Slide (4 page)

“What do I look like, some low-rent nigger?”

God, had he said that out loud? Hello, filter, where are you? Thank God Darnell wasn’t around to hear that one.

“I mean negro,” Max said. “I mean person of colored. What-the-fuck-ever.”

“Actually,” Kyle said, “That attitude is a misperception.”

“What is?” Max asked, surprised Kyle knew such a big word. Four syllables—Jesus.

“That African-Americans make up the majority of crack users,” Kyle said. “My clientele is all races. Heck, I’m white and I smoke it.”

Kyle on crack. This Max had to see.

Max said, “This I have to see.”

“You’re already seein’ it,” Kyle said. “I was basin’ with Darnell about ten minutes ago.”

Max knew Kyle wasn’t fucking with him, but he didn’t get it. Weren’t crackheads supposed to talk fast? This kid sounded like Gomer Fucking Pyle. If this was the way he spoke on crack, Max couldn’t imagine how slow his brain worked normally.

Maybe this crack wasn’t as powerful as they said it was. Maybe it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

“Cook me up some of your shit,” Max said.

Keeping his tone casual, like he was one cool dude. Like whatever you had, bring it on.

Kyle hung the
BE BACK IN FIVE MINUTES
sign on the door and took Max to the back room. As Kyle prepared “the rock,” he was telling Max all about his dealing business, how he was taking in a grand a weekend and he only worked at the motel so his parents—“I was raised by good ol’ God-fearin’ Christians”—would think he was holding down a decent job. Max was feeling something he thought he’d forgotten, that elusive goddess—hope. If Kyle could pull down a grand a week as a crack dealer, imagine what a savvy city slicker like Max Fisher could rake in. Was the sky the limit or what?

The pipe was ready. Max took it, then hesitated, wondering if this was such a great idea. After all, he had an addictive personality. Then he thought, C’mon, how was he gonna endorse the product if he couldn’t road test it? You gotta try it before you recommend it. That was the first law of the American corporate bible, right?

Max inhaled. A few seconds later he was fucking flying, like he was fucking God. Even better—like he could kick God’s ass.

“This shit is good,” Max said.

Man, it was great to finally crawl out of the hole, to have that old Max Fisher energy back. Yeah, get all that Bud outa there and put the rock in its place. Talk about wake-up calls. This was the mother of all wake-up calls. Fuck the ashrams and Om sessions—the secret to true enlightenment was a crack pipe. Man, Max’s brain was working as fast as it could. Yeah, he could probably go on the wagon for three weeks and he would’ve still failed a sobriety, but he was thinking one thing—he could make a fortune with this shit.

Max said frantically, “Can Darnell mule this shit up to me in the city? Well, can he or can’t he? Answer the goddamn question.”

Kyle started to answer, but Max couldn’t wait all day for the slow fuck.

Max went, “Say hello to your new business partner,” then brought the pipe back up to his lips and took another hit of enlightenment.

Five

He decided to let it slide, let the shades do the talking, like rock stars did.

K
EN
B
RUEN AND
J
ASON
S
TARR
,
Bust

Slide was getting his shit together. He had his kidnap victim, Angela, tied up in bed, and now he needed some—what did the brothers call it? Oh, yeah,
mo...ti...vation.
Get that Harlem laid-back emphasis going on.

Angela had told him about the guy in the River Inn, calling her a hooker,
dissing her
. Thing was, Slide hadn’t offed anyone for, like, eons. What had it been, a week? And he especially hadn’t done somebody for, you know, fun. He’d done the last schmucks for cash, but when had he done one for the sheer heat, the rush, that fucking adrenaline gig? That was what he was talking about, brother.

He got his carpet cutter out, honed the edge. The Guards stopped you, you went, “Hey man, I’m a carpet layer, tools of the trade.” That he’d never laid anything but broads was beside the point.

He left a note for Angie, after handcuffing her to the bed. Went:

Babe

     T.C.B.

          El.

In the car, the thought struck him, Would she know that El was the King and that T.C.B. was, like, his mantra?

Sure, for fook’s sake. She was a Yank, had to know all that shit.

He got to the River Inn and sure enough, a punk at the counter, sneer in place.

Slide asked, “Got a room, mate?” Using his English accent.

Slide knew if you wanted to make them record books, you better have a shiteload of talents, mimicry for one. The Brit was simple, just act like you had a lump of coal in yer mouth and act like a complete prick. Piece of cake, or rather, piece of crumpet. Jolly fooking hockey sticks.

That Slide was shite at accents never occurred to him.

The counter guy stared at him, as if thinking,
What’s with this wanker?
Asked with a smirk, “You got twenty Euro?”

Slide was delighted. The guy was even better than he hoped—he was giving mouth.

