King Suckerman

by George Pelecanos

  “Looks good,” said Larry. He turned his head. “Hey, Deb, go ahead and bring out the shit.”

  Deborah booked.

  Cooper stood there, smiling, rocking back on his heels, waiting for the Indian girl to come back with the blow. The solo had kicked in on the song, and the simple-ass mug they called Slo Ride was playing a little air guitar with his free hand. No attention span, thought Cooper, even when an ex-con, stone-nigger gunman was standing right before him. Slo Ride. Slow, hell. Motherfucker was standing still.

  The girl came back in the room with a brown paper grocery bag, dropped it on the table next to the suitcase. She moved quickly back to the dining room, stood half in and half out of Cooper’s sight, near the open kitchen door. Goddamn, thought Cooper, was she the only one in this group with a brain in her head?

  Cooper opened the bag, reached inside. He pulled free one of the Baggies, felt its weight. The Baggie was cold, near frozen, with several grains of rice scattered throughout the snow.

  “We kept it in the freezer,” said Larry, seeing Cooper’s perplexed expression, “so’s it didn’t disappear in this heat.”

  Cooper realized for the first time that he was sweating right through his shirt. “It is hot in here, too.” Cooper dropped the blow back in the grocery bag. “Anyway, there’s your money. Two hundred grand, just like Eddie Spags said.”

  “What,” said Larry, “ain’t you gonna check out the merchandise?”

  “Don’t use it myself, don’t even want to try it for business reasons,” said Cooper. “My boys took your sample for a test run, gave it a passing grade. Besides, if it ain’t right, you know I’ll be back.”

  Larry looked over at Slo Ride, shrugged.

  Cooper said genially, “I’d go ahead and take the cash, put it in a safe place if I was you. Don’t want to leave all those ducats lyin’ around and shit.”

  Larry switched the .44 to his left hand, picked up the suitcase with his right, like Cooper knew he’d do. Yahoo, motherfucker—Mountain Dew.

  “Larry,” said Deborah, noticing Larry’s mistake from way back in the room. But Larry couldn’t hear her. The music had absorbed Deborah’s voice.

  Slo Ride squinted, scratched the barrel of his pistol along the side of his head. “Hey, Cooper.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m just wonderin’. You left-handed or right?”

  “Right.”

  “So when you pull them guns you got—when you get in a situation, I mean—which one you pull first?”

  Larry looked up.

  “Aw, that’s easy, Slo Ride.” Cooper laughed. He looked down at the .45s hanging beneath each arm. He moved his left hand to the right grip, the right hand to the left grip, like he was giving himself a hug.

  “Larry!” screamed Deborah, and Larry turned his head.

  “You just do this,” said Cooper, still smiling. “Called a cross-draw.”

  Cooper pulled both guns from their holsters, squeezed both triggers at once, shot Larry twice in a close-pattern square in the chest. Cooper turned his head at the blow-back as Larry toppled ass over tits and seemed to disappear into the makeup of the room.

  Cooper turned to the right. Slo Ride had dropped his gun, just dropped it like Cooper knew he would, and he was raising his shaking hands. Cooper blew the top of Slo Ride’s head off with one clean shot. Slo Ride kind of sailed off to the side, an arc of brains and blood moving with him, like he was diving into a pool.

  Deborah screamed, came into full view, fired the M16 into the living room.

  Cooper hit the floor, chunks of upholstery flying off the couch around him, the bay window exploding behind his back. The woman was strafing the place now, giving it all, full clip, the wood splintering around him as Cooper held the .45s straight out while trying to fend off the ricochet rounds that were popping and pinging all over the house.

  Over the sound of the gunfire and machine-gun guitar, Cooper heard the explosion of a shotgun outside the bungalow, then another, then felt the house shake as something ran straight into the porch.

  There was a quiet. The Indian girl had stopped shooting. An empty magazine hit the floor, and a full one replaced it with a soft click. Cooper heard the girl’s footsteps come across the hardwood floor.

  “Little brother,” said Cooper, whispering it to himself. “Get on it, boy.”

  The screen door swung on its hinges. B. R. Clagget appeared in the open frame.

