Street Raised Page 7

  Little Willy moved around back keeping a weather eye on the manager’s office, which was lightless and still. No curtains twitched in any of the motel rooms’ windows as he crept by them; he maintained the appearance of an innocent stroll while simultaneously stepping with feline silence.

  The cracked stucco exterior walls of the motel bled condensation from the fog. The walls were also liberally tagged with swathes of paint. Squinting to decipher the cryptic spray painted symbols, Little Willy made out that it was the West Side de Berkeley Gang that had crept up from the Waterfront to hike their legs on this wall and claim the turf. Willy was more than willing to let WSB have this territory – all he wanted was to get paid and then get high.

  Little Willy reached the rear of the motel and looked up at Room 222, channeling Speedy as he did so. Your money is behind that door, Speedy’s avatar whispered in the back of Willy’s brain. All it takes is going up there and glomming it.

  Willy looked around for escape routes first, noting that Room 222 commanded a view of an overflowing dumpster squatting next to a waist-high cinderblock retaining wall – the retaining wall separated the motel’s off-street parking lot from the unpaved alley bisecting this block.

  Willy took a long, slow scan around, rotating in position as he did one last careful 360 before the approach. He stopped to face the mark’s room, closing his eyes to listen: nothing but traffic rumbling along Adeline a few blocks beyond the motel’s shielding bulk.

  No threats he could see or hear, no bad vibes other than the sour weight of adrenaline boiling in his gut that he always felt before 211 time. It was Green Light Go.

  He ascended the concrete-over-steel steps of the exterior staircase, treading with care and hoping he wouldn’t have to beat feet in a hurry. Experience had taught Willy these hollow slab stairs boomed like a Caribbean steel drum set if you had to move up or down them at any pace faster than a creep.

  Room 222 was right at the top of the stairs, a freebie he’d noted from the parking lot, just one more microscopic edge to cushion him from the law of averages that had relegated so many bandits before him to the Slams.

  Little Willy straightened and extended the palm of one hand to hover an inch away from the door, willing his personal radar to sense whatever was going on inside there. It still wasn’t too late to back off and he’d walked away from many other heists at this exact point in the process.

  He leaned toward the motel room’s scarred gray door, inclining his head to listen without quite touching his ear to its warped surface. A TV was on inside. It had to be the Tonight Show; he could hear Ed’s unmistakable sycophantic chortle and the studio audience’s obligatory laughter.

  “I need a drink,” he heard Tammi say, her voice muffled by the door’s thickness.

  Tammi was the whore who had set this score up through Ghost, with Marla acting as interpreter Willy presumed. Tammi had a regular, some old dude who always carried a fat roll of cabbage and made a point of flashing it to her. In exchange for fingering the mark and letting Little Willy in, Ghost would give Tammi a little piece of the bank after Little Willy took off her john.

  This kind of deal was typical of how Willy and Ghost’s drug partnership had been working. Whores and johns were their bread and butter – Little Willy did the heavy lifting in return for Ghost tacitly taking all responsibility.

  Willy took out a black woolen ski mask from his back pocket and tugged it on to conceal his face, lining up the mouth and eyeholes perfectly from long practice. He darted wary glances at the neighboring motel room doors to right and left, and at the parking lot over his shoulder. He drew his .45 from under his Pendleton shirt, where the pistol had been dragging down the back of his trousers waistband like it was trying to pants him.

  It was show time.

  He grasped the doorknob and twisted, but it was locked. He froze in momentary shock, feeling naked out here in public with mask and gun for all to see.

  Tammi was supposed to have undone the deadbolt. Willy pondered for a moment and then rapped on the door.

  He heard Tammi’s voice from inside saying, “Let’s see who it is,” countered by her john saying, “Fuck that.”

  With an almost sexual feeling of release, Little Willy heard the bolt thrown. He slammed the motel door open and snaked forward to the center of the terrifying motel room in a scrambling lunge, his .45 springing up in intimidation display, his ski mask his only shield against the mark’s burning eyes (eyes that Willy felt on him like a weight).

