“Oh, God! I’m sorry! I quit,” Diesel pleaded. “Leggo, brother. Please!”
“Call me Daddy.”
“Yes, Daddy. Please, Daddy.”
Troy released his grip. Diesel raised a clenched fist in a parody of Jackie Gleason. “One of these days … one of these days.”
“If you ever dream of jumping on me, you’d better wake up and get your mind right.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Pssst.” He gestured for Diesel to look down.
Diesel looked. In Troy’s left hand was a pistol.
“How ’bout that?” Troy asked.
“I quit,” Diesel said. “Put that away.”
Troy slipped the pistol back under his thigh where he could retrieve it instantly. It was unlikely that he would need it out here on the highway. And if he did need it, the chances are it would be useless. The only need would be if the Highway Patrol, or some local cop, pulled them over, and for a decade or more, virtually all policemen wore bulletproof vests under their uniforms, or as part of their uniforms. Head and arms and legs were still open, but those were harder shots and, except for the head, unlikely to instantly incapacitate. The instinct in the extreme moment was to shoot at the biggest target, the body. He would need to practice. Once upon a time he’d been extremely good with various small arms, especially the pistol. It had been a long time; at the least, his skill must have deteriorated by half.
Diesel was playing with the car radio. The preset stations were for the San Francisco Peninsula, not the East Bay. He had to find what he wanted by searching. He was looking for golden oldies, but when a voice was reading the news, Troy told him to hold up a minute.
Congress was rushing through an urban aid bill … a plane from Mather Field was missing in the Sierras … Sacramento police had raided a topless bar … a car had been hijacked in Oakland, two of the four bandits had been caught after a shootout in Berkeley … Palestinians were causing the Israelis trouble on the West Bank … The INS was increasing its presence along the border … the Court of Appeal had upheld the “three strikes” law.
“Turn on some music,” Troy said. “That shit’s too depressing.”
“Are you eligible for three strikes?” Diesel asked.
“It depends if they can use my juvenile case. I don’t think an appellate court will uphold that part of it. A juvenile case doesn’t have the constitutional protections—no lawyer, no trial by jury, no presumption of innocence, no confrontation with witnesses, none of that shit. So it can’t be constitutionally viable to enhance a subsequent case.”
“If you say so.”
“What about you?”
“Dead and stinking. Even a chickenshit beef like havin’ a gun gives me life. Fuck all that. I’m holding court on the spot.”
“Yeah, they’ve made all crimes into capital offenses.”
“How they gonna do it, Troy? I mean, damn, where they gonna put all them fools? How they gonna take ’em all to trial? It seems insane to me.”
“It is insane. But they’re scared.”
“I do understand that. I get scared, too, and I’m a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound grizzly bear, armed to the teeth. Them young niggers, they’re on some kind of outer space trip. I read yesterday where they went to rob some sucker. He showed ’em his empty wallet, so they shot him six times. What kinda shit is that? What’re they thinkin’ about?”
“Who knows?”
“Just ignorant-ass niggers,” was Diesel’s judgment. “All they know how to do is sell dope and hurt people. Somebody said they learn that shit from movies and TV.”
“They learn it somewhere. Everybody learns everything somewhere. Maybe it is TV. Nobody else teaches them anything—at least nobody teaches a lot of ’em. A lot of ’em grow up with nothin’ to civilize ’em in the ghetto.”
“Kinda like that movie, Lord of the Flies.”
“Not a bad analogy … except it started as a book.”
“I didn’t read it, but I saw the flick. Whaddya think about niggers? You hate ’em?”
“Uh-uh,” Troy said. “Not unless they hate me.”
“That’s how I feel … if they be fulla hate, fuck ’em in their ass. If they respect me, I respect them. If they bad-vibe me, I give ’em redneck vibes right back. I ain’ done nuthin’ to the motherfuckers. What the fuck, I been fucked over bad as them. You, too. What about all that hate in gangsta rap? They call that shit music.”
“Duke Ellington must turn over in his grave.”
“No bullshit about that.”
Lights and buildings and traffic increased as they entered the outskirts of Sacramento. It was dark now. In a gas station, Diesel filled the tank while Troy went to a pay telephone. The number was to a communal pay phone in the hallway of a rooming house. A girl answered: “Hello.”
