King Suckerman

by George Pelecanos

  “You like it, Coop?” said Ronald. “I mean, it’s bad, ain’t it?”

  Cooper got up off the stoop where he had been sitting, waiting for the Thomas brothers to return with his new ride. He went to the back of the car, where the word “Daytona” was written across a wide black stripe, and put his hand on the elevated spoiler that sat up higher than the roofline.

  “Like it?” said Cooper.

  “Yeah, man, you know.”

  “I done told you, Mandingo, what I wanted was a nice fast Dodge. You told me your cousin knew a boy could get rid of my Challenger, hook us up with somethin’ plated and new.”

  “Cuz did hook us up, Cooper. Can’t get much faster than a Charger Daytona. You talkin’ fast, this motherfucker flies, man. Got a four-twenty-six and a Dana rear.”

  “Oh,” said Cooper, “I can see that the vehicle is fast. What you don’t see, Ronald, is we might have the law on our asses right quick. What I was thinkin’, when I told you to pick us out a new ride, was you’d have the presence of mind to get us somethin’ more inconspicuous and shit. Instead, you bring us this Big Bird–lookin’ thing right here with a six-foot-high spoiler, looks like a motherfuckin’ rocket ship.”

  “Got a pistol-grip shifter on it, too, Cooper,” said Russell.

  “Shut up, Russell,” said Ronald.

  “And by the way,” said Cooper. “You ever seen a brother drivin’ one of these? Uh-uh, man, and if you claim you have then you a lyin’ motherfucker. Seen a few Chinese motherfuckers drivin’ these things, maybe, or a bunch of ’em standin’ around with the hood up, pointin’ at the engine, talkin’ fast, shit like that. But never any brothers.”

  “Look,” said Ronald. “If you like, I’ll go on back, see that boy we picked this up from. He had this other ride available, a red seventy-four Sport with accent stripes. Just like the kind Starsky and Hutch used to drive.”

  “Uh-uh, man. All the sissies in the joint was way into Starsky and Hutch. I’ll just go ahead and pass on the Sport.” Cooper looked at Russell, pointed to the open passenger door. “Close that wing, man.”

  Russell went around and shut the door.

  Cooper eyed the car for a while, then turned to Clagget. “What you think, B. R.?”

  “I know it’s gonna get us some attention.” Clagget’s mouth turned up in a pus-lined, toothless grin as he studied the lines of the Dodge. “But it is kind of bad, blood. You know?”

  “If you like it, little brother,” said Cooper, “then I guess it’s all right.”

  “What we gonna do, Cooper?” said Ronald Thomas.

  “Time we paid a visit to Trouble Man,” said Cooper. “B. R., go up to the house and bring the hardware on down.”

  “We leavin’ now?”

  “Yeah,” said Cooper. “Right now.”

  Cooper knew he should leave town, right away, with the money and the drugs. Drive as far away from his doom as he possibly could. Looking at the car, though, he felt a pleasant kind of calm. What’d that prison psychiatrist call it that time, when he was talking about how it felt to bust out of all your chains? Liberated. Yeah, that was how he felt: free.

  He could do anything, now.

  EIGHTEEN

  Karras stopped off on P Street at the Fairfax Market for chips, onion dip, smokes, and a couple of six-packs of beer. He hit a liquor store for a fifth of Mount Gay rum and piña colada mix, and took it all back to his apartment at the Trauma Arms.

  As he came through the door, Vivian Lee stood with her back to him, wiping down the kitchen with a damp sponge. She wore the red-and-white striped tube top Karras had bought for her, jeans ripped at the knee, and cork-heeled sandals. Karras stood in the door frame, studying the shine of her long black hair falling over her bare white shoulders.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey,” said Vivian, turning around. Her eyes looked a little funny, but not in that recognizable, just-stoned way. Beyond stoned, like they were looking back in on themselves.

  Karras took the party materials to the counter. He watched Vivian scrub at a clean spot on the Formica.

  “Have a good day?” said Karras.

  Vivian laughed.

  “My day was a trip,” said Karras.

  “Mine, too.” Vivian laughed again. “Literally.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Ran into a couple friends at the circle.”

  “What, you dropped some acid?”

