American Gangster (5 page)

And there was just no way.

After he paid the Italian suppliers, and Red Top and everybody else who worked for him, Frank would be a goddamn pauper. This shit
would
be his hobby. . . .

His first instinct, even though it had been tinged by an emotional response to Tango's disrespect for Bumpy, had been correct. Tango had to go.

But inadvertently Tango had opened Frank's eyes to a basic problem in the supply-and-demand scheme of things. Frank was working on way too slim a margin. The dope trade, for all the money that rolled in, was a pie getting cut up too many ways; and then there were those crooked fucking cops who were squeezing the goombahs by the nuts.

Something had to change.

And Frank had to change it.

Throughout his life Frank had developed a method of dealing with tight situations. He was not an impulse buyer in the showroom of life; he liked to mull, and mold his options.

He'd been known to lock himself in a hotel room, shut off the phone, yank down the blinds, take room service and just think. Isolation helped him get a clear view, he could look back over the past, backtrack five
years if need be and think about everything he'd done and everyone he'd encountered and everything he'd heard, and search every nook and cranny of his memory for information and answers.

This time, however, he did not check himself into a room; instead he took the German shepherd he'd inherited from Bumpy out on the beach at Coney Island, and together man and beast had walked under a bleak gray-blue sky along a beach where seagulls fought for scraps in the sand. This time of year the place was all but deserted, a handful of screaming kids riding a roller coaster barely competing with the sound of surf rolling in and gulls cawing as they circled to provide a mostly soothing soundtrack for his thoughts.

Frank and Bumpy and, for that matter, the dog had often come here and walked and talked.

Bumpy had never come right out and said that some day Frank would take his place, if not in the protection business then in the black world that was Harlem. But the older man would dispense advice, without really saying why he was offering it or indicating what Frank was to do with it.

Drifting over the waves and into his thoughts came the memory of Bumpy's resonant voice: “
A leader is like a shepherd, Frank. He sends the fast, nimble sheep out front, and the others follow. And the shepherd? He walks quietly behind. Watching. Guiding.
”

Where the tide rolled in, Frank picked up a stick that seemed perfect for the dog to fetch. He hurled it and the animal went scampering after it. Gulls cawed hungrily. Kids screamed happily.

“
Now the shepherd, he has a stick, a cane, a staff . . . and you
know
he'll use it if he has to.
”

The dog brought the stick back and, as he threw it again, Frank pictured Bumpy on a day when he'd done the same thing.

“
But most of the time, the shepherd doesn't have to use that stick. He can move the whole herd, quietly. With skill. With brains. And with the force of his own personality.
”

On days like this, Frank and Bumpy would have ended up at the hot dog stand, where Bumpy would buy a naked pup for his German shepherd to gulp down, while the boss and his number one man would chomp at condiment-laden hot dogs like two more kids at Coney Island.

And Bumpy would dispense wisdom with relish, hot dog or otherwise, though the memory of his mentor's words were more recent, not given at Coney Island but in front of the electronics store window where Bumpy had died.

“
What right do they have, cutting out the suppliers, pushing all the middlemen out, buying direct from the manufacturer? Putting Americans out of work! This is the way it is now, Frank.
”

There on that bleak beach, Frank's mind assembled scraps of information and bits and pieces of advice into what he knew at once was a bold new plan.

Bumpy had been right: things had changed, cutting out the middlemen was a fact of life, the way it was now . . . and the little boy who'd seen the white men blow his cousin's brains out of his skull knew that you
couldn't change the way things were. You had to accept the world as it was and work within it.

And make the world work for you.

If he were really to be white-boy rich someday, Frank would first have to cut out the Italians, whatever risk that might entail. No more picking up packages from Rossi or the like. Fuck that shit—Frank would get his own supply.

The voice of that soldier kid, Willie, sitting at Red Top's table, pushed out Bumpy Johnson's in Frank's mind:
Good shit in Vietnam.

