Kill Kill Faster Faster (3 page)

J
oey.

Joey. Joey.

Some people are great.

Are born to greatness.

Others have greatness thrust upon them.

Some people are miserable.

Are born miserable.

Others have misery thrust upon them.

Or take it upon themselves.

Joey made himself miserable.

Joey didn’t have to be miserable.

Joey could have been on top of the world. Joey had it made. But Joey liked it that way. Liked to be miserable.

Thought he deserved nothing less.

The door opened.

The door opened into a kingdom. It was a secret kingdom.

Joey was standing inside a cage and the cage was scary and there was no way out, but then the door opened and Joey walked out from the cage, through the door, into the sunshine.

A limousine was waiting.

The driver got out.

He said, Mr. One-Way?

Joey said, Yeah?

The driver came around the big black car. He opened the back door for Joey. He didn’t care that Joey just got out of prison, or if he did, he didn’t say anything. Joey stood there. The driver said, Get in. It’s okay. Joey got in.

The driver closed the door behind him, got in his own self.

The driver said, There’s coffee there.

Joey said, You got anything stronger?

What do you want?

What do you got?

Anything your heart desires.

Some alcohol would be nice. I haven’t had no real alcohol in a long time. Some scotch would be nice. Looking around. You got any scotch back here?

Joey was feeling no pain by the time the car reached the city, by the time the limo got off of the Palisades and across the George Washington Bridge and was on the West Side Highway, heading south, downtown. It’s not that he had drank so much or that it showed. He hadn’t drank so much and it didn’t show. Joey was just Joey.

Fucking Joey.

Joey One-Way Out of the joint.

On his way.

The driver pulled up to the docks off of Twelfth Avenue. The driver came around the car, opened the door, said, Go in. They’re waiting.

Joey got out. He looked out on the water. Across the river, past the pilings, he saw New Jersey. He went inside.

A receptionist was sitting there. She smiled at him. Nice enough. Nice looking with long legs she knew were hers, liked to show. She said, Yes? She said sweetly, Can I help you? Joey introduced himself. He said, I’m Joey One-Way. Markie Mann told me to come here. I—She lit up, grinned even more broadly, Yes, how do you do? Joey One-Way! We’ve been expecting you.

The office suddenly full of other young women with long legs too, scurrying around, stealing looks at him. Everybody aware who he is, looking at him when he say his name, when she say his name, say who he is. The sweet receptionist make him feel comfortable, ask him do he want some coffee, a Coke? She buzz Markie on the intercom for him, listen, then say, So sorry, his assistant says he stuck on the set, she says he’ll be here as soon as he can, he’s expecting you, but she’ll be right out to bring you back, show you around, make you at home.

A few seconds later Markie’s assistant emerge from the inner sanctum, yet another beauty with long legs, big chest, fashionable clothes. Markie surround himself with babes, Joey guess. She smile, shake his hand, say, Hey, how are ya, how ya feeling, how was your trip, everything all right? She don’t let go of his hand, smiling at him, looking in his eyes, assessing, taking the measure of the man, of Joey One-Way. She say, Congratulations. (On getting out?) Take him inside, show him what was to be his office. Say, You want to sit behind the desk? (He didn’t.) Went over briefly and informally what he would have to do. Script doctor. Spice up dialogue. Assured him nothing was going to be too heavy for him the first day, or even the first week, relax, take it easy, get used to it.

Joey say, That’s cool.

She say, If you need to cool out, Markie says you’re welcome to go down to his apartment. Cool out there in comfort. Would you like to do that?

Joey say no, he wait, wait for the man.

Then she remind him he did have to check in with his parole officer, make an appearance at the halfway house, lamentably, sleep there. She smiled, said, Pardon me, pardon us, but it’s our responsibility. Markie wanted me to remind you. Part of the deal Markie made with the parole board to get you out.

