King of Swords

Max sat on the couch and looked at the black, sticky oil-stained floor. Outside he heard the rumble of thunder.

49

Carmine parked the dark green Ford pickup in the lot of the Hervis Family Supermarket on South West 8 th Avenue and discreetly checked himself out in a mirror. He was delighted with the results. He'd always wished he'd been born with straight hair, like his dad's, and now he'd fulfilled his wish. OK, so it was a wig, but it wasn't an obvious wig like some of the spades wore, or those ridiculous, blowaway-in-a-breeze toupees those white old timers in South Beach wore, this one was subtle - a short straight head of real black hair, parted in the middle with a little fringe falling over his right brow. He looked bona ride Cubano now.

It wasn't the first time he'd had straight hair. A few years back he'd had it 'chemically relaxed'. That was a nice moment, driving down Biscayne Bay in his coupe, sea wind blowing back his hair; it even had a little bounce to it when he walked — just like white folks in shampoo commercials.

Things had of course gone critically wrong when he'd gone home for his bath that evening. His mother had freaked out and hacked it all off with a pair of kitchen scissors — damn near ripped it out, when she couldn't work those shears fast enough - and then she'd stuffed it in his mouth and tried to make him swallow it. He'd almost choked to death. But, still, looking back at the momentary happiness he'd felt that afternoon, it had somehow been worth it. She'd never be able to take that away from him, no matter what she did.

Carmine had made other changes to himself too - a whole new disguise. He was pretending to be a house painter, after seeing a bunch of them driving by Haiti Mystique to go and work on the houses Sam was renovating on the corner of

62nd Street and North East 2nd Avenue, close to the Dupuis Building. Carmine had bought a pickup second hand, eight gallons of white and yellow paint, brushes and floor sheets to put in the back; and then, to complete his transformation, he'd got himself a set of khaki overalls and steel-capped boots, which he'd dripped multicoloured paint on for that 'used look'. When Sam had seen him he'd told him he looked like he'd stepped out of a Jackson Pollock exhibition.

He'd tried his disguise out on a couple of Clubs. He'd solicited them in espanol. They'd taken one look at him and said they weren't no soup kitchen pussy. He hadn't blown his cover. He'd just turned, walked out and punched the air in triumph. No one looked twice at a painter — not even hos — so this way he'd be safe from the cops. Not that he'd actually heard anything more about the guy in the salon on the news, but that didn't mean they weren't looking for him.

He checked his watch: 2.37 p.m. Good, he thought, she'd be right in the middle of her shift. He'd catch her unawares, just sneak right up on her. Julita Leljedal.

He'd been looking for Julita for a year and a half. She skipped town, owing him $1,250. Last week one of his Spades had told him they'd seen her working at the - get this — meat section of HFS.

When he'd first seen her, in 1976, Julita had been a stripper over at an upmarket club called Luckies on Le Jeune. Back then he used to go trawling a lot of titty bars for potential Diamonds and Clubs, and the girls were usually real easy pickings.

Julita was one of the prettiest, sexiest girls he'd ever seen long black hair, blue-green eyes like the ocean, Iight-bron2e skin. She was petite — just over five feet tall and flat chested but boy did she have an ass! Guys used to come from all over to see her dance. She had a routine she did with a silver baton. She'd catch a guy's eye, pout her luscious lips at him and then lick the stick and jerk her hand up and down it,

while she ground her hips and wiggled her ass. The guy would shower her with all the money in his wallet every time. She had an uncanny way of knowing exactly which guy to focus on too. The night they'd met she'd done her routine on Carmine and he'd thrown her not the usual five and ten-dollar bills, but a whole bunch of C-notes.

He'd put her and her cousin Kitty up in an apartment overlooking Maximo Gomez Park. She'd carried on dancing, only now she was taking the richest customers home and fucking them too.

Cousin Kitty didn't start off a ho. She was a trainee nurse and, anyway, she was so damn ugly - bad skin, thick pink-framed glasses and greasy brown hair that looked like the hide of a wet donkey — no way could Carmine even have turned her out as a Spade, even if he'd wanted to.

But then one night one of Julita's tricks offered her $1,000 to perform an enema on him. Kitty knew exactly what to do. The next night the guy came round for more of the same.

Sensing a too-good-to-miss opportunity, Carmine set Kitty up in business, servicing medical procedure fetishists.