The King of Swords

by Nick Stone

  Max stopped pacing. He thought of Sandra. He saw again her smiling face on his pillow last night when he’d told her he loved her. He saw her sitting at his kitchen table yesterday morning, dressed in one of his shirts, reading the paper. He’d stood in the doorway just looking at her without her noticing, thinking how beautiful she was and how he was the luckiest guy in the world right then. If they carried on with this case the way they were, he’d be putting her in danger. But he couldn’t let Joe down.

  Max sat on the couch and looked at the black, sticky oil-stained floor. Outside he heard the rumble of thunder.

  49

  Carmine parked the dark green Ford pickup in the lot of the Hervis Family Supermarket on South West 8th Avenue and discreetly checked himself out in a mirror. He was delighted with the results. He’d always wished he’d been born with straight hair, like his dad’s, and now he’d fulfilled his wish. OK, so it was a wig, but it wasn’t an obvious wig like some of the spades wore, or those ridiculous, blow-away-in-a-breeze toupees those white old timers in South Beach wore, this one was subtle–a short straight head of real black hair, parted in the middle with a little fringe falling over his right brow. He looked bona fide Cubano now.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d had straight hair. A few years back he’d had it ‘chemically relaxed’. That was a nice moment, driving down Biscayne Bay in his coupé, sea wind blowing back his hair; it even had a little bounce to it when he walked–just like white folks in shampoo commercials. Things had of course gone critically wrong when he’d gone home for his bath that evening. His mother had freaked out and hacked it all off with a pair of kitchen scissors–damn near ripped it out, when she couldn’t work those shears fast enough–and then she’d stuffed it in his mouth and tried to make him swallow it. He’d almost choked to death. But, still, looking back at the momentary happiness he’d felt that afternoon, it had somehow been worth it. She’d never be able to take that away from him, no matter what she did.

  Carmine had made other changes to himself too–a whole new disguise. He was pretending to be a house painter, after seeing a bunch of them driving by Haiti Mystique to go and work on the houses Sam was renovating on the corner of 62nd Street and North East 2nd Avenue, close to the Dupuis Building. Carmine had bought a pickup second hand, eight gallons of white and yellow paint, brushes and floor sheets to put in the back; and then, to complete his transformation, he’d got himself a set of khaki overalls and steel-capped boots, which he’d dripped multicoloured paint on for that ‘used look’. When Sam had seen him he’d told him he looked like he’d stepped out of a Jackson Pollock exhibition. He’d tried his disguise out on a couple of Clubs. He’d solicited them in espaol. They’d taken one look at him and said they weren’t no soup kitchen pussy. He hadn’t blown his cover. He’d just turned, walked out and punched the air in triumph. No one looked twice at a painter–not even hos–so this way he’d be safe from the cops. Not that he’d actually heard anything more about the guy in the salon on the news, but that didn’t mean they weren’t looking for him.

  He checked his watch: 2.37 p.m. Good, he thought, she’d be right in the middle of her shift. He’d catch her unawares, just sneak right up on her. Julita Leljedal.

  He’d been looking for Julita for a year and a half. She skipped town, owing him $1,250. Last week one of his Spades had told him they’d seen her working at the–get this–meat section of HFS.

  When he’d first seen her, in 1976, Julita had been a stripper over at an upmarket club called Luckies on Le Jeune. Back then he used to go trawling a lot of titty bars for potential Diamonds and Clubs, and the girls were usually real easy pickings.

  Julita was one of the prettiest, sexiest girls he’d ever seen–long black hair, blue-green eyes like the ocean, light-bronze skin. She was petite–just over five feet tall and flat chested–but boy did she have an ass! Guys used to come from all over to see her dance. She had a routine she did with a silver baton. She’d catch a guy’s eye, pout her luscious lips at him and then lick the stick and jerk her hand up and down it, while she ground her hips and wiggled her ass. The guy would shower her with all the money in his wallet every time. She had an uncanny way of knowing exactly which guy to focus on too. The night they’d met she’d done her routine on Carmine and he’d thrown her not the usual five-and ten-dollar bills, but a whole bunch of C-notes.

