The Lotus Crew (9 page)

The Daydream

IN THE DAYDREAM
Alvira is surrounded by moist maidens of every type, lying on a soft bed caressing buttocks and breasts with detached amusement. He knows if he keeps it up for a few hours he'll get an erection but is not sure if he chooses to focus on this. His indifference seems to feed the passions of the females, and they coo and woo fiercely as he yawns. He rests his head on firm freckled bosoms, and his feet on tender olive thighs. Suddenly he begins to get hard, but almost immediately the sweet apparitions start to fade. Then there is only one, a dark-haired slim vapor of a girl dressed in flowing red, with big dark lotus eyes that never quite look into his. She wafts over and tells him to turn over. She handles the weeper with great dexterity, pinching up a hunk of ass flesh and stabbing him painlessly. “No sting,” she says. “It's like a water shot.”

The girl slides between his legs and holds his prick in her fist. It is still hard, but the glow of the lotus is stronger than the sex glow.

The girl looks into his eyes. The fire returns to flesh. Suddenly the dream is gone, leaving him with a picture. It's a face he has never seen, except in the daydream.

Mr. Sorrow

FURMAN DISSOLVED four bags
in a spoon and booted into a convenient line above the ankle, then slid on socks and boots, threw on a jacket, and hit the stairs. A quick glance at his Movado checked him at twenty minutes late. Getting out of bed was a trick with the gorilla Jones he had lately. They'd wait a half-hour maybe, but no more.

As he turned onto Dumont Avenue he saw the big dark car with JJ's impatient face in the rear window. He sprinted.

“Furman, you baaad nigga. You gonna make us blow d'day. I aks you t'be on fuckin' time, m'man. Fum now on we on'y be waitin' on you ten minutes. Sheeet!”

The problem was severe. Manhattan South and New York Tactical hit the street around eight o'clock. Between six-thirty and eight, shit was wide open. A Triad worker could sell out by noon with an early start. If the morning fucked up, it might take until seven at night to sell the day's material.

“I be sorry, JJ. Here, suck on some o' dis fine reefa an' be coo'.”

“I suck on yo' reefa,” JJ said, “but I don' be cooled so easy. You be late every mornin'. It be nice o'Chu t'send wheels f'us, an' you gonna fuck it up!”

Ya Ya didn't say a word but just cut expertly through morning traffic on the way to Manhattan.

“It ain' gonna happen again. I hadda he'p m'ma w'm'kid bro'. He be fuckin' up at school again, and dey sent f'ha.”

“You gonna have to tell it to Chu if it happen again. You be m'main blood, but you fuckin' up. Sho' you ain'
usin'
yo'seff blind?”

“Shit, I ain' usin' but fou' bags e'ry day,” Furman said softly.

“Yo' lids weighin' in at a ton each, Jack, so don' be layin' yo' lies on me. You gonna blow one high-payin' ticket.”

“Don' say dat shit. I be cool!”

“W'dat kinda usin' folks be watchin' you and you swea' dey don' see it. You think you cool, Furman. Don' trust what you thinkin'. Jones thinkin' f'you. Happnin' t' somebody else you see it plain.”

Furman saw he couldn't slide around JJ and sat trying to muster the passion to respond convincingly. It was gone. Jones had it. All he could invoke was an arrangement of facial features designed to communicate amusement, innocence, detachment from allegations. But JJ's words stung into him. Furman's mouth became tight, self-conscious. The eyes made his condition totally transparent. Barely slits, lids thick, very little eye contact or looking up. Those cold vacant orbs said
Jones inside.

“Furman, Jones makin' yo' moves. Look out!”

The car pulled to the curb beside the park on Forsythe and Rivington.

“JJ, you got 'magination up yo' fool black ass.”

“M'man, you fulla shit. Yo' m'bro'n I won't be tellin' what an evil nigga you be. But ch'betta chill out o' yo' gonna fall.”

Furman yanked a thin smile out of the remnants of himself. “I knows you concern. You m'
daddy
.”

“You shitfucka!”

Furman stepped out, throwing the leather bag over the shoulder of his London Fog tan raincoat.

“You m
'main
,”
Furman said, bending to stare straight into JJ's eyes. JJ stared right back, seeing through him. Furman found himself saying, “. . . an' I ain' lookin' t'bullshit you, JJ.” Furman's eyes suddenly gave up, panicking a split-second to reveal deep anxiety. “I be tryin' t'straighten shit out.”

JJ exhaled in relief. Once someone admits they're out of control they might turn it around.

Furman's customers were beginning to pile up, and JJ knew he only had seconds to be convincing. “Listen, Furman, tonight we gonna sit'n rap 'bout yo' habit. Nobody gotta know. We bring it down slow, like maybe a bag less a day down to one o' half. Then you gotta take a vacation, m'man. Chu give us time to chill out upstate.”

“Soun' good,” Furman said, his voice exhausted, defeated. The kind of habit he'd worked up was going to be painful to break. A nutcracker.

For Furman, the worst symptoms were the mental quirks and fears, the raw nerves and eternal restlessness. Furman could contend with the trots, sweats, stomachaches, congestion, chills, nausea, and disorientation inherent in evicting the Chinaman. But the sheer hopelessness that crept into his soul scorched him bitterly. He was afraid of suicide, insanity, loss of control, of that helpless mindset. He'd been chipping for years, once in a while going too far for comfort. But this was a
dealer's
habit. It would take something beyond courage to contend with the matter, to bear it without trembling.

“You gonna make it, Furman. You ain' alone.”

“Yeah.” Furman flicked his butt at the curb and put on his RayBans. “Hey, m'people're gettin' itchy t'take off.”

