New York City Noir

by Tim McLoughlin

  “Look, one of them sounds like someone is being choked to death,” she said, flicking an ash of her clove cigarette into a tray on the bar.

  It was homage to an original gangsta, the legendary Nate Ford, he told her. Ford excelled in the “asphixiation of love,” a love/death grip. Ford had learned that by choking a bitch, his hands on her throat, he could involuntary cause her vaginal muscles to firmly grip his dick as he simultaneously exploded into and suffocated her.

  Not even the Marquis de Sade had that one in his arsenal of techniques, Ford was reported to have told a Russian business associate as they sat around one evening laughing over coke and cognac. “Kinky technique,” Code explained. Ford had even shown his Russian guest a video of himself snuffing a young Puerto Rican woman. On the tape, Ford leered into the camera and then, with the brio of ultimate contempt, pulled out and discharged over the dead woman’s body. “Good to the last drop,” Ford then said. This was the sort of video that Code collected.

  “That’s what you want on your debut album?” asked T-Sound. “You want people to see you as a sick, demented fuck?”

  “I don’t care what people think,” snarled Code, his eyes narrowed nearly to slits, mocking an African mask. “I am the last of a dying breed: the last of the bad-ass niggaz. True to form, true to the code: I just want niggaz to buy my music …”

  “And shine your shoes …”

  “Whut?”

  “Skip it,” said T-Sound. She wasn’t going to engage in self-disgust just because of dealing with low-lifes like him. This was a business, and it sometimes became nasty when dealing with nasty people.

  “T-Sound …” he rolled off his tongue.

  “What?” She was looking at a dancer who could have made better money by keeping her clothes on.

  “How’d you lose your eye?”

  “Fighting a nigga who wanted to get some free pussy the hard way,” she coolly replied. “He didn’t understand any part of the word no.” She went into her hand purse and pulled out a matching onyx cigarette case and lighter.

  “Did he get any?”

  “No,” she said, lighting the cigarette. Tanya turned and faced him fully. A shadow fell across her face, the dark patch growing into a partial shroud over one side of her head. “All he got was an eyeball, but his balls got some of this!” She pushed a little black switch upward on the lighter with her thumb, and a gleaming, sharp two-inch blade appeared.

  What Code found menacing wasn’t the blade, but that she was too cool; nothing frazzled her. She was just like him: a deadly nigga. Weeks ago he had walked into the recording studio with his boys, armed, stinking of liquor, and she had thrown out his bodyguards with her even bigger, badder, and bolder bodyguards, niggaz who worked day jobs with the city’s most feared gang, NYPD. He tried to stare her down during a disagreement about one song in which he was going for the soap-soft. After dissing women for ten tracks, he wanted to include some lovey-dovey sop—asking a “girl” if she would love him even if he didn’t have money—after having extolled the sociopathic virtues of getting it by any means necessary on the rest of the recording!

  T-sound had told him: “Look, it is clear to me that even though you enjoy fucking us, you don’t like or have any respect for women. So who are you trying to fool with this track, your mother? Niggaz like you don’t have mothers. You’re the classic son of a bitch, tu sabes?

  She told him this an inch from his face, like a Marine DI to a jarhead, and added: “You gonna be hard, be hard all the way. No half-steppin’. Save that pussy love shit for your second album—if you live that long.”

  Tanya Sonido. She looked like a woman, smelled like a woman, and even dressed like one. She wore the kind of clothes—dresses, suits, or blazers with jeans—that accented a woman’s best features, and she had rounds of features like the military had rounds of ammunition in Iraq. A phat, firm ass that didn’t bust out the seams like other nigga bitchez; voluptuous breasts that hung underneath her shirts in their own right, not assisted by silicone injections. She had nice calves and strong-looking muscles that ran along her thighs, evidence of gym work, and nice definition to her shoulders and biceps. The bitch was built. She was hard like him: ghetto—but she had style and grace, and wasn’t nigga-down 24/7. That was all he could ever be, and he was beginning to suspect that this was limiting.

