ALMOST A DEAD MAN by Peter Nolan Smith - CHAPTER 2

Howling sirens accompanied East Villagers fleeing into the Astor Place Subway. A lucky few reached the shelter of the tunnel and the rest raised their eyes to the speck falling to Earth. A white flash vaporized the troposphere, as a subhuman scream ping-ponged across the tenement canyon of East 10th Street.

“Dooooonnnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaa."

Inside a railroad flat's bedroom a thirty year-old man threw off the pillow over his head and Sean Coll staggered to an open window. Sweat dripped off his face, as he looked down to the sidewalk.

“Dooooonnnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaa."

A middle-aged Polish woman fled from a dope-sick junkie mauling a parked car with an iron pipe. Glass shards flew in the sunlight. The beserker arched his face to the broiling sun and emptied the ashes of his soul from his lungs.

"DOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAA."

No woman answered his warbling aria.

A cop car rounded the corner and the heroin addict hid the pipe, but nothing short of an 'officer-down' call was extricating the policemen from their air-con cruiser.

Once the cruiser drifted out of sight, the junkie demolished another windshield.

“Shit."

Sean's Triumph was on deck for batting practice.

He hurried to the kitchen and filled a trash bag with water from the brimming tub.

Fifteen seconds later Sean heaved out the plastic sack out the window. Liquid beads sprayed from its rupturing seams. The bag of water struck the junkie’s shoulder and the impact crushed him to the sidewalk. The plastic shroud fluttered over his fallen body. He lay still. Water dropped from that height might be fatal blow, but junkies don’t die easy. The addict rose to his feet and looked up at the buildings before limping down the block.

Sean flopped on the couch. The floor fan failed to circulate the sullen air and sweat oozed from his body like he was a miraculous weeping statue. Sheet lightning crackled across the sky and the rumbling thunder echoed the tale of Sleepy Hollow, yet no rain fell from from above.

The telephone broke his trance and he grabbed the phone on the third ring.

"Tammi?"

"No, this is Kurt." A man's voice crackled over trans-Atlantic interference.

"Kurt?"

"Do you remember me?"

"From Paris."

The German telex entrepreneur lived in a house near the Eiffel Tower. Kurt showed up at bars and restaurants with beautiful women. Sean had done drugs with him twice.

"How's New York in the summer. Hell, no?"

"Pretty close to it. Only me, the poor, the depraved, and the dying."

"You speak a little German, yes."

"Ich hatte Deutsche im Hoche Schule gelernt.”

His classmates had ridiculed Sean’s reading of Kafka's DAS URTEIL, until the warty Bavarian teacher had snubbed out his Pall Mall and coughed, "Even with his stutter Herr Coll speaks German better than the rest of you hairdressers."

Most of his speech impediments had been cured by therapy and few people noticed the stammer.

"You are Irish, yes?" asked Kurt.

"American and Irish." Ireland granted second-generation descendants citizenship, which was also in the EEC. “Why?”

"Because you need papers to work in Hamburg at my new club BSirs.”

"Isn't that what Alex called his droogies in CLOCKWORK ORANGE."

"The bouncers dress just like them. Your friend, Bertram Bellepas, is the DJ. The city is beautiful. The women more so. You manage the club for two-hundred Deutschmarks a night, plus a one and a half percentage of the gross, which will come to about three-thousand marks a month. A ticket will be waiting at Lufthansa office in New York. I will meet you at the airport. What do know about Hamburg?”

“Only that the Beatles played at the Star Club and sex trade thrives on the Reeperbahn.” Sean swiftly calculated that six months of work would earn him roughly fifty thousand marks or $30,000. Still he had to say, "Ich musste zu denken." “Do you have a better offer?”

"No."

There was only one reason to stay here, but the odds of Tammi coming back the New York were nil and he said, "I'll tell you tomorrow."

"Not coming would be a big mistake.”

“It wouldn’t be my first one.”

“No, and it won’t be your last, but you should come. It’ll be fun. Call me later, but think yes.”

Kurt gave his number and the overseas line clicked dead.

Sean hung up the phone and imagined Bruder Karl hearing that his worst student might be working in Germany. His classmates could go to hell.

After a buttered bagel and coffee at Velseka’s Diner Sean shot hoops in Tompkins Square Park, losing more games than he won.

