June was the first time in a long time police come right ’round to where me be and drag all of we out of jail. Me woman go to the door, but they kick it open and strike her in the face with a baton. Me about to say whoever do that dead tomorrow, but that would just give them reason to kill and they hungry for that reason for years now. Me only hear the door bust off the hinge and me woman scream. I run out of the bathroom to see fifteen machine gun already pointing at me. Every single gun here hungry for a gunman, so give we a reason, pussyhole, one of them say. This wasn’t no police, this was soldier.
Soldier in brown-green uniform with plenty pockets and shiny black boots. Soldier don’t act like we is crime and them is order, soldier act like we is enemy and this is war. They go through every one of the tenements and yards and even the community center and the reason is this: ’round the same time they find we hospital in Copenhagen, they find two cell in Rema that they use as prison. Rema gunman who supposed to answer to me, kidnap two man from the Eight Lanes and hold them for nine hours and beat them. That is what they tell the police who raid Rema and find the cell. Then they raid we and drag we out of we house, some of we still in brief, some of we cover up in nothing but towel. Me no mind Rema having cell to deal with a PNP youth who think him bad. And understand me again, me no want no ism or schism named communism in this yah country. Me no want no socialism, or communism or tribalism where PNP boy move in and take we space. But me have big problem with not knowing shit ’bout it.
The police take we to jail and lock we up for three days, long enough for we to overrun the cell with we own shit and manstink. One window in the cell and me sit by it but never say nothing. Not to Josey, not to Weeper, not to anybody. Me just see and wait. While me in jail two bombs explode in Elysium Gardens.
Doctor Love.
Alex Pierce
So this source, right? Tells me that the Singer might have been involved in a horse-racing scam at Caymanas Park some months ago. In Jamaica people have a way of saying that if shit didn’t go down a certain way, then the truth is probably not far from it. If it no go so it go near so. I don’t believe for a second that the Singer could be involved in any kind of scam, that’s just fucking crazy. But I’m pretty sure someone is taking a shit and stinking up his own house. My source even told me that one afternoon, maybe couple weeks ago, the Singer came back from Fort Clarence Beach, which already made no sense since even I, a white man and the embodiment of Babylon, knows that he goes to Buff Bay every morning, like clockwork. Few people seemed to know why he went to Fort Clarence, which is curious. He went with some people who came for him, and only one of them did his own people recognize. Then he comes back home three hours later, so furious that his face was red the rest of the day.
Aisha left almost four hours ago, I think. I’m in the hotel room still on the bed and still looking at my belly. This whole fucking trip is a bust. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I mean, I know what I’m doing here. I’m the equivalent of the National Enquirer scandal hunter for the rag that scooped the Daniel Ellsberg interview. But I’m worse than that, I’m the little lowlife that captions the photo of what some fuck with only one hit song was wearing in the studio. This whole job is just plain bogus. But maybe I should stop looking at my belly and focus. Besides, feeling sorry for oneself is so 1975. Something is coming, I can feel it. Maybe it’s something in music, I don’t know. I’m on my bed, smelling Aisha’s perfume in the sheets and looking at the sun hitting the window when the phone rings.
—In the middle of something . . . or somebody? he says.
—Nice. Been working on that delivery all morning, huh?
—Haha. Fuck you too, Pierce.
Mark Lansing. At some point I need to find out how this cunt knew how to reach me.
—Nice day, isn’t it? Isn’t it a nice day?
—Looks like any other from this hotel window if you ask me.
—Hold the fucking mayo. You’re still in bed? Working girl must have been one hot bitch. You, my man, need to have a better outlook on life.
For the life of me, I don’t know if it’s because I’m the only American here he knows or if he’s under the seriously mistaken idea that we’re buddies.
—What’s shaking, Lansing?
—I was thinking about you this morning.
—To what do I owe that act of charity?
—Well, lots of things. I mean, you’re pathetic, but I’m your friend, so I get to tell you that.