  T-Sound exhaled some smoke from her nostrils: “Hear that, Code? Hear 50 Cent kickin’ it on the jukebox? That’s the nigga you ought to have a problem with, not me. I’m on your side.” She set down her cigarette and looked at him, her full red lips slightly parted. “Or are you having trouble concentrating?”

  Suddenly it was getting hot. OGs had talked about a special kind of woman that men found hard to beat, hard to resist. The French called them femmes fatales, mysterious women that could do a nigga in if he wasn’t careful. Code realized that his dick was getting hard due to his overpowering lust and fear of her. She could do what no other man or woman had ever been able to do: read him. She knew what he wanted from her, needed from her, and what he could never allow anyone else to do: become close to him. His rules of engagement dictated that he possess no friends, only associates; that he have no real love, only pussy; no family—that had been destroyed years ago.

  But Tanya was different; she took her time with him. She reminded him that despite being shot four times; despite never being convicted of killing two men and exterminating another man and his two children; despite raping or gangbanging a dozen women of various races and nationalities, as well as engaging in numerous hold-ups and burglaries; and despite selling vast quantities of controlled substances, he was just breaking twenty-two. She could be his mentor and get him out of a life that he didn’t mind rapping about, but had worn thin since the last time he was shot. The code dictated that a nigga didn’t last too long.

  But he did have a problem with her, and she had scoped that out earlier.

  “You want to fuck me, right?” prompted T-Sound. She reached over in his direction to get another napkin from a bar dispenser for her drink. “No can do. Someone else has fucking rights to my cunt.”

  “Rhyme?”

  She shook her head. “No, we’re partners. My wet-box is saved for someone else … but you can either fuck my ass or come in my mouth. Two out of three ain’t bad, is it?”

  T-Sound, looking at her watch and announcing an impending meeting, told him that if he wanted to do it, it had to be now, in the piss-smelling, HIV-potential men’s room of Club Prospect. “And you better get that tongue of yours good and moist, because you’re going to stick it up my ass before you stick your third leg in me. See you in a few minutes, chocolate.” She slid off her seat and grabbed a handful of him at his below-the-belt area. “Hmmm, I’m gonna like this entering my back door. She slipped into the men’s room, making sure the video camera would capture them at the right angle.

  Code went to work on his tongue. Water, followed by orange and grapefruit juice, and then some club soda with a twist of lime. He purchased a few sample bottles of one of those new-fangled sweet-tasting cognacs that all the niggaz had been singing about and promoting over the airwaves and in intellectually deficient shop-and-fuck magazines. He was going to drink them out of her ass-crack. Armed with them in the side-pockets of his urban fatigues, Code pulled out his notebook and jotted down a few pre-coital lines:

  Now what does a nigga

  Have to think about

  When a goddamn nasty bitch

  Offers her ass or her mouth!

  * * *

  The Prospect Place Ladies’ Auxiliary liked what they saw. They saw fine-looking black meat inching in and out of an even finer, perspiration-coated posterior—Tanya’s. The audio portion was still better, with Tanya saying all kinds of nasty things Español, and the preferred exclamations in Niggaese about bitch this and bitch that

  “Believe me, girls, this boy can barely read,” confirmed Tanya, “but he knows how to work a woman’s ass.”

  The women ca
ckled and hooted when Tanya told them that she had emptied him three times, enjoying the feel of his warm spunk oozing down her legs as she left him nearly drained on the john at Club Prospect.

  “Watch this, ladies,” she said, directing their attention back to the TV/video monitor. The tape showed a limp but massive black snake slowly retreating from Tanya’s rear.

  “Mon Dieu, that boy is hung!” said Francesca, an Afro-Francophone from Paris. “But can he eat?”

  “He can be trained,” Tanya commented with an authoritative crack of her crop against her boots. “Any man can be trained under the proper regimen.”

  “What’s the word on the bidding?” asked Janette.

  “It’s starting at a million,” replied Tanya.

  “What?” said another woman, Carmen. “Why so much?”

  “Because your GOP friends in the Log Cabin Society and several of the Sons of the Confederacy want a raw nigga as much as some of you do,” Tanya explained, “and when The Code is released and he suddenly disappears, he’ll be a collector’s item.”

