Stick Read online

  The girl named Pam, Kyle assumed, was Chucky’s. She had more hair than Kyle had ever seen before on a human head. Ash blond. More than all of Charlie’s Angels put together, making her face seem tiny, hiding in there. Her hand, bearing a diamond solitaire, rested on Chucky’s arm. She yawned but seemed content.

  The other girl, Aurora, was dark-haired, cat-faced, with bedroom eyes, languid moves; she wore rings on seven of her fingers, a diamond, an opal, intricate designs in gold. She didn’t yawn, she wound the straw from her collins around her thumb, pulled it off and wound it again.

  Chucky said, “We were out with Barry earlier today, cruised up from Dinner Key. Little boat party.”

  “I know,” Kyle said. “He called me as I was leaving home.”

  Pam said, “Every time we go out’n the boat”—she spoke slowly, dragging her words—”and then come in here after and go, you know, to the ladies’ room? I wash my hands and all, comb my hair. And then, whenever I look at myself in the mirror after we’ve been out on the boat? My zits look bigger.”

  “They are,” Aurora said.

  Chucky said to Kyle, “You work out of your house, uh?”

  “I have an office there.”

  “These two work out of their house, too,” Chucky said.

  Pam slapped his arm. “What’s that suppose to mean?”

  Aurora said to him, “I thought you were going to take me home.” The whine in her voice surprised Kyle; she had expected a purr. She heard Chucky say, “You want to leave, call a cab.” And the whine again: “You big shit, Barry said you’re suppose to take me.” They weren’t bedroom eyes, they were joyless, at best sleepy.

  Chucky said, “Hey, when’d I start working for Barry? You want to go home, go home. You want to wait’ll we’re through here, I’ll take you. Now you be a good girl.”

  Aurora said, “Well, why can’t Lionel take me?”

  “ ’cause Lionel’s busy.”

  Moke said, “Doing what, eating? I ain’t seen that sucker do nothing else.” Moke grinned, his eyes slipped over to Kyle to get her reaction.

  She smiled, an act of courtesy, and regretted it.

  Encouraged, Moke said, “Yeah, Lionel, he gets his snout in the trough he’ll feed all day you let him. Won’t he?”

  Chucky said, “Well, he is a size, all right.”

  Moke said, “He was mine I’d keep him out’n a feed lot.”

  “Why don’t I leave this with you,” Kyle said, setting her case upright on her lap. She zipped it open and brought out a printed binder and a few loose papers. “You can take your time, read over the prospectus and give me a call . . . not this week, though. I’m going to be in New York.”

  “I can’t wait,” Chucky said. “Let’s get ‘er done now.”

  “He can’t read, is what his trouble is,” Moke said. “Can you?”

  Kyle kept her eyes on Chucky. “You want to do it here?”

  “It’ll be a first,” Chucky said. “The only legit deal ever made in this place.”

  Kyle said, “Well . . .” and placed the bound prospectus in front of him. “It’s a software company, been in business two years.”

  “Software,” Moke drawled, “they make that toilet paper don’t hurt none when you wipe yourself?”

  Pam said, “God, you’re sickening.”

  Kyle didn’t look up. “They’ve developed a series of programs for personal computers.” She glanced at Chucky. “You wanted to get into high-tech.”

  “Love it,” Chucky said. “I got a computer myself. I show it to you?”

  Kyle shook her head, surprised. “No, you didn’t.”

  “I don’t know how to operate it,” Chucky said. “I got a fourteen-year-old kid comes in when I need him, name of Gary. Gary can key into Dade and Broward County, both their systems. I ask him to run a license number? Gary can tell me in about ten seconds if it’s on a county or government vehicle or belongs to a pal. All the time popping his bubble gum.”

  Moke said, “You shitting me?”

  “Ask it the birth date of your favorite trooper,” Chucky said, “case you want to send him a card with a little something in it.”

  Kyle said, “Well, you only plug into Dow-Jones with this one. They’re specializing in programs for mailing lists, forecasts, cost analyses, budgets, word processing. They’ve somehow organized an eighty-eight-thousand-word dictionary inside ninety-three K bytes of disk space, if that excites you . . .”