This war, this stupid war, had turned a lot of kids, black and white, into casual druggies and a good number into outright junkies. Right now Vietnam was full of GIs getting strung out, and shit good enough to string out GIs was good enough for Frank to sell state-side. Sell, hell—he'd make a killing.

So it was that Frank Lucas went from Coney Island to a doctor's office in Harlem where he took a series of shots, not the least of which was to prevent malaria. Then he went to a photography shop for a picture to take with him to the post office, where it was stapled to a passport application.

From there Frank went to the Chemical Bank in the Bronx where the banker he'd seen at Bumpy's wake watched, at Frank's invitation, as Frank emptied packet after packet of cash from a safety deposit box into a briefcase.

One packet Frank slipped into the banker's jacket pocket.

“Get yourself a new suit,” Frank said with a wisp of
a smile. Then he added: “
Now's
a good time to talk business.”

In an office arrayed with the portraits of dignified white bankers going back fifty years or more, the banker typed out a Chemical Bank check for Frank Lucas in the amount of $400,000.

“You're not nervous,” the banker said, “traveling alone to Southeast Asia?”

“No.”

“Well, I would be.”

Frank took the check, folded it to fit in his billfold, where he put it. “Brad, I never went to school, not for a day. But I got a PhD in ‘Street.' ”

“These are different streets, Frank.”

“Thanks for your concern. But I'll make out.”

The next afternoon, gray
but not as cold as some recent days, Richie stood with his ex-wife Laurie in a Newark park, where their five-year-old son Michael could play in a grassy area with other youngsters, and not be party to their discussions about his welfare and future.

Already their talk wasn't going well, and when a jet screamed overhead and then faded away, the interruption was almost a relief; that Frank Lucas was on that jet, heading to the Far East, was a small irony Richie was not privy to.

“I'm sorry, babe,” he said.

Laurie gave him a sideways glare that told him he'd long since lost the right to call her that. She was only one of a dozen moms in the park today, but probably the best-looking, with her curly dark hair brushing her
shoulders, and a peasant blouse and slacks indicating what was still a nice body.

“You could have told me sooner,” she said, watching their boy frolic with other kids, their laughter and screams tinged with the happy hysteria of childhood.

“I'm sorry.” He sighed, shrugged. “I know. But it's the big exam. It's what all my work's been leading up to.”

“I don't know, Richie.”

“Can't be avoided.” His hands were in his pockets and he was rocking on his heels; his eyes took routine stock of those other moms—one of whom rivaled Laurie at that, a hot young blonde. Got knocked up in high school maybe, and popped one out. “Next weekend I'm open. Be able to take Mike, no problem.”

When he glanced back at his own wife, ex-wife, she was studying him the way a lab student eyes a slide with some squirmy thing on it, obviously aware he'd been sizing up the blonde competition.

Maybe that was why something else was in Laurie's expression, too: not disgust exactly, more . . . weariness.

Somehow that was worse than disgust to Richie; anger, disgust, were strong responses, emotional responses. Now, after all the loving and hating and cooing and yelling it had come down to this: she was tired of his cheating ass.

“Look . . . Rich.” She shrugged, sent her eyes toward their son. “The thing is, I'm . . . I'm moving.”

His forehead frowned, his mouth smiled. “What do you mean, moving?”

Her eyes came back to him, pointedly. “What do you think, moving? Pack your shit and get in the car and go, moving. Christ, Rich.”

“Where to?”

She laughed bitterly. “To the St. Regis, maybe. What the hell do you care.”

“I
care
.”

“Right. My sister's.”

“Your sister's. Your sister lives in Vegas.”

Laurie grunted a tiny laugh. “Thanks for paying attention. I didn't know my family even made it on your radar.”

He was shaking his head now, grinning, astounded. “Vegas? You want to take our kid to
Vegas
?”

The crunch and snap of breaking glass interrupted his words and his thoughts. He glanced over and a quartet of white kids were breaking pop bottles, hurling them onto the concrete path.

Richie picked up the thread, and tried to keep his tone civil. “Come on, Laurie. Be reasonable. You can't move to Vegas.”

