King Suckerman

by George Pelecanos

  “Spartan,” said Vivian.

  “How’d you know?” said Karras.

  “She ain’t talkin’ about where your people come from, man,” said Clay. “She’s sayin’ you could use a little decorating advice.”

  “Oh.”

  “Let me get my shower,” said Clay, and he quick-stepped toward the back of the place.

  Karras dropped the bag of dope on the cable-spool table. He gestured to the bag. “Have a seat. Do a hit if you want; knock yourself out.”

  Vivian looked at the dirty water settled in the bong’s tube, the poker stuck in the bowl. She could smell the bong water from where she stood. “You got any papers?”

  “I’ll get you some.”

  Karras went back to his room, listened to the ache of the pipes from the bathroom where Clay showered. He found a pack of Tops on his dresser and then straightened the sheets on his mattress, which lay frameless on the floor, before he left the room.

  Vivian was breaking up a bud when he came back to the living room. The bud felt sticky between her fingers—a good sign—and its pungent scent filled the room.

  “This looks pretty sweet,” she said.

  Karras gave her the papers. “Your boyfriend always get good dope?”

  “Eddie? He wouldn’t know Hawaiian from backyard ragweed grown from Mexican seeds. But, yeah, he buys good stuff. Why’d you think I was hanging out?”

  “Was going to ask you about that.”

  “That was part of it. The other part was I had nowhere else to go.” Vivian crumpled up the paper, tossed it impatiently to the side. “You better do this. I’m used to EZ-Widers.”

  “Okay.” Karras had a seat next to her on the couch. He licked the glued end of one paper, attached it to another, made a neat fold in the second. He dropped the crushed-up bud into the fold, put the whole deal between the thumb and forefinger of both hands, began to roll a tight number. “What’s your full name, anyway?”

  “Vivian Lee.”

  “Right. Your parents Gone with the Wind fans?”

  “My parents barely even speak English. I don’t think they’ve ever seen a movie in their lives.”

  “Where’d you grow up?”

  “Rockville.”

  “Your parents there now?”

  “Last time I checked.”

  “They know where you are?”

  “I haven’t talked with them in a while.”

  “Bet they’re worried.”

  “I guess.”

  “But you’re not worried. You’re—”

  “Just hanging out.”

  “Here.” Karras handed her the fat, tight joint. He found a book of matches in the pocket of his Levis, dropped it on the table. Vivian leaned across the table. She wore a T-shirt that ended a few inches above the belt loops of her jeans, exposing her flat belly. The T-shirt had blue horizontal stripes, and the lines of the fabric were stretched out where they ran across her breasts. Her breasts were large and hard and pushed straight out in the shirt.

  Karras swallowed. “Wanna listen to some music?”

  Vivian shook some of her long black hair off her shoulder. She lit the joint, exhaled. “What’ve you got?”

  “Everything.”

  “Okay.”

  Karras got up off the couch, walked to the bookshelves, where his records were arranged alphabetically and spine out, making a subtle dick adjustment as he walked. “You like Captain Beefheart?”

  “Which one?” said Vivian.

  “I got Spotlight Kid. Let’s see, and I got Clear Spot.”

  “Clear Spot’s cool.”

  “You got it.”

  Karras placed the vinyl on his Dual 1228, dropped the needle of the Shure carefully onto the third track. He adjusted the V of the Marantz tube amp that powered the system, listened to the gentle guitar intro and then the bongos coming through the big Bose 501s spaced a wall apart on the other side of the room. Karras had bought the 501s from a jazz-loving salesman named Gregg at the old Sun Radio on Connecticut and Albermarle. Those speakers were his pride.

  Clay walked into the room, tucking a short-sleeved button-down into a clean pair of jeans. He always kept some clothes at Karras’s place, close as it was to the shop. Don Van Vliet’s growl kicked in on the first verse of “Too Much Time.”

  “Captain Planet,” said Clay, giving the eye to Karras.

  “What, you gotta give me shit now? You know this is bad. Should’ve been the single of the year, if Reprise had known what to do with it.”

