why.
“You mean, polishing some
Ricky got a Guinness. He really didn’t like it but T.G. had once said that that and whiskey were the only things real men drank. And, since it was called stout, he figured it would make him fatter. All his life, trying to get bigger. Never succeeding.
Ricky sat down at the table, which was scarred with knife slashes and skid marks from cigarette burns. He nodded to T.G.’s crew, a half dozen losers who sorta worked the trades, sorta worked the warehouses, sorta hung out. One was so drunk he couldn’t focus and kept trying to tell a joke, forgetting it halfway through. Ricky hoped the guy wouldn’t puke before he made it to the john, like yesterday.
T.G. was rambling on, insulting some of the people at the table in his cheerful-mean way and threatening guys who weren’t here.
Ricky just sat at the table, eating peanuts and sucking down his licorice-flavored stout, and took the insults when they were aimed at him. Mostly he was thinking about Gardino and the boats.
T.G. rubbed his round, craggy face and his curly red-brown hair. He spat out, “And, fuck me, the nigger got away.”
Ricky was wondering which nigger? He thought he’d been paying attention, but sometimes T.G.’s train of thought took its own route and left you behind.
He could see T.G. was upset, though, and so Ricky muttered a sympathetic “That asshole.”
“Man, I see him, I will take that cocksucker out so fast.” He clapped his palms together in a loud slap that made a couple of the crew blink. The drunk one stood up and staggered toward the men’s room. Looked like he was going to make it this time.
“He been around?” Ricky asked.
T.G. snapped, “His black ass’s up in Buffalo. I just told you that. The fuck you asking if he’s here?”
“No, I don’t mean here,” Ricky said fast. “I mean, you know,
“Oh, yeah,” T.G. said, nodding, as if he caught some other meaning. “Sure. But that don’t help me any. I see him, he’s one dead nigger.”
“Buffalo,” Ricky said, shaking his head. “Christ.” He tried to listen more carefully, but what mostly he was thinking about was the boat scam. Yeah, that Gardino’d come up with a good one. And man, making a hundred thousand in a single grift (he and T.G.’d never come close to that before).
Ricky shook his head again. He sighed. “Got half a mind to go to Buffalo and take his black ass out myself.”
“You the man, Lime Ricky. You the fucking man.” And T.G. started rambling once again.
Nodding, staring at T.G.’s not-drunk, not-sober eyes, Ricky was wondering: How much would it take to get the fuck out of Hell’s Kitchen? Get away from the bitching ex-wives, the bratty kid, away from T.G. and all the asshole losers like him. Maybe go to Florida, where Gardino was from. Maybe that’d be the place for him. From the various scams he and T.G. put together, he’d saved up about thirty thousand in cash. Nothing shabby there. But, man, if he conned just two or three guys in the boat deal, he could walk away with five times that.
Wouldn’t set him for good, but it’d be a start. Hell, Florida was full of rich, old people, most of ’em stupid, just waiting to give their money to a player had the right grift.
A fist colliding with his arm shattered the daydream. He bit the inside of his cheek and winced. He glared at T.G., who just laughed. “So, Lime Ricky, you going to Leon’s, ain’t you? On Saturday.”
“I don’t know.”
The door swung open and some out-of-towner wandered in. An older guy, in his fifties, dressed in beltless tan slacks, a white shirt and a blue blazer, a cord around his neck holding a convention badge, AOFM, whatever that was.
Association of… Ricky squinted. Association of Obese Ferret Molesters.
He laughed at his own joke. Nobody noticed. Ricky eyed the tourist. This never used to happen, seeing geeks in a bar around here. But then the convention center went in a few blocks south and, after that, Times Square got its balls cut off and turned into Disneyland. Suddenly Hell’s Kitchen was White Plains and Paramus, and the fucking yuppies and tourists took over.
The man blinked, eyes getting used to the dark. He ordered wine — T.G. snickered, wine in this place? — and drank down half right away. The guy had to’ve had money. He was wearing a Rolex and his clothes were designer shit. The man looked around slowly, and it reminded Ricky sort of the way people at the zoo look at the animals. He got pissed and enjoyed a brief fantasy of dragging the guy’s ass outside and pounding him till he gave up the watch and wallet.
But, of course, he wouldn’t. T.G. and Ricky weren’t that way; they steered clear of busting heads. Oh, a few times somebody got fucked up bad — they’d pounded a college kid when he’d taken a swing at T.G. during a scam, and Ricky’d slashed the face of some spic who’d skimmed a thousand bucks of their money. But the rule wasn’t you didn’t make people bleed if you could avoid it. If a mark lost only money, a lot of times he’d keep quiet about it, rather than go public and look like a fucking idiot. But if they got hurt, more times than not he’d go to the cops.
“You with me, Lime Ricky?” T.G. snapped “You’re off in your own fucking world.”
“Just thinking.”
“Ah, thinking. Good. He’s thinking. ’Bout your altar bitch?”
Ricky mimicked jerking off. Putting himself down again. Wondered why he did that. He glanced at the tourist again. The man was whispering to the bartender, who caught Ricky’s eye and lifted his head. Ricky pushed back from T.G.’s table and walked to the bar, his boots making loud clonks on the wooden floor.
“Whassup?”
“This guy’s from out of town.”
The tourist looked at Ricky once then down at the floor.
“No shit.” Ricky rolled his eyes at the bartender.
“Iowa,” the man said.
Where the fuck was Iowa? Ricky’d come close to finishing high school and had done okay in some subjects but geography had bored him crazy and he never paid any attention in class.
The bartender said, “He was telling me he’s in town for a conference at Javits.”
Him and the ferret molesters…
“And…” the bartender’s voice faded as he glanced at the tourist. “Well, why don’t
The man took another gulp of his wine. Ricky looked at his hand. Not only a Rolex, but a gold pinkie ring with a big honking diamond in it.
“Yeah, why don’t you tell me?”
The tourist did — in a halting whisper.
Ricky listened to his words. When the old guy was through, Ricky smiled and said, “This is your lucky day, mister.”
Thinking: Mine too.
A half hour later, Ricky and the tourist from Iowa were standing in the grimy lobby of the Bradford Arms, next to a warehouse at Eleventh Avenue and Fiftieth Street.
Ricky was making introductions. “This’s Darla.”
“Hello, Darla.”
A gold tooth shone like a star out of Darla’s big smile. “How you doing, honey? What’s yo’ name?”
“Uhm, Jack.”
Ricky sensed he’d nearly made up “John” instead, which would’ve been pretty funny, under the circumstances.
“Nice to meet you, Jack.” Darla, whose real name was Sha’quette Greeley, was six feet tall, beautiful and built like a runway model. She’d also been a man until three years ago. The tourist from Iowa didn’t catch on to this, or maybe he did and it turned him on. Anyway, his gaze was lapping her body like a tongue.
Jack checked them in, paying for three hours in advance.
Three hours? thought Ricky. An old fart like this? God bless him.