  Tammi was there, a chicken-breasted crack whore stumbling back from Little Willy’s threat pretending she bought into it. She looked the part of jungle prey in her zebra-stripe top, cringing in false submission next to her john: a bald skinny dude about sixty with gnarled workman’s hands, wearing a faded gas station jacket with ‘Sonny’ embroidered over the heart.

  Behind the mark, Johnny was mumbling his droning monolog on the motel room TV – Little Willy fought to keep his gaze from being drawn in that direction, instead aiming his attention and his .45 at the man in front of him: ‘Sonny’s’ hair was drenched in Vitalis and combed back into a flattop, he held a motel glass with what looked like whiskey slopping out of it to spill, and he did not appear submissive at all as he scowled back at Willy.

  Willy’s eyes widened as he and the mark locked gazes, and Little Willy suddenly saw the guy as a human being instead of a moneybag. The insight sucked.

  “It’s fake,” the tough old man said, scowling bushy-browed down at the quite real .45, and Willy froze in momentary indecision.

  The old man suddenly lumbered toward him making a melodramatic grab for Willy’s hardware, and Little Willy reflexively took a step back out of reach. Willy wondered if maybe the old coot was trying to show off for Tammi – a painfully laughable thought, prompting Willy to wonder what the old man would think if he knew Tammi had set him up.

  Little Willy had coped with a multitude of reactions from marks and Speedy had taught him that rapping them on the bridge of the nose with the butt of your pistol usually got their instant attention if they got froggy. The combination of blood and pain woke them to the reality of the transaction and they coughed up the dough quick.

  But Willy didn’t have the heart to do it even if he knew Speedy would’ve without hesitation – the realization of the mark’s humanity made Willy lose any interest in hurting this john (this person); even to get the cash, even with major amounts of crack waiting at the end of the line.

  Willy’s back slammed into the door as he took one more step away from the old man’s clumsy swipes at the gun, and there was nowhere else to go to escape this unwelcome one-way intimacy that had arisen between them.

  The old geezer continued to move in, so Little Willy leaned forward and prodded him in the chest with the terrified muzzle of the .45. The geezer gasped, his rheumy eyes rolled up in his head, and he sunk onto the cheap motel carpet in a heap.

  “Shit,” Little Willy said, goggling at the dead old man on the floor.

  ‘Special circumstances,’ a frantic voice gibbered in the back of his brain. ‘Death row, homicide in the commission of a robbery.’

  Little Willy stooped to press his left hand against the side of the old man’s throat. Ed McMahon emitted an especially raucous burst of laughter from the TV, and Tammi stood disregarded as she hovered avid over the two men, bumping gums about something that didn’t even register in Willy’s brain.

  The old man’s heart beat strong against Little Willy’s fingers and Willy let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. His hands searched the old man for the bankroll like those appendages were on autopilot. Little Willy had put away the green wad of scratch in practiced reflex by the time he regained his feet, so thankful the old geezer was alive that he didn’t even acknowledge Tammi’s existence at first as he stood.

  Then her words registered on his brain: “Willy,” she whispered in harsh primal excitement at being in on the kill, her panties probably moistening as she stood there on the
other side of the unconscious old man watching the young bandit pocket the loot. “Little Willy.”

  He glared at her through the eyeholes of his mask in shocked rage at her dope fiend stupidity. She was still whispering his name as he whirled away from her and the mark (who was squirming like a backstroking swimmer, slowly regaining consciousness).

  Little Willy stalked out the door without even taking time to case the outside world for threats. He was halfway down the staircase, taking them two at a time (those hollow metal steps booming beneath his frantic feet and humiliatingly announcing his progress to God and everyone) before it occurred to him to pull the mask off his head, to tug up the shirttail of his Pendleton and stick the .45 back in the rear of his waistband.

  He did so without slowing, walked toward the rear of the parking lot at a brisk (but not too brisk) pace, not turning to expose his face to any potential witnesses even though the back of his neck crawled and he kept wanting to swivel his head around to see if anyone was watching him from behind. He vaulted over the low cinder block fence and into the welcoming darkness of the alley.

