'And a grand from the college boys here.'
The preppies are flattered that she thinks they'-re from Princeton or Yale instead of some shiny little boys' school in Vermont or wherever the fuck. But the thousand-dollar tab sticks in their craw, she can see that, so she says at once, 'Though you're all so cute, I might do it for nine.'
One of the preppies she later learns they're all named Richard, this is going to be some kind of confusing gang bang immediately says, 'Make it eight,' but she knows he's just trying to sound like his banker father in Michigan or wherever, so she says, 'I can't do it for less than nine. Hey, you're all real cute, but...'
'How about eight-fifty?' one of the other Richards 'asks.
'It has to be nine or I'm out of here,' she says. She does not know, at that juncture in time, she walks right this minute, she will still be al fifty-one minutes from now. She does not begin realize she's in serious danger until it is almost late, when things begin getting out of hand. This much later. Right now, they are haggling over and if she walks she still has a shot at survival. boys go into a kind of a football huddle she learns they're all stars on their school's team come clapping out of it, big financial over, big white Ps on the back of their parkas, and one of them says, 'Will you accept traveler's check, Richard busts out laughing. Laughing as Yolande says, 'Done deal.'
She has done three-ways before and in fact enjoyed some of them, especially when it's two and a guy. With most of the girls you fake it, you know, you make a lot of lapping, slurping sounds, you moan Oh yeah, honey, do it, while nobody's anything to anybody. But the john gets all thinking he's got two hot lezzies here really getting off. With some girls in a three-way, though, you're really doing what the john thinks you're doing, and can be quite enjoyable, really, all that tongue because another girl knows just where the target is, knows just which buttons to push, so yeah it can be really really good.
Two guys and a girl, you kind of lose control. that they get all macho on you, one of them fucking you from behind while you're blowing the other one and they start saying, You love it, don't you, cunt?
It gets degrading when there are two guys flexing, their muscles and trying to prove how big their cocks are. It's not that she thinks she's a princess or anything, she knows what she does for a living, she knows she's a fucking whore, I mean, she knows that. It's just that when there are two guys, she really begins to feel used, you know, she really begins to feel they have no respect at all for her, and she comes away with a dirty feeling afterward, no matter how much she tells herself she was detached the whole time. It's that they used her, is all. They flat out used her.
So now, here in Richard's pad where she remembers coming to a party once with Jamal when the two of them were first starting out in business together, dealing pot to kindergarten kids, that's a
:. joke, son, they never went near any of the schools, you think they're crazy? Can remember coming to a party here, but not this kind of party with three white preppies and a black guy has a shlong the size of a python. The only black guy she does it with is Jamal and that's because he takes care of her and she loves him. She knows how big black guys can be, and she gets sore even after she does it with Jamal, which is not too frequently because business is business and never the twain shall meet.
Anyway, what she shares with Jamal transcends mere sex, he was the one took her under his wing when she got off the bus from Cleveland, he's the one makes sure nobody hurts her. Anybody gets funny with her, she tells Jamal about it and he breaks the guy's legs. Besides, Jamal is regularly fuckin this other girl he takes care of,: whose name is Carlyle, which Jamal
gave her. Carlyle is black and very beautiful,
can understand the attraction. Occasionally they three-ways together. Jamal Stone and Carlyle
(which he also gave her) and Marie St. Claire
Sometimes Yolande wonders how she ever got into this stuff, boy. But listen, what the hell.
She is wondering now how she got into this tonight when she's so goddamn bone-weary, but ,
course nine bills is nine bills, not to mention the jumbos, which are worth a cool hundred and
Plus, the preppies are sharing their stash with everybody beaming up to the Enterprise on the nickel, until they're all sitting stoned in their underwear and grinning at each other, Jesus the shlong on Richard, the black Richard, which is she discovers they're all four of them named Richard how cute. Richard the black Richard is standin front of her now and idly gliding the head of his dick over her lips, while a preppie on either side
is grabbing a tit and the third preppie is watching jerking off in preparation.
'
So far, no one has called her cunt or bitch.
Or cocksucker is a favorite, too.
Later, she will wonder how this got so out of hand. Nobody seemed to know where Jose Santiago was.
This was now six-forty in the morning. His mother didn't know, none of his friends knew, the guy at the counter at the local hangout hamburger joint didn't know, nobody knew, the whole neighborhood suddenly gone deaf, dumb, and blind. The police
took this to mean that everybody knew where Santiago was, but you are The Man, man, and nobody going to tell you, AEEsave for
a faint hint of mom gloam only seemed to touch the sky. It was still thirty-five minutes till dawn, the night refused to yield. The bleak January morning was still flat, dull and dark, but there was activity in the streets right now. Even on a Sunday, there was work to be done in this city, and early risers were beginning to move sluggishly toward the subways and the bus stops,
passing revelers and predators who were just now heading home to bed. The homeless, sensing dawn, anticipating the safety that would come with full light, were already crawling back into their cardboard boxes.
Outside a candy store on the corner of Santiago's block, a man was carrying in a tied bundle of newspapers. He was still wearing his overcoat and earmuffs. The scalloped edge of the furled green awning over the front of the store read:, HErnandez VARIETY- NEWSPAPERS LOTTERY-COFFEE. They assumed he was Hernandez himself; there was a bustling air of ownership about him. The store lights beckoned warmly behind him. Coffee sounded pretty good just about now.
'Cops, right?' Hernandez asked the moment they stepped inside.
'Right,' Hawes said.
'How did I know, right?'
Not a trace of an accent. Hawes figured him for a third-generation Puerto Rican, grandfather probably came over on the Marine Tiger with the first wave of
immigrants from the island. Probably had kids at college.
'How did you know?' he asked. Hernandez shrugged as if to indicate he wasted valuable time answering such a ridicuh question. He had still not taken off the overcoat and earmuffs. The store was cold. The entire universe cold this morning. Ignoring them, he busied himself cutting the cords around the newspaper bundles. big headline on the morning tabloid read:
PIANIST
SLAIN
On the so-called quality paper, big headlines reserved for acts of war or national disaster. smaller headline over a boxed article in the right corner of the front page read:
VIRTUOSO MURDERED
SVETLANA
DYALOVICH VICTIM OF
SHOOTING
Easy come, easy go.
'You serving coffee yet?' Carella asked. 'Should be ready in a few minutes.'
'Know anybody named Jose Santiago?' asked.
What the hell, they'd already asked everyone else the neighborhood. He looked to Carella for
Carella was watching the hot plate on a narrow shelf behind the counter. Brewing coffee dripped into the pot. The aroma was almost too much. 'Why, what'd he do?' Hernandez asked. 'Nothing. We just want to talk to him.'
Hernandez shrugged again. The shrug said that this also too ridiculous even to acknowledge. 'Do you know him?' Hawes persisted.
'He comes in here,' Hernandez admitted offhandedly. 'Know where he is right now?' 'No, where?'
