Lush Life (4 page)

"I tell you what I am gonna do, though," Little Dap said. "Get up on a package tonight? Work it, sleep in tomorrow and party."

"Pay your own brother corner rent?"

"He ain't charge me."

"You got the money for a package?" Tristan asked.

Dap did what Tristan did, deliver, maybe more often because he was more popular, but he also got money from his grandmother and occasionally made collections for his brother.

"Not right now as such, but I'll get it tonight. Come back out here to the midlands, jux me a head, and I'm good to go."

"All right." Tristan not really following.

"There's this barbershop up in Washington Heights? If you're an hermano dominicano, they sell you a gram for twenty dollars, so I'm thinking let's snatch us a head out here, take the kibble, go up there, let you do the talking, come back down around Tompkins Park, resell the g for a hundred to the white boys coming out the bars, you know what I'm sayin'? We go up with, say, two hundred for ten grams, come back out here, sell for a grand, you do the math."

We . . .

"Yeah, huh?"

"Oh hell yeah."

But Washington Heights. Or even just back out here. They were only five or six blocks from the Lemlichs, but Tristan could almost count the times he'd been this deep away from home when he wasn't making a delivery. He didn't like going north of Houston or west of Essex, and he hated delivering dope to the doctors and nurses up at Bellevue or NYU Special Joints, both so far uptown they might as well be in another country. In fact the only place he didn't mind delivering to was the lawyer's office on Hester Street, close enough, although that redheaded lawyer there, Danny, sometimes when he got his head on, he'd start calling Tristan "Che" because of his goatee, Tristan having no idea how to tell him to quit it.

It was amazing to him how Smoov, only a year older than him, had the confidence to go into all those uptown bars by the hospitals and chat up all those doctors, nurses, and lawyers and whoever to drum up new customers. Shit, he wouldn't even be here in this junk field now if Little Dap hadn't just said, C'mon.

"So you up for this?"

"I don't know." Thinking about his curfew, those fists. "I might got to watch the kids."

"See?" Little Dap addressed the rubble. "Similac niggers, everywhere I look."

"Maybe I can get out of it," Tristan murmured.

"Ey, yo," Little Dap called out to the rabbi or whatever he was. "What you gonna do with them candlesticks back there?"

"That's not your concern."

"What?" Little Dap starting to trip.

The bearded guy, back on his cell now, ignored him.

"I ast you a civilized question. You think I'm gonna steal them or something?"

The guy smiled, briefly taking the phone from under his jaw. "They'll go in the new temple."

"Who gives a fuck," Little Dap said, tossing his pillowcase.

Tristan looked out at the rubberneckers on the roped-off sidewalk
-
sand niggers, flat-face Chinese, blancos, other kids-imagining that they were all there to stare at him, to see what his goatee was hiding, the lightening underneath, knowing it wasn't really true but not liking the idea anyhow, and so he put his eyes to the task he was getting paid for. A big $20.

When he looked up again, the rabbi or whatever was staring at him, a pained smile on his face.

"What?" Tristan flushed, then tracked the guy's eyes down to his own feet, seeing the Bible page he was standing on.

During the late-afternoon lull, Eric wandered behind the bar and made himself a light club soda and Hennessy. He wasn't a daytime drinker as a rule, but he'd been feeling amorphously anxious ever since they booted the Virgin. The boss hadn't even thanked him, not so much as a knowing nod, although it was probably more prudent for Steele to go all Don't Ask, Don't Tell on it if you were in his position.

Having watched the two new bartenders get through the lunch crush, Eric thought they'd both work out. Cleveland, the black one, was no artiste with a cocktail shaker, but was a warm conversationalist, far more important; and Ike, good enough with the drinks, had an easy laugh. Eric imagined that both would build up considerable followings within a month.

