Chicago Hustle (10 page)

The tall one leaned into his ear. “Would you happen to know where we could get some good smoke?”

Elijah cocked his head to one side, as though he hadn't heard right. “Huhh?”

“I said,” the soldier repeated, “would you happen to know where we could cop some good smoke?”

Elijah pursed his lips and looked at the two of them seriously. “Yeahhhh, yeah, I know where you can cop … really good shit too, straight outta Cambodia.”

The short one, unable to contain the enthusiasm, exclaimed, “Yeahhh! really!?”

Elijah nodded, amazed, once again, at how easy it was to form a relationship with his “clients.”

“Right on … all you have to do is follow me. Don't follow too closely though. I'm sure you all know, by now, that I'm a ‘businessman,' and you know how closely some people watch ‘businessmen.'” He made a neat about-face, and started off, not really knowing where he would lead them, but certain that it would be in the right direction.

They followed, the prey behind the animal that was feeding on them. He led them off the side street, away from relative cool, onto the heat of the main stem.

After a couple blocks, he stopped in front of one of the city's largest, most efficient-looking office buildings and turned to the two soldiers. They eased up to him in the middle of the bustling, mid-evening, on-their-way-to-home crowds, trying to look hip.

“Here?! this the place?” the tall soldier asked suavely … trying to be hip.

Elijah nestled in on them, playtime over. “Uh huhhhn,” he murmured, barely glancing at the building, and the people streaming out of it. “This is it,
the
place. There's a lawyer sellin' the best shit in town, on the thirteenth floor.”

“Wowwww!” The tall one finally relented, releasing his pent-up enthusiasm. A ruby ring from a black dude for forty bucks
and
some Cambodian grass. How much more could you get away with in one day, especially with Tommy the Runt?

Elijah gauged his thought patterns and swept in, anxious, now, to get rid of them.

“Awright, how much you want?”

“How much is it?” the short asked.

“How much do you want?” Elijah squeezed out of the side of his mouth. “I can get you a motherfuckin' pound, if that's what you want.”

The two soldiers stood, looking stunned for a moment, the last thought in their heads. “A pound!?”

“Well?” he dug at them fiercely, making them feel like pootbutts. “How much? I got things to do, I can't stand here all night.”

“Uhh, how 'bout … uhhh, twenty bucks' worth?” the tall one shot in.

“Cool!” Elijah shot back at him. “Gimme twenty-five, that's two dimes 'n a nickel, in ‘business' language. I get five dollars as commission for doin' the good deed.”

The two soldiers, suddenly realizing that they were just small-time American boys, from places where people left their front doors unlocked, blinked in unison. And then divided the price of the grass between them, and the “commission.” Twelve dollars and fifty cents apiece.

Elijah smiled indulgently and looked off into the distance as they surreptitiously placed the money in his hand.

“It's really good, huh?” the short one asked.

“Dynamite!” Elijah replied emphatically, and marched into the office building lobby.

“Wait for me in the lobby,” he said over his shoulder. He let the two men see him wink at the elevator starter as though he were in cahoots and caught the elevator upward.

On the third floor he skipped off the elevator, looking around for the rear exit. He wandered around the third floor, peeking into the offices, checking out the unguarded typewriters and the other office paraphernalia, feeling frustrated after ten minutes, not being able to find the rear exit.

The middle-aged black man pushing the scrub bucket down the long office building hallway saved him. “Hey, looka here, brother,” Elijah probed at him casually, certain of the cohesion between them. “Where's the rear exit stairs? I'm parked out back.”

The gray-haired black man looked up at him, four hundred years of tricks and antics in his grained brown eyes, and jerked his head toward a door Elijah had missed.

“Gon' through there, it'll let you out down in the alley.”

“Sho' wanta thank ya, brotherman,” Elijah mumbled at him, striding toward the door.

He breathed a complete sigh of relief on the way out … sixty-five dollars to the ghetto's good.

CHAPTER 5

Elijah sat in a back booth of the Tiger Lounge with a sometime hustling buddy nicknamed Big Toe, listening to the house combo play a funky blues and to a would-be scheme of Big Toe's.

