American Gangster (7 page)

Not that this shit didn't get tense: Thais with CIA advisors guarded Frank and Nate and their boy, while the Chinese and
their
CIA advisors guarded the guards.

Pretty soon Frank found himself in a bamboo dwelling that was goddamn nice for a shack, sitting opposite the general at a desk where the mucky-muck sorted through Frank's papers—passport, visa, bank receipts and the really important paper: cash. Lots and lots of cash. . . .

The general had the kind of diamond-hard eyes that had seen everything (including lots of cash) before; and those eyes spent as much time examining Frank as they had the papers.

“How,” the general asked, as if inquiring about the weather, “would you get it into the States?”

Frank's kept his face as unreadable as the general's. “What do you care?”

The general responded with a question of his own: “Who do you work for where you come from?”

“Again,” Frank said, nonconfrontational but giving nothing, “why do you care?”

The general shifted his chair. His mouth tightened; his eyes, too. “Who are you . . .
really?
”

Frank nodded toward the passport and visa on the desk between them. “You read it. Says right there: Frank Lucas.”

The general drew in a sharp breath. “I mean, who do you
represent
?”

“Frank Lucas.”

The general studied Frank some more, seemed to understand that he wouldn't accomplish anything down this road, and let it go.

The general said, “You think you're going to take a hundred kilos of heroin into the United States, and you don't work for anyone? You expect me to believe that?”

“I don't care what you believe.”

“Someone is going to
allow
you to do this?”

Frank shrugged.

The general glanced at one of his bodyguards, and said in Chinese, “I don't believe a word of this.” Then he said to Frank, “After this first purchase, if you're not killed by Marseilles importers—or the Italians in the States—then what?”

Frank flipped a hand. “Then there'll be more—and on a regular basis . . . though I'd rather not have to drag my ass all the way up
here
every time.”

The general thought about that. Then, after a glance at the various papers (including the cash), he said, “Of course not.”

Frank did not smile, outwardly; but inwardly he was grinning.

The tough old general was ready to do business.

Two days later, at
an army landing zone in Vietnam with monsoon rains pounding down, Frank climbed out of a UH-1 helicopter having traded his bandolier for the necklace of a press card. Nate, in uniform, climbed out of the Huey, too.

Nate alone was led by black enlisted men to an LZ tent where a black colonel was waiting. Frank cooled his heels under some dripping camouflage, hanging out with some other brothers in uniform. He could not hear the conversation that Nate and the colonel were having, but he knew what was going down.

The colonel said to Nate, “Jesus—that's a lot of powder. Where's it now?”

“Bangkok,” Nate said. He shrugged. “I can bring it here. Or anywhere in between. Your call.”

The colonel shook his head. “A hundred damn kilos. . . . I never seen that much dope in one place, have you?”

Nate grinned. “I just did. You ever see one of them Amana refrigerator-freezers?”

“Sure.”

“Bigger than that.”

“. . . Let me talk to your partner.”

Nate nodded out to Frank, who joined them in the tent and did some negotiating. Then they watched the colonel exiting the tent, rain still coming down like
God machine-gunning, to cross the torrent on duck-boards to another tent, where a white officer, a two-star general, waited.

This negotiation was brief: fifty grand in advance, covering the pilots and the guys on the other end, as well.

But Frank told Nate, “No.”

Nate goggled at him. “
No?
Frank, we—”

“Give them one hundred.”

“What? Give 'em
more
than we negotiated?”

Frank nodded. “A hundred. That's all I've got left, anyway. So if that dope doesn't arrive, for whatever reason, I won't need it, the extra. We'll buy a little good will.”

“If you say so, cousin.”

Then, suddenly, Frank embraced Nate and whispered in his ear, “Cousin or no cousin—don't let me down.”

The words weren't overtly a threat, but as he handed the fat envelope of cash to Nate, Frank knew that Nate knew.

Knew that Frank would kill him, if things didn't go to plan.

