SOUTHSIDE HUSTLE: a gripping action thriller full of suspense (8 page)

CHAPTER 12

“What the fuck?” Trick kept glancing in his rearview mirror on the way home after dropping off Collette. He slowed down to five miles under the speed limit on 143rd Street and hoped they would turn off. “Undercover cops? What the hell do they want?” He first noticed the glow from the yellow fog lights on the vehicle behind him as far back as LaGrange Road. When the driver blew the red light at Harlem Avenue and kept up with him, Trick knew this wasn’t going to be a good night. He drove cautiously the rest of the way to the condo complex, pulled into the parking lot and turned the engine off. A coffee brown Oldsmobile 98 pulled directly behind his Lincoln, blocking him in. Trick turned in his seat to see four men exit the vehicle. “These guys aren’t cops,” he said under his breath.

The four dark figures broke into pairs and approached both sides of his car. Two of them, who looked like brothers, went to the front passenger window, while the shorter of the two men by the driver’s side tapped on his window with a tire iron. He made a circular motion with his left hand as he said, “Roll it down.”

Trick lowered his window, and calmly as he could manage, said, “What did I do, cut you off or something? Sorry.”

“We want to talk to you,
whetto
,” said the short, stocky young man with wide-set eyes and slicked-back hair.

“I’ve got a gun,” Trick said, putting his right hand inside his sport coat, trying to bluff.

“I don’t think so, parolee.” The short guy, who seemed to be in charge, opened his long topcoat revealing an automatic pistol in a shoulder holster. “But we do,” he said, fingering the gun. “You have something that belongs to us. The black leather bag, where’s it at?”

Trick didn’t have time to think. The first thing out of his mouth was, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

With the tire iron resting on the open window a couple inches from Trick’s face, the leader said, “C’mon, outta there, on your feet.”

“You must have the wrong guy,” Trick said, getting out of his car.

The tallest of the group, wearing a Chicago Bulls jacket, shoved Trick out of the way and pressed the trunk release button, popping it open. He went to the back of Trick’s Lincoln, found the black leather bag under a blanket and held it up. “Why you lying to us? You think we’re
stupido
? Now you make me feel like hurting you.”

“Let’s go, Homes.” The short stocky guy pushed Trick from behind with the tire iron in his spine. “Get in my car. We’re going for a ride, have a little
conversación
.” He motioned toward the front seat as the guy in the Bulls jacket opened the passenger door. The leader got behind the wheel, pinning Trick between him and the big guy. The two brothers, who had not said a word yet, got in the back.

As they pulled out of the parking lot, Trick asked, “Where we going?”

“Not far.” The leader looked straight ahead. “Somewhere we can have a little privacy.”

Trick felt his filet mignon coming up into his throat. He swallowed hard and said, “Why don’t we just stay here and discuss this?”

“Shut the fuck up, thief. We’ll tell you when to talk,” one of the brothers said in a heavy Mexican accent, pushing a pistol hard into Trick’s ear.

They drove to woodsy 147th Street and pulled onto a service road just east of the Missionary Sisters of Saint Benedict. “Get out of the car, bean bandit,” the short guy said, as the others began exiting onto the uncut grass behind a cove of trees. “I don’t want any blood in my 98.”

A pistol, from behind, tapped Trick on the side of his head. He felt dizzy as his heart beat even faster getting out. Feeling wobbly on his feet, Trick pleaded, “Look, I’m open to any kind of negotiations. Just tell me what can I do to make things right.”

Still holding the bag, the tall one in the Bulls jacket rummaged through it. “How much
dinero
is missing?”

Trick felt cold metal at the back of his neck. “Uh, let me think. Give me a minute.” Trick breathed heavily. “Twenty thousand, that’s all. Just twenty.”

“The coke’s not here,” the big guy said, raising his voice. “You’re going to give it all back, just the way it was, the twenty that’s missing and the three kilos. Or we’ll have to do very bad things to you and your family.”

“Oh, fuck,” Trick mumbled as his teeth began chattering uncontrollably.

“Where’s the drugs?” the leader asked. “In your crib?”

“No. Look, the drugs are … gone.” Trick had the odd sense that he had been struck by lightning when he felt a bolt of pain run through his skull. Everything went dark and he collapsed to the ground. Seconds later, his vision returned and he looked up to see the short young man standing over him with the tire iron. The pain became more excruciating and centrally located as he realized he had been struck on the nose.

“Don’t ever tell me what I don’t want to hear. Understood,
puto
? Just tell me things that make me happy.” The leader smoothed his slick hair back. “We know you won’t go to the
policia
. Drugs … drug money; you’d be right back in
prisión
.”

Trick got to his knees and put his hand on his nose. When he looked at his hand it was full of blood.