During the early evening he drank beer on his stoop. Workers walked home from a Nine-To-Fives. He should have been one of them. He had a college degree. His family lived normal lives in Boston. He had no answers to any questions about his deviation from conformity and climbed upstairs to change into jeans and a light t-shirt.

The sun was setting upon his return to street. Sean sat on his Triumph and drove up 1st Avenue to East 77th Street. He parked the bike on the corner and walked halfway down the block. Tammi's name remained on the mailbox. He pressed the buzzer. A glass bottle shattered against the brick wall.

"Bastard. Man. Bastard." A wizened woman in a shroud of garbage bags scrounged through the nearest trashcan for another missile. "I'm the only crazy on this block and you're not crazy. You're only in love with someone who doesn't love you. I've seen you and your whore. She was fucking that Russian and everyone else. All you bastards want is for us to be whores, then you throw us out on the street."

The old woman tore apart her plastic sheath. Her body was encrusted with layers of dirt.. Sean retreated to his motorcycle. The kickstart ignited the 650cc engine and a backfire of flames spurted from the exhaust pipes. Dogs barked inside the buildings and car alarms howled on the street. He revved the motor and raced to 2nd Avenue.

The old woman was right and only one thing could erase her words.

He burned the red light. A newspaper truck missed him by inches.

At 23rd Street he shifted into fifth.

Crossing 14th he spotted a blonde getting into a taxi.

She was the same height as Tammi.

Sean braked to a skidding halt.

A young businessman ran up and lifted her skirt. She laughed, while he forced her into a taxi.

The yellow Checker pulled away from the curb. Sean blasted through the red light.

A siren whooped behind him. The blonde turned and Tammi's mirage dissolved into another woman’s face.

Sean veered over to the curb and pulled off his helmet. Two car doors slammed and footsteps flapped against the pavement. A flashlight beam blinded his eyes and a voice ordered, "Get off the bike."

"What’s the problem?" Sean balanced his bike on the kickstand and lifted his hands.

"You see what I see, Kev?"

"I can't friggin' believe my eyes. Sean Coll in the flesh."

"I told you that was his bike, but you said, "Naw, Seano's in France. Guess you were wrong," the tobacco-harsh voice commented with the pleasure of being right.

The flashlight was shut off and Sean blinked away the shadows. The two NYPD officers grinned like drunken hunters discovering an animal snared in their trap. Kevin Driscoll was thinner than his partner, but still had forty pounds and a few inches on Sean. Neither cop was shy about tossing around their weight.

"Welcome back, Seano." deRocco took off his perforated summer-weight peaked cap and scratched his balding head.

"I'm leaving as soon as I can." Sean had been avoiding deRocco and Driscoll like a disease.

"You believe that, Kev?" deRocco was the brains of the pair.

"Nah, it's bullshit." Kevin Driscoll waved on the gawking drivers and deRocco stepped closer. The smell of whiskey on his breath was not a good sign in hot weather. "Drop yer fuckin' hands. This ain't no arrest. We just wanna talk with you."

"I haven't talked to no one about where you were the night Johnny Fats was killed."

“Frankie, you know this Johnny Fats?” Driscoll slapped the flashlight into his palm.

“Never heard of him.”

"Really? If I had ratted you out, would you be here now? Not a chance and a cop in prison isn't a pretty sight."

"You threatenin’ us?" Driscoll’s hand dropped to his .38.

"Not at all, just that I dis covered the precinct's bagman behind the club. A single bullet hole had perforated his forehead. Somehow a Grand Jury had ruled it 'death by misadventure'. In the ensuing IAU investigation fifteen cops from the Ninth Precinct had been fired without pensions and two imprisoned at Sing-Sing."

"So what?"

“Just I saw you leave with him and I saw him died.”

”We weren’t involved with Johnny Fat’s death." Driscoll protested, not knowing the bagman hadn’t said a single word before his death rattle and deRocco snapped, "Shut up, Kev."

“I buy you’re not killing Johnny, but someone set up the execution.”

“It wasn’t us.” deRocco's eyes blanked out with a cold-blooded gaze.

"Sgt. Ferguson thinks we three know more than we should.”

The IAU sergeant had plenty of theories, mostly of them were on the money.

"That cocksucker." deRocco venomously spat out the words.

Sean smirked, for the precinct cops spread about deRocco's sexual leaning.

