Slide (7 page)

He took off his boxers and settled back on the couch. Shut off Pacino, put on Snoop Dog for some
mood
.

His stomach rumbled, all that goddamn sushi. Fuck the diet food, an
hombre
like him needed some goddamn calories. He could see a porterhouse steak, mashed potatoes, mountain of gravy and some heavy wedge of cheesecake to top it off. Needed some meat on his bones to deal with the
Cubanos
.

Felicia came into the living room. Looked great topless but, man, that ass.

She went, “You ready for me, baby?”

Time for a little
Scarface
. Max, in his best Tony Montana, went, “Okay, fuck me, how’s ’at?”

Eight

Chico took a bloody baggie out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Bock.

“What’s this?”

Chico laughed. “A bonus. Remember the tall one, I cut that out of his asshole.”

C
HARLES
W
ILLEFORD
,
The Way We Die Now

Slide was waiting at the bottom of Grafton Street. He looked around, making sure no one was in sight, then ducked into the alley that runs alongside the rear entrance to Lily’s Bordello.
Lily’s!
The hottest venue in Dublin, where Bono held court and any celebrity just had to show up. You did a gig in Dublin, it was
de rigeur
to hit Lily’s after. Slide had heard that the Stones were in town and he knew those geriatric bastards would have to show up at Lily’s after their gig.

Slide muttered, “You better fooking believe it.”

His plan, half baked as usual, was to nab Keif—Keith Richards. Figured Mick had too big a posse but Keith—yeah, he was getable. This alleyway, with the new smoking ban in force everywhere, was where the celebs nipped down for a hit of the nicotine or weed or what-the-fook-ever they were inhaling. Keith, he’d be first down, grab his own self some major drag of some substance, and Slide would be waiting. He’d grab him fast, get the fook outa Dodge.

Jaysus, how much would the Stones pay to get the Keifer back? Slide’s mind boggled at the prospect of, like, millions! Then fecking Mick Jagger would bankroll his record-breaking killing spree. Satisfaction that.

The side door opened and in the half-light he saw a thin figure, leather jacket, shades, white hair, skinny as a rodent, lined face. Shit, it looked like someone took a cookie cutter and drew deep wedges on his cheeks.

Slide was momentarily taken from left field, thinking,
Has to be Keifer
.

They say the camera adds twenty pounds, so it figured in person he’d look damn near anorexic. Or
damn near dead
was more like it. Sure enough, Slide heard a click of a Zippo, that was the clincher. Keith would definitely be a Zippo kind of dude.

Slide pulled the black sack from his jacket, moved like a shark, had the bag over the guy’s head and shoulders and chest in jig time. But was he breathing in too much pot smoke or something, or did the guy go, “The fook you doing?”

Keith with an Irish accent? What the fook? That couldn’t be right. But, yeah, probably being in Dublin, the Keifer figured to go native.

The guy was going, “The fecking cigarette has burned me lip.”

Slide nearly said,
You’re half in the bag
. Instead, let the crowbar do the talking—walloped the fuck on the head and that’s all she wrote. He bundled the guy over his shoulder—the guy weighed, what, seven stone?—and started away, when the side door opened again.

“Ar, bollix,” Slide muttered as he ducked with Keifer behind some leaking bags of garbage and almost passed out from the stench. Not of the rubbish—of Keifer. How much cologne was the dude wearing? Did all rock stars drench themselves in that shite? Even through the sack the guy reeked to bloody high heaven. No wonder Mick got all the babes.

The door opened and closed—the coast was clear. He didn’t see anyone else till, at the top of the alley, a bouncer looked over.

Slide said, “Garbage run.” To hear the music papers tell it, the Stones had been rubbish for the last decade, right?

Slide thought he was fooked, but the bouncer was distracted by the arrival of a white limo. Slide slipped past him, moving towards his car, parked on Nassau Street.

He threw the guy in the front seat, buckled him in, and burned rubber outa there.