  “No wonder they call it the Log Cabin Society,” quipped Dominique.

  “I heard that even a few Saudi princes are taking a bid on him,” commented Francesca. “Non?”

  “Oui,” affirmed Tanya. “Raw niggaz are the rage; hip hop has advertised that.”

  The women assembled at Tanya’s Prospect Heights brownstone, the crème of nouveau black womanhood, were wealthy. Businesswomen, achievers, well-known role models, church-going hot moms—they had all acquired a taste for supine men, especially hard-co’ raw niggaz. Over the years, certain people had tried to eradicate the scourge of what some called gangsta rap, but had been less than successful. While others had managed to assassinate some well-known acts and perpetuate the myth that their deaths had been the result of incessant male-ego feuding, Tanya had been developing the art of “slutting,” turning street niggaz into cunt-lapping dawgz.

  There was no better example of her handiwork than “Juliette,” a corseted, black-fishnet-wearing, muscular servant whose pecs had been tagged with the emblems of his gang-banging days. Jam-Bone Jones had been lured to Tanya’s basement months ago. She could always pick the sluts by their inordinate fear of “faggots.” These young ghetto bucks were obsessed with homosexuals and treacherous black women—people who had to be either exterminated or kept down. She could always tell which ones could be flipped. In her mind, Code was no different. Soon after showing him that her ass-muscles could squeeze him into a climax, she knew she had him hooked. She had even encouraged him to include the piece he had written about their toilet tryst, “Slutz and Dawgz,” on The Code That way, she thought, his mind would always be on her and what she could do for him—and him.

  After a long day at the studio, where she had castigated him for lame delivery, she had him stay behind for some vocal-relaxation exercises: She blew him. But she wouldn’t allow him to speak or come near her without a withering comment or a comparison to 50 or Nas or Jay-Z, or the ultimate insult, Eminem. (“That cracker makes niggaz like you look counterfeit!” she told him after a flaccid flow.)

  Jam-Bone Jones had been the same. He excoriated faggots but wasn’t beyond sucking off a vivacious she-male like Dominique, and he was definitely surprised that T-Sound had a little something extra.

  “What’s the plan?” asked Darlene, while testing Juliette’s serving etiquette. As the newly minted slut poured tea, Darlene grabbed “her” dangling meat and Juliette didn’t even flinch. How could she with her exacting cycloptric mistress watching her every move, ready to punish her with the severe sting of a silver-tipped riding crop. Tanya looked every bit the bitch goddess; she wore a white linen shirt, jodhpur breeches, and knee-high riding boots.

  “Well,” said Tanya measuredly, “I thought I would appeal to his masculine nature and tell him that a bunch of hot bitches—you all—wanted to meet him. This will be the night of the CD release party at Club Prospect. He’ll be high and ready … and hot. ¡Muy caliente!”

  * * *

  You got it! You got it!

  You know you got it

  When you see me

  Gunnin’ for yo’ ass!

  Blocks of motherfuckahs be running my way

  Niggaz be gone when they see my 47/AK

  Taking my time, drinking my wine

  Shot another nigga couldn’t tell time

  Back at da crib, laying back,

  Had a bitch suck my dick

  She drown when I didn’t hold back

  You got it! You got it!

  You know you got it

  When you see me

  Gunnin’ for yo’ ass!

  —“Gunnin’ for Yo’ Ass”

  The Source, Vibe, XXL, Murder Dawg Review, Rolling Stone, SPIN and even one commentator on National Public Radio proclaimed the era of The Code “The most vicious piece of misogynistic and anti-gay pornography ever produced by the team of Dr. Rhyme and T-Sound,” wrote a reviewer—and she liked it.

  “What’s not to like/I’m a powerful motherfuckah when I’m on the mike,” rapped Code as he walked the length of the bar at Club Prospect. The joint was jammed and nigga deep; the ’hood had turned out to see one of their own, who had gone platinum before the CD was even released.

