The King of Swords

by Nick Stone

  Without the pimping he was useless, good for absolutely nothing.

  He saw his mother, imagined how she’d taunt him tonight in the bathroom, rub his failure in his face until he choked on it.

  Julita wouldn’t last long on 63rd Street. The Spades down there would give her hell ’cause she was the new girl on the block–and a white girl at that. Didn’t matter she was Cuban. That’d make it even worse for her. The gangster kids would run trains on her at five bucks a pop. No way would she ever earn back that $1,250. She’d be used up in two months. Bonbon knew this. It was his way of punishing her for stealing off them. Carmine wished he hadn’t gone to see her, then none of this would’ve happened. He’d gone and ruined not just her life, but her little girls’ too.

  He tried to gee himself up, think of brighter things.

  What did they say ’bout hittin’ rock bottom? The only way was up.

  There was Nevada to look forward to. What about all that money he’d stashed away? That was something to hold on to. All wasn’t lost. There was still hope.

  Yeah, right!

  Who the fuck was he foolin’?

  It was just him in here, on his own, cold light of day.

  He might’ve been at the bottom of wherever he’d been kicked to now, but he sensed there was further to fall.

  This was the start of the end.

  50

  The number Max had taken down in Haiti Mystique was for a house on North East 128th Street, North Miami Beach. Both house and phone were registered to Eva Desamours.

  Early on Wednesday morning Max and Joe drove out to North Miami Beach in a blue ’78 Ford Ranchero they’d got from the car pool. The car ran fine, but outwardly it looked like a piece of shit–rusted fenders, scratches and chipped paint on the bodywork, dents in the hood and side–ideal camouflage for the area, where every vehicle was a third generation hand-me-down.

  North Miami Beach wasn’t quite the worst the city had to offer, but it was a million miles from the best. Its main tourist attractions were the St Bernard de Clairvaux Church off the West Dixie Highway–a medieval Spanish monastery William Randolph Hearst had bought in Europe and had had dismantled and shipped, down to the last brick, all the way over to the States–and a nudist beach at Haulover Park, across the Intercoastal Waterway, which was the target of regular protests by Christian fundamentalists. In-between the two was a drab area of working-and welfare-class homes, ugly-looking condos and cheapo stores where half the shelves were empty. Crime was high here, most of it comparatively petty and tame by Miami’s current standards–burglaries, home invasions, domestic violence, rapes and murders–but there was still too much of it for the under-staffed and over-extended local police to deal with, so they were forced to prioritize. Violence against the very young or the very old got their full attention. Anyone in-between was out of luck.

  They found the house–a small pale pink bungalow with a screened porch and a palm tree growing to its left. It was set back from the road and surrounded by a well-tended lawn with a flower-lined brick path leading to the front door, easily the best-looking home in a street filled with dismal bungalows struggling to stay upright, losing the battle against their own decrepitude. Although some owners had erected barbed-wire fences around them, put bars on the windows and left various breeds of attack dogs out in their front yards, gang graffiti still adorned two-thirds of the homes.

  They rolled a little further down the road and parked behind a dusty, brown Pontiac, opposite the house. It was 8.05 a.m.

  Joe turned on the radio. The Rolling Stones’ ‘Start Me Up’ was playing. The song was all over the airwaves and racing up the charts. Joe nodded his head along with the beat and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Max looked out of the window, first at the light grey sky, then at the matching tone of the street, wishing his partner had better taste in music.

  Forty minutes later a gleaming black Mercedes 300D with tinted windows, eight-spoke silver rims and whitewall tyres stopped in front of the house. Max took out a Nikon FM camera fitted with a 50 mm lens and started snapping.

  A tall, fat, dark-skinned man, wearing a long black coat, white gloves and a fedora stepped out and opened the passenger door. A woman with short black hair and the same complexion as the driver emerged. She was dressed in an elegant brown trouser suit and pumps and carried an alligator-skin purse. She talked to the man for a moment. Next to him she looked starved and frail, but Max could see from the cowed expression on his face that she commanded his absolute respect.

  The woman walked briskly up to the house, unlocked the door and went inside. The man got back in the car.

