Airtight Willie & Me (2 page)

He climbed over the seat and said, “Pull over and let me take the wheel.”

I started to pass her up. But the expression on Willie's face was pulling my coat she'd wake up if I didn't do a number with her. While Willie drove us around, I opted for her far-out skull extravaganza.

We let her go in front of the Moon Glo. She went in the front door. We cruised around the block and caught a glimpse of her cannon assing it down the alley in the back of the bar. Her pimp was going to foam at the jib when she checked in that load of play money.

The banks and postal savings offices would soon be closing, so we dirtied plates and copped pads. Next morning, at ten, we were working both sides of Garfield Boulevard on the Southside. Both of us had struck out several times at the qualifying stage with marks we had stopped.

At two thirty, Willie stopped a powerfully built older guy. I watched Willie's two grand choppers flashing as he pitched the “cut in” and “sound out” con to qualify the mark.

I had memorized both ends of our game's dialogue so I knew Willie was saying, “Forgive me, sir. My mama taught me, in her lap, it's bad manners and not Christian to disrespect a stranger's privacy. But I'm upset! I'm in need of advice from some intelligent and wise-looking colored gentleman like yourself.”

I saw the mark move, with Willie, from the middle of the sidewalk to stand near the curb to hear Willie's problem. “I just got here from Mississippi. I'm carrying a lot of money from the sale of my farm. I'm confused and afraid because a friendly white man on the train from Vicksburg warned me about flimflambers . . . or something. Worse, the white man told me that banks up here give white folks five percent interest on savings and only three percent to colored people. Please, tell me, kind sir, what are flim-flappers? And does your experience with these banks make that white man tell me a lie or the truth?”

Shortly, Willie stroked an index finger across his left cheek. My cue to drop and pick up the wallet, fat with the boodle, near any big, expensive car parked on the street.

Willie touched the mark's sleeve and dipped his head toward me. At this point, Willie would be saying, “Ain't it a pity that colored man over there is so honest he's paralyzed with guilt and fear. He was lucky enough to pick up a wallet a rich-looking white man lost when he got out of that new Lincoln. I think we oughtta put his mind at ease.”

Willie and the mark waved me to them. Up close, the mark's face and vibes jangled an alarm bell inside my skull.

I shakily said, “You gentlemen won't call the law, will you?”

Willie said, “We will not! Finding a wallet belonging to a rich white man sure don't make a colored man a thief in our book. The Lord has gave you a lucky day. Ain't that the truth, Mr. Ellis?”

The mark stared luminous gray eyes at me and nodded. Could he be the vengeance-hungry father of some long-ago doll I'd “turned out” and he was trying to place me?

I glanced around us suspiciously, and with a sigh of relief, I said to Willie, “Mr. Ell—”

Willie cut me off and said, “I'm Mr. Jackson.”

I said, “Joe Franklin is pleased to make both your acquaintances. I'm happy, happy, two colored gentlemen with mother-wit saw me
instead of two mean white folks. I been knowing all my life, good advice comes from good people, and should be rewarded—”

Willie cut in. “Hold on there, Franklin! We didn't advise you to share in your good luck . . . did we, Mr. Ellis?”

The mark's heavy blue lips pulled back in a twisted little smile. Disgust at Willie's remark wrinkled his ebonic brow. In a high-pitched voice, eerily issuing from his six-six, two-hundred-fifty pound frame, he squealed, “We surely didn't—”

I said, “Hush up, Mr. Ellis! I won't let you talk me out of it. Friends, we gonna share equally fifteen bucks or fifteen thousand bucks.” I gave them a flash of apparent long green stuff inside the bulgy hide.

Willie said, “You've hit the jackpot! Let's move! The white man is positively gonna miss that load of cash!”

We steered the mark to a bench on the strip of grass that ran down the center of the boulevard. I started to examine the wallet's contents. I let excitement make me drop it. Willie scooped it up and turned away from the mark's ravenous eyes.

I started at the mark's flat, brutish profile. I recognized him! . . . from somewhere long ago!

The big vein on the mark's neck ballooned when he saw Willie let fall and retrieve our lone “C” note before he handed the wallet back to me. Willie exclaimed, “This damn thing is packed with hundred dollar bills!”

