The Baddest Ass (Billy Lafitte #3)

• Copyright information
  
• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14
  
• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Chapter 21
  
• Chapter 22
  
• Chapter 23
  
• Epilogue
  
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  
• All The Young Warriors
  
• Also by Anthony Neil Smith
  

The Baddest Ass

a Billy Lafitte novel

Anthony Neil Smith

Published by Blasted Heath, 2013

copyright © 2013 Anthony Neil Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.

Anthony Neil Smith has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover design by JT Lindroos

Visit Anthony Neil Smith at:

http://www.blastedheath.com

ISBN (ePub): 978-1-908688-48-4

Version 2-1-3

West didn't join the Aryans to protect himself from the Blacks. Shit, he grew up in Detroit—black food, black music, black friends. He never had a problem with the Blacks. He joined the Aryans to protect himself from the
Whites
. No fence-sitting motherfuckers up in here. Max security. You fucking kidding? Try coming in all level-headed and friendly, that'll make everyone want to hurt you. Go be a bleeding-heart liberal open-armed faggot outside the walls if you want, but inside it all comes down to the color of your skin.

Sort of.

There were pariahs of all shades. They didn't have an umbrella at all. They didn't even like each other.

It was bad enough already that West had killed his black dealer's sister, the one who looked mostly spic anyway, killed her because he was choking her while fucking her. Held down too hard. And, like, no fucking way West knew she was fifteen. Not built the way she was.

Word is already out—once inside, West is a microwave burrito: two minutes away from getting nuked. Prize of the month, worth, shit, worth like five other newbies. And he's big news in this new joint, not even half-filled yet. Shit, the blacks don't even have a cellblock—not that they were supposed to be separated by race like that, but yeah, it happened. They had been staying in the gym. Contractors finished the
gym
before the
cells
and are still here working in the winter after the
convicts
had arrived. So yeah, it's all this new paint odor getting them high while they talk about creative ways to fuck the new guy.

Too bad West is skinny and his face is not meth ugly.

The Aryans, that was going to be his rescue. This guy Al wasn't going to fuck West. No, the man said, getting up with West as soon as his guard escort was gone. Always a circle of whites keeping watch over them, Al said—eyes looking in, eyes looking out. Al said you don't build loyalty by raping some hot piece of meat soon as he walks in. But what a man
chooses
to do, now that's different. So, you know, if you ever feel—

West's like, Fuck no. Like, get your fucking hand off my leg.

Al tells West if he wants in, he's got to do some cosmetic surgery to this femme fucker, former Aryan, sold out their white lieutenant to a black who'd been slamming him in secret. Al doesn't bother saying what would happen if West said no.

They're thinking, like, a broken piece of tile sliced through both cheeks, give the faggot more room in his mouth for black cock, since he's being protected by a big-ass Black named Ri'Chess. Get it? Fucking rap names, fucking initiations, fucking guys getting turned out just like that fucking TV show, the one where the boy genius escape artist somehow kept his asshole from getting bloodied. In two different prisons! Even a Panamanian pit of hell. Just like all those prison movies, too. Just like all the stories West heard about prison guards—guys in here keep calling them “cops”—turning their eyes away if the price was right or the convict was shitty enough.

So when the Aryans say, "Scar that cocksucker", West is going to scar that cocksucker. Decides to do it while they're all leaving dinner. He makes sure some Whites have his back before he slips up behind the guy, fistful of hair, dig/slice left, dig/slice right, drops him while he screams and ragdolls to the tile, then West books it out of there before the cops get wind because after this, everyone's going to lockdown anyway.

West keeps his mouth shut. The Aryans keep their mouths shut. The Indians, them from the Native Mob, that's like talking to a wall anyway, don't even think it. Shit, the Blacks, they tight-lipped, too, and them being all jammed up in the fucking gym because the fucking cells are cramped and reserved for the
even worse
than convicts like West, hot as balls, smells like balls, even though it's fucking ice outside, that shit ain't cool. But everyone keeps their mouths shut and sweats it out.

With that, West becomes a trusted white. Gets a tat. It gets infected. He spends three days in the infirmary to get the fever and pus out. Al makes another pass at West in his weakened state, but West pwns him in front of his gang. Pwns him
bad
. Like, bends over and slaps his own ass, singing, "This the closest you ever beeeeee. Get yourself some Jesus and love some pussy."

The Aryans, man, they laugh and nod and say, "Amen" and "Hallelujah" even though a third of them are guilty of it—started out getting it from Al or, shit, from Blacks before Al stepped in, took them on, and was at least fucking
sweet
about it, you know? Not like you were Al's bitch all the sudden. It was just something you did, something you didn't talk about to everyone else. It was a bad dream. And most of those third, to wipe the memory as best as possible, ended up fucking someone else younger and newer on the totem. That's the game: favors and protection in exchange for a man's needs. More bad dreams.

Except those Spics, few that there are here. Very few of them drift over that line. Catholics. The Blessed Virgin Mary watches them close, Hey-Zeus looking over her shoulder.