  ‘The driver looks like Fatty Arbuckle’s shadow,’ Joe quipped.

  ‘Guessing from his appearance, that’ll be Bonbon,’ Max said, putting the camera down on his lap. ‘And the royalty’s Eva Desamours.’

  At 9.08 a silver Porsche Turbo pulled up behind the Mercedes and a tall, slim, blonde woman got out. She was dressed expensively–tailor-made blue silk suit, gold jewellery on her wrists, hands, neck and ears–and long hair coiffed in a bouffant mane which didn’t move at all as she clicked her way along the sidewalk and up the path to the house with the well-drilled grace of a catwalk model. She was beautiful, but it was beauty cut in ice–all the aloofness money could buy. Max knew who she was.

  ‘She must be loaded. That’s a brand new Turtle.’ Joe nodded at the Porsche 911.

  ‘Don’t you recognize her?’ Max asked.

  ‘Sure, that’s Cheryl Tiegs,’ his partner joked.

  ‘Bunny Mason.’

  ‘As in Pitch Mason’s wife?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Pitch Mason was a major cocaine distributor who had slipped two elaborate DEA stings, because, it was widely rumoured, he’d been tipped off by someone on the inside. During the past year, Mason had become a society-page regular because of the stables and stud farms he owned and because of his wife–a former swimsuit model–who he referred to openly as his ‘favourite filly’.

  An hour later, Eva Desamours came out with Bunny Mason, walked her to her car, air-kissed her on both cheeks and waved goodbye as she roared off down the road.

  The next visitor arrived in a red Ferrari 308 at 10.25. Latina, older, shorter and far stouter than her predecessor. She had a round, hard face, black hair in a short ponytail and a huge pair of sunglasses that reminded both Max and Joe of the kind of outlandish specs Elton John wore. She was dressed in a black velour tracksuit with diamanté trim and matching slippers. She strode quickly up to the door with all the grace of a pissed-off pitbull.

  ‘Know her?’ Joe asked.

  ‘No, but counting the Turtle, we’ve got the drug dealer’s automobile trifecta here,’ Max said as he photographed the woman disappearing into the house. Mercedes, Porsches and Ferraris had become so popular with Miami’s coco-riche that car dealers had virtually run out of them and waiting lists were eight months long.

  As before Eva came out to the sidewalk with her client and stayed until she’d left the street.

  Two more visits followed–a black woman in a Mercedes Benz 450SEL 6.9, a redhead in another Porsche, both in their late twenties/early thirties, both wearing their money, both staying roughly an hour apiece.

  ‘That’s a high-end client base. She must be good,’ Max remarked.

  ‘Or a good bullshitter,’ Joe said.

  ‘Same coin,’ Max said. ‘You ever had your fortune read?’

  ‘Nah,’ Joe said. ‘That shit creeps me out.’

  ‘So you believe in it?’

  ‘Sure. There’s something in it. But outside of this job, I don’t wanna know what’s round the corner. Kinda defeats the object of living.’

  When she’d seen off her last customer, Bonbon emerged from the car and opened the passenger door. Eva Desamours got in and they pulled away. As they did so, Max noticed a line of small pieces of paper lying in the gutter where the Mercedes had been parked.

  He went over to take a look. There were at l
east twenty red and white striped candy wrappers lying there–identical to the one he’d found in the Lacour house. He scooped them up in his handkerchief.

  They tailed the Mercedes back to Haiti Mystique. Eva walked into the store at 3.15. Five minutes later Sam Ismael pulled up in an orange Honda and went inside.

  They left together after five, each going in separate directions–Ismael east, Eva west.

  Max photographed the comings and goings.

  ‘When are we gonna look in there?’ Joe asked as they drove past the store, following the Mercedes.

  ‘Tomorrow night,’ Max said.

  Eva Desamours lived in an imposing coral-rock house in a wide, leafy residential road off Bayshore Drive; only the top tier and roof of her home were visible behind the high wall surrounding it and the palm, banyon and mango trees growing in its grounds.

  The Mercedes stopped outside a spiked iron gate, which opened automatically from the inside. The car went in.

  ‘Very flashy,’ Joe commented.

