She said, “Mommy’s pretty black panther don’t run away now. I’m going downstairs and make coffee.”
She went down the stairs.
I thought, “I’m gonna crack on her for scratch. She should be good for a C note at least. A C note ain’t bad to break the ice with. If she springs for it, I’ll tie her to that bed and put my Pepper-specialty on her. It’s certain to flip a young broad like her who’s lived in Heaven all her life! Besides, I ain’t never sloughed around in a bed with a canopy. Especially one in Heaven.”
I heard the faint bounce of her tiny feet on the stairway. She came into the bedroom with a silver service. We were going to have coffee in style. She set the gleaming tray on the dressing-table top.
She said, “Blood, pour us a cup. I’m going to get out of these clothes. Then we can chat.”
I poured two and left them black. I sipped mine. She stepped into a walk-in closet. She stepped out a moment later. All she had on were black panties and the red top of a transparent shortie nightgown. Her small, but sculptured bosom straight-jutted against the red gauze. She sat on the foot of the bed facing me and crossed her legs. I handed her the cup of black.
She said, “So, you’re going to stay in town for a while?”
I said, “Baby, if I get strong enough encouragement I’ll stay all my life. Baby, it’s a pity I had to meet you when I’m in bad shape. I want to be good company, but that car problem and Mama won’t let my mind stay on a pleasant track.”
Her ringers snapped “eureka.”
She got off the bed and went to the dresser across the room. She opened the top drawer and took out a bankbook. She came back and sat on the bed. She tapped the red nail of her left index finger against her white teeth. She studied the book’s figures. I saw a frown hedgerow her brow. She got up and went to the dresser and threw the book into the open drawer and banged it shut.
I thought, “This broad has over-drawn. She’s gonna try the check con on me.”
She stooped and opened the bottom drawer. She brought out a foot-long, foot-tall metal pig. She walked to the dressing table and put the porker on the table beside me.
She said, “Blood, this is the best I can do to help you now. I don’t get my allowance for a week. I have less than a hundred dollars in my account. Cheer up, there must be at least a hundred dollars in quarters and halves in this bank. Believe me, I can vividly imagine what it’s like to be colored and faced with your problems. Let’s say it’s a loan.”
I hefted the poker for a moment to check its gross weight. It was heavy all right. It felt a C note heavy. I reached out and took her hand. I guided her to my side on the chaise. I put my arms around her. I kissed her and sucked at that sugary tongue like a suicidal diabetic. I leaned back from her. I looked into the heart of the blue fire.
I said, “Baby, it’s a wonderful secret that you’ve discovered. Not many people know it’s better to give than to receive. Maybe it sounds crazy, but I wish you weren’t so beautiful and generous, so perfect. I don’t see how you can miss capturing my foolish heart. You’re a cinch to make me yours forever. Baby, I’m just a poor black country boy. Please don’t hurt my heart.”
She sure had an appetite for the Jeff con. The blue fire softened. Her eyes were misty and serious. She held my head between her dove-soft palms.
She said, “Blood baby, I’m white, but I have been more unhappy than any black person all my life. My parents have never understood me. When my whole being cried out for love and understanding, they gave me shiny things to stop my tears.
“Non-whites are like dirt to them. They are narrow and cold. If they found out you had been here they would disown me before they dropped dead. There’s a sweet warmth that you have. I know that you can make me happy. I am so desperate for love and understanding. Please give it to me.”
I said, “Baby, you can dump all your money on the black horse to win. I’m gonna win ’em all for you, beautiful.”
She said, “Blood, you’re a black panther; I’m a white lamb. I know nothing can stop that panther from taking the lamb, soul and body. The lamb will bide her time to take the panther. The lamb needs and wants it that way. Now listen carefully and please catch the clue of my tragedy so nothing will shock you in my bed.
“Blood, perhaps you are aware of the structural flaws built into the columns of the world’s most famous building. It’s the Parthenon. The flaw is called entasis. This contrived flaw is necessary so that the fickle human eye sees only perfection. I am a lot like those columns. I am not old, but I am beautiful. My tragedy is that unlike the entasis that gives perfection to the columns, my entasis must be concealed to protect my perfection. Can you understand?”
