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Then Max looked at the parked car back there near the gate, caught a glimpse of the back seat. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Was that fucking Felicia?

He wanted to blow the backstabbing little bee-atch away, but he was too stunned to shoot. Right there, the cunt who’d sold him out, in his line of fire, and he got trigger shy. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Fifteen

Fuckin’ Ruthie, fuckin’ Ruthie, fuckin’ Ruthie, fuckin’ Ruthie, fuckin’ Ruthie.

D
AVID
M
AMET,
American Buffalo

When they drove into the lot, Felicia saw the SUV and the two Spanish dudes talking to Kyle at the window and she said to Sha-Sha and Troit, “Do me a favor, yo—don’t kill the white boy, Kyle. He ain’t done nothin’ wrong and he was the one hooked us up to begin with, know what I’m sayin’? Maybe shoot him in the leg if you gotta, or some shit like that, but don’t kill the boy, a’ight?”

She was hoping to hell they wouldn’t turn, give her that dead-eye, I-fuckin-hate-you-bitch look they been practicing. Hell, with Troit, there was no practice necessary. Few dudes chilled her ass but, man, this motherfucker was born crazy.

Up front, they were chilling with jazz, goddamn Wynton Marsalis, and Felicia didn’t think they was hearing a damn word she was saying. Felicia didn’t like all this getting in with Troit bullshit. She didn’t know why Sha-Sha had to bring that sick-ass along in the first place, why he couldn’t keep it in the family and shit.

Sha-Sha braked the car and cut the tunes and said to Troit, “Hold up,” and Troit went, “Fuck that shit.”

Troit had his piece out and Sha-Sha had to take his out too. Damn, was they AK 47s?

Felicia said to Troit, “See? I knew you was gonna fuck all this shit up.”

But Troit was already out the car and Sha-Sha was with him. Before Felicia knew it, they was both shootin’ like they was in Iraq and shit, blowing people’s heads off, blood going everywhere. Felicia heard Max screaming and she hoped he was gonna get it next. Yeah, she hoped that muthafucka suffered real bad ’fore he went straight to hell. Shit, she couldn’t wait for that ol’ crackhead to be dead, and it looked like Kyle was gonna be dead too. Shame, dick like that gotta go to waste, but what you gonna do?

The two Colombians went down—that was good—but then the S.U.V. started moving and, shit, was that Max stickin’ his head out the window, screaming his ass off, shooting a piece? That flabby white no good motherfucker wa
s shooting
? He missed Sha-Sha, but he got skinny-ass Troit down. She couldn’t believe it—bad-ass Troit taken down by the most useless piece of white trash she ever had in her mouth.

The SUV went right by Felicia and Max was looking at her, aiming the piece right at her. Funny the shit people’ll think about when they think they time’s up. She hadn’t thought about her momma in years, didn’t even send Christmas cards to the old ho bitch no more, but now she thinking,
Momma you save me now, I’m gonna come visit y’all, send some bucks too. Y’all see, I be a good daughter now.

Max’s eyes got all wide and shit, like he was gonna start coming in his pants, but he didn’t shoot her. Then the SUV sped away, out of the lot, and Felicia said out loud, “Fuck you, Momma! You never did no bullshit for me anyway! I don’t care if I see yo’ big, fat, ugly ho ass ever again!”

The money was gone but at least they got the rock. Once they split the profits up, she was gonna be on her way to St. Louis. She was nearly laughing now, so happy to be alive, and she yelled, “I’m goin’ to St. Louis. Hell, yeah, baby! Hell yeah!”

Felicia watched Sha-Sha get the rock out of one of the Colombians’ pockets. He stared at the guy for a minute, then put two more rounds in the guy’s face, turned then as if something occurred to him, and kicked the guy in the head, twice, keep the numbers level, then came back toward her. The fat man didn’t look too happy. She didn’t know, but Troit, the psycho motherfucker, was Sha-Sha’s boy, his back-up bro and shit. And, yeah, Sha-Sha’s face showed it. He couldn’t believe his boy was down.

