Slide (10 page)

Twelve

If a man should challenge me now, I would go to that man and take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand, lead him to a quiet retired spot and kill him.

M
ARK
T
WAIN

Max was gearing up for the big meeting with the Colombians, trying to learn as much
Español
as he could. He’d sent his bee-atch out to get him the tapes and he was listening to them whenever he had time, which wasn’t often because he was
mucho
busy.
Mucho
, see how he intuitively knew this shit?

The idea to learn Spanish came to Max one morning on the bowl when he was thinking because, like, thinking was his forte.

See, when you were a clued-in dude like The M.A.X., you not only got to use words like
forte
, you had a reasonable idea of what they meant. He’d been telling himself like a mantra,
know your market
, and
know the guys you’re dealing with
. He hadn’t built up this hell of a business without being savvy, and he liked to think of himself as straddling both sides. Yeah, the boardroom, piece of cake, he could do the biz gig in his sleep. Sometimes he believed he was born with the Dow Jones in his mouth. Your regular working stiff, he read the sports section of the
Daily News
, moved his lips as he read, but The M.A.X., he didn’t just read the business section, he fucking devoured it.
Wall Street Journal
, man, he subscribed, and knew his name was in every editor’s address book over there. Come on, if you were a journalist in the business world and didn’t have an in with Max Fisher, then who the hell were you anyway?

Who knew, maybe one of these days the
Journal
would ask Max to do a regular column for them and if Max was in a philanthropic mood, had some free time on his hands, felt the need to
give back
, maybe he’d accept. He’d call the column, what else,
The M.A.X.
Have guys in all the happening bars going, “I was reading in
The M.A.X.
...” or “
The M.A.X.
says...” Yeah, he could see it. The double hit of coke he’d had with his croissant and skim milk latte helped the visualization. And, hey, it could happen. But the bottom line was Max was too busy. The guy who came up with
multitasking
, shit, that guy had The M.A.X. in mind.

So, anyway, Max was thinking that the Colombians were coming to town, and those dudes spoke, like, Spanish, right? So, you were going to be in bed with them, you better, like, speak their lingo. Seemed to make sense. And it was this kind of preparation that had made Max the
hombre
he was today.

Hombre
. Man, he was getting this shit down fast.

He listened to the Spanish tapes whenever he got some downtime and when you were as freaking busy as Max, running a goddamn crack empire, there wasn’t a whole load of free time floating around. He listened when he was eating, on the shitter; he even wore the fucking headphones in bed, letting that crap seep into his subconscious, so even his sleep gig was, like, working. Did The Donald know that little trick?

And sure, okay, it was a little uncomfortable—damn earpiece fell out and poked you in the eye and the wire got wrapped round your throat—but who said knowledge was easy. Fuck, you ever hear old Stephen Hawking complaining? And that dude was wired if anyone was.

Max laughed out loud, loving his wit.

A few times there, yeah, when he’d gotten a little carried away with the crack, the booze, he’d put on the tapes, let it crank, played that shit loud till Felicia had screamed, “The fuck is wrong with you, put on some Lil’ Kim!”

The reason why she’d always be a follower, didn’t grasp the big picture. The bee-atch just didn’t get it.

One odd sidebar—the voice on the Spanish tapes had this, like, posh accent, like some Spanish royalty or shit, and Max could only speak the lingo in the same aristocratic tone. There was this Lopez dude doing the lessons and Max was incapable of speaking in a halfway decent Spanish accent if he didn’t add “Señor Lopez” to everything he said, in that upper-class tone. Like if he wanted to say “
Puede ayudarme
?” in a normal tone he sounded like shit. But if he said, “
Puede ayudarme, Señor Lopez?
” he sounded like a native.

Man, he sure as shit hoped one of these Colombians was named Lopez.

Another problem, his vocabulary wasn’t exactly massive. He wasn’t going to be entering any Spanish Scrabble tournaments any time soon. And a lot of the phrases he knew weren’t exactly useful. Like how many opportunities would he have to say,
“Usted tiene gusto de dos limones y de dos naranjas, Señor Lopez?”
Would you like two lemons and two oranges, Mr. Lopez? Or
“A que hora abre la oficina de correos, Señor Lopez?”
What time does the post office open, Mr. Lopez? Or,
“A donde esta un buon restaurant in este ciudad, Señor Lopez?”
Do you know where there is a good restaurant in this city, Mr. Lopez?

The Colombians might find it a tad odd that he was asking them what time the post office opened and where the good restaurants were since he was the one who lived in fucking New York. Or, make that
Nueva York
.

