American Gangster (12 page)

“Not
about
you,” Huey sputtered defensively. “We was just talking. Shooting the shit, y'know? And it come up in passing, like, that he had something he wanted to rap with you about.”

“Do I look like I want to have anything to do with that fool Nicky Barnes?”

“I'm just passing it along is all.”

Frank said nothing. He looked at his brother in the mirror, took in the gaudy threads and shook his head. “I am definitely taking you shopping tomorrow.”

“Why? I went shopping today.”

Frank's eyebrows went up. “Yeah, I can see you did. Seems like you go shopping every day, Huey, like a goddamn girl.”

“That's no way to talk.”

“That's no way to dress. I'm introducing you to my tailor. God help us if he sees you in that getup.”

Frank waved his brother away, and the vision in green went out to find the other country boys and their womenfolk.

Half an hour or so after the Lucas brothers ended their conversation about Nicky Barnes and his influence on fashion, a cream-color Bentley rolled up at the curb
outside Small's Paradise and Barnes himself—and his entourage—piled out.

When Frank's chief rival in the powder business swept in, Barnes—in a sable coat and brown leather suit and feathered fedora—had his arms full of copies of the recently released
New York Times Sunday Magazine
that depicted him on a cover emblazoned “Gangster Chic.” The flamboyant druglord was passing them out like a newsboy peddling an “extra,” often stopping to sign them.

At the same time, Barnes's chief rival was occupied in a conversation with Joe Louis, the champ having table-hopped his way to Frank's, where he now sat and spoke respectfully to the man responsible for filling Harlem's streets with a product called Blue Magic.

“It's a tax thing,” Louis said with an embarrassed shrug of his massive shoulders. “It's a mistake my lawyers'll straighten out, you know? But for the time being, Frank, it's a real headache.”

“How much you owe?” Frank asked.

“Nothing, nothing. Something like—fifty grand?”

Frank studied the battered, puffy and yet still handsome, iconic face of America's greatest heavyweight champ, black or white. Was it an honor to have a celebrity of this stature asking to borrow money? Or a curse?

Either way, Frank could only smile and nod, a king granting a request from a down-on-his-luck knight.

Louis beamed in a shy country boy way that Frank could relate to. “Thank you, Frank. You're tops. I'll pay ya back soon as—”

“No. Joe. It's a gift. Not a loan. You don't owe me nothing. Just keep comin' around the club here. You honor us with your presence.”

Meanwhile, Nicky Barnes was gliding around the club with his magazines and his crew, a long-legged good-looking gal on his sleeve. As Louis chatted with Charlie and Rossi, Frank watched the flashy fool make his rounds, lingering at Louis's table where Mrs. Louis was introducing him to Miss Puerto Rico, Barnes holding onto the beautiful creature's slender hand longer than a man with a girl on his arm should.

Frank had had enough. He glanced and nodded at Huey at a nearby table, by way of announcing he was splitting. Frank's big bodyguard/driver, Doc, didn't require a glance or a nod, knowing Frank's moods well enough to read that he was ready to go. Doc got up even a beat before Frank.

At the hatcheck stand, Doc had Frank's topcoat ready and he was slipping into it when Miss Puerto Rico—stepping from the ladies' room into their path—came through.

She gave him that open, no b.s. smile, making no bones about them earlier having shared a look across the crowded club.

“I'm Eva,” she said.

“I'm Frank,” he said, and smiled just a little. Just enough.

That made her smile grow, and she said, “You're Frank, and . . .” She gestured around the hopping club. “. . . this is your place.”

He kept the just-enough-of-a-smile going but otherwise didn't reply.

She took that for “yes,” and said, “Then why is it called Small's?”

“Fellow named Small opened it. Back in the days of the Harlem renaissance. Cotton Club and all.”

“That was a long time ago.” There was something impish, and nicely teasing, in her voice, which was lilting and musical, the Puerto Rican accent adding faint percussion. “Why don't you call it ‘Frank's' now?”

