Lord of Sugar Hill Read online

  “How’d you get to Free?”

  “It wasn’t difficult, darling.”

  “Did you tempt him with your underpants?”

  “I’m not Delilah,” she said “My nose is too long. I was never a classic beauty, like Tatiana Klein, or that sexpot you’ve been hiding on the Hill.”

  “I could always flatter you, Sandy, and mention your particular charms. We were engaged, remember?”

  “It was nothing serious, a divertissement, a law-school fling.”

  “Of course. A born politician like you couldn’t risk an interracial marriage. A homeboy like me wouldn’t play very well in the South . . . and the Midwest, for that matter.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. The Sutpens were the first farmers on Long island to free their slaves. I was drawn to you, Edward, a little too much.”

  “Fatal attraction, huh? . . . Did you fuck Free?”

  Her nose wrinkled with a touch of pain. And Parky realized he was still attracted to the potato heiress, in spite of her bald ambition.

  “Told you,” she said. “I’m not Delilah.”

  There was a stitch in her voice, a kind of lament, and Parky could have kissed her, but the moment passed when she raised her calves in the air, took off her underpants, and tossed them at Parky.

  “Thanks for the souvenir,” he said. “I’d love to hear Byron on tape.”

  “Darling, you’ll have plenty of time to examine the evidence.”

  “You’re bluffing. Free wouldn’t wear your wire.”

  “It’s your fault. You shouldn’t have neglected him. You let him drift, darling. He was all alone . . . in that deep space of an ex-cop. I gave him a second chance. I deputized him, allowed him to become a detective again.”

  “A toy detective.”

  “I have enough to sit down with a judge and sever you from your precious client. Byron’s a talkative lad. You’d better run under a rock, or come over to our side.”

  “Where’s Free, where are you hiding him?”

  “I thought you were hiding him, Edward.”

  “Byron knows about the wire. He’s penetrated your inner sanctum.”

  “Hardly,” she said. “The leak came from me.”

  “And so you put Free’s life at risk?”

  “He has no life. But you never noticed. It’s you, darling, it’s you we wanted to get into the kill zone.”

  “But I’m moldable, a piece of plastic. I travel light.”

  And he left the United States Attorney with her legs up in the air.

  3

  HE COULDN’T EVEN KILL TIME at his old haunt, the all-night movie houses of 42nd Street, which had been willed out of existence by the City Fathers and their quest for a perfectly sanitized theatre district where blacks and Latinos and white trash wouldn’t roam. And so he went up to 125th, which was still carnival land, and he could find a smoke shop where the proprietor knew and trusted Parky and let him have a little hashish. For a hundred dollars, he had a divan of his own with a private screen that was like a miniature movie palace: He watched Pam Grier as Foxy Brown, the heroine of Lincoln Houses; thirty years ago her image had been on every wall. Even that psychopath, Samuel, saw her as his big sister. He must have masturbated to Foxy at least five times a day. . . .

  Parky had eaten too much hash, and he arrived at Rita’s after midnight, but Wash wasn’t there. Rita’s was an old juke joint that had been a Harlem cabaret during Prohibition, a hangout for white and black mobsters and musicians. Each new proprietress was called Rita, though there must have been an original Rita once, a primordial Rita. The current incarnation ruled with the same fierce fist. She growled when Samuel Brown sauntered over to Parky’s table, grinning like Jack Johnson.

  “Mr. Edward, are you expecting this grown-up delinquent? Because if he’s pestering you . . .”

  “He’s no bother, Miz Rita. Me and Sam come from the same crib.”

  But Parky was adamant once Rita went away. “Why are you crowding me, homeboy?”

  Samuel seemed to swallow the universe with his gold teeth. “I’m only the message man, Li’l Ed. General Starke sends his condolences. He can’t come.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “ ’Cause that nigger’s at another rendezvous.”

  How could Samuel have crept inside Parky’s Nokia? No other living person had access to their little code . . . unless the wizards at Justice stood behind Samuel Brown with their electronic dictionaries.

  “Well, should I bring you to your general? Or are you passing the night at Rita’s?”

  Parky got up and followed Samuel headlong into the Valley. He knew their destination. Samuel was leading him back into his own history, before Sugar Hill. They approached the monoliths of Lincoln Houses that rose in the dark like monstrous teeth. They passed security guards and armed bandits who made way for Samuel Brown, saluted him as their chief. They entered Lincoln’s underground, a series of subbasements that harbored the projects’ ventilation system, a labyrinth of coiling pipes with silver scales, like a headless serpent that manufactured its own fire.

  General Starke sat in a chair at the bottom of the last subbasement. He was wearing his uniform, and Samuel or somebody must have been trying to undress him with a blowtorch; his epaulettes and insignias were gone, burnt right off the cloth.

  “Hello, Wash,” Parky said. “Didn’t mean to drag you into all this.”

