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:
“Shut up, Russell,” said Ronald.
“And by the way,” said Cooper. “You ever seen a brother drivin’ one of these? Uh-uh, man, and if you claim you have then you a lyin’ motherfucker. Seen a few Chinese motherfuckers drivin’ these things, maybe, or a bunch of ’em standin’ around with the hood up, pointin’ at the engine, talkin’ fast, shit like that. But never any brothers.”
“Look,” said Ronald. “If you like, I’ll go on back, see that boy we picked this up from. He had this other ride available, a red seventy-four Sport with accent stripes. Just like the kind Starsky and Hutch used to drive.”
“Uh-uh, man. All the sissies in the joint was way into Starsky and Hutch. I’ll just go ahead and pass on the Sport.” Cooper looked at Russell, pointed to the open passenger door. “Close that wing, man.”
Russell went around and shut the door.
Cooper eyed the car for a while, then turned to Clagget. “What you think, B.R.?”
“I know it’s gonna get us some attention.” Clagget’s mouth turned up in a pus-lined, toothless grin as he studied the lines of the Dodge. “But it is kind of bad, blood. You know?”
“If you like it, little brother,” said Cooper, “then I guess it’s all right.”
“What we gonna do, Cooper?” said Ronald Thomas.
“Time we paid a visit to Trouble Man,” said Cooper. “B.R., go up to the house and bring the hardware on down.”
“We leavin’ now?”
“Yeah,” said Cooper. “Right now.”
Cooper knew he should leave town, right away, with the money and the drugs. Drive as far away from his doom as he possibly could. Looking at the car, though, he felt a pleasant kind of calm. What’d that prison psychiatrist call it that time, when he was talking about how it felt to bust out of all your chains? Liberated. Yeah, that was how he felt: free.
He could do anything, now.
Eighteen
Karras stopped off on P Street at the Fairfax Market for chips, onion dip, smokes, and a couple of six-packs of beer. He hit a liquor store for a fifth of Mount Gay rum and piña colada mix, and took it all back to his apartment at the Trauma Arms.
As he came through the door, Vivian Lee stood with her back to him, wiping down the kitchen with a damp sponge. She wore the red-and-white striped tube top Karras had bought for her, jeans ripped at the knee, and cork-heeled sandals. Karras stood in the door frame, studying the shine of her long black hair falling over her bare white shoulders.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” said Vivian, turning around. Her eyes looked a little funny, but not in that recognizable, just-stoned way. Beyond stoned, like they were looking back in on themselves.
Karras took the party materials to the counter. He watched Vivian scrub at a clean spot on the Formica.
“Have a good day?” said Karras.
Vivian laughed.
“My day was a trip,” said Karras.
“Mine, too.” Vivian laughed again. “Literally.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Ran into a couple friends at the circle.”
“What, you dropped some acid?”
“Uh-huh. This guy I know, Danny? He had this blotter, man.”
“You okay?”
“I’m all right. We went to a movie, man. Went and saw The Man Who Fell to Earth, at the Dupont? Whew. Bowie was weird, man. I guess I didn’t get it. Bowie was weird. I didn’t get it, I guess.”
“All right.”
“Bowie was so fucking weird.”
“Vivian, you okay?”
“I’m all right.”
Karras put the beer in the refrigerator. He took his T-shirt off, rolled it, and hung it around his neck.
Vivian checked him out. “You look healthy.”
“Thanks.”
“You look really good.”
“Thanks a lot. Listen, Vivian. I’m gonna take a shower, get changed. Marcus and his lady, Elaine, they’re comin’ over. You up for that?”
“Sure.”
Karras said, “Your cigarettes are in the bag.”
He took a long cold shower. It had been more than a few years since he had dropped acid. He had tripped plenty of times as an undergraduate, but he was past that now. He thought of the nineteen-year-old girl out in his kitchen, scrubbing away at a clean spot, out of her mind on blotter. He thought of the old Greek in the dingy grill on Fourteenth Street, and the old man’s grandson, to whom he could not bring himself to give advice. He pictured the kids in the park, passing him money, him passing them back a bag of dope.
“Fuck,” said Karras.
He closed his eyes.
But Dimitri Karras forgot all about who he had become once he smoked his first joint of the night.
Marcus and Elaine came through the door as he was tucking his Hawaiian shirt into his jeans. He cracked a beer for Clay, mixed a batch of piña coladas in the blender, served a tall cool one with an orange slice hung on the rim of the glass to Elaine. He opened a beer for himself and one for Vivian. The four of them stood in a circle and touched drinks.
“To the Bicentennial,” said Karras.
“To equality,” said Elaine, glancing at Clay.
“Party down,” said Vivian.
They smoked a jay. It brought Karras out of his funk and calmed Vivian down. She had been going from one subject to the next with Elaine, who had patiently listened without a break while Clay and Karras went through Karras’s albums. They settled on Call Me, which got the party off to a good start. Karras turned up the volume. Elaine and Marcus put down their drinks and began to dance. Karras and Vivian came out to the center of the room, joined them. They all did the bump to the title tune, then slow-dragged to Green’s Bee Gees cover. Afterward, Clay got Karras alone.
“Hey, Dimitri. Elaine was askin’ me, did you pick that shirt out for Vivian yourself, man?”
“What the hell?”
Clay grinned. “You know, that tube top she’s wearin’.”
“Marcus—”
“You got to admit, it would be just like a pussy hound like you to pick out a tube top for your lovely young houseguest. For easy access and shit.”
“I found it in a store down the street,” said Karras. “Thought it would look good on her, that’s all.”
“Oh, she does look fine. But I was wonderin’, did you happen to get her anything more practical?”
“Well, there was this halter top, see—”
“Yeah, Dimitri. I see.”
Duncan Hazlewood, the resident manager, and his girlfriend, Libby Howland, came through the unlocked door. Hazlewood had a fifth of scotch in his hand.
“We got tired of waiting for an invitation, damnit,” said Hazlewood.
“You don’t need one,” said Karras from across the room. “Duncan, Libby, c’mon in. Glasses are in the cabinet, ice is over by the sink.”
Another joint was lit and it went around the party. Karras had a good hit, then waved Clay over by his side. Clay knew what Karras wanted.
“Naw, Dimitri. I’m too high.”
“‘Too High.’ Stevie Wonder.”
“I’m tellin’ you, man, I don’t want no shotgun.”
Karras put the lit end of the joint in his mouth. He blew on the joint, sent a concentrated jet of smoke into the room. Clay stepped up, took the smoke into his lungs for as long as both of them could stand it.
“Now you do me,” said Karras.
Clay coughed out his hit. “Aw, fuck you, man.”
Karras went to his record collection, withdrew an album from the stack.
“Got Bloodshot if you want it,” said Karras. “J. Geils.”
“Jay North,” said Clay.
“You tellin’ me you’re not into a little Jerome?”
“Go ahead, man.”
“Even got the red vinyl, too.” Karras did an impromptu duckwalk over to the stereo.