“Hi. Say, can you knock on Larry Jones’s door and see if he’s there?”
“Is this Troy or Diesel?”
“Uhhh … I’m calling for them.”
“Larry told me to tell them that he’s in the Onyx Club playing poker.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jinx. I’m Larry’s old lady.”
“Where’d you get a name like Jinx?”
“Larry gave it to me. I walked up when he had a full house—and he lost. He said I jinxed him. He didn’t really mean it.”
“Where’s the Onyx?”
“Do you know downtown Sacramento?”
“Nope.”
“Okay. I’ll give you directions. You’re coming from the Bay Area, right?”
“Yep.”
She gave him directions, where to exit the freeway, which way to go, where to turn. It was simple enough and he mentally filed it. Diesel had pulled the car away from the pumps and was waiting behind the wheel. As they returned to the traffic flow, Troy started to explain. Diesel knew the whereabouts of the Onyx Club. A moment later, the big man slammed the heel of his hand on the steering wheel. “He’s got another girlfriend. I hope to fuck she doesn’t have a kid.”
“She sounds like a baby herself.”
What they knew stifled conversation during the rest of the drive.
When they spotted the Onyx and looked for a place to park, Troy said, “Be cool when you see him. Don’t bad-vibe him.”
“I’ll be cool. I don’t want to stir up paranoia toward me. That would make me paranoid. And two of us paranoid …”
The Onyx had a long bar and, ten feet away, a brass pipe rail separated the gaming area, half a dozen tables featuring various kinds of poker games: Seven-Card Stud, Lowball, Texas Hold ’Em, Pai Gow. Only two were in action, both against the far wall.
The bar area was dim, but the lights were bright over the poker tables. The light flashed on the shiny backs of the playing cards as they slid across the green velvet. The game had six players, Mad Dog among them. A mediocre card player, like most poor gamblers he thought he was great—and when he lost, he thought luck was against him. For the moment the cards confirmed his delusion. He was having a rush of luck. The game was Seven-Card Stud, and he could do no wrong. Three times he and another player had a flush, and each time his was the best flush. Twice he had two pair against a straight, and twice he made the full house on the last card. He’d been too hot to quit even to meet Troy and Diesel, so he had phoned Jinx and left the message.
He had won another small pot and was stacking his chips when he looked up and saw Troy watching him. Mad Dog grinned and saluted. Troy nodded, face impassive. It was enough to trigger anxiety in Mad Dog. He began picking up his chips. “That’s it for me, boys.”
When they were underway in the car, Troy asked: “How come you told that chick my name?”
“You mean Jinx. Did I give her your name?”
“She asked if I was Troy or Diesel.”
“Oh, shit,” Diesel said.
“How long would it take to identify us if she told the cops ‘Diesel’ and ‘Troy’? They’d be showing her our mug shots in about an hour.”
Mad Dog’s instinct was to deny and defend, but this time he knew better, so he apologized. “I’m sorry, brother. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Yeah … okay. Just remember this. Nobody should even want to know anything they don’t have to know. I know I don’t.”
“I know what you mean,” Diesel said. “I was on fish row in Vacaville when I went to the joint. There was four or five dudes that knew each other—Gary Jackson, Danny Trejo, Bulldog, and Red Howard. Red was cuttin’ the bars to his cell. He told us, just these four or five dudes. Somebody ratted him off and they busted him. I felt fuckin’ terrible, and Gary Jackson told me the same thing. We wished we didn’t know, so it couldn’t even cross Red’s mind that it might’ve been one of us.”
“Did you find out who it was?” Mad Dog asked.
“Yeah, it was the dude that got him the hacksaw blade. But after that, when somebody started to tell me something, if it didn’t concern me, I don’t wanna hear it. So if anything goes wrong, there’s no question about my good name.”
“I know how it goes,” Troy said.
“I’ll watch myself,” Mad Dog said.
“I know you will. Are you ready to roll?”
“I’m packed … but my fuckin’ car’s in the garage. It won’t be ready until tomorrow.”
“Is that the same car you had in Portland?” Diesel asked.
“Yeah, the old GTO. It’s a classic, man.”
