There was a giant black pimp from the Apple. He had three of his whores with him. He had been boasting about how he had his swipe trained. He was one of the three at the party that didn’t bang stuff. I had watched him snort girl and down a few mixed drinks. He had a glass in his hand standing over Sweet and Top on the couch.
He said, “Sweet, ain’t a bitch living can pop me off unless I want her to. I don’t care if she’s got velvet suction cups in her cat. Her jib can have a college degree, she ain’t gonna make me pop against my will. I got the toughest swipe in the world. I got a C note to back my crack.”
Sweet said, “Sucker, I got a young bitch I turned out six months ago that could blow that tender sucker swipe of yours in five minutes. I ain’t going to teach you no lesson for a measly C note. If that C note ain’t all you got, put five bills in Top’s mitt and you got a bet.”
The big joker snatched a roll from his side pocket. He plunked five C notes into Top’s palm. Sweet eased a bale of C notes from the pocket of his smoking jacket. He covered the bet in Top’s hand.
Sweet snapped his fingers. The beautiful yellow broad kneeled before the standing giant. She started to perform before the cheering audience. Within less than three minutes she had won the bet for Sweet.
The big joker stood there for a long moment with his eyes closed. He had a goofy grin on his face. One of his whores snickered. He slapped her hard against the jaw. He went to the bar.
I thought, “She sure has a head for business. Pepper was great, but she couldn’t hold this broad’s douche bag.”
I got up and went behind the Chinese screen through the door. I went down a long hall. I passed three way- out bedrooms. I went into a mirrored john. It was as big as a bedroom. I pushed the door shut. I should have locked it.
I walked to the stool. I raised the lid. That tough bitch Red Cora darted in. She was licking out her red tongue. Her gray eyes were voodooing in her skull. She was hot as hell for my relative innocence and youth. She was a double murderess with a skull load of H and a hot jib.
I stood there before the deadly bitch. I searched the thin catalogue in my skull. I didn’t know the right crack for a situation like this. I mumbled a plaintive pitch.
I said, “Now listen girl, you haven’t given me a nickel. I’m not your man.”
It was like trying to stand off a starving leopard with a broom straw. She snaked that shiv out of her bosom and popped the gleaming blade open. She clawed my fly open with the other hand. I heard buttons bounce on the tile floor. My ticker was doing a fox trot.
She said, “You jiving pretty sonuvabitch. You ain’t no pimp. I’m gonna eat your sweat ass up or chop off your dick.”
I backed up to the wall beside the stool. I could feel the wet throbbing tips of my fingers against the cool tile. She was grabbing inside when Sweet bulled in. He seized a fistful of her long hair. She squealed in pain. He jerked her away from me toward the door. He cussed her as he drove his needle-toed shoe into her wide caboose several times.
He said, “Bull-shit bitch, this chump is in my school. I ain’t gonna let you Georgia him. Now nix, bitch, nix.”
I heard her high heels staccato against the tile as she fled. He turned toward me. His black face was gray with fury. Maybe Sweet would forget I wasn’t yellow. I remembered what Top had told me about those four murders.
He thrust his flat black nose against mine. I could feel a spray of spit strike my lips as he cursed me. He twisted the collar of my vine like a garrote around my throat. He had snatched me six feet from the wall.
He shouted, “Listen you stupid little motherfucker. You know why that bitch screwed you around? You always grinning like a Cheshire Cat. What’s funny? Can’t I get the sucker outta you? I can’t make a pimp outta a pussy like you.
“I told you once, do I have to tell you a thousand times? Greenass Nigger, to be a good pimp, you gotta be icy, cold like the inside of a dead-whore’s pussy. Now if you a bitch, a sissy, or something let me know. I’ll put you in drag and you can whore for me. Stay outta my face Nigger, until you freeze up and stop that sucker grinning.”
I heard his ground grippers skid against the floor as he hurled me against the wall. The back of my skull torpedoed into it. Through a drowsy fog of pain I saw him float away.
My back snailed down the wall. I laughed at the funny way the shoe tips turned in as the long legs glided across the tile. I sat there on the cool floor gazing at the weird comical legs stretched out before me.
I saw a pair of blue mohair legs right angle the flat ones. I looked up. It was Top. He bent over to help me up.
He said, “Kid, now you believe the ugly bastard is insane? Take this key to my Hog. Get it outta the lot in back. Park in the block and cool it. I’m getting outta here myself as soon as I cop my end of the smack scratch.”
I riveted my eyes to the champagne carpet. I zigzagged through the snickering whores and pimps. I made it across the pit to the elevator. The Filipino was standing beside it. He was pressing the down button.
He looked like a friendly brown snake sausaged in gold foil. He reached up and stroked my jacket collar down flat from around my ears. He took my lid off the pearl tree. He stuck it on my skull and snapped the brim. I felt the sweat band needle the aching boil. I adjusted my lid.
He said, “Good night, Sir. Sammee hopes you had fine time.”
I said, “Sammee pal, it’s been a wild night. I’ll never forget it.”
I got a whiff of crotch as the elevator plunged to the lobby. I wondered if the pretty brown-skin jockey whored a little bit as a sideline.
I stepped out of the gilded cage into the lobby. I saw a winking red-arrowed sign in the rear. I walked to the glass door below it. I went down the white stone steps to the parking lot.
I spotted Top’s red Hog in the ocean of cars. I went to it, unlocked it and got in. A big white Buick was parked in front of it. A grinning brown-skin joker in white overalls came toward the Buick.
I saw Smitty blue-stitched across his breast pocket. He pulled the Buick out. I keyed the Hog and scooted it out of the lot. I whipped around the corner and coasted to the curb fifty feet from the entrance of Sweet’s apartment building.
I shut the motor off. I lowered the driver’s side window. I put my lid on the seat. I threw my head back on the top of the seat. I closed my eyes. I dozed. Something was crushing my jaw. A blinding spotlight burned into my eyeballs. I heard a fog-horn voice.
It blasted, “Police officers! Nigger, what the hell you doing. What’s your name? Show us your identification.”
I couldn’t answer with my jaw crushed in a vise. I was dazed. I lowered my eyes below the inferno of light. I saw a white brutish wrist. Thick black hair bristled on it. I saw muscles cord and ripple across it as the vise tightened around my jawbone. I wondered if the copper was Satan and I had croaked in the Hog and was being checked into Hell. Hell or not, Satan wanted identification. I remembered the Fox and the Horse. I didn’t even have a hide.
Satan swung the Hog door open. The door frame blackjacked the top of my skull as Satan yanked me from the Hog. He released my jaw and slammed me across the hood of the Hog. My wet palms skidded on the top of it.
Satan’s fellow demon was punch-frisking me from breast to shoe soles. He poked an index finger inside my shoe. I felt a tickle in the arch of my instep.
I said, “My name is Albert Thomas. Hell, I wasn’t doing anything officers. I was just waiting for my uncle. I lost my wal—.”
I didn’t finish. A galaxy of shooting stars orbited my skull. It was like a flame-hot poker was imbedded in that sore bump at the back of my skull.
I heard the tinkle of glass against the hood. I puked and nosedived to the hood. I felt the warm stinking mess against my cheek as I lay across the hood gasping.
Glass splinters sparkled on the hood. Satan had slugged his flashlight against my skull. I saw the fellow demon’s shadow bobbing inside the hog. He was frisking it, too.
Satan said, “Nigger, you got a sheet downtown? Whatta you do for a living?”
I whispered, “I’ve never been in trouble. I’m an entertainer. I’m a dancer.”
