Hell To Pay

chapter 14

WORLDWIDE Wilson cruised down 14th in his ’92 400SE, midnight blue over palomino leather, the music down low. He had that Isley Brothers slo-jam compilation, Beautiful Ballads, on the stereo, Ronald singing all sweet, talkin’ about, “Make me say it again, girl,” coaxin’ that man in the boat to show himself and drown.

Wilson had the seat back all the way. Still, even with that, his knees were high, straddling the wheel. He switched lanes, cutting the wheel quick to avoid hitting the dumb-ass in front of him who was making a sudden left without using the turn signal God gave him. As he swerved, the little tree deodorizer he had hung on the rearview swung back and forth.

He had recently had the steering wheel covered in fur, but the Arab he’d given the job to up at the detail shop, he’d fucked it all up. Put some cheap shit on there, so that the hairs were always coming off in his hands and flyin’ around the car. Someone didn’t know better, they’d think he owned a cat, some bullshit like that. Teach him to give his business to an Iraqi. And he should’ve known not to trust a man had a girl’s name: Leslie.

Wilson’s given name was Fred. Frederick, Freddie, he didn’t like it any way you put it, what with the kids always callin’ him Fred Flintstone and shit when he was a kid. Till he got the reputation, he would fuck them up good they said it again. Worldwide, that was more like it. He’d given himself that name after he returned from Germany, where he’d served in the army back in the late seventies. He’d put together his first little stable over there. Light-skinned girl with Asian eyes, and couple of blond bitches, too. German girls could lay a stamp on a black man, didn’t even think twice about his color. Another thing he liked about being overseas.

Wilson punched numbers into the grid of the inverted phone he’d installed in the Mercedes. He liked the way the numbers lit the cabin up green at night. This was one pretty car, real classy, not a ride with too much flash, like those wanna-be pimps, just comin’ up, were driving around. The fur steering wheel, that was the only thing he’d added. Oh, yeah, there was a working television and VCR in the backseat, and those stainless steel DNA exhaust pipes he’d recently put on. And the phone. And the Y2K custom wheels he had on this motherfucker. Those rims set the whole joint off right.

Wilson got through on the line and lifted the phone out of its cradle.

“What’s goin’ on, baby?”

“Slow.”

“I’m comin’ in.”

Wilson turned off 14th. He went slowly down the block, checking out the action. Wasn’t much. He passed a shitty old van and a couple other hoopties parked on the street, and went around a double-parked Chevy Lumina, where one of his women stood leaning in the driver’s window. That particular girl, she talked too much, and when she did talk she had nothin’ to say. One of those special-ed bitches, wore his shit out. Time he got that mouth of hers straightened around.

He pulled up in front of his row house, where Carola, another of his girls, his best producer but getting to be on the old side, stood. Wilson hit a button and let the window drop. Carola came over and leaned on the door.

“Where Jennifer at?”

“Schoolgirl’s inside. Trickin’ some old Al Roker-lookin’ sucker.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know. Some white boy just went in. I axed him for a date, but he said he already had a girl. Thing is, I didn’t see him follow no one in.”

“He high?”

“Didn’t look to be.”

“Vice?”

“He wasn’t wearin’ no sign if he is.”

“Okay. Why you standin’ around, though?”

“Told you there wasn’t nothin’ goin’ on.”

“Well, get out there and make somethin’ go on. Get on back to the tracks and get a date.”

“I’m tired.”

“I’m tired, too. Tired of you talkin’ about bein’ tired and not earnin’ shit. Now go on out there and market that pussy, girl.”

“My feet hurt, World.”

“C’mere.” Carola leaned forward to let Wilson stroke her cheek. “You my bottom baby. You know this, right?”

“I know it, World.”

Wilson’s eyes dimmed. “Then don’t make me get out this car and take a hand to your motherfuckin’ ass.”

Carola stood straight and backed up a step. “I’m goin’.”

“Good, baby.” Wilson smiled, showing a row of gold caps. “I’ll give you a foot massage later on, hear?”

But Carola was already off, walking down the block, Wilson thinking, Glad I got me that degree in pimpology. All you had to do was use a little psychiatry on these bitches, worked every time.

He cut the engine on the Mercedes and untangled his frame from the car. Big man like he was, it was a struggle to get out of these foreign rides. But his time in Berlin had given him a permanent love for German automobiles, and, though they were more roomy, he never had liked the way Cadillacs and Lincolns drove.

He stood beside his car, smoothed out the leather on his coat, and adjusted his hat. Before he closed the door of the Mercedes, he put one foot up on the rocker panel, then the other, and buffed the vamps of his alligator shoes with the palm of his hand. What was the point of spending five hundred dollars on a pair of gators if they didn’t have a nice shine? He closed the door and stood straight.