  “Dig it,” Chucky said. “What else?”

  “Well, the market,” Kyle said, “is definitely there. It’s been increasing by a third each year, while this particular company has tripled its revenue over the past two years and they’re now reasonably sure of a three-hundred-percent annual growth rate through at least ‘Eighty-five.”

  Aurora said, “How do you know all that?”

  Kyle looked up to see the dark-haired girl frowning at her. “I’m sorry. What?”

  “How do you know about all that kind of stuff?”

  “I read,” Kyle said. She placed a typewritten letter before Chucky that was addressed to an investment banking company in New York, then went into her case again for a pen. “That’s the subscription form. Sign where you see your name at the bottom and you’ll be a one-and-a-half percent shareholder in Stor-Tech, Inc.”

  Aurora said, “I mean but how did you learn all that?”

  “She’s smart, what she is,” Moke said. If anybody wanted the answer.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Kyle said to poor puzzled Aurora frowning at her. “I’ll give you a lift home and tell you all about it on the way. How’s that?”

  Chucky said, “Hey, come on, you’re not leaving us, are you?”

  “Have to,” Kyle said. “Isn’t that the way it is, just when you’re having fun . . .”

  Bobbi raised her arm straight up, called to Chucky going out to the terrace and waved the check at him. She watched him come back through the customers standing around by the opening, Moke right behind him in that stupid cowboy hat.

  “You want to sign or pay for it?”

  “I’m a signer,” Chucky said. “Gimme your pen.”

  Bobbi had to go over to the cash register to get it. Lying there on the back counter was the drink check her boss wanted verified, so she brought that with her and held it out to Chucky with the ballpoint.

  “Gabe says I have to show you this one I signed your name to. From last week.”

  Chucky took the check, looked at it. “You write just like I do.”

  “I try to save you the bother, but Gabe can tell the difference.”

  “Just come straight out from the loop and put a little tail on it. This one here you can almost read,” Chucky said. “You didn’t give yourself a tip.”

  “ ‘Course not. You think I’m trying to rip you off?”

  “Not my sweet girl,” Chucky said, still looking at the check. “Who was I with? I don’t remember.”

  “Well, actually,” Bobbi said—she was afraid he was going to ask that—”you weren’t here but Rainy said put it on your tab”—Chucky looking up at her now—” ’cause he and this guy he was with were supposed to meet you, but you didn’t show up.”

  “Last Thursday?” Chucky said, his big pupils staring right at her now.

  Moke was in close to him, leaning on the bar and looking at the check past Chucky’s shoulder. Bobbi raised her hand to smooth her hair in back, fooling with it for something to do and saw Moke, the creep, staring at her armpit. Moke was weird. He’d sit at the bar sometimes and just stare, hold his beer bottle by the neck in his fist, never taking it away from his mouth, and giving it a little flip with his wrist when he wanted a sip. When he was being funny he’d ask for a straw with the beer and wait for her to laugh. He was going to wait a long time, the stupid shit. What a ‘tard.

  “He say I was coming in?” Chucky asked.

  “Who, Rainy? Yeah, you were supposed to meet ’em here,” Bobbi said. “Rainy and this friend of his. He was here ab
out an hour ago, I just saw him.”

  “Rainy was?” Chucky seemed confused.

  “No, not Rainy. His friend.”

  “While I’ve been here?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t notice.”

  Chucky had straightened. “Not while I been here.” He turned to Moke. “You see him?”

  “See who?” Moke said.

  “The guy, the one that was with Rainy last week. You know, went with him . . .”

  Now Moke straightened up from the bar. “He was in here? When?”

  “She says just a while ago.”

  “I don’t know,” Bobbi said, instinct telling her to back off, “maybe it was a couple of hours ago.” She didn’t like the look on Moke’s face. Or Chucky’s, for that matter.

  “Musta just missed him,” Chucky said. “What’d you say his name was?”

  “I don’t know his name. Only he’s a friend of Rainy’s.”

  “Slim fella, with brownish hair,” Chucky said.

