Paris Noir - Aurelien Masson [3]
Mister K loaded me up at 7.
His three dealers would pick up their dose at 11, noon, and 5. Just like that, I’d double my month, buy clothes, white underwear for Sundays. The pimps knew I was on Mister K’s team and left me alone.
I began heading down into the bowels of the metro to do K a favor. And once there I dove deep into the end of the night of drugs and sex.
Staggering corpses.
Crackheads.
Doberman fuckers.
The dregs of the earth were surviving in passageways abandoned by those who lived the real life. In that underworld, nothing was the way it had been before. The cops, for example. That’s how I met Nico.
I had my own way of doing things under the C line.
Caches for deals.
Grungy mattresses out in the open for Peeping Toms.
The temperature could climb up to ninety-five so I’d work half naked. Then one morning this guy showed up. Curly dark hair, wrinkled suit, Hawaiian shirt. Very supple, with a springy, silent way of walking.
“Hi, Vania. I need twenty grams.”
“You new here? Never saw you before.”
“I’m Mister K’s new little star. I show up and the market skyrockets. Come on, gimme the shit.”
I hesitated. We were between two shifts and this guy turns up, all cool, like. Okay. I opened my purse, laser-beaming the place.
“Come closer and take two bags.”
He clung to me, slipped his hand into my purse, and planted a Sig Sauer into my cunt.
“Don’t move. You’re busted, baby. Stone cold.”
“You … you’re not even a cop!”
He took his hand out of my bag and waved his card in my face.
Shit. Fuck.
Legs like cotton.
I thought of mom.
Of the smell of the slammer.
Of Mister K, of course.
Then Nico made me step back into a boiler room, confiscated my Prada purse, and threw me a mega-slap right on the cheekbone.
His body on mine.
His hands all over me.
His macaroni in a fury.
Our breath enraged.
I was pounding on him with my fists, he was ramming his gun into me. He managed to get off, but he had to suffer for it. We were looking at each other like two wild beasts in a den. I hated him.
“You raped me, you fucking son of a bitch.”
“Whores can’t be raped. I forgot to pay, that’s all.”
He took the shit out of my purse. Fifty grams in small bags. A smile like a worm.
“You busting me?”
“Don’t know. I have to think.”
“Hurry up, I have to change.”
“Here. I got two solutions. I cuff you, you take a vacation at the Fleury-Mérogis big house and do some time there. Or I haven’t seen a thing but you have to be real nice to me.”
“You want to fuck me for free.”
“No. I want my cut.”
“On the shit?”
“Coke’s over for you. Besides, it wouldn’t look good for a narc-squad cop in the Saint-Denis sector to get his cut on shit. No, I want my share on the tricks.”
“I have to support my family and I don’t make much.”
“Forget your family. I’m your family now, baby. Also, no more cheap whoring for you. Your black ass deserves better. It’s your choice.”
“Anything but jail.”
He threw my purse back to me. I got up, my face all bloody.
“What do we do now?” I said.
“Nothing for the moment. My name’s Nico Diamantis, I’ll be in touch.”
“Great.”
I went back up to daylight. I was walking through the shady streets, heart in pieces, face smashed up. As I passed by the girls, they’d go like, “Jeez, Vania, you got beat up real bad.” Right.
Mister K met me on rue des Lombards. I was so fed up I told him everything from behind my latte: the coke gone, Diamantis breathing up my ass, and the deal down the drain.
He stayed calm; he’s a guy from Lagos who shook hands with Fela Kuti when the Black President didn’t have a clue about AIDS.
“You told me the truth, Vania. Relax, fifty grams isn’t much. Do like this dirty cop says but watch your ass. I got a feeling it’s not doing too well.”
He slipped out into the night and I stayed there like an idiot whining over my future as a cocksucker.
Nico called me on my cell three days later.
“How’d you get my number?”
“I’m a cop, that’s my job. Meet me in twenty minutes