Slide by Jason Starr Ken Bruen Page B

she could stop being Max Fisher’s ho—praise the Lord.
    But then she got to thinking—a drug deal, and didn’t they say it was twenty thousand dollars? There was gonna be product there too and she was thinking, Why I gotta tell that shit to Miscali? Felicia been thinking about getting away, leaving New York. She was tired of ho’in, being worried about money all the time. She had her friend Ramona in St. Louis, was always calling her, saying they should open a beauty salon together. But she need money to do that and no bank was gonna start giving no stripper no loan. But maybe if she could figure out a way to get that twenty grand she could go half with Ramona on the salon, get a whole new life started.
    Shit, she barely slept the whole night because she was thinking about one thing—how to get that old stinkin’ crackhead’s money. Then it came to her—her cousin Sha-Sha from Brooklyn. Damn, why didn’t she think of that shit straight up?
    Sha-Sha was her second cousin on her mom’s side. Felicia was six years older than him and funny shit was he was the first trick she ever turned. Happened when she was nineteen and he was thirteen. He was just hitting puberty and he was a horny little thang—nasty too. He was always walking around, touching his dick, asking her to do shit with him. Finally, sick of hearing him talk, she went, “You wanna fuck, I’ll fuck, but it’s gonna cost you five bucks.” He must’ve gone and stole five bucks from his momma, Felicia’s aunt. Was the fastest five dollars she made her whole life.
    Felicia told Max she needed to go get a haircut. Meanwhile, she was really going to meet Sha-Sha in Brooklyn, in Canarsie. She took the L train out there and maybe she should’ve worn some different clothes. In this short leather skirt Max had bought her every guy on the train was wanting to bone her.
    Sha-Sha was living in Breukelen Houses, off the L train. It had been a long time since Felicia had been back to the projects and she wasn’t missing none of it. When Sha-Sha answered the door she didn’t even recognize the nigga. She went, “Sha-Sha here?” and he went, “The fuck you talkin’ ’bout?” Yeah, that sounded like Sha-Sha, but what happened to his body? He used to be fine looking—well not too fine, he wasn’t no Denzel—but he was big and strong and his face wasn’t too bad either. But now the man was fat. She was talking Rerun fat, like the man be eating ten meals a day.
    She looked around at all the pizza boxes, Chinese containers and shit and said, “Damn, how much you be eatin’?”
    Sha-Sha went, “That how you say hello? How’d you get so rude, bitch?”
    “Fuck you,” Felicia snapped. After listening to Max call her bee-atch all the time she wasn’t gonna take that shit from her damn cousin.
    “Sorry, baby,” Sha-Sha said smiling. “Come to me.”
    He held open his arms for a hug but, damn, Felicia felt like she was only getting her arms around one-quarter his body. She was glad she wasn’t hookin’ no more, havin’ Sha-Sha-size men on her body. Nigga that big fall on a girl’s body he kill her and shit.
    Then Felicia felt one of Sha-Sha’s hands grabbing her ass and she shooed it away.
    “Don’t be grabbin’ my ass,” she said.
    “Shit, you lookin’ good,” Sha-Sha said. “Smellin’ good too. I bet you nice and tasty.”
    Listen to the nigga, talkin’ to her like she was food. She better watch out—the fat motherfucka might eat her.
    When he started kissing her neck—sucking on it more like it—she pushed him away. Tried to push him away. Nigga didn’t budge.
    “The fuck you doin’?” Felicia said. “Ain’t you forgettin’ we cousins?”
    “Shit never stopped you before,” Sha-Sha said.
    Sha-Sha grabbed her ass again. She slapped his hand hard and went, “I ain’t playin’,” and he finally let go.
    He moved some pizza boxes off the couch and they sat down, got caught up and shit. He asked her if she was still dancing