She licked her lips. “I’ll still need a little time.” Then, foolishly, she plotted a con to cop a supply of the quality skag. She finger-stroked his lavender-painted toes. “Beautiful god, will you please lay a quarter-ounce on me while I make up my mind about us?” She fumbled a roll of bills from her bosom. She propped herself up on an elbow to fan out the bills on the bedspread. “See, before I split L.A., I stung the square-ass barber for a stash of thirty-six hundred. I’ll pay whatever you charge for a quarter-ounce.”
He leaned and banged a heavy palm against the side of her face, which knocked her on her back. “You dare to insult me? You dizzy bitch, I ain’t no motherfucking dope dealer!” he shouted as he scooped up the bills from the bed.
She scooted off the bed with an angry face. She sat in the chair and glared at him. “So the great Shetani has to gorilla a ho out of her bread? Right?”
He leapt from the bed and went to stand between her legs. He vised her tiny face between giant palms. He tilted her face up, forcing her to look into his eyes. “Gorilla you, my ass. You played on me for my stuff. If you’re my woman, the bread I took is your claiming bread to get me. You’ve got a two-hundred-grand bankroll behind your thieving ass. Kill a trick, bitch! I can raise you! If you’re my woman, you got my personal guarantee that you will always have the best medicine there is.” He paused and gritted his teeth. “If you ain’t my woman, I’m gonna charge you the thirty-six hundred for wasting my time and forcing me to break my promise to Cat to take care of you. Well?”
They stared into each other’s eyes until she averted her eyes in surrender. “Were you leveling about firing Petra?” she asked in a child’s voice.
“My word is like a gold bond, you secret lil bottom bitch, you,” he crooned as he lifted her into his arms. He carried her to the bed and lay down beside her. “Tell me you’re my woman and you’re gonna obey all my rules!” he said in a low but commanding voice.
She burst into a torrent of tears and blubbered, “I’m your woman and I’ll obey all of your rules.”
He took her drained body into his arms and winked at his reflection in the ceiling mirror.
Several days after the Crane encounter, Petra excitedly raced the horses of a Hertz chariot toward L.A. International Airport. Her master was flying in from the Apple with a supply of medicine. She was hoping he’d sex her as a reward for the Crane coup.
She arrived and left the airport parking facility to seat herself in a corner booth of the uncrowded restaurant in the sky. She gave a waitress an order for two glasses of pineapple juice.
Ten minutes later, she didn’t recognize Shetani until he limped to within six feet of her on a cane. He was disguised as a minister in black suit, white collar, and a black hat atop a “natural” wig. He was carrying a satchel, which he put on the floor between them as he sat down.
Petra moved to embrace and kiss him. His eyes, through the plain glass of heavy spectacles, and then his voice warned her away.
“Nix, bitch! You’re just having a chat with a black preach,” he whispered harshly.
“Oh, Master. You’re so fucking cute in that getup. But why?”
He looked at his watch. “Listen and don’t speak. I got a kilo of boy and one of girl in that bag. Safekeep it, except for what you need. There’s also the bread to lease a monster house in an isolated spot. Rent some furniture—modern, flashy shit. Tomorrow I’m gonna start sending our family out here in groups of five. We’ve got to…”
To cut him off, she held her hand up like little kids do to catch the teacher’s attention.
He frowned.
“May I ask a question, Daddy?”
He nodded.
She went on. “Jerry, the cop, he’s a coke freak, like I told you on the phone…Well, suppose he fucks up. I mean, what if he gets bounced off the squad and we’ve all moved out here with our big nut to crack and Hollywood gets too hot to work?”
He chuckled. “If the sucker stands up for just a couple months, we’ll take off a bundle. Besides, I’m sick of New York’s winters, and there are several niggers I’m gonna waste if I stay there. Shit, I just need a base on the coast. You ho’s can work Albuquerque, maybe Vegas, and Seattle for sure.”
Her face became serious. “Daddy, Jerry said he’d kill me if I shared his inside info with anyone…Isn’t he a cinch to know I’ve tipped our girls when his squad can’t bust them?”
