29.
Shorty Magee hung on as the high-octane pill finally broke up, and shot through the horse’s blood stream. Like a hemi engine on nitro, Skip Town started to rocket. The burst of Skip’s pistons pushed Shorty into a break away lead, and pay dirt.
Shorty was the shit. The connection with the inside dope. A jockey on the local trotter circuit. Yonkers, Aqueduct, Monmouth, the Meadowlands. He knew the horses, the trainers, and the riders. For a cut of the action, Shorty would pass the info the wise guy's way.
Anything to trick the odds. Doping, disease, and dives. Any scheme to taint the trifecta pools. Shorty dug the crooked angle, geeking the gangster style. Loot, broads, fancy parties. The spreads, the action. The money breezed in. The jockey jocked.
Fast broads, hot loot, high times.
Shorty hooked up with a chick from Big Dave’s strip club.
She called herself, Layla, a real wild thing, and fast ride. The tonic of bootleg boobs, porno shoots, and skills set. She grabbed Shorty, hooking the geezer. This poon potion, more intoxicating than anything he pushed in a stable.
Shorty started to hole up off Lennox Boulevard. A narco haven in Harlem. A cluster of cheap-o pads rolling with junkies, pimps, and johns. He started missing races, ditching info.
A super-size Caddy, one from Big Dave’s fleet, out on the prowl. Snatch and bag dispatched. The goon squad. They looked up Booker, and gave him the business. Dom lifted him off the floor, and stuffed him against a wall.
"Where the fuck is he?" Booker did his best to shake the goons. He then hopped the A train up to Harlem, and tried to snap Shorty out of it.
"You’re startin’ to piss people off, like you’re maxin’ out your credit, man," said Booker. A sober Shorty iced the babble.
"It’s your last warning," said Booker. Booker booked. Shorty sat in the quiet, and rolled up his sleeve. A little tweak is all it took. A rocket booster. Shorty popped the injection. The venom riffed. Shorty started to float. Deep and distant.
Crooked floors hemmed in by bug infested walls. Paint-chipped doors meeting creaky halls. Padlocks. Every six doors, a shared head. A mosaic of low life, shuffling in and out. They grabbed the girl. Jackie. The teeny runaway. The house go-for.
Smokes, booze, take-out, and meds. Working the terrain on Lennox. Junkies, pervs, and sick-os too messed, or in hiding to get their daily sides.
Dom and Max, the lab expos in sharkskin, gold chains, gator slip-ons. Dom collared the chick in the stairwell, and dangled her over the shaft. Max popped the perp, thumbing Shorty’s photo.
She returned to gravity, pointing out the room.
Burning off the splash, the door blasted open. The hulksters squeezed through. Hands the size of bear claws lifted Shorty off the bed, and tossed him into a wall. Shorty bounced off, slammed the floor, and was worked over. Punches, kicks, judo chops.
The cheese-o pad turned bunko mess. Shorty’s blood splotched the walls, his teeth fanned the carpet. Jackie tapped 911. An ambo buzzed him off on a stretcher. They beat it pronto.
In the shell, Shorty linked up. Plasma and blood bags. Broken bones, pierced organs.
Another space walk. Stitches, rehab, and physical therapy.
His left eye, out of focus. When the wires came out of his busted jaw, they lined his gums with new corn. Shorty kept his mouth shut, and stayed away from the circuit.
He gave up the dope, and went back to shooting stick. He was a damn good pool player, and would bounce between billiard halls, poker, and dice games. Tapping early seventies, Shorty hung on. The dark and mean streets spit him out. Back to scratching out room, board, and chow.