King Suckerman

Six

Dimitri Karras downshifted, took H across North Capitol. He relaxed his shoulders, glad to be out of the warehouse district, glad as hell to be back in Northwest. Marcus Clay sat to his right, staring straight ahead, mumbling occasionally as the recently completed events replayed themselves in his mind. In the rearview Karras watched Vivian, sitting sideways between the front buckets, her long black hair fanning out in the wind, a slight crescent of purple and a small ring dent on the left side of her pronounced jaw where Eddie Marchetti had given her his hand.

“You okay?” said Karras, turning his head briefly to catch Vivian’s eye.

“I’m fine,” said Vivian. “Thanks, guys.”

“Yeah, Marcus. Thanks.”

“Sure thing, lover.”

“Wasn’t the first time Marcus saved my ass,” explained Karras.

“You guys have done this before?”

“Don’t make a practice of it. And we damn sure don’t make a practice of it when it involves guns. But my friend Dimitri here, he seems to find his way into situations, usually have something to do with a lady.” Clay side-glanced Karras. “I’m just the lucky one who happens to be around when it all rains down.”

Vivian said, “That thing you did, taking away the kid’s gun like that. You were in the service, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where’d you learn that move? Vietnam?”

“Thirteenth and Euclid,” said Clay.

Karras smiled a little. He knew Marcus would never cop to anything about Vietnam. Karras had talked once with Al Adamson — Rasheed’s older brother — who had served with Clay overseas, and had found out how deep into it Marcus had been. But, like just about every soldier Karras had ever known who had seen real action, Marcus preferred to bury it, keep it in the past or let it sleep in some unlit corner of his head. Clay never talked about Vietnam, and Karras never asked.

“Well,” said Karras, “it’s over now.”

Clay exhaled heavily. “You think so, huh?”

“Sure, why not?”

“The girl, for one,” said Clay. “That Eddie Spaghetti character, he’s gonna want her back. You don’t mind if I call you a girl, do you, baby?”

“No, I don’t mind.”

“And the money,” said Clay. “Especially the money. I never should’ve took the goddamn money.”

“I was wondering what you were doing there,” said Karras.

“Lost my temper and shit. That’s all it was. A boy holds a gun on you like that, it steals something from you, man. I just wanted to steal something back.”

Karras smiled. “You gave ’em a little attitude with your words, too, Marcus. Talkin’ about that country shit.”

“They were some Macon County Line — lookin’ motherfuckers,” said Clay.

He and Karras laughed. They gave each other skin. Vivian put her head forward between the front seats. She kissed Clay behind the ear and gave Karras one on his cheek.

“Hey, baby, you don’t have to do that,” said Clay.

“I wanted to,” said Vivian.

Karras turned onto New York Avenue, headed west across town. “How old are you, anyway?” he said, his eyes in the rearview.

“How old are you?” said Vivian coyly. Karras noticed a dimple tucked along the laugh line of her right cheek.

“Twenty-seven.”

“How about you, Marcus?”

“Same.”

“I’m nineteen,” said Vivian.

“Nineteen?” said Clay. “And here I was askin’ if it was all right to call you girl.”

“You’re a gentleman,” said Vivian, “that’s all.”

“Hey,” said Karras, “what about me?”

“You,” said Vivian, with some play in her voice. “I’m not so sure about you.”

“After what I did?”

“I’m still not sure.”

“Stupid,” said Clay.

“Lighten up, man,” said Karras.

“It was plain stupid, takin’ that jack.”

“So give it back.”

“I plan on it,” said Clay, “soon as everything cools down. Have to think on how to do it without causin’ any more trouble. Maybe contact that Clarence Tate. He seems sensible enough.”

Karras squinted. “We should be all right for a few days. They don’t know anything about me except my name. And I’m not in the book.”

“Neither am I.”

“Which ought to buy us a little time.”

Clay shook his head. “Stupid, though. Just plain stupid.”

“Hey, where we going, anyway?” said Vivian.

“My apartment. Marcus needs a shower, and I could use one, too.”

“I could use a little smoke,” said Vivian. “I had a nice buzz goin’ before you guys came to the party. All that trouble back there, it made me crash.”

“Plenty of herb in the trunk,” said Clay, pointing to the hood of the VW. “Where the engine is on a real car.”

Clarence Tate looked out the window, watched the Challenger move down the block, cut right, disappear. Two blocks away, he could still hear the rumble of the engine.

“What a day,” said Marchetti.

“Yeah,” said Tate.

“I mean, was this a day or what?”

“It was a day, Eddie.”

Marchetti fumbled through his desk, brought out the remote. He stared at it for a moment, held it in one hand while he gingerly touched the fingers of the other to his swollen eye.

“Did I deserve this?” said Marchetti.

“Yeah, you deserved it all right. You shouldn’t have hit Vivian in front of those two. I mean, you shouldn’t have gone and hit her period, understand what I’m sayin’? But hittin’ her in front of those two is what started all the trouble.”

“And then the kid with the gun. What the hell was he thinkin’ of?”

“Just a dumb kid,” said Tate. “You mix with those kinds, Eddie, I been tellin’ you for the longest time, you’re gonna get yourself into a world of trouble.”