  As soon as B. R. Clagget heard the shots from inside the house and then the woman’s scream, he shotgunned Poor Boy straight off his feet with a direct hit to the chest. Poor Boy flew back as if blown by a strong wind. He knocked down his bike and the Big Twin beside it before coming to rest.

  Clagget swung the shotgun on Lucer, pumped in a shell, fired as Lucer tried to turn away. The blast took off Lucer’s right arm at the bicep. Lucer screamed, still on his feet, blood ejaculating from the frayed meat stub dangling below his shirtsleeve.

  Clagget stepped back. He drew a shell from his hunting vest, fumbled as he thumbed it into the Remington. Lucer tripped, fell down, managed to get back up on his feet by pushing himself up with the arm he still owned. Lucer turned three hundred and sixty degrees and began to run away.

  Just then Clagget saw a greasy-haired guy moving quickly from around the side of the house. He saw the guy stop in front of the bungalow’s porch, saw him pull a pistol, saw him fire it, saw smoke blow out of the barrel with each shot. He heard the rounds spark off the bike at his feet. Clagget suddenly realized the greasy-haired guy was firing the pistol at him. Oddly, Clagget knew he would not be hit. It was as if he were watching the whole thing up on a screen.

  Clagget got the first shell into the shotgun. He managed to fit another one in the breech.

  The rapid fire of an automatic rifle came from the bungalow just as the Challenger’s four forty sprang to life. Its tires spat gravel, and the back end fishtailed as Ronald Thomas drove the Dodge straight for the gunman standing in front of the house. Clagget heard the greasy-haired guy issue a high-pitched, slide-whistle scream, watched his eyes widen like the eyes of an animal frozen in the road as the hood of the Challenger scooped him up and carried him right into the bungalow’s porch. The porch and its roof collapsed on one side where the force of the collision snapped one of the pillars clean in half.

  Ronald backed up the Dodge in the smoke and dust. He turned it around, drove across the field to where Lucer was running toward the trees. Lucer, running without an arm, lost his balance and right about then began to go into shock. As if in his own bad dream, the big ugly biker moved his legs but seemed to be making no progress at all. Clagget figured that Ronald would be there in a few hot seconds, take care of Lucer out in the field.

  Clagget pumped a round into the Remington. He walked toward the house. He passed the greasy-haired biker who had shot at him, saw that the biker’s legs had been pinned against the edge of the porch by the Challenger’s bumper. One of his legs appeared to have been amputated below the knee, while the other hung by a few strands of tendon. His jeans, ripped at the knee and open there, exposed a smashed pink-and-white stew of muscle and bone. The man was conscious, his eyes glassy and fixed, his face a tight and unholy mask.

  Clagget heard a single gunshot from behind him in the field. He walked on.

  He stepped up on the porch, through the broken window saw a tall woman with a Vietnam-looking rifle walking toward the front of the living room. Clagget knew then that this was his movie, his and Cooper’s. As Cooper had done, Clagget opened the screen door, went right into the house.

  The woman turned as he entered, swung the rifle in his direction. Clagget dove to the side, firing while still in the air. The recoil threw him back against the wall. As he hit, he watched the woman kind of fold in on her middle, saw a shower of blood and something else erupt simultaneously from her midsection and back.

  Clagget heard a funny kind of drumming sound against the hardwood floor.

  Cooper stood up slowly fro
m behind the couch, his right gun arm extended. He walked to where the woman lay kicking at the floor. He put her down with a head shot. He holstered both of his guns.

  “Lord have mercy, baby,” said Cooper, talking softly to Deborah. “You was man enough for all these motherfuckers. You know it?”

  “Wilton,” said Clagget, getting to his feet.

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You did good, little brother. I knew you would.”

  Cooper went and picked up the suitcase where it sat in a smeared puddle of blood next to Larry Spence. Cooper wiped off the handle, gripped it tight. He went to the stereo, kicked the turntable savagely. The rip of a needle on vinyl and then silence hit the room.

  “I always did hate that song,” said Cooper. He turned to Clagget. “Get that grocery bag off the table, boy.”

  Clagget picked up the bag. They heard the crack of gunshots then, two barely spaced reports.

  “Ronald?” said Cooper.

  “Finishin’ up, I expect.”