"What you smilin' about?"

"Nothing." Cops had a hard job in New York City, however these two were past redemption. “Just I got a phone call today from Germany. They want me to work at a nightclub there. Maybe I should go?”

“And stay away for a while too.” deRocco lit a cigarette. "You're a lucky fuckin' Mick, Seano."

"You want to contribute to my bon-voyage fund?"

“Don’t push it, Seano. Just get the fuck out of town."

"Sure, I'll send you a postcard." The two officers returned to the cruiser and then crossed 14th Street into the Ninth Precinct. Sean had to face the truth that Tammi was gone for good.

"Hamburg," he muttered, tugging on his helmet.

He started his bike and obeyed all the lights to his apartment. By the time he reached East 10th Street, he was thanking deRocco and Driscoll for forcing him to accept Kurt's offer. Maybe the distance of a few thousand miles would help free his soul of Tammi.

Something had to someday.

He only wished it was today.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN by Peter Nolan Smith - CHAPTER 17

When the European summer vacation began in earnest, the Reeperbahn swelled with tourists. Beatles fans on the pilgrimage thronged to the Star Club twenty years too late and couples visited the acrobatic sex shows at the 'Colibri' or 'Salambo'. More importantly buses from all over Western Europe stopped on the wide boulevard and disgorged scores of male passengers to be sucked into the ErosCenter’s maelstrom of commercial sex.

The prostitutes barely lasted five minutes on the concrete floor before a customer dragged them upstairs. The small cubicles within the St. Pauli hotels were turning over rooms every thirty minutes. Money and fluids were being exchanged at a record pace and no one could be happier than the pimps and few women were working harder than SS Tommy's new girl. The crimson light accented the long red hair and painted her pale skin a lurid tone to allure men like moths to a fire. Only several days into the game she was every inch the whore, but having been transformed into a star she was picking her customers with disdain for them all and this haughty behavior was infuriating SS Tommy.

When the redhead refused to accompany an obese fisherman upstairs, SS Tommy rushed over and asked, "What was wrong with him? Too fat?"

"I've been with more fat men in the last week than I can count and as long as they are on the bottom I have no problem with them"

"Then what is it this time?" SS Tommy demanded.

"He smells like he bathed in herring before he came here." Vella regarded the man with disgust, while the other whores of SS Tommy's string snickered at what she had said. The blonde pimp seized her arm. His fingers sank through her flesh and she cringed in pain, as he warned, "I don't want to hear you ever say, "No." again. Do you understand me?"

Having heard what happened to bad girls, she nodded her surrender and SS Tommy told the fisherman, if he wanted Vella that he would have to pay three times the going rate.

"Three times?"

The blonde pimp lifted the redhead's silver nightie and said, "Where will find a girl like this. Just feel her skin. Soft as a peach and tight as a baby. She has only been here two nights."

"But she said I stink."

"My friend, you do stink." SS Tommy ridiculed him, saying, "I thought two things smell like fish and one of them is fish, but you make three. Next time you come to the Eroscenter, take a bath and use soap. An industrial one."

"I don't know."

"You don't know? You upset my girl and now you are upsetting me."

"Sorry." He agreed to SS Tommy's price.

The pimp patted the redhead on the rear end, as the fisherman dragged her upstairs. "You keep this up and you will be the number one earner tonight."

Two hours later Vella was dead on her feet. The garters holding up the sheer stockings bit into her thighs like bear traps and the sky-high stiletto heels crushed her toes like a vise. Her lips were bruised from seven blowjobs and after the eight fucks her vagina felt like it had been pummeled by sandpaper cocks.

Most of her clients had been quick, though the last one had taken forever to get off. Thankfully the old veteran, Sulka, had taught the novice the old trick of stroking the man's skin between the base of his cock and anus, so when Vella had reached down and scrapped her nails on this region with a milk maiden's gentleness, the trick had cried out and came instantly inside his condom.

Afterwards he had said she was the best and given her a big tip.

She had told him anytime and asked his name, which she had forgotten before it was out of his mouth. The money was all she could remember about these men, although their dank musty smell seemed to be indelibly permeate her flesh.

Vella leaned against the wall and prayed for the night to end.

A whistle shrilled from the corner, which was SS Tommy's way of telling the women another busload of men was entering the sex den.