Nate said, “Don't sweat this a second. I'm all over it. And I'll let you know when the shit's in the air. . . . Anybody ever tell you you're a kind of genius?”

“No. I been called a fool before.”

Nate grinned. “Well, you're that, too. But aren't we all?”

Richie Roberts had never
meant to hurt his wife. He had loved Laurie, and he still did love her, he supposed, in a mother-of-his-child kind of way. He'd never had an affair on her; he wouldn't do that to her, he wasn't some disloyal prick.

But he would knock off a piece here and there, strictly one-night-stand stuff, and yet the times she'd found out, Laurie reacted like he'd been seeing somebody behind her back.

He'd never bothered trying to explain it to her. That his job was high stress, max pressure, life or fucking death, and the only things that took the edge off, that took him out of his crowded head and into someplace free of thought, were the roll of a joint or a roll in the hay.

And that didn't count making love to your wife, with the kid in the next room and bills to pay and inlaws
and PTA meetings and all the issues that made a bad habit of coming into the bedroom with you.

Yesterday was a (literal) textbook case of high stress and max pressure, and even in its way of life or death: he'd taken his law board exams. Maybe that anonymous chamber with its fifty or sixty student-type desks and as many asses dropped down in them, and the pinched-puss exam proctors prowling their beat, wasn't as literally dangerous as going down a dark alley or busting into some junkie shooting gallery.

But Richie's life did depend on it.

He felt he'd done okay, and anyway it was over. So he'd celebrated by calling up that sexy little brunette paramedic who'd stitched up his mitt last week. He took her out for steaks and a show (
M*A*S*H
) and they hung out in a bar a while, and his place was closer, so that was fine, and she hadn't even minded his overgrown closet of an apartment. They'd done it twice last night, once a fast frantic hump on the floor with their clothes half-hanging off, and then in bed, slow and sensual and romantic.

She'd stayed over and they rubbed against each other all through the night and at dawn he was balls deep in her again—
what was her name?
—and she was making so much noise, he was worried his neighbors might call the cops, and when the phone rang, it was almost a relief.

He reached for the receiver, but she slapped his hand, panting, looking up at him with big demanding eyes and orgasm-flushed cheeks; but the ringing wouldn't stop.

Neither would the paramedic, and he answered the phone in action and out of breath.

The voice on the other end was exploding words so fast, Richie wouldn't have had a chance to respond right away even if he could have.

Javy Rivera was saying, “Richie? Richie, man, I'm in trouble. This guy, this fuckin'
guy
, I don't know how, but he
made
me. And he went for his piece, Rich, Jesus Christ, he went for it like John Fuckin' Wayne and what choice did I have? I had to do it, swear to God. Now they're gonna kill
me
.”

The paramedic was looking frustrated and annoyed, because she had lost Richie's full attention; and she didn't even protest, when he rolled off her and sat on the edge of the bed and got intense with the phone.

“
Who
, Jav? Who's gonna kill you?”

“Man, there's a hundred people out there, that heard the damn shots. I mean, if this goddamn fuckin' shit were any deeper I'd be gargling. Richie, man, you gotta help me. You gotta do
something
. Or my ass is grass, man.”

Richie was getting it. “He's dead? Perp's dead?”

“
He's
dead,
I'm
dead. They're gonna
kill
me!”

Doing his best to calm his partner out of his hysteria, Richie said, “Cool it. Stay cool. Where are you? Javy? . . . Talk to me. Where are you, buddy?”

“. . . That's the problem.”

“What is?”

“Where I am is.”

“Which is
where?
”

“Projects. Stephen Crane.”

Oh shit
, Richie thought, then said, “No problem. Stay cool. If it's not my voice, don't answer the door.”

“Don't fuckin' worry.”

And Javy gave him the building and apartment number.

Richie threw on a shirt, jeans, gun and his brown leather jacket, responding to his bedmate's question of “Should I wait?” with “Up to you.”

Within minutes he was in his Plymouth Fury, moving quickly; this was Sunday, not long after dawn, traffic dead as Javy's perp.

