American Gangster (28 page)

Through the crowd, Richie moved—a rumpled guy in street clothes approaching an impeccably groomed and dressed drug kingpin.

For the first time, Richie Roberts and Frank Lucas faced each other, Richie standing one step down from Frank, whose aloof manner spoke of more than just a single church step separating him from the detective.

“Richard Roberts, director of the Essex County Narcotics Bureau,” he said and held up his ID. “You're under arrest, Mr. Lucas.”

“Was it really necessary to—”

“Yes. Turn around, Frank.”

Frank sighed, shook his head, took his time, but he turned around. And he even put his hands behind his back, for the cuffs, without being told to.

“You think you got Frank Lucas,” he said, with a cold over-the-shoulder glance at his captor, “but you got nothing.”

“There's a difference?” Richie asked.

And hauled him away.

At his apartment, Richie
Roberts looked at himself in the long mirror inside his closet door, thinking that the new gray suit had seemed to fit better at the discount clothing store. Too late to get another, and anyway he'd already cut the tags off.

So he cut the tags off his blue striped necktie, too, and put it on; took only four tries to get a decent knot, and the thing looked pretty good against the pale blue of his shirt. The man in the mirror appeared professional enough, confident, ready for the big day at the courthouse.

Of course, once at the courthouse, the big day really began with Richie upchucking his breakfast in a men's room stall. And the guy looking back at him in the mirror over the sink had a kind of sickly, even deathly pallor. He decided the fluorescent lights were to blame, but splashed some water on his mug just the same.
Gathering himself, he went out to do battle somewhere much scarier than the streets: a courtroom.

Richie and a single assistant at the prosecutor's table were grossly outnumbered by the battery of expensive legal hired guns at the defendant's table.

And when Frank Lucas came bursting through the courtroom doors, a celebrity had arrived, a handsome, charismatic figure in a tailored suit worth three months of Richie's rent, escorted sans handcuffs by an amiable federal marshal who seemed to be getting a kick out of the accused's company.

The celebrity defendant was greeted by a gallery of other celebrities, smiling, fawning, over this pope of dope. Hands reached out to Lucas, to pat him on the shoulder or back, and beautiful women, black and white alike, leaned out with their lovely lipsticked mouths offering kisses and words of encouragement. Joe Louis—who was scheduled as a character witness for this benevolent community leader—was allowed to hug Lucas, in front of God, the judge, the jury and everybody.

Maybe,
Richie thought,
I should just toss it in now. . . .

All Richie had to offer up to counter these famous friends and assorted community leaders were three evidence tables piled with cash, weapons, bonds, property deeds, photographs of Lucas's real-estate holdings and samples of heroin in their distinctive blue cellophane.

Lucas's gray-haired old mother embraced him warmly, and the accused's coolly confident eyes swept the courtroom, taking in his phalanx of attorneys, the
jury itself and finally landing on Richie in his off-the-rack suit at the prosecutor's table.

The two men's eyes locked, and Lucas smiled, just a little, almost cocky but not quite, as if to say,
Can't you see what you're up against, little man?

Finally at the end of his receiving line, Lucas brushed by the seated Richie and, over on the other side of the room, other side of the world, the defendant disappeared from view within the fortress of his multimillion-dollar legal team.

“
Mr. Roberts . . .
”

The omniscient voice almost made Richie jump. Somehow he got to his feet and out from around the table and turned to the jury, who were studying him like his new cheap suit was all the evidence they needed, and managed to speak without squawking.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Richie said. “Ladies and gentlemen . . .”

And he told them the story that he'd been living these many months.

After that first day
of opening statements, Richie was led into the County Jail visiting room for a meeting he hadn't expected to get. At a table not unlike the one in front of the bulletin boards in the squad bullpen, Frank Lucas sat across from his battalion of lawyers.

