huh?”
I neatly side-stepped his booby trap.
I said, “Mr. Jones, I’m nobody trying in your world to be somebody. I was born right here in your town. Could be my Mammy went for you. What bitch wouldn’t? If I was a bitch I’d give you some scratch to get some.”
He said, “Nigger, you like fine white pussy? This dog of mine wants you to lay her. I give my whores what they want. You going to lay her for a double saw?
My skull raced out the warning, “Fool! Watch your ass!”
I said, “Mr. Jones, I don’t want no kind of a pussy unless it hangs on my own whore. Mr. Jones, I’m a pimp, like you. I don’t want nothing but some pimp scratch. My principles won’t let me turn no reverse trick.
“Mr. Jones, I ain’t no party freak. I want to be great like you. I ain’t never going to amount to anything if I screw up the rules of the pimp game. You the greatest pimp on Earth. You got great pimping by the rules. Would you want a poor dumb pimp like me to chump out at the start?”
His freak white woman pouted at his side. She begged Nero to flip his thumbs down.
She said, “Mr. Jones, make this pretty punk freak off with your baby. You don’t let nobody say no to you. Since he’s dreaming he’s a pimp it will be wild kicks for me. Force him, Daddy, force him. Show him who’s boss. Sic Miss Peaches on him.”
He shoved her aside. The boa constrictor uncoiled from around my chest. I saw contempt paint over the skull and crossed bones in his peepers. I drew a deep breath.
He roared, “You little pissy, green-ass Nigger. You a pimp? You can’t spell pimp. You couldn’t make a pimple on a pimp’s ass. Nigger, I’ll blow your head off through that ceiling. Don’t let the word pimp come outta your jib in my presence. Now get outta my face, Pussy. I oughta stick my swipe in your jib.”
The cat slithered from under the stool. She crouched on her belly and stared up at me.
I wasn’t David. Good thing I wasn’t. I was sure mad at the kooky bastard. I grinned and fished a fin out. I tossed it on the log and dragged tail out the door to the street. I was glad I hadn’t stacked that sling-shot switch blade in my pocket against that thirty-eight magnum stuck beneath Goliath’s belt.
The door smacked Preston a hard shot in the forehead. He had been peeping through a slat in the door blind. He rubbed his head. He looked scared.
He said, “Kid, I told you he’s nuts. You keep it up, a ground hog will be your mailman. To play it safe you better give me your Mama’s address. I gotta know where to ship your corpse. Where you going now?”
I said, “Look Preston, I didn’t cut into him. He cut into me. Hell, I ain’t no head-shrinker. I couldn’t handle the maniac. I’m splitting to the Ford to think.”
He was clucking his jib when I walked away from him. I collapsed onto the Ford’s seat. I was stinking from the fear-sweat in the bar. My pants were soggy.
I saw the white broad that was burning to freak off with me. She was holding the Roost door open. Sweet filed out. His whores strutted out behind him. They walked behind him to the Duesenberg.
A tall brown-skin joker with a gleaming head of processed hair got out of a red Hog. He was the gutty stud I saw pouring that gin down Poison’s girl.
Sweet’s stable had gotten into the Duesenberg. The shiny-topped joker and Sweet were rapping on the sidewalk. They pounded each other on the back. They looked like boon buddies. Miss Peaches stood lashing her tail at Sweet’s side.
I almost leaped out of my hide. It was Preston banging on the car window. I unlocked the door. He slid in. His peepers were ballooning, looking past me to Sweet on the other side of the street.
He was sucking air like a mackerel on the beach. He was shoving a rusty owl-head twenty-two pistol across the seat. He was trembling like the zero second had come to assassinate maybe F.D.R.
He said, “Kid, you sitting here hating him, ain’t you? You despise his guts. I saw the way you was looking at him. A bastard like him ain’t got a right to live on God’s green Earth.
“Do yourself and the world a favor, Kid. Take this rod and walk sneaky like down that sidewalk while he’s rapping to Glass Top. Stick the barrel in his ear and pull the trigger. Then quick, blow the cat’s brains out. It’s easy, Kid. You can do it.
“Every Nigger in the country will love you. Kid, it’s your chance to get great. Go on, Kid, do it now. You ain’t never gonna get a choicer chance.”
