Airtight Willie and Me. Iceberg Slim

‘C’ notes and scooted them across the table top.

      I slid them into my shirt pocket. I was about to tell him what a thoroughbred, stand-up Nigger he was when an ebonic money magnet seized my eyes and struck me mute. She crossed the street and stood on ’ho point. You know, big exquisite props wide spread. Her crotch humped out to bulge her obese sex nest against her gauzy red dress. Her luminescent skin shone like indigo velour in the neon razzle. She was certified to be a bantam bundle of voluptuous headache for suckers.

      Oh, I knew at first gander she was a cold-blooded magician. I saw it in her arrogant body lingo. I saw it in the wizard choreography of her long tapered fingers. It was confirmed by her fierce killer-falcon eyes.

      I said dreamily, ‘Phil, I gotta own that slave . . . gimme a rundown on her and her master.’

      Phil curled his lupine lips. He gave me a look like I was that dingbat humpback of Notre Dame. He sneered, ‘Easy Massa, since you gotta dream, go to Shitcon City. You could faster and more safely steal Betty Grable, Hedy Lamarr . . . every top mack man from coast to coast has a hard-on to cop that package over there. Her old man’s a stone gorilla. He’s shot and stomped a half-dozen niggers about that ’ho. She’s got his nose open wide enough to shove in a coffin. Catch on, Pally? She’s Black Sue. She can pick a chump clean from all pockets and stashes in thirty seconds. Pally, that bitch is a superfox hall of famer ’ho . . . now gander the sweetness of the ’ho’s style on that paddy cutting in to her.’

      We watched a brawny white joker in a new Buick honk desperately at the instant that he spotted the pygmy ball lyncher. I’ve seen excited suckers in my time, but that lame has remained without peer in my memory. He just let his chariot drive itself. He coasted through a near-collision cacophony of honking horns as he stretched his neck back and ogled her with phosphorescent eyes.

      She flashed her teeth like a rabid panther. She undulated her flat gut to hook him for the killing floor. She jerked her head toward the yawning vestibule of a condemned flea bag hotel behind her. The sucker was so hot to sock it to her, he couldn’t risk parking or going around the block. His wheels screeched like a cat in an osterizer when he U-turned. He parked crookedly in front of Phil’s sucker trap. He leapt out and galloped through graveyard traffic to her side of the stem.

      We had seen a gleaming gold watch on his wrist. A dime-sized jeweled stick-pin had been shooting pastel fire from his necktie. She stood smiling at him behind the cobwebby glass of the vestibule. Almost immediately we saw their silhouettes merge. It was like they were dancing to the seductive beat of a top ten hit parade tune.

      Phil said, ‘Count the seconds, Pally. That voodoo bitch is pure magic.’

      I started counting in my head. I had counted fifty-five seconds when the mark stepped out. He patted his hip pocket as he bullet-assed it down the sidewalk. He went into a hotel at the end of the block. His watch and stick-pin were playing hooky. Black Sue peeped out and oozed down the alley across the way.

      Phil said, ‘That Houdini bitch took them extra seconds to lift his jewelry . . . ain’t she a motherfucker? She’s sent that mark to check in for fun and games. He ain’t got the five bucks for the room. He’s gonna piss in his pants when he finds the ’ho has cleaned him out and put his wallet back . . . and rebuttoned his pocket!’

      I said, ‘That ’ho is two and a half tons of sweet bread . . . Phil, I gotta steal that fox. I ain’t never gonna be satisfied if I cop a thousand girls. Phil, I deserve that ’ho and the ’ho deserves me. I’m gonna toss the craps for her! Back me up, old Buddy!’

      Phil shrugged, ‘Any and everything, Pally. But like I laid it out front, you ain’t got nothing but sucker odds. So if you want to buck the saw and get in the pit with her gorilla . . . He don’t allow the ’ho to even rap with nothing but suckers . . . and don’t forget he lugged her from New Orleans. Them pimps and ’hos offa Rampart Street got their own understanding of one another’s crazy shit and savvy of their thing together. One more time, Slim! Let the ’ho be! Darling I don’t want to cry like a cunt at your funeral.’

