well, I seem to’ve, um, er, lost my wallet. Not my wallet itself—I still have that five-dollar piece of shit. I’m talking about what was inside it—the cash, credit cards. You know, my money.”

“Sorry to hear that, sir.”

Sure he was.

“So I was just curious,” Max said, “did I happen to leave a credit card with y’all at the desk?”

That was the way, slip in “y’alls” and Southern-speak whenever possible. Max wanted to show the kid that deep down, despite all their differences—like level of intellect, etcetera—they were one and the same.

“No, actually, sir, you’re all paid up.”

What the fuck? Max never, ever paid for anything in advance. He almost shit himself—literally. He cut a nasty booze-fart then asked, “What?”

“The Chinese guy paid for your room, up front in cash, sir.”

The kid was smiling, like he knew. But knew what?

“Chinese guy?” Max said. “What Chinese guy?”

“He seemed like a friend of yours. He had his arm around you.”

The kid gave another knowing, smirking look.

Max remembered, when he’d woken up, feeling some pain in his rectum. He’d thought,
hemorrhoids
? But was it possible that....

Oh, God, Max didn’t even want to go there. If this wasn’t a wake-up call he didn’t know what was. From now on, no more mixing Scotch and vodka. He had to draw a line somewhere, right? And didn’t Chinese, like, wear off fast? Five minutes later, you wanted more? Holy shit.

“Whatever, whatever,” Max said. “So the room’s paid through the weekend, right?”

“No, actually, sir, you were supposed to check out today. The Chinese guy—that’s right, said his name was Bruce. Yeah, he took off early this morning.”

Max was thinking,
Bruce!
Fuck, if that wasn’t a gay name, what was? Wait, Bruce Lee wasn’t gay. He’d had a kid anyway. And Bruce and Demi had had a whole litter, hadn’t they? There was still hope.

“Look, here’s the bottom line,” Max said. “I don’t have any money, and I won’t have any money till Monday morning. So what I need you to do is front me.”

“Sir, we can’t—”

“Look at me, kid. Understand who you’re dealing with. I’m Maximilian Fisher. I’m a man of wealth and fame.”

The kid looked confused. Shit, the missing tooth, the dirty wife-beater, and the farting wasn’t helping Max’s cause.

Max went, “You’re not superficial, are you...sorry, what’s your name?”

“Kyle,” the kid said. “My mom and dad, they were big
Twin Peaks
fans.”

Not in the mood to hear the kid’s life story, Max said, “Okay, okay Kyle...Look, what I need y’all to do right now is look beyond what you see in front of you. Ignore appearances, ignore perceptions.” Max realized he was using big words; he had to dumb it down, keep it to one or two syllables, or the kid would get confused. Max went, “Just because I don’t look rich, don’t mean I ain’t.” Shit, that was too dumb. He didn’t want to offend the moron. Bringing the level of conversation back up, Max said, “Look, Kyle, I’ve dabbled in Buddhism, okay? I’m not a monk or anything like that, but I meditate, get into myself, you know? And what I’ve learned from my studies, I mean the bottom line of all of it, is that the real world is bullshit, it doesn’t even exist. What really exists is what doesn’t exist at all—the inner self. So let’s talk to each other, one inner self to the other here and—”

“Sorry, Mr. Fisher, I can’t front you on the room.”

Fuck Buddhism. Max wanted to strangle the dumb hick.

“You have Web access at this shithole?” Max asked.

“Yep, we sure do,” Kyle said, “but—”

“Lemme show you a thing or two,” Max said.

Max got behind the desk and went online. Although his company, NetWorld, had gone belly-up, the Website was still live. When Kyle saw the picture of Max sitting on the red Porsche with the two D-cup blond bimbos alongside him, below the company slogan
NETWORLD OR BUST
, his eyes nearly left their sockets.

“You like those knockers, huh?” Max said.

“Yes, sir, I sure do but—”

“Would you like to meet these girls?”

Long pause, then Kyle asked, “Are they here?”

“No, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Max said. “Next time I’m in Alabama, I’ll bring Cindy and Bambi with me, and you can take them up to a room with you, and spend the whole weekend banging their brains out. How’d y’all like that, Kyle?”

“That would be pretty nice,” Kyle said. “But when y’all planning to be in Robertsdale again?”

Thinking, When fucking hell freezes, Max said, “Next weekend. I’m here on business and I’ll bring the girls with me. What do you say?”

Kyle stared at the monitor for a while longer—did Max see drool? The kid had probably never met a girl outside of church.

Finally Kyle got a hold of himself, said, “Okay, sir. Sounds cool.”

Max shook Kyle’s hand firmly, sealing the deal. Then Max felt his stomach rumble—the mini-mart on the other side of the office, with the Cheez Whiz and the Pringles and the cans of Bud—especially the cans of Bud—was looking mighty good.

“I’ll tell you what, Kyle,” Max said. “How about we add a little rider to our deal? Cindy has a twin sister, Lolita, looks exactly like her except her garbanzos are a cup size larger. Lolita loves Southern guys. How about I toss Lolita into the mix and you let me raid the mini-mart this weekend?”

