Free A Better Goodbye by John Schulian Page B

classes who wanted to be a professional wrestler.
    His head swimming at having to choose from a pool of morons, Scott lit another smoke off his old one, flipped open his cell, and dialed. One ring later, he heard the voice he was counting on to reassure him that things would be cool.
    â€œWhat?”
    DuPree never turned off the attitude for a second. Sometimes Scott was tempted to call him Junior just to annoy him, but even on the telephone, the motherfucker was intimidating. One word and Scott could picture him, elegant and dangerous at the same time, shaved head, high cheekbones, ropy muscles, and a stare that could shrivel your balls to the size of raisins. Scott was sure he’d done time.
    â€œWhere you at, yo?” Scott couldn’t help himself. He lapsed into black-speak every time he talked to the guy.
    â€œHaving my morning latte, checking out the foreigners.” DuPree started most days at the Coffee Bean at Sunset Plaza, Eurotrash central. “You going to waste my time with questions you know the answer to, or you going to tell me why you’re calling?”
    â€œYou know me too well, man.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo you hear anything about a couple brothers robbing trick pads? Raping the girls?”
    â€œBrothers?” DuPree was keeping his voice down, making sure nobody could overhear his business. “As in African-American males?”
    â€œYeah, that’s right.”
    â€œAnd you sure that’s what they are? Brothers, I mean.”
    â€œWell, it’s what they’re saying on the Internet.”
    Scott tried to sound cool. It should have been easy; he was an actor, after all. But DuPree was the shit, and sometimes Scott couldn’t get around that.
    â€œThey?” DuPree asked. “They who?”
    â€œSome lawyer. That’s what he says he is, anyway. On Tailfeathers. You know, the website. Said he’d heard from some girls that these motherfuckers—”
    â€œThe brothers.”
    â€œYeah. They’re out there running around, menace to society and all that shit.”
    â€œOkay. Okay. It’s clearing up for me now. You make these assumptions, and then you come to me because I’m what, your connection to the thug life?”
    â€œLook, man, I’m not dissing you.” Scott hated to backpedal. It happened every time they talked about something serious, and DuPree never broke a sweat. “I’m just trying to see which way the wind is blowing, that’s all.”
    â€œI didn’t even know it was blowing. You want something specific, you better call up the”—DuPree’s voice dropped to a sinister mocking whisper—“Bloods and Crips, ask ’em yourself, ’cause I got nothing to do with them. You hear what I’m saying?”
    â€œHey, I’m sorry. I just thought—”
    â€œI know what you thought and it was wrong. Now, we done?”
    Hardly , Scott thought. He wanted to ask DuPree if he knew any guys—okay, thugs—who could provide security at the apartment. He’d hoped DuPree might be interested himself. The guy had never passed up a session with one of the girls, free, of course. But all Scott could say was, “Yeah, I guess so. We’re still cool, right?”
    And for the first time since DuPree had picked up, Scott heard him chuckle. “You know we are,” DuPree said. “You my nigger.”

    He didn’t shave for his audition, but how many actors did anymore? He didn’t bathe either, which was a private joke on Hollywood that he shared with Steve McQueen. He’d heard that anybody who wanted McQueen back in the days of Bullitt and The Thomas Crown Affair had to be willing to scrub his unwashed ass because he wasn’t going to do it himself.
    That was how Scott wanted it, too. Obviously, suits from every studio trampled each other to do the honors for McQueen. Scott’s ass, meanwhile, wouldn’t have meant anything