Part 11 (1/2)
”Her a.s.s.”
With that, the hookers turned their backsides to us and dropped their drawers.
”I'm sorry,” Mason said, ”but we are not in the market for your services.”
The short one stuck her head in the window, scowled, and looked at me.
”Yo' friend is buggin',” she said.
”Buggin'?” Mason said.
”Acting weird.”
”Fo' s.h.i.+ggidy, my weeble,” the tall one said.
Mason glanced at me again. ”Sorry,” I said. ”No idea. I think she's just playing with us now.”
The hookers spun on their heels and trudged back across the street. I slid Mason's window up, started the engine, and cranked the heater.
”Getting anywhere with the campaign contribution lists?” I asked.
”I'm still working on it,” Mason said.
”Want to tell me what you've got so far?”
”Not until I have something solid.”
I took a Partags from my s.h.i.+rt pocket, set fire to it, and cracked my window to let the fumes escape. On the corner behind us, commuters pulled their cars to the curb to check out the stroll. Now and then, one of them opened a car door so a girl could climb in. Others, displeased with the price or the merchandise, pulled out alone. A squad car crawled by, but the girls didn't scatter the way they did in the old days. Instead, they gave the cops a wave. Under Rhode Island's weird prost.i.tution statute the stroll was against the law, but few cops paid it any mind. Why bust streetwalkers when indoor prost.i.tution was legal? It wasn't worth the ha.s.sle of paperwork and court appearances.
”What are we waiting for?” Mason said.
”That,” I said, pointing to a skinny black girl in a gold lame miniskirt who was climbing out of a red Toyota pickup. ”The guy we're after sets up every night at a different abandoned house. Best way to find him is to follow one of his girls when she comes back from a job with cash in her bra.”
”I don't think she's wearing one,” Mason said.
I reached across him, popped the glove compartment, took out the Colt, and stuck it into the hand pouch on the front of my New England Patriots sweats.h.i.+rt. I expected Mason to ask why, but he didn't. Probably figured the neighborhood was answer enough. We got out of the car, crossed Broad Street, and followed the miniskirt east on Potters Avenue. She loped down the sidewalk, her high heels clacking on the cracked concrete. She pa.s.sed several two-story houses with peeling paint and drooping shutters, turned left up a short macadam walk, and tromped up the splintered porch stairs of a fire-scarred house with plywood across the windows. We followed her up.
She heard us coming, spun, and whipped a straight razor out of her halter top. Mason let out a little shriek and backpedaled down the steps.
The porch was furnished with a single yellow-and-white lounge chair made of aluminum tubes and plastic webbing. Beside it was an open Igloo cooler containing a revolver and a dozen longnecks. In this weather, there was no need for ice. Next to the cooler stood a huge bottle of Vicodin that must have been stolen from a pharmacy. No doctor would prescribe that much. A tall black man was stretched out on the lounge. He was dressed in red Converse low-tops, a matching red fedora with a black feather in the band, and a full-length mink coat. He was smoking the biggest joint north of Jamaica.
”Why you trippin', b.i.t.c.h?” he said. ”Be easy. Mulligan my man. We been down since we wuz shorties.”
The hooker shrugged, flipped the razor shut, stuffed it back in her top, and came back out with a small roll of bills. King Felix smiled benignly and took it from her. He counted it out with his long slim fingers, peeled off two twenties, and handed them back to her. Then he slid his hand inside the mink, pulled out a small aluminum foil packet, and dropped it in her hand.
She turned to me then, placed her palm on my zipper, and said, ”Jonesing fo' some dark meat tonight, white boy?”
”Mulligan don't want none a yo' crusty a.s.s,” Felix said. ”Get yo' b.u.t.t back out on the f.u.c.kin' street and bring back some mo' cheddar.”
He watched her clomp down the stairs. Then he turned to me and said, ”So how you been?”
”I'm fine. You?”
”Can't complain.”
”No? Then why the Vicodin?”
”Ran into a little trouble a while back, and my ribs are still sore.”
”A little trouble named Joseph DeLucca?”
”Who's he?”
”The bouncer you tangled with at the Tongue and Groove.”
”Oh. You heard about that, huh?”
”I did.”
”I wasn't looking for any trouble. Just wanted to talk to a couple of girls that used to work for me, see if I could talk them into coming back. The a.s.shole blindsided me.”
”I see.”
”Don't tell anybody, okay? It'll damage my street cred.”
”No worries.”
Felix handed me the joint. I took a hit and then offered it to Mason, who was cautiously coming back up the stairs. He shook his head.
”When in Rome,” I said, and offered it to him again. Again he shook his head, so I pa.s.sed it back to Felix.
”Who's the newbie?” he said, and tipped his head toward Mason.
”Pay him no mind,” I said. ”I'm just showing him the ropes.”
Felix pulled two longnecks from the cooler, popped the tops with a church key, and handed one to me and one to Mason. Then he opened one for himself and took a swallow.
”Careful,” I said. ”Vicodin, marijuana, and alcohol don't mix.”
”So I've heard,” he said. ”But the combination works real good, and it hasn't killed me yet.”
He pa.s.sed the joint. I took another drag and handed it back to him.
”Still playing ball?” he asked.
”Not since you schooled me in that pickup game last September.”