Joey’s gig at the halfway house was for something like thirty days or ninety days or a hundred and twenty days, he forgot now exactly how long, ninety days, and Markie’s assistant wasn’t sure either, some period of time until he became acclimated to life on the outside, but the production company, Markie, would eventually rent him some digs of his own, soon as the probationary period was over, ended, gladly do that, a place of his own, some solitude. No one connected with the show wanted him to feel like he was still in prison. He had the office right here where he could write, supposed to write, but he didn’t have to write in his office if he didn’t want or didn’t feel comfortable, he could write wherever he damn well chose, she made that clear. He could write in Markie’s apartment. In the subway. On a park bench. At Mickey D’s. It was his call.

Wanna get laid? Markie asked Joey after he came storming in about two hours later, all apologetic. He said he had been on the set. There had been some problem. Nothing major. Numbers had come in. Overnights. The network were being pricks. Typical. He took Joey’s hand, shook it, a power shake. Hugged him. They had met a number of times up at the lockup, Markie had come to visit. Then Markie push him away, stare in his eyes like there some kind of bond, grin, say, Hey, wanna get laid, dude? I can imagine, I know, a guy just getting out of the joint, you must be one horny son of a bitch.

Joey hadn’t been with a woman in more than seventeen years. Probably longer than that if he thought about it, because him and Kimba had quit fucking at the end, before he done the dirty. They had been having their troubles that last year. They hadn’t been what you’d call intimate at the end. Far from it. Not for a long time.

If Joey thought about it, he could get laid. To be with a woman, a real flesh-and-blood woman. He wouldn’t need convincing. He’d like to taste a woman’s cunt. Feel her warmth. But he hadn’t really thought about it. Not like that. Not blunt like that.

Joey was sort of tired. Joey was sort of exhausted.

The scotch had gotten to him. He had finished the bottle, which was a fifth, but hadn’t been quite full, so not so much, but enough.

He was feeling the scotch. His head was buzzing at the back of his skull, at the base of his neck, the scotch squeezing the head bones back there, twisting them upside his brain where the spinal column met the brain stem there, the medusa oblongata, whatever.

Real headache city like.

No fun. No fun for Joey.

S
he had a beautiful face.

The first time I ever saw her, man, I don’t know what I saw.

I was dizzy. I was drunk.

I saw her.

I saw her.

I saw her spirit. Felt her warmth. Could smell her smell. I swear to God.

It was in Markie Mann’s office, her husband’s office. She had an office there somewhere too, in the complex. He called her in on the interoffice to meet me, introduced us, introduced her as his wife, asked her if she wouldn’t do him a favor, looking at me as he talked, hugging me, beaming at me like I was some prize pet, asking her if she wouldn’t take me downtown to their place, get me settled.

She took my hand, smiled at me.

She said she’d be glad to.

Markie interrupted, said, By the way, we gonna have a party. We gonna have a party for you tonight at the pier.

I said, Okay, cool beans, a party. I’m into it.

Then we were in the limo, sitting side by side, going down Varick.

She said something, small talk, how was I feeling.

I said something back. Told her I was okay.

I groped for her name. I guess I hadn’t quite caught it. I said Flora or something, called her something stupid.

She laughed, kidded me, said Flora was a horrible name, said her name was Fleur. Flower in French.

Flowers, I said.

I don’t know why. I just said it.

Flowers.

She took my hand, squeezed it, said, I like that. She told me she was from Algeria by way of Marseilles. She said, I’m a writer too. And you know what? I been in jail too. Her hair short and very stiff and black and very well cut, the weight of it to the back, leaving her face open and exposed.

When she told me she’d been in jail, her eyes glistened, sparkled, her teeth shone. Her nose was crooked like it had been broke, her ears had split lobes where they’d been pierced and maybe the earrings torn out. She caught me looking at her, staring I guess, out of the corner of my eye, and she looked right at me, into my eyes, unashamed, not a challenge, but a challenge, and before I knew, she was back talking some shit about jail again and being what they call a
beur
, or whatnot, Arab spelled backwards in French or some shit, some disrespect in France, some kind of slur, but I show them, she laughed, I got them where it hurts. Fleur talking about her book, the book she wrote, and me thinking about something completely different, me thinking about pain, me thinking about sex, me thinking, ah, what the fuck, I be honest with you, this girl, this Fleur, this Flower, this woman sitting next to me, this Flowers, she so, she so, she so eminently fuckable.

