Billy, Pagers, Deals and Hitches

Chapter Seven: Billy

Billy’s trailer was down on the other side of the tracks… well, the other side of the freeway and the tracks… in a storage lot… where RVs, boats, trailers and storage bins were hidden away from the eyes of the tourists and locals. The lot was fenced in and secured with razor-wire running the whole perimeter. Billy felt relatively secure in the depths of the lot while he fixed another syringe of black tar. His pager beeped while he was in the midst of shooting up. “Who the fuck can this be.”

            He checked the number on the display. Billy was a long term user of heroin and it had been ages since he ever got a rush out of a fix. It now amounted to little more than to keep the dope sickness at bay. The number on the pager wasn’t one he was familiar with. “Damn,” he muttered, putting his flannels on over a stained wife-beater undershirt, “Another of the French bitch’s friends?”

            Still, he had to get a few more bucks together to score another 100 grams. He had about ten halves wrapped and ready that he had to unload before he had enough for that. He jumped on his bicycle and made it over to the Scolaries on Milpas to use the pay phone. His chest sank as he heard the Hispanic accent on the other end of the line, “Hey, Billy, meet me at three.”

“I’m not ready yet, Miguel.”

            “Sheet, Billy, wotchew mean… not ready?”

“Just a couple bucks short…” Billy wanted to bitch about using his name on the phone but he’d gotten even by using Miguel’s, “… didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

“I’m in town joss a few hours… I give you a good deal; have a grand on you when I call.”

“Can I get credit for the diff…?”

“No, I call you back…”

“Give me ‘til five…” the line was dead before he could finish.

As Billy pulled up to the chain-link fence he almost rode away before he remembered he’d been so eager to get to the phone that he’d forgotten to lock the gate., “Can’t get too hungry, Billy,” he chided himself.

“Whew,” he exhaled when he saw Nick’s car in front of his trailer. He might be able to unload all his stash on Nicky.

“What’s up, Nick!” he hit the driver’s side window with the palm of his hand as he saw that Nick was nodded out… “Yo, Nick!”

“Uh?” the window came down… “I tried pagin’, where you been?” Nick muttered.

“No, you didn’t… I ain’t got no calls.” Billy knew it didn’t matter now.

“We need to talk… let’s go inside.” Nick started to open the car door.

Billy pushed it shut, “We can talk here” then he looked around… always paranoid… glancing over his shoulder towards the gate, “C’mon, let’s take a walk.”

As they got fifty feet away, Nick asked, “How much you got.”

“Right now?” Billy knew Nick was good for much more, “About ten hits.”

“I’ll take ‘em… you got a deal for me?”

“A buck-fifty…”

“One-fifty? Are you shittin’ me?” Nick had to bargain for everything… even though a hundred and fifty dollars wasn’t such a bad deal for fifty grams of tar. “I got a C-note… that’s all.”

Billy turned towards the trailer without answering: Nick followed.

“Okay, maybe?” Nick had a c-note and a fifty on him that he’d lifted from Adriane’s stash of cash the last time he’d been at her place but it was in his DNA to wheel and deal. He knew he couldn’t get change from any drug dealer, and especially not Billy, so he had to get him down to a hundred bucks or give up the whole fifty.

“Get the fuck outa here, you know one-fifty is the best I can do.” Billy was only playing along. He only needed about eighty bucks to score more and a hundred would have been a little gravy on top of what he needed but he hated these rich-bitches when they tried to milk him.

Nick played it too hard one more time, “One-hundred, you prick… and that is my final offer.”

“One-twenty-five then,” Billy stepped around to the end of a boat trailer.

Nick followed him, pulled out the c-note without saying anything more and handed it over rolled up. The deal was done… Billy pulled the trailer-hitch off the boat-trailer, taking out a snack-sized baggie with ten wadded-up foils of tar from the square tube the hitch is usually bolted within… He passed the bag to Nick as they walked back to his trailer, satisfied that he had enough now to buy the hundred grams from Miguel on time.