Suitcase City - Sterling Watson

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hot and private. Blood left the boy sitting in his coca-leaf hyperdrive dream and walked out to the loading dock. He rolled open the big steel door and let the evening breeze blow across his face. He looked at the two-acre fenced lot where the delivery trucks were parked, Naylor’s Rent-to-Own painted in bold black letters on their sides. He glanced up and down the alley.

      To the west, where the sun was setting now, he could see the two whores who usually stood under the jacaranda tree behind the laundromat moving into position for the night. They’d stand there under the tree in a litter of cigarette butts, fast-food wrappers, and crack vials until somebody came along and they started hollering, “Booty for sale! I got the softest mouth in Tampa.” Shit like that. They were crack-addicted whores. The walking dead. Blood Naylor had invented a word for them: zombitches.

      Blood ran whores, but he did it the smart way. His scam was neat, efficient, and safe. He ran the rent-to-own as a legitimate business, and it did all right, nothing spectacular. But the bulk of his income came from the whores whose apartments he furnished. He shipped cheap furniture out to them, kept them on the books as rent-to-own clients, and recorded his share of their take as monthly payments on the furniture. The cocaine business provided a small part of his revenue. He only dealt with upscale clients: connections in the universities and some people in the medical and legal communities who liked their recreational drugs to come from a discreet and reliable source. It never hurt to have friends in Armani suits.

      The sun had gone down over the jacaranda tree, and the two whores were doing business. A white man in a van had pulled up next to them and was negotiating. The two girls strutting their pathetic, skinny butts and talking that whore trash to a redneck from across the bay in Kenneth City. Blood heard Tyrone muttering to himself inside on the Barcalounger. That Special Reserve gave a man power dreams. Blood figured he’d better get back inside before the boy wandered off to stick up a convenience store with his dick. He’d give the boy some cocaine to take with him, put the photos of the boy’s face in an envelope, and stick them in his pocket, maybe tuck a couple of hundred-dollar bills into the boy’s wallet for good measure. Customer relations.

      Bloodworth Naylor dreamt his power dream at night, and it was always the same story, and James Teach was always in the starring role. And James Teach was always surprised, beautifully surprised, when his sweet white world turned to blood and shit all around him, and in the dream Bloodworth Naylor was always laughing. And there was someone else in the dream. She was the reason for all of this. A beautiful woman. And, oh yes, wasn’t that always the story?

       NINE

      Teach awoke to the ache in his elbow. He rolled onto his back, wondering why it hurt. Then it all came back. The bar. The men’s room, that angry ebony face, the shirttail flagging to the side for a second, showing Teach what was almost certainly the handle of a razor.

      He lay staring at the ceiling, feeling the sweat of fear break on his face. How had he gotten himself into this mess? Why hadn’t he waited a moment to see what the boy would do, ask him again what he meant? Then he thought: No, damnit.

      As a kid, Teach had read about the murders of Sharon Tate and her friends in a wealthy house in the Hollywood Hills. How a band of lunatics had just walked in smiling and laughing and killed everybody. No one had sounded an alarm; no one had resisted because everyone had assumed the freaks had come for the party. The story had changed Teach. Taught him that it would always be better to trust instinct and strike when the alarms went off in your head than to wait the extra second to be sure. You could die in that second. Abigail Folger had waited. Wojciech Frykowski had waited, smiling, asking if he could help Tex Watson, who drew a pistol and shot him, then jumped on his back, stabbing him as Frykowski staggered across the lawn. Teach wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing in Malone’s Bar, but he was sure he’d do the same thing again.

      He worked the elbow that ached because it had split a boy’s cheek and wondered if Dean was awake.

      She had come out to the auditorium dressed in jeans and a thigh-length T-shirt, still glowing with stage makeup and the excitement of her triumph. She’d brought two friends with her—Missy Pace, a cheerleader, and the black girl, new to ballet. Teach had nodded and smiled at the two girls and opened his arms to Dean who gave him a brief hug. He’d whispered into her warm, fragrant neck, “Beautiful tonight.” When she pulled away, her eyes glittering with that energy she turned into movement on the stage, Teach said, “As usual.”

      “Thanks, Daddy.” She smiled at some club women passing up the aisle.

      Teach said, “Time to go, Deanie. I’ve got reservations at Bern’s.” Dinner at Bern’s was their after-recital tradition.

      Dean frowned, then smiled. “Daddy, would it be okay this once if I skip dinner? There’s a party at Marty Flipper’s house.” The two friends watched Teach solemnly.

      He tried to think of how to say no to all three of them. He could invite the friends to dinner.

      Dean fired the heavy artillery. “Daddy-please-can-I?”

      Unable to come up with a good no and worried about the bloodstain on his sleeve, Teach cleared his throat to summon his Stern Father voice. “No drinking at this party, young lady. And I want you home at eleven.”

      “Oh, Daddy,” Dean groaned, mortified to have drinking (or was it coming home on time?) mentioned in front of her friends.

      Teach had played golf with Harold Flipper who owned the local Volvo dealership. He was a dim but affable fellow and so, Teach reasoned, must be his son, Marty. The two girlfriends examined their fingernails and studied their Doc Martens to see if the scuffing on them was just right.

      Teach abandoned Stern Father in favor of Old Guy Trying to Be Humorously Hip. “Will you girls give me your word you’ll say no when the wine coolers are passed around?” Missy looked stunned, as though she did not have a word to give, but the black girl looked Teach in the eye and said, “I promise you, Mr. Teach, if Deanie tries to go the way of all flesh, I’ll place my body between her and temptation.”

      Teach kept his jaw from dropping, but he could not keep from chuckling his appreciation.

      She stepped forward and extended her hand. “Hi, I’m Tawnya. It’s nice to meet you.”

      * * *

      Teach swung his legs out of bed and sat working the aching elbow. He felt Saturday-morning sad. It was sad but not fatal that Dean had ditched their celebration dinner for the giddy delights of a party at Marty Flipper’s house. Sometimes life was losing things. He had lost Paige, and he was losing Dean to the fate nature intended for young girls. (Not, please God, Marty Flipper, but someday a young man with a future.) The phone rang. Teach hurried from bed.

      “Hello, I’m trying to reach James Teach. Is he there, please?”

      Teach summoned his vice president’s voice. Easy and affable. Ready to meet what the day brought to his door. “This is he.”

      “Mr. Teach, my name is Marlie Turkel. I’m a reporter at the Trib. Do you have a minute?”

      Teach thinking: What does a reporter want with me on a Saturday morning? Something about Dean, her dancing? There had been a couple of pieces in the Sunday supplement. Dean’s success at the American Dance Festival. Her prospects for a New York career. Teach kept his voice low, pleasant. “Sure,” he said, “I’ve got a minute. What’s this about?”

      “It’s about yesterday afternoon, you and a Mr. Tyrone Battles.” The woman’s voice changed. It went from brusque efficiency to a husky purring that couldn’t hide her excitement.

      Teach felt the worm of fear move in his belly. Jesus, a journalist, and a woman. How in God’s own name had she gotten hold of this thing, and so soon? And what did she plan to do with it? Teach said only, “Yes?” aware that his voice had lost its affability. Aware that he was buying time without any idea what he would do with it.

      The woman cleared her throat and in a low seductive throb said, “I’d

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