Shetani grinned. “Sure, he’ll wake up, down the line. But he ain’t gonna ice a ten-plus bitch that supplies him with ninety-percent-pure coke. Sit in his face and sport his sucker dick with lots of head. When he wakes up, I’ll bet your million-dollar life against a pile of dog shit he’ll opt for a shakedown to get his medicine bread.”
He took a sip of juice before he went on. “I’m gonna be out here with you to guide you with him.” He leaned toward her, with his strange green eyes aglitter. “I’ll protect you from harm, Star Baby. If necessary, I’ll chop off his motherfucking head with that hatchet I carry in my ride.”
Her blue eyes were dreamy with passion as she gazed at him. “Master, I’m not afraid of anything, with you in my corner.” She wiggled the tip of her tongue at him. “I want some candy so much my cunt and throat ache. Let’s go to my motel…someplace. Please!”
He shook his head and looked at his watch. “My flight back leaves in less than a half-hour. Besides, my dick is fasting.”
She moaned. “Then sweet-rap me off.”
He smiled. “All right, you stone-to-the-bone freak. Do your clit.”
She darted a hand under cover of the tabletop into her crotch. “I’m so wet already,” she exclaimed.
His hand left the tabletop to pinch her savagely on the side of a buttock. “Feel me drilling into your hot throat with my choice dickhead. Close your eyes and see it, doggy.”
She closed her eyes and trembled for a long moment. “Ooeee! I can see it, Daddy,” she screamed in a whisper.
“Now I’m fucking your cunt up to your navel with those circular hard strokes that hurt so good and make you cry. See it, freak!”
“I see and feel it, Daddy. I’m almost there!”
He pinched her again. “I’m stroking your tonsils again. See it and feel it. Come!”
Suddenly her orgasm bucked her body with great spasms of release. A startled waitress passing by paused for a moment. She went about her business when she saw Petra regain composure.
“Thank you, sweet Master,” Petra said softly.
“Star Baby, it was a thrill to get you off like that,” he said as he reached into his coat pocket. He brought out a slip of paper and pushed it toward her on the tabletop. “Here’s the twins’ phone number and the address of their two-bedroom house in the Wilshire district. They are waiting for you to move into one of the bedrooms. They will protect the kilos and cash until we all move into the big house. Any questions?”
She shook her head and put the paper into her purse.
He stood. “Phone me every night at the usual time…See you again soon.”
She lifted the satchel to the seat beside her. “I’ll miss you very much until…”
He said, “By the way, I copped Pee Wee Smith the night you left the Apple. I’m sending her to the Midwest to do her thing.” He turned and limped away on his prop cane.
—
Eight days after Shetani visited L.A., Crane cruised Hollywood. He stopped the station wagon at Vine and Sunset at a red light. A new white Eldorado passed in front of him. It was driven by a sleek black dude with a snow blonde cuddled close to him. Crane was certain the stunner was Petra, and the red satin ascot around the dude’s throat screamed pimp.
Rage claimed him. He bombed the wagon into Vine Street traffic against the red light amid an uproar of noisy horns and strident brakes. He tailed the Caddie down Melrose Avenue. He hoped the driver would turn off the crowded street. He’d pull him over on some pretext and beat up the dude if he gave any lip whatsoever.
Finally, the driver pulled into a gas
oline station on the western end of Melrose. With his palms dripping sweat, Crane pulled into the station. An attendant was pumping gas into the target car.
Crane eased the wagon abreast of it on the other side of the pumps. The girl wasn’t Petra!
He was drained, and he felt a panic attack coming on. He drove to a far end of the station’s lot. He parked near a bank of telephones. This time was unlike most of the attacks, when he feared imminent death.
Now he lay in a knot on the front seat. His palms squeezed his head, which vibrated violently in terror that he was going crazy. He lay there shaking for several minutes before the attack ended. He sat up and mopped sweat from his brow with a coat sleeve. He told himself what an absolute fool he was to let a hooker blow his common sense. He vowed to himself that he’d cut her loose before she destroyed him and his career. He promised himself he’d do without her body and high-grade coke. And he wouldn’t tip her to any changes of squad licenses or personnel.