Eh, The M.A.X. would pull it off somehow. He always did.

He pushed the CD player away, went,
“Usted tiene gusto de más blow, Señor Lopez?”
and cut a fresh line.

Sha-Sha shifted on his water bed, couldn’t get comfortable. When you weigh in at four hundred pounds and change, comfort, man, that shit’s hard to come by.

He was twenty-six years old and where was his life at? Nowhere, that’s where. He was doing the same old, same old all the time, every day, and he was getting tired of all that bullshit. He was still out there on the corners, busting his ass and for what? He wasn’t The Man—shit, he wasn’t even on his way to being The Man. Niggas sixteen and seventeen were above him, bossing his ass around and shit, goin’, “Do this, Sha-Sha, do that, Sha-Sha, smoke that dude, Sha-Sha, how come you fucked up, Sha-Sha? Where’s my money at, Sha-Sha?” Man, he was thinking about going out there one day, blowing all their asses away. He get a piece and a hundred bullets and solve all his damn problems.

But Sha-Sha knew why he was where he was at—cause he was a sick-ass, that’s why. How many times he go to nigga above him and say, “I wanna move up,” and the nigga go back to him, “Fuck you”? Sha-Sha knew it was his own damn fault, cause he had no damn self control. He didn’t know how to stop hurting people and even the gangs, man, they didn’t need no crazyasses hangin’ around. Like sometimes Sha-Sha would be walkin’ down the street, and he didn’t like the way some nigga was lookin’ at him, or he didn’t like his sneakers, or the way he smelled, or sometimes there was no reason at all, and he’d take out his nine, pop the motherfucker in the head.

Sha-Sha didn’t know why he was so fucked-up—it was just the way he was. It was probably the reason why he got so fat. Whenever he got down about his life and shit, he’d go for the menus, order in a whole mess of food. Then he’d get on the scale, see he’d gained another ten, fifteen pounds, and he’d feel so bad about it, he’d go out and shoot somebody. Then he’d feel bad about how fucked up all that shit was and he’d start with burgers and pizzas again. It was like his life was going round and round in circles and there was no way out.

When he saw he’d passed four hundred pounds he was all ready to say, Fuck it, and go out and start killing people, and kill himself while he was at it. Didn’t make no damn difference anyway and, besides, how long before the cops got off their asses and busted him? They’d already had him in for questioning three times for killing three different motherfuckers. Yeah, he’d been away, but never on a murder rap, and his fat ass wasn’t gonna be doing no thirty-to-life upstate. Them niggas loved big boys and he wasn’t gonna be gettin’ jammed like a pin cushion for no thirty years.

Then Felicia, his ho cousin, showed up at his crib. She was looking fine too, with that big ghetto ass, but what she’d do to her titties? Every time he saw her they got bigger and bigger; now it looked like they was ready to explode.

He went to hug her, was ready to push her head down so she could start sucking on his dick like when they was kids, but she pushed him away, started dissing him about his weight and shit. Man, he was ready to smoke that ho, then she hit him with some big i-dea. Shit didn’t seem so bad neither—get some cash and product off some white people and dealers from down south and shit. Twenty grand was bullshit, but maybe they could get forty for the product. That made sixty grand and that wasn’t too bad. It got Sha-Sha thinking, anyway—maybe he didn’t have to go out, start killing people after all. Sixty grand, shit, he could use that—start up his own crew with his boy Troit. They could be the ones ordering all ’em niggas around and shit. Yeah, Sha-Sha saw his whole life changing. He’d go on the Slim Fast and Lean Cuisine, drop a couple hundred pounds, be able to get up out of his water bed without feeling all that shame and shit.

So when Felicia talking, Sha-Sha kept saying Yeah, yeah, let’s do it, let’s take the white man’s money. Stupid ho thought she was gonna get twenty grand, meanwhile she wasn’t gonna get a damn cent. Then he fucked her good and sent her ass back to Manhattan.

A few days later, she called him, told him she knew where the drug deal was at. But she was acting all smart and shit—said she wasn’t gonna tell him nothing over the phone, that she had to be in the car with him and Troit and then she’d tell them where it was at. Yeah, she was smart all right. Soon she was gonna be dead too.