  She had never seen Chucky so intent, serious. A moment ago she was going to say something about how much Rainy’s friend had changed, his appearance, like he’d been sick and now was all better, but changed her mind and said, “Just ordinary looking, I guess.”

  “Where’s he staying?” Chucky asked her.

  “I don’t know.” With irritation now, to show she was getting tired of this. “Ask Rainy.”

  Neither of them said anything.

  Moke seemed about to, then raised his eyebrows and grinned. Then rubbed his hand over his mouth and looked away, like TV actors did, acting innocent. Immature or stupid—Bobbi believed you could go either way with Moke and be right. Even stoned he was a simple study.

  Chucky said, “Well, it doesn’t matter.” He bent over to sign the check.

  And Moke said something that would stay with Bobbi for a long while after. He said, “It was dark time I seen him, but I’d know that sucker again, I betcha anything.” With an eager sound to his drawl.

  She was glad she didn’t tell them how much Rainy’s friend had changed. She wondered if he’d come in again. She wondered what she’d say to him, if he did.

  They were on the walkway of the bridge, crossing toward Chucky’s condo, Lionel trailing behind. Moke said, “Girl says ask Rainy. That’d be some deal. Get one of them air tanks you put on your back for diving, pair of flippers . . .”

  “I don’t want to know anything about that,” Chucky said.

  “Well, you better see about this fella. I tell Nestor he’s gonna say find him and take him off the street.”

  Chucky wiped at his face with the palm of his hand. He wanted to run. Run home, run up fifteen flights of stairs, that elevator was so slow, and pop some caps; when he was wired he had to move right now. He said, “She must’ve made a mistake. The guy wouldn’t be hanging around here, so don’t worry about it.”

  Moke took hold of Chucky’s arm, bringing him to a stop in the middle of the bridge walkway, people giving them looks as they had to step off the curb to go around. Lionel came up but Moke didn’t pay any attention to him or the people, saying to Chucky, “You’re the one sent the fella with Rainy. I saw him run off. Avilanosa’s standing there with his Mac-ten smoking, man, he saw him run off. Avilanosa goes, who was that? I tell him, beats a shit outta me. Some guy Chucky wanted taken out.”

  Chucky, trying to keep his jaw tight, said, “The guy was with Rainy. I didn’t even know him. Listen, I gotta go.”

  “Yeah, you said to me on the phone, take the bozo with Rainy. You recall that?”

  “I might’ve at the time,” Chucky said, moving, twisting his shoulders, wanting to snap his fingers. “It doesn’t matter if I said it or not, right? I’ll take care of the matter. The guy’s around I’ll find him.”

  Moke said, “You fuck Nestor again, man, he’ll send Avilanosa. And there won’t be nothing in the world I can do about that or want to try—no matter how many goddamn hats you give me, partner . . . Hey, you hear me!”

  Chucky was running with the appearance of jogging, just in time moving to hold back the panic beginning to seep through his nervous system. If Moke touched him now, if Moke tried to stop him . . .

  He felt exactly the way he had felt when he was twelve years old and had killed the dog with his hands.

  9

  THE HOUSEMAN, CORNELL LEWIS, SAID, “Does it please you?” Making it a point, maybe, to show Stick he had manners, but not putting him on.

  Stick didn’t expect a double bed with a view of palm trees out the window. He said, “I think I’ll take it.”

  “I bet you will,” Cornell said. “So, we got the bathroom between us, tub and shower. . . .” He moved off and Stick paused to take a look at the bathroom: the clean tile, the seat on the toilet. “We got us our rec room I like to call it, with the color TV . . . refrigerator and stove over there . . . if we don’t want to eat in the kitchen with the help.”

  “You cook?”

  Cornell looked at him. “Yeah, I cook. Don’t you?”

  Stick said, “I cook probably better’n I fix cars—he’s going to find out.”

  “Nothing to fix on his,” Cornell said. “They break down he trade it in, get a new one . . . Come on, I’m suppose to show you the rest. The master want you to be acquainted where everything’s at. He yell to you, ‘Hey, Stickley, bring me a phone out the morning room.’ You know which one’s the morning room no matter what time of day it is. You dig?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t work inside.”