He was not amused at the stunt Ike had pulled. Not that he hadn't been thinking of doing the same thing, but the kid didn't even have the patience to look around and size up the pilgrims present to see if they'd wind up with a good ass-kicking before they could make it out the door. Fortunately there was just enough of a time delay before the Virgin evaporated, and they were almost out of earshot before the wailing started.

"Eric." Ike sidled up to him as he was putting back the cognac. "If you want, I'd be happy to make those for you."

"I'm good."

Despite three women coming in off a shopping spree to belly, up to the bar, Ike lingered by Eric's side, anxiously toddling from foot to foot. "Can I tell you something?" His voice dropped. "I'm not superstitious or anything, but that thing I pulled this morning? I have a real bad feeling it's going to come back and bite me in the ass."

Touched by the kid's unprotected candor, Eric was about to say something dry and reassuring, but the nitwit beat him to it, grinning and punching his shoulder: "I'm just fuckin' with you, brother," then going off to serve the ladies.

Tristan took the offered joint and dug his feet into the gravel on the roof of their building in the Lemlichs, the both of them gazing at mile
-
high One Police Plaza only a few blocks away. Not only was he blowing off curfew tonight, but he never picked up the hamsters from their various schools this afternoon: a first. There'd be hell to pay, but there was always some kind of hell to pay in that house, and he couldn't believe Little Dap was still hanging with him, so fuck it.

"We going to the Heights?" he murmured.

"First things first."

"What."

"What do you mean, what . . ." Little Dap cocking his head. "Gotta get that cheese, podner."

"Oh," Tristan said. "Shit."

In his preoccupation with the big journey to Washington Heights, he had forgotten that part of it.

"What." Little Dap sipped deep. "You never . . ."

"Yeah, no, not like . . ."

Little Dap shrugged. "Ain't nothing to it," passing him the joint.

Tristan in his embarrassment was unable to stop grinning.

"But I can't do it without my dolgier" Little Dap slow-poking him in the chest. 'You know what I'm saying?"

A bloodred moon slipped out from behind 1 PP.

"Why don't you just go to a couple corner boys," Tristan said, coughing out a cloud. "Say you collecting for Big Dap, we run uptown get the shit"-coughing again-"come back down here and turn it into something before he finds out, then just give him his money like normal."

It was the most words he had said all at one time in a year.

"Nah, unh-unh." Little Dap stretched his neck. "I tried that once, ran into some problems? That ain't a good idea. You don't ever get between Dap and his money. I mean, shit, you can send me to jail, I can handle that gladiator-school shit, in fact if truth be known, I could be like one of the instructors, but with Dap, he gets his hands on you when he goes off? Naw, unh-uh.

"And that's like the other, we got to be like deep cover on this, 'cause all them porkies from the Eighth? They always looking for a excuse to beat my brother's ass for that cop got shot, so they collar me, it's like, 'Oh, Little Dap, where's Big Dap?' Like he's my automatic mastermind on a caper, and so now they got another excuse to light him up from here to the river. But whatever they do to him? Comes back on me double."

Tristan dredged up a memory of Big Dap hauling off and slapping Little Dap in front of everybody on the street last year, the sound of it like a gunshot.

Then he thought of his ex-stepfather's eyes, the way they bulged when he was good and liquored, getting ready to knock one out of the park.

Tristan didn't want to go through with this anymore. "Maybe you shouldn't do it then," trying to come off as if he were saying it out of concern.

"Nah, it's good, I'm good with it."

They smoked in silence for a while, Tristan deciding the Manhattan Bridge was God's forearm, barring the way to Brooklyn.

"I tell you." Little Dap choked. "The one thing when we get out there? Stay off the Chinese, they get juxed so much, most times they never have nothing on them no more, and even when they do? You come up on them, they're like, 'Here,' hold out the money before you can even say something."

"What's wrong with that?"

"It's disrespectful."

"It's what?"

"How do they know what I got in mind before I even get up on them."

"Yeah."

