Long White Con: The Biggest Score of His Life (16 page)

Folks smoked a cigarette until he returned, then went to the bathroom mirror to comb his hair and brush his teeth. He noticed a hair-line crack at the top of the mirrored cabinet over the face bowl. He got a beer can opener from the tiny kitchen, then took it to the cabinet and carefully inserted the tip into the crack against the metal edge of the cabinet. He pulled. It moved out from the plaster wall an inch. He put the opener tip to the bottom edge of the cabinet
and pulled it out an inch. Then he used his hands to pull the unit from the wall and saw several inches of extra space in the hole. He and Speedy stashed their bankrolls inside, except for a few C-notes. They pressed the cabinet snuggly against the wall and the crack was invisible.

They left the suite and went to the Eldorado parked in front of the hotel.

As Folks pulled into traffic, he said, “We’ll just cruise until things start happening in the clubs.”

“Good idea. Maybe I can get my jones greased when the super foxes ease from cover.”

Folks swooped in the Eldorado like a masochistic homing pigeon to the dilapidated tenement apartment building where he and his mother, Phala, had existed before a gang rape pushed his alcoholic mother into the abyss of gibbering madness. He stared up at the window of their hovel where they had lived when he was a teenager. He remembered the night when he had bloodied his hands smashing the glass case, containing her G-stringed image, on the facade of a ghetto cabaret.

Blindly, he made it to the front of their building. There were exactly twenty-six steps to their door. He had stood there for a long time gazing at the first of those tragic twenty-six. He knew she’d be up there at the mirror. Her greeting would tear at his insides. He’d hear the whiskey slur in her voice. The thickness of that slur was always the measure of the emptiness of the always-present fifth of Old Crow Whiskey. He went slowly up the stairs to the front of the door, twisted his key in the lock and walked into the apartment.

Her eyes were more tragic than ever in the mirror. Her greeting was thick and flat with Old Crow. She said, “Hi babee. How is Mama’s tall, pretty sweetheart?”

The sight of her and his love and pity kept his bitter, angry thoughts from his voice. He held his gashed palms away from her, afraid to let her suspect what violent emotion had exploded inside
him down there on the street, and not wanting her to drink any more than she had. He walked to her and kissed her on the crown of her head.

“I’m okay, P.G. How are you doing?”

He moved past her into the bathroom and cleaned out the slivers of glass from the punctures in his palms. His wounded palms tingled as he sat on the couch and watched her put on her dancer’s face.

She turned her head toward the bottle of Old Crow on the dresser top and bent her head down toward the bottle. Her eyes were filmy as she stared at the dapper crow on the paper label.

She said, “Now listen, old black nigger crow. Ain’t no use to roll your wicked eyes at me. I ain’t young and tender any more. But you still ain’t got a chance. You too black. If you white, you right. If you light, stick around. But if you black, get back. Way back.”

Folks got up from the couch, eased the door open and went out carefully. He cried all the way to a chum’s house.

Now he gripped the steering wheel, oblivious to Speedy beside him as he remembered the old bar porter who told him of his mother’s gang rape. He had said:

“Johnny, your mama sure had a beautiful angel face. She were that pleasing color of them half-chink gals that got white pappies. I were the bar porter in that cabaret where she danced until I got fired for nipping from the bar bottles. She used to talk about your pa. To the end, she thought he were coming back to her. She were my friend.

“She used to slip me coins for my wine when I couldn’t ketch up to Blue. All them no-account nigger hustlers and winos around Thirty-ninth and Cottage was just aching to fool around with Phala. But she’d put her pretty nose in the air and pass ’em like the dirt they was.

“They knowed she’d married a white man and they hated her proudness. Oh son, I could have saved her from those sinful imps. But I were stinking drunk in the lobby of the flea-bag where they abused her.”

He stopped talking to wipe at his tears with his sleeve. The bar porter had continued, “It’s a awful story. Everybody on them streets know’d what happened to your mama that morning. One of them slick hustlers eased up beside her at the bar just before closing time.

“Phala was drinking and tired. She didn’t see the pill go in her glass. Two of them dirty niggers carried her out to the back door of the flea-bag across the street. They had rented a back room on the alley for the night. They say that cold-hearted nigger what owned the cabaret just grinned when she were carried out. He were glad because she’d never let him have her.

