American Gangster (15 page)

Jimmy laughed and batted the air. “You can't take me in for that shit, motherfucker—I got a
license
for that.”

“Okay,” the dick said, handing back the gun, which Jimmy slipped back in its shoulder-rig. “Then what about
this
shit?” The dick gestured to the pile of coke on the coffee table.

“They don't sell no licenses for
this
,” the dick said. “In fact, I best confiscate this shit. . . .”

And the cop bent down, and sucked up a line.

The females were laughing like Flip Wilson was performing, and not some thickheaded, bent cop, who was about as funny as a fall down the stairs. Frank, still talking to the baseball scout, was wondering if he ought to get over there and put an end to this foolishness. . . .

Powder on his nostrils, the dick took out his handcuffs
and said, “All right, Zee, all right—
now
I'm busting your ass!”

The women howled with laughter, and Huey and Jimmy were laughing, too.

Huey dug in his pocket and got out a fat money clip and peeled off a C-note. “Let me bail him out, officer—I need the man to drive for me.”

“What is that, a
bribe
?” the dick demanded in mock indignation. “Now
all
your asses are under arrest.”

So the dick made a big show of pretend-arresting the group. Frank, with one ear and half his attention, took this in, thinking he ought to shut this high school nonsense down; but Frank was busy with Sibota, and Sibota was Stevie's ticket to the big leagues, and if the scout wanted to chat, Frank would chat.

So Frank didn't see what turned the fun into something ugly. He didn't see the dick pretend-frisking Jimmy Zee's woman Darlynn and putting his hand all over her right breast.

But Jimmy saw it, all right, and said, “What's
this
shit?”

Huey's opinion (which he later told Frank) was that what really riled Jimmy was that his girlfriend didn't complain about the grope; but Jimmy considered himself a gentleman, and wouldn't slap the bitch in public.

Right now the dick was fooling with his handcuffs and playing at taking Huey away, saying, “I gotta take
all
you evil lawbreakers in!”

But Zee wasn't having any.

Huey's skinny mean driver/bodyguard glared at the
handsy dick and demanded, “I said, what the
fuck
was
that
?”

The dick blinked. Huey stepped away. The dick, innocently, asked, “What was what?”

“Fuck you,” Jimmy said, and then the .45 was in his hand and the report of the weapon in the high-ceilinged space was like thunder.

And the dick was on the floor, right now, clutching at his leg, blooding running through his fingers onto the shag carpet.

“Are you fuckin'
crazy
?” the dick gasped.

“Man touches my woman's
titty
,” Jimmy said, “is crazy. And next time, he's dead.”

Frank didn't have to excuse himself, as he moved away from the baseball scout and through his guests, because they were all so stunned and scared. . . .

Jimmy saw Frank coming and held up the gun like it was a party favor and smiled, unconvincingly, as he said, “Aw, he's all right. I just shot him in the leg, is all.” Jimmy bent over the fallen, bleeding, whimpering cop. “What are you complaining about? You got a health plan, ain't you?”

Frank approached. “Jimmy—a word?”

Jimmy said, “Aw, Frank, come on, he's fine. Here. . . .” Jimmy got in his pocket and brought out a wad of bills and dealt C-notes off like a poker hand.

The bills floated down onto the shaking cop, who looked like he might pass out any second.

Jimmy said, “Five hundred, all right, bro? Six?” He dealt another C-note and it fluttered to the floor into a
pool of blood. The cop snatched it out before the bill got ruined.

Then Jimmy grinned at Frank, and around at the other guests, saying, “See? He's feeling better already.”

Frank took Jimmy gently by the arm, and this time he did excuse himself, as the host moved with the man through the partygoers and brought him over to a wall and, finding a nice space between framed modern-art paintings, slammed his misbehaving guest into the wall.

Jimmy was shaking.

Frank got in his face. “You want to take your gun out again? No. Didn't think so.”

“Frank . . . honest . . . I. . . .”

“Shut up, Jimmy.”

Frank hauled the idiot, who seemed on the verge of tears, by the arm and across the room and tossed him at the door. Jimmy thumped into it, then opened it, and scrambled out without closing it.

Frank did.