“It would be better if it was a classic that would run.”
“It’ll run,” Mad Dog said in a flat tone of challenge—and Troy felt the tension between his confederates.
“We’re gonna make enough dough so you can buy a Jaguar if you want it.”
“Hell, no,” Diesel said. “They’re in the garage more’n that old GTO.”
“You get the car back tomorrow?” Troy asked.
“So they told me.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“A radiator hose.”
“Oh, yeah, that’ll be done tomorrow,” Diesel said.
“We could check into a motel and wait,” Troy said. “Or we can drive tonight and you come when you get the car. That way I can see Greco tomorrow. How’s that sound?”
Mad Dog nodded.
“Sounds like the best move to me,” Diesel concurred.
“How’ll I find you down there?” Mad Dog said. “Make it easy, ’cause I get fuckin’ lost in L.A.”
“We’ll be in the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard,” Troy said. “Under the name Al Leon Klein.”
“Al Leon Klein. I’ll just think of Jimmy Klein. Whatever happened to that dude?”
“He snitched on too many people,” Diesel said. “The Mexican mafia’s got a contract out on his ass.”
“Is that right?” Mad Dog asked. “He turned snitch.”
“Yeah,” Troy said. “He’s a con man down to his core. The kind of dude that thinks everybody’s a sucker or a mark. It’s easy to rationalize and say, ‘Let that mooch go to jail.’ That’s what he did.”
“Jimmy Klein … a rat … Damn … They guy had a helluva personality,” Mad Dog said.
“That he does … but he’s still a rat,” Diesel said. “You wanna go back to the Onyx or what?”
“Uh-uh. Take me to the pad. I’ll tell you the way.”
Ten minutes later they pulled up outside a decaying two-story apartment building. When Mad Dog was getting out, the front door opened and Jinx came out. She had the face of a child and the body of a woman. It was impossible to avoid an introduction: “Carl, Troy, meet Jinx, my old lady.”
“Hi, guys. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Diesel was behind the wheel. “I’d like to hear about it some time,” he said, “but we are running late and gotta hurry.”
He gave the girl a quick smile and Mad Dog a half salute and pulled into traffic. Ten minutes later, the Mustang GT convertible turned southbound on U.S. 99, heading toward L.A., four hundred miles away. Once upon a time, U.S. 99 had been the main inland route north and south through the San Joaquin Valley, and although its number-one position had been taken over by Interstate 5, it still carried lots of traffic. They passed through small farm towns and truck stops. Sometimes for miles the world was black beyond the strip of highway, but the smell of growing things conveyed the richness of the earth.
Headlights illuminated signs. Bakersfield, 100 miles, Los Angeles, 220. Troy looked out at the night and Diesel watched the endless line of broken white unfold before the lights.
“Radio?” Diesel asked.
“Sure.”
In the Central Valley, all the radio would pick up was a country station and another with twenty-four-hour news. “Which one?” Diesel asked.
“Let’s listen to the news,” Troy said. Although he had read voraciously in San Quentin, the day-to-day news held little interest for him. What does a convict in the belly of the Beast care for a flood in Tennessee, or a hurricane in New Orleans, or how the dollar fluctuates in currency exchanges? It might be of academic interest, like Pompeii in 79 A.D., but true concerns were more primal: If the race war breaks out again, I gotta walk between those honkies on the tier to get to my cell. For many in prison the world’s horizons stopped at the prison wall. The only thing they wanted to hear from out there were baseball scores, horse race results, and what the Vegas point spreads were for the weekend games.
Troy was less indifferent than that extreme, but time had added to the natural insulation, so he had paid little attention—until they said he was going free, whereupon his mind suddenly hungered for knowledge of all that was happening in the world that he would enter once more.
“… for NAFTA creates strange bedfellows. The spokesmen for extreme right and extreme left both decry free trade with Mexico, and billionaire dilettante Ross Perot says the sucking sound we hear is jobs going south of the border …”
“You pay attention to that political bullshit?” Diesel asked.
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“Most of the time I don’t know who the fuck to root for. They all say all kinds of shit. They lie! Goddamn, they lie!”
“Yeah,” Troy agreed. “Sometimes they lie when the truth would be as good.”