“When them devils finished they rotten fun, they went in them streets for blocks around. They told all the tramps and winos about your beautiful mama laid helpless and naked in that room. They say them dogs went in and out of there until daybreak.

“I were sobering up in a chair near the lobby window. I heard the pitiful screams of a woman. Then your mama came running by. She were naked as the day she were born. Her belly and thighs was caked white with jism. She were cutting herself bloody with her fingernails. I guess she were trying to scrape them niggers’ filth off her. She had woke up and know’d by the stink what had happened.

“I ain’t never going to forget her face. Johnny, her eyes was twice bigger and she tored hunks of hair from out her head. I stumbled to my feet to ketch her. But she were running too quick. The last I seen, she were going down Cottage Grove, screaming her heart out.

“The Lord is surely just, though. The sneaking nigger who put that pill in her glass got his throat cut the week after. Forgive me, son, for not being in shape to save her.”

To break Folks’ trance of misery, Speedy said, “Say man, this spot is so exciting I can’t stand it. Let’s ride some.”

Folks answered, “Partner, drive us to a drink. Please!” as he got out of the car and went to enter on the other side.

Speedy slid beneath the wheel and pulled the car away.

T
hey parked and went into a small piano bar two blocks away on Cottage Grove Avenue. They sat at the crowded bar for a half dozen double Scotches apiece, occasionally glancing at a sepia Liberace thumping the keyboard of a battered piano on a dime-sized platform. He glittered in a gangrened silver suit of sequins, lisping obscene ballads with faggy gyrations of his blue-wigged Dracula head.

They left the bar and crisscrossed the car-clogged southside streets until Folks spotted a tall greyhound lean figure, with a ruined yellow cherub face, in a gray and black glen plaid suit standing near the window of a crowded chicken shack punching the cash register. A woman in the window was tonging golden brown chicken parts from large deepfryers as a bevy of uniformed waitresses served diners at a dozen tables along the wall.

Folks said, “Speedy, pull over and park. I think I saw one of the old gang in that chicken joint. Precious Jimmy, a shill buddy from the old carny days with Blue Howard’s flat joints.”

Speedy said, “Thank you, that whiskey is got me ready to destroy some cluck,” as he pulled the Eldorado into the curb.

They walked back down the sidewalk teeming with laughing couples and singles peacocking in their Saturday night finery.
PRECIOUS
JIMMY’S CREOLE CHICKEN
flashed in orange neon above the door they entered.

Precious exploded at the sight of Folks. “White Folks! My Man!” He scooted from behind the cash register and grabbed Folks in an affectionate bear hug. He led the way to a back room equipped with a sofa, table and chairs surrounded by cartons of store supplies.

Folks said, “You sonuvagun, it’s good to see you. Precious, meet Speedy, my partner.”

Speedy shook his hand.

Folks said, “Precious, you still a star nine ball player and top craps mechanic?”

They sat on the sofa.

Precious said, “I’m still nine ball champ. I was tops with craps until I played Tango last year and blew this joint to him. You gonna get down in the Windy, Folks?”

“Maybe we will, but not the short con in the streets. I’m itching to rope a hot mark for the long con. White, black or polka dot.”

Precious went to a cabinet in the corner. “I’ve got vodka, gin and Scotch.”

“We’ve been drinking Scotch.”

Precious brought back a fifth of Black and White with glasses. He placed bottle and glasses on the table.

Speedy said, “Precious, I’d go for some chicken, dark meat.”

Precious said, “I’ll get a platter, on the house. What part do you go for, Folks?”

“Dark, Precious, with coleslaw.”

Precious went to the curtain separating the rooms and called a waitress to give the order, then came back to sit on the sofa and pour himself a drink from the bottle on the table.

He lit a cigarette, exhaled and said, with hazel eyes ashine, “Say, Speedy, how’s your cube game?”

Speedy grinned. “I can trim working marks on payday if I had to. Why, Precious?”

“Don’t get me wrong, but Joe Brice . . . uh, Tango and me, were hustlers locking asses to win anyway we could.” Precious sighed. “He was just a better craps man, a better cheat. Still, it would thrill me to see somebody kick his ass with the craps, or with any kind of grift, the arrogant, greedy sonuvabitch! I . . .”