Outside the city limits, he pulled into a lay by. He wanted to see the famous guitarist up close. But then, pulling the sack off the man’s head, he echoed his favorite words of James Joyce, going “Aw shite...shite and onions.”

Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t Keith Richards. He was in his fifties, thick lips, with a scar to the right of his mouth, a button nose and blue eyes. The guy had to be fooking Irish.

The guy came to, seemed completely lost for a while. Then he focused, looked at Slide, and asked, “What the hell is going on?”

Slide nearly whined, “You’re not Keith Richards?”

The guy gave a laugh, no humor in it, a sound that seemed to reflect a life where shite happened often and always.

The guy went, “Don’t you know me?”

Slide didn’t, said, “I don’t.”

The guy sighed, as in
Give me patience Lord
, then said, “I’m a crime writer.”

“A what?”

“A crime writer. I’ve won the Macavity for—”

Slide shut him off, roared, “Ary Christ, shut the fook up or I’ll remove all your fookin’ cavities and your tonsils too! Are you somebody? Anyone give a damn about you?”

The guy looked crestfallen, stammered, “I-I got starred reviews in
Publishers Weekly
and
Booklist
...well, maybe I caught them on an off day b-but—”

Slide gave him a slap in the mouth, said, “I don’t want to hear about your bloody career. I want to hear somebody will pay cash, lots of cash to have you back.”

The guy rubbed his face—poor fuck looked like he’d been beaten and hard, many times—and went, “Maybe my agent....” The bastard paused, reached in his jacket and took out a pack of Major and the Zippo. He lit up and asked, “Got any Jameson?”

Slide was suddenly thrown into that total rage that sometimes just snuck up on him. He said, “Shut the fuck up. I need to think and I need you to shut the hell up, can you do that?”

The writer couldn’t. Began to list the titles of his books and how he’d once been nominated for an Oscar, or Edgar, or some other odd name, and how the U.K. had a hard-on for him.

Slide said, “I’m gonna let it slide, hear?”

But a moment later he had the crowbar in his hand and was beating the bejaysus outa him.

The thin fook was going, “I wrote a book with another guy. Maybe he can—”

But he never got to finish as Slide lashed the crowbar into his teeth, then took out the bastard’s left eye with an almighty swing. “Keep yer eye on the main chance,” he muttered.

Then Slide looked up to see a family in a nearby car, looking on in horror.

Slide panicked. He opened the door, kicked the body out, and went, “That should sell some books.” Then he drove off like your proverbial bat out of hell.

Looking in the rearview, with the pedal to the floor, Slide knew one thing—the kidnapping biz in Ireland had gone bust. He and Angela were going to have to get the fook out of the country, and fast.

Nine

One day he told me he wasn’t going to eat meat anymore because of mad cow disease. I said, “Ron, you’re mad already, that’s why you’re locked up in Broadmoor.”

K
ATE
K
RAY, WIFE OF
R
ONNIE
K
RAY

Felicia didn’t know how much more Max Fisher she could take. Lettting him touch her—shit, that was the easy part—it was everything else about the man that was driving her crazy.

At first she thought it was gonna be easy. She was sick of dancing anyway, was looking into doing something else. Thought maybe she’d be an escort. She’d do it high end cause, damn, she knew girls didn’t have half her ass making a thousand a night. Or maybe she’d get back into pornos. She used to do that shit, back in the nineties. But she was thirty-six now and knew if she tried to get back into films them fat white-ass producer motherfuckers with the cigars hanging in their mouths like big-ass dicks would tell her she was too old, too fat, too this, too that. She’d want to say to them, Look who’s talking about fat, bunch of hairy, sweatin’, beer-gut assholes can’t even bend down to tie their own damn shoelaces. Then they’d be going on, telling her her tits were hangin’ too low and she needed more surgery. Yeah, like 44 double-E’s wasn’t enough. Shit. So then, after she went on, got all her surgery, lost the damn weight, she’d have to give ’em blow jobs, maybe fuck ’em too. Then maybe they’d say, “Sorry, baby, you ain’t what we lookin’ for.” Or, if she got
lucky
, they’d give her a role. Yeah, but not in the good movies, like the ones Jenna Jameson gets in. No, she’d have to bust her ass, doing the “mature” movies—you know, the ones with words like “old lady” and “granny” in the titles. She’d be lucky if she got five hundred a film and how was she supposed to pay her rent and all her damn bills with that bullshit?