“You know what, man, I think I’d rather be a thief than a politician. That way at least I know what I am. Some of them got identity problems.”
“No bullshit about that,” Troy agreed, and to himself he added that so many men are hypocrites without even realizing what they are. He put hypocrisy among the most contemptible of vices.
“I’m gettin’ tired,” Diesel said when they reached the outskirts of Bakersfield. Downtown L.A. was less than two hours away, and L.A.’s northern boundaries in the desert were half that far. You could drive through L.A. and take all day if you stayed off the freeway.
“Sure, man, lemme push this sucker.”
“Watch out for the highway patrol on the Ridge Route. They stay up there a lot.”
On the side of the highway, Diesel stretched out on the back seat and Troy took the wheel. The night was warm and they left the top down. As the car began to climb the grade through the mountains with the San Fernando Valley on the other side, Troy looked up at the canopy of night filled with stars, his body full up with the glow of amphetamine high, and he felt wonderful. His thoughts followed the joy of his body. He thought about his plan to specialize in ripping off pimps, bookies, wannabe gangsters, and drug connections. The victims would be enraged. They would want to kill him—but how would they know who he was, or how to find him if they did learn his name. Besides, all of them could bleed, too, and he certainly wasn’t afraid of them. He might be afraid of the police and of going back to prison, but he didn’t give a shit about an illiterate Compton dope king or all the crippled niggers in the world. They were predatory, sure enough, but he was the predator they had never imagined, coming suddenly from nowhere. Afterward, they would never imagine the truth … It made him laugh as he thought about it. If Compton aroused no fear,
he was almost licking his chops as he thought about the soft white boys pushing keys on the Westside or with the Pacific sloshing in the background. He would outthink the baaadass niggers, and outtough the white boys. The danger was that one might have a corrupt cop as an ally, which might become risky. Ah well, nothing worthwhile in life was without risk. What had Helen Keller said? “Life was a dangerous adventure—or nothing …?”
Robbing drug dealers had other advantages, not the least of which was the amount of the possible score. It was very possible that they could take off a million-dollar drug score. It was most unlikely that they could steal a million dollars in cash from a bank, or even an armored car. Even if that were to happen, there would be legions of FBI agents assigned to the case. The other ways to rip off big scores, diamonds and computer chips, had their own problems. Both were easy to sell, but the knockdown on the price was itself robbery. He’d taken a jewelry store and the papers proclaimed 1.3 million was the estimated loss. That was 1.3 retail. Wholesale was half of that, six hundred and fifty grand. The standard price for stolen goods is one third wholesale, two hundred grand and some change. Split three ways, his end came to near seventy thousand dollars. Not bad for ten minutes in a jeweler’s, but terrible if he went to prison for ten years. Ten, shit, twenty-five. He was prime third strike. He had a better idea for crime than fancy jewelers or armored cars. He also had an alliance with one of L.A.’s best drug lawyers, and the lawyer would send word about the who, what, and where of big drug dealers. Unlike diamonds, heroin and cocaine depreciated very little when they were stolen property.
When he piled it all on the scales of decision, he preferred to risk death than go back to prison. Maybe he would win the game, take the big score, and spend the rest of his life on a sunny beach in a faraway place, play Gauguin or Rimbaud. He realized that at thirty-eight he was worn in many ways. He had burned the candle as if it were a blowtorch. He had been distorted by his experiences, so although he spoke the common language, he lacked some common traits. One of them was fear; his threshold for fear was many times higher than average. Around him, all he felt was fear—fear of violence, fear of censure, fear of rejection, of disapproval, of poverty, of everything. But he who survives a decade in San Quentin can attain a stoicism beyond fear. He’d taken blows that drive men to madness, suicide, or Jesus Christ. It had made him hard. He did fear death, or at least the dying part. Afterward was easy. Indeed, at some point, death was sure escape from pain. But if he could salvage a few years of peaceful solitude, maybe even find a sweet-natured brown-skinned girl to warm his feet, it was worth sitting down in the game of crime for the last time. “Deal the cards,” he muttered to God. He would play whatever came off the deck. It was two decades too late to quit the game now.
Dog Eat Dog Page 9