“Because,” he said, “I don't have to.”

And now he let the smile all the way, full-wattage. Normally he could make a girl forget her own name with that smile. Only right now, with her smiling back at him, he wasn't sure he could remember his own. . . .

In the middle pew
of a crowded courtroom, Richie Roberts, in a somber suit and tie, sat with his attorney, Sheila Allison, also in a severe (if stylish) suit, waiting their turn. Everyone in the courtroom was half of a divorced couple sitting with his or her attorney. Laurie Roberts and the male attorney representing her were on the other side, in more ways than one.

Richie had noticed the odd sight of attorneys bearing papers clipped with five-dollar bills or tens and sometimes even twenties, heading down the aisle toward the bench.

Sheila, a dark-haired woman, her professional demeanor taking not a whit off her blonde prettiness, was saying, “You should be prepared for your wife's counsel to hit below the belt.”

“Who I had relations with,” he said, mildly defensive, “since we broke up, isn't any of her business.”

He was specifically thinking of the fact that he and Sheila were sleeping together, and was wondering if having sex with your divorce attorney could be a black mark against you in a custody case.

“I wasn't talking about your
proclivities
, Richie,” she said, patient but having to work at it. “Those I know only too well. This isn't about you having a wandering eye.”

“What is it about then?”

Her expression was regretful, like a mother feeding a spoon of castor oil to her kid. “I'm talking about you being a cop.”

He made a face, waved that off. “You kidding? What, about me taking
money
? I don't do that.” He laughed once, harshly. “You've seen where I live. Does it look like I care about money?”

But Sheila, like everybody else in this part of the world, couldn't seem to get it through her lovely head that maybe not every cop was in it for the graft. “If you
have
taken money, Richie, I promise you, it will come out.”

“Fine. Swell. I haven't.”

An eyebrow arched in the oval face. “You're going to have to sit down with shrinks and social workers.”

“Big deal.”

“
And
your wife's lawyers,
and
the judge, and there will be a lot of questions.”

“I'll have answers.” He nodded toward the bench, in front of which a man in a gray suit was arranging the folders the lawyers had been bringing up to him. “What's that about?”

She smiled tightly. “Scheduling.”

“I mean, the money.”

“The money is about scheduling. That's the judge's assistant. He's rearranging the pre-trial cases in order of . . . rearranging them.”

“In order of the amount of gratuity, you mean?”

She didn't answer his question. Instead she asked her own: “What about your old friends from the neighborhood? You still hang out with them?”

He shrugged. “Summer softball on Sundays with some guys.”

“With some
wise
guys, you mean. That's going to look good, Richie. Just great.”

He felt red rising up his collar. “I grew up with those guys. Went to school with them. Big deal. I never did any business with them.”

Too casually, she asked, “What about Joseph Sadano?”

“What about Joseph Sadano?”

She paused. Took a deep breath. Let it out. “Richie, I'm just trying to understand certain things your wife has said. If they're not true, just tell me. But if they
are
, well . . . what I don't know can definitely hurt you.”

“Yeah, Joey's a guy I hang with sometimes. Basketball. Poker.”

“You bet on basketball with him?”

“No. We play it. Badly.”

“What kind of poker games? High stakes?”

“Yeah, all the way up to a quarter a raise. Are you kidding me, Sheila?”

“Joey Sadano . . . he's also your son's godfather?”

He nodded, rolled his eyes. “Not that kind of godfather. Jesus.”

Sheila's mouth tightened—it was not exactly a smile, and was almost a frown. She nodded toward the side of the courtroom where Laurie and her counsel sat. “Do you really care about this, Rich? Or do you just not want your ex to win—even when maybe she should.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Sheila's gaze wasn't any more cutting than a laser beam. “How often do you see your son as it is?”

“Not enough as I should,” he admitted. “And it's my fault, kind of work I do. But Laurie, Christ, she wants to make it
never
.”

Sheila studied him. She laughed, once, a tiny thing that didn't make it out of her throat. “You want this bad enough to invest another twenty?”