He drove the wagon to the street and resumed his shift. Yes, he’d also reduce his coke usage until he booted the habit, he assured himself. His jawline hardened. He was going to straighten out his life and get some peace of mind. He would become the solid rock that his wife, Millie, Rucker, and his cop associates believed him to be.
A week later, at 10:00 p.m., Crane sat in the station wagon on the parking lot of the Sunset drugstore, waiting for Petra. He had decided to take her last coke delivery. Earlier, he had noticed two new girls working up and down the boulevard. He had tried to snare a couple of them, but they ignored him.
At ten-thirty, he became angry with himself when he realized he had thought about Petra for most of his shift and couldn’t stop thinking about her and missing her on the street. Now he wondered if he could cut her loose just like that. And his nerve ends shrieked for coke.
He drove from the lot into Sunset traffic. He stopped for a red light and glanced down Normandie Avenue. He saw the silhouettes of several scantily clad female figures alight from a large dark van that U-turned and disappeared. On the green, he drove across the intersection and parked.
Through his rearview mirror he saw the interracial quartet of strange young hookers come to the intersection and split up. Tuta and her black stablemate came down the sidewalk toward him. They eyeballed the heavy traffic for tricks.
Crane leaned across the seat and smiled at them through the open window as they passed.
Tuta came to him. He saw the other girl move away to glance at the wagon’s rear license plate.
He said, with the Israeli accent, “Hello, pretty lady. May I give you and your friend a lift?”
Tuta frowned at the accent. She glanced back at her buddy, and turned back to face him. She said, “I think no. I’ll have to ask my sister Mamie.”
Mamie walked up to join Tuta and said, “What’s happening, Pat?”
Tuta winked. “This guy wants to give us a lift. What do you think?”
Mamie shook her head and said, “He looks like the Boston Strangler to me.” She then grabbed Tuta’s arm and steered her into a nearby coffee shop.
He tried to pick up seven other new hookers that passed him. They ignored him. Petra had crossed him! He sat, whitened with anger, for a moment. He screeched the wagon into traffic to search for Petra. At midnight, he parked at an intersection on the other end of Sunset. He spotted Petra passing and then getting out of an elderly white trick’s car on a side street.
He moved the wagon into the side street as soon as the trick pulled away. Petra spotted him. She walked toward him as he parked and doused his headlights in the middle of the block.
He removed his gun from its shoulder holster and put it behind his back on the seat. His head felt like a red-hot balloon ready to pop. He watched her approach in his rearview mirror and gritted his teeth. He’d take her to an isolated spot and wrench the truth from her one way or the other. No fucking hooker was going to make a sucker out of him.
He opened the passenger door. A moment later, he constructed a smile when she got in. She scooted her blue-silk-clad curves against him. She finger-stroked his thigh.
“Jerry, I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you, I’ve been so busy.”
His impulse was to smash his fist down on her hand. Instead, he gently removed it. “Don’t be sorry. You bring the package?” he managed to say sweetly.
“I sure did, sweet dick, and it’s heavenly,” she said as she fumbled in her bosom. She dipped a tiny coke spoon into a glassine bag. She extended it and the bag. “There’s more than the gram you ordered in this bag.”
His right hand took her wrist and guided the spoon to his nose. “I’ll pay you for the coke before we split,” he said as he hungrily snorted the spoon empty. She nodded.
The quality dope enhanced his rage and impaired his judgment. He took the bag and shoved it into a coat pocket. “Thanks, I needed a lift, with all the new girls running my ass ragged.”
She gave him a look. He knew the crack was stupid. He’d have to control himself until he could have his way with her.
He took Cahuenga Boulevard on his way into a section of the Hollywood Hills. He knew a spot that was ideal for a mind-blowing inquisition. Ten minutes later, he was well into the hills.
“Hey, honey, where we going? Don’t forget, I’m a working girl,” she said in a strained voice.