The leader spit on the ground next to Trick. “Not so
guapo
now, eh,
maricón
? You’re going to return the missing money, and the
yayo
just the way we left it. If you don’t come up with the kilos, you owe us another $300,000. You got one week.
Comprendo
?”

“Yeah, got it.” Trick waved his hands in surrender knowing this was no time to attempt a negotiation. “
Comprende
.”

“In the meantime, we’ll be watching your ass.” The leader stood over Trick with the tire iron resting back on his shoulder. “Remember something,
bandito
. I’m a Mexi-can, not a Mexi-can’t. I always take care of business.” The four calmly walked back to their car and drove away, leaving Trick on his knees bleeding.

The moon behind the hazy clouds took on an eerie glow. Trick wondered if it was from the tears that welled up from the stinging pain he felt. Smelling his own blood, he made it to his feet and stumbled, looking around to get his bearings. He took a clean handkerchief from his back pocket, held it to his nose and thought – a couple miles, maybe less, to the condo. The sooner he started moving his feet, the sooner he would get home. Cutting through the darkened Midlothian Country Club around midnight, a lone rabbit stopped in his tracks and watched Trick cautiously. He thought the cottontail had a look of concern, then it hopped away without glancing back. Tasting the blood that dripped into his throat, he kept spitting, trying not to swallow too much. The high wind brushed the treetops with early warnings of a cold November while he kept putting one foot in front of the other, walking, stumbling, until after a span that didn’t seem to be measured in regular time brought him to the doorway of his temporary digs.

Trick unlocked the door, thankful that none of his neighbors saw him in his current condition. The last thing he wanted was to answer questions. He staggered in, half expecting the condo to be ransacked but nothing looked out of place. He went straight to the bathroom, threw the blood-soaked handkerchief in the wastebasket and inspected the damage. It was broken, just as he thought. Along with the swelling and sick looking color his face was taking on, his nose had a pronounced curve to it. So he tried his best to shove it back in place with his fingers and thumb. Screaming in pain as his knees buckled, he crumpled to the floor. Trick gasped for breath as the blood flowed freely again. He grabbed the sink, pulled himself to his feet and spit a big clot of blood from the back of his throat into the toilet, then flushed the blob away. His nose was noticeably straighter but still swelling.

He went to the kitchen, got a popsicle from the freezer and ran it under hot water until only the stick remained. Locating a serrated knife, he held half of the popsicle stick over the edge of the kitchen counter and began sawing, with blood dripping over everything from his nose. He went back to the bathroom, found a roll of white surgical tape in the medicine cabinet and tightly taped up his nose with half of the popsicle stick on either side of it.

By now he was starting to resemble a raccoon, as blood collected beneath the skin under his eyes. He went back to the kitchen and made a cold compress with ice in a dishtowel. Trick grabbed a cold beer and sat in the living room with the icepack on his nose, wondering how he was going to get out of this mess. It was one thing owing money to that sadistic bastard Starnes. He knew where the son-of-a-bitch lived and could retaliate if things got too ugly. These Latino guys were a different matter. He had no idea who they were or where they came from. The bigger questions running through his mind were, how the hell did they know who he was and how could they have known he was holding the bag?

CHAPTER 13

After a night of sporadic dozing on the living room recliner, Trick got up and read 10:30 am through the blood splatters on his watch. He took off his new Armani jacket and ice-blue silk shirt, checked the pockets, and tossed them in the waste basket. Worried that Ginger might have already bought a new car with the $15,000 he gave her, he called her but there was no answer. So he took a shower, letting cold water run over his face, washing the dried blood away. Staring down at the red water swirling around his feet, Trick pounded his fists on the shower tiles, cracking one of them. His breathing became labored thinking about the wasted years he spent locked up and separated from his son. Now he had all this to deal with too.

Trick looked in the mirror and removed his homemade splint. He had two black eyes and his nose looked as though he was going to have a bump on the lower bridge, even after it healed. Trick redressed his nose with another homemade splint, then tried calling Ginger again. There still was no answer so he decided to go over there right away.

His heart pounded while he talked to himself on the short drive to her apartment: “Please. Say you didn’t do it.” But there it was; a brand new white 1986 Chrysler convertible where Ginger’s old Chevy was usually parked. “Damn it!” He slammed his car door behind him and took big strides up to Ginger’s apartment building.

“Who is it?” His ex-wife’s dim, metallic-sounding voice crackled from the speaker.

“Oh, good God,” Trick said into the intercom. “Are you looking out the window? Who else do you know that drives a burgundy 1979 Continental?”

“Well, you can’t be too careful.” Trick didn’t appreciate her sarcastic tone, especially at this moment. The buzzer unlatched the front door of the apartment building and he climbed the steps feeling woozy. Ginger’s door was open with no one in sight. He walked through the living room and down the hall to find Ginger standing in front of the medicine cabinet mirror touching up her eyeliner, a lit cigarette dangling from her lipstick coated lips.