Anyway, West fucks that shit up. The whole gang, right there, laughing and braying and telling Al, "He got you good. Just funnin' with you."

But they know.

Al gives the nod to the one Lakota he'd been with, who knows someone else up the chain, who isn't unfriendly with the Blacks, whose friend over there—they took a class together—pass the nod along to Ri'Chess himself.

They come for West after the count at Lights Out.

Startled awake by two black men, one wide and one made of granite. One blacker than the darkness with bloodshot eyes, and the other lighter like copper with stab scars across his arms and chest like ancient runes. You don't see Blacks just waltzing into the White bunks without either a war coming on…or permission. And West knows which it is. Fucking sold out. Fucking should've known better. Don't care what color he is, if someone offers protection, the price is always too goddamned high.

West is shaking too bad to scream, but even if he could, he wouldn't. Screaming will bring cops and lose him whatever cred he's built up. Not like it fucking matters, since the cops have to be in on it for it to happen at all. West does as he's told. He gets up and walks sandwiched between the soldiers through too many bunks where West feels the open eyes of fellow Aryans who'll never
ever
admit to cutting him loose, giving back a little stink eye himself. Some "I'll remember this, motherfuckers. Fucking right." Like they ain't seen that look a thousand times already, but they understand West still has to pose. A man's got nothing if he can't posture.

Ri'Chess is holding court in his bunk. Only man in the gym who had cleared both top and bottom bunk for himself, put up double-thick sheets on all sides, and was left the fuck alone by cops and cons. The granite soldier with the old scars parts the sheets to find Ri'Chess sitting like Buddha, watching Jimmy Fallon on a Macbook. Looks clear, like cable. He even has a copier/fax in there.

He extends his fingers. "Have a seat."

The Granite Man puts pressure on West's shoulders, easing the boy down, nice and slow. The bunk is soft. He has a mattress cover, nice satiny sheets. Once West is opposite Ri'Chess, mirroring the Buddha squat, that weird-looking Frankenstein soldier closes the sheets. West can see the two soldiers' silhouettes by the TV light.

"Fuck they call you?" Ri'Chess says.

Dry mouth. "Um. Uh. West."

"Something like a motherfucking cowboy or some shit?"

"No, it's my name. West. Last name's West."

"Like I said, motherfucking cowboy shit."

The fuck do you say to that?

Ri'Chess says, "You want to make this problem go away? Tell me it was all Al's idea. Al can take the bite. Maybe someone over here will, uh,
look after
you, know what I'm saying?"

Not a fair offer. Always a trap. West looks away. "I'm not a rat."

"Smart boy. Good boy. Nigga could like having him a bitch with sass like that cleaning his bunk. Sweet bitch."

West's cheeks are on fire. "I ain't nobody's
bitch
. I'm Aryan. You're all like motherfucking monkeys, man. Surprised you can even talk in sentences. You must got white in you somewhere."

Ri'Chess laughs the whole time West goes off. Some other blacks listening in, obviously, and they start up. Whole place starts up. What are they thinking? Laughing like that's going to bring the cops in.

Maybe they want to. Just going to gut West and leave him and let the cops clean up.

So do it already. West balls his fists. Flexes all his muscles, thinking if they try to cut him, he can make himself hard like armor, like Iron Man, like a flesh wound is as bad as it would get. They try to slit his throat, shit, going to drown in his own blood, nothing he could do about that, but then it would fuck up the bunks. Ri'Chess looks too proud of his little hotel suite to let that happen.

"Got a proposition for you."

West blinks. Gut feels sick after all the clenching.

Ri'Chess keeps on. "Got ourselves a man needs to be dealt with. You know? Like, permanent. He needs to be got."

West knows what's next. It's a white man. If West wants any protection at all, he has to kill a white man. And even then, the blacks ain't promising anything yet.

"What do I get if I do it?"

"You get to be left alone."

Shi-it
. "You can't promise that. Bullshit, motherfucker."

Ri'Chess sinks down, takes a breath. That fucking Buddha vibe. Guy is a sea of Zen and shit. "Let me ask you. You acted a fool and got your white ass thrown our way. You know why? You stopped being scared, thought it was going to be easy. You've got to be scared
and
smart. You wasn't neither."

"I'm not scared. Not scared of any—"

Boo!
Granite outside, punches the sheet. West nearly falls out the other side, bangs the back of his head into the frame. Scrapes his scalp bloody.

They
laugh, laugh, laugh
. West so scared he's about to piss his pants and he's so angry he's got Chuck Norris fantasies running through his head—taking out all the niggas with one roundabout kick in slo-mo, yeah, fuck yeah.

Not happening.

Ri'Chess grins while his soldiers keep giggling like they at a slumber party.

"Not scared, boy?"

West cracks his neck, hold his lips hard. "Just on guard, that's all. You ain't told me my prize yet."

"You ain't done anything yet."