Looking down at Troit’s shot-up body, Sha-Sha was thinking,
Damn, man, why you gotta be so stupid and start shooting the motherfuckas so fast ?
If they got up close first, they could’ve ambushed the niggas, got the white dudes and the Colombians at the same time, and when everybody was good and dead they’ve could’ve got the rock and the money both. But cause Troit was so wild and shit, they only got the Colombians, and got his own ass killed too.

His head still buzzing from all the guns and shit, Sha-Sha couldn’t believe it. The nigga was
gone,
wasn’t gonna come back ever. Man, why was the world like that? Why’d bad shit always happen to good people?

Sha-Sha looked up at the sky and wailed to God, “Fuck you! Fuck you, you sick-ass motherfuckin’ piece of shit asshole prick-face motherfucker!”

He went back to the BMW, thinking,
This shit, this shit ain’t right, some messed up shit goin’ on with this deal.
But he had to get them the fuck outa there fast, cause he could already hear the cop cars coming.

Sha-Sha drove away and Felicia wouldn’t shut her ho ass up. She kept going on, bitching about Troit and asking when she was gonna get her part of the money. Sha-Sha told her to shut her ass up, but she kept going on, giving Sha-Sha a damn headache. He was still seeing his boy, running towards the SUV, like the fool thought he be bulletproof. He could almost hear the sick-ass brother’s voice, yelling as he ran.

On the Belt Parkway, going past the Verrazano, Felicia was still going on, “I want the money tonight. Let’s go see whoever you gotta see right now. And don’t give me no bullshit about it neither. You ain’t playin’ me for no sucker. And if you think I’m gettin’ down on my knees again, suckin’ yo dick one more time, you crazy.”

Sha-Sha couldn’t hear Troit no more cause the damn ho was screaming, drowning out his boy’s voice. He felt all that acidy shit coming up, spat on his own lap, turned around, and shot a big-ass hole in the middle of the bitch’s head.

“That’ll shut yo ass up good,” he said.

He felt better already. Yeah, he could do with a cold one, a little tote of some crystal, count his profit.

He got off the Belt, drove into some dunes and shit. Left the ho’s body there for the seagulls to come eat. He reached down, took her bag, cheap damn Gucci reject shit, like her whole cheap damn reject life. Yeah, he’d heard her back there, hollering for her momma. He’d fucked her momma when he was fourteen and now he’d fucked the whole damn family.

He looked up at the sky, waved his big arms, shouted to the birds, “Dinner time, y’all! Got y’all guys some real fine dark meat!” Then he laughed hard, muttered, “Hope you fuckers like silicone.”

Sixteen

There are no saints in this world, only liars, lunatics and journalists.

I
AN
B
RADY
,
Moors Murderer

Joe Miscali was hot to trot, literally. He’d had to go to the can like four times already, had stopped off at Duane Reade, loaded up on Imodium Plus, and had downed like a half a box of the suckers. Now his guts felt like they were knotted together with superglue. This was it, his day of glory, bringing down Fisher, and for pure bonus, a Colombian cartel.

It had been an uphill battle convincing his superiors that this was the real deal, but his sheer insistence and the opportunity to grab major drug dealers had proved irresistible to the brass. With all the scandals recently involving crooked cops, they needed some solid press. Joe had even called the
Daily News
, got a crime beat reporter named Ward to accompany the team. The SWAT guys were pissed, their commander going, “Fucking civilians, they screw up everything, and press, are you outa your fucking mind?”

The commander was a serious hardass, suited up like Armageddon was imminent, with enough hardware to take down a small army. His team was all much the same—macho fucks who gave him the hard-eye. They chewed gum, racked their weapons and muttered among themselves. Joe had a flask of coffee, not a great idea with the trots, but what the hell. Without caffeine, he’d be like a hooker without the fuck-me heels.

He’d offered the flask around and they gave him looks of sheer disdain, the commander going, “We don’t need stimulants to do our duty.”

