“I got AIDS, you fuckers! You’re a dead fucker! I got AIDS and you’re a dead pig!” The cops pulled back in a wave and the kid scampered into the press. He got about five yards. He ran right into another night stick. A black policewoman dropped him with a stroke across his shins. He went down in a heap. The rest of the police were on him at once and he was in the bag. All the way up the stairs you could hear him screaming: “I got AIDS, you bastards! You bastards all be dyin’, I got AIDS.”
On Jamie’s back the two guys in the Hawaiian shirts were coming around the clubhouse turn and the woman was tossing her hair. It’s time to go home, thought Jamie.
Jimmy and Krush were through casting about in The Deuce, only half serious about making some kind of score. The streets were packed for the midnight shows lined up side by side all along 42nd from Sixth to Seventh. Huge blue limousines, windows as black as marble, were sliding around the corners. The crowds were flowing around Krush and Jimmy, unconsciously giving them a little room. Krush and Jimmy saw them all as a stream of Swatch watches, Vuarnet and Serengeti glasses, Calvin Klein jeans, Guess? jackets, satin and black leather, fourteen-karat gold chains in endless loops around slender necks, faggots with bulging purses, poppy loves and marks and vics staggering along the street dazzled by the lights, heavy with cash, cash, cash, and none of it for them. So much fucking gold around. Krush could tell you the price of any car on the street; he knew logos and brand names at fifty yards. He could smell a woman from up the block and could read her scent and know if it was Opium or Tuxedo or Charlie. It told him what she’d have on under the dress and which card she’d carry. Opium and Tuxedo meant black and lacy, and a Gold American Express. Charlie meant Calvin Klein jockey shorts with cutaway thighs and a Citibank Visa.
Here comes another limo, gray and as long as a subway car. Krush and Jimmy used to carry spray cans to mark up the Els back their way. One night they’d taken a dash along Central Park South, holding their spray cans, keeping the buttons down, strafing the people in front of the Essex and the New York Athletic Club, finishing up circling the limos in front of the Plaza like a pair of crazy Apaches whooping and yelling, dashing in and out with those cans spraying lime-green Day-Glo all over the doorman and all over five of those big burgundy Caddies out front. The jakes had chased them on foot all the way down Madison from 60th to 44th. Two of the jakes had been black Uncle Toms, and Krush and Jimmy would slow down and taunt them, come up to the curb and call to them: “Let’s go, bro! Here we are, shines.” At 44th they’d cut over to Third, then down Third to 38th, back to Madison, up, and along 42nd to the entrance to Grand Central at Vanderbilt. They could have run all that whole spring night, shoving the citizens off the sidewalk and kicking at the fruit stands, with the jakes on their tails and the sirens going yip yip yip all over the town. Times like that were the best times Krush ever had, times that made his skin burn and little blue thunderbolts jump from his finger tips.
Krush didn’t know what was wrong with him tonight. He was dreaming around in the road like a junkie with his head in the sky. Get your mind on business, fool. Take Care of Business is the name of the game. He looked at Jimmy, walking a few steps to the left, dragging his fingers across a store window. A citizen pushed by Krush as he slowed down. Krush smelled Blue Stratos, caught a glimpse of a thick, soft, white neck and a tousle of blue-black curls, and in between the hair and the folded skin, Krush saw a heavy gold link chain.
“Yo, Jimmy! Get over here!” Jimmy came out of his fog and angled through the crowd to Krush. Krush inclined his head eastward along The Deuce. Jimmy picked the target out right away, a glint of gold over a thick neck, a suggestion of softness there, and weight above the hips. Good leather belt buried in flab, new jeans too tight. Bass Weejuns and little white socks. They were moving in seconds.