  He’d put her and her cousin Kitty up in an apartment overlooking Maximo Gomez Park. She’d carried on dancing, only now she was taking the richest customers home and fucking them too.

  Cousin Kitty didn’t start off a ho. She was a trainee nurse and, anyway, she was so damn ugly–bad skin, thick pink-framed glasses and greasy brown hair that looked like the hide of a wet donkey–no way could Carmine even have turned her out as a Spade, even if he’d wanted to.

  But then one night one of Julita’s tricks offered her $1,000 to perform an enema on him. Kitty knew exactly what to do. The next night the guy came round for more of the same.

  Sensing a too-good-to-miss opportunity, Carmine set Kitty up in business, servicing medical procedure fetishists. She and Julita dressed up in rubber nurse’s uniforms and gave those sick fuckolos the times of their lives. For a year, Carmine made serious bank. But then, in February 1979, it had gone pear-shaped. Kitty gave an enema wrong and ruptured a guy’s intestine. He died in the apartment. Carmine took the body away and got rid of it. When he went back, Julita and Kitty had split. They’d taken their clothes and the $1,250 the guy had paid them. He’d been looking for them–specifically Julita–ever since.

  He got out of the truck and walked over to the supermarket. It was a big sprawling place which didn’t just sell food, but clothes, plants, electrical tools, TVs and even minor car parts. Everything was in Spanish, from the signs to the canned music to all the conversation he heard around him.

  He headed for the meat section.

  It took him a while and two double-takes to recognize Julita, first because her hair was bunched up under white netting, second because of the uniform they had her working in–a shapeless dark blue dress with red and white piping–and third because she’d put on a whole heap of weight. Her hips were broader, her ass bigger, her calves were about the size as his waist and she had the beginnings of a double chin. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five when she was working for him. Now she looked ten years older. Mamacita had lost all her sexiness.

  He watched her from a distance, as she stacked plastic trays of juicy red steak on a shelf from an overflowing shopping cart. She finished what she was doing and pushed the cart along a little way and then started filling up the shelves again.

  When her back was to him, he walked up and greeted her the way he always had.

  ‘Hola, chica.’

  She froze in mid-motion. He saw her shoulders expand a little as she took a deep breath before turning around.

  It was her all right. Her face had got broader and she looked tired and pale, but those eyes hadn’t changed much.

  ‘How d’you find me?’ she said. She didn’t look worried or scared like he’d expected her to, just looked him up and down from his paint-spattered boots to his hair.

  ‘It’s a small world, baby.’ He smiled, wondering why she hadn’t commented on his appearance, let alone failed to recognize him.

  ‘I ain’t workin’ for you no more, Carmine,’ she said.

  ‘I can see that.’ He laughed, nodding at the shopping cart. ‘You really landed on your knees, girl! Not that you wasn’t already on ’em.’

  ‘It’s better than what I used to do,’ she said.

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘My $1,250.’

  ‘All the money you make off them stupid hos and you comin’ after me for a itty-bitty $1,250?’

  ‘So $1,250’s itty bitty, huh? Means you got $1,250 to gi’ me.’

  ‘I ain’t got no $1,250 to give you,’ she said. ‘Fact, I ain’t even got twelve dollars and fifty cents t
o give you. An’ I ain’t got zip to give you no how, ’cause I’m outta that life. You know why I left? It wasn’t just ’cause of what happened to that old pervert, it was ’cause I was two months pregnant.’

  ‘For real? You keep it?’

  ‘Them.’

  ‘You had twins?’

  ‘Girls.’

  ‘Dayum! ’ Carmine didn’t know what else to say. It explained the extra pounds. Now, when and if–it was real rare, because contraception was strictly enforced–Cards got pregnant, they were made to have abortions. Well, the earners were. Spades, or Clubs on the slide to Spadedom, were just cut loose.

  ‘Who’s the daddy?’

  ‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘Some trick.’

  ‘How’d that happen?’

  ‘How d’you think?’

  ‘But what about them pills I got for you?’

  ‘They were making me fat.’

  Not as fat as you are now, he thought, but didn’t say it.

