SK01 - Waist Deep

by Frank Zafiro

  I passed by a dry cleaners, an Army-Navy Surplus store and a restaurant before reaching the deserted paint store. The thin, young black kid sat huddled in the corner of the inset doorway. I briefly considered talking to him, but rejected the thought. He might know things, but he wasn’t likely to tell me anything except where to get some rock cocaine. I ignored him and fixed my eyes on the wide hips up ahead of me.

  Even though I wasn’t looking directly at him, his eyes followed me as I walked by. He waited until I was almost completely past before hissing, “Hey, man!”

  I looked over in spite of myself, slowing to a near stop.

  The kid was in bad shape. His head and shoulders jumped in small, sharp twitches. His toes tapped as if he were listening to music only he could hear. His eyes held a hollow, desperate look.

  I should’ve kept walking, I thought.

  He struggled to his feet and licked his lips nervously. “Hey, man, you got a cigarette?”

  “No,” I told him. “Don’t smoke.”

  He gave me a brief nod, then cast his eyes quickly left and right before bringing them back to bear on me.

  “Suck it?” he asked, his voice slightly lower.

  “What?!”

  He stepped toward me with the beginnings of a smile. “Suck your dick, mister?”

  I shook my head and moved back, my skin crawling.

  “C’mon, man,” he said, casually. “I’ll suck it hard. I’ll suck it good. You’ll blow your wad harder than with any bitch you ever had suck it.”

  “No,” I said, holding up my hand. “Not interested.”

  “I’m jus’ tryin’ to make a livin’, man,” he said, disappointment creeping into his voice. He took another small step in my direction.

  “I don’t care if you’re trying to cure cancer,” I told him. “Stay the fuck away from me.”

  He muttered, “Asshole,” and returned to the doorway of the deserted paint store.

  23

  The woman watched me approach in my slow, ambling gait. My limp really showed and I felt the dull throb in my knee that came with it. Wearing cowboy boots had been a mistake. I could feel the beginnings of at least two blisters on the inside of my foot.

  She moved her zipper slowly up and down her windbreaker, exposing a pink bra and bone-white belly flab beneath. She easily weighed over two bills, all packed onto a five-foot-three-inch frame.

  A practiced smile broke over her face. “Hi,” she said. Her voice was low and sultry. At least, that’s what I think she was going for.

  “Hi,” I said back, and stopped about two feet from her.

  Her tongue arched out and touched her upper lip, making me think of her as a super-sized Cher. She didn’t stop with the zipper routine, either. In fact, she left it down longer before zipping it slowly up.

  “Dookie not your speed, huh?” she said in a husky voice.

  “Dookie?”

  She tipped her head in the direction of the black kid.

  “Oh,” I said and shook my head. “No, not my thing.”

  “Poor Dookie,” she said. “He tries so hard.”

  I nodded and shrugged at the same time.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Stef,” I told her. Why lie?

  “Stef?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, Stef, tell me something.” She took a small step toward me as the zipper slid down. Her cleavage spilled out of the windbreaker. “What is your thing?”

  I considered for a moment how to play it, then said, “Girls. I like girls.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” she cooed. The zipper reached the bottom of her windbreaker and paused there. “Do you like me?”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  “You wanna date?”

  I nodded again.

  Her eyes flicked left and right. It was the same move Dookie had made just minutes before, but she was much smoother about it.

  “I get forty for head,” she said. “Eighty for sex.”

  I didn’t answer right away. I suddenly realized that a cop might drive by and catch me in the middle of this charade and I’d be busted for soliciting a prostitute. Or she could be a cop herself. Either way, if getting involved in a scuffle at the River City Arena was considered a fall from grace for a former police officer, I could only imagine how getting popped for soliciting would rate.

  She watched me for a few moments, looking me up and down. I knew what she was thinking. I was poor but clean. Low risk, low return.

  “If you’re short cash, I’ll go ten for a hand job,” she said, almost kindly.

