Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [57]
All three of them chuckled. The Space Man elbowed Reginald in the ribs. “Give the nigger your gun, Reggie.”
Reggie frowned and shifted his weight sideways. “What I got to be giving him my gun for? I just bought it!”
Space shook his head at me as though to say, See what I have to deal with here? Then he turned to Darin. “I know you’re holding. Don’t be giving me that Shirley Temple look, now.”
The man in white silk looked like a small child reluctant to share his favorite toy. Sitting there, I suddenly had a growing sense of unreality, as though I’d just found out that the whole mad scene was a dream from which it was impossible to wake up.
“Goddamn!” Space said. “What the fuck am I paying you people for?” With that he reached under his seat and drew out the biggest nickel-plated .45 I’d ever seen and tossed it to me. I caught it, but Space must have seen my expression.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Jesus, Hank,” I said, “don’t you have anything smaller? I could kill a goddamn buffalo with this thing.” I turned the gun over and balanced it in my hand. It felt as though it weighed ten pounds.
“What the fuck does this look like to you, man, Gun World or something?” Hank demanded angrily. “Do I have anything smaller? Are you out your goddamn mind? You better get real, man. The shit you’re in ain’t funny.” He shook his head in amazement. “Do I have anything smaller? Shit!”
“All right, all right,” I said. “Forget I mentioned it. Do me a favor, okay? Pull over into that lot, behind the burger place,” I told him. “I’ve got to stick this goddamn thing down my pants.”
We pulled over next to an ice machine, and I opened the door and stepped out into the dissipated heat of midevening. A stray breeze died, and with it the promise of a cooler night. After the refrigerated air of the limousine, the outside air closed around me like a choke hold. I stuffed the gun down my pants and covered it with my shirt. Space rolled down his window and handed me something. It was a CD, brand new and still wrapped in plastic.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“My new CD,” he said proudly.
“What’s it called?” I wondered if I was actually having this conversation.
“They’re Going to Extradite My Love. Maybe I’m crazy,” Hank said wistfully. “But I think this shit is my magnum opus.”
I glanced at the back of the CD. The names of a few of the songs caught my eye: “Let Me Be Your Pimp” was one of them. There was also a ballad: “Where Have All the White People Gone?”
“I hope you’re not getting too mainstream,” I said.
“Bro,” he said solemnly, “once you been to the outer limits, you got to come back in. Know what I’m sayin’?”
“Better than you think.”
“Hold on,” Hank said. He leaned down and picked up a small leather case and unzipped it. It was stuffed with bills. “How much you need?”
“Can you spare a hundred?”
Hank looked at me over the rims of his shades and shook his head in mock disbelief. Then with two fingers he simply plucked out a half-inch slice of assorted bills and, without counting them, handed them to me through the window. I thanked him.
He flashed me the peace sign and smiled. “When you’re done with the cops and shit, give me a call. You got my number. Now, chill. And remember, I ain’t seen you.”
I gave a wave to Reginald and Darin, and the tinted window slid upward like a dark curtain going in reverse. In a moment they were all three gone into the traffic. To tell you the truth, I was kind of sorry to see them go.
I walked away from the well-lit gas station and went east on Hibiscus Street toward the apartment building where Susan had moved after dumping Cortez. It was a quiet street with high hedges drowsing over narrow sidewalks like a row of sleepy sentries. The weight of the gun hidden under my pants made me feel more nervous than secure, and I was sorry that