  Truth was, he didn’t know what to say. Congratulations, was the way it went, but he’d never congratulated nobody on nothin’, ’specially not a ho on havin’ no kid.

  He was stunned, and a little disappointed. OK, he hadn’t really come here for the money. It was sweat of a ho’s back to him. Truth was, he’d felt a little hurt when Julita had upped and gone like that. He’d wanted to know why. A little part of him had liked her, because in a certain light, dancing up there, before she started losing her clothes, she’d reminded him a lot of Lucita, his father’s girlfriend. All right then, he had been a little sweet on her, sweetest he’d ever been on any ho. He’d had a few good times with her outside business hours. She was fun to be around–great sense of humour, made him laugh; sometimes she did this thing where she stopped talking and just looked at him with those eyes of hers that told him so many sweet things. He loved that. And he loved listenin’ to her fuckin’ those tricks. She just talked that sweet espaol–‘Si, papi. Siii, papi. Siii, siiii, mi amor’–and that got them, and him, all the way off. He’d even come close to fuckin’ her himself a couple of times, when they’d had a few drinks and were fooling around, but the prospect of his mother findin’ out had pulped his wood. Still, in another life, he probably would’ve wifed her. And they’d-a had twins too–good-looking ones at that.

  On the business side she’d been a great earner. She’d given him every cent she made from fucking. She’d never complained or whined or cried like most of his Cards. He was so impressed with this, he’d let her keep the money she made from dancing.

  ‘You got a man now?’ he asked.

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘Just a question.’

  ‘What kinda man wants a woman with two kids, Carmine?’

  A guy who could love you, he thought, but didn’t say. Shit, why was he being this way? She was a ho, he told himself, a ho–yo’ ho.

  He looked at her, this time with his money eyes, figuring what he could still do with her. In her state he wouldn’t even have put her out as a Spade. Sure, someone’d want to fuck her, but he had standards to maintain. Her tits had gotten bigger, which was a plus, but he was sure they sagged; even with a strict diet she’d have stretch marks on her belly and her ass would never regain its money-making shape. She’d be a Club at best, but not for too long.

  Not worth it, he told himself. Leave her be. Say goodbye, then turn and go. Go get another ho.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last. Part of him felt responsible for what had happened to her, part of him wanted suddenly and very desperately to stop what he was doing.

  ‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘You think I miss that life? I don’t. And now I gotta chance to help my kids do better than me.’

  An idea began to form in Carmine’s mind. He had over $10,000 in the glove compartment. He could give her half of it for her babies, like a–what was it they did in companies when they paid people off?–yeah, that was it–a golden handshake.

  But as he was thinking this he saw the expression on her face change quite suddenly. Her eyes widened, her mouth opened a little and she went deathly pale.

  She wasn’t looking at him but over to his right.

  Carmine heard slow, heavy and very familiar footsteps coming up and stopping right beside him.

  ‘Well, ain’t this nice?’ a soft wheezing, lisping voice said in his ear.

  Carmine smelt sugared almonds and the stench of rotting meat. It was Bonbon.

  ‘What you doin’ here?’ Carmine turned to look at him.

  ‘Yo’ moms sent me.’ Bonbon was sucking on a piece of candy as usual.

  Carmine didn’t know how or why, dressed the way he was, the fat fuck wasn’t sweating bullets. He was wearing a black fedora with a black band, a knee-length coat, black, dark grey wool trousers, a white dress shirt and a bright yellow and red striped waistcoat. His gleaming patent-leather loafers bulged at the sides. ‘Why?’ ‘To run things.’

  ‘Run what?’

  ‘Yo’ bidniss.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sam needs you to cover for him at the store for a couple-a weeks, ’cause he gots bidniss o’ the important kind to handle,’ Bonbon said. He had standard teeth in–small, gleaming white squares that made his mouth look like an open zipper.

  ‘But I got bidniss o’ my own important kind. I can’t mind no store,’ Carmine said. Bonbon must’ve been following him all day although he couldn’t remember seeing his car. Then again, he hadn’t exactly been paying attention to the possibility of being tailed, so absorbed had he been with his new hair.

  ‘You wanna take it up wit’ yo’ moms, she’s out back in the car.’

