Masters of Horror Read Free

making a lot of noise about it, then lifting his wallet, going through his pockets while his pants are down. Then you say, “Oh shit—I think somebody’s coming, they checkin’ the booths,” and you split. It takes them a minute to discover they are ripped off and—
     
    “ There it is,” Dwayne said, now. “That hotel.”
     
    It was an old white wedge of a building, tall and narrow, on a sort of island where three streets almost intersected. The rest of the block was abandoned office space, rickety buildings from the early part of the twentieth century. Doc was standing in the doorway of the hotel, all in white as usual. A white suit, with a pink carnation. His black Jag was parked just a few feet from him where he could keep an eye on it.
     
    “ Tha’s the dude,” Dwayne said. “Got him a Jaguar XKE, doing this shit.” Dwayne couldn’t keep the admiration out of his voice. That Doc had it together.
     
    “ Pull up over there,” Dwayne said. “No, fuck, don’t — shit!”
     
    The guy cut across two lanes with a screeching right angle turn.
     
    “ Shit!” Dwayne looked around as the guy parked. No cops. Lucked out again.
     
    “ What’s your name?” the white guy asked.
     
    “ Dwayne.”
     
    “ I’m Jim. Okay…uh…” He looked through the window at Doc. Knew he couldn’t go over and buy the shit himself. Or thought he couldn’t, anyway. Probably could have. Probably didn’t need Dwayne.
     
    But Dwayne was banking on Jim White Guy not knowing that. And in fact, Dwayne could feel he was going to connect good here. Fuck Essy. Dwayne could grind his own business. Essy could come asking Dwayne for a start. (No way Essy was dead, that old man was getting brain damaged from drinking…Drinking kill you. . .)
     
    Jim went on, “What you want for this?”
     
    Dwayne said, “A dove.”
     
    “ Half a dove.”
     
    So he knew what a dove was anyway. A forty dollar rock of crack.
     
    “ Whatever you wanta do, hey homes, it’s okay. I’m not one of these gaffers like Hobey —”
     
    “ Yeah, yeah.” The guy was getting a weary look as he took a chip of rock out from a jar, broke it in half in his teeth, put one of the halves in a pipe…Shit. The pipe was a pipe. It was a motherfucking briar pipe. Lighting it with a Bic. Sucking at it.
     
    Dwayne felt his scalp contract, his mouth go dry as he watched. Smelled the oily perfume and insecticide tang of the smoke. “You oughta get yourself a stem, man. What kind of fucking pipe is that?”
     
    “ Only one they had left in the store. I’ll get a stem later. Here’s sixty. Don’t cruise on me, you’ll be fucking up a good thing.” The guy was involuntarily grinning as he said it.
     
    “ Gimme a blast,” Dwayne said. The guy handed over the pipe and the Bic. Dwayne took a hit. The pipe worked shitty, but good enough for now, except it burnt his fingers having to hold the Bic upside down over the bowl. The blast feeling blossomed in him. It rushed through him and instantly he began to work on ways to get more. This guy, no telling how much money he had. Probably had a bank card. Maybe—
     
    “ Go on,” Jim said, taking the pipe back.
     
    Dwayne folded the sixty bucks into his palm. “Keep that pipe low, watch for cops.” Still shaking a little from the blast, he got out and crossed to Doc, thinking: Play this guy carefully.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Saturday Night, 10:50 P.M.
     
     
     
    Hobey almost went to sleep on the bus. Last time he did that he slept past his stop, took him half the night to get home. He was tired and when he was tired he noticed the creakiness in his bones more. Fuck that damn little nigger, that Dwayne, he be stepping in every time something should be Hobey’s coming down…Someone had left an Oakland Tribune on a seat. There were headlines on the metro section that said THREE MORE CRACK DEATHS: Coroner Doubts OD Cause .
     
    “ Huh,” Hobey said. Some bad shit going around. That kind of shit,