O my brothers, what’s gotten into me? So crass, so crude. How would she say? So déclassé. This Flower, this Markie Mann’s wife, she was like sex incarnate for me.

And I was fucked.

And I knew it.

I knew it.

L
ater than it should be, everybody looking for me, everybody waiting for me at the party, on the pier. I be the guest of honor, but I ain’t there. I’m late.

It’s my history. I’m always late.

The limo apparently waiting and waiting to take me to the party, but I have to do what I have to do, take care of business. Go see the parole officer, check in at the halfway house, et cetera, et cetera.

Halfway house is like a men’s shelter if you don’t know, on East Third Street, no place you want to be.

So I never hook up with the limo for whatever reason and I walk over, through the streets, finally I make my appearance and there I am.

Oh, a lot of people there already.

People you know you know. People you recognize.

Hip crowd, beautiful people, a lot of familiar faces from magazines and the movies and TV, models, some kid magician with blue Ben Franklin glasses want in the worse way to make a dollar bill hang in the air and impress everybody.

Markie had me by the arm, escorting me around, introducing me. This is Joey One-Way. Joey, this is so-and-so.

You know.

Suddenly Flowers standing at my elbow, pressing my elbow to her chest, between her breasts ever so lightly.

Markie says, Joey, you know Fleur, right?

I look at her. Smile. She smile back at me.

Markie says, Fleur, you know Joey? Joey, Fleur, my wife. Her eyes in my eyes. You know what I’m saying. Her eyes IN my eyes, like she fucking me there, like she making love, her eyes to mine.

I said, Huh? What? Markie, man, you introduced us earlier this afternoon. She took me downtown.

He slap his head like so dumb.

Oh yeah, yeah. I’m so stupid, Markie says.

She was wearing a black dress. You could see into her cleavage. The black dress made her dark skin darker. Like I said, her hair was short, cut real blunt, real stylish, with this volume in the back, so you knew she wasn’t no American, and I liked the sweep of it, like you just wanted to fuck that. She had a crooked tooth. Piercing brown eyes. She’s looking at me all this peculiar, real steadily, and loaded.

Sure, right, you know Fleur.

He put one arm around her, one arm around me. Like he owned the both of us.

So, you devil, he said. He punch my arm. How was she? How was the broad?

Earlier in the afternoon, when he come back from the set, he’d asked me if I wanted to get my rocks off, he could arrange, send over a prostitute.

I said she was great.

He grin, crack wise. He say, So, other than your genitalia, how’s things going, boyo? Everybody behaving, saying all the right things to you?

You bet. Everybody very bolstering.

Fleur’s eyes never leaving me. A real steady, appraising look, a dare.

Markie take his arm from around my shoulder, squeeze my arm, start walking me around the party again.

Fleur following behind a step or two.

Markie had hold of my arm, Fleur didn’t have it.

Bobby, I want you to meet Joey. Joey, you know Bobby?

Bobby’s the star of the show.
El Pistolero. El Pistolero Miami Vice
in New York. Bobby play a big man with a big gun. Bobby a big movie actor, deem it okay to slum on TV, doing it for Markie. He’s the one Markie optioned my play for and all. Markie got a big plan. He’s gonna produce the movie, direct it, Bobby star in it, me write it, between the lot of us, the whole kit and caboodle.

Bobby was sitting at a table in the corner. The big star whose name you would know if I named it. He had a drink and a cellular phone. The drink was in his hand, the phone on the tablecloth directly in front of him. The Ben Franklin-eyed magician was at the table with him, finally the dollar bill hanging suspended in the air just right. Bobby patted the seat next to him. He said, Sit down.