Lucas looked above half a dozen expensive haircuts to see Richie waiting behind wire-mesh. To no particular one of the lawyers, Lucas said, “Here he is. . . . Let me talk to him alone.”

There was some muffled discussion on this point—which Lucas did not participate in, his eyes gazing coolly Richie's way—and finally the pack of legal wolves took their briefcases and went.

Within seconds, Richie was seated across from Lucas. Finally the prosecutor's new suit trumped Lucas's jailhouse threads of T-shirt and brown trousers.

Richie, stone-faced, sat there letting Lucas look him over, the prisoner smiling that same knowing smile he'd worn in the courtroom.

Finally Lucas said, “I just heard something. I said I didn't believe it. Couldn't be true. Just some crazy-ass story from the street.”

Richie said nothing.

The half-smile dug a deep dimple in Lucas's cheek. “You didn't
really
turn in a million dollars you found in the trunk of a car, did you?”

Richie said nothing.

Lucas searched Richie's face for a clue. Then he grinned. “I'll tell you what happened to that money you were too pure of heart to take—it wound up in a buncha cops' pockets.”

Richie shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Maybe my ass. No, it did.” Lucas flipped a hand. “And all you did was give all that bread to them, for no good reason. For nothin' in return.”

Richie said nothing.

Lucas shifted in his chair. “No, I take that back—you
did
get something in return—their everlasting, motherfucking contempt.”

Richie said nothing.

“So why did you
do
this crazy thing? Why give these other assholes all that money? What, you're trying to prove you're
better
than them? Hell, you're not better than them. You
are
them.”

“I'm sure these philosophical ramblings would be of interest to somebody,” Richie said. “Just not me. You may have heard, I'm in the middle of a big case, so I have neither the time nor the interest to—”

“You turned that dough in because it was the right thing. That's all. You're a good boy and your momma raised you right. Why can't you say that? Why's that so hard for you?” Lucas's grin widened but his eyes narrowed. “Question is, would you do it
again
? . . . I mean, that was a long
time
ago, my man.”

Richie said nothing.

Lucas shrugged, and his voice became damn near a purr as he said, “It'd be very easy to find out. Just tell me you'd like to participate in that little experiment, you know, give me an address, and a new car will be waiting for you . . . trunk loaded.”

“No thanks.”

“You think I'm fucking
kidding
?”

“No.”

The cool prisoner suddenly boiled over, eyes and nostrils flaring. “Who the
fuck
are
you
to say
no
to
that
? What, you think that
impresses
me?”

A guard had gotten to his feet, but Richie wasn't reacting—the outburst was clearly over—and the guard sat back down.

And Richie remained impassive.

A few seconds ticked by before Lucas said, “Let me
ask you something. Do you think by putting my ass in jail, things'll change? You think you're gonna stop even one junkie from dying? Because you won't. And if it isn't me, it'll be someone else, probably some brutal prick who won't be so goddamn nice and professional. . . . With me or without me, nothing's gonna change, except maybe for the worse.”

“I'll just have to live with that,” Richie said.

Lucas's eyebrows tensed. “You have
any
sort of case? Or just that idiot drives for my goddamn brother. Is
Jimmy
your case? 'Cause if Jimmy's your case, him and that powder you confiscated? It's not enough.”

Richie smiled, just a little. “Well, then. You got nothing to worry about.”

But Lucas was worried, clearly worried. The drug kingpin was not used to sitting across from a cop who didn't want his money, on the one hand, and on the other refused to be one iota intimidated by the fabled Frank Lucas presence.

“My brothers won't talk to you,” Lucas said, matter of fact. “My cousins'll stay zipped. My whole family's a bunch of deaf mutes, you'll find. No one's gonna get chatty but that motherfucking driver, and he's an unreliable dope addict.”

“You think that's all I have, Frank?”

“Yeah, I think that's all you have.”

Now it was Richie's turn to smile smugly. “Frank, I got a line of people stretches around the block and out the door wants to testify against you.”

