Black Buck(73)

I coughed loudly and theatrically stuck my index finger in the air. “Ahem. Lucky deal that produced other baby deals,” I said. “Many of which I handed off to you because you couldn’t close shit when we were going down. Don’t forget about that.”

“Do you hear this crap?” Clyde turned to Rhett. “He shows up when he wants to, takes all kinds of risks with high-profile prospects, and is one thousand percent on cocaine right now. He looks like fucking Tony Montana slumped over in his chair after he snorted that mountain of blow in the last scene of Scarface.”

“Me?” I asked, standing up and pounding my chest. “I want what’s coming to me . . . the world, Chico, and everything in it.”

Clyde knelt beside Rhett, looking him in the eye. But Rhett had his eyes closed and was whispering to himself. Clyde pushed him and he slowly came to and looked around the room. “Rhett,” he begged. “Say something. This can’t continue.”

Rhett took a deep breath and shrugged. “But at least they signed the deal, Clyde. That’s a million dollars. It’s huge.”

Clyde stood and walked to the windows. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this shit.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe we’re trusting the fate of the company to some uneducated, gallivanting”—

Go ahead. Say it. Say the word you’ve wanted to call me from day one, so I have a reason to bust your pretty white nose open like a coconut.

—“thug. This fucking thug. He’s a charlatan who’s going to bring us down, Rhett. I know it. You know it. I mean, look at how he’s fucking dressed.” Clyde waved his hand in front of my Armani wool-blend Sablé Soho suit and locked his eyes onto my Rolex Oyster Perpetual.

“It was refurbished and under five Gs,” I said, sticking my wrist in his face.

“Fuck you.”

“Let’s discuss this later,” Rhett said. He started gathering the signed contracts. “We closed the deal and that’s what matters most.”

Clyde walked over and slammed the door shut before Rhett could leave. “No, that’s not what matters most. This whole thing is exhausting,” he said, hands on his hips. “So it’s either him or me.”

Rhett groaned and grabbed the nearest chair. “C’mon, Clyde. It’s already been a long day. Buck,” he said, looking at me across the room. “You’ll stop coming late to meetings and make more of an effort to tone everything down, right?”

“Sure,” I said, winking at Clyde.

“I’m serious, Rhett.” Clyde hovered over him like a thick cloud ready to shoot lightning from his skinny gut. “Who’s it going to be? The guy who helped you build all of this or this two-bit clown?”

Rhett shut his eyes and gripped the table. “‘Brothers . . . do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother . . . or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.’ James 4:11.”

“Amen,” I said, clapping. “Stop slandering me, bro.”

“I don’t want to do this.” Clyde placed a hand on the door, lowering his head. “But I have to. You have five seconds to make a decision, Rhett. One.”

Bullshit.

“Two.”

“Cut this out, Clyde,” Rhett ordered. “Seriously.”

“Three.”

Rhett stood and grabbed Clyde’s shoulder, bringing them face-to-face.

“Chill, Rhett,” I said, my feet on the table. “There’s no way he’s leaving. He has nowhere else to go.”

“Four,” Clyde counted, visibly shaking as tears fell from his bluer than blue eyes.

“Clyde,” Rhett pleaded, gripping both of his shoulders. “Stop it, please. Just stop it.”

“Five.” Clyde stared into Rhett’s eyes.

He turned around and opened the door. But before Clyde walked out, he smiled at me. “We’ll see each other again, Buck. You can count on that.”





21





“Ma!” I shouted, bolting up in bed, a mix of salty sweat and tears running down my face, my chest vibrating like an animal that knows it’s about to be murdered.

“What is it, Buck? What’s wrong?”

Caught in the space between the world of dreams and waking life, it took me a second to realize what day it was, where I was, and who was lying next to me. It was Monday. I was in my loft, the top floor of a brownstone on Seventeenth between Second and Third Avenues. But the white woman, who looked like a Nike model, was a blur.

“I’m sorry.” I jumped up and headed to the kitchen. “But who are you?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I hoped I hadn’t had sex with her. I had a strict no white women policy, a policy I’d never violated before on account of what Wally Cat said all those months ago. I wasn’t superstitious, but I preferred being on the safe side.

She sat up and ran a pale hand through her hair, laughing. “All of you guys are the same, I swear. We met last night? At Up & Down? You said I looked familiar and you somehow knew I was a model?”

I chugged a glass of cold water and prayed I’d passed out before anything happened. “Melanie, right?”