Shetani's Sister by Iceberg Slim Page B

from the boss…He wants your twins to take care of some business for him.” He extended the money in his palm.
    Shetani frowned and ignored the money. “What kind of business?”
    Angelo smiled and dropped the money on the bed. “Same business like a coupla years ago.”
    Shetani’s eyes narrowed. “Are we talking about another VIP white man for a chickenshit ten grand?”
    Joey piped up, “Jesus, Al, you’re touchy today. The target is a big black dude called Tree. He’s been heisting our retailers in Harlem.”
    Angelo laughed, “Yeah, the boss wants him chopped down on Friday. It’s his birthday. Eh?”
    Shetani picked up the cash. The pair stood. Joey took a slip of paper from his suit-coat pocket. “Here’s Tree’s address, hangouts, and other stuff on him.”
    Shetani took the paper and glanced at it. They studied him for a moment with hooded eyes before they turned away. He walked them to the door and shook hands with them. He stood and watched them move down the hallway. They muttered in Sicilian to each other. Angelo turned and walked back to him. He stood close to Shetani. His long neck stretched to push his bright cobra eyes very close to Shetani’s wary face.
    “The boss has been good to you, selling you almost pure stuff at discount prices, eh?”
    Shetani nodded. “Sure, and I appreciate it.” He paused to throw his head back toward the bedroom. “I can stomp on that shit three, four times and still keep my ho’s well and happy with the best medicine out there.”
    Angelo patted Shetani’s shoulder. “You’re a wise man to appreciate your friends…The boss will be disturbed if your twins fail to complete your end of our deal tomorrow before midnight.”
    Shetani stepped back and said harshly, “Say, Angelo, you’re rapping to maybe the baddest motherfucker in New York, if not the world. I’m a stone responsible man. I don’t need no fucking pressure to keep an agreement. Eh?”
    Angelo’s eyes glinted murder for an instant before he smiled stingily and turned away to join Joey.
    Shetani went into his bedroom and slammed the door behind him. He collapsed across the bed, dripping sweat. His macho performance for the Mafia soldiers had been desperate bravado to cover his soul-deep terror. He was aware of the Mafia’s contempt for the lack of balls in most black and even powerful white men to demand respect. He hated the organization to the full degree of his fear.
    He sat up on the bedside and stared at himself in the dresser mirror. He hurt inside and shook with rage at the realization that he, the whoremaster, was himself just a Mafia whore. He was a slave to their dope, and he was trapped into murder for them.
    To stop his raging head from exploding, he quickly shot a heavy load of skag. He fell back on the bed in a rapturous trance. He smiled, ecstatic that a dope panic had driven Pee Wee into his stable. He remembered how, five years before, a dope panic had driven Petra to him. He had spotted the teenage beauty leaving an apartment building on Park Avenue that housed a colony of call girls. He had tailed her to Times Square, where she copped H from a black dealer he knew with a costume-jewelry storefront. He found out from the dealer that Petra had a heavy habit, and a white gigolo boyfriend she wanted to dump.
    In the next three weeks, in his spare time, he stalked her as she made the bars and restaurants where she recruited her call tricks. A week before the dope panic came that he had expected, he saw Petra’s drunk boyfriend beating her in a gangway between two buildings. He double-parked and rushed to the fray. He punched out the punk and carried her to his car.
    Shetani remembered her torn clothes, and how she thanked him again and again when he drove her home to Park Avenue. She gave him her phone number, but she was too upset for him to make a copping play.
    The second day into the panic, he tailed her while she tried to score. He noticed how feeble and haggard she was