THUGLIT Issue Seven Read Free Page B

Cornrows," Poke told me. "Yeah, that's him. See, my man ran a delivery for Mr. Valentine his own self, and when he went to pick it up they took him in the back. Fuckin' Holy of Holies, you know what I mean?"
    I nodded and eyeballed the bar on account of I wanted another drink. The barman was rubbing his crotch up against it while he talked to some lot lizard from the Flying J next door. Typical, was what I thought of that. Me, I wouldn't hump a woman like that with Poke's dick and the bartender pushing.
    " Are you hearin' me out man?"
    I came back to him and nodded my head.
    He said, "Look, Spaceman tells me—and this is a two six-packs in, you know, the man is just babblin'—but he tells me there wasn't nothing even like a safe back there. He knew 'cause he was lookin' around for one, kinda half-casing like you do. Dude wouldn't never do nothing 'bout it, but you know how it is. Always lookin'."
    I knew how it was.
    "A'ight, so these dudes take Space back there, and they set him down at this table 'cross from Porky. There's all this cash money on top and lines of blow, shit like that. Porky's not touching the blow—that shit would kill a man that fat—but he's finishing up with the money. Space says it's all hundreds and bigger. He gets into what it is he wants Space to do, and while he's talking he passes a fat stack to one of the guys on his crew. Just hands it to him, and keeps on talkin', and the other guy gets down on his knees right there. My man says to me he thought the dude was gonna suck Porky's dick."
    I bust out laughing at that, because it was a pretty funny thing, but it made my bottom lip break open again and next thing I knew I was dribbling blood all down my chin. Poke gave me a look and threw another napkin at me. I dabbed my lip and he went on.
    "Now he didn't see everything exactly, but he got an impression, if you know what I'm saying. This other dude, Porky's dude, got down on the floor with the money and came back up with nothin', and then just crossed his arms like it didn't never happen."
    " Maybe he put it in Porky's sock," I said.
    " Huh-uh," Poke said. He grinned at me. "When Spaceman was going out, he looked down, real quick like, and the big man's pants leg was hiked up a little. So he saw."
    " He saw."
    " The goddamn wooden leg, you dumb bastard."
    I rolled it over in my head and put out t he cigarillo in my empty glass.
    " How the hell's he get around on a wooden leg being as fat as he is?"
    " Get it together," Poke snapped at me. "You understand what this is? Porky's leg is the safe, brother. You get the leg, you got the motherfucking bank."
    I stood up and went to the bar. Snapp ed my fingers at the horndog making time with the hooker even them truckers next door wouldn't prod with a stob. Made my back sort of shiver just thinking about it. And after I got another double Wild Turkey—151, I'm no slouch—I came back to the table and I said to Poke, "All right, so how do we do this?"
     
    *****
     
    Smash and grab was what the man said, and he wasn't fooling around about it. Thing was, Porky Valentine wasn't ever by himself, probably not even when he went to the can. There were always guys around, and those guys packed for sure. So that put the sneak factor right out the window from the get-go. The only way to do this thing was to bust right up in that fat sucker's face and take what we came to get.
    Poke knew a brother dealt with guns, so he gave the guy a call and brought him out to his place, a little two-room house a mile west of the quarry. Dude drove up in a beat-up old Camaro and hauled two suitcases out of the backseat, brought them inside, and opened them up to show us twenty different kinds of guns. There was a little bit of back and forth, bargaining and like that, and he ended up leaving Poke with a SIG while I went for a compact Smith & Wesson .45. Hundred bucks, said it was untraceable.
    Poke said, "We won't have to fire a single shot, don't worry."
    I hoped he was right