“Man, I'm tellin' you, it's a lead-pipe cinch!”

Elijah took a long sip from his drink, already fifteen good-time, finger-poppin' dollars into his afternoon rip-off.

“The last nigger who shot me into that ‘lead-pipe cinch' shit damned near got his throat cut.”

Big Toe turned his glass around in the water ring it had made on the table.

“Yeahhh, yeah,” Toe replied impatiently, “I heard about the shit that went down between you and Benny … but, hey, looka here, man … you know Benny always has been a treacherous motherfucker! The thang I'm runnin' down to you is strictly on the up 'n up.”

Both men felt the atmosphere of the club tighten up, the casual conversations cease, and knew why instinctively.

The two detectives, Murphy and Jackson, strolled to the back booth, stood over Elijah and Big Joe, weighted down by shoulder holsters and authority.

“Uhh, good evenin', Officer Murphy … uhhh, Officer Jackson,” Toe mumbled nervously.

“Don't speak to us, thief …'til we speak to you, dig it?” Murphy growled and glared at him.

“You the boss, Officer Murphy sir, you the boss,” Toe answered cautiously, not wanting to run any risks.

“Let's take a walk, Elijah,” Jackson said to Elijah. Elijah, trying to front it off, sipped at his drink before replying. “Take a walk, where?”

Murphy, two hundred and fifteen pounds behind the whiskey on his breath, leaned across the table into Elijah's face. “Don't sit back on your ass tryin' to be cute with me, I said, let's take a walk, now move goddamn it!”

Elijah almost spilled his drink complying with the command. It didn't pay to take things too far with Murphy and Jackson because they believed in police brutality as a matter of course, and everyone who knew them knew that.

Elijah hurriedly arranged himself between the two of them and walked out of the lounge, trying to maintain his cool and be meek at the same time.

They walked him to their unmarked car under the sideview looks of the street corner regulars, out for the night's doin's, late working people and an assorted collection of just plain ol' 47th Street folks.

Jackson drove them to the forty-five hundred block of St. Lawrence Avenue and parked. Elijah breathed a little easier … at least this was no bust. Probably a shakedown. Or maybe they wanted him to stool.

He pulled his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, lit up and slumped back beside Murphy.

“What's happenin', Murph? You acted like you was gon' chew my nuts off back there in the joint.”

Murphy smiled across the distance between them maliciously. “I've told you two or three times, brotherman. Stop tryin' to be cute with me. I started to knock you on your ass.”

Jackson smiled up into the rear-view mirror at the exchange, carefully placed his .357 mag on the front seat and pulled a half-pint of good whiskey out of the glove compartment.

He took a long pull and passed it to Murphy. Murphy almost drained it and passed the corner to Elijah.

Elijah turned the bottle up, a little high already, but trying to be cool, steady about the whole business. What the fuck was going down?

“Uggggh!” he shuddered, giving a little show for his captors. “I'd rather smoke dope any day than drink that rotgut.”

“You may not be able to get either one for a bit, from the way things look,” Murphy dug in at him, his malicious sense of humor on display again.

“Heyyyy, what's the deal?” Elijah probed at him with a soft, nervous smile.

“Homer, you break it down to 'im, you done had the most trainin' in law.”

Jackson, Murphy's natural bone partner, draped his right arm across the back of the seat and began, pedantically. “Wellll, brother … here it is, in a nutshell. Looks like you and Benny held up the wrong crap game the other night.”

Elijah, as scheduled, exclaimed, “Crap game!? What crap game?”

“Awwww c'mon off it, man!” Murphy dug him hard in the ribs. “Save that bullshit for the other police.”

“Evidently,” Jackson continued, “evidently you 'n Benny didn't check into things too closely, else you never would've stuck up li'l John Diamond's joint.”

Elijah looked out at the smoked-up buildings around him, the dark figures passing the car, feeling sick at the pit of his stomach. “Li'l John Diamond? Is he a big dude with a pinkie ring on his left hand?”

“That's right!” Murphy laughed at the expression on Elijah's face, cupping the bulk at his own wasteline with both hands. “Hahhh hahhh hahhaha, yeahhhh, that's right, a big fat dude with a li'l diamond ring on his do-do finger.”

