Page 14 of Gold Rush
“They were amazing. They got me set up with a job. I couch-hopped for a while, and then…my friend died. He was hooking and it was from an overdose.”
“An overdose.”
“Yeah. It hurt bad. I’d never lost anyone before and never thought of it happening to him. He started acting weird a month before that, and I didn’t know it was because he was being dosed. What would I know about all that? I just went about life until I found out what really happened to him, and who had done it to him. After that, I became a little obsessed. I had to get back at that pimp.”
Goldie understood it then. He sat back in the chair and asked, “And you’re pulling us into your revenge scheme?”
“I didn’t want to. You did that on your own. I was going to call the cops on the pimp after he dosed me. When I started hooking, for the money and the ability to find this guy, I’d heard horror stories about him and a few others. I started getting closer to the people working for him, started hooking on his blocks, and after a few months, he took notice of me.”
“You started selling yourself for fucking revenge?”
“Yeah, and the money. Unskilled labor isn’t exactly a great way to make a nest egg.”
Goldie couldn’t believe it, but it fit. He’d seen people do worse for revenge. “I’ll need to update my crew on this. Tell me you weren’t lying about the money.”
“I wasn’t. He has enough drugs and money to buy a mansion. I know money. I came from it. The goons, yeah, he has them, but any distraction will work. These people don’t see threats. Even cops are on their payroll.”
Goldie didn’t say a thing, but he knew that to be true. “So…what kind of distraction would you recommend?”
“A hot new piece of ass that all the pimps want. And a new pimp in town. Those are the threats.”
Goldie stared at him, but his mind was spinning. “A new pimp and a new, hot piece of ass…”
“Better a stable of hot pieces of ass, but one or two would be fine.”
He had a stable of hot men. Now, just to get them to go along with it. “Listen, I have some recon to do. Why not come with me? You look totally different, and no one would guess you’re the guy that got away.”
“Sure. If you…if you forgive me for lying.”
“Lies are mostly defense mechanisms. I forgive you, and I’m sure the rest of my people will, once I let them know.”
“Thanks.”
They left in a rideshare and got to the neighborhood where Dean directed them. Goldie had them dropped off by a bar, where they went inside to have a drink and pretend to just be a couple of guys hanging out for the evening.
“Do they ever come here?”
“Sure. They own this neighborhood. Everyone just…gives in to them.”
“Sad. Real sad. These old neighborhoods are ripe for gentrification if they don’t clean up the crime and crime bosses. Next thing you know, they’re filled with yoga studios and coffee houses with beat poets and acoustic guitars.”
“You seem to know a lot about that.”
“Downtown, it used to be more diverse as far as homes, stores, and then they got it all prettified. Other neighborhoods, too. My old neighborhood, which I remember as a little kid. They’re rare now, and that’s a shame.”
“I never saw them when I was young. I played in the parks in these neighborhoods, but then I was rushed into the car and taken away so fast, like they were all out to steal me. Now, I’ve seen them, and I see the beauty in them. The older ladies who tend their roses in their old house shoes. They make these gorgeous bushes to sit in front of houses that haven’t had new paint in a decade or more, with house numbers that are rusted and leaving bloody looking streaks down the columns.”
Dean could have been describing his grandmother and her home. “You see a lot.”
“I was raised appreciating art. My parents own forty galleries across seventeen countries.”
“Impressive.”
“Eh, if you are into that.”
“Haze is. He’s our resident artist.”
Dean’s eyes dropped to the table as he said, “And you’re the resident…?”