He asked me what it was like in the joint.

He wanted to know everything. If you said something, he would stop you and say, Did you say it like this? Or like this? It was like he was making a catalog for his acting, like a reference. Like this or like this?

People come over. They look at me. Nod. Then they bend down, whisper in Bobby’s ear. They treat him almost like a godfather, and that’s how he sits, in the corner, looking out, drinking his drink, his legs crossed, waiting for them to come over, kiss his hand, kiss his ass, whatever.

C’mon, man, let’s move on. Markie grabs me, pulls me to my feet. Man’s in demand, he says to Bobby by way of explanation. You don’t mind, do you, boyo?

Right from the start, from the second I laid eyes on her, through the night and every night thereafter, to this night, every second, Fleur, she stick in my mind.

Every single second.

If you want to know the truth, all those girls, all those office assistants and production assistants and script girls and whatnot groupies, sticking around, talking at me, their long legs, their low-cut necklines, smelling sex. Still I was looking for her all night long, and without fail, when I spotted her across the room, she would invariably look up, invariably, and our eyes would lock and something would pass, something shoot at me, electric, every time. Under, over, through the crowd, our eyes would meet, like hungry, predatory, like love.

Markie tore me away from a bevy of twenty-two-year-old slacker models to introduce me to this couple. Special friends of his. The guy’s a writer for the show. Staff writer. The woman takes my hand, tells me there’s a connection between us, her and me, do I realize that?

No. No I don’t.

Even to this day I don’t know what it is exactly she was driving at. Something about my agent, who I’d never met, not even once. She said she was working on a set of some movie, and the agent was there, and he was talking about me, pitching me for some project. You’re a very hot property, you know, she tells me. Yeah, right, Joey One-Way, you know, that mope wrote
White Man Black Hole.
Real hot prospect.

I talk to the writer for a few minutes. Guy graduated Yale, now he’s writing cop show on TV. He says he comes from a long tradition, intellectual hacks, and laughs. I didn’t get it. Then the writer who thinks he’s a hack says excuse me, and exits for the bar, leaving me with his wife. She starts talking to me again, real intimate. She a blonde. Nice looking. Probably in her thirties, maybe older, if you looked hard enough you could sorta start seeing lines around the eyes and mouth. She talk very low like in a whisper, very sexy, and as she talk she moves closer and closer to me, till she got her face upturned, buried in my neck, lips brushing my ear, talking some shit. I can smell her perfume, can feel her body, her nerves and muscles, and I’m drinking, feeling the alcohol, feeling all right, good even, and I’m thinking, man, why that guy run away from his wife like that, leave her with me, I mean do he know who he dealing with here, she right up there in my face.

I got to get away, man.

I’m feeling uneasy.

I mean I was tempted and everything. That’s what I’m saying. All these girls and everything. This a woman here. I been away seventeen and a half fucking years. I don’t know how to act.

Did I say earlier in the day Markie set me up with a whore so as I get laid? I told you that, right?

Oh man, the guy a solid. She was a firebrand, that one. Markie a solid.

So how could I wind up fucking him with his own wife, man? You hear what I’m saying?

Oh man, oh man.

Here’s how it went down:

On paper, see, I got to stay in the halfway house every night. I can’t sleep just anywhere, but, but he encourages me to use his apartment, get comfortable, get acclimated. Did I say that?

He lives in Tribeca, on Warren Street. Tribeca like this new neighborhood, Triangle Below Canal Street, didn’t exist when I went away. Used to be all factories and warehouses and shit, now it’s something else. Big spaces. All done up. Groovy. Very groovy.

It’s not like I’m in the office thinking, Hey, Joey man, you out of the lockup, you home free, time to get yourself laid, and Markie sending me down there to his apartment do the dirty in his marriage bed. No, he genuine want me to see his place. He says, I want you to see what I done for myself, boyo, what’s possible. Mi casa es su casa, and he hug me and kiss me and pat my back and punch my arm and say, Until you get one of your own.

