He said, “Stay cool, Blood. I just remembered I left my kitty’s slammer open. I’ll be back after I lock it.”
I looked in the mirror and saw him go out. He turned left towards the Greek’s joint. I knew he was going to Preston to check me out. When he walked out that panting pack behind me turned as one. It was like Gary Grant had walked out.
The jukebox was moaning gut-bucket blues. Some joker was singing “Going down slow; Don’t send no Doctor; Doctor sure can’t do no good; Please write my mother, tell her the shape I’m in; I’m going down slow.”
I remembered it had been my father’s favorite record. He had kept it spinning on the rich Victrola. I remembered his shocked face there in the doorway when he discovered it and everything else gone. I wondered if he were alive and still in town. If I ran into him I sure wouldn’t know what to say to him after all these years.
I saw the silk chicks crane their necks toward the door. I switched my eyes left in the mirror. I saw Glass Top coming in. Those chickens were clucking when he sat down.
I said, “Jack, aren’t you afraid those silk broads behind us will rape you?”
He said, “Shit, if you stripped and searched all of ’em you wouldn’t find a C note. They ain’t nothing but square housewives. They sick of that half-ass screwing at home. They laying to swindle chump Niggers outta their youth.
“They know enough on each other to keep all their jibs sealed. Ain’t a chance for their husbands to tumble to what’s going on. So what if some white joker who knows ’em made this scene and saw ’em? Everyone of ’em is just slumming out with the girls. Jack, what they got is a secret sex club.”
I said, “Top, I’m frayed. I sure wish I had a snort of girl. Can you score?”
He told me, “Blood, I believe you are a down young stud. I got news for you. You can score right with me. I got the best girl and boy in town. Even my reefer is dynamite. Blood, I love you. You got heart. How much stuff you want?”
I said, “What’s the bite for girl?”
“A fin a number-five cap. A sixteenth for a C. A piece for a grand. I got a cozy pad around the corner. There you can fly to the moon, Pimping Buddy.”
I said, “Top, let’s split to your pad. If your girl is mellow I’ll maybe go for a C note.”
I threw a fin on the log. The Mexican showed me her choppers like I was her dentist. Three square black studs were standing rapping to the purring pack in the booth.
We went out and got in Glass Top’s Hog. My foot struck a bottle. I looked down. It was the dead gin soldier Poison’s whore had sucked dry. The Hog shot from the curb like a red torpedo. Eckstein’s syrupy “Cottage For Sale” oozed from the Hog’s radio.
I thought, “I sure gotta hurry and get my ass into a Hog at least. I’ll cop a Duesenberg in maybe a year. Geez, it must be one-thirty. I shoulda checked on the runt. My luck is changing though. This glossy-top joker is my in to Sweet.”
He lived in a plush apartment building. It had all the jazz. Technicolored lights spotlighted the exterior. Fake rubber plants stood tall in the foyer.
We took a chrome-and-brass elevator to his second-floor pad. Thick red broadloom carpet wall to wall in the hall. Fresh black and gold paint sparkled the walls and ceilings.
A Polynesian-type dream took our bennys and my lid in a small silver-mirrored entrance hall. My feet sank into the soft lavender carpet. I could hear the deep-throated boom of a console phonograph. The Ink Spots’ lead tenor was parfaiting “Whispering Grass.”
I followed Top and the olive-tinted beauty into the womb-like living room. Double heavy lavender drapes covered the windows. Not a beam of street light or sunshine could violate this pimp’s lair.
Top and I sat on a long gray sofa. It had cost him a big buck to lower the ceiling with the silver lame fabric. The only light came from the glass-topped cocktail table. It gurgled and flashed a pale blue light.
A score of yellow, red, and orange tropical fish streaked inside the aquarium built six inches below the tabletop. Two gray rubber hoses at each end of the tank ran down into the lavender carpet. It was a slick drain off and fresh water gimmick.
The broad was almost naked. She stood wide legged in front of us like a bellhop waiting for orders. The table’s blue light behind her silhouetted her Coca Cola bottle curves inside the flame red shortie gown. I saw a four-inch cone of jet hair between her thighs. She had a rare cat with that extra dimension. I unglued my eyes and looked into her face. She had the dreamy eyes of a freakish “Mona Lisa.”
He said, “Bitch, bring a coupla outfits and some caps of girl and boy. Oh yeah, Blood, this is Radell.”
That awesome round butt of her’s jiggled as she wiggled past me. The big white phonograph in the corner was booming out a novelty tune. “When your pipes get dry then you know you’re high. Everything is dandy. You truck on down to the candy store but you don’t get no peppermint candy. Then you know your body’s sent, you don’t care if you don’t pay rent. Light a tea and let it be if you’re a viper.”
“This pretty gowster is sure pimping his ass off,” I thought.
“He’s a crazy gowster if he thinks he’ll con me into banging any
H. I’m not even sure about shooting the girl. Of course, I can’t come off like a hayseed either.”
I said, “Jim, you sure ain’t jiving. Your layout is a sonuvabitch.”
He said, “I got five bedrooms here. These whores on this fast track dig front and flash. You can’t pimp here unless you got ’em. Jack, this C I got ain’t going to let you split for awhile. You may as well shed your threads and get in the groove.”
The broad brought the outfits, a spoon and a dozen white and brown caps. She put them on the cocktail table. She slid it closer to us. The water tidal-waved in the tank. The fish darted in a frenzy. She stooped and started unlacing Top’s shoes. I reached into my pocket for a C note. I had peeled it off from my crotch stash before leaving the Haven.
He said, “This flight is on me. It’s a sample. You can cop what you want later.”
We stripped our clothes off to our shorts. His were candy-striped silk. I felt like a bum in my white cotton jocks.
The broad draped our clothes on each arm of the gray overstuffed chair across the room. She didn’t have any of my scratch in her mit when she came away. She stood next to me. The phone on the end table beside him jangled. He uncradled it.
He said, “Castle of Joy, what’s your desire? Oh yeah, Angelo, she’s here. Hell no she ain’t dossing. She’s on her way.”
He hung up and said, “Bitch, just slip your benny on and get downtown to that head bellboy at the Franklin Arms. Dimples and the other girls are getting more action than they can turn. Take the key to the kitty and get there fast.”
The broad zipped out of there in less than three minutes. She sure liked getting her man some money. Those tricks at the Franklin were going to give their swipes a treat all right.
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 p
imp’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.