Felicia came back to Brooklyn the day before. In the elevator going down, Sha-Sha pulled stop and made Felicia blow him before they went to pick up Troit. Sha-Sha had hooked up with Troit up at Sing-Sing. Troit looked the opposite of Sha-Sha, bone thin, no meat on his whole body, but he was just as fucked up in the head. They called him Troit, cause he was from Dee-troit. Rumor had it he’d killed so many brothers over there he had to come to Brooklyn to cool down. Most times when niggas started going on about all the people they popped, Sha-Sha knew that was bullshit talking. But he’d seen Troit in action and the boy was stupid-crazy. Sometimes after Sha-Sha killed somebody he felt bad and started eating and shit. But Troit, man, he didn’t give a shit.

So they was all three in a jacked BMW—Sha-Sha driving with Troit up front next to him, and Felicia in the back seat. She was all excited and shit, talking about the twenty grand she was never gonna get. She even had a damn suitcase, said she was gonna leave New York tonight, get on a bus to St. Louis and open a beauty salon or some stupid shit like that. She still wouldn’t tell Sha-Sha where the deal was at—just kept on with the “Make a left here, make a right there” bullshit, like she was Miss Shadow Traffic. Man, Sha-Sha was sick of taking orders, specially from his ho-ass cousin.

They took the Belt Parkway, round to the BQE. Looked to Sha-Sha like they was heading to Queens someplace. Sha-Sha and Troit just wanted to listen to jazz, have some peace and quiet in the car, before they had to go start killing everybody. But Felicia kept going on and on, givin’ more mouth. She was talking about Sha-Sha’s body again, saying how he was too damn fat, and should go for one of them operations where he could get his stomach sewn up or cut off or some shit. Then she started getting into it with Troit, telling the man he was too thin, that he looked like a skeleton. Sha-Sha couldn’t believe it. Didn’t the ho know who she was talking to?

Troit couldn’t take any more and turned round and said, “Bitch, you better learn how to shut up.”

Felicia still couldn’t keep her mouth shut, said, “You better stop callin’ me bitch. I gotta listen to that shit all day long from Max, and I sure as hell ain’t takin’ that shit from y’all niggas.”

Sha-Sha saw Troit’s hand go for his piece, knew what was gonna happen next. And he couldn’t let that shit happen—not till they knew where the drug deal was at anyway. Sha-Sha turned to Troit, gave him a look that said,
Later, man,
and Troit put the piece down.

Felicia didn’t shut up the rest of the ride.

One point Troit said to Sha-Sha, “Later, yo, she mine.”

Felicia, all bitchy, went, “What he say?”

Sha-Sha, smiling, went, “Nothin’.”

Thirteen

I would have killed more but I was out of ammunition and I was afraid to buy more.

F
RANCIS
B
LOETH, WHO SHOT THREE PEOPLE ON
L
ONG
I
SLAND

To get cash for New York, Angela and Slide ran a series of fast guerrilla hits. Went like this: Angela would go into a bar, lure some sucker, checking out his wallet first, and then bring him outside where Slide got up close and personal. They did seven of these stunts in two days, knowing the Guards would be on them fast. Three paid real fine dividends and the others, well fook it, they were a bust, what can you do?

Still, they had their stake and Angela booked Continental direct to New York.

They ditched the shack they lived in and the car, well, you couldn’t give the frigging thing away, so Slide stripped the plates, left it at the airport.

He was like a kid, excited at his dream coming true. Annoying the goddamn shite out of her with the endless questions: Can we go to a Yankees game? Can we live in Tribeca? Can we buy a Chevrolet? Can we go to Niagara Falls? Can we, can we, can we, till she roared, “Can we give it a fucking rest?”

He bought a new suit. It was June and she told him it was going to be hot, hotter than a motherfucker, so he bought a linen job, and was pissed when it creased on the plane. And, yeah, he bought a fedora, in white, looking like a poor relation of Truman Capote, and new shades—the real deal, Ray-Ban aviators. When the flight attendant came by with the beverage cart he ordered a Tom Collins and when that wasn’t available, he went Bogey, snapped, “Gimme bourbon, rocks, Bud chaser.”

To hear this in an Irish accent is to have lived a little beyond yer sell-by date.

Angela had a large vodka, hold the mixer. She wanted that raw burn of alcohol in her gut and she got it all right.

The in-flight movie had Tom Cruise in it and Slide went, “I love the Cruiser. Maybe we should become Scientologists, there’s serious wedge with those dudes.”

Angela had some Xanax stashed in her purse and over dinner, with those mini bottles of wine, she knocked those babies back and it knocked her right out. The last thing she heard was Slide asking the stewardess, “You got a carton of, like, Luckies?”

She thought she might seriously hate him.