I want to tell him he’s not my friend, that I wouldn’t befriend him if he was all that could stop me from being buttfucked raw by Satan and his ten big-dicked demons, but he’s in that one mode where he’s actually interesting. When he needs you for something but is way too arrogant to ever come out and say it.
—So yesterday evening I’m in this room with the Singer—
—What room? What the fuck are you talking about, Lansing?
—I’d be much better able to talk about it without you fucking interrupting me, Pierce. What, your mom didn’t have any Emily Post books when you were growing up?
—Raised by wolves, Lansing. Raised by wolves.
I’m tempted now to go way off topic, far into fucking space, because I know how much it annoys him when I don’t pay attention to what he says.
—In fact I was only just now reflecting on how my mother did it, catching and killing her own meat. Seriously, speaking of Emily Post, I had an ex-girlfr—
—What the fuck, Pierce. I don’t give a fuck about your fucking mother. Or your ex-girlfriend.
—You should. She was fine. Not your type, though.
Seriously, I could do this all day. I wish I was right in front of him to see his face get red.
—Pierce, seriously what the fuck, hombre?
Hombre? That’s new. I should use it so that he’ll think he just started some new slang or something, because “hold the mayo” is going fucking nowhere.
—You were saying about this morning. Your thoughts ran on me for some reason?
—What? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, this morning. Here I was, with some guy from Newsweek, yeah? And some chick from Billboard, and some other chick, yeah? I think she introduced herself as Melody Maker, yeah. They’re all asking the Singer some questions about this peace concert, though his manager did most of the talking. Yeah, it was a conference at his house.
He’s fucking lying. There’s no way he could have had a press conference this morning without me knowing about it. And why is Lansing speaking cockney all of a sudden?
—Yeah, it was pretty quick so they probably didn’t have time to contact you. But don’t worry, my man. Some guy from Rolling Stone was there, or at least he said he was from Rolling Stone, which was odd. I mean, don’t you work for those guys?
—This guy from Rolling Stone, did he say who he was?
—Fuck if I remember. The second I heard Rolling Stone, I immediately thought of my good buddy Alex Pierce.
—How nice of you. Buddy.
I’m trying to think of a polite way to get this asswipe off the phone so I can call my fucking boss to see if it’s true. I could say that it’s just like this turd Lansing to pull some shit like this. Like somebody with no friends, he never could gauge when a joke went too far or just wasn’t fucking funny. But if this is true, it would be a new low for this fucking magazine, I swear to God. Shit. Fucking shit. So they leave the real journalism to . . . who the fuck knows? Robert Palmer? DeCurtis? Meanwhile they send me off to write about fucking Bianca Jagger filing her nails, while her husband records some reggae shit. I mean, if that’s all they want from me, why not just send the fucking photographer, who by the way, I’ve yet to meet. Fuck this. Seriously, fuck this.
—And here I was thinking, this must blow for my buddy Alex, he just can’t seem to get a break.
—What do you want, Lansing?
—To be called Mark, for one.
—Lansing, what do you want?
—I was thinking more about what you want, Pierce.
> Thirty minutes later I’m under an umbrella by the poolside of the Jamaica Pegasus. White men in bikinis by the pool are fatter, and their wives are tanner, both of which means richer, especially given how many of these women are younger. I don’t know who they are since Kingston is not really a touristy kinda place and everybody here is here on business. Lansing was so convinced he had something I wanted that I was sorta convinced too. Now I’m here wavering between what the fuck, Alex, and maybe he actually has something I want. Either way I’m curious.
And I’m waiting at the poolside of this hotel watching a man not paying attention to his two fat kids as they leap off into the pool belly first. The older one just hit the water with a slap that fucking echoed. I watch him wobbling to the side of the pool, wanting to cry so bad, his mouth twisting into it and he’s huffing through his nose, but he looks around and sees me. Bad enough to cry while a stranger watches, but there’s no way the little fat fuck is going to cry in front of his brother. I want to laugh at the little motherfucker but figure he should catch a break. Besides, I’m here waiting on this prick, thinking about what happened thirty minutes ago. Eleven a.m. December 3, 1976. The exact half hour I got fired from Rolling Stone. At least I think I was fired. It was like this. I got a phone call.