“Anyway,” Jackson moved along, “to make a long story short, Li'l John, knowin' the right people, put three grand on the wire for you and Benny, which Murph and me are goin' to split right down the middle for bringin' you and Benny in.”

Murphy closed Elijah's beginning protest off with a wave of his hand. “We pulled Benny in this afternoon, stitches everywhere but under the bottom of his feet. It's a wonder the poor fool ain't dead from loss o' blood.”

Jackson winked in fake-warm fashion to Elijah. “Benny ain't got no blood, has he, brother?”

Elijah ignored Jackson's attempt at joking, took a deep breath and started into some heavy conning.

“Looka here, Murph, both of you dudes are righteous brothers. Lemme slide and I'll make it worth your while. I promise on my momma's grave, even if I have to send it back by carrier pigeon.”

Murphy smirked. “Now, we thought you'd propose somethin' weird like that … Officer Jackson?”

Jackson cleared his throat, playing his role to the bus stop. “Well, you see … it's like this, Elijah. We couldn't let you slide, even if we wanted to … for three or four good reasons.

“Number one: you'd probably never be able to send us anything from anywhere, because you'd more 'n likely be dead. Li'l John offered the reward for you two dead or alive. You should be happy we got to you before they did.

“Number two: Benny sang like Ray Charles the minute we got his ass in the car.”

“Guess he thought we was gon' pop some of his stitches loose,” Murphy added with a tight smile.

“Number three: it'll look good for us, you know, bringin' in a dangerous suspect. I mean, like, we couldn't really let you slide after everybody had seen us pick you up, now could we?”

“What would people think, baby?” Murphy widened his smile into a cruel grin.

“And last, but not least,” Jackson exhaled, “we are both po', broke, black and dee-terminated to up hold the law. Can you dig where we be comin' from?”

Murphy leaned forward to give his partner five. “Right on, brother! right on!”

Elijah winced as though the slapping of their palms was a blow to his cheek.

“Whoa! hold up a minute! I know damned well Li'l John, or nobody else is gon' try to lay a case on me for … uhhh …”

“Allegedly,” Jackson supplied the legal term.

He really is a chickenshit motherfucker, Elijah thought.

“Yeahhh, that's right! for allegedly holdin' up an
illegal
gamblin' joint.”

Murphy shook his head with disgust. “Awwww, c'mon on now, blood … you ain't usin' your head. You know better than that, that wouldn't even come up in court.”

“Awright then,” Elijah pulled his trump out, “if it can't be that, what's the beef?”

Murphy, still playing cue card, signalled graciously to Jackson with a wave of his big right hand.

“Detective Jackson, would you be so kind?”

Jackson made a fist and popped a finger out to illustrate each point.

“Grand theft, auto. I guess you know Benny was drivin' a stolen vehicle, assault with a deadly weapon … that's right, on Benny, receivin' stolen goods, we been knowin' about that for a long time.”

“Hey man, forget about what we might stick you with, we can think somethin' up on the way downtown. Li'l John wants your ass off the streets for a while and we want three grand.”

Elijah's head slumped to his chest, wondering if he could slug Murphy with the bottle and try to make it.

Jackson, reading his mind, quietly pointed his piece over the seat at Elijah's head.

“You better put the cuffs on him, I feel some bad vibes startin' to creep up.”

Murphy backhanded him in the mouth.

“You wasn't thinkin' about doin' anything nasty, was you?”

Elijah glared at him. Motherfucker! and threw the empty whiskey bottle out of the open window and held his hands up for the cuffs. Popped again. It never failed … just as everything was beginning to get together.

“Behind, my man, you know how we do it,” Murphy stated in a matter-of-fact voice.

Elijah held his hands behind him for the cold manacles, slumped back into the seat after they were shackled on. Well, at least I'll be able to get a good lawyer with the dough from the holdup. Wonder what those people out at the airport will think when they open up that locker and pull out that suitcase with bricks in it?

“What's funny, brotherman?” Murphy asked, his fist raised for another mouth shot.

“Ooohhh, nothin', really … I was just wonderin' if me 'n Benny would wind up in the same cell.”