The Deader the Better Read Free Page B

Tall,
translucent, seeming to glow with a deep inner light, the midnight
blue of her raincoat transmuted to black, lustrous and panther-rich.
Darlene just looked old. Like you could lose your Visa card in the
creases in her cheeks. She waved a long white cigarette as she spoke.
About every third word, she’d jerk her chin over her shoulder,
making sure the car hadn’t moved, and then she’d go back to
talking.
    G noticed, too. He made a smacking
noise with his lips.
    “That Narva girl.”
    “You said you guys work a straight
percentage,” I prodded.
    “Strictly business,” he said
quickly. “Hell…she don’t work but Friday and Saturday nights.
Gross five, six grand a weekend. Goes to graduate school the rest of
the time. Getting her a master’s or some such shit.”
    “How much?”
    “How much what?”
    “How much does she get?”
    He narrowed his eyes. “Lookin’
for a little somethin’ you can’t git at home?”
    “Just curious.”
    He eyed me closely. “The G man can
be very discreet. No reason Rebecca got to know. You know me…hey,
hey, I always say…a man’s business is a man’s business.”
    “How much?”
    “Fifteen hundred. Straight half and
half. Anything exotic is extra. Got her a small but real loyal
following.”
    “That what she charges you?”
    He scoffed as he adjusted his tie.
“You crazy? I don’t pay for no nappy dugout.”
    “So…you gettin’ it for free,
then?”
    He didn’t say a word, so I stayed
in his face. “What? No freebies for the G man? I thought the G man
always got freebies. You know…like one of the perks.”
    He rolled his eyes toward the
headliner. “This one’s different.”
    He sensed my astonishment.
    “Shit, Leo. You know me.” He
twisted his lips into a wry grin and then laughed into the back of
his hand. “She first come to me with the proposition.” He made
his astonished face. “I figured, you know…so who’s this pushy
ho tellin’the G man hisself what she’s gonna do for him? So I
grab a handful of her hair…” He reached out over the dashboard
with his left hand. The handful of imaginary hair struggled mightily,
but the G man held on with grim resolve. “And I tell her, you know,
that ain’t how it works down here, sweet cakes.” He curled his
lip as he began to force the hand down toward the floorboards. “I
tell her, hey, baby…listen, what you do for me is get down on your
pretty little knees and polish the G man’s knob for a bit. That
way, you and me get this arrangement off on a right and proper
footing, so to speak.”
    “And?”
    “And I do what I always do then, I
pulled my joystick outta my pants.” He held out his other hand,
palm up. He now held an imaginary Narva in one hand and an imaginary
dick in the other. “His Majesty’s sitting right there in the palm
of my hand; I’m tryin’ to stick her face in it and you know what
that crazy bitch says?”
    “What?”
    He looked down into his own palm as
if confused. “She look down and say, she say…” He wiped the
corner of his mouth on the shoulder of his suit. He was beginning to
giggle. “She say…‘You know…that look just like a penis, but
much, much smaller.’”
    We burst out laughing together. I
nodded.
    “Your dick ought to have one of
those warning labels about how maybe things appear to be bigger than
they really are.”
    He waved me off. “Don’t start
that racial envy shit with me. I seen that pathetic little string of
yours.”
    We kept bonding until Narva emerged
from the shadows and began walking toward the car. She got in behind
me, slid her way to the center and handed the picture back to G.
    “Darlene says she saw the girl last
night.”
    She kept her eyes glued on G as she
spoke. “She says one of those little farm weekends is going on over
in Bellevue. Says she went last night with a john. Says that’s
where she saw the girl.”
    “Farm?” I said. “What’s a
farm weekend?”
    They passed meaningful looks before G
took