Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [54]
“I don’t buy runaways, Boom,” Cleve said. “My birds fly pro. Any trim I break in, I marry.”
“She’s not a runaway,” Dead-Eye said. “She’s lifted.”
“To sell or snuff?” Cleve asked, eyes searching the street beyond the ex-cops’ shoulders, making sure his ladies were walking their beat.
“You play the market,” Boomer said. “Not us.”
“Street ain’t the same as you left it,” Cleve said, shaking his head, voice almost nostalgic. “This crack shit that’s movin’ got everybody flyin’ in crazy ways.”
“Save it for Mike Wallace,” Dead-Eye said. “All we wanna hear is you spit up some names.”
“Don’t have to give you shit, Super Fly.” The smile was back on Cleve’s face. “You can’t arrest me. Your badges been stamped out.”
“I never shot a pimp on the job,” Boomer said, looking away from Cleve and checking the two hookers in hot pants and fake fur standing by a pink Lincoln, shivering in their six-inch heels. “How about you, Dead-Eye?”
“Fleshed one once in the shoulder,” Dead-Eye said. “Up in Spanish Harlem. He ran off down the avenue, screaming like an old woman.”
“There’s a hundred wacks, easy, out here movin’ kids,” Cleve said. “I ain’t no ftickin’ yellow pages. Can’t know them all.”
Boomer looked away from the hookers and stepped in closer to Cleve, lips inches from the pimp’s left ear. “Be a pal,” Boomer whispered, “and give us your three best names.”
“I only go by their street names,” Cleve said, eyes moving from Boomer to Dead-Eye.
“We’ll take what you can give,” Dead-Eye said.
“I’d peek at a lowball PR calls himself Crow,” Cleve said, toning down his voice. “Works the terminal, lifting boys for the chicken hawks, sometimes takes a chippie home for himself.”
“You’re riding a wave, Cleve,” Boomer said. “Don’t stop it now.”
“There’s this white dude rides around the deuce in out-of-state wheels,” Cleve said, lifting the front flap of his coat and pulling out a filter-tip Kool. “Nasty piece of business. Got more tattoos than skin. Couldn’t miss him if you were blind and tied to a tree.”
“We get the idea,” Dead-Eye said.
“He deals in runaways,” Cleve said, putting a lit match to the cigarette, talking as he puffed. “Hangs on to them for a week or so, chillin’ his bones, then sells ’em off to an outside shipper.”
“Nice set of friends,” Boomer said. “I should shoot you just for knowin’ ’em.”
“We only walk on the same streets, Boom,” Cleve said. “I don’t ever chop wood with shit like that. I aim my end simple and clean. Keeps my pockets filled with cash, my dick covered with pussy, and my soft ass outta jail.”
“You should have your own talk show,” Boomer said. “Now, get back on track, Romeo. Give us up another name.”
“There’s a brother calls himself X,” Cleve said, tossing the butt end of the Kool out toward the curb. “You know, like Malcolm X?”
“Minus the religion,” Dead-Eye said.
“He’s as close to Malcolm as me to the Pope,” Cleve said. “This fucker’s out there, pulls in runaways and sells them over to some uptown crew that takes ’em, fucks ’em till they’re knocked up, then deals them and the baby. Like a two for one.”
“Jesus Christ,” Dead-Eye muttered.
“He work the area steady?” Boomer asked.
“I see him enough to make me nervous,” Cleve said. “He don’t always sell what he picks up.”
“Why’s that?” Dead-Eye asked.
“Sometimes the goods are too damaged,” Cleve said. “Buyers take a pass, if you read what I mean. He ain’t happy just gettin’ his rocks soft. He’s into the pain.”
“He have a regular spot?” Boomer said. “A hang place.”
“I hear he scores his dope off a dealer works the Eighth Avenue end of the Port,” Cleve said. “That’d be where I would gaze. But then, I ain’t no shot-up super cops like you two.”
“Appreciate the info, Cleve,” Boomer said. “You ever end up doin’ a stretch, we promise to visit.”
“Bring you and your prison chick some home cookin’,” Dead-Eye said.
“Like being in the can ain’t bad enough,” Cleve said, silver teeth gleaming under the glow of the overhead streetlight.
“Just one more thing,” Boomer