"But them white kids?" Little Dap laughed, snorting smoke. "Ho' shit, they're like . . ." Doubling over, hand over his mouth. "I come up on this one guy last year, put the whistle in his mug? Motherfucker din't have no money on him so he asked if I wanted him to write a check, like, whom should I make it out to?"

"What?" Tristan laughing too now, like everybody up here was a fully blooded vet.

"Here." Little Dap went to his back pocket and pulled out a wrinkled pale blue check. It was from a bank in Traverse City, Michigan, dated six months ago and made out to cash for $100.

"You gonna cash it?" Tristan suddenly dizzy with friendship.

"Naw, man, if I cash this, then they can trace it. I just keep it for a joke."

"But if they find it on you, it's like evidence, right?" Tristan murmured. "Call this bank on here, ask who's this guy, was he robbed in New York ..."

Another silence came down, Tristan worried that he had just disrespected Little Dap, made him out to be a fool.

But Little Dap was too wasted to catch it, his eyes like two cherries floating in buttermilk.

"So what do you say," passing Tristan the roach. "You gonna be my dolgier out there or what ... I need to hear you say it."

Tristan took a last hit. 'Yeah, OK." The words coming out like smoke signals.

"All right then." Little Dap offering his fist for a pound, Tristan fighting off another out-of-control smile, it felt so good, something did at any rate.

"Man, you are one grinny motherfucker," Little Dap said, popping the nub of the joint in his mouth, taking the gun out of his sweatshirt muff and attempting to hand it over.

Tristan reared back and laughed, if you could call it that.

"What." Little Dap blinked.

"Nah."

"Nah? What, you think you go out there and what, yell at a motherfucker"?" He took Tristan by the wrist. "It ain't like you use it, man," slapping it into his palm. "You just flash it."

At first Tristan tried to pass it back to him, but then got caught up with the feel of it in his hand, the giddy heft.

"Naw, man, this'll be good for you," Little Dap said. "Get you blooded, you know what I'm saying? First time's like first-time sex, you just do it to get it done with, then you can start concentratin' on getting better at it, havin' fun with it."

"All right." Tristan staring and staring at the thing in his hand. "Can I ask you something?"

Little Dap waited. And waited.

"What the fuck is a dolgier."

"A dolgier? A do-anything soldier."

"OK."

"OK?"

"OK." Grinning, grinning.

"You're in the game now, son." Little Dap studied him studying the gun. "Time to show and prove."

Chapter
Two.

At 4:00 a. M., the first to come on the scene were Lugo's Quality of Lifers on the back end of a double shift, still honeycombing the neighborhood in their bogus taxi, but as of 1:00 a. M. on loan to the Anti-Graffiti Task Force, a newly installed laptop mounted on their dashboard running a nonstop slide show of known local taggers.

What they saw in that limbo-hour stillness were two bodies, eyes to the sky, directly beneath a streetlight in front of 27 Eldridge Street, an old six-story walk-up.

As they cautiously stepped from the cab to investigate, a wild-eyed white man suddenly came charging out of the building towards them, something silver in his right hand.

Bellowing with adrenaline, they all drew down, and when he saw the four guns trained on his chest, the silver object, a cell phone, went sailing and cracked the window of the adjoining Sana a market; within seconds, one of the Yemeni brothers erupting from the store, a sawed -
off fishpriest cocked over his left shoulder like a baseball bat.

At 4:15 a. M., Matty Clark received a call from Bobby Oh of Night Watch: a shooting fatality in your precinct, thought you'd like to know, just as he was leaving, for the last time, his midnight-to-four-a. M., three-night-a-week security gig at a slender Chrystie Street bar that had no sign, no listed phone number, and whose clientele were admitted ubv appointment only," buzzed in from behind a scarred narrow door on this obscure stretch of a Chinese-dominated side street; single-batch Cruzan rum, absinthe, and cocktails made with muddled ginger or ignited sugar cubes the specialties of the house.