  “It’s my fault, son. I got careless.”

  “But I thought our system was secure.”

  “It is. But I broke my own first rule. I came to Rita’s a little too early.”

  “How did homeboy know that you’d be there?”

  “I didn’t,” Samuel said. “I followed him from Penn Station. The general’s on my list, the list that Byron gave me. He said, ‘Counselor only has one play. The Pentagon. He’ll go to General Starke.’ And you did.”

  “I could have lost him,” Starke said. “But I was too cocky. I was hoping to have a highball at Rita’s. I got there at ten, but homeboy was right outside the door.”

  “Don’t you call me that,” Samuel said. “That’s Parky’s privilege, not yours.”

  “And he took you to the projects and he started torturing you,” Parky said.

  “With his fire gun. No point in losing my face. I told him when you’d show.”

  “But who minded you while he was gone?”

  “I did,” said a creature who danced out of the dark in a leather jacket, a turtleneck, and the designer shades of a government hit man.

  “You’re looking splendid, Free. Did Sandra pay for your resurrection?”

  “Sandra, some,” said Freeman Faulks. “And Byron paid the other half. He had me doing hits.”

  “I thought you were his bill collector.”

  “I was. But it depends on how hard you have to collect.”

  “Did you need money, Free, or love?”

  “Both.”

  “And you couldn’t have come to me?”

  “I’m not your ward, Edward.”

  “What happened? Did Sandra catch you after a kill?”

  “No, I went to her. I figured that Byron would use me up fast. Two, three hits, and then I’d get popped.”

  “And you wore her wire.”

  “She dreams of wires, so I let her dream. No one can get near Byron, not with a bug.”

  “What if she pulls in the string and you can’t produce?’

  “Then I’ll get another string, a longer one.”

  “Christ,” Parky said. “She’s diddling you, Free. She’s probably wired up all of Byron’s cribs like a sound stage. And she’s directing her own little movie. The Endless Fall of Byron Abando, starring you and me. We’re her suckers.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Sam Brown, picking up the blowtorch from its tiny cradle. “Free, we gotta off ’em, Free.”

  “Detective,” Parky said, cutting in. “When did you team up with this homeboy? I thought you hated Sam.”

  “I have more i
n common with him and his fire gun than I ever did with you. You were a prodigy, a bona fide schoolboy, crying for whitey’s world. And Samuel, well, he’s a badass who belongs in ol’ Free’s little ballpark. Edward, I like to rob liquor stores, I get off on it. I love all that lucre in my pocket. How you think I earned them scholarships for you? From stickups in Staten Island.”

  “Then why don’t you tap out me and the general and close your books on us?”

  “Because I’m a sentimental motherfucker. I took pride in your accomplishments. I even kept a scrapbook. No, I couldn’t off you, Edward. It’s not in my nature.”

  Samuel turned the nozzle on his torch and it began to breathe a blue fire. Parky was hypnotized for a moment by the purity of that flame.

  “I can do ’em, Mr. Free, so nobody will recognize either one again.”

  “Only the general.”

  “Ain’t much logic in that. Having Li’l Ed as a witness.”

  And Samuel swiveled the flame at Free like a sword, singed off his eyebrows, and then shot him twice with the gun in his other hand. Parky couldn’t even mourn that old stickup artist. He felt like a spectator at some macabre sporting event. He watched the general, who never blinked, and he knew that Wash hadn’t come here by any accident or trick of fate.

  Samuel started to gloat.

  “It’s a nice bundle, Li’l Ed. You, Mr. Free, and the general here. Byron’s gonna give me a reward.”

  He was about to twirl the torch when Parky stared into his demented eyes.

  “I got that date, Mr. Sam.”

  The flame licked like a lizard and then stopped. “What date?”

  “With J. Lo.”

  “You’re the one who’s got a date . . . with your own dead body.”

  “Samuel, she told me herself. She has a thing for homicidal men.”

  Parky could see the silver jumpsuits of Wash’s special rangers in the flickering light of the torch. He’d never bothered to ask why the Pentagon needed its own ninjas. They cracked Samuel’s windpipe with a single blow, plucked the torch right out of his hand.

  “Wash,” Parky said “it was just a fishing trip for you. How did you learn about Free?”

  “I’d been hearing things, Edward, and—”

  “You let Samuel walk right into his own trap.”

  “I was curious where the homeboy was leading me.”

  “With your ninjas in radio contact.”

  “We don’t say ‘ninjas,’ son. That has the sound of an assassin. They’re rangers on special assignment . . . to Washington Starke.”

  “And you wanted me to uncover the detective’s tricks all by myself. I’ll miss him, Wash. I can’t help it. I wasn’t much of a friend.”

  “He was a wild one, Edward. You couldn’t have saved him.”

