"Like how?"
"Be in the moment, my brother. All will be revealed."
It got on my nerves when he spouted that Zen shit. But a thousand and some change was looking good about then, so what could I say? "Now you know I gotta be workin' out, Nap."
Nap banged his swizzle stick against his bottom lip. He seemed to be considering something else, but said, "That can be handled. You seen Burroughs since you been back?"
Burroughs was a doc a lot of the guys went to for help in establishing a rehab program. Especially if you needed to be clean in a hurry. He was also useful in several other ways too. But I didn't want to get into why I hadn't. "I ain't gonna be standin' in the entrance in a top hat and one of them long coats like some doorman?"
"You're repeating yourself, son. And don't change the fuckin' subject."
"It must be your feminine side which sets you to worryin' so much. I'll take care of my hip."
Nap pushed his hands up like a homey pulled over by the Highway Patrol on the Harbor Freeway at 3
"I'm in as long as I ain't got a contract. But once that happens, I'm outta here faster'n one of Madonna's boyfriends."
Nap bit on the end of the swizzle, breaking it off in his teeth. "That's good, Zelmont," he said, again keeping what he was thinking to himself.
We shook hands and I went back out into the parking lot, careful like. Maybe Chekka's boys were waiting around, figuring to smoke a brother before lunchtime. They weren't and I got in my ride with no particular place to go. I could have gone to find Davida, try and make up. But she'd see through that. She knew me well enough to know I would just be doing it to get a celebration fuck out of her. She could wait.
I had butterflies with razor wings doing loop-the-loops in my stomach. I was psyched up and couldn't quite figure out why. The danger of them gangsters had me sharp, but that wasn't it. Motherfuckahs who thought with their guns were cowardly punks anyway. You had to respect a piece, but not the fool packing it. Guns gave 'em a false sense of security. That could be handled.
Maybe somewhere down below the usual bullshit going on in my brain I felt I had turned a corner down a hall and couldn't come back the same way. I knew I had to get to the end, wanted to get there, in fact. It was the doors along that hall I had to be up on.
Those doors were going to open any second, and I didn't know what might be spilling out at me.
I could have gone to the Canyon to work out. Or I could have gone over to Gold's Gym in Venice and done some reps, hit the stationary, maybe catch a bouncy little something looking for an afternoon diversion before she got to her acting class. Yeah, I could have done any one of those things. Instead I went and found me a slanger on Figueroa and bought two vials of crack. Sonofabitch recognized me too. He'd be telling stories to his partners later.
I didn't wait until I got to the crib to light my shit either. I got a room at a hot sheet motel. The chunky Indian chick behind the glass looked at me as if I'd lost my mind. I'd strolled past two hoes out at the curb like they were invisible and hauled my big ass inside. Standing there alone at the counter, I shoved the twenty under the slot, grinning like I was natural-born country.
Inside the room the air wasn't moving. It was like all the quickie stranger sex had been soaked into the cinder block walls and was seeping out a little bit at a time, getting absorbed into the skins of the users, then recycled back into the room. And the women like the ones prowling outside were living off the energy like it was antimatter in Star Trek.
I clicked on the TV. An adult flick came on.
The stem of the pipe was warm and comforting in my fingers. Narcotic vapors went up from the bowl, and that smell wasn't new in the room either. I took a pull, then another, then let the shit out. Amateurs will try to take in too much on their first suck like crack was marijuana. But the deal is to take it slow, draw it in like you're baiting a trap. Then I took a third pull and, baby, that was the bomb. On the TV two chicks were 69-ing each other.
The hit had arrived, and I was riding on top of the engine car of the locomotive, the fumes coursing through the corpuscles in my arms, my legs, and into my skull. My ears started tingling. The buzz was on. I laid back on the bed, staring at the mirrored panels attached to the ceiling. The moaning of the couple on the screen became the cheers of the crowd. I was running for the goal line in my Barons uniform, my hip rising and falling like a well-oiled piece of machinery down the moist grass of the Coliseum.
Nothing could stop me.
Chapter 4
I pretty much sleepwalked through my gig the next few days at the Locker Room. It wasn't like I had to roust the clowns looking to grab some booty on the sly or talking too loud at one of the three bars of the club. Nap had plenty of buffed dudes, and a couple of beefed-up bodybuilding chicks, to take care of that. My thing was to float, do a little backslapping, laugh, and nod my head with the out-of-towners, pose for a picture now and then. And keep sharp.
On the third night I scoped out a couple of dudes that had to be with the Little Hand. They mumbled in that Slovakian language of theirs, and like Chekka they wore way too much Hugo Boss cologne. Like they were trying to hide the rotting smell their corrupt asses must naturally give off.
But these two laid in the cut, assessing things for Chekka, I figured. Me and Nap watched them on the monitors he had behind a sliding section of wall fronted by those crazy statues in his office. He had several mini-cameras hidden about the club. Nap was a smart cat, always thinking ahead.
"His name is Ondanian," Nap said, sipping on a glass of fizzy water. He tipped his head at the taller of the two on the monitor screen.
"That don't sound like one of them Russian names like the rest of them." I wanted a hard drink but didn't want Nap to think I was slipping. My tryout was next week anyway.
"He's Armenian," Nap said for my education. Like I knew where Armenia was compared to Bosnia. "I understand he and Chekka may be doing some business together."
''You mean he ain't on homeboy's payroll?''
"Freelancer," Nap answered. "Seems he made his money in black market arms dealing to places like North Korea and Iraq."
The two walked off and Nap killed the power to the wall of monitors. "Let's keep a watch on Ondanian, Zee. Could be he'll prove useful as a block on Chekka."
"Cool," was all I could say. To me he was just one more hungry mountain lion circling to try to get his piece of the bull. If I got a contract, I intended to buy in with Nap, and then we could open Locker Rooms in other cities. First, though, I had a few brothers who'd kill their mamas for bus fare I was gonna sic on Chekka, Ondanian, or any other chump with a hard-to-pronounce name who was trying to strongarm my man.
"Davida have any luck on that record thing?" We were walking back to the staircase.
"Man, I ain't talked to that silly ho since we went at it over her so-called singing career the other day." I started down the stairs. At the main entrance, which was done up like a tunnel into a stadium, a man in a hat like Sinatra used to wear on those album covers came in. He flashed something to Rory, the doorman. Me and Nap exchanged a look.
"I'll go see what's up." I was already in motion as I talked. I hit the bottom of the staircase and zigzagged my way through the clubbers to where the cop stood near the stage.
"Can I help you, doc?" He was a little over average height with a wiry build. The way he looked reminded me of Tiger Woods, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Maybe he was Samoan. His pearl gray suit was crisp but out of fashion by years. Somehow, without him even talking, I knew his threads matched his personality.
"Superstar." He leaned back against the pillar, his coat falling open to show the butt of his piece and the badge he'd reclipped on his belt. A goofy smile pulled his mouth apart to show the gap in his front teeth.