Джордж Пелеканос: King Suckerman

“That’s right, but Loopy went out of town on a vaykay. He set me up with Karras so there wouldn’t be any coitus interruptus on my dope trade. Just this one time.” Marchetti chuckled. “Hey, Viv, you hear that? Coitus interruptus on the dope trade?”

“I heard you, Eddie.”

“And how you know,” said Tate, “that this Karras cat isn’t a narc?”

“Because, like I said, Loopy vouched for him.”

“Can’t argue with that,” said Tate. “Man named Loopy tells you something, you gotta believe it.”

“And anyway,” said Marchetti, “any fool knows, you ask someone, ‘Are you a narc?’ they have to answer true if they are, otherwise it ain’t a clean bust.”

“Okay, Eddie,” said Tate. “Sounds like you got it all figured out.”

“Why you wanna know what’s on our plate, Clarenze?”

“Thought I’d cut out early. Was hoping to check out this movie tonight, just opened up.”

“What movie?”

“ King Suckerman, ” said Tate.

Vivian looked up. “That the one about the pimp?”

“Sure is,” said Tate.

Marchetti said, “Like Rooster on Baretta, right?”

“Not exactly,” said Tate.

Tate heard the slam of a car door, then another. He walked behind Marchetti’s desk, stood before the big window, looked down to the street. A big Jim Brown — lookin’ brother, two others darker than midnight, and a skinny white boy with a fucked-up face were moving away from a red-on-red ragtop Challenger. Tate could see from two floors up, the white boy had some kind of hog’s leg stuck down in his pants.

“Eddie,” said Tate. “This Cooper cat, he say how you’d know him when he showed up?”

Marchetti blinked his eyes. “Said he’d be rolling into town in a red Mopar. Why?”

“He’s here,” said Tate.

“Oh, yeah?” said Eddie.

“Uh-huh,” said Tate. “Brought a few associates with him, too.”

Dimitri Karras put a bounce pass in to Marcus Clay; the shirts converged. Clay got it right back out to Karras at the top of the key, and Karras took the J. The ball hit the hole clean, kissed the bottom of the net.

“String music,” said Karras.

“Game,” said Clay.

The shirts went off the court, their heads down, hands on hips. One of them went to the portable eight-track on the sideline, changed the tape, put in Gratitude, turned up the V.

The skins — Karras, Clay, Kenny Lane, and Bill Valis — got in a loose circle, gave each other skin, caught their breath, waited for the shirts to come back out for the rubber match. Clay had played against Kenny Lane when Lane was a forward at Western in ’65. Billy Valis was the young boy of the group, heavyset, but a guy who could drive and move underneath in unexpected ways. Valis wore an easy smile and a red bandanna, pirate-style, over his longish black hair. He loved to play ball, thought he was Earl Monroe.

The shirts came back out. The game began, and the shirts took an early lead. They had a guy named Heironymous — his teammates called him Hero — who had gone All-Met for Spingarn, and Heironymous was lighting it up from the outside, just handling Kenny Lane. Clay switched with Lane and noticed that Hero made a funny kind of grimace before he went up. Soon he had him shut down.

Karras took the ball out, shot it inside to Valis, who drove the lane. Valis went up, committed himself, turned around in midair, put some English on the ball as he spun it off the backboard and into the net.

“The Monroe Doctrine,” said Valis to his defender.

“Damn,” said his defender.

“Cover him, then,” said Heironymous. “Motherfucker’s a whirling dervish and shit.”

One of the shirts took a corner shot. The ball bounced straight up off the back of the rim. Clay went up, pinned the rebound to the backboard, stayed in the air, threw it twenty feet out to Karras, who quick-released the jumper, sank the pill. Karras took the next shot from the same spot, hit it. The defender checked it to Karras, who took it back, hit it again. Valis let out a whoop.

“Respect yourself,” said Karras to his defender, a stocky guy from Northeast.

“Staple Singers,” said Clay, crossing the court to give Karras a low five.

Heironymous turned to the one defending Karras. “You gon’ let Gail Goodrich take those all day?”

Karras took the ball out, dribbled back outside the key, made like he was going to take it, put it in to Clay, who was slanting inside. Clay came off a Valis pick, drove the lane, reversed the layup.

Heironymous and his crew came back with three in a row. Lane sank a double pump, and Valis corkscrewed one in right behind it. That tied things up.

Karras’s defender drove right by him, put one up. Clay skied, rejected the shot. The ball went out to Karras. He went up listening to Phillip Bailey’s falsetto on “Reasons.” The ball caught only net. Karras watched it swish, the sun warming his face as the EWF horns kicked in. Karras knew, right then, that he’d never get a nine-to-five, that he’d play ball and get high as long as he could, and that he fucking loved D.C. His shot had ended the game.

The shirts did fifty push-ups in front of the skins. Valis said goodbye to his teammates and walked across the bridge, over the creek to his lime green ’69 Dart. Heironymous stood up, took off his shirt, toweled himself off. He walked over to Karras and Clay.

“Game, Gail,” said Heironymous with a slight nod of his chin.

“Thanks,” said Karras.

Karras drifted. Heironymous shook Clay’s hand — fist to fist, then finger grip — and snapped his fingers one time. They talked about the Suns-Celtics series, concluded in six a few weeks back. Black D.C. had been for the Suns, because they were for anyone playing the Celts, and as a bonus incentive the Suns’ forward, Curtis Perry, had come out of Washington. It had been a good series, the subject of morning conversation all over town while it lasted; Game Five, with its triple OT, had been a certified NBA classic.

“Way to get up,” said Heironymous before he walked away.

“Yeah, good game,” said Clay. “You take it light, hear?”

Heironymous shrugged. “Everything is everything.”

Clay found his shirt on the grass, went back to the Karmann Ghia, got into the passenger seat. Karras turned the ignition, backed out onto Beach Drive, drove toward town.

“Could use a shower,” said Clay.

“You can get one at my crib before you go back to the shop.”

“’Preciate it. That would just about do me right.”

“I need to make a stop, though, pick up that herb.”

“Drop me off first, hear?”

“Come with me, man.”

“Uh-uh. I don’t need to be gettin’ into that.”

“What, you got no problem with smoking my weed, but you don’t want to see where it comes from?”

“Aw, come on, Dimitri.”

“What could happen, anyway?”

“All right, man,” said Clay. “You made your point. But let’s be quick about it, hear? I told Cheek I’d be back in time for him to make his show.”

“Thanks, Marcus. Didn’t feel like driving down to Southeast by myself.”

Clay got down in the seat, closed his eyes, let the wind and sun dry his face. “Good ball today.”

“Yeah, it was pretty nice.”

“You had, what, two from that same spot?”

“Three.”

“Should have been wearin’ a Lakers jersey out there.”

“Don’t start with that Goodrich shit. Hero sees a white boy who can drill it from the outside, all of the sudden he’s callin’ him Gail. Shows a lack of imagination on his part, if you ask me. ’Cause you know my game is closer to Clyde Frazier’s.”