"So how do you like it here." Sulka asked, massaging the redhead's knotted shoulders.

Vella leaned back against the older woman's breasts.

Sulka exhaled the smoke of a cigarette, then nuzzled the young girl's neck.

"The fucking I can handle, but the blowjobs." Vella grimaced, then trembled, as the old whore expertly struck a vein of sensitivity. Sulka smiled, thinking soon she would have her way with the newcomer, but for tonight it was all work and no play.

"I would love to say you get a taste for them, but those uncircumcised penises are like hundred year-old pieces of cheese. And men joke about the way our pussies smell. Sorry, Schartzie, I see an old friend."

Sulka blew her a kiss and strutted over to a well-dressed businessman.

"I will see you later." It was good to have a friend here, then Vella spotted several men floating closer and sagged against the wall. It had only been five minutes since her last trip upstairs.

Before anyone could proposition her, Vella went over to SS Tommy, who was counseling several new fish about their choices. Upon seeing the redhead, SS Tommy put his arm around her and announced, "Vella is the best. No one is softer.

She blushed, hearing about her most intimate parts described in such a fashion before these men. The rest of SS Tommy's stable were glad the new girl was in the dubious position of his favorite girl and bet how many men the new girl could take during an evening. She had already beaten most of their expectations.

"Who will take her now?" SS Tommy demanded, recognizing several faces in the crowd as long-time customers with a preference for new girls. There was nothing he liked better than an auction to the highest bidder.

"Tommy," Vella whispered in the pimp's ear.

"What?" He was annoyed she had interrupted his spiel.

"I'm not saying no. If you want me to go, I will, but I could use a couple of minutes' rest," Vella said, licking at her chapped lips.

"You need a break?" SS Tommy told the men to hold on and he would be right back, then hauled Vella over to the corner. The pimp harshly explained that her rest came, when no one wanted her, then saw the exhaustion on her face. "Maybe I have been running you too hard. I have to teat you with care. You are new. Not like Sulka. She can handle anything. Normally I never let anyone rest during a shift, but you have been very good tonight. Already you have eleven men and the night is still young. Did you know the record is thirty-three?"

SS Tommy caressed her cheek like he would a girlfriend.

"No, I didn't." Vella groaned inwardly.

SS Tommy glanced at the thinning circle of men. He spotted two regulars, who liked to split a girl between them. He indicated they were next, but would have to wait. A good businessman had to be aware of his clientele's tastes as well as the limits of his workers. The blonde Zuhalter gave a key to Vella and said," I tell you what. You go up to my special room and rest for fifteen minutes."

Vella's heart lightened to think she had a little time off.

SS Tommy kissed her on the lips, then went over the brothers to finalize the deal fort the ménage-a-trois, so Vella could make up for whatever time she had been off the floor.

SS Tommy watched the redhead wearily walk up the stairs. The short-time double date would be a surprise, but one to which Vella would have to become accustomed. He would later take her out to the Schlacterei, the all-night steak house next to the city's slaughterhouse, then bring her to the Hotel Atlantic. It would pass for a romantic evening, except the bill would come from her evening's earnings.

Several minutes later SS Tommy remarked to himself that he hadn't seen Cali all evening. He scanned the floor of the Eroscenter for the black man. 'Nigger' Cali was nowhere in sight and his stable of girls were taking advantage of this uncustomary lapse in vigilance by gathering in clumps to gossip about the evening. He could not have left the Eroscenter on such a busy night, so he had to be in his office. SS Tommy could have taken matters into his own hands, but their laziness was a good excuse to find Cali.

SS Tommy crossed the floor of the Eroscenter. The blinds of Cali's office were drawn and the door was shut. Someone was inside with Cali and SS Tommy decided to find out the identity of the visitor.

Five minutes later he smiled upon seeing Stivan Klein exit from the office. The Jew only made business calls. SS Tommy sneered a greeting to Hamburg's biggest moneylender, then pondered why Cali required the Jew's services.

Something was up and Cali had not spoken about expansion against Hamburg's other pimps in Hamburg. This meeting with the Jew had to be connected with Kurt Oster's and Nigger Cali's secret deal. There was only one way to discover, if his hunch was right, and he entered the office without knocking.

The black hole of an automatic pistol muzzle greeted him and Cali's left arm protectively encircled several hundred thousand Deutschmarks on the table. SS Tommy lifted his hands and said, "And I thought I was having a good night."