“Sure. Go 'head.”

Furman straightened up and walked into the hallway of the tenement near the bodega. The building was open but only a few of the cribs were lived in. His spot was under the stairs, right near the rear doorway. He could split out the back or make the stairs to a maze of connected rooftops if things got nasty. And word was out on Triad, so he didn't need a touter on the street anymore. Only thing he shelled out for was the cooperation of a customer of his who lived in the building. For six bags a day, Carlos provided a small but powerful kerosene heater for Furman to huddle close to or leave at his feet to fight off the long hours. The deal also included lunch—usually hot Spanish rice, beans, and spiced fried chicken wrapped in aluminum foil and heated—and the understanding that if shit fell Carlos would be there. If it was heat, he might have to stash material—or Furman. If it was a holdup, Carlos was bound by a handshake to cover Furman. No contracts were signed, but the two appeared to understand each other.

Furman dealt quickly with the buildup of customers. Any cluster of blancos on Rivington Street would eventually draw heat. He set up the kerosene heater and had Carlos bring him coffee as soon as there was a break. He noticed Carlos was in a good mood and soon discovered the reason. He'd just received a substantial package of sludge. Sludge is an unshootable but very smokable yellowish-brown material similar in texture to moistened sugar. The high is similar to freebasing, a popular Hollywood and New York method of smoking cocaine. When Carlos first saw the blancos freebasing, it dawned on him that they were sort of taking the coke back a step. Since basing was relatively new, there was no commercial, ready-prepared material. Carlos hit on his contact in the Dominican Republic, who promptly opened up a line of sludge at extremely reasonable numbers. Carlos put out fives, tens, twenties, and fifties tinfoil packets of primo smokable coke with an airplane logo stamped on them, and below it the title
B-52.
Soon there were B-52s buzzing all over the street. The lotus ghosts all agreed it was the pause that refreshes. Having a hot item like that in the building helped Furman sell his own hot item. A customer could score Triad and B-52 in the same spot and speedball his ass off.

Business was brisk, but Rivington Street was no breeze. Heat frequently patrolled on foot, which they rarely did in Alphabet City. No end to the harassment, and while they rarely caught anyone pants-down, their presence could tie up the game for a whole afternoon. Also, Riv was where Chu got taken by Comancheros.

Carlos returned with more El Pico, this time laced with a touch of methedrine crystal to potentialize the caffeine. He also brought Furman a banana con cuso, a thick joint of reefer and sludge. Furman needed both.

Two nervous blancos stumbled noisily into the hallway with fists full of tens. Furman threw out their bags and swept up the green.

“Mira!” It was Carlos. “La hara!”

“Yo, m'man, close 'at do',” Furman hissed to one of the blancos. The customer looked confused but obeyed.

“Ahmmmm … Don' leave yet, y'all. Step down behin' d'stairs f'one sec.”

Furman blew out the candle and stashed his bags in a deep gaping wall hole. His ears were cocked for Carlos' instructions because Carlos could watch the street from his window. A full five minutes stretched painfully along. They could sit there all day. The blancos were getting jittery, and Furman was about to tell them to walk a flight up, staying away from the windows facing the front, and let themselves out through a vacant rear apartment. Just then …

“Esta bien!”

Furman exhaled sludge in relief, opened the door, and excommunicated the blancos. He looked up and down the street as they split. His heart was pulsing, hands sweaty. Damn thrill a minute on Rivington. The man had blown any action that might've made the place jump. Hopefully in a few minutes the customers and crews would pop out of a million different shadows and go back into action.

It took a few hours, but Furman sold his bags. He went into Carlos' crib, where he could count the cake and get off in peace. He needed that after-work cura more than usual. Maybe he'd throw an extra bag in the cooker to calm his nerves.

“Muchas gracias,” Carlos said, nodding at the two bags Furman dropped on the kitchen table for him. “I hab t'go t'New Yersey toni', so I boot one an' sabe uno f'moonyana.”

“Be back befo' I opens?”

“Mos' likely, 'less m'Cheby blow up.”

“Well, fill the heater an' leave it under the stairs. I'll bring m'own lunch. Damn if I ain' sick'a rice an' beans nohow!” Furman grinned, challenging.

“Hey, m'fucka', don' like m'cheecken?”

“Yeah, big smash on yo' chicken, Jim.”

“J'don' care 'bou' food no more w'dee dope.”

“Hey, I ain't doin' that much!” His voice went into excited falsetto. “Shit, man, why're people behin' buggin' me today? I be cool, Carlos. An'f you catch m'man JJ, you be tellin'm that, too. Furman is a down nigga an' is in slick operation!”

“No'sing fool me. People come here t'buy e'ry day … c'n see j'slippin' away. Dey see j'get weak an' j'
fucked,
man.”

Furman had been about to cook and shoot his cura when Carlos opened the superego assault on him. He looked around nervously. If he took his gimmick in the bathroom, Carlos would know exactly what he was doing. He thought of the four bags tucked in the lining of his jacket and could contain himself no further. He knew his actions would prove Carlos' words, but …

“If you had to stand there all day takin' chances maybe you'd be blown out yo'seff, shitface,” Furman spat, pumping up his line and applying a tie.

“I takin' chances, Furman. An' I gettin' high to cool. Bu' j'gotta put a limit, man. I ain' tellin' it no more 'cause j'don wanna hear. Foook it! Do what j'gonna do.”

“I'll get a grip on it, Carlos … when the time's right. F'now'm unda the gun.”

Furman finished fixing and split to make his cash drop. He knew people were getting disgusted with him. Somehow he'd have to chill out his gorilla.