  “Uh-huh. This guy I know, Danny? He had this blotter, man.”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m all right. We went to a movie, man. Went and saw The Man Who Fell to Earth, at the Dupont? Whew. Bowie was weird, man. I guess I didn’t get it. Bowie was weird. I didn’t get it, I guess.”

  “All right.”

  “Bowie was so fucking weird.”

  “Vivian, you okay?”

  “I’m all right.”

  Karras put the beer in the refrigerator. He took his T-shirt off, rolled it, and hung it around his neck.

  Vivian checked him out. “You look healthy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You look really good.”

  “Thanks a lot. Listen, Vivian. I’m gonna take a shower, get changed. Marcus and his lady, Elaine, they’re comin’ over. You up for that?”

  “Sure.”

  Karras said, “Your cigarettes are in the bag.”

  He took a long cold shower. It had been more than a few years since he had dropped acid. He had tripped plenty of times as an undergraduate, but he was past that now. He thought of the nineteen-year-old girl out in his kitchen, scrubbing away at a clean spot, out of her mind on blotter. He thought of the old Greek in the dingy grill on Fourteenth Street, and the old man’s grandson, to whom he could not bring himself to give advice. He pictured the kids in the park, passing him money, him passing them back a bag of dope.

  “Fuck,” said Karras.

  He closed his eyes.

  But Dimitri Karras forgot all about who he had become once he smoked his first joint of the night.

  Marcus and Elaine came through the door as he was tucking his Hawaiian shirt into his jeans. He cracked a beer for Clay, mixed a batch of piña coladas in the blender, served a tall cool one with an orange slice hung on the rim of the glass to Elaine. He opened a beer for himself and one for Vivian. The four of them stood in a circle and touched drinks.

  “To the Bicentennial,” said Karras.

  “To equality,” said Elaine, glancing at Clay.

  “Party down,” said Vivian.

  They smoked a jay. It brought Karras out of his funk and calmed Vivian down. She had been going from one subject to the next with Elaine, who had patiently listened without a break while Clay and Karras went through Karras’s albums. They settled on Call Me, which got the party off to a good start. Karras turned up the volume. Elaine and Marcus put down their drinks and began to dance. Karras and Vivian came out to the center of the room, joined them. They all did the bump to the title tune, then slow-dragged to Green’s Bee Gees cover. Afterward, Clay got Karras alone.

  “Hey, Dimitri. Elaine was askin’ me, did you pick that shirt out for Vivian yourself, man?”

  “What the hell?”

  Clay grinned. “You know, that tube top she’s wearin’.”

  “Marcus—”

  “You got to admit, it would be just like a pussy hound like you to pick out a tube top for your lovely young houseguest. For easy access and shit.”

  “I found it in a store down the street,” said Karras. “Thought it would look good on her, that’s all.”

  “Oh, she does look fine. But I was wonderin’, did you happen to get her anything more practical?”

  “Well, there was this halter top, see—”

  “Yeah, Dimitri. I see.”

  Duncan Hazlewood, the resident manager, and his girlfriend, Libby Howland, came through the unlocked door. Hazlewood had a fifth of scotch in his hand.

  “We got tired of waiting for an invitation, damnit,” said Hazlewood.
r />   “You don’t need one,” said Karras from across the room. “Duncan, Libby, c’mon in. Glasses are in the cabinet, ice is over by the sink.”

  Another joint was lit and it went around the party. Karras had a good hit, then waved Clay over by his side. Clay knew what Karras wanted.

  “Naw, Dimitri. I’m too high.”

  “ ‘Too High.’ Stevie Wonder.”

  “I’m tellin’ you, man, I don’t want no shotgun.”

  Karras put the lit end of the joint in his mouth. He blew on the joint, sent a concentrated jet of smoke into the room. Clay stepped up, took the smoke into his lungs for as long as both of them could stand it.

  “Now you do me,” said Karras.

  Clay coughed out his hit. “Aw, fuck you, man.”

  Karras went to his record collection, withdrew an album from the stack.

  “Got Bloodshot if you want it,” said Karras. “J. Geils.”

  “Jay North,” said Clay.

  “You tellin’ me you’re not into a little Jerome?”

  “Go ahead, man.”