The waitress came through the curtain with a large tray of aromatic chicken and side dishes. She placed it on the table before them and poured two glasses of water from a pitcher. Speedy stuffed a five dollar bill in the front pocket of her tight pink uniform that looked painted on her curves. She smiled and wiggled away through the curtain.

Precious said, “Excuse me a moment.” He went into the restaurant.

Speedy and Folks smacked their lips as they attacked the mound of golden chicken.

Speedy said, “Damn! This is good. Best commercial bird I’ve ever had!”

Folks agreed. “It’s fantastic! Franchise this ambrosia, and the Colonel and the others would have blues in the night with corporate toothache.”

Precious returned as they were smoking cigarettes and sipping Scotch.

Folks said, “Precious, the chicken is a wipe-out. What a recipe!”

“Yeah, it’s great. My mama’s. She died two months ago, at seventy-five. I can’t shake the idea that it was my blowing of our business that nudged her into the grave. She suffered bad to see me flunkying here as the manager for two bills a week.”

Folks said, “You said that Brice was greedy. How greedy?”

“Well, if you had come to town from Memphis, scuffling, two years ago and copped the biggest numbers bank on the southside, this restaurant that nets two grand a week, silent partner in several bars, a secret owner of a stable of fighters, would you be greedy enough to deal dope and risk the joint?”

Folks said, “He’s got the disease! Like a hog named Paul, he wants it all.”

Speedy said, “How the hell did Tango cop all those goodies in just two years?”

Precious answered, “With the dice at first. I mean the square dice! The slick bastard can shake ’em and roll ’em across the string and throw anything from two to twelve whenever he wants to. He beat Sweet Dog out of the numbers bank and did a black Mafia bit with a gang of gorillas imported from Memphis to cop the rest of his empire. He’s big and treacherous!”

Folks said, “It’s interesting about his secret control of a stable of fighters. I’d guess a hog like that would set-up to bet the ones that dived.”

“That’s Tango’s angle.”

Speedy said, “Cute moniker, how’d he get it?”

“He was just a club fighter, a chicken shit heavyweight spoiler down south twenty years ago . . . a clutcher and a dancer in the ring.”

Folks said, “How do you stand with Tango, Precious? You know, does he really trust you after trimming you?”

Precious grinned. “Yeah, enough so I can burn him for thirty, forty dollars a week. I’m living in his house. I’m good at figures and straight business stuff my mama taught me. Tango is not smart, just slick. He’s a rank, loud mouth gorilla. I’d split, take my cue stick on the road with a few grand.”

Folks said, “How much liquid draw-it-out-of-bank green would you say Tango is got.”

“He’s got two hundred grand if he’s got a nickel in a safe at home. Why, you think you’ve got an angle to take him off?”

“I’m just kicking around an angle. Maybe Speedy and I can string it together. If so, you’ll get ten percent of the score we take from Tango.”

“Folks, you got an angle already. I can tell. You’re gonna play for him!”

Folks stood and smiled. “It all depends on you at this point to start the tumblers clicking right. Precious, we need you to bait and hook the mark. We better split before he walks in on us with our heads together. Let’s meet somewhere tomorrow.”

Precious said, “We can talk now. Tango is in Memphis at his old man’s funeral.”

Folks sat. “Maybe we can cheer him up when he gets back with a mind-blowing offer to buy the recipe and the right to franchise this chicken shack and the Precious Jimmy’s Creole Chicken title.”

Puzzled doubt creased Precious’ face. “Folks, I know you’re cinch dynamite with the con, but that sounds like a shaky way to the bread.”

Folks grinned. “Precious, do you believe your mama’s chicken is delicious enough to franchise across the country?”

“I know damn well it is.”

“Well, Tango knows it from the two grand a week he’s taking out of the joint free and clear.”

Precious dubiously shook his head. “Folks, I can’t get the connection to a hunk of Tango’s two hundred grand.”

“Don’t worry about it now. Speedy and I will worry about the connection details. Say, does Tango have a special fighter in his stable? You know, that he’s pushing and grooming toward a title?”

“Yeah, a young heavyweight from Memphis. Black Samson, a helluva prospect!”

Precious stared with mouth agape as Speedy leapt to his feet, embraced Folks, kissed his cheek. “It’s sweet! Bait the mark with the franchise offer then switch him and play him against the old fight con, updated. It fits Tango like a pigskin glove, no pun intended.”