The parking lot in Staten Island was open, exposed, and they’d arrived at the meet two hours early, quietly getting civilians out of the way. Cops were positioned on all perimeters—no way the dopers were going to break out of this ring of solid steel.

Joe, seeing the expressions of the SWAT guys, had said, “I want Fisher alive.”

The commander, rolling the gum along his inside jaw, said, “They give it up, no prob...otherwise...” He let the threat trail off.

Joe was going to have to watch this asshole real close, or else the guy would waste everybody, and with the
Daily News
there, Joe was getting a real bad feeling. He was trying not to look at his watch, but he couldn’t resist and the commander caught him and said, “They’re late.”

Ward, the journalist, had been talking quietly with his camera guy and now turned to Joe and said, “Be a major public relations fuck-fest if your guys don’t show.”

Joe felt his bowels burn and wondered if he should risk more Imodium. How many had he taken already?

The humidity was building and Joe felt a dribble of sweat roll down his forehead, sting his eyes. Then realized the press guy was staring at him, a smirk in place, and Joe snapped, “What?”

The guy shifted his position so he was right in Joe’s face, said, “How’s it work for you?”

The fuck was his problem? Joe asked, “The fuck’s your problem?”

This seemed to really ignite the guy and he said, “You being Mr. Nice Cop, isn’t that your rep? The one who gets results with, what, with
decency
and
understanding
.”

Joe said, “Yeah, well, we don’t all have to be hardasses. You do what works best.”

The guy was highly amused. He gestured at the very empty parking lot, the non-happening parking lot, and said, “Gee, and I can see it’s working out really well for you.”

Joe tried not to rise to the bait, especially with the growing panic he was feeling.

He said, “I’m sorry you might not get your story.”

The guy was smiling, delighted. “Oh, I’ll get my story. A no-show is a great story. All this NYPD/SWAT action, all the taxpayers’ money, in an election year, flushed right down the toilet. Hell, buddy, I couldn’t ask for a better story.”

Before Joe could respond, the earpiece the commander wore began squawking. The commander looked at Joe, then pulled the earpiece out and shouted to his team, “Stand down, abort! Stand down, abort!”

Joe, his guts in shreds, asked, “What?”

Like he didn’t know.

The commander was standing, tearing open the Velcro strips on his vest. His eyes like ice, he said, “A drug deal went down tonight, major gunfire, and Fisher may have been involved. But, guess what
Detective
, it’s not on Staten Island—it’s out in Queens.”

Joe, bewildered, said, “Maybe it’s another deal... I mean....”

The commander pushed past him, hissed, “Yeah, right. Face it, you just took it in the ass, pal, bent right over for it.”

The photographer was snapping off pics of Joe, the SWAT team, and the empty lot. Joe shouted, “Put that fucking thing down!”

Ward said, “No more Mr. Nice Guy, huh? Might lead with that. Whatcha think? Think it works?”

Five minutes tops and they were all out of there, except Joe. He was left standing in the middle of the lot, his hands shaking, his bowels in full revolt, his mind going
, She couldn’t...could she?...Jesus, and I gave her, like, a hundred bucks...with another twenty to come...and paid for the meal, she could’ve, like, had anything on the menu...I didn’t say go for the cheap special...I was ni
c
e to her, wasn’t I?

A homeless guy approached him, went, “Yo buddy, got anything for a man down on his luck?”

“Fuck you,” Joe said, and then, part of his old good self fighting to re-emerge, he said, “Sorry, buddy,” and gave him the rest of the Imodium.

Seventeen

Death makes a person hungry.

C
HARLES
W
ILLEFORD,
New Hope for the Dead

Max was ravenous. He wanted junk food, Italian, Chinese, mountains of carbs, fizzy drinks, cold brews, a heap of coke. He wanted to go on shooting motherfuckers for hours, capping them good. He wanted, he wanted to kill the goddamn world, but first he was gonna have fucking Kyle’s ass.