Jamie was walking quickly, concentrating on not turning around. The air had changed as soon as he got out of the Show World sleaze palace. Maybe he was just tired, but all this porn, it was really a downer. It was all such brainless garbage, badly shot and mindless plots set around the idea that just the sight of a ready cock was enough to turn women into idiots, begging for it, pleading for it, loving whatever the hell you did to them. That was so much garbage, Jamie could vouch for that. The women at school were harder to bring down than an air force jet, and just as likely to fill your ego full of holes if you ran some of that nonsense on them. And the booth films were worse. Pain, bondage, dimwits in leather diapers waving rubber tubing around. The whole damned block ought to be burned out, thought Jamie, and lost in this vision he almost walked right over a tall black kid slowing down in front of him. Jamie dodged but he made solid contact with the kid. He looked away fast as he slid by, just glimpsing a pair of wide eyes and a narrow Arabic nose, a mouth pulled down, something not quite right in the whole impression. Okay, he said to himself. Just keep going and don’t make eye contact, you dork. Jamie could feel the boy checking him out. He pulled his shoulders up and tried to convey a mixture of indifference and menace. He failed.
Jimmy was walking faster now, staying on the vic’s store-side, sending no physical signals to anyone but trying to weave his way through the people and get a few yards ahead of the kid with the blue curls. Krush had moved up to within six or seven feet and he was giving the vic a thorough going-over.
You look with your soul—The Duke had once explained it to him. Try to feel what’s coming off the vic. Is he scared? Is he in shape? Is he a Bernie Goetz, a vic with a gun? Don’t want no vic with no gun, do we? Will he take a choke? How? The check list was endless but Krush could run through it in fifteen seconds.…
Jimmy paid no attention to these considerations. He had learned to leave the “sizing” to Krush. He coasted on that talent. It wasn’t his job. His job was to get in there and throw the choke, put it in solid and put the vic out. And if the vic gave him a problem, that was okay, too, because Jimmy liked to fight. He stayed in shape and he had always found something way down in there he could use.
Jimmy liked it, that was the thing. Hitting on some vic was like a night at the shoreline for Jimmy Jee. Fuck over some asshole vic! Pow pow pow! The little shitstorm always made him feel good. Like coming in your jeans. It was sweet to see them go down, maybe begging. Kick them again and see the face go slack and the pig eyes go all weepy. All right now, let’s get busy. Jimmy’s legs were trembling and his breath was coming in short and sharp.
Jamie felt nothing but a vague unease. It was an unease he had gotten used to. He had never been a fighter, although he wouldn’t back off if there was no way out. But these streets down here … the black guys and those crazy Latino dudes, no fat on them, twitchy and jumpy and they looked right at you when you went by. Jamie tried but he just couldn’t keep the eye-to-eye stuff going. All he could think about was, what if they want to take you up on it? What’re you going to do then, chubby? Jamie had never felt like a chubby little Jewish kid before. He was feeling that way now. Too white, and too Jewish.
He stopped abruptly and stepped into a brightly lit storefront. The windows were packed with cheap watches and Lloyd stereo boom boxes. Oh, yeah, there’s a treat. Buy one of those little hand zappers with the shock poles. Looks like an electric shaver. Let’s see Victor Kiam shave with that sucker. I liked it so much I bought the company! Well, he had sixty dollars. Jamie looked up and saw a heavyset black dude watching him from the curb. As soon as their eyes met in the reflection from the plate glass, the man spun off and disappeared out of the light. Jamie had no idea who he was, but he didn’t like it at all. Time to get off the street.
Krush cursed quietly to himself. Jimmy always did something stupid when they were sizing up a vic. There he was, getting in too close and the vic standing in front of glass. The whole street was like a hall of mirrors. You used the glass to keep a vic in sight without being on his case too lean. And you didn’t cut off like you’d been goosed if he saw you. Jimmy got himself in the vic’s glass and as soon as the kid looked up there was ole Ji
mmy Jee dancing off into the street so fucking cool. Ain’t nobody here, bro. Be cool. Jimmy came to a stop five doors up, and now here came a couple of jakes. Krush could see two uniform cops—heavy white guys with serious meat on them—ambling along The Deuce, hats back, no ties, the older one carrying a shitload of breast bars above the tin. Krush knew all about breast bars. The jakes got them for combat, or for thumping bloods in the back of the RMPs. Look at them come, like they owned the whole block, swinging the stick and staring down every black on the street, grinning and talking away. The younger one had a chili dog and he was dripping the sauce onto his shirt, talking with his mouth full. The older one was giving Jimmy a hard look. Jimmy’s throwaway was stuffed into his back pocket. The jakes knew what that was, for sure. Just be cool, Jimmy. Krush stood with his back to the sidewalk and strained to see up the block. The vic stepped out, between the cops and Krush, and went right out into the triangle formed by Broadway, Seventh, and 42nd, losing himself in the crowd across the intersection. We losin’ him!
