Bobby shakes his head. "Trunk's full. Just throw it in the back seat." The trunk is filled with Bobby's luggage, ten grand in singles, and a hundred pounds of quarters from the jukeboxes. On top of all that lies the valise given to him from Chaz Stella with a hundred grand in it.
Angela opens the passenger side door and slides in. "Thanks for leaving me gagged and handcuffed, asshole."
Bobby shrugs. "Didn't want to hear you bitch about cuddling after sex again. You pack the handcuffs?"
"Nice. Real nice. Some gentleman you are. Good thing you got a big dick."
Yeah, Bobby thinks. And if Henry knew that I've been sharing it with you for the last six months, it'd be me lying dead in a hallway somewhere.
"Is it done?" she asks.
"Yeah." Bobby puts the car into drive and heads back to the highway. As Bobby drives by the Manhattan skyline, he looks over at the Empire State Building one last time.
Roses At His Feet
Jay-Jay rehearsed the lines in his head like an actor waiting to play his part. He'd close his eyes and imagine himself on a stage, audience applauding, spotlight bright in his face, roses tossed at his feet. In his mind, he was the playwright, director and actor of the two-man show that was about to unfold. Only the second actor didn't know he'd been cast yet.
It was art. He was a performer.
His venue; a tiny triangular park where Olive St. met Metropolitan, Orient Ave jutting it off at an angle. He waited on the dark side of the green, on Orient, around 3:30 each night and watched the bar crowd make their way home with a discerning eye. He'd watch for men with flowers, specifically.
Jay-Jay lit himself another Kool and watched the two young girls clinging dizzily to one another. They passed him without a glance, giggling at their own sloppiness as they zig-zagged down the sidewalk. Jay-Jay squeezed his crotch as they went. A tingle ran from the base of his scrotum and up his spine as he stared at their tight little asses shifting under the fabric of their tight little jeans.
He wasn't no mad dog. He had rules. First off, nobody drunk. Drunks were too unpredictable. Besides, most of them had spent their money on the goddamn booze that had gotten them there.
And drunks got ideas. Stupid ideas about their chances on the man with the knife.
Second rule, no women. Women tended to scream. Jay-Jay didn't need no attention.
It was all an art. It was all an act. Jay-Jay was an artist. He worked his fingers over the top of the chain-link fence, pretending the spaces were the ivory on the grand piano at The Blue Note. He played "Five Spot Blues", humming the notes as he jabbed at the imaginary keys. Shit, he'd been told a ton of times that he played it better than Thelonious Monk himself.
Crack or no crack, times were hard. Jazz clubs were shutting down left and right. Those few that were left had blacklisted Jay-Jay. Said the drugs were getting in the way. Making him fuck up.
Making him fuck up? Shit, somebody needed to tell those rich white motherfuckers who owned the clubs about real jazz.
Charlie Parker.
Chet Baker.
Billie Holiday.
Even Mr. Wonderful World himself Louis Armstrong smoked himself enough weed to choke out Snoop Dogg.
Drugs were making him fuck up? Fuck, drugs were as much a part of jazz as the goddamn instruments. Maybe more. Jay-Jay was waiting for the day that somebody, anybody could explain Bobby McFerrin to him.
Jay-Jay started to work his fingers around "Cool Walk" when he saw him heading up Metropolitan. Not too big. Carrying roses. Not the pricey boxed ones, but not the shitty deli roses, neither. He didn't look drunk. Perfect.
Jay-Jay walked the opposite side, crossed over about twenty feet ahead of the guy. He kept the knife pressed against the leg away from the dude. No need to show his hand early. As he got close, he saw that the guy was Asian, wearing a green corduroy coat. He thought for a second that it was the same Asian guy he'd hit a month or so back. That cat had four hundred bucks on him. Jay-Jay was disappointed when he realized that it wasn't the same guy. Goddamn Asians all looked the same to him, anyway.
"Them's some nice flowers, my man." Jay-Jay smiled wide and friendly. The curtain was up.
"Thanks." The guy smiled warily, but kept moving. This was Brooklyn, after all.
"Psst." The guy turned towards Jay-Jay again. Jay-Jay flashed the blade under the streetlight. The guy tensed, but didn't flake-all good, so far. Jay-Jay motioned towards the flowers with the tip of the blade, liked the dramatic effect the streetlight (spotlight) had as it danced off the edge. "You got love, man. That's a beautiful thing."
The guy looked from the blade, to Jay-Jay, then back at the blade. Jay-Jay felt for a second that the guy still seemed strangely under-intimidated. He went on with his lines. "So I'm asking you not to risk that. All I want is the money in your wallet. You keep those flowers and you give them to your pretty lady. You hold her in your arms and you forget this happened. You don't, I cut you. I'm not playing."
The guy nodded, chewed on his gum, calm as a pond at dawn.
This wasn't right.
The five or six cats he'd pulled this hustle on shook a little, at least. One big guy started crying as he handed over his wallet. It didn't make Jay-Jay proud or happy to frighten those men, but it made him realize what a powerful tool their love was when turned against them.
Except with this guy.
Then he held out the roses to Jay-Jay. "Hold these a sec?" he asked as he reached behind into his rear left pocket.
Stunned, Jay-Jay took the roses. This guy was too cool. It was starting to freak him out a little.
He had his arms full of the flowers before it dawned on Jay-Jay that most men tended to carry their wallets in their right back pocket, not the left…
The flowers exploded silently up and out from Jay-Jay's grasp, red petals pluming into his face. He heard metal hitting concrete and saw his knife lying next to a hydrant. How the hell did that get there? Jay-Jay turned to see the Asian guy moving quickly, a flash of silvery light underneath the streetlamp and Jay-Jay's legs weren't under him anymore. He slumped to the sidewalk and leaned against the hydrant. Sticky warmth rushed down the arm that once held the knife. Jay-Jay went to grab it, but found he couldn't close his hand any more. Rose petals floated down around him, like fragrant crimson raindrops. Jay-Jay pressed his working hand against his side. More warmth ran between his fingers. Had this little chink fucker cut him? He barely even saw him move.
"It was poor form, Jay-Jay," the Asian man said.
"How…how you know my name?" Jay-Jay's lips were growing numb. It was getting harder to speak.
"I know who you are, because you made it my business." The guy crouched down next to Jay-Jay. He wiped his own wicked-looking blade clean on Jay-Jay's pants leg. "One of the men you robbed? His father is an important man whom I work for. Your robbery insulted them. They wanted me to find you, so I did."
Jay-Jay felt strangely calm despite the alarming rate that the warmth was escaping his body. The coldness in his legs was almost comforting, like a slow dip into the little plastic pool that his uncle would fill up on the hottest summer days.
Jay-Jay smiled a little at the flicker of memory from his Louisiana childhood.
He hadn't thought of home in a long, long time.
He looked into his slasher's eyes and was surprised to find them warm. "It was that Japanese kid I mugged, wasn't it?"
The Asian guy laughed as he lit two cigarettes with a wooden match struck off the sidewalk. "That's profiling, Jay-Jay. So un-P.C." He stuck one filter between Jay-Jay's lips. "Besides, he was Chinese."
"Shit. I'm dyin', ain't I?"
"Yeah. You are. But you shouldn't be feeling any pain. I cut you cleanly."
"You're a fucking saint."
"I didn't have to." The guy stood. "It's a shame Jay-Jay. I saw you play at The Standard last spring. You were a great talent."