  ‘What did you expect? Dopers get high, dealers get to live in a piece of heaven,’ Max said.

  A few minutes later the gate opened again and the Mercedes came out.

  At 5.45 a white Ford pickup truck went through the gate.

  Max recognized Carmine at the wheel.

  ‘That ain’t a pimp mobile,’ Joe said.

  ‘Maybe he’s been demoted.’

  Max got a picture of the plates.

  No one came out of the house. When it started going dark, at around 8.30, spotlights went on in the trees, bathing what they could see of the house in a deep green, shadow-splashed pall, making it look like it was covered in camouflage netting. A light went on in one of the top-floor rooms, but they couldn’t see inside because the curtains were closed.

  They waited another two hours, by which time the light upstairs had gone out.

  Max and Joe called it a day.

  It was close to midnight when Max got to Sandra’s place. They’d decided to spend alternate weeks in each other’s apartments as a prelude to buying a home together. Yes, they both agreed things were moving fast, that maybe they should be taking longer, factoring in pauses, checking each other out, looking for fatal flaws, but it just felt right between them. No point in delaying the inevitable.

  Before letting himself in, Max sat down on the steps and lit up a cigarette. The atmosphere was hot, humid and oppressive, with no wind and the smell of a downpour heavy in the air. Not that anyone seemed to notice or care. Little Havana was alive with its usual sounds–multiple parties trying to drown each other out with live salsa, car horns, firecrackers, arguments–good natured and angry. He smelled barbecues and Cuban cooking. He really wanted a drink, a shot and a cool brew–that’d be real nice. But Sandra would smell it on him and he’d promised her. He hoped he’d get used to not drinking, that he wouldn’t be one of those secret sippers who used mouthwash after every transgression.

  Solomon watched the white pig sitting on the steps of the apartment building, smoking his cigarette. He was sat in the back of the yellow cab he’d been following the cop in ever since he and his partner had left Eva’s house.

  ‘He’s not Cuban,’ Solomon said to Bonbon, who was at the wheel. ‘His woman must live there.’

  ‘Want me to take him?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Solomon said. ‘Tomorrow I’ll know everything about him.’

  The cop flicked his cigarette out into the middle of the street, got up and went into the apartment.

  Solomon got out of the cab and walked over to where the cigarette was still smouldering. He put it out with his foot, slipped the butt into a clear ziplock plastic bag and went back to the cab.

  51

  Every time it rained in Miami, it was like God was trying to wash the city into the sea. Today He was trying extra hard.

  Rain, wind, lightning and thunder.

  Carmine was getting his tic like crazy, his left cheek snapping back and forth every couple of seconds like a rubber band in the hands of a hyperactive child. He’d slap himself hard to correct it, but it would just get worse, his nervous spasm feeding off his anger and frustration and yanking up half his face, completely closing his eye.

  He was stood behind the counter of Haiti Mystique, watching the deluge come down in slanted sheets, relentless in its intensity, transforming the street into a wide, fast-flowing stream. The drains were choked and spilling their dark brown guts; solitary passing cars were throwing up knee-high waves, which would crash on the sidewalk, splash walls and windows and ooze under doorways.

  Bad day to do ho bidniss, the sorry state o’ my sorry ass, thought Carmine, before remembering, with something close to relief, that he’d been demoted to store manager. That was some kind of joke. There wasn’t anything to manage. In all the time he’d been in his ‘new job’, he hadn’t served a single customer. In fact, the only people to come through the door outside of him and Lulu had been Sam and Eva, when they’d had their meeting downstairs yesterday.

  Sam had been on the TV news and in the papers, standing in front of a row of derelict buildings on North East 2nd Avenue, talking about how he was going to renovate and reinvigorate the area, how he was going to turn it into a Haitian-themed neighbourhood, and how he was already talking to city officials about renaming the place ‘Little Haiti’. The press were already referring to him as ‘the Haitian George Merrick’, after the man who’d transformed Coral Gables out of orange groves. Same concept, different fruit. Tonight Sam was going to be at a big gala dinner at the Fontainebleau Hotel to formally launch the project.