In the car, leaving the bloodbath, Max tried to figure out if Kyle had sold him out. He even put the Glock to the kid’s head, threatened to play Russian Roulette, but the stupid hick still wouldn’t spill. He just kept quoting from his bible—Ezekiel, Job, Jonah, fucking Ecclesiastes. Yeah, like any of that shit was gonna help him now.

They pulled over and Max tossed the Glock out the window, into the East River. Even under pressure, with the cops on his tail, riding the high of his first-ever murder, Max knew how to cover the bases. They dumped the bullet-riddled SUV on Queens Boulevard and hailed a livery cab into the city. He knew the cops would find the car, trace it back to him, but he had a story all planned.

In the cab, Max told Kyle exactly what to say when the police questioned them, but he wasn’t sure if Kyle was listening to a damn word he was saying. Kyle was still praying, frantically turning pages of his bible, like he thought the faster he read it the deeper the shit would sink in. It occurred to Max, does Kyle even know how to read? Down where he was from didn’t they all live in trailers and start working on their momma and poppa’s farms when they were, like, thirteen?

When they got up to the apartment, Kyle locked himself in the bathroom, where he sat chanting more of that bible shit. Max, fueled on crack, was banging on the door, trying to get him to open up. Then he had an idea. Bible boy wouldn’t like to be the cause of another man’s suffering, now, would he? Max stormed into Katsu’s room and—oh Jesus, the skinny little sushi chef was jerking off to a Jap porn movie.

Max went, “Fuck, you’ve been making my salmon maki with those hands!”

Then Max thought about all the sticky rice he’d been eating lately and wanted to yack.

Katsu stood up quickly, his boxers at his knees, covering himself and bowing, going, “Sorry, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Max grabbed him by his hair and pulled him down the hallway to the kitchen. He grabbed the butcher knife, put it up to the terrified chef’s neck, then dragged him to the bathroom and screamed to Kyle, “Okay, bible boy, get your grits-and-collard-greens ass outa that toilet right now, boy, or sushi man’s made his last hand roll.”

Katsu screamed, “Max crazy! Kyle, you listen to Max and open door right now! He not fucking round!”

Kyle opened the door a crack, saw what was going on, and said to Max, “All right, all right! I’ll come out, just let him be. Let him be.”

Sounding like some John Lennon freak, like he was gonna go hold a fucking séance at Strawberry Fields.

“I want the truth out of you,” Max said, “and if you tell me I can’t handle the truth, trust me, you’ll make my day, asshole.”

He slit his eyes like Eastwood while going for the Nicholson hardass tone. He almost hoped Kyle wouldn’t give in. It would be fun to cut Katsu, to see what it felt like to kill with a knife. He’d already shot somebody today; if he strangled Kyle afterward it would be like hitting the murder trifecta. Yeah, Max felt fucking omnipotent, all right. He used to think that word had to do with, you know, getting it hard, getting a woody, but now he knew what it meant, he fucking knew.

“Okay, okay. I told her,” Kyle said, tears streaming down his cheeks. “We were in love, Mr. Fisher. I was gonna her take back down to Alabama and turn her into an honest woman.”

“You sold me out? After all I’ve done for you?”

Max felt seriously betrayed. He was Tony Soprano, getting ready to whack Pussy. He was Pacino asking his brother if he’d ratted him out.

Kyle said, “I tried to stay strong, I tried to do Jesus proud, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t resist her. That woman, she did something to me. I think...I think she might be Jezebel.”

“Yeah, she did something to you all right,” Max said. “She tried to get your ass killed, and my ass too. Who were the guys Felicia was with?”

“I...I don’t know.”

“Bullshit, she must’ve told you something.”

Kyle waited then said, “She said it was her cousin, I think.”

“Did she tell you a name?” Max asked.

Again Kyle wouldn’t answer right away, slow annoying fuck, then he said, “Yeah...It was Sha-Sha.”

Sha-Sha? What the fuck kind of a name was that? It sounded like a guy in one those new videos Madonna was putting out—her tight and old in purple leotards with black guys hopping around her.