As Smoky Robinson sang “Tears of a Clown” courtesy of the hi-fi, Frank strolled out among his guests and smiled with every ounce of charm he could summon, and lifted his arms as if in welcome. “No cover charge, folks! Please—enjoy yourselves.”

But Zee had put a damper on the festivities. Frank had Doc take the wounded cop home, where a real doc on the Lucas payroll would make a house call. Within an hour, the penthouse was empty but for Eva—who,
still in her gown, was doing her best to clean the blood stain off the rug with salt and soda water—and Frank's five brothers.

And Frank.

They sat, mostly on a sofa. He paced. Slowly. Like a cat. A big, pissed-off cat.

“This kind of stupidity,” he said, and shook his head, the cold rage obvious in his voice, “I can't have.”

Looking like the Lone fucking Ranger in those tinted goggles, Huey said, “It was an accident.”

“Accident. You don't shoot a man by accident, Huey.”

“I . . . I know, Frank. But Jimmy feels terrible about it.”

“
Feels
terrible?” Frank planted himself before Huey, stared down at him. “Jimmy don't feel shit, coked up all the time, way he is.
This
is who you have drive for you?
This
is who protects your ass? Get rid of him.”

Huey's eyes widened behind the big tinted lenses, his expression half-shocked, half-sorrowful. “Frank, you can't mean that. . . . He's your
cousin
! What's he gonna do?”

“I don't care what he does. Just so he doesn't do it in my world.”

“He can't go back home. We brought him
up
here! There's nothing left back there. . . .”

“Does any of this sound like my problem?”

Huey risked a smile and patted the air. “Listen, give him a chance, give
me
a chance, to go and talk to him. I'll straighten his ass out.”

Frank just stood there looking at his brother behind
the ridiculous glasses; what was Huey trying to be, a goddamn spaceman? It was like talking to a cartoon character.

“Give those here,” Frank said, and held out his hand, palm up.

“What?”

“Glasses.” Frank's fingers made the “come here” gesture.

“What? Why?”

Frank grabbed the things off his brother's face and threw them to the carpeting and cracked and crushed them under his shoe.

Then he backed off and, one at a time, he caught their eyes and held on until each brother had to look away.

Finally Frank said, “Jimmy Zee goes back to North Carolina, or to hell, for all I care. Cousin, brother, doesn't cut shit with me. I'm giving you the chance of a lifetime. Blow it, and you're gone.”

There were gulps and nods and mumbled apologies.

“Now get the fuck out,” he told them.

And they went, as the Jackson 5—the hi-fi not so loud now, but still distinct—sang “Never Can Say Goodbye.”

On a beautiful, lazy
Sunday afternoon in the New Jersey suburbs, Richie Roberts whiled away a few hours with mob kingpin Dominic Cattano's nephew, Joey Sadano.

Richie had gone to high school with Joey, and when the weather allowed, he and Joey and other mutual friends would play softball in a park, then head over to the Sadano ranch-style digs—very nice, with swimming pool and all the modern conveniences, if not a castle like Uncle Dominic's.

As on many a Sunday afternoon, Richie and Joey and other pals—wise guys like Joey, if truth be told—transformed into a bunch of eternal teenage boys in their brown-and-orange
Weequahie
jerseys, talking sports, drinking beer, cooking burgers and hot dogs on the backyard grill.

As things began winding down, Richie nodded to
Joey that he wanted a word. Joey—mustached, pockmarked, hair receding, but attractive and affable—ushered Richie into the den-like poolhouse and they sat at a table where the guys sometimes played poker.

“You're getting that constipated look again,” Joey said.

“Other day,” Richie said, lifting his eyebrows, “I coulda got killed, chasing bad guys in heavy traffic. Makes you think.”

Joey's eyebrows also went up. “Yeah. And I know
what
you're thinking—you're off playin' Lone Ranger, and here you are with a kid to worry about. Well, don't. When you asked me to be your son's godfather, I took it very serious.”

Richie flicked a smile. “I know.”

Joey gestured expansively. “I said, yes, I'll take on this responsibility, take care of your son, God forbid something should happen to your crazy, sorry ass. . . .”

Richie felt like a boulder had settled on his shoulders. He'd known Joey forever. He loved Joey like a brother. But Joey was a problem.

