Slide (11 page)

Fourteen

All I have in this world is my balls and my word, and I don’t break ’em for no one.

A
L
P
ACINO AS
T
ONY
M
ONTANA,
Scarface

This was going to be the day of The M.A.X., the big enchilada, the coming out party, the date that Max showed Señor Lopez who was
el jefe
.

The meeting with the Colombians wasn’t till nine
PM,
but Max had been awake since five in the morning, running the details in his mind, a nagging worry about
Los Colombanos
refused to go away. The stress was really starting to get to him so he decided, Fuck it, and had a little pick-me-up, nothing too heavy, just a few tokes on the crack pipe to go with his caffeine fix. And he was thinking,
I should eat, get something in my stomach
, but he couldn’t, so, what the hell, he had another tiny hit.

But the dilemma kept weighing on him—what the hell was he gonna wear? What were folk wearing to dope deals these days anyway? Did you go all biz, the suit, the power tie, handmade shoes? Or dress lethal, like you were casual but, hey, watch your mouth, buddy, cause I might look like Bloomies but I’m carrying, like, major heat so tread real fucking careful, you stupid Lopez fuck.

Yeah, that could work, he liked that touch of swagger, he was preening in front of his full-length mirror. Had his eyes developed that Clint Eastwood hardass glint? He tried narrowing his eyes but he couldn’t see for shit when he did that.

Whoa-kay, chill baby, chill way on down and he would but his goddamn heart was like pumping a mile a second. He needed to look chill, so he put on a Yankees shirt, it was black, had the logo only on the collar, showed he was a sports guy but not, you know, showy with it. Then he put on Tommy Hilfiger black slacks, looking good, all in black, looking...what was that fucking word the French had...
nora
?...no,
noir
. Yeah, he looked noir as fuck.

Then the piece de resistance—the Glock he’d found in Kyle’s suitcase. Sure he’d gone through the kid’s stuff—you had to know who you were employing—and underneath the copies of
Hustler
,
Playboy
, and
Bust
he’d found it, loaded, with a spare clip. The kid had an automatic in there too, so he’d left that. The kid was too much in awe of him to ask if he’d taken it—one of the perks of being the boss, the help didn’t get to quiz you.

He pointed the Glock at the mirror and couldn’t get over how fucking
cool
he was. He let out his breath—shit, he could have made it in the movies—said, “Name it, mister,” and heard, “Who are you talking to?”

For a horrendous moment he thought his reflection had spoken to him—Jesus, he’d have to ease up on the marching powder—then realized Kyle was behind him. How long had he been standing there and what was with that look, the kid’s eyes stuck on the gun?

Max went for aggression—you’re in a bind, go ballistic—and said, “The fuck you doing, sneaking up on a person, get your fool self killed that way, son?” He liked the almost black intonation he’d achieved there and the
son
, well, that was pure raw talent. Then he noticed Felicia was gone—he hadn’t seen her in at least a couple of hours—and said, “Where the fuck is my bee-atch?”

“She said somethin’ about havin’ to do some shoppin’ or somethin’,” Kyle said.

Max noticed he had his bible with him and said, “You’re not gonna be reading that around the Colombians, are you?”

“What’s wrong with the Bible?”

“Do whatever you want,” Max said, “but I think it’s a big mistake. Religion—shows you’re weak, you’re living in fear of
Dios
. We want to show these
hombres
we’re fearless, then they’ll be afraid of us, get it?”

“I need Jesus by my side,” Kyle said.

The dope was definitely cruising in Max’s system and he had a ferocious impulse to cap Kyle, just for the hell of it. Max had been at the center of a whole blitzkrieg of murders but, like, get this, he’d never—what was the term? Oh, yeah,
smoked a motherfuckah
. Nope, but he sure as hell had thought about it a lot. It was Peckinpah type stuff—a lingering slow-motion shot of Max, cool as the breeze, drawing on a thin cheroot, and then spittin’ some baccy from the side of his mouth. He’d been so loaded one night, he even went and bought some chewing tobacco—that shit was harder to get in New York than heroin. Then back at his apartment, the whole scenario opening up, he’d popped the shit in his mouth and, oh sweet Jesus, the fuck was with that taste? It congealed in his teeth, nearly removing one of his very expensive crowns, and then it nearly choked him. He’d cap some dude
sans
the chewing tobacco, maybe get some Juicy Fruit, leave a lingering freshness too.