The radio kept cutting in and out on him, but he didn't have any trouble hearing the male dispatcher's nasty news: “
There are no cars in that area, Detective Roberts.
”

“Bullshit,” he spat into the mike. “I got a man in trouble and I need backup an hour ago.”

“ . . .
missed that . . . you . . . breaking up. . . .
”

“Put the call out again!”

“ . . .
still can't . . . you're breaking . . .
”

“I said put the fucking call out
again
—”

“
I just
did,
Detective. Nobody responded. I'll try once more, but it won't do any—
”

“Fuck you very much,” Richie said, and slammed the mike into its slot, thinking,
I'll bet he heard
that.

When Richie's car rounded the corner onto Central Avenue, the three dark thirty-floor towers of the Stephen Crane Projects loomed like massive tombstones from the war zone landscape. If a more forbidding place existed on the planet, Richie had no desire
to see it. A torched and abandoned patrol car sat silent sentry just beyond the curb, dating back to one riot or another.

After he parked, Richie moved through the agitated all-black crowd swiftly and confidently, which was the only way to survive; the morning was unseasonably warm and, early as it was, the Crane residents and other neighborhood gawkers had come out to enjoy the fun and outrage. He spotted an ambulance pulled up on the sidewalk in front of one tower, and headed for that building.

Just inside the doors, a frightened female paramedic, pretty cute—
stop it
, Richie told himself—pointed the way for him: fifth floor. He went up the graffiti-adorned elevator and down a graffiti-adorned hall. Outside the apartment, two more scared shitless medics, male, were milling.

Richie displayed his badge in its wallet.

One medic, a white guy pale as his uniform, said desperately, “He won't let us in there, officer. There was a shooting and—”

Richie held up a hand and said, “I'm his partner. Give me a minute.”

He knocked, said, “It's me!” and Javy, in jeans and a dark brown leather jacket, let him right in. Jav's shoulder-length dark hair, muttonchops and mustache overwhelmed his hangdog face.

“Thank God you come, Rich, thank God.”

Then, without waiting for Richie to say anything, Javy made his zombie-like way over to the couch and sat, slumped, hands folded prayerfully, head bowed,
though Richie was fairly confident nothing religious was going on here.

On the other hand, the skinny black guy on the floor in a blood-spattered yellow undershirt and jeans and no shoes was making like Jesus, in a crucifixion posture. Brains and lots of blood had drained out of him making a mostly scarlet Rorschach pattern on the cream-color shag throw rug. The dead dealer lay next to a low-slung white coffee table whose glass top was littered with drugs and drug paraphernalia, as well as a few empty beer bottles and soda cans.

Richie let the paramedics in; they wheeled in their gurney while the detective called in the shooting.

Before long he was saying into the phone, “Sergeant, does it sound like I'm asking? I'm fuckin'
telling
you: get some patrolmen over here, right now.”

Richie hung up, hard, and the paramedics—their gurney not even unstrapped—were staring at him like his fly was open and his dick was hanging out. They'd been listening.

“You got no backup?” one of them asked.

The other added: “Why don't you? Have any backup.”

Richie pointed at the corpse and said, “Bandage that asshole's head.”

“Detective,” the pale paramedic said, “he's dead.”

The other paramedic, a heavy-set guy, asked, “Should we even be moving him? Isn't this a crime scene?”

Richie walked over; the dead guy on the throw rug was between him and the paramedics. On the couch,
hunkered over, despondent as hell, Javy sat staring at the shag rug, like a gypsy reading tea leaves.

“This
will
be a crime scene,” Richie said, “if a couple hundred people start rioting and kill all our asses. As for our pal on the floor here? Yes, he's fucking dead, I
know
he's fucking dead. Now bandage his head, clean him up, put him on your gurney and . . . prop him up a little.”

The pale paramedic squinted. “Prop him up . . . ?”

“Yeah, so he's sitting, kind of. Can you open his eyes? Use a little tape on his lids or something.”