Jesus, she could tell it was killing him, he was dying to come around, cop a feel. Instead, he sat back, yawned. Fucking yawned. Was she, like, boring him?
He asked, “So, my treacherous bitch, what’s the real reason you’re here? Last time I saw you, you were putting it to me big time – and not your first shafting of The… A.X. either.”
The… A.X.?
She tried to stay coy, not easy, said, “We all got bent a little out of shape back in those crazy days but I realize now, I’ll never meet a man like you again.”
Prick bought it. Always did.
He said, “You got The… A.X., you don’t need nothin’ else, dig?”
Christ, how could she have forgotten what a dumb arrogant bollix he was?
Poverty will do that, make you stupid. But here she was and all out of options. She said, “I thought we might start over.”
He stared at her, said, “You’re broke.”
Not so dumb.
She said, “Well, I won’t lie to you. Things have been a little tight.”
“And you coming to The… A.X., cause he like yo’ fixer and shit, right?”
God, was he for real? There’d never been a white man whiter than Max Fisher, and here he was talking like some kind of rapper.
He spread his arm out, said, “See that yard out there, with the most dangerous dudes on the planet? I run ’em, run ’em like the fuckin’ losers they are.”
How, she asked herself, had someone not gutted the little bastard already? And how on earth did he manage to become top rooster in such a place?
“You always were extraordinary,” she said, and wanted to throw up.
He leaned over, said, “Gonna share a secret with you babe, the joint ain’t been built that can hold The… A.X.”
Jaysus, he was completely mad.
He continued, “We’re busting outa here, me and my crew.”
She didn’t know how to respond, tried lamely, “That’s wonderful.”
He smiled, accepting the praise as his due, said, “You want back with The… A.X., you gonna have to prove your loyalty.”
She said, getting the faint whiff of money, and remembering how if she didn’t hook up with somebody tonight she’d be sleeping on the street.
“You name it darling, it’s done.”
He scribbled something onto a piece of paper, then slid it across and said, “Get it done.”
She looked down. He’d written two words:
GUNS
CAR
She didn’t have bus fare back to the city and he wanted her to get him guns? Never mind a car.
She nearly laughed till he reached in his denim shirt, took out a roll of bills, said. “To get you started. And oh, get some decent clothes, that dress looks like it came from fucking Goodwill.”
Then he was standing and did cop a feel, a long one. She moaned. He mistook it for a sound of pleasure.
He said, “Go get your pretty ass in gear. Sooner you get me out of here, the sooner The… A.X. will be putting the meat to you.”
Then he shouted for Bob, winked at her, said, “Don’t fuck up this time, bee-otch, you know what I’m sayin’?”
Fourteen
“Hop smiled. ‘Nice, could you run my life, baby?’
‘Some challenges are too great, my friend.’ ”
Max couldn’t believe it – Angela was fucking back! He’d had to contain himself because, hey, that’s the way you had to play it in the joint. Max had done his DD, studying the bros in yard, and almost all of them had the dead-eye glare. Not a lot of smiling faces in a maximum security prison and he knew if you wanted to survive you had to look hard, be hard, always have your game face on. Besides, it was part of Max’s hip-hop persona. Look at Eminem. If Slim Shady didn’t smile, Max sure as fuck wasn’t going to.
But Jesus Christ, Angela looked fucking hot! Her bust, shit, it brought back so many great memories. Fuck, even her stretch marks looked hot. But what was up with that cheap dress? You wouldn’t see a crack whore on the West Side Highway in something like that. And she was nervous, too, not the confident, cocky Angela who’d screwed him over so many times before. She looked a little shocked – scratch that, way shocked. Hell, she looked defeated. Angela, down and out? The fuck did that happen? The Angela he knew never stopped fighting. No matter what shit came down the road, she was there, scratching and biting like an alley cat, mouthing like a fishwife on steroids, and screwing the world. She’d ripped him off and just about every other dumb bastard whose path she’d crossed, but she’d never caved, no siree.
Suddenly Max found himself feeling like he was wasting his time with Paula. Yeah, the girl had a nice rack, and there was her book – but come on, there was no way he was gonna marry that cow if he could have Angela, the real deal. He and Angela were, like, destined to be together. Okay, yeah, so she’d tried to kill him a few times, but doesn’t all true love go through rough patches? He’d bet there were times when Cleopatra had been more than a bit pissed off with Tony. And Romeo and Juliet probably wanted to scratch each other’s fucking eyes out. Him and Angela, they were like Bonnie and Clyde – maybe occasionally too fast on the trigger, but still, together for life.
Yeah, Max wanted Angela, he wanted her bad. He wanted to cop a real good feel of that rack, too, but he had to see what she wanted first. Naturally it was money but, hey, he couldn’t exactly blame her for that. Max had always been her Mr. Moneybags, her go-to guy for the green. And, he had to admit, her desperation was more than a bit of a turn-on for him. He didn’t know what she’d done to fuck up her life this time but it must have been something big, maybe the biggest yet, because she was clearly at the end of her tether. Man, Max loved playing this role – Max Fisher the hero, Super Max swooping down to save the day.
But he wasn’t going to bail out the psycho bitch just for the hell of it. His mind was working double-time – when wasn’t it, right? – and he was thinking, How could he use this? Yeah, Rufus had invited him in on the break, but Max always liked to have a Plan B. Come on, let’s face it, Rufus didn’t have all the seeds in his apple. He probably had one-tenth or, hell, one hundredth the intellect of The… A.X. Rufus had claimed some friend of his, some fucking gangbanger, would be waiting in a getaway car after the break, but did Max want to gamble his life on that? Fuck, Max had always been the Big Boss; he wasn’t exactly comfortable letting some street thug he hadn’t even met call the shots.
Which was why he’d slipped Angela a note to get weapons and a car. Knew he could trust the bitch as long as he was the one paying her. He figured he’d hit her with more instructions the next time he saw her. And, oh yeah, he knew she’d be back. Show Angela some moolah with the promise of more to come and you’d hooked her for life. It was what he loved about her. That, of course, and her tits.
Leaving the visitor’s room, Max headed back to his cell. Sino was due to return from the hole tonight and, for the first time, Max caught a whiff of the riot in the air. It was a certain tension you could almost reach out and touch. Everyone was being ultra-careful, keeping their faces down and avoiding eye contact. The gangs were huddled together and the guards, the bulls, were way nervous. Tooling up, yeah, that was it. The gangs were stockpiling, shivs, crowbars, acid in bottles, you get that shit thrown in your face, that’s all she wrote. Plywood was disappearing from the woodshop and clubs were being honed for maximum damage.
Max was getting a little concerned. All the talk about riots was cool and everything when it was all talk, but now it was getting a little too real, too imminent. But he psyched himself back up, telling himself he had the white supremacists all in his corner, plus Rufus. No one was gonna let The… A.X. get hurt.
Straddling both sides, playing the middle, that was the way to go.
Rufus told him their homies had some serious armament ready to roll and even though some of them muttered about the white boy being part of the crew, Rufus slapped them down.