  “Even got the red vinyl, too.” Karras did an impromptu duckwalk over to the stereo.

  Vivian filled a bong hit while Karras put on the record. He dropped the needle on the third cut, “Back to Get Ya.” Karras danced by himself to the first couple of verses, turned up the volume at the harp break.

  “Do the robot, Mitri!” yelled Clay.

  Elaine leaned against the kitchen wall, smiled, rolled her eyes as Karras went into his stiff, jerky dance. Duncan and Libby stood behind the couch, laughing and moving a little themselves. Vivian Lee lit a cigarette.

  They all had another round of drinks and smoked a little more weed, and then Duncan and Libby decided it was time to go. Elaine, who had an eye for art, promised to catch Hazlewood’s next show. Duncan and Libby left, arm in arm.

  “Whyn’t you put on a slow drag, Dimitri?” said Clay. “I’m tired of watchin’ you try to get on the goodfoot.”

  “Whaddaya wanna hear?”

  “You got ‘Brown-Eyed Girl’?”

  “Yeah, I got Van.”

  “I ain’t talkin’ about no Van. I’m talkin’ about the ‘Brown-Eyed Girl.’ The Isleys, man.”

  “Yeah,” said Karras, “I think I got that one.”

  He found Live It Up, placed the needle on the second track on side one. Marcus and Elaine came together immediately, her head on his shoulder. Vivian came to Karras.

  They danced to the beautiful song, Ronald Isley’s wistful tenor filling the apartment. Karras saw Elaine put her head on Clay’s shoulder and close her eyes. He wondered if anyone would ever love him that way. Vivian ran her hands up and down Karras’s back. She crushed her breasts against his hard stomach. He felt the vibration of her slow moan and the hardening of his cock in his jeans. Vivian looked up at him with damp eyes.

  “Dimitri?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

  “Want me to go with you?”

  “Okay.”

  Karras followed her there because he knew that was what she wanted. Because that was what he wanted, too. He had told himself before that it was wrong, but he was high now and told himself that it was right. He felt Elaine’s eyes on him as he passed.

  In the bathroom, Karras closed the door behind him. Vivian faced him, leaned back against the sink. She shook her black hair off her pale shoulders, pulled the tube top down to her waist. Free, her lovely breasts bounced one time. He put his thumb and forefinger to the pink nipple of her right breast, squeezed it until her lips parted.

  “Nice lollipops,” whispered Karras, noticing his stupid, open-mouthed reflection in the bathroom mirror.

  She’s a kid, you fucking…

  She crushed her mouth against his; he kissed her back. He felt his breath shorten and pulled her against his groin.

  Her heard Elaine’s voice, calling his name: “Dimitri! Dimitri, come out here!”

  “Hold that,” said Karras.

  Vivian said, “I will.”

  He walked out of the bathroom, through the hall to the living room. Elaine was by the stereo, wide eyed, clumsily turning the music all the way down. Marcus had opened the door and was standing there, his head slightly bent, his hands hanging limply at his sides. A uniformed cop stood in the open frame.

  “Hey, pull over, Ronald,” said Russell Thomas. “I’ll ask that blue freak on the corner where that shop is at.”

  “That okay?” said Ronald to Cooper.

  They had been searching for the record store for the last fifteen minutes. Cooper had looked up the address in the yellow pages, but with the traffic on Connecticut Avenue and all that, even at this time of night, it was difficult to slow down, get a good look at the numbers on the storefronts without attracting attention.

  Cooper said, “Sure, man. Go ahead.”

  Cooper and Clagget sat in the backseat of the Dodge, Clagget pressing the sawed-off tightly to his leg. Ronald drove, with Russell at his side up front. Ronald cut the wheel, stopped the car in a bus zone at Connecticut and Q.

  A dark-skinned woman wearing white bells and a short-sleeved print shirt stood on the corner. She glanced at her watch impatiently, as if to let the men in the car know that she was waiting for someone to come pick her up. Behind her, a kid had set up a portable eight-track and an overturned hat on the sidewalk. The kid was robotting wildly to James Brown’s “The Payback.”

  Russell Thomas leaned out the window, raised his voice so the woman could hear him over the J. B. He put a smile behind the voice. “Hey, girlfriend, what’s goin’ on?”

