Max knew he needed to think of something quick, went with, “I was just here gettin’ set to kill this here nigger.”
Rufus, the fucking idiot, said, “You was doin’ what, boss?”
Still calling him boss, just what Arma needed to hear.
But it didn’t matter because Arma wasn’t buying the crap anyway. He said, “What y’all wearin’ laundry clothes for? Y’all tryin’ to run out and leave your Aryan brothers to burn? I save yer sorry ass back there and you turn coyote and leave me?”
Max’s mouth sagged open, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. He couldn’t figure out how Arma had survived the heap of Crips who’d descended on him.
“I shoulda known,” Arma said. “Shackin’ up with the dirtiest nigger in this here prison. He probably put so much a his black meat in you all them nights, he been gettin’ to you, made you black yerself. Ain’t that right, Fisher? You don’t know what color you are no more, do you?”
The sirens were blaring. Lockdown was going to happen any second. If they were going to do this, they had to do it now.
“I told you,” Max said, “I’m gonna kill the guy, but I want to do it in private. I just want it to be me and him, hombre a hombre.”
Arma said, “I’ll show you how it’s done,” and the next second he was attacking Rufus, trying to stick his shaft into the big man’s neck. Rufus was fighting back, but Arma was quicker and the wood gave him a longer reach.
Knowing this would be another defining moment in his life, Max went over and drove the knife into Arma’s back. This time he knew how do it, getting it in the first time, through all the bone and muscle and stuff.
“Fisher, you fuckin’ nigger,” Arma said.
He tried to turn, bring his shaft up to use on Max, but he crumpled to the ground.
Holy shit, killing people was fun! Max felt like a hunter, like a real fucking man.
Max left the knife in Arma’s back and said to Rufus, “You okay?”
Rufus said, “Yeah, just some blood, ain’t no nothin’. But, yo, boss, you got some moves, yo.”
They got in the truck and headed out of the prison. There was so much chaos at the gate, the guard took a cursory look at Max and Rufus and waved them through.
“We did it, boss,” Rufus said. “We really fuckin’ did it.”
Max was still lost in his own world, high from killing Arma. No wonder crackheads killed people, it was fucking addicting. Max couldn’t wait to kill again. He wanted more. More, more, more.
Rufus gave Max directions and he followed them. About a mile away from the prison on a dirt road they approached a dark sedan. Max drove the laundry truck off the side of the road, out of view, and then he and Rufus ditched the truck and jogged over to the sedan.
Angela and her IRA friend were in the front. Max and Rufus got in the back and Max said, “Where the fuck is Paula?”
“Who?” Angela asked.
“The big-chested girl? My biographer,” Max said, like it was obvious.
“The fook’re you talking about?” Angela asked.
He didn’t have time to explain, or to wait.
“Drive,” he said, and the IRA guy drove away.
Max leaned over the seat, gave Angela a big fat one on her full lips. Man, she smelled good, like fucking Irish Spring. He remembered how much he loved fucking Irish chicks and he couldn’t wait to give Angela the meat tonight. He said, “Man, I can’t wait to give you the meat tonight, bitch.”
“Who’re you callin’ bitch, you fookin’ cunt.”
Ah, the mouth on her. He loved it.
Rufus was still babbling, “We did it, boss, we did it, yo. We really done an’ did it.”
Then Max looked back and noticed the car behind them. It wasn’t directly behind them – it might’ve been thirty or forty yards back – but it was still unsettling to see it there, tagging along.
“I think that car’s following us,” Max said.
Angela looked back and said, “What car?”
“There’s one car on the fucking road,” Max said. “Pick one.”
Angela was built, but he’d forgotten how dumb she was.
Then the IRA guy spoke his first words. Well, if you call it speaking.
“I’m p-p-p-p-p-positive… the c-c-c-car isn’t… f-f-f-f-f-f-fah-fah-fah-fah…”
“The fuck is he saying?” Max asked.
“I haven’t a clue,” Angela said.
“He saying ain’t nobody back there, yo,” Rufus said.
Figured, two idiots could understand each other.
Max looked back again, but the headlights were gone.
“Just sit back and start celebratin’, boss,” Rufus said. “We did it. We really motherfuckin’ did it.”
Nineteen
“I wanted more. Give me more.”
Angela needed a shower, a drink, to get laid and to get – of course, as always – rich.
The drive to the Canadian border had been bizarre. Sean, muttering stuff in his stammer that nobody could follow and Max insisting they were being followed. She’d forgotten how paranoid he’d always been, long before anyone got hurt. And she was still seething about him “putting the meat to her.”
He would, like fook.
Angela was plain dumbfounded by the huge black man. With one hand he could have strangled them all and instead, he was brown-nosing Max, gazing at him with, there was no other word for it, total admiration. Was it some kind of gay thing? Prison does weird shite to people.
They reached the border just before dusk and Sean pulled into a trailer park, said as he checked his notes and found a key, “W-w-w-we’re… nu-nu-num-b-b-b-b-ber… t-t-t-t-t-twenty s-s-s-six.”
Nobody was saying much as they trudged their way to the trailer.
Angela couldn’t believe it, she had finally hit bottom: trailer trash. She’d be here for life, wearing denim shorts, her hair permanently in rollers, no AC, and three snot-nosed brats wailing at her for sodas. And she’d have no man, of course.
She shuddered.
In the car, Max had reached over, asked, “Cold? Wait till I get in you, you’ll be so hot.”
She’d nearly gut shot the bollix then and there.
Someone had made slight preparations for their arrival. There was coffee, a thermos, three bunk beds and, sitting in the middle of the trailer, a bottle of Jay and about twenty beers.
No food.
Angela heard Max whine, “No food?”
Then he grabbed the bottle of Jay, said, no, ordered, “Y’all grab some glass or other, The… A.X. has a toast to make.”
Jameson out of Styrofoam is a travesty but Angela figured it was one of the least of the sins on her conscience.
Max said, “I toast our valiant rescuers, Angela and…” He paused, getting ready for his renowned wit, continued, “Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh… Sean.”
No laughter, and the Irish guy was giving him a look that said, “You’re dead.”
