Shella (7 page)

We went out the back door to a fire escape, climbed metal stairs to the roof. Everybody came up there. One of the other guys brought a metal folding chair. He opened it for Monroe.

City lights all around us, but the roof was dark. Flat, just an electrical shack to one side, big skylight on the other. The door to the shack opened, a man stepped out. It must lead downstairs, be locked from the inside so nobody could burglar the place.

I took off my jacket. I was wearing a sweatshirt. Extra-large. It was baggy on me, loose and comfortable. I pulled it up to my neck, taking the T-shirt with it, holding it like that so they could see I didn’t have a gun. I walked around a few feet, feeling the roof under the thin soles of my gym shoes.

The redhead took out a knife. A big one, brass knuckles around the handle, little teeth along the top edge of the blade.

One of Monroe’s guys stepped forward, a short piece of rope in his hand.

“You want to rope dance?” Monroe asked the redhead.

“No, fuck that. Just give him a blade—let’s get it on.”

The guy stepped back. Everybody took out money, whispering in the black corners.

“Okay?” Monroe asked the redhead.

“Yeah. Do it!”

Monroe nodded. “You okay, Ghost?”

I nodded, watching the redhead. He came in like a crab, in a crouch, the knife in his right hand, holding it underhand, blade facing in. He took a swipe—I stepped to one side, watching. He was making a noise to himself, like a hum from a generator. Each time he came in, swiped, stepped back. Closing the line, coming nearer every time. I moved my left hand to my right wrist, slid back the cuff to the sweatshirt, let the car antenna slide into my hand. I snapped my wrist and it came out, telescoping to about five feet. I whipped it across his left hand before he saw what it was. He made a noise as I brought it around in a stream, slashing an X across his face. His hands came up, blood sprayed around them, and the knife fell. I kicked it away, moved in on him, giving him time, pulling the cuff off my left wrist. He grabbed for the antenna. I let him take it, raking the sharpened can opener I had taped to my left wrist across his face. I locked it in deep, pulling against the muscles. It caught near his mouth as he hit the ground, me on top. I pulled it free. He was screaming then. I chopped at the side of his neck until I felt it go.

I used the front of his shirt to wipe off the can opener and the antenna. I could smell where one of the guys had thrown up on the roof.

We all went downstairs. Some of the guys paid money to Monroe. I saw the money on the table. Monroe separated some of it, gave it to me. He saw I was looking at the money that was left.

“That’s the difference between you and me, Ghost,” he said. “Don’t ever forget it.”

I didn’t say anything.

Monroe told me not to come back there. He gave me a place to meet him in two nights. Told me the car he’d be in.

I went out the next afternoon, bought the papers. There was nothing about finding a body on a roof.

I don’t read much. Just the papers once in a while. To see if there’s trouble. Shella used to read to me, sometimes. It started when I got hurt. This guy was coming to watch Shella dance every night. He asked her for a date—she told him she didn’t date the customers. So he started calling her at work. The first couple of times, she took the calls. He scared her, with those calls. That’s hard to do to Shella, but he did it. Kept saying, if she wasn’t going to give him a piece of ass, he was going to take one for himself. Cut it off her one night. Told her he had a razor. I told her the guy was playing with himself, talking to her like that, getting off on her being scared. I tried to tell her how I knew, from listening to guys like him the last time I was locked up. Freaks, I know them. You just listen, they’ll tell you everything. He never came back to the club. I told Shella, just don’t talk to him on the phone, he’ll find someone else to give his terror to. She promised me. But she lied. I always knew when Shella lied.

He was waiting for her, one night. In the alley behind the club, where she walked through to get to the car. A shortcut. I was there too. Every night, I was there. Ever since I found out she was lying.

He didn’t know what he was doing, the freak. When Shella came through the mouth of the alley, he was breathing so loud I could hear him from where I was waiting. You couldn’t miss Shella, clicking in her high heels, white-blonde hair piled up on her head. Alone.

The freak knocked some garbage cans together when he got to his feet. Shella didn’t run. Stupid bitch, Shella. She stopped, pulled something out of her purse. I could see the red neon glitter on the metal.

“Come on, cocksucker!” she yelled at the freak. “Come and get it. I got one too.”

He stepped out of the shadows. It looked like he had only one arm, the sleeve of his coat dangling empty. Nothing in his other hand. He staggered like he was drunk, mumbling like he was scared Shella was a crazy woman, going to hurt him for nothing. She made a disgusted noise, snorting through her nose. She only saw a crippled drunk, trying to find a quiet place to sleep. Dropped the razor back in her purse, spun around, and started to walk out of the alley. He flew at her like a giant bat, coat flapping around him. The angle was wrong—I had too much ground to cover. He almost had her from behind when I kicked his knees from the side. He went down against the wall, came back up fast. I went at him from the empty-sleeve side—felt the flash of something heavy coming at me, threw up my hand—the lead pipe cracked across the side of my hand, right into my face. I didn’t feel it until after I was done with him.

Shella got me into the car, took me to the room. My left eye was closed, my nose was all flat, pushed to one side. It bled a lot.

We couldn’t go to a hospital. Shella got ice from the ice machine in the hall, wrapped it in a towel, smashed it with
the lead pipe. I pushed my nose back where it should be with my fingers and Shella put the towel with the crushed ice over my face, like a mask. She gave me some Percodan she had, and I got woozy—I’m not used to drugs.