  “King Kong with a powerful ding-dong!!!” he roared, thumping his chest, grabbing his meat. “Give me cash! I’m a ho’ too! You got it! You got it! I want it!” And they gave it to him—small green piles of dollar bills formed at his feet. Code tore off his shirt, used it to mop his face and chest, and thew it to his fans. Half-naked, his ripped musculature was coated in a thin sweat; he had the aura of a champion boxer, a new jack Muhammad Ali. As a matter of fact, he was thinking about calling himself that, toying with naming his next album Jihad Real Niggaz Die. He took in the adulation and the sullen stares of the wanna-be players, confident that he could whack any one of them as he jumped off the bar with his hands on his heater. A real nigga, he thought, was always ready to die. That’s why the likes of Eminem and the legion of other pallid wanna-bes were counterfeit; they weren’t going to die like real niggaz.

  Rhyme sat in a special VIP section of Club Prospect, a cushioned alcove that rose above the floor and allowed him to peer down at an elevated angle at the masses. Code was making his way through the crowd, toward the club’s door. Code’s executive producer made a phone call: All was ready. The place was stinkin’ on a midsummer night and management hadn’t fixed the air conditioner. Everything was set. Tanya had left and waited outside. It was 9 p.m. and a crowd was still waiting to get in to see “King” Code.

  With a phone to her ear, Tanya leaned against a car and took in a sultry summer breeze, an amazing relief after experiencing the sweatbox that passed for a club.

  “T-Sound!”

  Tanya, flipping down the cover of her c-phone, turned and saw him. He looked magnificent; the moonlight made his dark skin glisten. He was manly beautiful, gorgeous, and she was going to break him.

  “The party is in there,” he said, pointing back to the club.

  “Nigga, are you high?” she asked.

  “I’m always high when I’m with yo’ fine ass.”

  Before he could say another word, she embraced him and burned his lips with an infinite kiss, brushing a thumb against an exposed nipple on his chest.

  “Goddamn …” he said, catching his breath. “You can bring a nigga down with that.”

  “I want you to meet some people, Code,” she said softly. “I’m having a special celebration at my place …”

  “Naw, I got my peeps, my crew back there, and …”

  “… and then you can fuck me, really fuck me …”

  Code looked at her. “We’re talkin’ pussy, right?”

  “All that you can eat, nigga …”

  “I’m way down for that.”

  “What about your peeps?”

  “Fuck ’em!”

  They wouldn’t even have to take a car. Her place was only a few blocks awa
y and they walked over hand-in-hand, crossing Washington Avenue, passing the stores he had once robbed, the owners he had brutalized because they didn’t move fast enough or didn’t have enough cash on hand. Code was excited. Things were finally coming together, coming his way. He could now get off the streets and do new things, like take the time to think about what was going on. No nigga had the time to think in the ’hood; it was all about survivin’. He had crawled, inched, shot, knifed, and fucked his way to this moment with this incredible woman.

  When they turned onto Prospect Place, their pace slowed. A swarm of emotions swelled up in him; Code was feeling something that he had never known existed.

  “Yo, I got to tell you something,” he said, stopping at the ground floor entrance that led to her playroom and dungeon. She had a series of reinforced restraints ready for him.

  “What?” she replied, as she unlocked the door; she felt that he sensed what was about to transpire.

  “I … I …” he grappled. “Shit …”

  “What’s wrong, baby?” solicited Tanya, caressing his face. He was so handsome, she thought. So beautiful, but deadly.

  “I’ve never been in love before,” he answered, looking at her with open and inviting eyes, no longer, at least at this moment, suspicious slits of mayhem.

  Warmly murmuring a response, Tanya thought that this was indeed a very nasty business, but peered at him intensely and pressed him against the door, then knelt down. All that could be heard was the un-zipping of his trousers; all that he felt was her warm and experienced mouth, and the joy of repetition that her tongue offered. After she voraciously milked him, Code was changed. He was left feeling woozy, as if he been spiked, Vanessa Del Rio’d. Slowly, he opened the door and entered the basement that was blasting his music, the sound of the hip hop generation. It was young men like him who had dethroned a previous generation and ushered in the reign of the new HNIC, a reign in which authentication meant death.