Willie gave me an evil eye because I was a split-instant tardy delivering the next line. My mind was at the brink of recalling the where-and-when about the mark.

I said, “That white man is a big-time something.”

Willie said, “He could be a crooked high roller.”

I said, “Maybe the money is stolen, or even counterfeit . . . What we gonna do?”

Willie said, “The money's real, but we need the help of some big-shot colored man or understanding white one. Now about you, Mr. Ellis, you know some big shot we can trust?”

Before the mark answered, I snapped my fingers and said, “I got somebody! My boss, Mr. Gilbranski. We can trust him because he loves colored folks for sure. He's been married to one for twenty years. He's got a fine suite of offices two blocks around the corner in the Milford Building. My stars, I just remember I was on an errand for Mr. Gilbranski when we had our good luck. You good people wait right here. My boss will solve our problem so we can split safe and fair.”

After I left, Willie would say, “Mr. Ellis, I think we've found a pure-in-heart man and a small fortune. If he's not pure and doesn't show back here, we can't lose what we never had.”

I drank greasy spoon coffee for fifteen minutes before I came back to the mark's wide grin. The mark's relaxed face jibbled a bit of the puzzle into place! OHIO! DEATH!

I pumped their hands and said, “Good people, I knew my boss is a sweetheart! The wallet belonged to a racist politician he despises. He's ready to give us equal shares of the eighteen thousand in small bills.”

I paused and chuckled. “So, he couldn't have no reason whatsoever not to help us, I fibbed and told him two kinfolks was in on my good luck. He knows I've only got two kin in the world, my Uncle Otis and Aunt Lula, both he's never seen . . . He ain't gonna hassle us. He just wants to meet you and find out you're people with mother-wit and won't go crazy with the money and get him in a squeeze for coming to our rescue.”

Then I said, “He's awaiting on the ninth floor of the Milford Building.”

Willie touched the mark's arm, and they started to walk away.

I said loudly, “What you gentlemen gonna do, make me out a liar and fix it so my boss won't help us? I told you he knows all the kin I got is Uncle Otis and Aunt Lula. Mr. Ellis ain't no woman.”

Willie shook the mark's hand and said, “Mr. Ellis, rest easy! The same arrangements I make for me, I'll make for you!”

I said, “Don't you think you oughtta tell the boss the excitement is got old Aunt Lula feeling poorly, so she went home to rest?”

While Willie was gone, I brought the mythical office and boss to life for the mark with detailed descriptions. Willie returned breathlessly, reinforcing my wonderful boss and his luxurious office.

Willie said, “Mr. Gilbranski liked me, and loves you! He was sold on my levelheadedness when I was able to put up the four thousand dollars from the sale of my farm as proof I'm used to big money. He's satisfied I wouldn't cause him no scandal. He told me he'd trust you with his life. He said to tell you, he takes care of business inside the office and you take care of me and Aunt Lula . . . I mean Mr. Ellis, outside the office.”

I left to bring back Willie's and the mark's shares. At least, the mark was expecting his. When I got back, I gave Willie a manila envelope, fat with greenbacks rolled around the boodle of play money.

Willie frowned and said with great annoyance, “Where the hell is Mr. Ellis's share?”

I shrugged and said, “Mr. Gilbranski said every tub must sit on its own foundation and make its own strong bond good faith. Aunt Lula . . . I mean Mr. Ellis ain't showed his good faith in the right way.”

Willie said huffily, “Since Mr. Ellis's share ain't here, take it all back! It ain't right to have mine, and he don't have his.”

I said, “I didn't say Mr. Ellis couldn't get his share. All he's got to do is satisfy the boss he's a solid citizen like you did.”

The mark's eyes were spewing gray fire as he flung back his overcoat to reveal what could only be the handle of a hand ax protruding from his benny's inside pocket.

He blurted out, “Mr. Jackson sure spoke the truth. I've already decided none of us is getting a share unless I get mine . . . I'll be back in two minutes, so stay here on the bench!”

Willie and I looked at each other. At this most delicate juncture, Willie was supposed to go with the mark to get his cash bond.

As we watched the mark unlock the trunk of a new Buick across the street, I said, “Willie, we oughtta cut this one loose!”

Willie said, “Shit, I got a feeling he's gonna be sweet as bee pussy. I'd play for the motherfucking devil today!”