  Little Willy shivered nonstop as he walked down the pot-holed gravel of the alley, considering what a botched abortion this heist had been, what a comedy of errors he’d just starred in.

  Something wasn’t right here – he’d lost it on this one. He’d made too many mistakes on this gig, the kind of mistakes that led to prison (like his own mistakes that had reached out and fucked brother Speedy, Willy thought, not shying away from unpleasantness this time).

  As he moved through the night thanking whatever god of thieves might be responsible for the concealing fog, he thought about how much guts it had taken the old man to face him like that (even if the old man was mistaken, even if it had almost gotten the foolish geezer killed).

  He smiled, though he realized this ridiculous empathy for his victim meant he could no longer rob. Still, the old man’s crazy courage comforted him for some stupid reason as he continued making his way back to Marla’s pad, ever ready to ditch his piece and his mask at a moment’s notice if Five-O rolled up on him.

  Maybe the 211 Life was all Little Willy knew, but as he slouched through the fog he also knew that it was time for some kind of change. It was over. This part of his life was finished, and it was time to find a new path to travel no matter where it led him.

  But a path to what? Nothing came to mind. He couldn’t see any way out of the only lifestyle he’d ever been taught, but he was also through taking off people who didn’t deserve it, as of now.

  Then he was back at Marla’s hotel and on the third floor, standing in the hallway outside her room. Willy hesitated, uncertain as to why, trying to hear what was happening behind the hotel room door.

  Nothing.

  He realized that he was treating Marla’s hotel room like it was a target and everyone inside were marks. He bared his teeth for a fleeting instant as he rapped on the door with his knuckle.

  Marla opened the door and Little Willy crowded past her into the illusory safety this temporary approximation of a home base afforded. The thick acrid medicinal stench of crack smoke filled the hotel room, and it was much hotter than when he’d left. They’d been getting off without him.

  Willy happened to glance over at the parakeet cage. The door was open and the bird lay on the bottom of the cage with its feet stuck up in the air, unmoving.

  Ghost was still sitting in the easy chair, and his hoodie was still cinched tight around his face. He glanced over at Little Willy for a moment as if acknowledging Willy’s successful return; then Ghost recommenced his brooding, looking like he was sifting through the background data of the world for some information only he would be able to detect.

  A jheri-curled black man occupied the sofa, wearing a red leather jacket and horn-rim glasses held together by masking tape at the bridge. Little Willy knew this blood: His name was Sherman, and he was a black Nam vet with a good reputation in all the circles the brothers associated with. Willy had known him for many years and Sherman had always treated him with civility and courtesy, even when Little Willy had been a snot-nosed little kid.

  Speedy and Sherman had always got along, too. But Willy wondered just how friendly the two would be if Speedy learned that Sherman was Little Willy’s best crack connection these days. That might incite Speedy’s more malevolent side if he ever found out.

  “Hey Sherman,” Willy said, smiling without pretense – he liked Sherman as much as he liked anyone besides his original crew.

  Sherman grinned back all snaggle-toothed, tugged his taped glasses down his nose with one finger, and favored Willy with a conspiratorial wink.

  Little Willy pulled the roll from his pocket and did a quick count, the three others in the room watching his every move with feral intentness – green always seemed to have that effect on outlaws. It came to a little over two grand, a stupid amount of cheddar to be carrying around hookers in Willy’s opinion.

  “This is the mint,” Little Willy said in satisfaction.

  Beads of perspiration rolled from Willy’s face in anticipation of getting high. He peeled off two hundreds and handed them to Ghost for his finder’s fee, then handed all the rest of his money to Sherman – why even pretend he was going to spend it on anything inconsequential, like food and such?

  Sherman pulled a ziploc baggie from his jacket pocket, opened it and pulled two golf-ball-sized yellow rocks of cocaine from the fat stash bulging in there. He hefted them a bit in the palm of his hand. Then, as if on impulse, he reached back into the baggie to remove two more golf balls.

  “I’m giving you double-up love here fa sho, Willy,” Sherman said, handing them to him. “Four ounces of shakin bakin premium hubba for the price of two.”