  Clay found his foot moving to the Memphis-style horns against the backbeat, the female vocalists behind the lead on the chorus, Van Vliet’s warped blues vision. “He’s doin’ that Stax-Volt thing right there.”

  “Right.”

  “Sounds like he’s got a few sisters singin’ backup, too.”

  “The Blackberries.”

  “Okay, Dimitri. Your Captain Planet’s down.”

  “You guys want any of this?” Vivian held out the fatty.

  Karras took a hit, offered it to Clay, who shook his head. Karras handed it back to Vivian.

  “You smoke cigarettes, right?” said Karras.

  “Marlboros,” said Vivian.

  “Soft or hard?”

  “Soft.”

  “I’m going to go out, get a few things. We could use some milk for coffee, shit like that. You can crash here tonight, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Karras saw Clay issue a small smile.

  “Here’s the setup,” said Karras. “The guy with the beard on the first floor, Duncan, he’s the guy to go to if you got a problem. On this floor you got a Secret Service guy who’s never around, and a guy named David who’s some solar-heat-and-cool architect. He’s in and out.”

  “Okay.”

  “A lady named Janice lives downstairs. She lives with her boy, Lucas. Both of them are cool.”

  “All right.”

  “There’s a few bums down in the boiler room, they sleep on cardboard there, they shouldn’t bother you. If they do, again, you go to Duncan. He’s a big man; he won’t let anyone give you any shit.”

  Vivian smiled, stoned now. “Good weed,” she said.

  “That cat you saw outside? The house cat, Dumbo.”

  “ ’Cause of the big ears,” said Vivian.

  “And now,” said Clay, “you got the whole story of the Trauma Arms. C’mon, Dimitri, I gotta get into the shop.”

  “Help yourself to everything,” said Karras.

  Vivian giggled, tapped ash onto her jeans, bobbed her head to the music.

  “There’s an ashtray over there by the sink.” Karras looked back at her once before he and Clay went out the door.

  Out on R, Karras looked up at his open windows. Vivian had kicked up the volume on the stereo, and the music pumped out to the street. He and Clay walked toward Connecticut.

  “You got your hands full there, boy.”

  “I’m only going to let her stay until she gets on her feet.”

  “Or till you get her on her back.”

  “Until she finds a place, I mean.”

  “Where’s she gonna go? She’s just one of those hippie chicks, ’bout five years too late. Hangin’ out. Don’t want to go nowhere, ’cept from one high to the next.”

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  Clay smiled. “Shit, man, you already got it all figured out.”

  “Come on, man. She’s nineteen.”

  “Would stop me, if we were talkin’ about me. But we’re talkin’ about you.”

  “Marcus—”

  “You gonna let that get away from you? Young Asian girl with a fine set of titties like that?”

  “What,” said Karras. “You think they’re nice?”

  They reached Connecticut and R, stopped on the corner. Karras put his hands in the pockets of his jeans, looked up at his friend.

  “You holdin’ the money?”

  “Yeah. Gonna keep it in the shop for a few days, let things cool down.�
�

  “And then?”

  “Like I said. Give it back.”

  Karras shifted his feet. “Funny how all that shit happened today. Not funny, but, you know… I was just buyin’ a pound of dope, man, and all of the sudden everything flew apart.”

  “It’s the city, man.” Clay shrugged. “Life’s just a trip and a half, Dimitri. You know that.”

  “No question.”

  “Anyway, let me get on into the shop. Promised Cheek the night off. Boy wants to see some movie just opened up. King Suckerman, some bullshit like that.”

  “One about the pimp?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Karras shook Clay’s hand, some funky-ass double-buck shake the two of them had worked out themselves.

  “Thanks for standing with me back there, Marcus. I do appreciate it.”

  “Right. You take it light, hear?”

  “Yeah,” said Karras. “You, too.”

  Wilton Cooper liked to sit low in the driver’s seat, his elbow up on the window ledge, fingers barely brushing the steering wheel at twelve o’clock, amber-tinted shades over his eyes, driving the speed limit or below it like he wasn’t in any special kind of hurry, no pressing place to be, nobody to tell him he had to be anywhere anytime quick.