—Hello?
—What the fuck are you doing down there, Pierce?
—Hi, bossman. How’s it shaking? The kids?
—You seem to overestimate the closeness of our relationship, Pierce.
—Sorry, boss. What can I do for you?
—You also seem to think I like wasting phone calls. Where’s my fucking story?
—I’m working on it.
—Two hundred words on whether Mick fucking Jagger flew in to Jamaica with or without Bianca and you still can’t get me a fucking story? How is this hard?
—I’m working an angle, boss.
—You’re working an angle. Let me make sure I heard you right; you’re working an angle. I didn’t send you down there to run a fucking con, Pierce. I sent you down to put some shit together for a fucking photo essay that should have been on my desk days ago.
—Hey, boss, please listen to me. I’m, well, I’m sitting on something big here. Really big. Square biz, man.
—Quit with the fucking jive talk, Pierce, you’re from Minnesota.
—That wounds me, seriously. But it’s major. Some serious shit surrounding the Tuff G—
—Do you read the magazine you work for? We already did a story on him in March. I suggest you read it.
—With all due respect, boss, that story was a fucking piece of shit. I mean, come on, the guy was getting off on his fucking self. There’s nothing in it about the Singer or what’s really going on here. I’m meeting the son of the CIA boss in thirty minutes. Yeah, I just said CIA. I mean, some major Cold War shit is about to blow, boss, and—
—Did you hear a single thing I just said? One sec. Not Helvetica, anything but Helvetica, and for God’s sake that pic of Carly Simon looks like Steven Tyler about to give a blow job. Alex?
—I’m here, boss.
—I said we already did him, and we already did Jamaica. If you wanna keep up with that shit and not do what I sent you down there to do, maybe you should give Creem a call.
—Oh, so it’s like that. Well, well, maybe I will.
—Don’t fuck with me, Pierce. Jackson says you haven’t even spoken to him yet.
—Jackson?
—The fucking photographer, dipshit.
—Did you send somebody else down here?
—What are you talking about?
—You heard me. There’s someone else here from Rolling Stone.
—Not on my watch, Pierce.
—Really, you wouldn’t be sending some real journalist out here, now that you smell a story, would you?
—Jamaica has no fucking story. If somebody wants to go write a story on their own and not on my payroll, that’s their fucking business. You, on the other hand, I’m paying for.
—So it’s not a case of, this looks too big for Pierce, he’s too green, so send in the pros.
—Green is not the color I think of when I think of you, Pierce.
—Really. What color would that be?
—A story with photos of Jagger squeezing some bitch’s tits on my desk in two days or consider yourself fired.
—You know what? You know what? Maybe you should consider this to mean I quit.
—Not when I’m the one paying for your fucking trip, Pierce. But don’t worry: as soon as you bring your corn-fed ass back to New York, I’ll do myself the pleasure of firing you.
Then he hung up. So technically I’m fired, or at least I’m going to be. I’m still not sure how I feel about that. Jagger brought his wife with him? Or that blonde he’s fucking around with? How’s that gonna work with his manhunt for black pussy? It’s weird, in all this I see Mark Lansing coming towards me. He’s right over there looking exactly like that white man on the cover of the How to Speak Jamaican Handbook. Olive green cargo pants rolled up to the calf, black sneakers, and a red, green and gold wife beater that’s already inched up off his belly button. Judging from how the wind keeps blowing it, a rag’s hanging out of his back pocket. Jesus Christ, a Rasta tam on his head, with blond bangs hanging out. He looks like he just joined Fags Against Babylon or something. I really wished it bothered me more that I was out of a job.
—Earth to Alex Pierce.
