Jook

Gary Phillips

Description

Zelmont Raines has slid a long way since his ability to jook, to outmaneuver his opponents on the field, made him a Super Bowl–winning wide receiver, earning him lucrative endorsement deals and more than his share of female attention. But Zee hasn’t always been good at saying no, so a series of missteps involving drugs, a paternity suit or two, legal entanglements, shaky investments, and recurring injuries have virtually sidelined his career.

That is until Los Angeles gets a new pro franchise, the Barons, and Zelmont has one last chance at the big time he dearly misses. Just as it seems he might be getting back in the flow, he’s enraptured by Wilma Wells, the leggy and brainy lawyer for the team—who has a ruthless game plan all her own. And it’s Zelmont who might get jooked.

Sujets

• Mean Streets
• Los Angeles

Informations

• Publié par: PM Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781604861730
• Langue: English

Extrait

Zelmont Raines scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl and was an All-Pro receiver with a string of endorsement deals. Unfortunately, he also likes to smoke crack, quench his thirst with top-shelf brandy, and entertain the fine ladies who hang out with the stars. Three stints in drug rehab, a paternity suit (guilty), a hip injury, and some misguided investments in gangsta rap have Raines thinking the good times are over. Then he meets his match - sexually and amorally - in Wilma Wells, the lawyer for the Los Angeles Barons. She s scheming to rip off the mob-connected owner of the Barons and enlists the aid of the cash-hungry and always-horny Raines. She leads him into a netherworld where the between-the-lines violence of professional football pales in the face of automatic weapons and double crosses. Phillips, author of the acclaimed Ivan Monk series, takes elements of Jim Thompson (the ending), black-exploitation flicks (the profanity-fueled dialogue), and Penthouse magazine (the sex is anatomically correct) to create an over-the-top violent caper in which there is no honor, no respect, no love, and plenty of money. Anyone who liked George Pelecanos King Suckerman is going to love this even-grittier take on many of the same themes. WES LUKOWSKY
A hard-edged, wonderfully creative work with the kind of literary bite that lingers. ROBERT GREER, AUTHOR OF THE MONGOOSE DECEPTION
Enough gritty gossip, blistering action and trash talk to make real life L.A. seem comparatively wholesome. KIRKUS REVIEWS
Gary Phillips writes tough and gritty parables about life and death on the mean streets - a place where sometimes just surviving is a noble enough cause. His is a voice that should be heard and celebrated. It rings true once again in The Jook , a story where all of Phillips talents are on display. MICHAEL CONNELLY, AUTHOR OF THE HARRY BOSCH BOOKS
It hooked me like a laboratory monkey. Buy it. Read it. Pass it on. It rocks. EDDIE LITTLE, AUTHOR OF ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE
Phillips is a natural-born writer who has clearly studied his predecessors, both literary and political, U.S. and foreign. He writes a tight, unadorned prose which serves to highlight his excursions into traditional snappy dialogue and hardboiled philosophy. MORNING STAR
This is for Goines, Goodis, and Thompson, fine gentlemen who practiced their trade only too well.
switch·blade n. a different slice of hardboiled fiction where the dreamers and the schemers‚ the dispossessed and the damned‚ and the hobos and the rebels tango at the edge of society.
THE JOOK GARY PHILLIPS
1-5: A NOVEL OF CRIME, TRANSPORT, AND SEX SUMMER BRENNER
PIKE BENJAMIN WHITMER
THE CHIEU HOI SALOON MICHAEL HARRIS
THE JOOK GARY PHILLIPS
THE JOOK By Gary Phillips
Copyright 2009 Gary Phillips This edition copyright 2009 PM Press All Rights Reserved
Published by: PM Press PO Box 23912 Oakland, CA 94623 www.pmpress.org
Cover Illustration by Roderick Constance 2009 www.shadowshapes.com Designed by Courtney Utt
ISBN: 978-1-60486-040-5 Library Of Congress Control Number: 2008905962 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the USA on recycled paper.
Every sin is a result of a collaboration. -Stephen Crane, The Blue Hotel and Other Stories