  The company he was keeping at the present time, it was just plain difficult to look one hundred percent down with them around, but Cooper was doing the best he could. He had B. R. in the passenger seat next to him, doped up on the couple of codeines they had given him back at D.C. General’s ER. B. R. Clagget was ugly to begin with—Cooper would have to tell him some time, in a real gentle kind of way, to try laying off the fried foods—and now all his front teeth had been knocked out, which only added to the fright.

  And then there were the two silly-ass, country-ass niggers in the backseat, who were hitting the cocaine from the Baggie that Eddie Spaghetti had given them back in Southeast, hitting it right in plain view, the top down on the Dodge, as they drove across town.

  “Hey, Mandingo,” said Cooper, “y’all keep that shit down back there, hear?”

  Ronald lowered the bag. Russell reached over, dipped his long-nailed pinkie into the Baggie, leaned forward, put a chunky little mound up into his right nostril, hit it hard.

  Russell reared back like he had been slapped in the head. “Whoo!” He shook his head like a dog, pulled something from his nostril. “What the fuck is this?”

  Ronald laughed. “That’s rice, nigger!”

  “Rice? What the fuck’s that Eye-talian motherfucker doin’ puttin’ rice in my ’caine?”

  “Keeps the freeze from goin’ away in all this humidity and shit. Don’t you know nothin’, boy?”

  “You see a boy,” said Russell, “kick his ass.”

  Cooper slapped in a Buddy Miles cassette—More Miles per Gallon—and kicked it up. He looked over at Clagget, whose head was kind of tilted to the side.

  “You all right, B. R?”

  Clagget blinked his eyes. “I’m okay, blood. Where’s my gun?”

  “In the trunk with the money. With all the other guns, too. You tellin’ me you don’t remember puttin’ that shotgun there yourself?”

  “It’s those pills they gave me. I don’t like feelin’ like this.”

  “I don’t like it, either. I don’t fuck no way with no kinda drugs myself. You know I don’t even drink. Man’s got to be clearheaded in this life if he wants the good things.”

  “I feel the same way.”

  “Just one of the things I like about you, B. R.”

  From the backseat Russell sang, “Rockin’ and a-rollin’ on the streets of Hollywood.” And Ronald joined him on the second line of the chorus: “Rockin’ and a-rollin, don’t know if I could.” They touched hands.

  Russell looked out the window, said with excitement, “Hey, check out that El D!” There was a nice baby blue El Dorado riding right beside them. “I’m gonna get me one of those, Ronald, soon as we get our money. Damn sure am.”

  “Shit, Russell, you be lucky to get you a Buick, maybe. ’Cause you know you ain’t nothin’ but a deuce-and-a-quarter-ridin’ motherfucker.”

  “Leastways I’ll be ridin’ in somethin’, man. While you walkin’ down the highway scratchin’ the bugs out your nappy hair.”

  Ronald said, “Go ahead.”

  Clagget leaned over, spoke softly near Cooper’s ear. “Those two coming with us?”

  “Uh-uh. They got a cousin over in Northeast. Cuz don’t know it yet, but those fools are stayin’ with her. Gonna keep that bag of ice with us, too. Don’t want those two to be gettin’ into trouble behind that shit. I’ll let ’em get back into it when I want trouble to happen, understand?”

  “What about you and me?”

  “You and me are gonna get us a room over on New York Avenue, headin’ toward the county line. That okay by you?”

  “Sounds good, blood.”

  “And I got a surprise for you, man. We goin’ to a show tonight. While they were fixin’ your shit back there, I saw in the newspaper that a certain movie was openin’ tonight.”

  “King Suckerman?”

  “Uh-huh. You and me, we’re goin’ to the nine-thirty show.”

  “Dag! I been waitin’ for that one!”

  “I know you have, B. R.”

  “Thanks, Wilton!”

  “You stick with me, little brother. I’m gonna take care of your ass real good.”

