“Cowboy, stop acting like we new to this,” Cos said, pulling his coat closed at the neck. The icy wind was especially brutal that afternoon. “Handle ya business, fam. If they try any funny business, just be sure to duck because we don’t believe in nothing but head shots!” he gave Thor a pound.
“Just be on point,” Cowboy said, leading Frankie towards the front of the bar.
Hades was a low key Goth bar located just off West Broadway in the Village. It was a place where the children of the night came to play and chase their troubles in booze, but what most didn’t know was that it was a base of operations for a Harlem coke dealer named Butch. At that hour of the day it was nearly empty, but there were a few lost souls hunched over the bar whispering into half empty glasses. When Cowboy and Frankie entered the spot, they were greeted by a shapely hostess who looked like she wasn’t getting enough sun.
“Table for two?” she asked, flashing a perfectly white smile, behind blood red lipstick.
Cowboy spoke to her, but his eyes were on her large breasts. “Actually, no. We have an appointment with Mr. Zappa. Tell him that Charles Lagerfeld is here.” He gave her a bogus name that Butch would recognize.
“Very well, Mr. Lagerfeld, I’ll tell Mr. Zappa you’re here. In the meantime, you’re welcome to wait at the bar and have a drink, on the house of course,” she said in a very friendly manner.
“We’ll pass on the drink, thank you.” Frankie’s voice wasn’t hostile, but there was definitely an edge to it. The hostess caught the hint and left without another word. “Don’t try me, Cowboy,” she whispered to her lover.
“Frankie, your ass is tripping.” Cowboy tried to down play it.
“When I start tripping, you’ll know about it.”
A minute or two later the hostess came back out. She was still wearing her business-like smile, but made it a point not to look at Cowboy for too long. “Mr. Zappa will see you now. If you guys will just follow me,” the hostess led them through the maze of tables and passed the bathrooms to a door marked PRIVATE. She tapped on the door twice before pushing it open and stepped back for Cowboy and Frankie to enter. As Cowboy passed, she rubbed her breasts against his arm but Frankie didn’t catch it. Sitting behind a modest desk was Mr. Zappa.
Lawrence Zappa, known as Butch on the streets of Harlem, had the mindset of the old regime with a young boy’s cunning. Over the 40 something years Butch had been alive he’d seen the birth of several of Harlem’s Dons and their untimely demises. One by one they had come and gone, yet Butch remained. Largely in part because the same codes that the Dons had abided by held no place in Butch’s heart. To him the only law was survival of the fittest and he exercised that quite often. Butch had been putting in work on the streets since days before Cowboy or Frankie was alive, and continued to thrive. He was a silent partner at Hades, owned three laundry mats, and was still elbow deep in the coke game, which is what brought Cowboy to his doorstep.
“Thank you, Iris,” Butch nodded to the young lady, signaling she should leave.
“I’ll be outside if you need me, Mr. Zappa,” she grinned and backed out of the room.
“Mr. Zappa,” Cowboy mock bowed.
Butch gave him a comical look from across the desk. “Cowboy, I know you ain’t come all the way down here to fuck with me? Get up, fool!”
“What’s good, Butch?” Cowboy righted himself and extended his hand, which Butch pumped jovially.
“Out here trying to get a dollar, same as everybody else.” Butch’s beady eyes slid over to Frankie and openly admired her outfit. “Five Fingers,” he said in a seductive tone, “good to see you, baby girl.”
“Lawrence,” she said flatly. Normally Frankie kept her personal feelings out of it when it came to money, but Butch repulsed her. Not because he was a pervert, but because she knew first hand his take on loyalty. They had a history dating back to when Knowledge was the boss and Butch was the old head helping hold it together, so she knew what time it was where Butch was concerned. He was a larcenous man, who couldn’t be trusted further than you could throw him with one hand. She didn’t like him and she wore it on her sleeve.
The only thing that revealed the fact that Butch felt slighted was the glint in his eyes, because his face remained smiling. “Still the coldest young chick on the streets, huh?”
“Ice cold, baby.”
“Sho ya right,” Butch clapped his hands like she had just sunk a playoff winning shot. “Niceties aside, what you got for me Cowboy?”
“Baby boy, I hold in my hands a very white Christmas, going for a clearance price,” he patted the case. “You know I ain’t no drug dealer, so I brought it to someone I know who could benefit from it.” He dropped the case and spun it around so it would open towards Butch.
Butch carefully undid the latches, keeping an eye on Cowboy and Frankie. Though they were friends, for whatever that meant in the drug game, he knew just how underhanded Cowboy was and would be damned if they’d have a repeat performance of five years prior. Once the case was open, Butch took a moment to examine its contents.
“Whoo-wee, what do we have here?” Butch rummaged through packages. “Damn, C, this about four keys right there.”
“Four and a quarter,” Cowboy corrected. “The quarter is on the house my nigga, as a show of good faith. Long story short, I got eight and three quarters more where that came from, and I’m gonna give you a big time play cause you my nigga.”
Butch gave him a suspicious look. “And how much of a play are you gonna set em out for, my nigga?”
Cowboy ran his fingers across the modern stainless steel desk. “Well, I know you’re probably getting them at about 28, maybe 27, depending on the conditions and quality…. So let’s say I give you this high grade shit at about 22 a smash?
“Twenty-two, huh?” Butch hauled his nearly 400 pound frame up from his chair and waddled around the desk to the two seats Frankie and Cowboy occupied. Placing a hand on the backs of both their chairs, he continued. “Even if the going rate was $27,000, you’re letting them go for five grand cheaper than their worth on the street. To what do I owe this act of good faith?”
Cowboy shrugged, but didn’t bother to turn around to where Butch was standing. He wasn’t worried about Butch doing anything stupid, because even though he wasn’t strapped, Frankie was. “Like I said, I’m no drug dealer.”
“No, but you’re a hustler and I think you’re trying to hustle me,” Butch rested his hand on Frankie’s shoulder, which she slapped away. “You know, it’s funny but I just heard this morning that El Pogo got ripped off for a couple of keys and then a non-drug dealer, but notorious thief, shows up on my doorstep with kilos to sell at a few stacks under the normal clip. Am I reaching here, my nigga?”
Cowboy glared up at him while tapping his pack of cigarettes against his hand. “Butch,” Cowboy slid a cigarette out of the pack and placed it in his mouth, “ain’t no shame in what I do and anybody you ask will tell you the same. This coke don’t know where it came from, same as the money don’t know where it’s going,” Cowboy lit the cigarette. He took a deep pull, savoring the stale taste of the cancer stick. “At the end of the day, business is business, baby.”
Butch silently stared at Cowboy, and the young robber matched his look. “Cowboy, I almost forgot how much of a bastard you were.”
Cowboy looked at him seriously. “Most people do, and that’s why it’s so easy for me to catch a mutha fucka slipping. But you know just as much about treachery as I do, right? Old ghosts aside though, you ain’t the only stop on my route, so let me know something?”
“A’ight, fam, you know I fucks wit you. But let me get them joints at eighteen a clip. You know I gotta move em slow so their previous owners don’t get the wrong idea,” Butch bargained.