Marchetti waved his hand. “All right, all right.”

“Then you go and give those boys a Baggie of cocaine before they leave. Like they need that freeze to get up. Bunch of finger-on-the-trigger motherfuckers to begin with.”

“It was a gift, from Larry. I figured they’d want to sample what they were going to purchase. Anyway, what was I going to do with it? You know I don’t use that shit. Hell, give me a nice highball to start, a plate of red sauce over linguine, a little antipast, a carafe of the house red to wash it down, that’s the only high I need.”

“Ray Charles can see that, Eddie.”

“What, you think I’m too fat?”

“I ain’t say that, man.”

“But you think it, right?”

“You’re askin’ for the truth, you could lose a couple of ounces here and there.”

Marchetti looked down at his gut. “If I was a little leaner... lean and loose, like that Greek... Vivian would’ve stayed more interested, is that what you’re sayin’?”

“Hard to tell. You might have paid her a little more attention. You might have done that. And hittin’ her like you did, that was straight-up wrong.”

“I’d talk to her,” said Marchetti, “if she was here right now. Tell her I was sorry for what I did.”

“Maybe you’ll get your chance.”

“The thing is, I could’ve made her stay. If you had let me go for the short-nose, I could’ve backed those two off.”

“You oughta be thankin’ me. I’ve seen that Marcus Clay on a basketball court. Boy can get from A to B like quicksilver, man. He would’ve been on you. Lucky you got a local man like me, knowin’ all the local boys myself. This here ain’t your town, Eddie. You could get hurt, bein’ a stranger here like you are.”

“Maybe so. But I see those two again, they’re gonna pay.”

“Way those country boys were talkin,’ ” said Tate, “you’re gonna have to get in line.”

Marchetti punched the power button on the remote and the Sony flickered on across the room. The news was on, Gordon and Max on channel 9. Another salt-and-pepper team, but these guys were pretty good. Not that you could see for shit, with the snow falling across the tube.

“Before all this started,” said Marchetti, “you were gonna fix the antenna, remember?”

“Let me get to it,” said Tate.

“Or do I need a new set?”

“We got ten Sonys in the back, Eddie, KV-1920s, just like this one. They’re all gonna get the same reception, with all this metal and concrete. Anyhow, you need to stop worryin’ about the snow on your set and start thinkin’ about how we’re gonna move those goods back there, boss.”

“All right, all right, I’ll think. In the meantime, go jiggle the antenna. Harry-O’s on tonight, and I don’t wanna be distracted.”

Tate grinned. “What, you gonna watch Harry-O over Barnaby Jones?”

“Quit fuckin’ with me, Clarenze. You know I can’t take that Barnaby Jones. What’s Ebsen, like eighty years old? You ever known a bad guy who’s gonna back down from Buddy Ebsen? Bad dude holding a gun on Buddy Ebsen, Ebsen going, ‘Excuse me, could you hold off on that gun for a second, I got a little problem with my pacemaker.’” Marchetti clutched his chest, laughed, got hyped on his own pantomime. He pointed excitedly at Tate. “Or how about this? ‘Excuse me a second, Mr. Bad-News, but could you put the piece down for a minute? I forgot to take my Geritol this morning...’ Ain’t gonna happen. I hate those geezer shows.”

“I know you do, Eddie.”

“Started with the cripple shows, Ironside and then Longstreet — the one about the blind detective, like a blind detective could do shit. Now what do you got? You got old and you got old and crippled. Like Cannon, with his tuba theme music. He’s old and he’s a fat fuck in the bargain. What the hell’s he gonna do, huh?”

“You askin’ me a question?”

“I’ll take Harry-O and Bronk any day over those geezer-crip shows. With those guys, at least they can walk down the street without a Seeing Eye dog or someone holding on to their arm, you know what I mean?” Marchetti waited. “You like David Janssen, Clarenze?”

“He’s all right. Man don’t smile much.”

“I bet he gets a load of pussy, though.”

“Man gets all that play, you think he’d smile every now and again.”

“He smiles. Well, it’s more like one of them facial tics, really.”

“I better get up on that roof.”

“Okay, Clarenze. You go ahead and fix me up.”

Clarence Tate sighed. It didn’t pay to kid Eddie Spags about his program choices, not unless you had all day to talk it out. Man was serious about his TV.

Tate left Marchetti sitting there, his head rested in his palm, and went through the door into the back hall. He walked by the Sonys and then some Litton microwave ovens and a stack of Webcor table radios — he’d have to talk to Bernard about dropping off the Mickey Mouse bullshit like that — and some twenty-five-inch Philco “consolette” color TVs and a couple of complete Sansui systems that he wouldn’t have minded owning himself. It hurt him, seeing all that inventory just gathering dust like that. He couldn’t get it through Eddie’s head that they had to move this shit out and move it quick.

Tate would have loved to have gotten out himself. Ex-cons and dead-eyed Bamas and pimply-ass, shotgun-carrying white boys; hot goods and cocaine — he didn’t need all that in his life. He just wanted a decent job, a few extra dollars so he could see clear to some kind of better life. Not just for him, either. For his sweet little Denice, too.