I said, “Preston, I’m not hip to the murder game. I don’t want to get hip to it. I don’t want to blow his brains out on that sidewalk and waste them. I want his brains to work inside my skull. You getting old, Preston. You can’t even dent the mustard. He screwed you around a thousand times worse than me.
“You can’t lose for winning. Why don’t you be the hero and croak him. Look Preston, take that tommy gun and split. I like you, but give me a break, huh? I’ve had a funky night and my skull needs a change.”
He said, “Kid, you think I ain’t got the guts? He ruined me, Kid. He destroyed me. He’s just another Nigger. He ain’t no bear, and that cat ain’t no tiger. I’m going over there right now and cash them out.”
Old Preston sprang out of the car. I watched him all the way. That game leg had him tilting from side to side. He looked like one of those doughty “Spirit of Seventy-Six” jokers on the posters around the Fourth of July.
I wondered if he was tanked up with enough rot-gut moxie to really fold Sweet’s dukes for good across his chest. Preston was on the other side of the street only twenty feet from Sweet and Glass Top. His mitt was rammed into his benny pocket keeping the rod warm and ready. Preston’s shoulders and back were stiff and straight. Sweet’s back was toward me. He was facing the sidewalk.
I thought, “The old Dingbat may do it. He sure had reasons. Sweet put the hurt to him all right. Will there be much gore? Will Sweet croak right away or flop around on the street like a chicken with its head wrung off? Will Miss Peaches leap up and cut Preston’s throat?
“If Preston croaks him I’ll have to cut into Poison. I’ll bleed his skull. He will be top pimp. Maybe a couple of those ten whores Sweet’s got will go for me. I’d be some kind of sonuvabitching young pimp in a Duesenberg.
Preston came abreast of Sweet. He had slowed to an amble. I could see his yellow mitt easing out of his pocket. He got maybe three feet past Sweet and stopped. He was going to do it! He was coming back for a fatal flank sneak.
At that instant Sweet turned his buffalo head and looked down at Preston. Miss Peaches stiffened. I saw a black cavern open in Preston’s toothless yellow face. The chicken-hearted bastard had been chilled by those awful gray orbs and the cat. He was grinning at Sweet. He scooted his empty hand out of his pocket.
Preston might have made it if Sweet hadn’t turned those lights on him. Old Preston bowed his bald head. He walked toward the Greek’s joint. His shoulders were sagging. His back was a stooped slouch. Old Preston had missed his choice chance at glory.
I just sat watching Sweet and trying to plot a way to cut into him. It looked hopeless. Finally, Sweet got in the rear seat of his Duesenberg. The cat leaped into his lap. One of the white broads roared it away. I saw Glass Top pat his greasy dome as he turned into the Roost.
I thought, “That glossy-top stud with a face like a pretty whore’s might be the tunnel to Sweet.”
I took my sponge out and freshened my makeup. I got out of the Ford and walked to the Roost. The joint was getting crowded. I was lucky. There was an empty stool in the middle of the log.
The beautiful joker was on a stool next to it. The memory of that four-slat tip out of the fin sent the tamale skidding to me. I sipped my Planter’s Punch. I drummed my Stetsons against the stool legs. Hamp’s “Flying Home” was rocking the joint.
A pack of white broads had a booth behind me. They looked like they had been to a P.T.A. meeting. Their perfume sent a medley of sexy odors through the joint. They were flirting their cans off. I guess they were writers. They were maybe doing urgent research on the “Sexual Habits of the Black Male.”
I wasted no time. I was afraid the pretty joker might split. I snatched my eyes from the excited pack in the mirror. I turned my head toward him and touched him lightly on the sleeve.
He was sure a wrong doer all right. He frogged at least three inches off his stool. It was like I’d stabbed him in the butt with a red-hot poker. He turned his shocked face toward mine. His silky long-lashed eyes were popped wide in alarm. He had panicked like maybe a cute nun caught naked in the Priest’s bedroom by the Mother Superior.
I said, “Jeez, excuse me, Jim. I didn’t know you were in deep thought, I’m sorry I hit on you like a square. My name is Young Blood. I’m a friend of Preston’s. You must be the fabulous Glass Top. It would be a boss honor to buy you a taste.”