“You're talking bullshit.”

“Am I? Any of these names ring a bell? Tony the Bug. Benny Two-Socks. Carmine Camanetti.”

Lucas grunted a laugh. “Who are they? Buncha spaghetti-spinners I don't do no business with. Don't know them, they don't know me.”

“Sure they know you, Frank. They're the guys you all but put out of business. They sell dope for the Mazzano family, only not so much dope after you put your foot in their trade.”

Lucas was shaking his head. “
This
is who you got to stand up against me? Guys who don't
know
me? Who got nothing to
do
with me?”

“They have everything to do with you, Frank. They hate you. The only thing they hate more is what you represent.”

“I don't represent a goddamn thing.”

“Really? A black businessman like you? You think the Italians like to have black guys put them out of business? Make them look bad, make them look stupid?”

“They were born stupid.”

“Maybe. But they know, once your ass is in the slammer, their world can get back to normal. Things can return to how they were.”

Lucas was clenching his fists. His voice was softly menacing. “Look at me, chump. You looking? Can you
tell
by looking that it would mean nothing to me tomorrow if you turned up dead?”

“It
might
mean something to you. But if that was a threat? You better get in line . . . chump. That one stretches around the block, too.”

Lucas's frustration was palpable. Richie understood
why: Frank Lucas was used to buying people, and he was used to outmaneuvering people, and outthinking them. The druglord obviously wanted to work out something with Richie, but could not find a way in.

And Richie wasn't about to give him one.

Finally Frank said, “What can we do?”

Richie's voice had no self-satisfaction, in fact it even carried a certain compassion when he said, “You know what you have to do.”

Lucas did know. He didn't like it, but he knew.
The only way to improve his future was to flip.

“I could give you cops,” Lucas said quietly, “but that's not who you want, right? You want the Organized Crime names.”

“I'll take the cops, too. I want all these bastards.”

Lucas seemed confused. “You'll take the cops,
too
? You'd go after cops, like those SIU pricks?”

“Especially those SIU pricks.”

“You'd do that? Go after your own kind?”

Richie's upper lip twitched. “They're not my kind. Not the bent bastards you've been doing business with. They're not my kind any more than the Italians you put up with are yours.”

The two men sat and studied each other in silence.

Then Lucas asked, “What can you give me?”

“Only my promise that if you lie to me about one name, you'll never get out of prison. Lie about one dollar in one offshore account, and the only time you'll see daylight is in the exercise yard. You can live rich in jail, rest of your life . . . or poor outside it. That's what I can promise.”

“You're not saying I could
walk
. . . ?”

“No. But you won't be an old man when you get out.”

Lucas sat thinking. Richie let him.

Finally, Lucas said, “You know, I don't care if you feds take all my buildings, my stocks, my offshore accounts. Take it all, I don't give a shit—use it to build battleships or paint bridges or whatever the fuck. Fight another pointless war, far as I care.”

Lucas leaned forward, fire in his eyes.

“But, Roberts, those other motherfuckers . . . those prick cops . . . they put
my
money in
their
pockets. We're talking
millions.
”

“I believe you.”

Lucas got a distant look, still debating with himself over whether to step off this particular cliff. . . .

“I'll want to know everyone you've met for the last twenty years,” Richie said. “Everyone you sold to. Every cop you ever paid off. Everybody who ever cheated or stole or shorted you. Every one you can remember.”

Lucas chuckled. “Oh, nobody ever said Frank Lucas don't have a good memory. Hell, I remember them all, every damn name, every ugly face. That's not the problem.”

Richie blinked. “What is?”

“You ain't got jails big enough.”

Frank Lucas's trial was
still under way when Richie sicced his squad on their new target.

Surveillance photos were again gathered, but this
time the subjects were not players in the dope game, rather cops receiving envelopes of money on 116th Street and other drops on the New York side of the river. The new table of criminal organization that went up was strictly cops—crooked cops.