At night, I eavesdropped on the dealers, the suppliers and the junkies.
This was how I learned the street, or part of it anyway.
I paid attention, I memorized faces, names and places and I spent a lot of time with Zip, Heavy and Frank.
And I widened my net.
Sal Cordova was my first mistake.
Cordova was a small time supplier and part-time dealer and I got up his nose too, just for the hell of it, mainly because he was a swaggering jerk who thought he was God’s gift to women. Following him, hiding in the shadows in bars and watching him, I noticed he seriously thought he was God’s gift to women, even when the women didn’t agree. I worried that Sal Cordova was the kind of guy who would make a woman agree.
One could say Sal was good-looking. He was a couple inches taller than me, decent body (not Vance Crowe-esque but then again, who was?), light brown hair, blue eyes.
Problem was, Sal was a jerk, he was a letch and he was so stupid, I got cocky.
One day I got close, sliding into the opposite side of a booth in front of him at a greasy spoon.
He looked at me, surprised then he smiled, thinking I was coming on to him.
“Hey darlin’,” he said and winked.
Um… pu-lease.
“I’m Jules,” I told him, trying not to vomit.
“Hey Jules.” His smile widened.
Okay, so that was all I could take.
I didn’t waste any time and told him why I was there.
“Sell dope to kids, any kids, including the runaways, you’ll be out of business. Remember, I’m watching.”
Then I got up and left.
As I said, cocky.
And cocky was not good.
That’s when people, not the right kind of people, found out who I was.
Zip was not pleased.
“Girl, you got a screw loose,” Zip said.
When I told Nick (I told Nick everything, I did this because he’d find out anyway, I learned that a long time ago), to say Nick was not pleased was an understatement.
“Are you out of your flippin’ mind?” Nick yelled.
I didn’t answer. I learned a long time ago too that silence was the best way to go with Nick.
It was Roam and Sniff who spread the name Law.
Roam knew me, he knew what I was like and he’d heard about my antics on the street. He figured out it was me right away and he made a mistake. He told Sniff.
Sniff could never keep his mouth shut about anything and he loved Park, they both did, so Sniff and Roam thought what I was doing was the shit.
By the time I talked Sniff into keeping his mouth shut, it was too late. I was Law and that was it.