Somehow he managed to throw himself into the chaise longue beside me, pull off his pants to show purple bikini trunks and order a mai tai without me even noticing a thing.
—A pack of smokes too, Jimbo. Marlboro, none of that Craven “A” shit.
—Sure thing right now, Mr. Brando.
The waiter skipped off. I try not to think that he’s confirming my suspicion that every man in Jamaican tourism sucks cock.
—Alex, my boy.
—Lansing.
—That must have been some poontang you got last night if you’re still daydreaming about it, mon. I yelled out your name three time, mon.
—Distracted.
—I’ll say.
The waiter came back with his cigarettes.
—Hey, Jimbo, I asked for Marlboros. What’s this Benson and Hedges shit? I look like some British fag to you?
—No, sir, magnificent apologies, sir, yes, sir, no Marlboros, sir.
—Fuck, I’m not paying for this shit.
—Yes, sir, Mr. Brando.
—Damn straight. And freshen up this fucking drink while you’re at it. Taste like water with a hint of mai tai.
—Right away at once, apologies, Mr. Brando.
The waiter scooped up the mai tai and skipped off. Lansing turned around and smiled at me with this finally-we’re-alone look.
—So, Lansing.
—Mark to my friends.
—Mark. Who the fuck is Brando?
—Who?
—Brando. That’s the third time he called you that.
—I didn’t notice.
—You didn’t notice a man calling you the wrong name three times?
—Who the fuck can understand what these guys say half the time, right?
—Right.
Given who he is, the fact that he’s using a fake name should have sent my conspiracy theory instinct into overdrive. But this is Mark Lansing. He’s probably only now hearing of James Bond.
—So what’s this about a press conference?
—More like a press briefing, really. I really thought I would see you there.
—Guess I’m not enough of a big shot.
—You’ll get there.
Fuck you, purple-bikini-wearing asshole.
—Who’s the dude from Rolling Stone that was there?
—Dunno. But he was asking a whole lot of questions about gangs and stuff. Like anybody wants to hear about that from the Singer.
—Gangs?
—Gangs. About some shoot-out in Kingston or some shit like that. I mean, seriously.
Then he asked him how close he was to the Prime Minister.
—Really.
—Uh-huh. All I kept thinking is where is my buddy Alex?
—Nice of you.
—That’s me. Nice. I can get you in. In fact I’ve been with him nearly every day this week. I’m so high that even a kite would go goddamn, Dicky. Met him a month ago when his label boss hired me to get a crew together to film this concert. Even brought him a pair of cowboy boots. A big shiny pair of brick red ones from Frye. Cuz you know, these Jamaicans, they love their cowboy movies. Fucking boots cost a fortune too, I hear.
—You didn’t buy them?
—Fuck no.
—Who?
—So we got the exclusive rights to film the concert.
—They hired you to film the concert? Didn’t know you were a cinematographer.
—There’s lots about me you don’t know.
—Clearly.
—You want a mai tai? It’s a piece of shit but it’s free.
—Nah, I’m fine. So what’s the favor you’re gonna do for me? And what do you want?
—You always this crass? Hey, where’s my fucking drink? Look, buddy, I only want to help you out. Here’s the thing. You want to get in with the Singer, right? You wanna be so up and close that it’s only you and him?
—Well, yeah.
—I can make you part of my crew. You’ll be the journalist or some shit.
—I am a journalist.
—See? You’ll play along just fine. Brother, I have unprecedented access to the Singer. Nobody ever had that before and nobody ever will again, certainly no film crew. Hired by the label boss himself and we’re to film everything. Hell, we could probably film him taking a shit or fucking that Libyan princess he’s supposed to be schooling on mandingo sex. I’ll film some of your interview for the doc, but you can use it for whatever you want.
—Wow. That sounds really cool, Mark, but why?
—You travel light, Pierce?
—Always. Easier to run.
—I got some extra luggage that I need someone to take back to New York.
A Brief History of Seven Killings Page 20