Deciding to fuck with him, Slide adopted a timid voice, went, “Why?”

The guy, not hiding his disdain at all now, said, “You got twenty Euro, I might have a room.”

Slide took a quick look around. Coast was clear and, best, no CTTV. What’d you expect, the place was a kip.

He plopped a wad of crumpled notes onto the counter, mumbled, “Is that enough for ya?”

The guy sighed—he could have sighed for Ireland—and leaned down to sort the notes.

Slide grabbed the mother by his lanky hair, going, “Jeez, you ever hear of shampoo?” and then slit his throat from left to right. He stepped back, there was always a geyser. Sure enough, here it came—fucking fountain of the red stuff,
whoosh
, there she blew. Slide never ceased to be struck with admiration by the pure power of the splurt.

The guy was gargling, emitting strangled moans, and Slide said, “Was gonna let it slide, know what I mean? Running yer mouth there, mate. Well, let’s fix that. You think?”

He took off the guy’s lips. It took a while—harder than you’d think to slice evenly. Sometimes you got gum—not chewing gum, the other kind. Though sometimes you got chewing gum too.

Slide took the fuck’s wallet. It had, like, fifteen Euro and a photo of a dark-haired woman. Slide kept that. Figured he’d show it to some chick sometime, say the girl in the photo was his childhood sweetheart who broke his heart. Always good for a pity fuck, right?

He was outa there, the lips in his jacket. For a moment, he imagined the lips talking, giving it large. He had such a hard-on, couldn’t wait to ride Angela with the handcuffs. Then, mid-orgasm,
hers
, he’d kiss her with the guy’s lips, go, “No lip from you now.”

She’d get a kick outa that.

Six

It started as kind of a joke, and then it wasn’t funny anymore because money became involved. Deep down, nothing about money is funny.

C
HARLES
W
ILLEFORD
,
The Shark-Infested Custard

Angela tried to open her eyes, couldn’t see, and thought,
Jaysus, have I gone blind
? Or, wait, it was the mascara glued solid. She knew she always overdid the goo, an echo back to her brief stint as a goth chick. But no, this was, like, what, her eyes were covered?

And what the hell was up with her right hand, like it was suspended, and when she pulled, she felt metal grate on her wrist. She managed to sit up and, with her left hand, tore off the covering on her eyes. A blindfold? What the fuck? Then it came flooding back.

Slide, the demented bastard, telling her blindfolds were a huge kick and pouring vast amounts of Jameson down her throat, not like she was fighting it. A year of near poverty in Dublin, was she going to turn down some decent hooch? Yeah, right.

But, Jesus, she needed to pee and now.

Then she saw that the handcuff on her right wrist was attached to the bar above the bed. She yanked at it and it chaffed her wrist, probably tore off some skin. She didn’t remember agreeing to that kink.

Or had she?

She did remember, after the first time, when he took her fast, doggy-style—that was nice—they did shots of Jameson. Then he suggested another go and, Jaysus, it was even better the second time—hot, heavy, fevered and wild. It had been a while since she’d lost control like that—not since her old boyfriend, Dillon. Dillon had turned out to be a raging psycho but, boy, he knew how to screw.

Slide, it seemed, had a little Dillon in him. She vaguely recall him shouting, “Ride me yah bitch, go on yah wild thing!”

The Irish male—they might not be subtle but, Christ, they sure were vocal. When he came, she felt a delicious frisson, and then he roared, as if he was dying, “Ah sweet mother ah fook me!....Yah hoor’s ghost!....Aw bollix, I love yah!....Yah filthy cunt!” Celtic terms of endearment, right?

And the other thing, every one of them, when they had an orgasm, screamed not blue murder but green mothers. Angela shuddered, realizing that the Irish matriarch wasn’t exactly what she wanted to think about in the throes of a ferocious hangover.

She roared, “Slide, I want to be released now! Joke’s over and goddamn it, I need to pee. You hear me?”

She listened but, nope, no sign of the Irish fucker.

Then she had an epiphany—she no longer thought of her own self as Irish. How did that happen? She’d been raised in New York, in a Greek-Irish home where the Irish influence was the dominant theme. She knew more about the Boyos than the Yankees, and had bodhrans, spoons, accordions, all around the house. Oh, there’d been plenty of melancholy. Everything, we’re talking every single thing, was a tragedy. Her dad had always said, Give a mick lots of grief, pain, sorrow and he was as happy as a pig in shite. Maybe all that rain had something to do with it. They had to occupy themselves somehow so they spent their time pissing and moaning. And Jesus, could they moan.

“Slide, you fookin cunt bastard, I’ll have your eyes out, ye demented fool!”