I thought, “What the hell, so this broad’s got a prematurely-gray cat. Maybe it’s a little off-center. If it’s odd it will be a novelty kick for me. She’s so beautiful the tricks won’t notice a tiny irregularity after I’ve turned her out.”
I said, “Baby Melody, you haven’t opened the door to a square. As fine as you are I wish you had two heads. Now get on that bed on your back. I’m gonna make love to you black panther style. You got some long towels?”
She went to the hall linen closet. She gave me four long slender ones. She slipped off the red top and panties. She lay on her back in bed. I saw her flaw. Was this her entasis? I saw no crotch hair. She looked completely bald downstairs. I tied both her legs to the posts at the foot of the bed. I tied her left arm to a post at the head. The phone jangled on a nightstand at her side. She picked up the receiver with her free right hand.
She said, “Hi Mother, I’m fine. Are you and Dad still having fun? Mother, I miss you both so terribly. Are you coming home tomorrow as planned? Oh good, I’ll be at the airport on time. I’ve gone to bed. I’ve gotten out that ‘Anthology of Africa.’ I’m going to have a wild time researching the Watusi Warrior. Good night, Mother. Oh, tell Dad to bring me some of that heavenly Miami beach wear. I’ll be a sensation here on the beach this summer.”
I had taken my clothes off when she hung up. I lashed her free arm to the fourth bedpost. I looked down at her. Her eyes were pleading.
She said, “Remember Blood darling, you are not an unsophisticated bumpkin. You are not prone to shock states. I know you are going to find my entasis as sweet and desirable as the rest of me.”
I wondered why she still worried about her entasis. She knew I saw she was hairless downstairs. I put my knee on the bed. I stroked her belly. I felt cloth. I took a close look. A custom flesh-colored jock belt bandied her crotch. I ripped the elastic top down over her round hips. I jumped back. My rear end bounced on the floor. I struggled to my feet.
I shouted, “You stinking sissy sonuvabitch!”
His real entasis had popped up pink and stiff. It was a foot long and as thick as the head of a cobra.
He was crying like I had put a lighted match to his entasis.
He sobbed, “You promised to understand. Please, Blood, keep your promise. You don’t know what you’re missing. It’s delicious you fool.”
I said, “Look man, I made my promises to a broad, not a stud. I’m a pimp, not a faggot. I’m getting the hell out of here. I’m charging you the porker for my time and your bullshit.”
He lay there blubbering. I speed dressed. I took the porker off the table and stuck it under my arm. I walked toward the stairway. I looked back. His beautiful face was ugly in anger and hate.
He screamed, “You dirty Nigger liar, thief! Untie me you Coon Bastard! Oh, how I wish I had your black ass tied here on your belly!”
I said, “Man, as slick as you are you’ll untie yourself before long. Yeah, that entasis could murder me all right.”
I walked down the stairway. I went through the house to the back door. I walked down the driveway to the street. I walked for an hour before I got out of the residential sprawl. I was lucky to hail a Yellow Cab as soon as I got to a busy intersection.
When it got me to the Haven, the meter read fourteen-thirty. I gave t
he cabbie a fin and a saw buck. I looked up at my window. The runt was at it. It was two A.M. It had been like a nightmare Halloween all the way. All trick and no treat. I was icy sober.
Then it struck me riding up on the elevator. That white faggot could cross me. What if he couldn’t free himself by the time his folks got home? He was a cinch to cover himself. He’d say a Nigger burglar or holdup man had robbed him and trussed him up.
I was a two-time loser. Five to ten would stick to me like flypaper. Even if he untied himself right away he might be mad enough to frame me. I remembered the Dalanski-Pepper cross. I was sweating salt balls when I retrieved my stash in the broom closet.
I went to my watch pocket with the cocaine. I knocked on fourtwenty. The runt opened the door. She was grinning.
She said, “Hello, Daddy-angel. Your dog bitch bumped her black ass off tonight. Gotta piggy bank, huh?”
I said, “So whatta you want, bitch, a medal for doing your whore duty?”
I didn’t answer her question. I looked down to see if she’d sprouted an entasis. She was buck-naked. I stepped inside and bolted the door. There were seventy slats on the dresser. I turned and lowered my face. She kissed me. I put the porker on the base of the “Kiss” statue.