  Cooper nodded one time.

  They left the house, stood on the slanting porch. It was quiet now, hot and still, like it had been when they arrived. Some gun smoke hovered out in the field. Near the tree line, Clagget could see the body of Lucer lying facedown, one hand palm up at his side.

  Ronald was walking away from Albert, whom he had just finished. He moved toward the Challenger, which was now parked near the bikes. Russell stood against the passenger door, smoking a cigarette, the .38 in his hand. Cooper didn’t have to smell the barrel to know the gun hadn’t been fired. Useless as he was, Russell came with Ronald, and that made carrying him more than worthwhile.

  Cooper and Clagget stepped off the porch. There was blood on their clothing and a spray of it on Cooper’s face. Cooper got down on one knee, checked out the Dodge’s front end.

  “Damn, Mandingo. You done fucked up my ride.”

  “Had to.” Ronald shrugged, head-motioned toward Albert. “Anyway, I didn’t fuck it up near as bad as I fucked up that boy’s day.”

  “I heard that,” said Cooper.

  “Busted on his groove,” said Russell.

  Cooper got the grocery bag from Clagget, put it with the suitcase in the Challenger’s trunk. He went to the driver’s side of the car, reached inside, got his Salem longs from where they were wedged in the visor. He passed one to Clagget, lit his own, lit Clagget’s. He took a deep drag, held the smoke in, let it out slow.

  “We’re rich, fellas,” said Cooper.

  Russell and Ronald gave each other skin.

  “We goin’ home now, Coop?” said Ronald.

  “Not just yet,” said Cooper. “Got a little business still, back in D.C.”

  Cooper, Clagget, and Ronald got the bodies into the house while Russell found some gasoline in the root cellar. They set fire to the bungalow. They stood in the field and watched the fire catch.

  Cooper tugged on the sleeve of Clagget’s shirt. “C’mon now. We best be on our way.”

  “Can’t we stay and watch it, Wilton? It’s beautiful!”

  “I know it is,” said Cooper. “But we got to be goin’. In another minute, that smoke’s gonna get up over them trees.”

  ELEVEN

  Dimitri Karras woke early on Friday morning, started some coffee, watched the rise and fall of Vivian Lee’s back as she lay sleeping on the couch. The coffee perked, and Karras shook Vivian awake. She greeted him with stale breath and went to the bathroom to wash up and brush her teeth.

  They took their coffee by the window in the morning sun. From his seat Karras could see Duncan Hazlewood and Libby Howland leave the Trauma Arms and walk toward Connecticut for their breakfast at Schwartze’s.

  “You get in late last night?” said Vivian.

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess I fell asleep in front of the tube.”

  “You did.”

  “That reefer kinda knocked me out. You always get weed good as Eddie’s, Dimitri?”

  “Always,” said Karras with a smile. The same response he had given Donna DiConstanza at Benbow’s. Karras, even with the smell of Donna still on him from the night before, unable to stop himself from giving Vivian the same tired response.

  Vivian’s long black hair gleamed in the light. You can always look good in the morning when you’re young, thought Karras. There had been heavy baggage under his eyes when he had had his first look at himself in the bathroom mirror that morning.

  “I was looking through your bookshelf,” said Vivian. “You’ve got quite a selection.”

  “Yeah, I’m hooked up.”

  “I like to read.”

  “It’s one of those good habits.”

  “You’ve got a lot of interesting books.”

  “Some of those are from a class I taught out at College Park while I was getting my master’s.”

  “In literature?”

  “Yep.”

  “So you did some time in graduate school.” Vivian pushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. “That what kept you out of the war?”

  “Who said I stayed out?”

  “You don’t have the look. Like you’ve seen something that made you lose something else forever. You’re too… I don’t know. You look too privileged. Nothing’s hit you yet.”

  “A moving target, sweetheart. That’s me.” Karras looked into his coffee cup. “You’re pretty smart, Vivian. Pretty observant. For a nineteen year old—”

  “I’m gonna be twenty next month.”

  “Okay. But you’re still pretty smart.”

  “So that’s it, right? You stayed in school to get the deferment.”