  I decided she wasn’t a cop. It wasn’t so much what she said. It was her size. Every lady cop I ever knew who worked undercover as a hooker was at least moderately good looking and never more than a few pounds overweight.

  “What’s your name?” I asked her.

  She regarded me for a moment. “What do you want it to be?”

  I shook my head. “I want it to be what it really is.”

  She stared at me for another long moment. “It’s Tiffany, baby,” she said, finally. “Now are you buying or just window shoppin’?”

  “Buying,” I said. “I’ll pay the forty.”

  Her look of mild concern melted away. “Come with me,” she said with a sly smile.

  I followed her back up the block toward the empty paint store. Cars whizzed past on Sprague as we walked. I hoped silently that no police cars drove by. The East Sprague corridor was heavily patrolled, but not so much in the daylight as in the hours of darkness.

  Tiffany kept her pace slow. Whether it was out of necessity due to her bulk or out of compassion for my limp, I didn’t know. As we approached the paint store, she turned between it and the pawn shop next door.

  Dookie glared at me as I followed Tiffany between the two buildings. He shook his head. “Bitch couldn’t suck off a Dilly bar with her worthless mouth,” he said to me. “You shoulda stuck with me.”

  I ignored him and followed Tiffany’s wide ass between the buildings. The pawn shop was twice as deep as the paint store. A fence began at the end of the pawn shop and ran to the alley, where it turned sharply and ran east to a gate. When I reached the end of the paint store and turned the corner, I could see that the entire back lot of the business was fenced in. Plenty of privacy for the type of business Tiffany was in.

  The smell of old beer and piss rose from the asphalt. A decrepit green dumpster sat against the eastern fence. Several used condoms lay on the ground next to the dumpster. One was stuck to the side. Someone had written Screw Bush in spray paint on the fence. Some other wit had scrawled as much as i can directly below that.

  “Over here,” Tiffany said from the doorway.

  I realized that it was also a perfectly private place to rob somebody, so I kept my pace slow and scanned the area for threats. The back lot was empty, though, and the doorway that she stood in was only about three feet deep. We were alone.

  “Don’t be shy,” Tiffany said. Her windbreaker was unzipped and she lifted her bra. Her huge breasts flopped out and hung toward her belly. She gave a little shoulder shake and they swayed from side to side. “Come on over here.”

  I stepped into the doorway. Before I could say a word, her hands went to my crotch. Her sudden movement made me jump and that made her jump back. Our eyes met. Her bra was still on, high up on her chest, pushing down on her flabby breasts. The nipples were large, rosy and erect.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  She shrugged with one shoulder. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to scare you.” She pointed to her chest. “You mind? It seems warm out for February, but it gets cold fast.”

  “No,” I said, a little relieved. “Go ahead.”

  Tiffany gave me another fake smile. With an expert shrug, she pulled her bra back over her breasts and zipped up the windbreaker. Then she reached for my jeans again.

  “You got that money, baby?”

  Tiffany’s fingers found my member and began a practiced caress.
She casually checked both of my front pockets for cash. She performed the check in a smooth, stroking motion.

  In spite of myself, I reacted. Some heat. Then a twitch. A moment later, a growing hardness. I tried to remember the last time I’d been with a woman.

  “That’s it, baby,” Tiffany said, trying to sound breathless. “He’s coming alive.”

  She lifted her free hand, proffering it in the international position that says “pay me.” Almost in self-defense, I reached into my jacket pocket and removed a pair of twenties. I held them up in front of her face, but as she reached for them, I closed my hand over them.

  Her rubbing stopped and she pulled back from me.

  “What the fuck, mister?” Her voice had lost all its attempt at seductive luster. “What are you trying to pull?”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll pay you.”

  “Goddamn right you will,” she said, her voice now taking on the tone of a black streetwalker. “One yell from me and two brothers will be here in five seconds kicking your ass.”