Jamie’s hotel was farther up Broadway, and the way was well lit. He began to feel that he had been acting like an ass. There was no one on his trail. He patted the twenties in his front pocket, and he could feel the roll under his insole; he had cash and he was hungry. Room service was staggering: thirteen bucks for a thin burger and limp lettuce. A Brew ’n Burger came up on his right. It was bright and packed with people. Jamie decided to go in. He felt safer as soon as he went in through the greasy glass doors, and although the restaurant smelled like roasted rooster he found himself a window booth and sat back, sighing. Safe.
* * *
Krush and Jimmy watched the mark as he settled into the booth. They watched him as he slipped his jacket off. A gold chain showed in the light as he leaned forward to slip off the sleeves.
“He ain’ no DT, man!” Jimmy had some doubts about Krush. He wasn’t paying attention. Jimmy still didn’t think that overweight Jew in the side curls had been a decoy cop, and he felt a thin line of contempt shine through his image of Krush. Boy be losin’ his balls.
Krush had already decided that this was the vic. The kid was no detective. He was too scared. Real fear was something the street crews could sense. Fear was what drew them in. If the vic had just once come around with a hard look, made eye-to-eye talk, let the boys know there would be some bleedin’, the chances were good that Krush and Jimmy would have passed him by. Not out of respect. It was a simple calculation. A true vic knew he was a victim. He was waiting for it, and when it came he knew in his guts that he’d lie down and lick the curbside if only the bad guys would leave him alone. They all fantasized about physical danger. They stood up and cheered for Rambo and Rocky. All Krush and Jimmy had going for them was the bone-deep soul-center knowledge of pain, of hurting, of muscle and weapons. They knew this element. No true vic ever did. Krush and Jimmy came across the street and went into the Brew ’n Burger and sat down at the counter with their backs to Jamie. Drive him out into the street. Then do it.
It took a minute but Jamie finally recognized the heavy black guy. He dropped some cash and ran, looking for a cop.
What could they do in the street? Out under the lights? Jamie jogged along toward his hotel, side-stepping the strollers and couples, feeling his weight on the roll in his shoe, worried, scanning the streets for a cop. He got to a call box at the corner of Broadway and 43rd and hit the red buzzer. Then he looked back and saw those two black guys from the restaurant. It was sure as hell the same two who had been near him at the electronic shop. Jamie ran off before the box operator could answer him. The sign on the call box made it clear. Nobody was coming if there was nobody answering. The tinny radio voice was lost in the street noise when it came, but Jamie was already halfway up the block. There had to be cops around! This town was a nightmare, something out of Dante. Jamie decided to lose those guys. He dodged around a cab, cut across the traffic on Broadway, and went down an alley between 44th and 45th. Out of the light, he put on some speed. There was a channel between a theater and a hotel, a row of Dumpsters. He raced up the channel. There was a line of yellow cabs outside a theater up ahead on 46th. Get a cab and get out. Take the goddam cab all the way to Buffalo. He looked back over his shoulder and there was no one there. He was almost out of the alley. Three people were climbing into a cab no more than thirty feet ahead. Where the hell are the cops? A woman was looking at him now, watching him run toward the cab. She looked frightened. Wait up, thought Jamie. Wait the fuck up! The woman was staring right at him. He didn’t know that he was just a running silhouette in the alley. He raised a hand. Wait the—
Jimmy had the vic by the throat; one thickly muscled arm was all it took. He plucked the kid off his feet and jerked him into the dark. Krush stuck his head out for a look up and down the alley. Up at 46th a woman in a cab was looking their way, her mouth open. The cab accelerated in a dusty cloud and was gone. Down the lane there was nothing. When Krush looked back, there was something wrong with the picture. He tried to make it fit for a full three seconds. Jimmy was supposed to be behind the kid, choking him with a forearm, holding onto his left bicep with his right hand, shoving the back of the vic’s head with his left hand. Five seconds of that and they always went down. So why were there two black shapes a foot apart? For one chilled second Krush had a tremor of doubt. Was this a DT? Was there a gun? Then he heard Jimmy’s voice.