  “He like his driver to be versa-tile, do things around the house, help out when they have company. ‘Cept Cecil. Cecil broke things, generally fucked up and didn’t give a shit. Beautiful human being. So Mr. Stam kept him out of the house. Shoulda put him on a chain.”

  “I haven’t heard anything good about Cecil,” Stick said. “You get along with him?”

  “Get along with Cecil you need a whip and a chair, or one of those cattle prods? First place, he don’t like black folks and in the second place he hates ’em. He should be back any time, pick up his mess.”

  Stick said, “He doesn’t even know he’s fired, does he?”

  Cornell made a face, an expression of pain. “Not yet.”

  It seemed more like a museum than a place where people lived: all marble and glass or wide open, full of hanging plants and flower arrangements, potted palm trees. Looking across some of the rooms or down a hall it was hard to tell what was outside and what was in.

  The living room was like an art gallery: two steps down to a gray marble floor and a sectional piece in the middle, pure white, where about a dozen people could sit among the pillows and look at the paintings and pieces of sculpture that didn’t make any sense at all. The room was pale gray and pink and white except for a black marble cocktail table. There were white flowers on it—no ashtrays—and several copies of a magazine, fanned out, called Savvy.

  Stick went down into the living room, stood before a canvas about ten feet by five, gray shapes that could be parts of the human body, organs, bones, scattered over a plain white background.

  “What is it?”

  Cornell said, “Whatever your imagination allows.”

  He stood on the marble steps taller than Stick: a light-skinned black man of no apparent age but with the body of a distance runner: as neat as the decor in pressed gray trousers, black suspenders over a white dress shirt open at the neck, polished black loafers with tassels: the houseman nearly ready for evening duty.

  “You have to do any of the cleaning?”

  “The maids,” Cornell said.

  “Well, they do a job,” Stick said.

  “No trash, no dust,” Cornell said, “or cold drafts coming in broken windows.” He paused. Stick was looking at him now. Cornell said, “You from the block, aren’t you?”

  Stick came back toward him, still looking around, pausing at a polished stone that could have been an owl if it had eyes. He said, “I think you’re guessing.”

  “I
might have been,” Cornell said, “but you answered the question, didn’t you?”

  “Well, as they say . . .” Stick said.

  “What do they say where you were?” Cornell seemed even more at ease, ready to smile. “I come out of Raiford, then some trusty time at Lake Butler four years ago and found my new career.”

  “Jackson,” Stick said.

  “Mmmm, that musta impressed him. Yeah, Jacktown, have riots and everything up there.”

  “I think he liked it,” Stick said.

  “What the man likes is to rub against danger without getting any on him,” Cornell said. “Make him feel like the macho man. You know what I’m saying?”

  “He goes,” Stick said, “ ‘How’d you make it in the joint?’ Like he’s been there. He sounds like a probation officer.”

  “I know it . . . Come on.” Cornell turned and they moved off. “I know what you saying. He ask how you make it like he knows what it is you have to make. I try and tell him, start with the doors clangin’ shut. Every place you go the door slide open, the door clang shut. Go in the cell, clang, you in there, man. He act like he knows . . . That man ever took a flop there people would pass him around, everybody have a piece.”

  “Dress him up in doll clothes,” Stick said, “and play house. But he wants you to think he knows all that.”

  “Wants you to think he’s baaad, what he wants you to think. You understand what I’m saying to you? Yeah, like he’s the one knows and he’s testing to see if you know, ‘cept he don’t know shit less you tell him.” Cornell was looser now, coming at Stick with that quick clipped black way of street talking. “You see by some of the rough trade he associates with what I mean. People he has in his house, man, you see their picture in the paper, some state attorney investigation, that kind of thing. It’s why he hired you—why he hired me. See, he sits there at the club with his rich friends? Say, ‘Oh yeah, I go right in the cage with ’em. They wouldn’t hurt me none. No, I know how to handle ’em, how to treat ’em.’ He tells everybody. You understand? So there happen to be a fugitive warrant out on you someplace—you know what I’m saying? You best fly your ass out of here.”