So this was where her mind was at when Max Fisher walked into the club and asked for a dance. She remembered Fisher—this practically bald-headed white-ass businessman in a suit, acted like he was all that and shit. Did something with computers, always talking about it like it was some hot shit she gave a damn about. Dropping big-ass computer words, like he thought he was Billionaire Gates or something. She used to play along, suck up to him, tell him how smart and cute he was, when really she thought he was as dumb and asshole-ugly as all the rest of ’em. Stuck-up motherfucker always talkin’ the way he did about his Porsche and his town house and how much money he had, all that trying-to-impress-her bullshit when the truth was all she cared about was the next twenty-dollar bill he was gonna stick in her panties.

Another thing about Fisher—he was a titty man. When she was doing a dance he didn’t look at nothing else but her titties. It was like that was all she was—two titties, and it was like her nipples were made of metal and there were little round magnets in his eyeballs. Too bad he wasn’t making the porno movies because her tits were fine enough for him.

Then, one day, she saw something about him in the paper, how he was mixed up in some shootings or whatever. The cops even came to talk to her, wanted to know where he was the night his wife or girlfriend or somebody got shot. She was surprised, never thought a man like that would ever get involved in something like shooting people. Thought he was all bullshit, no action. Finally the man’d done something impressed her.

But after that, she didn’t hear nothing about him for a long time. He didn’t come into the club no more and she forgot all about him. Then, there he was, back in his seat, asking for a dance. While she was going at it, he asked her if she wanted to be his live-in ho, paying her double what she was making dancing. She thought maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea. She get to rest her feet and it was better than regular hoin’, goin’ man to man. And shit, it was lot better than having to suck off some scumbag movie producer for a role in
Horny Grandmas 11
. She’d get to live in a penthouse on the Upper Rich Side, eat as much sushi as she wanted. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that shit, right?

What she didn’t know, she was getting in with a crazy damn crack dealer.

Man was on the rock all the time. He said it was just balancing him out or some shit, cause of all the drinks he be having, but Felicia knew that was bullshit talking—the man was just a big stupid-ass crackhead who didn’t know how to keep his damn mouth shut. Talking like Al Pacino, thinking he knows shit about hip-hop, and calling her bee-atch all the time. Or how about he’s calling people nigger around her, dissing her race and shit? Motherfucka was lucky he was paying her or he woulda wound up with six in his back real quick.

And how many times was the man gonna say chill? Sometimes, listening to him, Felicia would think, does he know how stupid he sounds? And how about the way he treated her, giving her orders, making her walk around topless all the time so he can always be looking at her titties? And, shit, she had to give him lap dances and blow jobs whenever he wanted them. Yeah, he was paying her, but treating her like she was a damn sex slave was bullshit. Crack-smoking dumb-ass motherfucker had no respect for women and shit.

Sometimes he took her out—yeah, like she was a dog that needed walking. Meanwhile, she knew it was only cause he wanted to show her booty off to the whole damn world. Sometime he’d take her to restaurants and clubbing—damn, somebody had to give that man some dancin’ lessons—but his favorite place to go was that swimming pool near Times Square. In the middle of the day, he’d make her get in the damn water with him, so he could be sipping on his drinks with the little umbrellas inside them, showing off her booty for all the white-ass businesspeople looking in.

Shit, being around that asshole twenty-four-seven sure as shit wasn’t worth the four grand a week he was paying her. Actually, she was making more than that, because she was screwing Katsu, the man’s sushi chef, on the side. Yeah, like sometimes when Max was asleep, she’d go into Katsu’s room, be on his body, and then she’d go back to Max. One time he went, “How come you smell like fish?” and she thought she’d got busted. She told him she was hungry and went to have a tuna sandwich in the kitchen and the stupid-ass believed her.