  4

  A STRIKE TEAM ARRIVED at Byron’s palace apartment close to dawn. It consisted of five ninjas dressed as doormen, Wash, and the black eagle. Wash’s doormen broke through the building’s security, sapped Byron’s bodyguards, picked Byron’s unpickable locks, and entered the palace apartment. It had been the home of a margarine king who lost his fortune in the meltdown of the market. Byron had bought the palace intact, with its paintings and priceless furniture, and let Tatiana and her army of decorators have their own field day. He never asked Tatiana to explain a single bill. She had twenty-seven rooms to play with, and that was Parky’s problem. He had to find Carla and Giles without waking the prince. But the ninjas found them. Parky had to apologize to his chauffeur.

  “Giles, I should have protected you. I saw blood on your lip.”

  “I’m fine, Mr. Edward.”

  “How’s Carla?”

  “Bitchy as ever.”

  Carla and Giles couldn’t get along, but Carla had her pride. She would never have asked Parky to fire him, and Parky wouldn’t have known how. She was wearing her silk lounging pajamas when she stumbled into Parky, half asleep.

  “Edward, dear, why did Byron’s people take me out of my bed?”

  “It’s a little game, Countess. Did they hurt you?”

  “Not at all. They fed me chocolate on the ride down.”

  “Black chocolate?”

  “Black as night.”

  “I’m glad. At least Byron is sensitive to your tastes.”

  “The chocolate was my idea,” said Tatiana Klein, who marched into the main living mom in a black satin robe, with her initials embroidered over her heart. Lord Byron was right behind her, in a matching robe, with his initials. He was clutching a gun, but he put it down soon as he saw the five doormen. He saluted General Starke.

  “Congratulations, General. This has to be your caper.”

  “I’m just along for the ride. You’ll have to speak to Mr. Parkchester.”

  “Parky,” Byron said, “couldn’t this have waited until morning?’

  “It is morning. The sun’s behind the next building. You took my chauffeur and my fiancée.”

  “Your concubine,” Tatiana said. “That’s all she is.”

  “Tatiana,” Byron said. “You shouldn’t insult our guests.”

  “I am his concubine.” Carla said. “And I’m glad. . . . How are you, Wash?”

  “In mourning for you every minute.”

  “Hey,” Byron said “can’t you continue this conversation in the street?”

  “No,” said the black eagle. “Wash is the wounded party. He lost Carla to me. Besides, I have a little business with you, Byron.”

  He slapped the Mafia prince in full view of Tatiana, Wash, Giles, Carla, and the five ninjas. Byron flinched. His face was trembling. No one had ever slapped him in public, not his own father, or the elders of his tribe.

  “I’m your lawyer, not your fool. You picked up Faulks, hired him as your hitter, sent him to Sandra Sutpen, so that she could become your own secret agent and never even guess what the hell was going on. You ran circles around her, Byron. Bravo . . . but you got Faulks killed. And he wasn’t yours to sacrifice.”

  “Killed? I didn’t—”

  “Shut up before I slap you again in front of your bride. Harris Teitelbaum can do your bidding. You can buy him a law firm. I’m out.”

  “Counselor,” Byron said, wagging his finger like some magistrate.

  But it was Tatiana who understood Parky and his moods. She tugged at the satin strings of Byron’s robe. “Big Boy, back to bed.”

  “You heard the counselor. It’s daylight.”

  “That never bothered you before. Back to bed.”

  And they trudged across the carpeting of their palace apartment.

  “I’m hungry,” Carla said. “I’d like a banana split with chocolate on top.”

  “Giles, will you bring us to some sugar bowl?”

  “Mr. Edward, we’re without wheels for the moment.”

  “That’s no problem,” said General Starke, tapping the buttons on his Nokia.

  A military van was waiting for them in the street. Park Avenue was a desert of brick, iron, and concrete, with little cracks of light. They all climbed into the van. Parky had been jumping around so fast, he didn’t have time to consider Free’s fate. If Free had robbed—even killed—to keep him in law school, then Parky must have disappointed his benefactor by becoming a “monster man” who only represented robbers. The counselor was his own kind of stickup artist, like Sandra Sutpen. He couldn’t have had his lair on Sugar Hill without standing on the detective’s shoulders and sinking him into the ground.

  He was an eagle with crippled wings who had mouths to feed—Carla’s, Giles’s, the Three Blind Mice. He’d ask them to prepare a funeral march for Free. But there wouldn’t be a funeral. The ninjas had sent him and Samuel to one of their private Valhallas, where ghosts could never rest. Good. He had something to look forward to other than million-dollar maneuvers. . . .

  The van climbed toward a soda shop on Sugar Hill. Parky couldn’t believe that it would be open at seven in the morning. But he knew that if he knocked long enough and loud e
nough, someone would have to listen and let them all in.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  copyright © 2012 by Jerome Charyn

  cover design by Mauricio Díaz

  978-1-4532-7704-1

  Published in 2012 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media

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  JEROME CHARYN

  FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

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