  “Listen to this shit, boss,” said Rasheed. He turned up the volume on the system. Fiery guitar blossomed through the house KLMs.

  “Who is this?” said Clay.

  “Group called El Chicano, on the Shadybrook label, out of L.A. This brown guitarist, he’s got a sound like ’Los, don’t he?”

  “He does sound a little like Santana, man, I’ll give you that.”

  “Which only proves my point. It’s only men of color who can get that feeling out of a guitar.”

  “Maybe so. But you know, the best guitarist I ever saw was white. John McLaughlin, man. Was three rows back when he played the Warner with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Touring behind Visions of the Emerald Beyond. Had that twelve-string of his, and I swear to you, man, it was like the Lord himself had his fingers on the frets. And you know, I’ve seen damn near all of the great ones. B. B. and Muddy and all those blues boys. Saw Hendrix at the Ambassador, too. But nobody, not even Jimi, played like Johnny McLaughlin played that night.”

  “It’s the color experience, Marcus, that’s what gets the feeling out of the instrument. Look at the blues!”

  “I hear you, Rasheed. And I agree. But I’m only tellin’ you what I saw with my own eyes. My experience, dig?”

  “It’s like the white man took the blues, co-opted that shit for himself. Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and all that. And now you got those dumb-ass movies, like the one Cheek was in such a hurry to go off and see tonight. Those white producers tryin’ to exploit our culture, showin’ us what our ghetto thing is all about. And us, givin’ them our money like stone suckers. It’s bullshit, man. You don’t understand.”

  “It’s you that… Look: You got to get beyond that shit, young brother. ’Cause out in the world, it’s only gonna cripple your ass. Be aware of your history and what was done to us, and don’t ever forget. Keep your black aesthetic and be proud of it. But get rid of the bitterness, man. It ain’t gonna do you no good.”

  “I hear you, man.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Clay sighed, pointed his chin to the front of the shop. “Go on and lock the front door. I want to show you something before you go.”

  Rasheed Adamson went to the door, locked it with the keys Marcus Clay had given him upon his promotion. He looked out the window at the dusk fallen on the avenue, checked his watch. He went back behind the counter. Clay was down on his knees, pushing aside the throw rug that covered the removable panel over the small hole he had cut in the wood floor, a hole just big enough to accommodate a cash box. Clay kep
t a hundred and change in the register overnight, just enough to make a burglar think that a hundred and change was all he kept in the shop; the real money he kept in the cash box beneath the floor.

  “Get on down here, boy,” said Clay.

  Now they were both sitting on the floor, below counter level, out of sight of any pedestrians window-shopping on Connecticut. Clay opened the steel box. He reached into each of his pant pockets, withdrew two rolls of large-denomination bills.

  Rasheed looked at the money. He fingered the macrame red, black, and green Africa cutout that hung around his neck on a leather string. “You got some serious change there, boss.”

  “Goddamn right it’s serious. You’re lookin’ at twenty grand.”

  “For real?”

  “Square business.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “This here is trouble money, Rasheed. Me and Karras got ourselves into some shit today. Truth be told, this money isn’t exactly mine.”

  “Karras, huh? I told you about hangin’ out with that Caucasian friend of yours.”

  “Dimitri got us into it, that’s a fact. But it was me who fucked up and got cocky, took what wasn’t mine.”

  “What you fixin’ to do with it?”

  “Sit on it a few days, let things chill. Let the boys I took it from cool off, then give it back.”

  “Leave it here?”

  Clay’s brow wrinkled in thought. “Half.” He counted out ten thousand, placed it in the cash box. He put the other ten back in his pocket. “Case we get knocked over, some shit like that, I won’t lose it all. I’ll keep the rest over at my crib.”

  “Why you tellin’ me?”

  “Straight up? ’Cause I trust you, man.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re a good boy, Rasheed. A little thickheaded about some things, but you’re good. I know you won’t give me up.”

  Rasheed’s grin went from ear to ear. Serious as he was, and with the facade of toughness Rasheed felt he always needed to wear, it wasn’t often Clay saw him smile. For a moment, he looked like the kid he was.