wouldn’t get us anywhere.
And this wasn’t a loss I would mourn.
“Here lies one dead pimp,” I said. “Adios, pimp.”
Hendricks said, “Dub got dead. Things shake out. Scum claiming scum. And still we work it.”
Ibaka wore her gloves already. By way of confirming his identity, she lifted a wallet off the top of the TV and worked her way through it. She found and held out a New York driver’s license toward me. “Richard W. Webster,” she said. “Address in Harlem. Can you believe it?”
“He tarnishes the neighborhood’s fine name.”
“This stain’s been here long enough to have a sheet like he does, still never bothered to get a California license.”
It was ironic. I gave her that. Illegal too.
I looked at the address, somehow relieved to be looking at an old New York license, even after all this time. Dub was from a bad block in Spanish Harlem, way over on the West Side—home to some of the city’s worst crack hustle. Even dead in his pajamas on the floor of a dirty apartment in the Tenderloin, Dub had done well to get away from there.
I saw the scars on his face: old scars, long-ago cuts that had healed and only added to his persona. He was like that old tortoise, its shell scraped and gnarled, who still plodded along—until that one fateful day.
Hendricks toed Dub’s leg with his boot. “Real looker, this guy.”
One cut went across his forehead, clear down over one eye and onto the cheek below. The eye was milky white, pupil and iris washed out from the wound.
“Oh yeah. No way anyone would know him but as a pretty boy.”
“Pretty boy with a lot of women.” Ibaka read off her sheets. “This Cyrano held down half the women in the ’Loin.”
I said, “Don’t I know it.”
She glanced around the apartment at the filth and the wreckage. “Though calling the hookers in the ’Loin women might be stretching the truth.”
“Still, he had some run regardless.”
Hendricks said, “Chicks with dicks. Guys with fake boobs. Love this city.”
I thanked him for the clarification.
Scanning the wreckage, if Dub was actually a major player, controlling a lot of women and money, he didn’t live like it. Some people like a low profile, but this was gutter profile. Too much of the proceeds into his veins or up his nose.
He had a fake polar-bear-skin rug on the floor, now soaked in blood, and a TV that wasn’t even sixty inches.
“Makes you wonder what went down here.” Hendricks stooped to get a closer look at the body.
Ibaka clued us in: “This took some time. Look at the hand. Every finger broken, sometimes twice. You know how hard that is to do?”
It looked like a handful of sausages. Hendricks tested the fingers, wiggled each one to tell what was intact under the skin.
He said, “Never seen anything like this.”
“Call it a new form of waterboarding. Next thing they’ll be using it up at Homeland.” She pointed to Dub’s arm, pulled up his sleeve to show the skin above the wrist. I counted four cuts, going up toward the elbow, each deeper than the last. The topmost one, closest to his elbow, was more than an inch wide. It made a rectangle about three or four inches long where the skin had been peeled back to reveal muscle. Then the muscle had been cut again, and a cube pulled out of it.
This level of pain had never occurred to me.
Ibaka straightened. “This was just the start, I’m guessing. We roll this boy over to see where he bled out, I think we’ll find a whole new interpretation of dark ages.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hendricks and I sat in our car on O’Farrell, trying to let the violence of what we’d seen wash away. We each had a coffee and donut from a trashy place on the corner, basically the best of what you could expect from this part of town.
I checked the clock on the dash, trying to imagine myself going home and having a normal night, even getting to the gym to shoot around. Didn’t seem likely after what all we’d just seen. Ibaka was right
And this wasn’t a loss I would mourn.
“Here lies one dead pimp,” I said. “Adios, pimp.”
Hendricks said, “Dub got dead. Things shake out. Scum claiming scum. And still we work it.”
Ibaka wore her gloves already. By way of confirming his identity, she lifted a wallet off the top of the TV and worked her way through it. She found and held out a New York driver’s license toward me. “Richard W. Webster,” she said. “Address in Harlem. Can you believe it?”
“He tarnishes the neighborhood’s fine name.”
“This stain’s been here long enough to have a sheet like he does, still never bothered to get a California license.”
It was ironic. I gave her that. Illegal too.
I looked at the address, somehow relieved to be looking at an old New York license, even after all this time. Dub was from a bad block in Spanish Harlem, way over on the West Side—home to some of the city’s worst crack hustle. Even dead in his pajamas on the floor of a dirty apartment in the Tenderloin, Dub had done well to get away from there.
I saw the scars on his face: old scars, long-ago cuts that had healed and only added to his persona. He was like that old tortoise, its shell scraped and gnarled, who still plodded along—until that one fateful day.
Hendricks toed Dub’s leg with his boot. “Real looker, this guy.”
One cut went across his forehead, clear down over one eye and onto the cheek below. The eye was milky white, pupil and iris washed out from the wound.
“Oh yeah. No way anyone would know him but as a pretty boy.”
“Pretty boy with a lot of women.” Ibaka read off her sheets. “This Cyrano held down half the women in the ’Loin.”
I said, “Don’t I know it.”
She glanced around the apartment at the filth and the wreckage. “Though calling the hookers in the ’Loin women might be stretching the truth.”
“Still, he had some run regardless.”
Hendricks said, “Chicks with dicks. Guys with fake boobs. Love this city.”
I thanked him for the clarification.
Scanning the wreckage, if Dub was actually a major player, controlling a lot of women and money, he didn’t live like it. Some people like a low profile, but this was gutter profile. Too much of the proceeds into his veins or up his nose.
He had a fake polar-bear-skin rug on the floor, now soaked in blood, and a TV that wasn’t even sixty inches.
“Makes you wonder what went down here.” Hendricks stooped to get a closer look at the body.
Ibaka clued us in: “This took some time. Look at the hand. Every finger broken, sometimes twice. You know how hard that is to do?”
It looked like a handful of sausages. Hendricks tested the fingers, wiggled each one to tell what was intact under the skin.
He said, “Never seen anything like this.”
“Call it a new form of waterboarding. Next thing they’ll be using it up at Homeland.” She pointed to Dub’s arm, pulled up his sleeve to show the skin above the wrist. I counted four cuts, going up toward the elbow, each deeper than the last. The topmost one, closest to his elbow, was more than an inch wide. It made a rectangle about three or four inches long where the skin had been peeled back to reveal muscle. Then the muscle had been cut again, and a cube pulled out of it.
This level of pain had never occurred to me.
Ibaka straightened. “This was just the start, I’m guessing. We roll this boy over to see where he bled out, I think we’ll find a whole new interpretation of dark ages.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hendricks and I sat in our car on O’Farrell, trying to let the violence of what we’d seen wash away. We each had a coffee and donut from a trashy place on the corner, basically the best of what you could expect from this part of town.
I checked the clock on the dash, trying to imagine myself going home and having a normal night, even getting to the gym to shoot around. Didn’t seem likely after what all we’d just seen. Ibaka was right
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