“Joey, the thing is, Laurie's telling Child Social Services stuff that makes me look bad, real bad. Tells 'em I'm out all night. . . .”

“Aren't you?”

Joey didn't know the half of it. Just yesterday morning, Richie had gone to the door in his robe and underwear and found an attractive, professional-looking black woman with a briefcase standing there, looking at him like he was the Ghost of Christmas Past. Was she a one-night stand he'd filed away and forgotten?

Speaking of which, the stewardess he'd spent the night with had taken just that moment to hip-sway out of the bedroom, one hand buttoning her blouse, the other hauling her little wheeled travel thingie into a living room that somehow managed to be both minuscule and a huge mess.

“Mr. Roberts,” the woman in the doorway had said, “I'm here for our appointment. . . . Child Social Services?”

Now here he was sitting in his friend's poolhouse, needing to sever a tie that stretched back decades.

“The women are bad enough,” Richie said. “I take full blame on that one. I take full blame on
all
of it—all-night stakeouts, chump change for pay, lowlife informants hanging around.”

“Not to mention,” Joey said softly, starting to get it, “certain old friends. Like me?”

Richie sighed. He sat in silence cut only by the muffled laughter of their friends out in the yard and kids shrieking around the pool. He felt like a total shit. Then Joey's hand settled on his shoulder.

“Buddy,” Joey said, “it's all right. Really. I understand. It's the waters we swim in. Look, these social workers come sniffing around, I'll tell them whatever you want me to. I'll lie my ass off for you, man.”

“Thank you. I don't deserve a friend like you.”

“You got that right. . . . What
else
is it? There's something else.”

Richie drew in a breath. Let it out. “You don't have to talk about it, Joey, if you don't want. But have you heard anything about this Blue Magic shit? Anything at all?”

Joey's mouth tightened and his eyelids lowered to half-mast. “Not much
magical
about it. Lot of sorrow and misery from guys gettin'put out of business, is all.”

Richie leaned forward. “Nothing about who's bringing it in?”

“Guys down South, is all I heard.”

“Down South, where? Florida? Cuba?”

Joey held up a palm. “All I can tell you is, whoever it is? They're upsetting the natural order of things.”

Neither Richie nor Joey had the slightest notion that Joey's uncle would soon meet with Frank Lucas in accordance with the natural order of things—specifically, the law of supply and demand . . . he who controls the supply can demand whatever the fuck he wants.

But of course Frank Lucas was not yet even a blip on Richie Roberts's radar.

On a perfect sunny
morning in quietly suburban Livingston, New Jersey, Frank Lucas and his fiancee Eva were guests in a palatial residence where the old expression “king of his castle” made perfect sense.

Outside the literally castle-like residence, on grounds so perfectly manicured a country club might well be greenly envious, a series of statues rose above an elaborate European fountain: a Napoleonic representation of Mafia capo Dominic Cattano on horseback, and next to him a woman and two children (Mrs. Cattano and their offspring) astride marble horses of their own.

Cattano was a cruelly handsome middle-aged man
whose baronial bearing made this tribute to himself seem less ridiculous than it should—centuries ago, Frank thought, Cattano would have been the kind of Italian who paid painters and sculptors to do works of art that would last forever, in between said patron poisoning relatives and rivals.

Somehow, though, Frank didn't think the Cattano family on horseback would go down through the ages.

A shotgun in his hands, Cattano, in tailored hunter's attire, was (as usual) giving an order: “
Pull!
”

A clay pigeon sailed out across a vast backyard bordered by stunningly colorful gardens—the target obliterated by Cattano's well-aimed blast.

His turn over, Frank's elegant host indicated another shotgun resting nearby and Frank—in
GQ
-worthy sportcoat and slacks—took it, getting poised to shoot.

Within the opulent residence, Eva was being entertained by Mrs. Cattano, a handsome dark-eyed, dark-haired woman getting the better of middle age. Mrs. Cattano was explaining that their “house” had been imported, brick by brick, from Gloucestershire. Eva had assured Mrs. Cattano that the Cattano home was “very nice.” But mostly the two women sat in polite strained silence thicker than the hanging tapestries.