She was also making some money going in Max’s safe. One time Max was so shit-ass wasted he gave her the combination, so she was going in, taking fifty, a hundred bucks, figuring the man was so high he wasn’t gonna keep count.

The money was good but, no, it wasn’t worth being around Max, twenty-four-seven.

She was all set to quit—go back to dancing or whatever—when one day Max sent her out to buy some Cuban cigars and a white guy in an ugly-ass plaid suit—shit went out of style in 1974—came up to her and went, “Hey, Felicia.”

Just like that, like they was old friends and shit. She never seen him before in her whole damn life but, shit, all you had to do was look at that motherfucker and know he was a cop.

Pretending she didn’t know what was going down, she went, “What the fuck you want?”

And then he laid the shit on her straight up. His name was Detective Joe Miscali, NYPD, and he was gonna bust her ass hard for prostitution, possession, whole mess of charges, if she didn’t give him some shit on Max Fisher.

She was like, “Shit about what? I don’t know shit about nothing.”

Playing hardball with the cop, waiting to see if he was for real or not.

Turned out the motherfucker wasn’t playing. Said he was on to Max, was ready to take his ass down hard, and he gave her two choices—cooperate or go away. Shit, she didn’t want to do no jail, so she said, Yeah, she’d help. What the fuck? She didn’t like helping cops, but she’d love to see Max go down, give the old bald-headed bitch some payback for the way he been treating her.

She started trying hard as she could to get Miscali some shit on Max. She was listening in on conversations, trying to always be by him all the time, whatever. Then, one night, he came into the shower, pointing the gun in her face. She thought,
Fuck, he musta found out I’m gonna snitch on his ass
. Then it turned out it wasn’t about that at all; it was about the stupid money from the safe. Played it right, denying all the shit he was saying to her, and he finally left her alone.

Later, she heard him talking to his boy Kyle on the phone about some drug deal was gonna go down with some Colombians. He told her to get out of the room, but she was listening in on the call on the other line in the bedroom. Okay, so now she had the info for Joe Miscali and she could stop being Max Fisher’s ho—praise the Lord.

But then she got to thinking—a drug deal, and didn’t they say it was twenty thousand dollars? There was gonna be product there too and she was thinking,
Why I gotta tell that shit to Miscali?
Felicia been thinking about getting away, leaving New York. She was tired of ho’in, being worried about money all the time. She had her friend Ramona in St. Louis, was always calling her, saying they should open a beauty salon together. But she need money to do that and no bank was gonna start giving no stripper no loan. But maybe if she could figure out a way to get that twenty grand she could go half with Ramona on the salon, get a whole new life started.

Shit, she barely slept the whole night because she was thinking about one thing—how to get that old stinkin’ crackhead’s money. Then it came to her—her cousin Sha-Sha from Brooklyn. Damn, why didn’t she think of that shit straight up?

Sha-Sha was her second cousin on her mom’s side. Felicia was six years older than him and funny shit was he was the first trick she ever turned. Happened when she was nineteen and he was thirteen. He was just hitting puberty and he was a horny little thang—nasty too. He was always walking around, touching his dick, asking her to do shit with him. Finally, sick of hearing him talk, she went, “You wanna fuck, I’ll fuck, but it’s gonna cost you five bucks.” He must’ve gone and stole five bucks from his momma, Felicia’s aunt. Was the fastest five dollars she made her whole life.

Felicia told Max she needed to go get a haircut. Meanwhile, she was really going to meet Sha-Sha in Brooklyn, in Canarsie. She took the L train out there and maybe she should’ve worn some different clothes. In this short leather skirt Max had bought her every guy on the train was wanting to bone her.