  “Yeah. I took it to the legal limit. My mother used a part of her insurance money, from when my father died, to keep me in school. By the time my number came up the draft was over. So, yeah, you’re right. I’ve been privileged, I guess. Much more privileged than a lot of my friends.”

  “Were you against the war?”

  “I never met anyone who was for it. But I can’t say I went out in the streets or protested against it or anything like that. In the end, I was just against dying.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t go.”

  “Thanks.”

  Vivian reached out, ran her finger along Karras’s laugh line, touched his mouth. “You’re kinda cute, Dimitri, you know it?”

  “I’m cute, all right.” Karras took her hand, placed it gently down on the table. “Let’s get out of here, okay? I got a few things to do this morning. I need to get an early start.”

  Karras and Vivian left the apartment and walked south. The sidewalks were dense with people, tourists in for the big Sunday show. The papers, the TV news, all the stories were on the upcoming Bicentennial bash. The carpenters had been hammering down on the Mall for weeks now.

  Karras was relieved when Vivian told him she wanted to spend the day hanging at the circle. He gave her his duplicate apartment key, left her with a girl she recognized at the fountain, told her he’d see her later, and got on his way.

  Karras went down below the circle to the Jefferson Coffee Shop on 19th, entered the narrow city diner through a glass door tied open with heavy string. The open door told him that the Jefferson’s air conditioner had gone down once again. He had a seat on an orange stool at the end of the counter next to a guy named Dale, the huge but gentle bouncer who worked the Brickskeller, a glorified beer garden on 22nd above P.

  “Hey, Dale.”

  “Dimitri.”

  “How’s it goin’?”

  “Goin’ good.”

  It was that time between breakfast and lunch when the lawyers, government types, and IBM repairmen were already hard at work, and the local restaurant workers were just starting their day. Moe and Terry, a couple of waiters from the Palm, the pricey steak-and-lobster house next door, sat in the middle of the counter, laughing about something that had happened at a four-top the night before.

  Pete, the Greek who owned the place, walked down to Karras, set a c
up of coffee in front of him, took his order, said, “Okay, young fella,” went back to the grill, and cracked open a couple of eggs with one hand. Like Karras’s old man, who had also been named Pete, the Jefferson’s Pete was a veteran of the Philippine campaign of World War II. This Pete did not know Dimitri’s father, but he had heard of him. Peter Karras had died under violent, mysterious circumstances in 1949. About his father Dimitri Karras knew little else.

  Karras liked the Jefferson. They never broke the yolks on his easy overs, and as far as lunch deals went, the Royalburger with shoestring fries was one of the best combos in town. Pete, reserved in a friendly kind of way, had recently returned to the store after a long illness; his teenaged son had stepped up to run the place for the last six months while his father recovered. The son, a skinny, Camaro-driving, outgoing kid with shoulder-length curls, was in the back of the coffee shop, talking and joking with the dishwasher, a boy everyone called Butterball, and the grill-girl, another teenager from the Shaw part of town. She was keeping up with the conversation while singing along to Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing,” which was blasting from the house radio. In the Jefferson, the radio dial was always set on WOL, except for that period after lunch when Lula, the booth and counter waitress, was allowed her hour of gospel. Karras came here in the mornings for breakfast and a daily dose of Top 40 funk.

  A leggy blond secretary came in for some carry-out, endured the burning eyes of all the men at the counter while she waited for her food. She left hurriedly. Dale and Karras discussed the Wayne Hays affair, an exchange prompted, of course, by the Liz Ray look-alike who had just left.

  “Wayne Hayes,” said Dale, shaking his head. “Man lost everything for a piece of tail. Can you believe it?”

  Karras said, “I can.”

  Karras left three on two twenty-nine and stepped out of the Jefferson into the prenoon heat. He walked north, pointedly going around the circle rather than through it, stopping once or twice to talk to friends, passing girl-watching businessmen, stoners, cruising homosexuals, short-skirted secretaries, doe-faced chicken hawks eyeing little boys, the whole Dupont stew. A pimp-wagon Lincoln rolled up Connecticut, heavy wah-wah guitar and bass pounding from its open windows; a quick-footed, bearded Arnold and Porter messenger wearing a Rock ’n’ Roll Animal T-shirt waved to Karras from across the avenue.