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:
“That was boolshit,” said a man who had stayed, just a few rows back from Cooper and Clagget.
Clagget turned to Cooper. “Was it bullshit, Wilton?”
“Little brother?” said Cooper. “That there was the real deal.”
Jimmy Castle, Dewey Schmidt, and Jerry Baluzy walked quickly to the Firebird. The tone of the movie had killed their high from the very beginning, and they had crashed halfway into the flick. None of the patrons they saw out on the street, the ones who had been joking and enthusiastic while standing in the ticket line, looked happy or friendly now. Jimmy caught a couple of unprovoked hard looks. And then a black kid their age went out of his way to bump his shoulder against Dewey’s. Dewey stared at the young man for a second, if only to avoid losing face with his boys. But he quickly looked away.
“What,” said the young man. “You want some go?”
“Naw, that’s all right,” said Dewey in an unconcerned way, but still moving toward the car.
“I ain’t think so, bitch.”
Dewey let that slide. Jimmy and Jerry followed behind him, looking down at their feet. They hurriedly got themselves into the car.
Dewey fired the ignition, pulled away from the curb. He headed the Firebird north toward the Maryland line. Jerry filled a bowl and lit it, passed it around. In a few minutes they had gotten their heads up again, but not to where they had been earlier in the night. Dewey pushed a Grand Funk eight-track into the deck. “We’re an American Band” came from the wedge speakers mounted on the rear deck. Jimmy thought of complaining; the song was just a U.S. rip-off of “Smoke on the Water,” and basically it blew. But he knew Dewey was pissed, being stood down in front of them by the black kid like that. Jimmy kept his mouth shut.
“That was pretty good,” said Jerry, talking about the movie.
“Who was that actor played the pimp?” said Dewey.
“Ron St. John,” said Jerry.
“Ugly sumbitch,” said Dewey. “Had some soup-spoon lips on him, too.”
“That was one Leeroy-lookin’ dude,” agreed Jerry.
“Fuckin’ niggers,” said Dewey. “Right, Toothpick?”
Jimmy Castle didn’t answer. He hung out with this one kid at Einstein every so often, a black kid named Keith. They cut fourth period together about once a week, got high in the nearby woods. Jimmy thought Keith was a pretty nice guy.
Cheek first saw Rasheed as he exited the theater lobby after the show. Cheek recognized his red, black, and green knit cap and that quick walk of Rasheed’s straight off. He grinned, followed Rasheed out the doors and into the night. He walked behind him for a bit, then tapped him on the shoulder as they passed into the darkened end of the street.
Rasheed turned warily, his eyes wide. He relaxed when he saw Cheek, tried to recover his composure.
Cheek smiled. “What you doin’ down here, man?”
“Gettin’ up on a meeting down this way.”
Cheek laughed. “You a lyin’ motherfucker, nigger. I saw your thin ass walking out the theater.”
“Shit.”
“Gettin’ up on a meeting. Yeah.”
“I was curious is all.”
“That’s all right, blood. Curious is cool.”
Rasheed touched a finger to his lips. “It wasn’t what I expected, you know?”
“Me either, man. That’s the truth. They laid that shit out and ran it down.”
“You know that picture’s not gonna do any business.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“ ’Cause it tells the truth. And the brothers out here, they don’t want to know about the truth.”
“Hey, Rasheed: Lighten up with that shit, okay?” Cheek checked out the watch on his fat wrist.
“Where you off to, man?”
“See my girl.”
“Sholinda?”
“Got-damn right.”
“She is big, man.”
“Don’t be doggin’ my girl, now.”
“I ain’t doggin’ her, man. Just makin’ a statement is all. Matter of fact, she’s just the right size” — Rasheed grinned — “for a Rerun-lookin’ motherfucker like you.”
Cheek threw a soft right, pulled it at the last second. Rasheed ducked the punch, did a spin kick he had seen Bruce do in The Chinese Connection. Cheek stepped away from it, put up his hands. Cheek and Rasheed laughed.
“Come on, man,” said Cheek. “I’ll drive you home. While we’re on the move, pick up some good-ass barbecue first, place they got up around my way.”
“You know I don’t eat no pork, Cheek. A pig ain’t nothin’ but a filthy-ass animal and shit.”
“Oh, you’ll eat this, Rasheed. And afterwards? You’ll be lickin’ your motherfuckin’ fingers, too.”
Cheek knocked Rasheed’s cap slightly askew. Rasheed straightened it on his head just right. The two friends walked in the warm summer air to Cheek’s car: a ’67 Belvedere, white over blue, with nice, clean lines.
Nine
Dimitri Karras wandered around Dupont Circle in the early evening. In the fountain area at the center of the circle he did a little business, got the word out that he was holding some good weed. He sold a few OZs like that, just mentioning it to a couple of guys he knew, and told those guys when and where they could cop their bags.
Karras crossed in front of traffic, went down to Bialek’s, Marcus Clay’s main competitor, the wood-floored record and book store on the west side of Connecticut near N. He found an Atomic Rooster LP there that he had been looking for, and a hard-to-find David Sancious LP called Transformation (The Speed of Love), but he replaced them in their bins after a few moments of thought. He’d check with Marcus first, see if Real Right Records could order them in.
He went over to P Street, walked into a small consignment shop, bought a few things for Vivian Lee: a second pair of Levis, already worn in, and a halter top with a brown paisley design. He picked up a red-and-white striped tube top on the way to the register, threw that in the stack as well. Marcus would have said he was buying all the easy-to-get-off, no-brassiere-wearing shirts he could find. Karras was glad that Marcus wasn’t there to give him shit; he thought the girl would look good in those shirts, and he thought she’d be comfortable in them, that was all.
Karras stopped last at the Fairfax Market on P, picked up some essentials: milk, cereal, cigarettes, beer. Karras rarely ate at his crib. He bought some chick shampoo — well, the bottle was pink, anyway — and a bar of scented soap. The geeze at the counter rang him up, and Karras walked back to the Trauma Arms in what had suddenly become darkness.
Duncan Hazlewood stopped him in the foyer of 1841. “Well, what about that party?”
“I’ll let you know, Duncan.”
Hazlewood’s eyes registered mischief. “See that you do, damnit.”
Karras went up the stairs. He transferred his bags to one hand, turned the knob on his apartment door.
Vivian Lee sat on the couch, watching Barney Miller with the sound off while listening to Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything on the stereo at the same time. A lot of stoners liked to pass their time like that, but the confusion was not to Karras’s taste. He couldn’t deal with it, high or straight.