If the pimp is a sucker he’ll try to drive her away with his foot in her ass. She’s almost a cinch to croak him or cross him into the joint.
“I’m a genius. I’m hip that after a bitch has had maybe ten-thousand tricks drill her she ain’t too steady, skullwise. I don’t tip her I’m salty and disgusted. I talk like a sweet head-shrinker to her. Indeed of air castles, I pump her full of H.
“Her skull starts to jelly. I’ll be worried as hell about her. I’ll start sneaking slugs of morphine or chloral hydrate into her shots. While she’s out, I’ll maybe douse her with chicken blood. She comes to, I’ll tell her I brought her in from the street. I tell her I hope you didn’t croak anybody while you were sleepwalking.
“I got a thousand ways to drive ’em goofy. That last broad I flipped, I hung her out a fifth floor window. I had given her a jolt of pure cocaine so she’d wake up outside that window. I was holding her by both wrists. Her feet were dangling in the air. She opened her eyes. When she looked down she screamed like a scared baby. She was screaming when they came to get her. You see, kid, I’m all business. I ain’t got an ounce of hate in me.”
He had been driving for at least an hour. I had lost track of time and space. I saw no black faces in the streets around us. I saw tall gleaming apartment houses. Some so tall they seemed welded to the night sky.
I said, “Yeah Top, you’re a cold clever stud all right. I’m sure glad you’re yanking my coat. Jesus, Sweet must live in a white neighborhood.”
He said, “Yeah, Kid, he lives just around that next corner, in a penthouse. Like I told you he’s lucky as a shit- house rat. It’s a million-dollar building. The old white broad that owns it is Sweet’s freak white dog.”
I said, “But don’t the white tenants blow the roof because Sweet lives there?”
He said, “Sweet’s old white broad owns the building, but Sweet runs it. At least he runs it through a old ex- pimp pal. Sweet stuck him into a pad on the ground floor. Patch Eye, the old stud, collects the rents and keeps the porters and other flunkys on their toes. All the tenants are white gamblers and hustlers. Sweet is got the old ex- pimp running book wide open. The action a day just from the tenants runs two or three grand. I’ll say it a thousand times, Sweet is a lucky old stud.”
He turned the corner. He eased the Hog into the curb in front of a snow-white apartment building. A moss- green canvas canopy ran from the edge of the curb twenty-five yards to the kleig-lighted fancy front of the building. A gaunt white stud in a green monkey suit was standing in stooped attention at the curb. We got out. Top walked around the Hog to the doorman.
The doorman said, “Good evening, gentlemen.”
Top said, “Hello Jack, do me a favor. When you take my wheels to the back see that it’s parked close to an exit. When I come out I don’t wanna hassle outta there. Here’s a fin, Buster.”
The doorman said, “Thank you, Sir. I’ll relay your wish to Smitty.”
We walked into the green-painted, black-marbled foyer. I was trembling like maybe a hick virgin on a casting couch. We walked up the half-dozen marble steps to an almost invisible glass door.
A Boston Coffee-colored broad slid it open. We stepped into the green-and-pearl lobby. A tan broad as flashy as a Cotton Club pony sat behind a blond desk. We walked across the quicksand pearl carpet to the front of it. She flashed two perfect dozen of the thirty-two. Her voice was contralto silk.
She said, “Good evening, may I help you?”
Top said, “Stewart and Lancaster to see Mr. Jones.”
She turned to an elderly black broad sitting before a switchboard beside her.
She told her, “Penthouse, Misters Stewart and Lancaster.”
The old broad shifted her earphones from round her wrinkled neck to her horns. She plugged in and started batting her chops together. After a moment she nodded to the pony. We got the ivory flash again.
The pony said, “Thank you so much for waiting. Mr. Jones is at home and will see you.”
I followed Top to the elevators. A pretty brown-skin broad in a tight green uniform zipped us to the fifteenth floor. The brass door opened. We stepped out onto a gold-carpeted entrance hall. It was larger than Top’s living room.
A skinny Filipino in a gold lame outfit came toward us. He was grinning and bowing his head, his lank hair flopped across his skull like the wings of a wounded raven. The crystal chandelier overhead glittered his gold suit. He took my lid. He put it on the limb of a mock mother-of-pearl tree.