“No way, sugar, can I forget that. In a few minutes, we’re going to have some class-A privacy together.” He bared his teeth in an awful smile as he finally drove through the open wrought-iron gates of a once-opulent estate.
The concrete foundations of the razed mansion and secondary buildings gleamed white on an incline in the moonlight.
He took a side road into a densely forested area and parked. His right hand took her left hand and studied it in the dash light. His left hand darted into his jacket pocket and removed handcuffs.
He vised her left wrist and handcuffed it to the steering wheel. She screamed. He cut her off with a violent launch of his right elbow to her belly button. She vomited on the floor mat. He seized her long white mane and jerked up her sagging head. He stared coldly into her glazed eyes.
“Jerry, why are you doing this?” she mumbled piteously.
He backhanded his right fist into her rib cage. She groaned in pain. His left hand got the revolver from behind his back. He started to unload the gun beneath her bulging eyes. “You conning cocksucking bitch! Let’s play an old game. I’m going to spill your brains if you don’t spill your fucking guts,” he warned as he finished removing all but one of the bullets before her terror-bright eyes.
He dropped the bullets into his shirt pocket. He lifted the gun from the seat between them. As he did, he removed the remaining bullet and palmed it in his left hand. He spun the chamber and rammed the muzzle of the gun against her left temple. He pulled the trigger.
In a violent spasm of fright, her buttocks bucked a foot off the seat at the sound of the metallic click of the gun.
“That was for me, the friend you double-crossed. Why did you tip that gang of girls to my Israeli accent and the plate numbers?” he stage-whispered, with his gray eyes afire.
“I just wanted to help them because they’re working girls, too.”
He pulled the trigger. She broke into wild weeping and pounding of her thigh with her right fist. “Please, don’t do that again. Those girls are my friends, my stablemates,” she blubbered.
“Where is your pimp, and where are you and the others from?”
“He’s visiting in Chicago. We came from the Apple.”
“What’s your boss’s true name?”
She shook her head vigorously. “Please don’t ask me to do that to my man…”
He pulled the trigger. She shivered uncontrollably and released a fresh flood of tears.
“Give me his name, stupid bitch. I’m pulling the trigger, and this may be the end for you. Well?”
She blurted, “Master Shetani.”
“I said I wanted his true name, not
a moniker.”
“Oh Jesus! Please, believe me, that’s the only name he’s known by.”
Crane reloaded the gun and pondered his position and what to do about Petra. He could cut her loose in the raw. That would be without an ongoing deal to supply undercover plate numbers for her and the others. She or her pimp could drop a coin on him to Internal Affairs that would kick off an investigation that would destroy him.
He surveyed Petra’s curves. He decided that, as lush and gratifying as she was sexually, his personal risk and the pressure of their deal with no money payoff would have to be terminated. He could squeeze a payoff out of her pimp, but that would only be insurance against the dropping of a dime to Internal Affairs. It was the return of his mentor, Rucker, with his sixth sense that concerned Crane most. He’d played himself into a trap. He decided reluctantly that he would have to kill her to escape.
She stared into his grim face as he again placed the gun’s muzzle against her temple. “You don’t have to kill me. Let me go back to New York,” she pleaded with desperate eyes.
His finger pulled lightly against the trigger as he stared into her enormous eyes, fiery with fear. His trigger finger pulled harder. The cylinder started to roll. He felt drenched in sweat. He jerked the gun from her temple and rammed it into its holster. She collapsed forward. She cried, with her face against her knees. He slit-eyed her.
“Does anybody besides you and your boss know about how you got tipped to the plate numbers?”
She shook her head.
“How old is your boss?”
She blubbered, “Around forty. I don’t really know.”
He grabbed a fistful of her hair. “Sit up and look at me,” he commanded as he yanked her erect on the seat.
She took tissues from her purse to blot her eyes before she faced him.
“I want eleven hundred bucks a week for the plate numbers. You’ve got until the day after tomorrow to lay it on me. That’s when new cars and plates hit the track. Understand?”