Entering Kennedy Airport, Slide’s first response was, “Holy fook!”

Angela’s response was slightly different. She felt relief, hearing the accents, seeing the American flag, like, everywhere, and knowing she was, if not home, at least on familiar terrain. New York was her town; she knew how it worked.

Slide’s Irish accent had got him through Immigration and he got the 90-day visa. Angela had her American passport and she got, “Welcome home.”

Outside Kennedy, they had to join a line for a cab and Slide was marveling at everything, going, “Fook, the taxis are
yellow
.”

He wanted to skip the line, said, “Let’s jump the queue.”

She explained two things, slowly and patiently because her head was, like, fookin opening from a migraine: “One, you want to get killed in New York, try skipping the line. And two, that’s what we call it here, a
line
.”

Nothing could dampen Slide’s enthusiasm and he said, “Could do me a line of coke right about now.”

Online, she’d found a hotel in the Village, got two weeks at a decent rate, the Euro finally working in her favor.

The driver, a surly black guy, said, “The flat rate is forty-five bucks, plus tolls.”

Slide, into it, went, “Jaysus, I’m being mugged already.”

Either the black guy didn’t understand the accent or he could give a fuck.

When Slide saw the size of the hotel room, he said to the bellboy, “Okay, we’ve seen the closet, now where’s the room?”

Angela shushed him said, “Give him five bucks,” and then tried to explain to Slide about tipping.

He listened with astonishment, then said, “Scam city, what a con.”

Angela said she needed a shower, a big drink, and a lot of sleep.

Slide said, “You grab some z’s, babe. Me, I’m gonna paint the town red.” Angela was going to have to talk to him about his awful idea of what constituted current American speak, but she was exhausted from the flight and decided the slang lesson could, like, wait.

Slide hit the street, figuring he’d off his first American after a cold one or two. He fully intended chasing the serial killer record and he was in the right city to start. As he entered a bar he hummed a few bars of
New York, New York
.

The place was quiet. A guy at the counter was alternating between sipping a Coors Light and a pint of water. He had on those grey-tinted shades that shouted, Serious intelligent dude. He was reading the sports page.

What the hell, Slide was in the mood to talk, so he grabbed the stool next to the guy and asked, “How you doing?”

The guy shut the paper with a sigh, turned round, gave Slide a serious intensive look, then asked, “Irish?”

Slide was a little put off, thought he’d got the New Yorker thing down, but said, “You got me, pal.”

The guy flicked his hair and said, “I know an Irish guy and, well, what can I say? He sure can talk.”

Slide wasn’t sure if this guy was fooking with him so he shouted to the bar guy.

“Hey, before Tues, right?”

That’s some New York speak for ya.

The guy took his sweet time getting his arse in gear but finally came over and said, “What do you need?”

Slide didn’t like the guy’s tone, thought maybe he’d off both of the fucks, get a jump start on his record. Then he said, “Gimme a Wild Turkey, beer back.”

The guy next to Slide exchanged a look with the bartender and Slide thought,
You guys dissing me?
Then he asked the guy, “You want to join me in a brew?”

The guy said he’d have another water. The fook was wrong with him?

The drinks came and the bar guy asked, “You running a tab?”

Slide stared at him, wondering what the fook was he on about.

The guy beside him said, “He means would you like to pay now or pay when you’re done? How it works, you put some bills on the counter, and he takes the money as you go along.”

Without thinking, Slide went, “Touch my cash, he’ll be touching his right hand, wondering where his fingers went.”

The guy laughed, as if he thought Slide was joking.

Slide knocked back the Turkey, drained the beer, belched, and put his finger in the air, doing a little dance with it, signaling for more booze. He’d seen that in a movie and always wanted to do it. You tried it in Ireland, you’d be waiting a wet week for service but the Americans, they liked all that signal shite, ever see them play baseball, nothing but fookin signals, anything but actually hit the damn ball.

The second Turkey mellowed Slide a notch and he felt that familiar heat in his gut. He’d had enough of these guys and asked the bartender for directions to the nearest betting parlor. As a child, his old man used to take him to The Curragh, the racetrack in Kildare, and Slide could pick winners simply by looking at the horses in the parade ring. It was a weird and wonderful gift, but erratic, not always dependable. If Slide could have depended on that gift, he wouldn’t have ever got into the kidnap biz.

Slide cabbed it to the Off-Track Betting tele-theater on Second Avenue and Fifty-third Street. It was five bucks to get in and he was going to argue but said,
ah fook
. Then, as he paid, the woman went to him, “You need a shirt with a collar.”