Now he’d have to see what Carola was talkin’ about. See what some white boy was doin’ wandering around in his house without a woman he’d paid to fuck.

“OH, shit,” said Stella, leaning forward, blinking hard behind her glasses. “There go World.”

“Where?”

“That’s his ride right there, the blue Mercedes. He’s talkin’ to Carola, up in the window there.”

Sue Tracy watched the girl step away from the tricked-out car and walk off down the block. Then she watched Worldwide Wilson get out of his car. He wore a full-length leather coat with tooled-out skin, and a hat with a matching tooled band. Wilson stood tall, a good six three, his shoulders filling out the soft cut of the coat. He had the walk of a big cat.

Tracy keyed the mic on the radio in her hand. There was no response.

Wilson walked up the row house steps. He pulled on the front door and moved fluidly through the space. The door closed behind him, and he disappeared into the house.

She tried the radio again and tossed it on the seat beside her.

“Shit, Terry.”

“What?” said Stella.

Tracy didn’t answer. She ignitioned the van and slammed the tree up into first. She drove to the corner and cut a hard left.

QUINN’S hand came off the shaky wooden banister as he stepped up onto the second-floor landing. The banister continued down a straight, narrow hall. The doors to the rooms, all closed and topped with frosted-glass transoms, were situated opposite the banister. Television cable ran from one room to the other in the hall, going transom to transom. Quinn heard no activity on the second floor. He took the hall to the next set of stairs.

Sounds from above grew louder as he ascended the stairs. It was the sound of furniture moving on a hard floor. Talk from a radio and the human bass of a man’s voice and the unformed voice of a young girl.

Up on the landing, Quinn checked the sash window at the back of the house. It was open a crack, and he lifted it further and looked down through the mesh of the fire escape to the alley below. The alley was unlit, unblocked, and looked to be passable by car.

Quinn went to the first door, marked 3C in tacked-on letters broken off in spots. From behind the door came the talk radio and the man-girl sounds and the sound of bedsprings. The knob in his hand turned freely, and Quinn pushed on the door and walked inside.

A fat middle-aged black guy was on top of Jennifer Marshall on the bed. His fat ass and his fat sides jiggled as he pumped at her, and Quinn was on him just as he turned his head. He pulled him back by the shoulders and then pushed him roughly against the wall that abutted the bed. The man’s head, bald on top and patched with black sides, made a hollow sound as it hit the wall.

Quinn speed-scanned the room: high ceilings and chipped plaster walls. A bed and a nightstand that held a lamp and a radio, with a bathroom coming off the room. Clothing lay in a pile beside the bed.

Jennifer had removed her skirt and panties only. She sat up against the headboard, her legs still spread. Her sex was pink and sparsely tufted with reddish brown hair. Quinn looked away.

“Get your clothes on,” said Quinn to the man, “and get your ass out of here, now.”

The man, naked except for a pair of brown socks, didn’t move. His face was still, and his swollen penis, sheathed in a condom, was frozen in place.

“I told you to get going.”

“What the fuck’s goin’ on?” said Jennifer.

Quinn picked up Jennifer’s skirt and panties and tossed them before her on the bed. “Put ’em on.” And to the man he said, “Move.”

The man began to dress. Jennifer slipped on her panties and got off the bed, her skirt in her hands. She was thin of wrist, with skinny legs. Up close the heavy makeup could not conceal her age. She looked like a child who had gotten into her mother’s things.

“Hurry up,” said Quinn.

“Who are you?” said Jennifer.

“I’m an investigator,” said Quinn. “D.C.”

The door opened. Worldwide Wilson stepped into the room.

“An investigator, huh?” Wilson’s gold-capped smile spread wide. “You won’t mind then, motherfucker, if I have a look at your badge.”

SUE Tracy pulled the van alongside the back of the building. Eyes glowed beneath a Dumpster, frozen in the fan of the headlights. As Tracy cut the engine and the headlights the alley went black. She let herself adjust to the sudden change of light. Lines of architecture began to take shape. A rat, then another, scampered across the alley in front of the van.

Residual light bled out from the curtained windows of a sleeper porch on the second floor and a window topping the fire escape on the third.

“That’s it, right?”

Stella managed to get her head close to Tracy’s window and look up. “I guess it is.”

Tracy took a wad of cash from her briefcase and stuffed it into the pocket of her slacks. “Wait here.”

“You’re not gonna leave me, are you?”

“I’ll be right back,” said Tracy.

“Don’t leave me here in the dark,” said Stella.

“You jet, you don’t get your money. Just remember that.”

Tracy stepped out of the van and carefully pushed on the driver’s-side door. It closed with a soft click.