“Don’t you love my new LeBaron?” Ginger didn’t take her eyes off her reflection. “I think it’s sexy.”

“I was praying you didn’t pull the trigger. When did you buy it?”

“I just got back a few minutes ago.” The tip of her cigarette bobbed up and down with every syllable. “Why?”

“I kept calling you.” Trick squinted and waved smoke away from his face. “I was hoping to stop you.”

Ginger finally looked at Trick and exclaimed, “Holy bejesus. What happened? Did Starnes and Moogie do that to you?”

“No. Never mind my face. I need you to take the Chrysler back. I need that money.”

“What?” Ginger threw her cigarette into the toilet making a hissing sound like a snake lying in wait. “No one is taking my convertible away. I finally get a new car and you want me to take it right back? Are you bananas?”

“Tell them you changed your mind. Tell them anything. Say the IRS came by demanding money.”

“No!” Ginger threw her head back and stomped her foot which always reminded Trick of a spoiled little girl.

“Is any of the money left?”

“No. It cost more than $15,000. Petros kicked in the rest.”

“He went with you?”

“Yeah. Why? What’s wrong with that? He knows people. Got me a good deal.”

Trick slumped against the wall. He rubbed his forehead with his fingertips and moaned, “Never mind … never mind. Forget it.”

“Does getting beat up have anything to do with you wanting the money back?”

Without saying another word, Trick turned and walked away. He knew what he had to do. The last thing in the world he wanted.

CHAPTER 14

Officer Perkins knocked on Detective Homer Johnston’s open office door at the Orland Park Police Station. “Hey, Boss. Got something I think you wanna hear.”

Johnston looked up from the file in his big paws and barked, “Get in here.”

“I been keeping an eye out for your daughter like you told me. I happened to be at Fat Sam’s the night before last and saw Collette with some guy. Looked older, rougher than the boys she usually runs around with.”

“What do you mean, runs around with? What’re you implying?”

“No … no, I mean … y-you know.”

“Quit stammering, Perkins,” Johnston growled with an unlit, half-smoked cigar situated in the side of his mouth. “What about this guy?”

“He looked familiar so I tailed him to his car and got his plate number.”

Johnston dropped the paperwork onto his desk. “Well, whadaya got for me?”

Perkins stepped closer to Johnston’s desk, handed him a sheet of paper and backed away saying, “I ran the plate. It belongs to Patrick Halloran. You know … Trick Halloran, the drug dealer. The guy in the big shootout in Oak Forest a few years back.”

Johnston held the paper up to read it. By the time he set it down, his face had turned red. Perkins slowly inched backward toward the door.

“Goddamn it!” Johnston picked up his glass ashtray and threw it in the general direction of Perkins where it sailed dangerously close over his head, smashing in countless pieces against the wall.

“Whoa, Boss!” Perkins pleaded as he flew out the door. “Don’t kill the messenger.”

Johnston mulled the situation over and took his pulse. He removed a pill bottle from the inside pocket of his polyester suit coat, shook out a couple tablets and swallowed them dry. Opening the leather bound address book on his desk, Johnston dialed his phone.

“Hello, this is Detective Frank Murray,” the voice over the phone answered.

“Murray, this is Detective Homer Johnston over at Orland Park. Heard you’re part of the new drug taskforce they put together. How many suburbs that take in?”

“Eight of them here in the southwest suburbs. Something I can do for you?”

“Remember a guy you put away a few years ago,” Johnston asked, removing a blood pressure kit from a drawer, placing it on his desk and slipping his arm in the cuff, “a Trick Halloran?”

“Oh yeah, of course. What’s up?”

“Well, I have reason to believe this Halloran is dealing again. You might want to keep an eye on him.”

“You got something tangible?”

“It’s from my informant,” Johnston lied sincerely, “that’s all I can say.”

“OK, thanks for the heads up.”

“It’s my pleasure, trust me.” Johnston hung up the phone and smiled his crooked smile.

***

“Collette, get your little ass down here!”

Bouncing down the stairs, Collette became embarrassingly aware that her braless breasts were wiggling like two bowls of Jell-O and put her arm across her chest. “What’s the matter, Daddy?”

“Who you been going out with?”

“What? Who?”

“Don’t play stupider than you already are. You know goddamn well who.”

“You mean Patrick?”

“What’s Patrick’s last name?”

“Uh … O’Connor. Why, what’s wrong?”

“Is that what he told you his name is, or is that what he told you to tell me?”

Collette stood with her mouth open and stared wide-eyed. “W-well … he said his name was Pat O’Connor.”

“I can always tell when you or your mother are trying to pull some shit. Don’t lie to me!”

“I’m not, Daddy. He said his name was O’Connor. Why?”

“Never mind why. Next time he calls, give him the air. No debates. Don’t ever see him again.”