Yep, her year in Dublin had literally robbed her of her Irish-ness all right. And she wasn’t the only one losing it—the whole fookin country wasn’t Irish anymore. Everybody spoke in bad American accents, wore Harvard or Knicks sweatshirts and watched
The OC, The Sopranos
,
Deadwood
, and
The Simpsons
. And, get this, on Sundays, Sky TV showed baseball! Irish guys who wouldn’t know their Mantle from their Aaron were talking about
stepping up to the base, second innings, pitchers, catchers
and the
World Series.
How fucked is that?

At a pub one night, Angela asked a baseball fan, “What happened to hurling and shillelaghs?” and the guy went, “Shut yer mouth, woman. Jeter’s batting.”

And, sin of sins, the guy was drinking Coors Light, for God’s sake, with a glass of water as a chaser, as if the shite wasn’t watered down enough already.

Truth was, Angela missed America. She wanted a real goddamn sandwich. In Ireland, they gave you slices of thin white bread. No rye, no whole wheat, no fookin pumpernickel. Then they added a shaving of something called
ham
and some sort of dead leaf they claimed was lettuce. Lettuce pray for fucking patience! She wanted to go home, get some meatballs and mashed potatoes, where you didn’t have to pay for a second shot of coffee, where a hero was a real sandwich and where people spoke real English.

“Slide, you cunt bastard!”

She’d had enough of the game, if that was what this was. She had to pee like hell, and Christ, she needed a hit of nicotine. Yeah, yeah, she’d started smoking again. How could she help it? Despite the ban in Ireland, it seemed the whole country huddled outside pubs, smoking their fool heads off. Then, one night, she’d learned the reason why. Some girl told her it was the new way to hook up—flirting with a smoke. Slirting or some shite they called it. Well, she’d been slirting her ass off and what good did it do her? She was half-drunk, chained naked to a bed in some cabin on the outskirts of Dublin, waiting for a man who was possibly deranged to come free her.

The cigs were on the table, tantalizingly out of reach. If Slide had done that deliberately, she’d cut his balls off. See if she wouldn’t.

She roared, “C’mon yah bollix, enough with the screwing around, like hello, game over?” And she figured she must still be a bit drunk as she added in a screech, “What’s a gal gotta do to get a drink around here?”

Then she heard a car pulling into the drive. A few moments later, there he was, and she launched, “Yah prick, yah storming major asshole, yah...”

From the tent in his pants, her tirade was turning him on and, guess what, she was a little heated her own self.

Then he was on her and they were at it like mad things—sweaty, perverted, debauched, and delighted.

Jesus, she was on fire, hollered, “Kiss me yah bollix!” and Slide slipped his hand into his pocket and then seemed to rub something onto his lips. She thought,
Chapstick now?

Then he was kissing her. Felt weird, kinda cold—was it some new kind of oral condom or something? And, fuck, she still had to mention the little item of her having, um, you know, herpes.

Before she could say anything, he whispered, “Lips to die for,”and he was between her legs again, giving it, as the Brits say,
large
.

God, she roared like a hyena. And, Jesus, those lips—it was like Angelina Jolie was going down on her.

When he’d finally surfaced, he tossed something into the litter bin, said, “Loose lips sink ships.”

The fuck was he on about? He got out of bed and she admired his bod. Then he was uncuffing her and she finally got to have that pee. When she returned, he had two cigs lighted and there was a glint in his eye. If she didn’t know better, she’d have suspected he wanted to burn her. Yeah, like she was going to let that happen. In New York, she’d dated a married Puerto Rican guy for a while. Not one of her better choices in men but, hey, he looked kind of like Ricky Martin. Okay, in the right light, from the right angle, with beer goggles, but she’d been in a slump with the guys. One night he whispered to her in a sexy Latino tone, “You wanna golden shower, baby.” Not as a question, but as if saying, You’re getting a golden shower and now. Christ, she was so innocent then. She thought they’d cover themselves in gold leaf or something, hop in the shower and, like, well, maybe lick it off each other. You know, something romantic. So imagine her shock when he’d started pissing on her. She went along with it—what the hell?—but when he broke the news about his family in San Juan she kicked him right in the nuts, shouted, “You won’t be pissing, golden or otherwise, for a Spanish month, yeh bastard!”

If Slide tried to burn her, God help him.

But, no, he let her take one of the cigs. As she took a long drag of it, he said, “Let’s go out, have a jar, I want to run something by you.”

She thought,
The romantic fool, is it marriage
? She knew she’d been good in bed, but was she
that
good? She’d only known him what, a few hours, but, hell, she wasn’t about to let an opportunity like this slip away. She didn’t want to be one of those single women in their forties who look back at their lives, regretting the one that got away. Though she had some, well, concerns about Slide, she had a gut feeling that he was a good man, and would make a wonderful father. Her gut feelings had rarely been right, but she figured, bad luck didn’t last forever, right?