WILSON reached behind him, not turning his head, and closed the bedroom door. It barely made it to the frame. The man on the bed averted his eyes. He struggled from the sitting position to put on his pants. Some change slipped from the trouser pockets and dropped to the sheets. Quinn kept his posture straight and his eyes on Wilson’s.

“I didn’t do nothin’, World,” said Jennifer.

Wilson took a few steps into the room, one hand in his leather, stopping several feet shy of Quinn. He looked down on Quinn and he looked him over and smiled.

“So what you doin’ in here, man?”

Quinn didn’t answer.

“You ain’t datin’,” said Wilson, his voice smooth and baritone.

Quinn said nothing.

“What’sa matter, white boy? Ain’t you got no tongue?”

“I came for the girl,” said Quinn.

“You must be…” Wilson snapped the fingers of his free hand. “Terry Quinn. Am I right?”

Quinn nodded slowly.

The room was suddenly small. There was no window, and Quinn knew he’d never make it to the door. Wilson was a big man, but his fluid movement suggested he would be unencumbered by his size. The only way to bring him down, Quinn reasoned, was to hit him low and wrap him up. It was what he always told the kids. Quinn edged one foot forward and put some weight on that leg’s knee.

“Now you gettin’ ready to rush me, little man? That’s what you fixin’ to do?”

Wilson produced a switchblade knife from his coat pocket. Four inches of stainless blade flicked open, the pearl handle resting loosely in Wilson’s hand.

“Picked this up over in Italy,” said Wilson. “They make the prettiest sticks.”

The man on the bed clumsily drew on his shirt. Jennifer began to step into her skirt.

Wilson’s eyes flared. “You scared, Terry?”

Again, Quinn did not reply.

“Terry. That’s a girl’s name, ain’t it?” Wilson laughed and stepped forward. “Don’t matter much to me, Terry. I need to, I cut a bitch up just as good as a man.”

The door was kicked open. Sue Tracy kicked it again on the backswing as she walked into the room. One arm was extended and holding a snub-nosed.38 Special. The other hand held her license case, flapped open.

“Fuck is that toy shit?” said Wilson.

“I’m an investigator,” said Tracy.

“Aw,” said Wilson, “now y’all are gonna play like you police, huh?”

“Shut up,” said Tracy, the muzzle of the revolver pointed at Wilson’s face. “Drop that knife.”

Even as the words were coming from her mouth, Wilson was tossing the knife to the floor. He was still smiling, though, his eyes lit with amusement, going from Tracy back to Quinn.

“Get outta here,” said Tracy to the fat man. She had a surge of adrenaline then, and she shouted, “Get the fuck back to your wife and kids!”

The man picked what was left of his clothing up off the floor and quickly left the room.

Wilson chuckled. “Damn, baby. You are like… you are like a man, you know it?” He head-motioned in the direction of Quinn. “You got a lot more man to you than this itty-bitty motherfucker right here, I can tell you that.”

Tracy saw Quinn’s face flush. “Terry, get her out of here. I’m right behind you, hear?”

Quinn stood frozen for a moment, his eyes dry and hot.

“Take her!” said Tracy, still holding the gun on Wilson.

“Cavalry gonna hold the Indians back while the women and children leave the fort,” said Wilson.

Jennifer Marshall finished fastening her skirt. Quinn reached over and took her firmly by the elbow. She was shaking beneath his touch.

“I didn’t do nothin’, World.”

Wilson didn’t even look at the girl. He was smiling at Quinn, who was moving Jennifer out of the room, going around Tracy, careful not to impede the sight line of her gun.

“Next time, Theresa,” said Wilson.

Tracy heard their footsteps out in the hall. She heard them going out the open window. The sound of their bodies knocking the window frame faded. She kept her gun arm straight.

“You got a name, too?” said Wilson.

Tracy waited. She could hear them on the fire escape and soon that sound faded, too. Then there was the man talking from the radio and Wilson’s stare and smile.

Wilson studied her shape. “Look here, I didn’t mean nothin’, callin’ you a man like I did. Blind man can see you’re all woman. I mean, you got some fine titties on you, baby. Can tell by the up-curve, even through that shirt. I bet they stand up real nice when you unfasten that brassiere. Do me a favor, turn around and let me get a look at that pretty ass.”

Tracy felt a drop of sweat slide down her forehead. It snaked off her brow and stung at her eyes.

“You got a nice pussy, too?”

Tracy snicked back the hammer on the.38.

“Go on, now,” Wilson said softly. “I ain’t gonna follow you or nothin’ like that. I don’t care to hurt a woman ’less she makes me. You ain’t gonna make me, are you, darlin’?”

She backed out of the room. She backed down the hall and backed through the open window. She quickly looked down at the idling van in the alley as she got onto the fire escape, but she kept her eyes on the third floor and her gun pointed at the window all the way as she backed herself down the iron stairs.