  “I’ll pay,” I said. “I just don’t want sex. I want to talk.”

  Tiffany’s pose relaxed, but she remained irritated. “Baby, I’m flattered, but I ain’t got the time to be a sweetheart date. I gotta make some cash.”

  I opened my fist briefly and showed her the forty dollars. “Three minutes,” I said. “Less time than you thought.”

  A small, mischievous smile appeared on her lips. “Most times, three minutes is more than enough.”

  I gave her a smile I didn’t feel. The hardness in my pants showed no sign of fading, though.

  “Whatchoo wanna talk about?” she asked.

  I peeled one of the twenties off and handed it to her. She took it with two fingers, crinkled it up and it disappeared somewhere into her clothing.

  “That’s a down payment,” I said.

  She shrugged at me and waited.

  “All I want to know is who I should talk to about you and the other girls out here. That’s it.”

  Surprise flared in her eyes, but she recovered quickly.

  “I didn’t figure you for no cop,” she said.

  “I’m not.”

  “Then why you askin’ me about this?”

  “I just need to talk to…” I paused, considering. Finally, I finished, “to your pimp.”

  “About what?”

  “That’s my business,” I said. “And his. You want the money, or should I go ask Dookie?”

  I waited patiently, trying to appear benign enough to convince her to talk and tough enough to keep her from calling out for the brothers. I knew they existed, though I figured they were quite a bit more than five seconds away. It didn’t matter, though. I needed a good two-minute head start if I expected to get away.

  “Gimmee the twenty,” she finally said.

  I shook my head, breathing a sigh of relief inside. “This isn’t sex. You talk, then I pay.”

  She paused again, this time not nearly as long.

  “Rolo’s the man,” she said. “He’s who you want to talk to.”

  She reached for the money, but I closed my fist over it again.

  “Where?” I asked.

  She met my eyes, then looked back at the corners of the twenty sticking out between my fingers.

  “The Hole,” she told me. “You can find him there, if you’re stupid enough to go inside.”

  I opened my hand and she snatched the bill and made it disappear. Then she gave me an appraising look. “You shoulda let me blow you first. You woulda been glad you did.”

  The hardness in my jeans had slipped away. I gave her a smile as fake as all of hers had been.

  “That’s not what Dookie said,” I told her.

  Her eyes narrowed and she snorted. “What does that little faggot know?”

  I didn’t have an answer, so she turned and stomped away.

  24

  The Hole was a dive. That much I had expected. I hadn’t expected it to be so dark inside. Or nearly empty. Out here on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, I figured business would be brisk, even at three in afternoon.

  Coming from the light outside to the darkness inside gave everyone a chance to check me out before I could even be sure how many people were inside the bar. I noticed the fat guy behind the bar immediately. An old man who was no doubt a regular sat at the far end of the bar. In the corner, a skinny black kid who couldn’t have been old enough to be in the place sat whispering to a blonde woman in a Raiders jersey standing next to him.

  I moved to the bar and saw that the fat bartender had a sour-puss for a face. He looked at me for several seconds from his position half way down the bar, as if he were considering whether or not to serve me. Finally, he stepped over, looking incredibly put out. He put both hands on the bar and leaned toward me slightly. A slightly misshapen “USMC” was visible on his forearm.

  “Getcha?” he muttered, still unhappy at moving.

  I wasn’t supposed to drink, ever since it became a problem for me. The drink and the tranks. But I beat both and I could have an occasional beer and not go crazy. At least I figured I could, unlike those pathetic addicts I’d met in all those meetings I had to attend. They had no will power. Besides, I knew I wasn’t going to get far in this place ordering club soda.

  “Labatt Blue?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You want Canadian, I got Molson. Otherwise, it’s Heineken or Budweiser.”

  “Molson, then,” I said. “In the bottle. No glass.”

  If he cared that I didn’t want to drink from a glass in his place, he didn’t show it. He pulled a Molson from the cooler and popped the top.

