King Suckerman
- Автор: Пелеканос Джордж
- Серия: D.C. Quartet #2
- Год: 1997
- Язык: английский
- Год: Little, Brown and Company
- ISBN: 978-0-316-69590-9
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «King Suckerman». Краткое содержание книги:
“Eddie? He wouldn’t know Hawaiian from backyard ragweed grown from Mexican seeds. But, yeah, he buys good stuff. Why’d you think I was hanging out?”
“Was going to ask you about that.”
“That was part of it. The other part was I had nowhere else to go.” Vivian crumpled up the paper, tossed it impatiently to the side. “You better do this. I’m used to E-Z Widers.”
“Okay.” Karras had a seat next to her on the couch. He licked the glued end of one paper, attached it to another, made a neat fold in the second. He dropped the crushed-up bud into the fold, put the whole deal between the thumb and forefinger of both hands, began to roll a tight number. “What’s your full name, anyway?”
“Vivian Lee.”
“Right. Your parents Gone with the Wind fans?”
“My parents barely even speak English. I don’t think they’ve ever seen a movie in their lives.”
“Where’d you grow up?”
“Rockville.”
“Your parents there now?”
“Last time I checked.”
“They know where you are?”
“I haven’t talked with them in a while.”
“Bet they’re worried.”
“I guess.”
“But you’re not worried. You’re—”
“Just hanging out.”
“Here.” Karras handed her the fat, tight joint. He found a book of matches in the pocket of his Levis, dropped it on the table. Vivian leaned across the table. She wore a T-shirt that ended a few inches above the belt loops of her jeans, exposing her flat belly. The T-shirt had blue horizontal stripes, and the lines of the fabric were stretched out where they ran across her breasts. Her breasts were large and hard and pushed straight out in the shirt.
Karras swallowed. “Wanna listen to some music?”
Vivian shook some of her long black hair off her shoulder. She lit the joint, exhaled. “What’ve you got?”
“Everything.”
“Okay.”
Karras got up off the couch, walked to the bookshelves, where his records were arranged alphabetically and spine out, making a subtle dick adjustment as he walked. “You like Captain Beefheart?”
“Which one?” said Vivian.
“I got Spotlight Kid. Let’s see, and I got Clear Spot.”
“Clear Spot’s cool.”
“You got it.”
Karras placed the vinyl on his Dual 1228, dropped the needle of the Shure carefully onto the third track. He adjusted the V of the Marantz tube amp that powered the system, listened to the gentle guitar intro and then the bongos coming through the big Bose 501s spaced a wall apart on the other side of the room. Karras had bought the 501s from a jazz-loving salesman named Gregg at the old Sun Radio on Connecticut and Albermarle. Those speakers were his pride.
Clay walked into the room, tucking a short-sleeved button-down into a clean pair of jeans. He always kept some clothes at Karras’s place, close as it was to the shop. Don Van Vliet’s growl kicked in on the first verse of “Too Much Time.”
“Captain Planet,” said Clay, giving the eye to Karras.
“What, you gotta give me shit now? You know this is bad. Should’ve been the single of the year, if Reprise had known what to do with it.”
Clay found his foot moving to the Memphis-style horns against the backbeat, the female vocalists behind the lead on the chorus, Van Vliet’s warped blues vision. “He’s doin’ that Stax-Volt thing right there.”
“Right.”
“Sounds like he’s got a few sisters singin’ backup, too.”
“The Blackberries.”
“Okay, Dimitri. Your Captain Planet’s down.”
“You guys want any of this?” Vivian held out the fatty.
Karras took a hit, offered it to Clay, who shook his head. Karras handed it back to Vivian.
“You smoke cigarettes, right?” said Karras.
“Marlboros,” said Vivian.
“Soft or hard?”
“Soft.”
“I’m going to go out, get a few things. We could use some milk for coffee, shit like that. You can crash here tonight, okay?”
“Sure.”
Karras saw Clay issue a small smile.
“Here’s the setup,” said Karras. “The guy with the beard on the first floor, Duncan, he’s the guy to go to if you got a problem. On this floor you got a Secret Service guy who’s never around, and a guy named David who’s some solar-heat-and-cool architect. He’s in and out.”
“Okay.”
“A lady named Janice lives downstairs. She lives with her boy, Lucas. Both of them are cool.”
“All right.”
“There’s a few bums down in the boiler room, they sleep on cardboard there, they shouldn’t bother you. If they do, again, you go to Duncan. He’s a big man; he won’t let anyone give you any shit.”
Vivian smiled, stoned now. “Good weed,” she said.
“That cat you saw outside? The house cat, Dumbo.”
“ ’Cause of the big ears,” said Vivian.
“And now,” said Clay, “you got the whole story of the Trauma Arms. C’mon, Dimitri, I gotta get into the shop.”
“Help yourself to everything,” said Karras.
Vivian giggled, tapped ash onto her jeans, bobbed her head to the music.
“There’s an ashtray over there by the sink.” Karras looked back at her once before he and Clay went out the door.
Out on R, Karras looked up at his open windows. Vivian had kicked up the volume on the stereo, and the music pumped out to the street. He and Clay walked toward Connecticut.
“You got your hands full there, boy.”
“I’m only going to let her stay until she gets on her feet.”
“Or till you get her on her back.”
“Until she finds a place, I mean.”
“Where’s she gonna go? She’s just one of those hippie chicks, ’bout five years too late. Hangin’ out. Don’t want to go nowhere, ’cept from one high to the next.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
Clay smiled. “Shit, man, you already got it all figured out.”
“Come on, man. She’s nineteen.”
“Would stop me, if we were talkin’ about me. But we’re talkin’ about you.”
“Marcus—”
“You gonna let that get away from you? Young Asian girl with a fine set of titties like that?”
“What,” said Karras. “You think they’re nice?”
They reached Connecticut and R, stopped on the corner. Karras put his hands in the pockets of his jeans, looked up at his friend.
“You holdin’ the money?”
“Yeah. Gonna keep it in the shop for a few days, let things cool down.”
“And then?”
“Like I said. Give it back.”
Karras shifted his feet. “Funny how all that shit happened today. Not funny, but, you know... I was just buyin’ a pound of dope, man, and all of the sudden everything flew apart.”
“It’s the city, man.” Clay shrugged. “Life’s just a trip and a half, Dimitri. You know that.”
“No question.”
“Anyway, let me get on into the shop. Promised Cheek the night off. Boy wants to see some movie just opened up. King Suckerman, some bullshit like that.”
“One about the pimp?”
“Uh-huh.”
Karras shook Clay’s hand, some funky-ass double-buck shake the two of them had worked out themselves.
“Thanks for standing with me back there, Marcus. I do appreciate it.”
“Right. You take it light, hear?”
“Yeah,” said Karras. “You, too.”
Wilton Cooper liked to sit low in the driver’s seat, his elbow up on the window ledge, fingers barely brushing the steering wheel at twelve o’clock, amber-tinted shades over his eyes, driving the speed limit or below it like he wasn’t in any special kind of hurry, no pressing place to be, nobody to tell him he had to be anywhere anytime quick.