Pimp (16 page)

I thought, “I gotta make the runt cultivate her cat like that broad’s.”

He said, “That’s a good young bitch I got there. I copped her in Hawaii a year ago. There are twenty-thousand white suckers in town for a convention. They got a double saw in one hand and their swipes in the other.

“Radell ain’t had no sleep in thirty-six hours. My other four whores been humping at the Franklin since early this morning. I can’t miss a five G score for the three days even with Angelo’s thirty percent off the top. Ain’t but a C a day for a girl in oil for the heat.”

He got up and whistled our belts through the loops in our pants. He walked back and started to coil my belt around my arm just above the elbow hollow.

“Look Top, I’m not a square,” I said, “but I ain’t shooting no H. I’m game to bang some C. I’ve been curious to try it like that.”

He said, “Kid, I ain’t squeezing your balls to hip you that after Mink comes Sable. Ain’t nothing a greater blast than horse. It’s your privilege to wake up slow if you want. Horse is what puts the ice in a pimp’s game.”

He upended a cap of girl into the spoon and stuck an eyedropper into the fish tank. He pressed the bulb and drew the dropper full. He emptied it into the spoon. He held the yellow flame of a table lighter beneath the spoon and took a tiny wad of cotton from an ashtray. He tossed it into the bowl of the spoon and then wrapped a thin piece of cellophane around the tip of the dropper. He fitted the needle on it. He stuck the hollow end of the needle into the cotton and drew the dropper full.

I felt my blood smashing against the tight coils of the belt. I saw
the veins balloon in the throbbing hollow. I smelled the sharp sicklysweet odor of the cocaine. My palms were dripping sweat. He had the spike in his right hand. He grabbed my forearm with his left hand. I turned my head and closed my eyes. I bit down on my bottom lip waiting for the stabbing plunge of the needle.

He said, “Damn! You got some beautiful lines.”

I shivered when it daggered in. I opened my eyes and looked. My blood had shot up into the dropper. He was pressing the bulb. I saw the blood-streaked liquid draining into me. It was like a ton of nitro exploded inside me. My ticker went berserk. I could feel it clawing up my throat. It was like I had a million swipes in every pore from head to toe. It was like they were all popping off together in a nerveshredding climax.

I was quivering like a joker in the hot seat at the first jolt. I tried to open my talc-dry mouth. I couldn’t. I was paralyzed. I could feel a hot ball of puke racing up from my careening guts. I saw the green, stinking puke rope arch into the black mouth of the wastebasket. I felt the cool metal against my chest. I saw Top’s manicured fingers pressing it close to me.

He was saying, “You’ll be all right in a minute, Kid. You thought I was bullshitting when I told you I had the best stuff in town.”

I still couldn’t say anything. I felt like the top of my skull had been crushed in. It was like I had been blown apart and all that was left were my eyes. Then tiny prickly feet of ecstasy started dancing through me. I heard melodious bells tolling softly inside my skull.

I looked down at my hands and thighs. A thrill shot through me. Surely they were the most beautiful in the Universe. I felt a superman’s surge of power.

I thought, “It was a cinch that any stud as beautiful and clever as me would become the greatest pimp in history. What bitch could resist me? I turned and stared at the ugly stud beside me.”

He said, “Did you hear those chapel bells? Ain’t they a bitch, Kid?”

“Yeah man, I heard ’em loud and clear. Right now I’d like to see the bitch I couldn’t make. It’s sure wild to bang girl. The only time I’ll snort after this is when I’m in the street between bangs.”

He said, “Blood, you sure know what to say. Just don’t forget where to cop. The more you buy, the cheaper I’ll make it. I love you, Blood. We gonna be tight.”

He had a time trying to bang himself. He was only around thirtytwo, but most of his veins had folded. He finally hit pay clay in his inner right thigh. He kept the needle in, pumping the horse into the vein then drawing it out.

I said, “Jack, why the hell do you screw around like that?”

He said, “Man, you ain’t hip? That’s where the thrill is. When I jack this joint off the horse kicks my ass groovy.”

I lost tally of time while we sat on the sofa and banged stuff. After the second cap I started banging myself. After that first bang the thrill wasn’t as good and sharp. Top was coasting. There were three caps of H still on the tabletop. There was no girl. I had banged five caps of girl. I looked at my Mickey. It was five
A.M
. I went to my clothes and started to dress. My ticker was speeding inside my frosty chest.