  Carmine didn’t answer. He felt suddenly humiliated, cut down to three feet tall. He looked at Julita, who hadn’t moved. She was gawping at Bonbon with pure terror, like he was an oncoming truck and she was nailed to the road.

  Bonbon checked Carmine out, head to toe. They were about the same height, but Bonbon’s hat gave him an extra few inches, his girth a few extra people.

  ‘Dressed like you been in a paint fight. And whass up with that wack-ass wig, man? Look like a dead bat fell on you and liked it.’

  Carmine wanted to say something to that, something about him bein’ a fat toothless stinking-mouth psycho fuck, but he saw the pearl handles of one of the two Smith & Wesson .44 Magnums Bonbon wore on either hip, jutting out from under his coat.

  Bonbon turned to Julita.

  ‘Whatchu’ still standin’ there fo’?’ he hissed sharply, like venom hitting a hot frying pan. ‘You owe $1,250. An’ you gonna repay it–wit’ two hundred po’cent interest.’

  ‘Mister, I ain’t got no money,’ Julita pleaded.

  ‘I can see that,’ Bonbon sneered. ‘But you gon’ go an’ get me some.’

  ‘How?’ she said, her eyes tearing up. She knew what was coming next and that she couldn’t refuse.

  ‘As o’ today you got a new job. Corner of 63rd Street. Call it a prom-ho-shun.’ Bonbon chuckled.

  ‘But–but I got kids–babies…’The tears were pouring down her face.

  ‘Sad, sad, too fuckin’ bad.’ Bonbon shook his head. ‘Now go get outta that clown suit and come right back here.’

  ‘Carmine…please…’ Julita cried.

  ‘Carmine ain’t gonna help you.’ Bonbon got closer to her. ‘Go on get yo’ things, walk out and get in the black Merc you see outside. Ain’t but one. An’ don’tchu be tryin’ nuttin’ like tellin’ the manager or callin’ the cops, ’cause you know what I’ma do to you and yo’ bebés.’

  Carmine looked at her sorrowfully.

  ‘Sixty-third Street’s in Liberty City,’ she said, her voice trembling.

  ‘Thass right. The brothers love theyselves some Cuban pussy, specially them white-lookin’ ones like you. You gon be on that track and you gon stay on that track till you settle yo’ debt.’

  She opened her mouth and tried to speak, but nothing came out of her lips moving soundlessly liked a beached, dying fish.

  �
�Hustle bitch!’ Bonbon hissed.

  She walked away, off to the back of the store, head down, shoulders slumped, unsteady on her feet.

  ‘Now thass how you handle hos, Carmine,’ Bonbon said, turning back to him with a smile.

  ‘Don’t tell me how to do my job!’ Carmine snapped. ‘I built this damn bidniss.’

  ‘Yo’ moms and Solomon built dis bidniss,’ Bonbon corrected him. ‘An’ I made sure thangs was runnin’ right. You done the next best thang to shit. Pimp always gotta have a whip in one hand and a leash in tha other. All you ever had in yo’ hand Carmine was yo’ dick. Why this is mines now.’

  Carmine knew then that his mother had demoted him for good. Bonbon had never disrespected him like this, never talked down to him. He hadn’t dared.

  Carmine was too stunned to think straight.

  He turned around and left the supermarket.

  Outside he saw the black Mercedes with the tinted windows parked alongside his truck. He could sense he was being watched from the car. He thought he even heard women’s laughter inside as he passed. He didn’t look at the Merc. He got in the truck and drove out of the lot, heading for Haiti Mystique.

  What the fuck was going on? Why had they done this to him? Sure, his mother hated his guts, but he’d always brought her a steady stream of top-class girls–earners. And he was damn good at finding and recruiting talent. No one could charm a bitch like him–no one–and certainly not Bonbon. It made no sense. No sense at all.

  Then he thought of Julita, but instead he saw Lucita. Stupid he hadn’t realized this before, but even their names were similar. Julita and Lucita.

  His heart grew heavy, his throat tightened and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness swallowed him. He couldn’t do wrong or right without somehow fucking both up.