Max smiled, said, “But you don’t know anything, huh?”

“That’s all I know, honest to God.” He clasped his hands together, beseeching. “Oh, please, sweet Jesus, don’t invoke your wrath, and may the lord god Abraham, the sons of the tabernacle grant you the true wisdom—”

With his free hand, Max gave him a slap in the mouth, said, “May you shut the fuck up?”

Then Max gave Kyle another wallop, and because it felt good to beat on somebody he whacked his chef on the head too, the fucking jerk-off.

Leaving the two assholes, he went into the lounge, flipped on the TV and fixed himself a tall, dry martini, never letting go of the knife. It was like an extension of him. Maybe he’d be called Max the Knife in the movie. Jeez, then there’d be a musical. Max couldn’t wait to see it. Maybe they’d get Hugh Jackman to play him.

He cycled through the channels till he got to NY1. And sure enough, the main story was the shootings in Queens. Fuck, talk about popping wood. They were talking about a lone gunman who took down some of the baddest mothers in these here United States. Well, not exactly but that’s how it sounded.

Then someone handed something to the news lady, a sheet of blue paper. Breaking news, she said. An exstripper named Felicia Howard had been found, dead, off the Belt Parkway.
Bye-bye, bee-atch
, Max thought, then he heard a pair of loud sobs from behind him. He turned around to see Kyle and the freaking sushi chef, weeping in unison.

The fuck was Katsu crying for? Uh oh—Oprah light bulb moment—the little turd was giving the sticky rice to her as well? Christ, was there anyone in the apartment she hadn’t been screwing? If they’d had a dog, would she have fucked him, too?

Max turned back to the news report. A cop named Miscali or something was taking the heat for some monumental screw up. At first Max couldn’t follow it, but then he started to get the gist, in bits and pieces. Kyle and Felicia must’ve sold him out, but she’d given the cops the wrong location. But then who the fuck had shot Felicia? The only one left standing after the bloodbath had been Fat Albert—what was his name? Sha-Sha. But why would her own cousin shoot her?

Max’s head was throbbing from trying to follow all the ins and outs of this, not helped by no food, but he was fucked if he’d ever eat another morsel that jack-off chef produced. Also, the sounds of Kyle’s sobbing and wailing were seriously getting on his already frayed nerves. He shut the fucking TV off and stormed off to his bedroom, carrying the pitcher of martinis with him.

Max came to around ten the next morning. He was in his good smoking jacket, the one with M in gold on the pocket, and his stomach felt like a very large rodent was trying to gnaw its way out.

He wobbled toward the bathroom, then stopped, a thought hitting his very tender head,
The knife, where the hell was it?

Nope, not on the floor. Then he thought,
Kyle
, and went to the living room, but the boy wasn’t there. He did a quick tour of the rest of the apartment—no Kyle.

Well, screw him, he had to get to the bathroom, like, now. As he sat on the bowl, feeling as if his intestines were pouring out, he decided Kyle had run on home to Alabama. Maybe Sushi Man went with him, the good ol’ boys down there, they’d sure appreciate cornholing some yellow meat, good for the skin. As another upheaval hit his tender stomach, he was sort of relieved he didn’t have the knife—he might not have been able to resist the urge to slit his own throat, put himself out of his misery.

Then the doorbell rang. What the fuck? The doorman was supposed to screen visitors or God knew what vermin could just come up and ring his bell.

He staggered to his feet, gave his tender ass a wipe, and was about to answer the door when he thought, maybe it’s Kyle. Eh, fuck him. Let the backstabbing bible boy sleep in the hallway.

Max started to walk away when a voice shouted, “Police, open up!”

Could Max have imagined it? Some side effect of the dope, the vodka...?

But the banging continued and a voice, said, “Police, open the fuckin’ door!”

Max opened it slowly, then they pushed it open all the way. That cop from TV—man, this was some bad trip all right—forced Max onto the floor and cuffed him from behind.

“Party’s over, big shot,” the cop said. “Time to get your scummy ass downtown.”