The thing Richard the Fourth did up here in Diamondback was sell crack cocaine to nice little like the three Richards he was now leading up the street to an underground bar where he promised them there'd be girls aplenty. Richard's family name was Cooper, and he was sometimes called Coop by people who wanted to get friendly with him, not knowing he despised the name Coop. This was the same as some jackass coming up to some dude and slamming him on the back and yelling in his face,
"Hey, remember me,
Sal?" Only his fuckin name ain't Sal, dig? Richard's name was Richard, and that was what he preferred being called, thank you.
Certainly not Coop, nor Rich or Richie neither, nor even Ricky or Rick.
Just plain Richard. Like the three Richards with him now, who he was telling about these quite nice jumbo vials he happened to have in his pocket, would they care for a taste at fifteen a pop?
The crack and the money were changing hands, black to white and white to black, when the taxi pulled up to the curb, and along-legged white girl in a fake-fur jacket and red leather boots stepped out. The driver's window rolled down. The driver looked somewhat dazed; as if he'd been hit by a bus. "Thanks, Max," the girl said, and blew him a kiss, and was swiveling onto the sidewalk, a slender, red, patent leather bag under her arm, when Richard Cooper said, "Hey, Yolande, you jess the girl we lookin for."
Fifty-six minutes later, she was dead.
She has done three-ways before, but this is what promises to be a four-way and then possibly if Richard puts in his two cents. She knows from the hood, he deals good shit. In fact, he used to be in business together with Jamal for some time they went their separate ways. She is not eager for this to turn into a five-way with Richard the equation, but as Jamal is fond of saying, "Business is business and never the twain shall meet."
At the same time, it's been a very busy night, God, and she's really very sleepy, and would like nothing better than to go back to the pad and present Jamal with the spoils of the night, so to speak, and cuddle with him a little, he is very good at cuddlin when you lay almost two thousand bucks on him. Richard here is talking six hundred for the preppies here, two hundred apiece for the next hours, and giving her the nod to indicate he must wet his wick a bit, too, in which case he will put into the pot five jumbos.
What he is suggesting and she is considering seriously now, even though she is bone-tired and besides is that they all go up to his place to do crack and get down to realities, sistuh, you hear what I'm sayin? She is thinking six hundred and the jumbos, which at today's market price is fifteen for the red-topped vials, and wondering how she can escalate thing a bit higher, it being so late at night or so early in the morning, depending on where you're coming from. She wonders if they'll go for a big one and ten jumbos. She decides that's too far a reach.
Instead, she tells Richard and the three preppies who are nodding sympathetically while ripping off her clothes with their eyes tells Richard she's been out since eleven last night and it's been along one, bro, so maybe we ought to just pass unless we can sweeten the pot a little, hm? He asks her what she means by sweeten it, how sweet does she wish to sweeten it, and she decides to push the envelope, what the hell.
"If you'll be joining the party," she says, I'll need ten jumbos…"
"No problem," Richard says at once.
Jesus! she thinks.
"And a grand from the college boys here."
The preppies are flattered that she thinks they'-re from Princeton or Yale instead of some shiny little boys' school in Vermont or wherever the fuck. But the thousand-dollar tab sticks in their craw, she can see that, so she says at once, "Though you're all so cute, I might do it for nine."
One of the preppies she later learns they're all named Richard, this is going to be some kind of confusing gang bang immediately says, "Make it eight," but she knows he's just trying to sound like his banker father in Michigan or wherever, so she says, "I can't do it for less than nine. Hey, you're all real cute, but…"
"How about eight-fifty?" one of the other Richards 'asks.
"It has to be nine or I'm out of here," she says. She does not know, at that juncture in time, she walks right this minute, she will still be al fifty-one minutes from now. She does not begin realize she's in serious danger until it is almost late, when things begin getting out of hand. This much later. Right now, they are haggling over and if she walks she still has a shot at survival. boys go into a kind of a football huddle she learns they're all stars on their school's team come clapping out of it, big financial over, big white Ps on the back of their parkas, and one of them says, "Will you accept traveler's check, Richard busts out laughing. Laughing as Yolande says, "Done deal."