He barked at Kyle, “The only good book you need is right here,” and then he tapped his heart, thinking,
Fuck, how deep am I?
Maybe he’d go for a doctorate in metaphysics when this gig was wrapped—hell, he already had Buddhism down.

Kyle, the dumb cracker, as usual looked lost, said, “I’m lost.”

Max sighed, decent help was, like, freaking impossible to find, he tried to put some fatherly patience in his tone, and like Pa Walton on crystal meth, said, “Son, what you read in your heart is the only line you ever need to remember.” Max had lost his train of thought halfway through the sentence and in frustration, said, “We’re gonna be dealing with some heavy dudes here, son. They see that book, they’re gonna think you got a concealed gun in there.”

Kyle said, “The Lord is my weapon.”

Max, sick of the whole conversation, went, “The Lord better be packing, then.”

Kyle stuck his hand out and Max, puzzled, asked, “You want to shake my hand?”

Sly little redneck grin from ol’ Kyle who said, “I’d like my Glock. That piece cost me a whole bunch of bucks.”

Max, flying off into another one of his accents, said, “Don’t you be giving me none of yer lip, boy, hear? You ain’t too tall to take a whupping.”

The
whupping
set off a drug hard-on and if Felicia had been there, he’d have given her a real whupping right now. “Now git yer ass in gear, boy, we is set to rock ’n’ roll, you hear what I’m saying? You down, bro, you ready to chill with The M.A.X., you ready to ice these spics?”

He liked this rap so much he was sorely tempted to write it down, use it in his HBO series.

Kyle, an edge in his voice said, “Don’t call them spics.”

Max said, “Long as they don’t call my play,
hombre
.” He started hunting around for the shit he needed to make a martini. There was enough time, as long as while he was making it Kyle went and got the car. Like, right now.

Kyle stared at Max as he found a pitcher but fuck, no olives. Who the fuck was supposed to be doing, like, the housekeeping?

Oliveless, he turned to Kyle, and in his most sarcastic tone went, “Hello, the car, the ve-hi-cle...like, duh?”

Kyle had the vacant-eye look back and Max reckoned, no two ways about it, down there they were definitely giving one to family members or sheep. Hell, maybe down there the sheep
were
family members.

He said, “Our means of transportation, son. Or are you thinking we should call a cab, say, Take us to our drug deal, Mohammed?”

He had to get these lines down on paper. Maybe write ’em up as a book one of these days, like those Hard Case books with those women on the covers. Max had never picked one up but, man, those guys knew how to use a pair of tits to sell a book.

Kyle said, “Oh, right,” and he was gone, with his bible.

Max downed the martini. Wasn’t bad, maybe he could do a second, wash his mouth out, take the acrid dope taste out of his gums. Naw, better not. Say what you like about The M.A.X., he knew his limits—oh yeah, he knew when enough was enough.

He put the Glock down the waistband of his trousers, in the small of his back, and went, “Ouch.” Jesus, it was cold. Did he have time to warm it up? Could you microwave a gun? And it pressed against his bum sacroiliac, shit. He took the piece out, got his black suede jacket. It had that expensive cut, you saw it, you whistled, it said taste
and
platinum card. Yeah, after today, it was platinum or bust baby.

The jacket had a large inside pocket and he put the gun in there. Was the bulge too big? Ah, fuck it, he was good to go.

He had a last sip of the martini, said, “Bring it on,
muchachos
.”

Max and Kyle headed out to Queens in a Ford SUV. Max wanted to go in a Porsche, show the
hombres
what a hip, happening guy he was, but he figured they’d be in a limo and he wanted to be above them, looking down. Yeah, you need that height advantage in any business transaction. How do you think The Donald did it? And how many millionaire midgets were there in the world?

He had Kyle do the driving. What, you think The M.A.X. had time for trivial shit? Get real, buddy.

Crossing the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, Max did a line on the dashboard, just to stay nice and juiced.

Kyle said, “Um, you think you should be doing that?”

Max inhaled, felt the rush, went, “Doing what?”

“That coke in the car, out there in the open an’ all... you know what I mean?”

