Slide by Jason Starr Ken Bruen

and she said “Yeah,” leaving out that she was Max Fisher’s ho. Then she asked him if he was still dealing and he said, “Yeah,” and she was thinking, I wonder what shit he’s leaving out.
    Felicia didn’t want to spend her whole damn day bullshitting in the projects. Yeah, Max was a bitch-ass motherfucker, but living in a penthouse—shit, she could get used to that. So getting right down to it, she went, “Yo, there’s this white motherfucker I know. You know, I dance for him and shit. Motherfucker’s dealing rock.”
    “Who’s he with?” Sha-Sha asked.
    “Ain’t with nobody,” Felicia said. “See how stupid his ass is? He don’t even know he keep it up the gangs’re gonna be coming down on his ass. His clients—yeah, motherfucker calls ’em clients, are all rich-ass white people like he is. Nigga’s getting’ all the white people in Manhattan smokin’ rock and shit.”
    “Damn,” Sha-Sha said smiling.
    “So I be thinking,” Felicia said. “Why wait till the gangs come down on him, know what I’m sayin’? How ’bout I find some way to get down on his ass first?”
    “Shit makes sense,” Sha-Sha said.
    “Shit makes lotta sense,” Felicia said. “So nigga’s on the phone last night, talkin’ about this deal’s gonna go down with these Colombians, for twenty thousand dollars and shit. Then I think about you and your boys and I’m like, ‘Yeah, we can get in on that shit.’ Know what I’m saying?”
    Sha-Sha was into a pack of Chips Ahoy, eating the shit two at time. Piling that shit down his throat like his damn life depended on it.
    “Shit, you eatin’ or listenin’?” Felicia asked.
    Sha-Sha gave her a long look, swallowing cookies, then said, “Keep talkin’ to me.”
    “What I been saying,” Felicia said. “All I gotta do is find out where the drug deal’s at, right? Then you and your boys, whatever, bust in on that shit, know what I’m sayin’? I get the money, you get the rock. Shit, Max—that’s the nigga’s name—payin’ twenty for it, shit’s gotta be worth forty, right? You know how much pizza and cookies and Pringles and whatever the fuck else you been eatin’ make you so damn fat you can buy for forty thousand dollars?...A lot, that’s how much.”
    Sha-Sha thought it over for a few seconds, stuffing more cookies down his mouth—looked like he was swallowing them whole—then went, “Max huh? And you say the nigga don’t got no back-up?”
    “Ain’t you listenin’ to me?” Felicia said. “It’s just him, he’s alone. Oh, yeah, and some white boy from Alabama. Name Kyle or some shit. Max and Kyle. That sounds like two scary-ass motherfuckers, right?”
    Felicia laughed.
    Sha-Sha wasn’t laughing, went, “What about them Colombians?”
    “What about ’em?”
    “You say this is twenty thousand dollar, right? Shit, ain’t no high-level deal for no twenty thousand dollars, know what I’m sayin’? Sound like some street-level bullshit to me.”
    “Yeah, yeah, I know. So? That makes the whole thing even more easy. How hard’s it gonna be for you and whoever else you got backin’ you up, do whatever you gotta do. Shit gonna be stupid easy, you ask me.”
    “Yeah, I guess maybe I can get my boy Troit in on it with me,” Sha-Sha said. “We split up the rock together and shit.”
    “That’s right,” Felicia said, “and I get the money. That’s all I want—the twenty grand. I don’t care if they got a hundred grand worth of rock there. All I want is the cash.”
    She liked the deal, but she didn’t like the sound of Troit. If he was in with Sha-Sha, he was probably some sick-ass, that was for damn sure.
    Sha-Sha was quiet a few seconds, like he was thinking real hard, then said, “You know I might gotta cap this Max motherfucker, right?”
    “Shit, you wanna cap him, go ’head,” Felicia said. “You be doin’ me a favor, wanna know the truth. Cap his ass in the head, serve him right for the way he been treatin’ me. Walking