I said, “Top, I gotta split I want a sixteenth of girl and a can of reefer. Here’s a C note and twenty slats.”

He pulled up from the sofa. He took the scratch and went into a bedroom. He came out and handed me a tobacco can sealed with rubber bands.

He said, “Kid, I put a coupla yellows in your bag so you can come down and get some doss. Where you padding? You don’t wanta walk through the street with that package of sizzle on you. I’ll call a cab.”

I said, “Thanks Top. I’m padding at the Blue Haven, but my wheels are just around the corner across from the Roost. I’ll hoof it there. The fresh air will be a kick.”

I stood at the living room doorway to the entrance hall. He was uncapping a thing of horse.

I thought, “Now’s the time to crack on him to sew up the cut into Sweet. I gotta phrase it right. This joker envies Sweet.”

I said, “Top, I was thinking how much more common sense and cool you got than your pal Sweet.”

His hands froze. His eyes beat his mouth to the question. I knew Preston hadn’t told him about my clash with Sweet. I guess Preston’s chicken act had blocked Sweet out of his mind.

Top said, “You know Sweet personally?”

“I met him last night in the Roost. That tall blonde of his wanted me to freak-off with her. Sweet offered me a double saw to do the job. I stood on pimp principle and turned him down. He flipped his cork. He forced me to split. He told me he’d blow my head through the ceiling. I figured he might do it.

“I guess now I have blown my chance to get acquainted with him. I don’t suppose anybody in town is strong enough with him to square me and cut me into him. As foxy as you are Top, I wouldn’t be shocked if you couldn’t cut it. After all, the man is complicated. Come to think about it Top, I don’t have a real need to meet him since I met you.

“My main reason now is I don’t want a crazy enemy like that. So if you tell me it’s over your head, I’ll forget it, stay out of his way and take my chances. I love you Top, and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you on my account.”

He gobbled it raw and whole. He flung his girlish head back and roiled off the sofa to the floor. He held his elbows against his belly and laughed like I’d told the funniest joke human ears had ever heard. He was gasping when he finally stopped. He patted his mop.

“Sweet ain’t dangerous, sucker,” he began. “He ain’t never croaked anything but yellow Niggers. He’s croaked four of them in the last twenty years. He ain’t croaked nobody in over two years. He’s ninety percent Bull scare. He don’t kill nobody unless they bad mouth him or muscle his whores.

“But he sure hates white folks. He pimps awful tough on white
whores. When he puts his foot in their asses he’s really doing it to the white man. He says he’s paying ’em back for what they done and are doing to black people. His brain is rotted from hate.

“Shit, he probably wouldn’t know you if he saw you again. He wasn’t salty with you for turning down the freak-off. He was playing strong con on his white whore. He’s got his whores thinking he’s God. Even a square from Delaware should know God ain’t going to kiss your ass when you tell him no, you poor boob.

“I tell you what. I gotta take him some stuff this weekend. I’ll buzz your crib to let you know just when. I’ll stop on the way and pick you up. I’ll take you with me to his pad. He ain’t nothing but a big ugly Nigger with a filthy loud mouth.”

I said, “I pad in four-twenty under the name of Lancaster. Top, you gotta overlook my dumbness. I told you I was just a kid in darkness needing some brain to light the way. Top, I sure appreciate your coat-pulling. See you later, Pal.”

He said, “All right Kid, keep that sizzle in your mitt so you can down it in a hurry. Oh yeah, you can cop a spike at any drug store. You gotta crack for insulin with it.”

I walked into the entrance hall. I flicked my sponge across my greasy face in the silver mirror. I went out the door to the elevator. It opened on the ground floor. I flinched before the stark morning light.

Out on the sidewalk, I saw Glass Top’s red Hog pulling to the curb. It was his five whores back from the Franklin Arms salt mines.

I thought as I walked to the Ford, “How about it? Those five whores are probably checking in a coupla grand for a night’s work. Why couldn’t it be me up there in that crazy pad with my mitt out for all those frog skins?”

The night people had vanished from the street. Knots of squares on the way to work bunched at the street-car stops. I got in the Ford and U-turned toward the Haven.

I saw an all-night drug store and pulled into the parking lot. I copped a saw-buck pair of binoculars, and at the drug counter, I got
the insulin and copped spikes and eyedroppers. Five minutes later I got to the Haven. I parked on the street.