  “Five bucks,” he said as he slid it in front of me.

  That was steep and I knew it. I also saw that he didn’t have his prices posted, like he was supposed to. It was a good bet he was hitting me for at least an extra dollar and would pocket the difference. That is, if he was just tending bar and wasn’t the owner. If he was the owner, he was just raising his profit margin.

  I put a ten on the bar and he quickly made change. I didn’t figure he got too many bar checks from Liquor Control agents. Not with his volume. They would be tied up with whatever new place downtown was drawing all the hot women, and hence all the guys chasing them. Those places would do in a night what this former Marine did in a week. So they got the attention and he got to play his little games with the Molson or whatever else he felt like doing.

  I left the five ones on the bar and took a slug of the Molson. It was cool and crisp and the taste of it immediately made me want to drink it down and order another. Instead, I sipped it a second time and put the bottle back on the bar.

  The trick was to act like I wasn’t interesting at all and that should get everyone interested. I knew I didn’t fit in. The bars I belonged in had well worn bar stools, maybe some repairs made with colored duct tape, but the tears in the seats weren’t left alone like they were in this place. The people who came to The Hole didn’t bother combing their hair in the morning and no one noticed. Or cared if they did.

  I’m poor but clean, I thought, suppressing a smile. I hoped that my long walk had served to dirty me up a little. I’d purposely tousled my hair some before coming inside. The jeans I had on were simple Levi’s and were well worn. The T-shirt underneath was a plain blue. Neither one would raise an eyebrow, even in here. My jacket might, though. It was the dark brown leather jacket that every American male owns, a knock off of the World War Two bomber jacket. I imagine my generation probably wore the jacket more due to Indiana Jones than those heroes of the air, but either way, every guy seemed to have one. Mine had belonged to my dad. God knows where he got it or why he kept it, but it was the only thing of his I had.

  If I’d known I was coming to The Hole, I’d never have worn it. Of course, if I’d known how much walking I was going to do today, I wouldn’t have worn my cowboy boots, either. At least they were heavily worn and a scarred dark brown that didn’t suggest wealth of any kind.


  I sat and sipped and waited. The sourpuss bartender made a point to ignore me, standing in what must have been “his spot” with his arms crossed. The old man at the end of the bar showed no interest, either. He sat and stared down at the shot glass in front of him and every so often, he’d lift it with shaking hands and take a small sip. Sometimes he’d cough and it was a horrible, phlegm-filled sound that reeked of death. After each coughing fit, he brought a wavering hand to his lips and puffed on his cigarette. The smoke curled up around his face. I knew if I sat there long enough, he’d ask me to “buy an old man a drink.”

  I figured the woman in the Raiders jersey to be one of Rolo’s working girls. She wore a pair of stretch shorts and a long Raiders jersey that hung down almost like a skirt. Compared to Tiffany, though, this one was a looker. If it’d been her grabbing me behind the paint store, we would’ve been talking about more than forty bucks.

  I put her out of my mind. It was the kid I was interested in, the one that sat next to her in the booth. Every now and then she leaned down and he whispered with her. He wore a light blue basketball jersey over a white t-shirt. Silky black pants and oversized high tops rounded out his attire. He sat on the very edge of the booth, both feet out from underneath the table.

  It was too dark for me to guess his age. Still, he had to be well under twenty-one. He couldn’t be Rolo.

  Could he?

  I thought about how young some of the criminals had been when I worked the streets. I remembered once that Tom Chisolm and I stopped a car with three Mexican bangers on their way back from an attempted drive by. We’d held them there until a few more units were on scene and then brought them out one by one. The third suspect came from the back seat and stood about four feet tall. I swear to God, I thought he was a midget. But he wasn’t. It was eleven year old Esteban Guitterez, younger brother to Rueben and Benito. They ran in some Brown Pride gang that was only local. When we did our searches, it was the eleven year old, Esteban, who had two Star nine millimeters in his waistband.