      Then Phil sighed, ‘Good luck, Pally . . . promise to bury you in a blue silk vine with a three-day wake.’

      We watched the stricken sucker stumble out to the sidewalk. He streaked back to the vestibule killing floor. He kicked out the door glass panels. He scooted up and down the block peeping into every joint and cranny. He was cavorting and hurting like his balls had been blow torched. Finally he sad-sacked into his Buick. He stomped the horses and blasted off to shakedown the ghetto catacombs.

      Phil’s main ’ho, dwarfish Bitsy Red, and several ’hos of his stable came in to set up the joint for the after hours action and my birthday party. You know, stringing bunting and glitter crap around the mirrored joint.

      I said, ‘Phil, how long has that ’ho been down in this burg?’

      He said, ‘A week or so . . . why?’

      I said, ‘A ’ho with her voltage is about due to hit the wind any time . . . you know, with the heat and all . . . I better get in the streets now to make some kinda contact with the ’ho. How about laying some more fast run-down on me . . . like has her old man got any chump shortcomings . . . craps, hard shit or what not?’

      Phil grinned, ‘Like every nigger mack fresh outta big foot country, he’s sizzling for young white ’ho pussy . . . he’s sported his dick twice at Aunt Lula’s joint out at the lip of town . . . he’s a half a “C” note trick . . . cons himself he can steal one with his jib and dick. You ain’t got to hit the stem to take your shot at that ’ho . . . every pimp and ’ho in town will ease in here before day-break. Please Pally! . . . be cool and don’t make Jabbo Ross, that’s the gorilla’s moniker, waste you in here and sour my roller fix for my joint.’

      I said, ‘I’ll be cool, Brother . . . does Bitsy know the ’ho?’

      Phil’s Persian Cat eyes ballooned with righteous indignation. Bubbles, the Dane, jerked her two hundred pounds to an ominous crouch.

      Phil’s contralto rap box quavered. ‘Slim, darling, you my main man, and I love ya. Ain’t no doubt, you hip, I’d cut off my right wing and my swipe for you. But I ain’t gonna let you throw my bottom ’ho, Bitsy, in no cross with that crazy Nigger Jabbo and that girl. Nigger, you got a chump yen for the morgue! You ain’t taking Bitsy on that trip!’

      I leaned to pat his shoulder. Bubbles issued a doomsday snarl.

      He whispered harshly, ‘’Ho, everything is cool. Lay your bad ass down somewhere.’

      Bubbles sighed. She crashed down behind his chair and stared at me with malevolent eyes.

      I said, ‘Baby, you read me wrong. I don’t want Bitsy to cut into the ’ho with no messenger cupid bit. Maybe Bitsy is got some inside info on the ’ho. You know, personal scam that only a ’ho would be hip to.’

      Phil turned toward the bar and snapped his fingers. Bitsy looked up from dumping silver into the cash register. Phil’s head waggled her to our table. She sat down. I had met her in Cleveland. She smiled.

      Phil said, ‘Give my homeboy a rundown on Black Sue.’

      Bitsy said in a squeaky voice, ‘We did a lot of rapping ’fore Ross cut us loose . . . she’s twenty-two or three . . . I think. Got a crumbcrusher, a daughter, in a state foster home back in New Orleans. Her old man, Ross, ain’t had Sue but a year. The crumbcrusher’s daddy was wasted inna card game . . . cotch, I think. Ross ain’t got Sue really tight. He’s too strict. Don’t see why he ain’t blowed her ’fore now . . . ’cept maybe she done got freakish to his foot in her ass. She’s been an orphan since twelve . . . saw her daddy waste her mama with a butcher knife. That’s it, Slim. Oh yeah . . . happy birthday!’

      Bitsy got to her feet. She laughed scornfully. ‘That dizzy ’ho is aching to be a lady ’ho . . . wants to cop lots of book learning . . . cop nice proper speech and all that phony shit. Ain’t that a bitch?’

      I said, ‘Ain’t it! Thanks, L’il Sis.’

      She