Sha-Sha was living in Breukelen Houses, off the L train. It had been a long time since Felicia had been back to the projects and she wasn’t missing none of it. When Sha-Sha answered the door she didn’t even recognize the nigga. She went, “Sha-Sha here?” and he went, “The fuck you talkin’ ’bout?” Yeah, that sounded like Sha-Sha, but what happened to his body? He used to be fine looking—well not too fine, he wasn’t no Denzel—but he was big and strong and his face wasn’t too bad either. But now the man was fat. She was talking Rerun fat, like the man be eating ten meals a day.

She looked around at all the pizza boxes, Chinese containers and shit and said, “Damn, how much you be eatin’?”

Sha-Sha went, “That how you say hello? How’d you get so rude, bitch?”

“Fuck you,” Felicia snapped. After listening to Max call her bee-atch all the time she wasn’t gonna take that shit from her damn cousin.

“Sorry, baby,” Sha-Sha said smiling. “Come to me.”

He held open his arms for a hug but, damn, Felicia felt like she was only getting her arms around one-quarter his body. She was glad she wasn’t hookin’ no more, havin’ Sha-Sha-size men on her body. Nigga that big fall on a girl’s body he kill her and shit.

Then Felicia felt one of Sha-Sha’s hands grabbing her ass and she shooed it away.

“Don’t be grabbin’ my ass,” she said.

“Shit, you lookin’ good,” Sha-Sha said. “Smellin’ good too. I bet you nice and tasty.”

Listen to the nigga, talkin’ to her like she was food. She better watch out—the fat motherfucka might eat her.

When he started kissing her neck—sucking on it more like it—she pushed him away. Tried to push him away. Nigga didn’t budge.

“The fuck you doin’?” Felicia said. “Ain’t you forgettin’ we cousins?”

“Shit never stopped you before,” Sha-Sha said.

Sha-Sha grabbed her ass again. She slapped his hand hard and went, “I ain’t playin’,” and he finally let go.

He moved some pizza boxes off the couch and they sat down, got caught up and shit. He asked her if she was still dancing and she said “Yeah,” leaving out that she was Max Fisher’s ho. Then she asked him if he was still dealing and he said, “Yeah,” and she was thinking,
I wonder what shit he’s leaving out.

Felicia didn’t want to spend her whole damn day bullshitting in the projects. Yeah, Max was a bitch-ass motherfucker, but living in a penthouse—shit, she could get used to that. So getting right down to it, she went, “Yo, there’s this white motherfucker I know. You know, I dance for him and shit. Motherfucker’s dealing rock.”

“Who’s he with?” Sha-Sha asked.

“Ain’t with nobody,” Felicia said. “See how stupid his ass is? He don’t even know he keep it up the gangs’re gonna be coming down on his ass. His clients—yeah, motherfucker calls ’em
clients,
are all rich-ass white people like he is. Nigga’s getting’ all the white people in Manhattan smokin’ rock and shit.”

“Damn,” Sha-Sha said smiling.

“So I be thinking,” Felicia said. “Why wait till the gangs come down on him, know what I’m sayin’? How ’bout I find some way to get down on his ass first?”

“Shit makes sense,” Sha-Sha said.

“Shit makes lotta sense,” Felicia said. “So nigga’s on the phone last night, talkin’ about this deal’s gonna go down with these Colombians, for twenty thousand dollars and shit. Then I think about you and your boys and I’m like, ‘Yeah, we can get in on that shit.’ Know what I’m saying?”

Sha-Sha was into a pack of Chips Ahoy, eating the shit two at time. Piling that shit down his throat like his damn life depended on it.

“Shit, you eatin’ or listenin’?” Felicia asked.

Sha-Sha gave her a long look, swallowing cookies, then said, “Keep talkin’ to me.”

“What I been saying,” Felicia said. “All I gotta do is find out where the drug deal’s at, right? Then you and your boys, whatever, bust in on that shit, know what I’m sayin’? I get the money, you get the rock. Shit, Max—that’s the nigga’s name—payin’ twenty for it, shit’s gotta be worth forty, right? You know how much pizza and cookies and Pringles and whatever the fuck else you been eatin’ make you so damn fat you can buy for forty thousand dollars?...A lot, that’s how much.”