The place was called the Touchdown Bar and Grill. As they got out of the car, Angela went, “Jeez, how Irish is that?”

A huge sign inside proclaimed,
KARAOKE TONIGHT
, and she wondered, Were they, like, trying to scare business away?

The place was hopping—three deep at the bar and all shouting for Bud Light, Corona, and Miller.

On the stage, a middle aged woman, looking like a very poor man’s Desperate Housewife, was massacring “I Will Survive.”

Angela shouted at the stage, “Not if you don’t stop that singing, you won’t!”

When the woman got to the part about how she was going to walk out the door, Angela said, “You and me both, lady,” and then she said to Slide, “I need some air. There’s a pub down the road, how about we go there instead?”

Slide wasn’t keen but she rubbed his crotch, purred, “If staying here is what you want, then, okay.”

She was wondering, Does he have a ring? If he did, it better be a fookin’ diamond—a big one. And if he was the typical Irishman and tried to propose to her with a Claddagh ring, Lord help him.

Slide led her through the crowd, going, “Lady coming through.”

They found a space at the bar, ordered large Bushmills with Guinness chasers.

She whined, “Don’t I get to choose my own drink?”

He shoved her glasses at her, said, “You have what I have.”

Mr. Taking Command, but she liked it.

A huge painting of—what else?—a baseball player hung on the wall and Slide sneered, “I see your point about this baseball shite, babe. What do we know about American sport?”

Without thinking, Angela corrected, “
Sports
. We say American
sports
.”

Slide gave her a look that shouted,
Never correct my American again, ever
.

Then he toasted, “Here’s looking at you, kiddo.”

She was going to correct him, go, It’s
kid
, but had a feeling she’d better keep her mouth shut.

They did a few more of The Bush and that sucker slid on down so easy, packed its own potent wallop. Next thing, Slide was on stage, doing “My Way,” the anthem of macho losers the world over. He wasn’t awful but, then again, anything was a relief after having to listen to that dame sing disco.

Angela felt eyes on hers and saw a well-dressed guy smiling at her. She noticed the gold Rolex and the deep tan. Yeah, he was a player. And he had great teeth. In Ireland, that translated as, Cash and lots of it.

In the back of her mind, she was already thinking,
Slide? Slide who?

Then Slide was back, asking, “Did you like my singing?”

She gushed, “God, it was beautiful, you could make a career of it.”

Dumb fuck believed her too. Was there one man on the goddamn planet who if you told him he was the greatest, didn’t buy it?

He gave a
Gee shucks
almost shy grin, said, “Remind me to do ‘Stairway to Heaven’ for you, I improvise all the instruments too.”

She suppressed a shudder, went, “I can hardly wait.”

Slide got a six-pack to go and they were in the parking lot, his hands all over her.

Then they heard, “Hey, wait up,” and saw the Rolex guy swaggering over.

“Hey, where you dudes headed?”

Dudes
, with a thick Irish accent.

Slide thumbed a bottle from the six, asked, “Like a brew, dude?” Then he smashed the bottle on the car, put the jagged shards into the guy’s face.

Grinding the bottle in, he went, “There you go, dude, it’s Miller time.”

Then he took the guy’s wallet and Rolex and shouted to Angela, “Get in the car, we’re so outa here. You drive, baby.”

Looking at the wailing guy trying to pull the bottle out of his face, she said, “But, Slide, why did you have to—”

“I said get in the fookin’ car and drive, woman.”

Angela got in. It took her a moment to figure out the gears, as she was accustomed to automatic. But by luck more than skill she got the thing in gear and got out of there, fast.

Slide was going through the guy’s wallet, shouting, “Jesus wept, there is a god, there’s a shitpile of cash in here, this bastard was seriously carrying, you know what this means, babe?”

She knew what it meant—her new boyfriend was seriously deranged. The casual violence, the way he’d chopped down the poor guy. There was something romantic about it, but still.

She said, “Did you have to, you know, go so far?”

Slide gave her a mega smile, crooned, “I did it my way.”

Slide was modeling the Rolex, turning it on his wrist, letting the light bounce off of it. Angela was thinking
, So, how come you get the watch? You wanna tell me that?

But Slide was high all right—wired on the blood and the violence, pacing the room, his eyes neon lit with frenzy. Once again, he was seriously reminding Angela of Dillon, that psycho poet nut job, but it was possible that Slide was even more out there, really way perched on the precipice.

Now he was speaking, the words spilling over themselves, tumbling out like floods of rap dementia, going, “Babe, we’re a team, we’re on a hot streak and we should keep the level up and I have just the plan to get us some serious wedge, how do you feel about kidnapping?”

And she thought, Kidnapping, another term for marriage without the rings.

She said, “Wait, you mean how do I feel about you kidnapping me?”