"It's been all right," Cali answered defensively. The blonde pimp had been snooping around too much lately and his barging into the office was no accident and Cali demanded brusquely, "What do you want?"

"Your girls are taking a break." SS Tommy estimated the money to be three hundred thousand DMs. To pay that off, Cali's two-hundred girls would have to work full shifts three nights in a row without ever being idle or any of the other partners getting their share. "I thought you might want to know."

"Thank you very much." Cali put the money into the safe. "I will be out in a few minutes. Tell those lazy sluts that for me."

"No problem." SS Tommy backed out of the room.

Cali locked the door, then sat on the edge of his desk. If it had been anyone else, then he would have been concerned that they might say he was skimming their profits, but with SS Tommy it was worse

Cali was blocking the blonde Zuhalter's further progress within the organization. His five-year reign over the Reeperbahn had been longer than most heavyweights retained their belt. He admired few men more than Rocky Marciano. The heavyweight champ had quit before anyone could dethrone him. Cali wished he could be so lucky, for none of his predecessors had retired alive, but Cali intended on being the first.

He shut the safe and swung the dial. The gun was returned to the desk drawer. The way his right-hand man had stared at the money reminded Cali of someone planning a robbery. He would have to keep a closer eye on SS Tommy. Eventually someone would stumble on the trail of their activities and either want in or take it all for themselves, which was right up SS Tommy's alley.

Opening the curtains he surveyed the floor of the Eroscenter and calculated the night's intake with an interest bordering on obsession. While the pimp understood having to deposit larger and larger sums in the Swiss bank account, the launching of Kurt's scheme had siphoned off every pfennig he could afford and more. As good a friend as Kurt was, this could all be a scam and one that would cost him dearly. In his business it was always better to trust no one, if you wanted to stay alive.

Poking his head out the window, Cali saw that SS Tommy was right. His women were loafing. While he had much more important matters on his mind, Cali motioned for two loitering whores to come over to him.

They both stubbed out their cigarettes on the hard pavement and sauntered lewdly to the window, hoping a customer would drag them away from this impromptu conference with the 'King of the Reeperbahn'.

Unfortunately the Eroscenter was experiencing a temporary lull in the evening. Everyone within earshot cringed, as Cali harangued the two slackers. Cali was angry and all the women knew what that meant. He warned them that this had better be the last time they shirked their duties. To make a point, he slapped one girl on her ass, then ordered them to get back to work.

It was time to redouble their 'looking busy' and they approached every loose men under the tent. Soon business was back to normal. The eager customers and curiosity-seekers were being steered to the whores by the pimps. The men and women went upstairs and money came back down. Several women shrieked with glee, as a screaming prostitute chased a naked man from the hotel. Cali had spent thousands of nights like this in the Eroscenter and had seen it all too many times before .

Most of them passed without a problem.

Other times he had to break an arm, protect a girl from a drunken soldier, or beat her for stealing money. When he first started this business, he loved the sex, the money, and the power, since they were the epitome of most men's fantasies. Now all he wanted was to be as far away as possible.

Maybe if Petra had not been beaten, he would feel the same as before. Cali had told Kurt to warn Petra, but she had been too headstrong to give up her crusade to organize the whores. When the rest of his organization voted to teach her a lesson, Cali had to go along with his associates. Any sign of weakness towards women on his part would have meant his doom as well.

One night Petra had gone to speak with the women down at the Fischmarkt and she had wandered the fish market until three men in ski masks had stepped out of the shadows.

Cali had watched, as SS Tommy and Maserati Klaus stomped Petra. For Maserati Klaus it had been a job, but SS Tommy prided himself for beating Petra Wessel to a bloody pulp. Only his intercession prevented her death. After Mack Die Alte and SS Tommy left the scene, Cali called the police on his mobile phone and reported a Strafanzeige, telling the police of a woman being beaten. When they asked his name, he hung up.

Tears had blinded him, as he had driven away. It had been years, since he had cried and afterwards that his career as a pimp was nearly over, though on the Reeperbahn, they only retire you with a bullet or a knife. Somehow he had to get out of this, in order to become an old man. The older the better and the only way he could achieve that his burying 'Nigger Cali', since his enemies would want his next reincarnation just as dead as his present one and everyone here like the dead better than the living.