  So Sam was a busy man–too busy to talk to Carmine. Carmine was wondering how much Sam knew about Bonbon taking over the pimping. Had he known about it in advance? Maybe, maybe not. Why would they have told him? It had nothing to do with him. But Carmine couldn’t be sure. Just like he couldn’t be sure that Sam hadn’t told his mother about Nevada.

  Nevada? Well, that was all fucked anyway. Wasn’t going to happen. He didn’t have the heart or guts or balls or mind to do that any more–not after what had happened to Julita. He’d spent yesterday night seeing as many of his sideline Cards as he could find, telling them he was cutting them loose. A few had cried, asked him what they were going to do. Some had asked him what he was going to do. Most had taken it with a shrug and a see-ya.

  He was still getting out of Miami though, and getting out soon–out of the city, out of his mother’s clutches, and out of this sad, bad, broken-down existence.

  He’d be gone next Wednesday. He was just about ready.

  He’d moved all his money to a locker at the airport. He’d stashed the key at home, deep in his jar of coffee. On Departure Day he’d leave like he was going to work, but he’d go to Miami International instead and get on a plane. He wouldn’t tell a soul. Not even Sam. And definitely not his mother.

  Where would he go?

  He’d first thought of Phoenix, because of that Isaac Hayes song–an old favourite of his–where a man leaves a cheating wife for the last time. But he’d dismissed that as a bad idea because the guy in the song never gets there, and, besides, Sam or someone would probably work it out. So he’d gone through the names of American towns he’d stored up in his mind, names of places he’d heard and never forgotten. He’d dismissed the familiar ones, the landmark cities, until he’d come up with Buffalo. Perfect. Who the fuck would think of looking for him in Buffalo?

  What he’d do when he got there, he didn’t know, but it would be better than this shit.

  The rain let up in the early afternoon and the thunder stopped completely. Carmine left Lulu to mind the store and took a drive over to 63rd Street. He was still using the pickup.

  The Spades were all out on the sidewalk, some under umbrellas, others in short and shiny plastic raincoats with nothing but their underwear on. They stood near the kerbs in their twos, three and fours, eyeballing every car that passed, sometimes waving and calling out to the drivers they locked eyes with.

 
He finally saw Julita, off on her own, near the end of the street. She was wearing a red dress that barely covered her crotch, black spike heels and a transparent windcheater. She looked scared, sad and tired. When she saw the pickup slowing she dipped her eyes to the ground. She hadn’t even seen him. He thought of stopping and giving her a ride, but he knew he couldn’t take her anywhere, so instead he drove on.

  He arrived at Haiti Mystique right after 4.00 p.m and sent Lulu home. No point in keeping her around. Besides, he wanted to be alone, give himself space to think.

  He looked around for something to keep him busy for the last half hour of his day and saw that the drum collection needed wiping down.

  Blondie’s ‘Rapture’ was playing on the radio. He turned it up a little. The song made him laugh, that white girl trying to be the Sugar Hill Gang. She really didn’t have the first clue about rapping, thought it was just talking like she was going over speed bumps–and that crap she was spouting about eating cars and bars and men from Mars. Jesus! Still, that bitch was fine-looking, a straight-up Heart.

  He corrected himself. He had to stop thinking that way, breaking women down into Suits, into how much he could get for them. That day was done. Fact of the matter was–if he was truthful to himself–he never had been a real pimp. Not exactly. All he’d actually done was seduce, recruit and collect. The creative side. He’d never actually set up the business. That had all been his mother. All right, so he’d had his Secret Suit. But that wasn’t exactly his fault. What else could he do for money? It was all he knew. He was a–what was it those defence lawyers were always saying?–yeah, ‘a product of his environment’. That was it! That’s what he was. It was all his mother’s fault. She’d started it, virtually as soon as they’d moved into Pork ’n’ Beans. She’d pimped out their neighbour, a Dominican called Fabiana. Fabiana had borrowed money off her and couldn’t repay it. She’d made Fabiana turn tricks in her house. Carmine would hear her getting fucked through her wall. Then she’d hear her crying after the johns had left. One night Fabiana took a dive in front of a speeding car. His mother didn’t give a shit, didn’t show a hint of remorse. No, what she did was take over Fabiana’s house and move another woman in there. Business as usual.