“Sure I can.”

“Not with
Michael
, anyway.”

Her eyebrows arched as she turned to him again. “Oh, there's another option? What else am I supposed to do with him? Leave him with you? There's a picture. You could turn the closet into his bedroom, long as you keep your box of weed on the top shelf where he can't get to it.”

“That's not fair. . . .”

More glass shattering seemed to mirror the state of
his mind, and he yelled over to the smart asses, “
Hey!
You want to keep it down over there? Find a new hobby!”

The teenagers looked at him, started laughing and went on smashing the bottles.

Doing his best to ignore this shit, finding it hard to think much less reason with Laurie over the constant brittle background noise, Richie said evenly, “You know we have joint custody, Laurie. Court won't allow you to drag him out of state like that.”

“Are you sure?”

His eyes tightened. “I'm sure
I
won't.”

She smiled at him but it was mostly a sneer. “You? It's up to
you
, now?”

He slapped his chest. “You drag him out there, when am
I
supposed to see my goddamn
son
?”

Her eyes were wide and she was smiling, but it had nothing to do with the usual reasons for smiling; she was shaking her head, as if having witnessed something amazing.

She said, “How about
last
weekend? Or
this
weekend? Only you had to cancel. You had work. You had school. Maybe you had a bimbo or two, too.”

Michael, playing with two other little boys, heard the edge in his mother's voice and turned to them with a pitiful little frozen smile.

Caught cold, both parents smiled and waved and nodded, and the boy—not entirely convinced, but placated, anyway—returned to his play.

Richie did his best to keep it low key. “Laurie,
please. You can't be serious about raising Michael in Las Vegas. What kind of place is that to—”

“Oh, and
this
is a good environment?” She looked at the sky for support. “What could I be thinking of? Mike would miss out on all your colorful friends, wise guys you grew up with, cop pals who're even sleazier.” She gazed across the park toward the colorless Newark skyline. “Far as I'm concerned, there're less creeps per square inch in Vegas than in this godforsaken armpit.”

Now Richie was shaking his head; it was his turn to feel amazed. “Vegas is the most mobbed-up town in America, Laurie! What's Mike gonna grow up to be in
that
cesspool? What the hell are you
thinking
?”

Her eyes bored into him and through him. “I'm thinking, Richie, of
him
. Not you. Not me. And not us. But
Michael
.”

Another bottle breaking put an exclamation mark after Laurie's already pointed words; the noise was driving him fucking crazy. . . .
Little pricks
. . . .

“Goddamn it,” he said. He raised a finger to Laurie, as if telling a dog to stay, and he strode over toward the teenagers, kids wearing letter jackets and smartass expressions.

Richie was a big guy, but there were four of them, who laughed as he approached, trading looks with one another before they all glared mockingly his way:
What are you gonna do about it, old man? Four against one!

“I told you nice,” Richie said evenly, “to shut the fuck up.”

Their cocky expressions were curdling, but one of them managed, “Why don't
you
shut the fuck up, Gran'pa?”

Richie shook his head. “Okay. Have it your way. Now I'm gonna kill your punk asses.”

And from under his jacket he snapped the revolver off his hip and aimed it at the one who'd just spoken.

One at a time Richie gave each formerly mocking face a look down the short but impressive barrel of the weapon. Instinct made them cover their heads, as if keeping the sound of a bullet from their ears would be enough to shield them.

One kid squeezed a few frightened words out: “What do you
want
from us, mister?”

“I want you,” Richie said, smiling terribly, “to
pick up that fuckin' glass!
”

They almost dove to the pavement and the nearby grass, complying, finding every fragment, from jagged-edged chunk to splintery shard, and taking them to a nearby trash can, under Richie's casual but strict supervision, his gun still in hand.

Other people had noticed the confrontation, from the prettiest moms to the ones Richie's eyes hadn't bothered with, and the blonde whose inventory he'd earlier been taking asked nobody in particular, “Shouldn't somebody call the police?”