  The woman looked away. She coughed into her fist and blinked her eyes. The Daytona was putting out some serious exhaust.

  Russell tried again. “Look here, dark and lovely. I would never harm a sister as fine as you. See, baby, I’m from out of town—”

  “Who don’t know that,” said the woman, suddenly staring Russell dead in the eye.

  “Anyway, I was wonderin’…. Where go Real Right Records, sugar? We’re just lookin’ to cop some sounds for the weekend, and we heard that Real Right was the place.”

  “Real Right?” The woman’s features softened. “Well, you’re only a block away. Real Right is up there above R, on the right.”

  “Thank you, precious. I do appreciate it.”

  The woman fanned carbon dioxide away from her face as Ronald Thomas pulled away from the curb.

  “Freak was way into me, man,” said Russell. “Matter of fact, maybe afterwards, I’ll have you drive me back here. A girl like that could suck on my jolly stick for real.” Russell rubbed his dick through his purple pants.

  “Russell,” said Ronald, “one of these days, someone’s just gonna go ahead and kick your monkey ass.”

  “Then their momma’d be wakin’ them up out of their good dream,” said Russell, “tellin’ ’em it’s time to get off to school.”

  Clagget tapped Cooper’s shoulder. “Wilton?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “That girl looked somethin’ like Carol Speed. You notice that?”

  Cooper said, “I surely did.”

  Clagget touched the cranberry riot of acne splattered across his face. “You know, Wilton, that woman’s gonna remember our car.”

  Cooper nodded, staring straight ahead.

  They drove slowly by the store. Through the window, Cooper noticed a young dashiki-wearing man, no one else. He motioned Ronald, told him to take a long swing around the block. They came back out on Connecticut where the young lady had been standing moments earlier. The dancing kid was still there. They drove north.

  Twentieth Street broke off of Connecticut just above R, giving the avenue stores backdoor loading capability and dual window frontage. Cooper pointed Ronald up 20th. Ronald steered the Daytona into a space.

  “Cut it, Ronald,” said Cooper.

  Ronald Thomas killed the engine. For a while, all of them watched the flow of tourists and Washingtonians out on the street
. Then Clagget pulled two double-aught shells from the loops of his hunting vest.

  “Whole lotta folks out tonight,” said Clagget. He thumbed the shells into the shotgun.

  “That Bicentennial thing,” said Cooper.

  “You got some kind of plan, Coop?” said Ronald.

  “I’m gonna get myself in through the front door on Connecticut,” said Cooper. “Now, B. R. and Russell: When that back door cracks open, I want y’all to get your asses out the car and into the shop. Ronald, you just sit tight. Fire up that ignition again when you see us all comin’ out the back. Everybody down with that?”

  None of them replied. Cooper pulled his .45 from the waistband of his slacks, pulled back on the receiver, let a round drop into the chamber. He replaced the gun, left his shirttail out over his slacks.

  “Keep that hog’s leg down, little brother.”

  “I will, Wilton.”

  Cooper said, “Let’s take it to the bridge.”

  Cooper got out of the Dodge, walked around the triangular point where 20th and Connecticut converged, went quickly to the front door of Real Right Records, keeping his chin tucked in to his chest. He tried the handle, then rapped on the glass two times. He smiled at the young man who stood behind the island counter in the center of the store, counting out bills. The young man made a cutting motion across his throat, mouthed the word “closed.” Cooper smiled again, did a “come on over” thing with his hand. The young man shrugged, put the bills in the register, closed the register drawer. He went to the front of the shop, turned a latch lock, opened the door enough to put his head through the space.

  “We’re closed,” said the young man.

  “I can see that, blood.” Cooper noticed the red, black, and green Africa cutout hung out over the brightly colored dashiki. “But I got a wad of cash money in my pocket and a stone freak sittin’ in the shotgun seat of my ride. Freak loves her Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, man. Teddy’s voice makes that man in the boat of hers fall in and drown.”

  The young man laughed. “Like to help you, brother, but I can’t. My boss says not to let anyone in after closing time.”

  “Your boss want you to throw away potential ducats, too? ’Cause I got a Ben Franklin in my wallet, and I’m fixin’ to spend half of it in your shop right quick.”