Just win, baby. -Al Davis
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 1
i t was hot as an Alabama outhouse when I got off the plane from Barcelona. LAX was busy like the mug as I stood online for customs. Time was, people would have been sweating me to sign something cute for their granny, or some boob-job chick would have been asking me to write my number on the topside of the tit poking out of her halter. Now all I got was them sideways looks, that frown that said, You look like you used to be somebody.
What was your business in Barcelona, Mr. Raines?
The bureaucratic dude gave me the once-over like I was any other square. Cept white boys were always a little curious about brothers not in the service who traveled overseas, thinking we were all hooked up with Farrakhan on a trip to pick up the IEDs in Iraq or some shit.
I was playing ball with the Dragons. You know, NFL Europe League. I said it as if he, or any other of the hundreds of people running around, had actually taken the time to watch one of the games. Hardly.
He looked at my passport again, which he d placed on top of his computer terminal. Zelmont Raines. There it was in his watery blues. A few seconds ticked by, then he said, You used to play for the Falcons.
He didn t finish it. Didn t go on about the Super Bowl where I blew off two defenders and caught the game-winning pass while doing a spin in mid-air. The Atlanta Falcons had only been to the Super Bowl twice since the club was founded. The first time they d been skinned by Denver. They were on their way to losing a second time against the Jets but for me.
Yet here I was coming back from Spain, after playing six games in a league even the guys at Fox who broadcast us didn t watch. The games had been moved later into the summer to try and catch the excitement that always built up for the NFL pre-season - the real NFL, I mean. But still no one tuned us in.
Yeah, was all I could give it.
He tapped my passport against his cocked thumb. If it had been a slower time of day, he might have gone on.
Asking me about all them stories of girls in Day-Glo vinyl mini-skirts with no underwear on leaping off my roof into a pool full of whipped cream and cafe au lait. And, if the conversing went on long enough, it always wound around to how I pissed it all away like a sailor on a three-day drunk.
Instead, he just asked his routine questions then said, Have a good day, Mr. Raines, handing me my passport. I nodded at him as I picked up my equipment bag. The one that was the signature brand I d endorsed in my last year in the NFL. I went down to baggage claim and waited another hour before I got the rest of my gear.
Time was there d be a limo waiting for me, Courvoisier on a rack in the back, and maybe some mama with pouty red lips warming up the leather seat. Now, standing outside in the steaming night air, I had my choice of which airport van to catch. I flashed on rolling by the pad of my shortie, Davida Orlean, but nixed it cause I was beat and wanted some solitude.
I got in a shuttle driven by some Middle Eastern dude with a dead tooth. First he tooled a fare - two firm sorority babes - to Westchester. I made eye contact with one of em, but her friend cock blocked. What you gonna do? Then he took this old girl smelling minty over to the Roosevelt on Hollywood Boulevard. Course I had to help her ass out of the ride. Finally, he got me to my crib in the Hollywood Hills.
That ll be 40, sir. He was gazing at the pad, trying to figure out who I was. You work in the music business?
Head ringer, baby. I was inclined not to tip, but wanted to show I was still the man.
The cat didn t look at the Jacksons and Lincoln for the tip as he hefted my bags out of the back of the van. I see you in the papers, right?
Not so much now, man.
Oh yes, he said, shaking a finger at me. You ve been in movies too, I know.
TV. Sports commentary. I was in a few flicks. B efforts where I was fifth billed or more likely a cameo.
Build-up roles, my agent - well, the agent I had then - called em. Even shot a show for syndication. Me and this Asian actor were supposed to be troubleshooters. I was the burned-out alcoholic ex-cop and he was the idealistic software designer. The setup was that even though we dislike each other, we naturally have to work together to solve the case. We did three episodes. The CW aired two and canceled us. Didn t even get enough ratings on a network that keeps shows ranking in the 70s.
Take it slow, champ. I picked up my stuff and made my way up the slope of the walkway past the iron gargoyles planted on either side of the dried lawn. One had a twelve-inch tongue poking out of its evilly smiling snout. The other had claws and wings raised like it was swooping down on a fat, juicy cow. I loved those beasts. Called them Dandy and Candy. Don t know why, just liked the way it sounded.
Inside, the mail had been stacked on the coffee table by Adrianna, the cleaning lady. I used to pay her to come twice a week without thinking about it, but not these days. I was pretty sure there weren t no offers or a letter from the 49ers requesting my services. Later for the pile.
I poured some V.S.O.P. from the bar, punched in 92.3 on the stereo, and laid on the couch. As a Mary J. Blige number bumped from my JVCs, I stared at my row of honor over the fireplace. It was lined with trophies from Pop Warner on through the pros. One of my girlfriends said she thought I was being juvenile. Said I ought to have put them in the study, a back room or something. Shit. Any motherfuckah who comes into my house has gotta go with the flow. I ain t never asked nobody to light candles in front of them statues. But those are things I ve earned, makes something solid of what I ve done.
Anyway, that chick always acted like she had her nose up. Correcting my use - she d say improper use - of words in public. Them trophies is still here, and she s long gone.
I shifted and felt a twinge in my fibula. My upper leg had been throbbing something fierce since halfway through the long flight from Barcelona. I d gotten up to stretch it so many times, people must have thought I had some sorry-ass bladder infection to need to go to the c