Markie’s apartment very she-she. It’s all furnished very elegant and everything. It’s a loft, like I say. With gleaming wooden floors and big clean windows.

He sends me down with his wife, with Flowers.

He say, Joey, this is my wife. This is Fleur. You heard me talk about her, right? Ain’t she a peach, boyo? She’s a writer just like you, you know. Her book was a big sensation, both here and in France. A regular international best-seller. Very salacious, that’s what the
New York Times
called it, my friend. He kisses her.

From the start something was going on between Fleur and me, right from the start. She takes me down to the apartment, shows me Markie’s setup, never taking her eyes off me, watching, watching, showing me how he got an office up front where the windows were and a audio-video system over here, a laser player, a 3DO, a black laptop computer with an active matrix color screen with nude girl screen saver, laser fax machine, the works. She looking at me, wink, says, Lasers be cool, no,
boyo
? and grin. Then out of the blue she comes close, smiles, measures herself against me, says I’m the perfect height for her, and step away.

She hand me the key, hold my hand two beats longer than she shoulda. She say lock up when I’m through.

We’d come downtown to their place in the limo, me and her, Markie he say he would have accompany us, but he don’t want to gloat about his abundance of riches, and punch my arm again, let me know he just kidding.

Then after giving me the key, Fleur leave, no further question asked, she that much reluctant, distinct impression she don’t really want to leave, and not two minutes later the bell rings, me thinking she changed her mind, she coming back, because I know deep down in my heart, deep down, she don’t want to leave.

I says yes into the intercom.

A woman’s voice says, I’m here.

I says, Who are you?

Mark Mann sent me.

I buzz her in.

She take the freight elevator up.

The door open, she come out.

She say, Hi, my name is Mo.

Irish chick.

Short for Maureen.

First thing I notice she got some beautiful set of knockers. Right off gorgeous tits. I see it’s her asset, and she want you to know about it straight up. Not that she’s been whipped by the ugly stick in other respects, because she hasn’t. Far from it. She a comely girl with a spray of sweet freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her turn-up nose. But the knockers, man, the knockers, for a guy right out of the joint, and later, they in your hand they got a weight to them, they heavy.

I scared, I’m telling you, for whatever reason, I’m worrying, I’m thinking I don’t know how much she like to fuck, you know what I’m saying? Like it’s her job.

We get naked and she get me hard. She put spit on her hand like a ditch digger make herself wet.

I take her hand away from my cock. I say, No, I do that. Later you hold my nuts in your hand, I get myself off, but first I like to lick you pussy. Is that all right wit’ you?

She shrug. She don’t care. You the boss, sweet thing.

I suck on her pussy. She got a hairy pussy.

She clean. She smell so clean.

No question she washed her cunt before she come over to fuck me. I can smell the soap. The clean.

I pulled her up. I slid under her and I pulled her on top of me.

She was sitting on me, on my face, her clit right on my mouth. I was looking up.

Her tits hung down with their weight. Her nipples were not erect or anything, but they were pink and a little on the underneath side of the breast, so I could look up and see them perfect breasts and nipples silhouetted against the ceiling, her head back, arched, her hair hanging down her back, she a ginger hair girl, she moan.

I put my hands on her tits and I supported them, my thumbs on the nipples, and I felt the weight, so nice, and I began to suck on her pussy.

I lick her clit.

I clamp my mouth on her cunt. To the whole top. I suck.

I’m so wet, she says. C’mon, honey.

She wants me inside her.

But for whatever reason, I say no.

I don’t know why I say no, but I don’t want to fuck. I’m afraid.

I say, Get me off with your mouth. But not right now, let me do this a little more.

I want to hear her come, man. I want to hear a woman come. I’m like dizzy with it. Maybe oxygen deprivation. I couldn’t be harder on her cunt. I want to suffocate in it. Man, a woman, man. And I got the power. And she coming. And she coming. And she coming.