  Willy reached out to take the proffered rocks. They weighed heavy on his own small outstretched palm before he set them all down on the coffee table.

  Sherman looked at the floor for a second, his lips pursing like he had something to say. Then he looked hard at Willy, no trace of a smile on his ebony face this time.

  “Pleasure doing business, young blood,” Sherman said, standing.

  He listened for a moment at the door, then cracked it open and listened again for another split second as he pulled his trademark bamboo flute from inside his red leather jacket. He strolled out into the hallway as he put the flute sideways to his mouth and started playing a soft, atonal series of notes.

  The music sounded all Japanese-y to Willy, like sake and samurais and such-like. Sherman’s flute song grew quieter as he Kwai-Chang-Cained away down the hall, and when Marla closed the door the music was cut off abruptly in mid-note. Marla had a wistful expression on her face as she threw the dead bolt, perhaps at the thought of all that delicious stash getting further from her.

  Little Willy realized that Sherman hadn’t bid farewell to anyone else. Sherman hadn’t looked at Ghost the whole time Willy had been back, either.

  The hot, chemical reek in the air was making Willy dizzy and excited. Marla crept over and sat on the couch next to him. A blackened glass straight-shooter crack pipe was in her hand and Willy’s heart beat faster. It was time to do up.

  Marla snuck a sidelong glance at Ghost as she handed the pipe to Willy.

  “You don’t need to use a needle to be a junkie,” she said, as if in passive-aggressive retort to Ghost’s earlier dig.

  Ghost didn’t change expression at Marla’s delayed wisecrack; it blew right by him. He only watched as if indifferent while Marla produced a miniature butane torch, lit it, and held it for Willy.

  Little Willy pre-heated the straight shooter in the flame for a moment before pulling the pipe away. With his free hand Willy pinched a chunk off one of the rocks and placed it on the end of the pipe. The crack melted instantly into the wadded chunk of burnt Choreboy copper cleaning pad stuck in the end as a screen.

  Marla held the lighter up again and Willy stuck the pipe into the flame, taking a long, gentle suck on the glass. Little Willy jerked
the crack pipe away from Marla’s eager torch as white smoke billowed to fill the glass tube – he didn’t want to burn the rock with too much heat too soon.

  He pulled the straight shooter from his lips, torturing himself with anticipation as he watched a tiny tendril of crack smoke waver from the mouth end of the pipe. The scent of it excited him more than the sight of a naked woman as he watched the crack smoke dissipate into the air, a little piece of Heaven wasted.

  He put his mouth back on the pipe, Marla lit the torch and held it to the rock, and he went to town, sucking hard as the beautiful white smoke billowed, filling his lungs to bursting until he could hold no more. Willy yanked the pipe from Marla’s torch yet again and sank back into the couch cushions, holding his precious lungful of smoke with every bit of concentration he could muster.

  The high was instantaneous. Marla plucked the pipe from Willy’s suddenly disinterested fingers as the rush overwhelmed him – his rock had been a big one, and he lay helpless under waves of pleasure as he watched her fingers tremble filling her own pipe load.

  Little Willy’s brain felt like bald tires spinning on a wet road. His heart thrummed like an electric guitar, and every sound within and without him sounded like he was inside a fifty-gallon steel barrel with angels drumming on the outside to deafen him in throbs of ecstasy. Every beat of his heart felt like an orgasm, and he laughed inside to feel his own pulse as something to rival the best fuck he’d ever had. Crack was his whore, the pipe his glass bitch, and this was the true meaning of bliss.

  Willy returned to reality in time to see Marla sagging back after her own hit, and Ghost taking the straight shooter for his own turn.

  “This pipe is hot,” Ghost said, and laid it on the coffee table to cool.

  “Tell me about Speedy again,” Ghost ordered, as if wanting to fill the time by having Little Willy tell one more war story about his big brother.

  Willy opened his mouth to speak just as there was a knock on the door. Ghost unfolded his twisted gangly length and stepped to the door, where he leaned his long head over to listen at its scratched surface.