I glanced up at our apartment window. I saw the drapes flutter. I got a flash of the runt’s dark face pulling back. I walked through the lobby to the elevator. The joint sure looked shabby after Top’s joint.

I thought as I got on the elevator, “If the runt is shitty and tries to third degree me this morning I’ll bury my foot in her ass.”

I got off on the fourth floor. I walked down the hall to four-twenty. I slid the rubber bands off the top of the tobacco can. I opened the top and took my packet of girl out. It was wrapped in tin foil inside a penny balloon. I shoved it into my watch pocket. I took a yellow from the top of the loose reefer and dry-swallowed it.

I knocked on the door. I waited a full minute. I knocked again, harder. Finally the runt opened it. She was stretching and massaging her eyes with her fists, conning me she had been fast asleep. She jumped into bed. She turned her back and pulled the covers to her ears.

I put the can of reefer on the dresser. I saw a tiny pile of bills on it. I heeled them apart. It was only forty slats. I went to the closet and checked the toes of the tan Stetsons. Empty! I stashed the binoculars in a coat pocket with my C and bang outfit I saw smoke spiraling from a cigarette lying on the base of the plaster copy of “The Kiss” near the front window.

I said, “Bitch, what did you do, break your leg or knock off as soon as you saw me split? Is this tonight’s take? Turn over so I can see that black mug of yours.”

I was standing at the side of the bed. My right hand was resting on the closed plastic lid of the record player. The tips of my fingers were touching the back of it near the motor. It was warm. I raised the lid. Lady Day’s whimper about that “mean man” was on the turntable. The runt turned slowly. I looked down into her face. Her eyes were narrow. Her jib was puffed out. She and Lady Day had been dragging me through the mud all night. The whore was acting like an outraged housewife.

She said, “Ain’t I never going to be nothing but a bitch to you? Call me Phyllis the whore, or Runt the fool. You’d never believe it but I’m human. That scratch I made tonight ain’t bad. These streets are new to me. I gotta feel my way and get hip to the tricks.”

That cocaine was blowing a frosty blizzard through my skull.

I said, “Bitch, when your funky black ass is in the grave you’ll still be a bitch; Bitch, one of these nights you’re going to shoot your jib off, I’ll curtsy and call you Runt the corpse. You stinking bitch I’m hip you’re human. You’re a human black slop-bucket for those peckerwood swipes.

“You gutless idiot, I’m going to throw you out that window if you don’t get the kinks outta your ass an hustle some real scratch. Don’t get hip to the tricks, Bitch. Get hip to what I’m rapping. If you don’t stop your bullshit, I’m gonna kick your heart out and stomp on it. Now don’t crack your jib unless I rap to you, Bitch.”

I started to take my clothes off. She just lay there staring at me. Her eyes were gleaming like a crazy Voodoo Doctor’s. I got into bed. I turned my back to her. I could feel the freak inching toward me.

She stroked the back of my neck. I felt the hot tip of the lizard on the back of my neck. I felt the scab on her brow scrape the tip of my ear. I pulled away toward the edge of the bed.

She said, “Daddy, I’m sorry I bugged you. I love you. Please forgive me.”

The bed creaked when I rattlesnaked to strike. I hooked my right heel under the bed springs. I raised myself on my right elbow. I drew my “ved” left arm back so the back of my left fist touched my right cheek. I grunted for velocity and blackjacked my left elbow into her gut-button. She groaned and wrapped and unwrapped her legs. She chattered her teeth like she was freezing to death.

I could feel that yellow drawing a heavy black curtain inside my dome. Just before I went under I thought, “I wonder if the runt can lug a hundred and fifty pounds to that window.”

T
he blast of the phone woke me. The pad was dark as hell. I flung my left hand out for the runt. She wasn’t there. I fumbled the receiver to my ear.

I said, “Hello, this is Mary’s brother.”

He said, “I wanta speak to Mary. Put her on, yeah?”

I said, “She just went out. She’s taking a walk.”

He hung up. I cradled the phone on the bedside table. I switched the table lamp on. I checked Mickey. It was seven-thirty
P.M
. I wondered if I had blown the runt.

I got up and checked the closet. Her clothes were still there. I went to the dresser. I checked the forty slats. Two were missing. There was a note beside the scratch.