Said it as an order, like this was the Plaza Hotel and he was, what, some low-life shitehead? He heard the voice, prodding him to lean over and strangle the old wench, but he thought,
Whoa, buddy. Easy now, partner
. There was probably CCTV everywhere around here and after the whole Keith Richards fuck-up he wanted to be a little more choosy about his next victim. The last thing he needed was the NYPD breathing down his arse.

He cocked his finger and thumb in the gun gesture, said, “I’ll be seeing you in, like, jig time.”

Around the corner on Third Avenue and down a couple blocks, he found a sporting goods shop. Bought a golf shirt with a collar and dashed back to the OTB. He was already twenty-five in the hole and his stake was only a hundred to start. He needed to pick winners, and fast.

Unfortunately the horse-picking talent he’d had as a child in Ireland eluded him in Manhattan. In the race going off at Belmont, Slide loved the look of the seven. He bet half his stake on the horse, only to watch the jockey pull the rat up on the backstretch.

Quickly Slide’s stake eroded. He was down to his last ten bucks. He was waiting by the TV for a glimpse of the next post parade, when he noticed a guy celebrating, high-fiving with other gamblers. The guy had long straight hair, a strong jaw—kind of looked like a poor man’s Fabio.

Slide had heard the guy cheering home the winner of the last the race, the race where the pig Slide had bet finished dead last.

Slide went up to the guy and said, “Had the winner, huh?”

“You kidding?” the guy said. “I hit the Pick Six for the first time in my life. Can you believe it?”

Slide, real happy for him—yeah, right—went, “So how much that get yeh?”

“A lot,” the guy said, smiling widely. Was Slide imagining it or was the smug bastard trying to rub it in?

“What’s a lot?” Slide asked.

“Eh, about five thousand bucks,” the guy said, still with that self-satisfied tone, like one lucky ticket had transformed him from lifelong loser to king handicapper. “For me that’s not a big deal. I’ve been hitting winners left and right for weeks. Who’d you play?”

“The seven.”

“The seven!” The guy said it so loud, people were looking over. “You played that piece of shit? That was the first horse I crossed out in my
Form
. I can’t believe you played the seven.”

Slide, gritting his teeth, went, “So you some kind of expert on American racing or something?”

The sarcasm couldn’t have been more obvious, but the guy missed it.

“Yeah, you could say that,” the guy said. “I mean, they say only five percent of all gamblers come out on top, and I guess since I’m in that five percent that makes me an expert.”

A few minutes later, Slide watched the guy collect his winnings. He was such a high roller now that, of course, he tipped the teller twenty dollars, went to her, “Thanks, hon,” like he was De Niro in
Goodfellas
. Then he bought a round of drinks for his gambler friends. Offered to buy Slide one too, but Slide declined, going, “I don’t drink.” He was on a sarcastic roll all right.

Slide stopped betting. What was the point? He had a more surefire way to make his stake.

The smug guy hung around for the evening harness racing programs. He won a few more races, bragging to the teller, “I’m so hot, you’re gonna have to hose me down.”

When the guy finally left, Slide tailed him around the corner. It was getting late—there weren’t many people around. Near a construction site, Slide grabbed the fook by the shirt, pulled him beside a Dumpster.

And get this, the guy goes, “Hey, come on, easy on the shirt, man, you know how much that cost me at Banana Republic?”

Slide needed to get the guy to focus so he broke his nose for openers. The guy, hurting and seriously pissed off, whined, “Whoa, come on, I have to do a big photo shoot tomorrow for
Crime Spree
!”

“Crime spree this,” Slide said, then he shut the fook up with a few rapid punches, blackened both his eyes. Slide went, “Nothing personal,” and then he kneed him in the balls and took his wallet. His heart sung at the sheer weight of the cash. Meanwhile, the guy was groaning, “Help me, help me,” but it sounded like,
Halle, Halle.

Slide bent low, face in the guy’s face, and, almost lovingly, moved the guy’s long hair from his ruined features.

It seemed to finally dawn on the ejit that he was in, like, deep shite and he croaked, “Are you going to kill me?”

Slide went, “Naw, I’m going to let it slide.”

He paused for a second. Then he reached out and crushed the fucker’s windpipe.

The guy had a very flash watch, looked like one of those high tech jobs. Slide helped himself to that, then gave him a kick in the head for luck. He laughed, said, “Lights out.” Then he sauntered off, going, “No hard feelings, all right, buddy?”