Free Long White Con: The Biggest Score of His Life by Iceberg Slim Page A

clouds!”
    He smiled. “Goodnight, Angel Face. Between us we’ll pull down a lulu of a rainstorm soon!”
    He went into the hotel lobby and watched her gun the Excaliburaway into the neon thickets. He purchased a dozen red roses from the hotel’s florist. Then he went to the street and got into a cab for home. And Pearl.
    Pearl was in the bathroom when he walked into his apartment. He got into lounging clothes and propped himself in bed to read the newspaper. It struck him that Pearl’s rich contralto voice was not accompanying the lyrics of running water as she washed stockings and underthings as usual. A moment later, he looked up from the paper and smiled when she opened the door and stepped into the bedroom in her panties.
    He held out his arms and said, “Hi, sweetheart. How about some hot bubbling sugar?”
    Pearl came to the bed with something concealed in her hand. She bypassed his upturned lips and pecked him on the forehead.
    He said, “You got a cold, baby?”
    She shook her head and sat on the side of the bed facing him. Her glaring brown eyes in the smear of cold cream on her tar black face gave the effect of an angry Mau Mau maiden. She retreated her wrist as he reached to touch it.
    He said, “Tough day at school today, huh?”
    She said, “No, tough time when I found your stash of dope on the floor beneath the facebowl in the bathroom.” She opened her hand and thrust a small cellophane package on her palm into his face.
    He stared at it, realized that the Scotch tape had given way and exposed his passion for cocaine. He said, “Hon, don’t be uptight. That isn’t dope. I mean, it isn’t H. A joker laid it on me to try. It’s coke, sugar face . . . a harmless recreational high.”
    He reached to take the quarter ounce of precious dust. She ripped open the package and dumped the powder into a pitcher of water on a nightstand beside the bed. He groaned, “Oh, you square-ass broad! You just blew several C-notes!”
    She said, “Ah ha! You lied! Junkie, you bought that dope! I’m notso square that I don’t know dope that expensive isn’t passed out as freebie samples. Who are you really, Johnny? What are you? I want to know! Now!”
    He said, “I’m Johnny O’Brien, real estate speculator. I’m willing to forget your vandalism with that coke if you can get yourself together and forget.”
    She said, with heat, “I can’t accept that, and the rest of the mysterious shit about you. I mean it, Johnny! I can’t live like this. I must have answers to questions that have made me miserable since I left Canada with you.”
    Folks’ blue eyes were radiant with aggravation. He said, “All right, sweet stuff, take an enema. Fire away!”
    She said, “For an opener, what do you and Saul Borenstein really do for a living?”
    He looked at her, a portrait of doubt and suspicion with her legs crossed, elbow propped on her thigh with her chin resting in her palm, glaring at him. For the hundredth time since he’d known her he flirted with telling her the truth. It was her fault that forced my lies, he told himself. Rather, her strait-laced black middle class brainwashed dogma about honesty and hard, legitimate labor as the only acceptable means to realize the so-called American Dream.
    Impatient to skewer him, she said, “C’mon, Slick Johnny, tell it like it is. Try the truth on me for a change. I care enough to try to accept even dope dealing.”
    He shaped a bitter little smile. It had been her naivete, her honesty, fidelity and rare purity of heart that had attracted him, made him want her for his woman. Now it was too late for the truth, he told himself. She’ll freak out with paranoia and hatred for a gee in her bed who lies for a living. My ego trapped me. Jesus Christ! I was insecure. I wanted her because she adored me, wasn’t a threat like most women who play men in the pit against other men and pussy power games. He was sorry she was hurting. But what could he do?
    He decided to give