I feverishly tried to tie the mark to some celebrated ax murder in Ohio long ago. The mark returned and counted out a stack of “C” notes. As I was stuffing the entire three grand score into my overcoat pocket, the mark vised my shoulders and balefully stared into my eyes.

He said, “Please! Mr. Franklin, don't take my money to that peckerwood if you ain't damn sure he's on the dead level!”

I said, “He's famous for shooting straight in business and everywhere.”

He released me and giggled, “So am I famous . . . for shooting straight!”

I felt a bowel-gasket about to pop. As I turned away on Jell-O legs, I suddenly remembered all of the mark's grisly infamy. He'd been a construction worker, who, around twelve years before, had riddled two men at a poker table for cheating.

For a week, the Cleveland police put his mug shots in all the newspapers and cautions on all radio stations. A hundred police trapped him in a tenement. He critically wounded two detectives before his capture and was committed as hopelessly insane to a state hospital. Now, escaped or released, he would be waiting for me!

I drank another cup of greasy spoon coffee before I started back to blow him off (get free of him). I stopped and waved two hundred yards away so Willie could point me out to the mark. They looked at me. Willie stabbed his index finger toward his chest. I waggled my head “no.” Willie stabbed his finger toward the mark. I waggled “yes.”

I was drenched and stinking of fear sweat as the mark's long legs pumped toward me in great athletic strides. When he was midway, I saw Willie fading away fast behind the mark. Just before I ducked
around the corner, the mark glanced back at Willie. He howled piercingly and streaked toward me with the grace and speed of a gazelle.

I pistoned south on Indiana Avenue. Before I turned at Fifty-sixth, to double back to our jalopy parked under the Garfield Boulevard El, I glanced back. The joker had been ultra-positively a second Jessie Owens in his youth. He was so close, I could see the gleam of his bared choppers and the glitter of the hatchet.

I couldn't have run another foot when I fell through the jalopy's open door and collapsed beside Willie at the wheel. Willie's face was pocked with sweat as he ground the starter furiously. We stared at the mark growing to the size of King Kong and heard his number thirteens grenading against the sidewalk. I got the window up just as he reached us.

I said, “Oh, Mama!” over and over at the awful sound of the hatchet as he ran around the car smashing glass. His frothy mouth was quivering with madness as he chopped a confetti of glass into the car. He was reaching through the shattered window to unlock the door when the starter caught and Willie bombed the heap away.

At that instant I made an obvious vow that I've kept to this moment!

We got a pint of tranquilizer on the far Westside and sloshed the first hits down our chins.

Willie suddenly laid out a bandana on the seat between us. He pulled out his boodle-wallet, slipped out of his overcoat, and said, “Pal-of-mine, we oughtta separate the boodle from the thirty-five-hundred frog skins so we can split right down the middle.”

I stiffened at the thought he might try to switch me out of my end in the murk of fallen dusk. I placed all I held on the seat. And I was determined to challenge any suspect moves he made with the money before I had my end safely in hand.

With his overcoat off, I wasn't really worried that he was slick enough to burn me in his sweater sleeves. He shook his head as he
looked at the score. He straightened out the bills. Then he made a flat package of the money. He tied it up in the wide bandana.

He glanced at a passing police car and said, “Shit, Slim, we could get busted counting the score. Here, shove it under your seat until after we cop some ribs and a motel room for the split.”

I x-rayed his hands as he passed the bandana, then I pushed it under the seat. He pulled away and parked behind a rib-and-burger joint on Lake Street.

He sat there for a long time before he said, “Slim, you gonna cop the pecks?”

I was racked with closet laughter. Did he believe I was sucker enough to leave him tending the score? I said, “Cop for yourself, Willie . . . I ain't hungry.”

He said, “I ain't got a ‘sou' to cop with,” and leaned down and pulled out the bandana.

He untied it on the seat and removed a ten-dollar bill. He put our score back under the seat, and his mitt was clean coming out, except for the sawbuck.

I hawk-eyed him as he got out and shut the door. He shivered elaborately and opened the car door. He leaned into the car and reached for his beanie draped across the back of the front seat. For only a mini-instant was his overcoat a curtain blocking him from view as he lifted off the seat.