But this was before Max’s ultraviolent drug-dealing days, when he let the bullets do the talking, so to get his revenge on Mr. Dunne he took a more subtle approach.
The day after the lunch powwow he sent the secret video he’d shot of Dunne on one of their nights on the town a few weeks earlier. Max always knew that to get ahead in the business world you needed the ammo for extortion ready in hand, and he always prepared in advance. The footage had been taken mostly in the fantasy room at Stringfellows and showed an increasingly wasted, bare-assed Mr. Dunne getting spanked by various strippers. From a contact/mole Max knew at Dunne’s company, he obtained — for a price, and what a price, but it was worth it — the email addresses of Dunne’s entire client list. He then anonymously sent the video off to them in a group email with the subject heading: NICK DUNNE TAKES A BEATING. A few months later, Max was adding Mr. Dunne’s clients to his own portfolio.
Moral of the story: Nobody fucks with The Max and escapes unscathed, and he’d ruined enough lives to prove it.
Now, with a gun halfway down his throat, the same Fuck-With-The-Max-The-Max-Will-Fuck-You-Back-Harder attitude boiling up in him, Max knew he was going to give Precious and her friends some payback — it was just a matter of when and how. First, he had to get out of this mess. Unfortunately there was a how to be figured out here too.
Then it came to him.
Max had had a heart condition for, like, ever. His cardiologist had told him to lose twenty pounds or else about eighty pounds ago, and yet Max was still alive and ticking. Maybe coke and PIMP was like Drano for the arteries? Anyway, he always carried heart pills with him, just in case, and he’d had so many episodes by now that he knew more than enough to fake one.
He held his breath to make his face go red, started convulsing, let some saliva dribble down his chin like Leo in Gilbert Grape, and then let his head go limp. Silently cursing the cut to his palate he’d given himself while fake-convulsing with a gun in his mouth. Fuck, that shit hurt. That better have been convincing. Fuck.
One of the dudes holding an Uzi off to the side went, “Yo, you better chill with that shit, I think you killin’ the mothafucka.”
The thin white dude removed the gun from Max’s mouth said, “You gonna play ball and tell us how to cook up the PIMP, yo?”
Max let his knees buckle, his tongue sagging from his mouth.
Another of the Uzi guys shouted, “Nigga’s dying, K.”
Believing it, the thin guy said to Max, “Shit, you okay, man? Can you hear me?”
Perfect — he knew if he let The Max die he’d never crack the PIMP code.
Max was gasping, barely said the word, “Water.”
“Get the man some water,” an Uzi dude said. “The fuck you standin’ there?”
One of the thugs arrived with a glass of water. Max managed to get a pill into his mouth, making the struggle look good — where was his Oscar? — and then clutched the glass of water.
He’d seen enough attacks at Attica to know exactly what to do next. Gulped a sip of water then smashed the glass against the wall, holding onto the bottom of the glass, and then rammed the shard into the thin guy’s neck.
Blood splurted — bingo.
During the shock, Max kneed one of the thugs in the balls, grabbed the guy’s Uzi, and went Pulp Fiction on him and the rest of the room. He fired like Mad Max 2 — or was it Rambo III? — Still the clip ran out. He was firing on empty for a minute before he realized it was done. Standing in the carnage, with smoke, cordite, and the copper scent of blood all round, and not even a sound, not even a siren... yet.
Time to get his Rambo ass in gear. Checked his watch, allowed two minutes to raid the dead. These Bloods were carrying serious weight, in Rolexes, bulging wallets, diamonds and, sweet Mary and Joseph — his Irish persona still kicking in — and lots of dope.
Max went outside, squinting against the sunlight. The Boyz n the Hood were still doing the corners gig, Jesus, how passé was that? Max, flying on PIMP and some margaritas earlier, marched up to a brother, shouted, “Where Demarcusmon at?”
The guy stared at him, showing gold teeth — was he smiling?
“Demarcus? Over there by the Caddy.”
Max blew the smiling asshole’s head off, scattering his friends.
Then he strode toward the big man. He was marching to a whole other deadly drumbeat, in his own movie that laid waste to the disbelievers who dissed The Max.
Precious wasn’t kidding when she said Demarcus was big. Jesus, the guy had to be six-eight, three hundred and fifty pounds.
Max went to him, “What up, Black?”
The enormous dreadlocked man turned to face Max, not in a hurry, gunfire notwithstanding. This wasn’t a man who got bothered by a little thing like gunfire. A smile already creasing his scarred handsome face, he was going, “The fuck you...?” when The Max shot him in the balls, then moved over, shot him in the face, turned, shot the lieutenant, who was going for his piece, in the side, then turned in whiplash movement — Jeez, that PIMP gave you some moves — and shot the guy on the corner. Then bent down, frisked Demarcus, found stash of cash, dope, and turned with the U, mowed down any brother who moved.
As the smell of cordite and utter disbelief spread over the street, The Max began to stroll down among the fallen bodies, putting a coup de grace in any mother who moaned, then turned, shouted, “That all you got? Spread the word you corn pickers, I own this fucking town.”
He piled everything into the white Caddy. Now a siren was blaring. He put the white in gear, cruised outa there like the King of New York.
His mowing down of the hood kept replaying in his demented head. He reached down as he put distance between him and the cops, unwrapped a shitload of PIMP. Pulled over, snorted four or five lines, punched the wheel as the PIMP hit, shouted like the anorexic pirate in that Hanks movie, “I’m duh captain now!”
Yeah.
In my fresh ride, blasting de hood, wasting dem there muthafuckas.
Yeah, he was down. Then up. But mainly he was rich.
He needed a pad, many women. As he pushed the pickup, he thought, gotta get me some Hank Williams, a coon dog, a Winchester instead of the two fluffy dice hanging in the back window. Pulled over at a convenience store, he was suddenly ravenous. Man, wasting dudes was like, exhausting. Needed some serious death-rate carbs. He was getting out, the Uzi still slung on his shoulder, and he thought, Uh-oh. Not smart.
He reached in among the litter of guns, jewels, and dope, left the Uzi on the pile, and selected a fat wallet brimming with Franklins. Shoved that in his back pocket, grabbed a Heckler, put that in his waistband, tight fit but he got it in there, then strutted towards the convenience store, thinking, fook, he might take it down, depended on whether they had Grey Goose or not.
Later, he sold the Caddy to a shady lot in Bed Stuy, piled his loot in a beat-up pickup he’d taken in part-exchange. The dealer, a wiry one-eyed huckster, looked at The Max, handed over the cash, said, “Got some freight there buddy.”
Once Max would have been intimidated by this but now, he whipped out the Uzi, got right in the loser’s face, asked, “You ever see me?”
“N-n-no... n-never.”
Max was on fire with power, pushed, “You want I come back, pop a cap in yer sorry ass?”
No, he’d prefer not.
Max went Clint, said, “Don’t have me come back here, punk.”