“Say, bro. Got us a hymie cocksucker here, ain’t we, dickhead? Ain’t we?”
What the hell was Jimmy doing? Krush stepped back into the doorway. Jimmy had one hand on the vic’s chest. The other hand was holding a butterfly knife with bone handles. What the fuck?
“What you be doin’, fool!” Krush knew Jimmy carried a tool sometimes, a screwdriver or a sock full of sand. But the jakes hated knives. If they caught you with one on The Deuce you were in for a bad beating, resisting arrest in the cells at Midtown South. Jimmy had been strange all night, and now Krush could see why.
Jimmy was shivering. He looked away for a second, over at Krush. “You be losin’ yo’ balls, man. I say we fuck with this dickhead a little. He been a real pain in the ass all evening.” He did his trick with the butterfly knife. Thumb off the top horn, flip the handle arm closed, a wrist flick, snap snap, a circle of steel flashing, and it was open again. He was going to kill the vic. Krush knew that.
“My man.…” Krush started forward.
“Dickhead!” Jimmy screamed. The knife went in and out; the vic made a sound like a small stringed instrument. Jimmy brought a fist around and struck him into the ground. Jimmy Jee went down on a knee, tugging at the gold chain. Krush was a pace away. Murder. Endless maytag nights in B block.
Jimmy ripped the pocket away. A deck of bills fluttered out onto the ground. The vic was wheezing and shaking. Krush got a brief picture of the last three seconds of his brother’s life, maybe how it had been for him, with the red blood pumping out of The Duke, his heart thumping and hammering. Murder and the fucking maytag nights. Cuban neckties. Who the fuck was Jimmy, do this shit to Krush? Who the fuck was the vic, make all this trouble? And Jimmy? Could he keep his fucking mouth shut? Could he? Could he?
The vic was trembling all over. A black pool was bubbling out of his shirt front. Krush could see the boy’s left hand where it lay stretched out on the ground. The tips of his fingers seemed to glow. Was everything going to pour out of this boy? Would they find him in a lake of black syrup, the way Krush had found his brother?
“Shit, Krush! Krush! Dennis, yo! Wake the fuck up! Are the jakes coming?”
Jimmy had called him Dennis. Where was everything going? He was supposed to be able to do this stuff. He was chilled-out. He could kill! He always knew he could kill. It was supposed to feel good. It came to Krush that his mother would come to court and she’d hear his street name. They’d read her his record and she’d have to look at pictures of the vic lying in his blood. Dennis McEnery, a.k.a. Krush. Jimmy got the vic’s pants down. He tugged the jeans over the boy’s fat
thighs and the underwear came down with it. Oh, sweet Jesus.
“Jewboys got a stack on them. Wearing belts and shit. Where’s the stack, Jewboy?” Jimmy’s hands were flying over the pale white body, dipping into the pools of blood. Jimmy wrenched a shoe off. A second deck of bills appeared. Jimmy scooped them up and went off at a dead run. Krush stood in the alley, listening to a perfect hollow silence. Murder One. Murder One.
Ten blocks south and seven streets east, Eddie Kennedy, drunk and happy, was climbing into a cab outside the bar. He sang a Ry Cooder song to himself all the way up First Avenue, leaning against the door of the cab, half asleep. Tired enough to sleep well, to sleep the whole night and wake up fine. Go to work, run down this Nadine kid. One thing you could count on was work. There was always some shit going on somewhere in town. Always something for a cop to do. Monday down. Four to go.
The 23rd Street subway platform was almost empty. Krush and Jimmy Jee paid the freight to the lady in the cage and walked all the way down to the far end of the platform, on the watch for Transit cops. There was no talk. They were both pretty winded from the run down from 46th Street. Down at the end of the line Jimmy Jee counted out the cash and a credit card. He kept the heavy gold chain with the little tube-thing on it. Krush took his share in silence. The partnership was over. Would this stupid nigger know how to shut up? Would he talk?
It took a long time for the northbound IND to come along. Jimmy Jee was standing when they both heard it. He was dancing with nerves and excitement, hopping from one foot to the other. Krush could see him working it out in his mind, see him making himself the star. Jimmy Jee would tell every home boy on the block. He was too stupid to shut up about it. Jimmy Jee wanted respect.
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