A Cool Breeze on the Underground by Don Winslow Page A

stay this time? Get off that shit. I’ll help you.”
    “Now isn’t that a touching scene?”
    Neal turned toward the voice, to see Marco come through the door. The pimp wore a white linen suit and a sky blue shirt open at the collar. A single gold chain hung from his neck. His full black hair was greased and combed straight back. He was solid without seeming heavy. He held a syringe in his right hand.
    “You’re Neal, right? Johnny, say hello to Neal.”
    “Hello, Neal.”
    Johnny was huge. He had both fat and muscle. You could land planes on his flattop. Make pancakes on his open palms.
    Neal didn’t answer. He watched as his mother stretched out her arm. Johnny took off his belt and wrapped it around the woman’s arm until a vein stood out clearly. Marco squeezed the syringe until the tiniest drop glistened on the edge of the needle.
    “Don’t do that,” Neal said.
    “Quiet, Neal. The doctor is working.”
    “I said don’t do that.”
    “Yeah, and we all heard you. Now shut up.”
    Neal slipped his hand into his right back pocket and pulled out a metal shoehorn. He slid the curl over his index finger and felt the cool metal settle firmly into his palm, the wide edge sticking out.
    He waited for Marco to bend over to his mother’s arms and then he burst across the room. Lifting his arm over his head, he slammed the hard metal edge down right between the pimp’s eyes. Marco dropped to his knees as the blood pumped from his shattered nose onto the formerly white suit.
    “Jesus! I can’t see! I can’t see!” Marco screamed as Johnny grabbed Neal and Neal’s mother grabbed the syringe. Marco pulled himself up on the arm of the couch, felt for the silk handkerchief in his breast pocket, and wiped the blood from his eyes. His legs trembled as he made his way over to Neal and backhanded him once and then twice across the mouth.
    “You think you’re a man, little shit?”
    Neal’s mother watched from inside a fluffy cloud as the men stripped her son and held him down on the couch. Marco had gone at him with the belt for what seemed like a long time when she heard the boy’s first cry and thought she should go to him. But he was so far away.
    Ed levine got quiet when he got angry. Graham was straining to hear him.
    “Is this dink connected?”
    “By a thread. An uncle in numbers. Nobody heavy.”
    Graham had forced the story out of Neal, who had finally showed up for work two days late and barely able to walk. He had gently cleaned the boy off, medicating the cuts that threatened to become infected. He had seen some beatings as a kid, but he had never seen anything like this. Neal’s back and legs were a red and purple contour of welts and bruises where the pimp had lashed him with the buckle end of the belt.
    “Nobody beats on one of my people,” Levine said.
    “Phone call to Mulberry Street takes care of him. They owe us a couple.”
    “No. This is personal. I want him for myself. Set it up.”
    “C’mon, Ed—”
    Levine’s glare ended the discussion.
    Joe graham didn’t like it.
    Levine had told him to set the guy up and he had set the guy up, but he wasn’t happy about it. Standing in a dark alley with a vicious dope-pushing pimp and his gigantic thug, Graham just hoped that Ed Levine knew what he was doing. Ed Levine was a big guy, but this ox with Marco was a whole lot bigger.
    “Where’s your friend?” Marco asked him. The pimp, still decked out in his trademark white suit, was nervous.
    “He’s coming.”
    “He better be. I don’t like standin’ around when I’m holdin’.”
    “I don’t like standing around, period.”
    “I hear that.”
    Come on, Ed, thought Graham. I hope you’re not slopping down that Chinese food somewhere and forgot about our little appointment.
    Marco said, “You don’t mind my friend pats you down. Not that I don’t trust you …”
    “Hey, it’s business, right?” answered Graham.
    Graham lifted his arms as Johnny carefully and gently checked