Hair of the Dog by Gordon Carroll (reading strategies book TXT) 📗

went off to gather intel while I slept. I dreamt I was at a gas station, dodging bullets fired from a gang of middle-aged fat men, calling me average, while cans of oil and pop and transmission fluid exploded all around me.

32

Ziggy dropped Jerome off and then drove to an old section of town that he knew well from his youth. It took him about fifteen minutes to score a few shards of crystal. Once he’d melted the small splinters, he sucked the clear soup up into a syringe from his private kit and pierced a vein below the bicep of his left arm. And just like that, his mind smoothed and his thoughts, which were beginning to jumble and tumble and stab, straightened out and gelled so that he felt normal. He really never got high anymore, he was far past those glorious days. Now the drug just brought him back to a semi-state of functionality that allowed him to survive; but hey, living was living.

Parking the car down the street, he got out and sauntered along past the store fronts. Whores sent him looks and a few calls, until they pegged him for a broke old junkie, then they mostly left him alone. The first seven shops he sought out had all been either closed or were under new management. He almost gave up hope until he turned the corner and saw Mudder’s Pool Hall, right where it had always been. A car full of young bucks came screeching down the street and shots blasted through the hot summer air. There were screams, though not many, and three other youths walking along the sidewalk pulled out cheap handguns and blasted back. Ziggy heard the plunking sounds of bullets striking car metal, and for a few seconds, this American block was the equivalent of a Middle Eastern war zone. Then the car drove off and the kids who had been shot at and shot back, ran into a building, and everything went back to life as usual. Ziggy shook his head, wondering at the state of the world.

Ziggy opened the door to Mudder’s and stepped in, instantly noting the fact that there was no air conditioning, just big fans that did little more than sweep the smoky air back and forth and up and around in misty swirls that made it hard to see to the long end of the room. The old familiar sound of balls clacking together, with that rich, sharp baked-clay sound, brought a warm feeling to him, helping to mollify the depression that had set in at the change in his old neighborhood and the lack of concern for life in today’s youth. Black boys stood around the tables shooting pool. In Ziggy’s day, the young men wore white wife-beater shirts and jeans mostly, but these boys were outfitted in red and black with lots of jewelry and grills across their teeth. They wore baseball caps tilted at weird angles or scarves that fitted their skulls like a second skin. Some were big and muscular, showing off their bulk by cutting off sleeves or wearing their shirts so tight they must be close to losing circulation. But most were skinny, with a hungry look in their eyes that Ziggy recognized all too well. The hunger had nothing to do with lack of food. No. These boys lusted after other pleasures of the flesh; drugs, money, power, recognition, reputation, the flesh itself. There were girls too. Most of them young, in the fifteenish area, all dressed in outfits way too tight, with high heels as long as their calves and bright lipstick that fit perfectly with their wild hairstyles. Ziggy ignored all of them. He wasn’t looking for kids.

Making his way to the back, he saw a few isolated tables populated by an older crowd. The bar, a cheap looking thing, separated the young from the old and Ziggy sat on the old side. He ordered a beer and waited. It didn’t take long.

“You looking for somebody, old timer?”

Ziggy didn’t know the man, but he looked to be in his thirties. He had tats on both shoulders and sported a red muscle shirt that hugged his pecs and six-pack abs. A roundish scar puckered his right trapezius near his throat, which Ziggy immediately recognized as an old bullet wound.

“Ziggy say he be looking for an old friend,” said Ziggy.

“That so?” asked the man. “What’s his name?”

“Ziggy say his old friend’s name is Westley Banks, but folks knew him better by the moniker Snake Oil.”

The man’s solemn expression changed to a slight grin.

“I member old Snake Oil,” said the man. “He was a tough ol’ bird. He’s dead. Took a load of buckshot in the face ‘bout five years back. Some blue Crip seen him sporting colors on the west side and walked up and shot him dead right in front of his granddaughter.” The man looked down, as if remembering. “Don’t feel bad though. We took out seven for him. And that ain’t a bad thing. How’d you know Snake Oil?”

“Ziggy used to play pool with him right here in this hall, yes he did indeed, back in the day Ziggy did.” Ziggy sipped his beer and wiped foam from his lips. “What about an old cat called Mr. Diamond? Is he dead too?”

The man laughed. “No, no, Mr. Diamond still beating in the chest. You used to play pool with him too?”

“Ziggy says some, but we done did some jobs together too.”

“That so? What kind of jobs?”

Ziggy grinned and drank some beer before setting the cup down. “Ziggy says you’d have to ask Mr. Diamond ‘bout that.”

The man looked at him a little longer then said, “Ok.” He walked away and went through a door on the far side of the last pool table where another man stood guard. A few minutes later, the man came back out and escorted Ziggy through the door. The guard performed a fast efficient pat down on the