They'd been keeping their voices low, but now Richie whispered: “What, pay some prick judge off?”

She sighed. “Well,
I'm
not to going to sit on a hard bench all day.”

And Sheila got a twenty dollar bill from her purse, and took it up to the judge's assistant with it clipped to Richie's paperwork.

When the bailiff said, “All rise,” Richie rose, but he wasn't in a hurry about it.

Finally Frank Lucas got
the nerve up to make an important call. He got the number from Joe Louis, who after all owed him a favor; this one might be well worth the fifty grand.

“I want you to know who I am,” Frank said to her. Even over the phone her voice retained its music, its magic. “That you're an important man in Harlem?”

“No. Who I
am
. Where I come from. Are you free Saturday afternoon?”

And at one o'clock Saturday, Eva was waiting on a corner in Riverside, right where they'd arranged, just as much a vision in a dark sweater and skirt and handbag as in the gold-lamé gown.

Doc pulled the Lincoln Town Car up to the curb, and Frank told him, “I got this,” and opened the rear door and stepped out and stood before her as awkward as any downhome suitor.

“I hope you weren't waiting long,” Frank said.

“No. No, you're right on time.”

“A woman as beautiful as you shouldn't have to wait for anything.”

She smiled at that, almost laughed, and then she saw he meant every word.

The perfect gentleman, Frank held the door for her, then slid in after her.

“And where are we going?” she asked.

“Teaneck,” he said.

“What's in Teaneck?”

“My mother.”

Before long the lovely young Hispanic woman was studying family photos on the mantel of the living room's fireplace, with Frank at her side.

“Is that your father?” she asked, indicating a photograph of a well-dressed, respectable-looking Bumpy Johnson.

“No.”

“Who is it?”

“Martin Luther King.”

“It's not! You're a big tease.”

“You're right.” Frank smiled at Bumpy's visage. “To me, he was just as important as Dr. King. More so.”

“What his name?”

“Johnson.”

“What did he do?”

“Lot of things. And he had a lot of friends. He served New York and it served him back.”

Eva wasn't looking at the photo now; it was Frank she was studying. “What was he to you?”

“Well, let me think about it. . . . More than an employer.
Teacher.
”

“What did he teach you?”

Frank's head moved to one side; his eyes narrowed. “How to take my time.”

“Is that important?”

“Yes. It is if you're going to do something, do it right, with care . . . with love.”

He hadn't meant to make the words sound seductive, but she clearly was warming to him, standing closer, her voice softer now as she asked, “What else did he teach you?”

The images flew unbidden into his brain:
men beaten to a pulp, guys shot to death, Bumpy watching as gasoline was poured onto a competitor and a match was lit. . . .

“How to be a gentleman,” Frank said.

Bumpy's calm, benign face in the photograph seemed to agree with this assessment.

“Is that what you are?” She slipped her arm in his. “A gentleman?”

Her smile said she doubted this; but it also said she didn't mind. She was clearly marking the time before he tried to take her upstairs. His mother's house—
right. Sure. . . .

But Frank said smoothly, “I got five different apartments in the city I could've taken you to. I have a penthouse that would steal your breath away. But I brought you
here
, instead. . . .”

A voice from the nearby staircase said: “Oh, is this
her?
”

Eva turned toward the voice and so, smilingly, did Frank.

His gray-haired mother was making her way down the stairs, beaming at them.

“I brought you here,” he whispered, “to meet my mother.”

Who was crossing the room with her arms wide open, saying, “Oh, she's
beautiful
, Frank. Just look at her—an angel come down from heaven.”

Then Momma was embracing Eva, who looked at Frank questioningly, wondering if she'd been had.

Not yet,
he thought.
Not yet.

Every street cop gets
used to the spike of fear that certain sights send through you. But that sick feeling usually didn't come in the middle of sitting at your desk and going through the morning mail, which was what Richie Roberts was doing when he came across the deceptively mundane-looking envelope from the New Jersey Bar Association.