He said, “Good evening. Follow, please.”
We followed him to the brink of a sunken living room. It was like a Pasha’s passion pit. A green light inside the gurgling bowl of a huge fountain beamed on the vulgar face of a stone woman squatting over it. She was nude and big as a baby elephant. The red light inside her skull blazed, her eyes staring straight ahead. Her giant hands pressed the tips of her long breasts into each corner of her wide open mouth. She was peeing serenely and endlessly into the fountain bowl.
We stepped down to the champagne, oriental carpet. Sweet was sitting across the dim room on a white velour couch. He was wearing a white satin smoking jacket. He looked like a huge black fly in a bucket of milk. Miss Peaches was curled at his side. She was resting her black spotted head on a silk turquoise pillow. Sweet was stroking her back. She purred and locked her yellow eyes on us. I got a whiff of her raw animal odor.
Sweet said, “Sit your black asses down. Sweetheart, you been dangling me. What happened? Did that raggedy nickel Hog break down? So this is your square country nephew?”
Top sat on a couch beside Miss Peaches. I sat in a blue velour chair several yards to the side of Top. Sweet’s gray eyes were flicking up and down me. I was nervous. I grinned at him.
I jerked my eyes away to a large picture on the wall over the couch. A naked white broad was on her hands and knees. A Great Dane with his red tongue lolling out was astraddle her back. He had his paws hooked under her breasts. Her blonde head was turned looking back at him. Her blue eyes were popped wide open.
Top said, “Man, that Hog ain’t no plane. I got here quick as I could. You know I don’t play no games on you, Honey.”
I said, “Thank you, Mr. Jones, for letting me come up with ‘unc.’”
My voice triggered the Roost memory. He stiffened and glared at me. He smashed his hooks together. It sounded like pistol shots. Peaches growled and sneered.
He said, “Ain’t you the little shit ball I chased outta the Roost?”
I said, “Yeah, I’m one and the same. I want to beg your pardon for making you salty that night. Maybe I coulda gotten a pass if I had told you I’m your pal’s nephew. I ain’t got no sense, Mr. Jones. I took after my idiot father.”
Sweet said, “Top, this punk ain’t hopeless. He’s silly as a bitch grinning all the time, but dig how he butters out the con to keep his balls outta the fire. He sure ain’t got no tender dick to turn down my pretty big-ass Mimi. Kid, I love black boys with the urge to pimp. Ain’t no surer way to amount to something. Your uncle ain’t but a good pimp. I’m the greatest in the world. He wired me he’s hoping you’ll fold on this track and split back to the sticks.
“You got one whore he tells me. You could have the makings. This joint is going to be crawling with fast whores in a coupla hours. I’m gonna be pinning you. I’m gonna watch how you handle yourself. Maybe I’m gonna make you my protege. You gotta be icy; understand, Kid, icy, icy? You gotta stop that grinning. Freeze your map and keep it that way. Maybe I’m gonna prove to your half-ass pimp uncle that I can train even a mule to win the Kentucky Derby.”
Top said, “Shit Honey, you didn’t have to tip him. I’m pulling for his split. I love the kid. I just don’t think he can cut the pimp game. The kid raps good. I ain’t denying it. He should be maybe a Murphy player or even a mitt man. His ticker ain’t icy enough to pimp on this track.”
I thought, “Top’s pad is a pigsty compared to this layout. It looks like I’m in.”
Sweet said, “Sweetheart, let’s go in a bedroom and cap up and bag that stuff for those jokers. I’m gonna have old Patch Eye come up here and deal it off. I ain’t no dope peddler. I’m a pimp. Kid, you can cool it. Have the Filipino bring you a taste. If you want get it yourself from the bar over there.”
They went around a hand-painted gold silk screen through a doorway. Peaches padded behind them. I saw a bronze bell on a table beside the couch. I decided to get my own taste. I walked across the room to a turquoise bar. I went behind it. I took a tall crystal glass off the mirrored shelf on the wall. I mixed creme de menthe and bubbly water.
I took my green, cool drink and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling glass door. I slid it open and stepped up into the patio. I looked up; the April zephyrs were balleting the burnt-orange and pale-green Japanese lanterns.