I gave her the can of grass. She sat on the bed. She shook some grass out of the can onto a newspaper in her lap. She started rolling a joint. I took my clothes off. I went into the bathroom to shower and scrub the sissy taste out of my jib. The piercing heavy odor of the gangster wafted to me.
Over the roar of the shower I shouted, “Girl, there’s a gap under that slammer. Chink it up with a rag or something. Torch a coupla sticks of incense.”
I came out of the bathroom and got into bed beside her. She handed me a joint. I lit it and sucked it into a roach. I squeezed tobacco from the tip of a cigarette. I stuck the butt of gangster into the empty tip. I twisted the end and lit it. It was a good reefer.
I could feel my skull go into a dreamy float. I got one brilliant thought after another. The trouble was, each one I tried to hold long enough so I could put a saddle on it stampeded. It was maybe like the painful irritation a drunk wrangler suffers trying to corral a herd of greased mustangs.
Gangster was sure a whore’s high. That reefer confusion was no good for a pimp’s skull. That beautiful sissy had buried a hot seed in my guts. The wild flower blossomed. I dreamily drifted into the runt. I rolled sleepily out of the warm churning tunnel. I wouldn’t need a yellow tonight.
8
GRINNING SLIM
I opened my eyes. I saw glinting stars of dust whirling like a golden hurricane through a bright shaft of noon sun. I looked through the open bedroom door. I saw the runt sitting at the living room window. She was doing her nails. She lifted her eyes from her nails. She looked into the bedroom.
I said, “Good morning, li’l freak puppy. I’m gonna call Silas to run across the street for ham and eggs. Are you hungry?”
She said, “Yeah, I’m hungry, but the way he moves around it would take him a week to cop. I’ll slip on something and go myself.”
She went to the closet and slipped on her blue poplin rain-orshine coat. She took a fin off the dresser and held it up for my consent. I nodded my head. I heard the door shut when she went out.
I lit a cigarette. I thought, “I wonder if Melody has the heat looking for me. I’ve only got a day or so left before Glass Top takes me to Sweet Jones. I’m gonna cool it. I won’t go out at all. I’ll stay right here in the hotel until Top calls me.”
The phone rang just as the runt came through the bedroom door. She put the plates wrapped in wax paper on the dresser. She picked up the receiver. I got up, took my plate and started to eat with a plastic fork.
She said, “Hello. Oh, Chuck, how are you, sweetie? I was just thinking about you, lover. No, I can’t. I wish I could come out for a few drinks, but my brother won’t be home from work until six. Mama’s not well at all. I have to stay here during the day to take care of her. I could slip out around seven. Yeah, I could do that until eight for twenty. Bye, bye, sugar blue eyes.”
She hung up the phone and her coat. She sat naked on the side of the bed eating.
I said, “Bitch, I got an idea for that cat of yours. You gotta take a stiff brush and brush the hair straight down every time you think about it. Put some hair grower on it until you got maybe a four-inch cone. Your tricks will pant to bury their beaks in it. It will make your cat unique with that extra dimension.”
She mumbled, “Where on Earth did you get a jazzy idea like that?”
I said, “Bitch, ain’t you hip yet? I’m a pimp with great imagination, that’s all.”
She finished her flapjacks. She got up and gathered up an armful of our soiled clothing. She went into the bathroom. I heard the water sloshing in the bowl. She was doing our laundry. I turned my back to the sunlight. I felt old Morpheus slugging his velvet hammer against my eyelids.
I woke up in darkness. I looked at the front-room window. The streetlights were on. I turned the nightstand lamp on. Mickey said seven-ten. The runt was gone. She was breaking her luck with Chuck.
I thought, “Jesus, I sure needed rest all right. That fast track I’ve been blundering on sure took the juice out of me.”
I got up and went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I had made several brush strokes when the phone rang. I picked it up. He rapped before I could open my mouth.
He said, “Kid, this is Glass Top. The plans have changed. I’m in a hurry. Be outside your joint in fifteen minutes. You got that?”
I said, “Yeah, but …”
He had hung up. I dressed even faster than I had at the sissy’s pad. I rushed down the hall. I stopped at the broom-closet stash. I hurled the sizzle into the corner on the shelf. I took the stairs three at a time to the lobby. I sailed the key to the desk top. I bolted out the door.