The lead pipe had tape all around one end, for a better grip. In the freak’s wallet, we found the number to the pay phone at the club.

I was lying on the bed, on my back. We’d have to stay a while now. If Shella left the same night the cops found the freak in the alley, if they stopped the car somewhere and saw my face …

She came over to the bed, carrying a chair in one hand, sat down next to me.

“You should whip my ass,” she said.

I didn’t say anything.

“This is my fault. I didn’t listen to you. I was talking to him on the phone, every time he called. Told him he better leave me the fuck alone, I wasn’t playing. I thought he’d run away, I talked to him like that. But it made him mad. I didn’t want to tell you … what I did … so I decided I’d deal with him myself. Phone freaks, they never show up in person. Like flashers. I was on the train once, in Chicago. Late at night. This guy opens his coat and it’s all hanging out. He’s hard and all, getting off on it. I ran over and grabbed him, right by the root. Almost yanked it off, the motherfucker. I thought … I’m sorry, baby.”

“It’s okay,” I told her. Tired, not sleepy.

“You want me to …?” she asked, trailing her fingers along my cock. It was soft, small.

“No.”

She gave me a little kiss on my chest. Got up and went somewhere.

When she came back, I was the same way. I could feel
her sit in the chair next to the bed. “Would you like me to read to you, honey?”

I said “Sure.” I don’t know why I said that.

It was one of those romance books she was always reading. Paperbacks. I listened to her read, watched the story in my head. It was a stupid story, something about a princess. Her father wanted her to marry the son of some other king, make some political deal. She ran away. She got captured by some pirates. They had her tied up in a chair when the pirate captain came in. She started giving him orders when I fell asleep.

Shella fed me hot soup the next morning. Washed my face with a hot towel, gave me another Percodan, made another ice mask for me. I laid down, resting. She asked me, did I want her to read to me some more.

I told her okay.

She went to work that night. She said, if the cops took her, she wouldn’t tell them where she lived. If she didn’t come back, I should figure she was locked up.

She came back, though. Said the cops didn’t even question the girls in the club.

Shella got a bunch of different books. She’d get them at the drugstore, off the racks. All kinds. She read to me every morning, every night when she got back to the room.

I got better every day.

One night, she asked me what was my favorite. Of all the books she read to me.

I didn’t like the sex books. Or the westerns. The mysteries, like with clues, they were too complicated, too silly. I thought about it. The Sherlock Holmes stories, I told her. When she asked me why, I told her because the stories were short. When she was at work, I thought about it. Why
I liked those stories. They were so close, always together, Holmes and that doctor. Watson. Friends to the end. Real partners. Even when Watson got married, he was with Holmes. Holmes, he was ice-cold. Always did the smart thing, figured stuff out. But in one story, I forget the name, he told some guy, if anything had happened to Watson, the guy was dead.

There was lots and lots of those stories. Some were longer, like books.

Shella read to me all the time when I was getting better. Even after we left that town, when my face was healed, she would read to me sometimes. Like a treat.

There were still plenty of the Sherlock Holmes stories left when I went down in Florida.

I met Monroe a little after midnight. He gave me the address: Pike Slip, off South Street. It was under a big highway on the East Side, slab of concrete like a parking lot, but no cars came there. He was in a black limo, like he was coming from a party. I saw it pull in from where I was watching. The glass in the back windows was black like the car.

I stepped out so they could see me. The back window came down. I walked over.

“Get in, Ghost,” Monroe said.

Inside, it was like a living room. All leather, even a wood bar that came down from the back of the front seat. Just Monroe in the back seat. I could see two men in the front, sitting behind a screen, facing front.

“You ready to work?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“I’m a businessman, okay? I got a lot of business. There’s this guy, Carlos. Carlos the Colombian, they call him. He don’t know how to do things—he’s a fucking animal.”

I don’t care why people do things. Everybody’s got a reason—it doesn’t change anything, why they do it. But I didn’t tell Monroe that. I learned, from doing this a long time, I learned not to say anything. I just let people talk until they tell me what I need. Sometimes I nod, like I’m listening.

“We told this fucking guy, we told him he can’t move weight in this town without the say-so. He’s got prime stuff, I’ll give him that. All we wanted was a taste, just a slice off the top. I told him nice, there’s plenty for everyone, don’t be greedy, you know?”

That’s when I nodded. So he’d finish.

“He fucks with his own product, thinks he’s Superman, nobody can take him down. Goes everywhere with this fucking army. Way I heard it, he’s got himself a deal. With the
federales.
Walks around like he’s got immunity. Never gets busted. Anyway, you can’t get to him where he lives. Wherever the fuck
that
is, someplace out in Queens, Jackson Heights. Chapinero, they call it. Spanish for something, maybe their home town. It’s all Spanish out there, wall to wall. You speak any Spanish?”

“No.”

“Anyway, it ain’t the money, Ghost. Everybody’s got a boss. Even me, I got to answer to people. I’ve been paying the slice myself. For a couple a months now. You understand what I’m saying? I slice his action off the top, they slice mine. They don’t care how I get it, I got to get it. They know he’s moving weight, they expect me to slice it.
I tell them I can’t move on this guy, they move on me. That’s the way it works, right?”