Man, that slow, muttering cornpoke drawl could start to get on a person’s fucking nerves. Max caressed the Glock, thinking maybe he’d shoot Kyle in the foot, see how he liked that. For fucking Christ’s sake, the kid was, what, becoming moral now? Thought he had a bible so that made him what, God? Max wanted to remind Kyle that he was the one who’d turned him on to this shit—the kid looked innocent but he was a goddamn enabler. But he didn’t want to get into it now, when he was so focused, so
in the zone
.

About ten minutes later, they approached the meeting spot—the lot behind the abandoned warehouse, right along the East River.

Max didn’t see any other cars in the lot. He wondered what the fuck was going on, said, “What the fuck’s going on? Weren’t the
hombres
supposed to be here before us?”

“There they are,” Kyle said.

“Where?” Max said impatiently. He didn’t see shit and was that line wearing off already? Goddamn bullshit coke. What happened to the Real Thing?

“Right over there,” Kyle said.

Now Max saw two kids, teenagers, approaching the car, squinting at the headlights. One of the kids was wearing a Madonna concert T.

“Who the fuck are they?” Max said.

“The big one’s Xavier and the shorter one’s Carlos,” Kyle said. “They’re the Colombians.”

Max would’ve thought Kyle was joking if the kid wasn’t dumber than Forrest Gump. These were the cartel, the Noriegas of the zeitgeist? And, yeah, as soon as he found out exactly what zeitgeist meant, he’d use it more often. Meanwhile, he was seriously agitated.

“What kind of bullshit is this?” Max said.

There was no limo in sight; how’d they get here, on their fucking bicycles? They had goddamn piercings. And how old were they, sixteen?

“Hey, bro,” Xavier said, still squinting badly. “How ’bout cutting the lights? You blindin’ my ass.”

The fuck sounded like he was from the goddamn Bronx—how much American TV did they get down in South America? He didn’t even have a Spanish accent. Max had been wasting his time with all that Señor Lopez shit for this?

Kyle turned off the headlights and Xavier and Carlos came up to the SUV’s driver-side window. The three of them started talking, laughing it up, like they were in a fucking high school parking lot. Fuck, maybe they could all go out for pizza.

Max, needing a pick-me-up big time, was getting set to do another line, about to snort it through a rolled-up hundred, when another car pulled into the lot, headlights blazing.

“The fuck is this?” Max asked.

“Darned if I know,” Kyle said.

There was something about Kyle’s tone. He sounded very un-Kyle—a little too quick, too prepared. It crossed Max’s mind,
Was this some kind of set-up?

Max felt a drip of white cold sweat roll down his back and he knew that was gonna fuck up the line of the shirt. He was thinking, Uh-oh, good this is not.

Two black guys got out of the car. One was skinny, one was huge, looked like Fat Albert. They were both in oversized basketball jerseys and were wearing backwards baseball caps.

Max went, “What the fuck is this? A goddamn nightclub?”

Then Max spotted the automatic weapons the guys were holding. He was too shocked to react. He just sat there, looking as dumb as Kyle, as the two black fuckers started running toward the SUV, firing. Glass was shattering, Xavier’s head exploded. The top of it just like took off, went through the air like some weird Frisbee and Max was thinking,
Oh, holy fuck.

Covered in blood, Max shouted, “Drive, you asshole! Drive!”

A bullet went into Carlos’s neck, made almost a whistling sound—whoosh, and kept right on going, to Colombia maybe. Then Carlos crumpled like a sex doll Max had once had and crushed in his excitement. More glass shattered, and finally Kyle turned on the ignition and the SUV started.

Ducking, Max shouted, “Go!” and Kyle sped away.

Max didn’t know if he’d been hit. He didn’t feel any pain but maybe his terror had blocked it out.

Bullets continued to spray against the car and then Max remembered he had the Glock. This was it, his
Scarface
moment, a chance to put everything he’d learned to work. He could be Tony Montana, he could kill a couple of
putas
. Seeing himself in one of the drive-by scenes in
Boyz n the Hood
, Max sat up and started unloading the Glock, firing wildly at first, but then he hit one of the guys—the skinny one—right in the chest.

Bullseye, got the bastard dead on. Man, Max could shoot—he’d brought down his first
hombre
and it felt fucking wild, it felt
right
. He should have done this years ago, what a goddamned rush. He couldn’t resist screaming, “Hee haw!
Caramba!
” as the SUV sped through the lot.