Top was parked in front of the joint in the red Hog. He had his hand over the horn when he saw me. I got in. The Hog squealed from the curb. Top was sure in a hurry. I could hear the harsh whisper of the Hog’s tires against the pavement. We passed that neon bouquet. I looked back and saw the “Fun House” sign flashing. I wondered if Melody was out here somewhere booby trapping with his entasis.
I said, “Jack, I didn’t expect your call for a coupla days. What happened?”
He said, “There’s a big boxing match tonight. All the biggest pimps and whores in the country are gonna be at Sweet’s after the fight. Kinda like a party. All of ’em use stuff. Even with Sweet as the middleman I should take off a coupla grand for my end.”
“Sweet never goes to fights. He can’t stand big crowds, and besides they won’t let Miss Peaches into fights. Sweet’s gnawing his nails waiting for this stuff. He ain’t got none for himself and he’s anxious to cop some stuff for those birds coming from the fight.”
I said, “Have you cracked anything about me to him?”
He said, “Kid, you ain’t hip I’m a genius? He called and I rapped to him this morning. I played you off as my punk nephew from Kansas City. You got wild ideas you wanta be a pimp. I’ve tried to chill you back to K.C. to maybe hustle pool or even be a broom mechanic. You’re a stupid, stubborn punk. I’ve told you a thousand times you ain’t got it to pimp. You gotta pimp.
“You would eat ten yards of Sweet’s crap. You think he’s God. You won’t believe your uncle is tight with God. I’m Glass Top. I gotta save face even for a snot-nosed punk. Maybe if you hang around the inside of the fast track for a hot minute you’ll get scared. You’ll wise up, get outta my ass and run your ass back to K.C. Now Kid, don’t shoot your jib off at his pad. If he don’t remember you from the Roost, don’t wake him up.”
I said, “Don’t worry Top. I won’t rank us. I’ll never forget you, Pal, for the cut in. That was sure some beautiful stuff you played for Sweet.”
He caressed his patent-leather hair. He erected his wide shoulders inside his blue mohair jacket. His pretty, bitch face wore that terrible conceit
and awful pride maybe of a cute mass murderer who never gets her victims’ blood on her. The full moon through the windshield shone flush on his face.
He said, “Kid, you ain’t heard nothing yet. Shit, I done drove three whores screaming crazy with this brain. They in the boob box upstate right now babbling about Pretty Glass Top. Even Sweet ain’t shipped but two up there. He’s been pimping almost twice as long as me.”
I said, “Christ, Top, I don’t get it. Why drive a whore nuts if she’s still humping out the scratch. A stud would have to be slick as grease to plant bats in the skull of a bitch that was sane. I can’t dig how a stud could do it. I ain’t hip to it.”
He said, “Sucker, what you don’t dig, and ain’t hip to would make a book bigger than this Hog. Now you take Sweet, the two he crossed were young white broads with small mileage. He’s sick in the head. He’s got an insane hate for the whole white race.
“He was a crumb crusher of seven down in Georgia when the white folks first poisoned his skull. His mammy was jet black and beautiful. The peckerwoods for miles around were aching to lay her. The son of the wealthy plantation owner that Sweet’s old man sharecropped for way-laid her on the way to a spring. He punched her out, tore her clothes off and socked it into her. She was naked and crying when she got back to her shack.
“The peckerwood pig hid out in the woods. Sweet’s old man came in from the fields and found his wife clawed and bawling. He was close to seven feet and weighed three hundred. Sweet still remembers how his old man hollered and butted his head against the door of the shack. The hinges ripped loose.
“He knew the woods like a fox. He found the white boy. He left him for dead. He covered him with brush. He slipped back to his shack. Sweet remembers the white boy’s blood on his old man, even on his old man’s bare feet. He had stomped the white boy to a red pulp out there in the lonely woods. The old man figured he was safe. The white folks would never find the corpse in those thick woods. He cleaned himself, repaired the shack door, and waited.
“He hadn’t croaked the white boy. He had only maimed and paralyzed him. That night a white man out possum hunting with his dogs heard the kid bleating under the brush. He was out of his skull. It was midnight before the kid’s raving made sense to the white folks.
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