The prospect of three girls at once was too much for Kyle. He looked like he was going to have a stroke, or an orgasm, or
something
massive and, yep, that was drool all right.

He went, “G-g-go on. You can take all the food you want, Mr. Maximilian, sir.”

Max went up to his room with a few six-packs of Bud and munchies to last the weekend. He had never been a beer man—the low alcohol content didn’t work for him—but as he began to guzzle the brews he found after nine or ten he had a pretty good buzz going. Then he kept up a “maintenance level” of one or two an hour, like he was on alcohol cruise control.

In New York, he’d been eating healthy—well, trying anyway. He had a bad heart; even with Lipitor, his cholesterol was a mess and when was the last time he’d taken Lipitor? The Pop-Tarts alone were probably clogging the shit out of his arteries, but, Eh, the beer was cleaning ’em out. Checks and balances, right? You take some shit, then you wash it down with good vibes. Max was so blasted he had no idea what the fuck any of this meant but, hell, he’d drink to that.

Sometime Friday night, Max passed out. When he woke up on Saturday—unless he’d missed a day, not exactly beyond the realm of possibility—he started drinking again. The routine was getting was old fast, but unless he went sober, he had to keep the brews flowing.

On Sunday night, Max ran out of munchies. He went down to the office, saw the kid at the desk with some black guy. He looked like a gangbanger, with the dreadlocks or whatever, wearing a Denver Nuggets jersey with
SPREWELL
8 on the back, and a black stocking on his head. What was up with that anyway? Next thing, they’d be walking around with garters around their necks.

Kyle and the black guy were having a hushed conversation but stopped talking when Max came in. The black guy glared at Max, looking like he wanted to pull out his piece and blow him away. Kyle looked like he was shitting bricks.

“I’ll check you later,” Kyle said to the black guy, and the guy said, “Yeah, whatever,” and walked by Max, bumping into him hard with his shoulder, going, “ ’Scuse me,” but not like he meant it.

When the black guy was gone, Kyle said to Max, “If you want more Budweiser you can go ’head and take it.”

Max, toasted but still plenty with it, went, “What’re you doing, making drug deals down here?” He asked it as a joke, but going by the kid’s reaction he realized he’d hit the nail on the head. Fuck, Kyle the slow-talking church boy was a dealer. Who would’ve thought?

“N-n-no, sir,” he said, shitting some more bricks. “He’s just an, um, old friend’a mine from, uh, high school.”

“Don’t worry,” Max said, “I’m not a fucking narc. C’mon, gimme a break, kid—wise up. If I was a fuckin’ cop would I really be hanging out here, OD’ing on Bud and Cheez Whiz? I mean, going undercover is one thing, but would I torture myself to make a bust? So what kind of shit you dealing? Weed, sense, bud, blow?”

Yeah, that was the way—use all the hip lingo to show the kid he was streetwise,
a player
.

Kyle smiled, said, “Naw, it’s not like that, Mr. Maximilian. That there was just my friend, Darnell, and me and Darnell, we was just—”

“Look, you don’t gotta bullshit me, all right?” Max said. “Truth is, I’ve got some dealing experience myself. In seventh grade, I dealt weed, shrooms, and speed. How do you think I got to be such a respected businessman? The drug business is just like any other business. You have a product, you have a customer, and you have margins. I was growing the shit in my closet. Had a tree up to the ceiling, and got some serious bud off it. So you don’t have to beat around the bush with me, kid—no pun intended.”

Max laughed. Man, he was on fire tonight. Fuckin’ smoking. That old Bud, maybe it cleaned out the debris, let his razor-sharp mind get cooking.

Kyle stared at Max for a while, then said, “Can I pat you down?”

“Ah, Jesus Christ,” Max said. Then, realizing the kid wasn’t joking, went, “Go ’head, go ’head.”

Kyle frisked Max, doing it so slow Max started to wonder, Is this kid from Brokeback Mountain or what?

Finally, satisfied Max wasn’t a narc, Kyle said, “It was crack, sir.”

Max went, “Crack? You’re shitting me. Didn’t that go out in the nineties?”

“You’d be surprised,” the kid said. “There’s still a good market for it. A niche market, but still.”

Listen to this kid,
niche market
. Like he was on goddamn CNBC.

“You using or selling?” Max asked.

Kyle hesitated, as if wondering, Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to divulge he was involved in crack deals to a total stranger, even if that total stranger wasn’t a narc. Then, looking like he was thinking
Well, told him this much—mise well tell him the rest
, Kyle said, “Selling.”

Kyle a crack dealer! Max was beside himself, almost started laughing. He remembered Angela had had a whole other spin on
crack
—freaking mick-speak. Over there, they spelled it
craic
, which meant “party on” or some shit. But why was he thinking about that bitch now?

The kid was asking, “You want to check some out?”

Max had done coke
mucho
times before. Fuck, he’d spent half the eighties at Studio 54 and the Palladium, snorting mountains of blow. But he had enough trouble in his life. He didn’t need a goddamn crack habit.