Death Wish (14 page)

He said lazily, “Yeah, Ra, you pretty and sweet and you dreaming sweet pretty dreams . . . real pretty.”

She said, “You're pretty and sweet too, so what have you been dreaming lately?”

He said carefully, “Ra, I ain't had no pretty sleeping dreams since I dreamed in the penitentiary I was out here in the free world with you, and alla them was sweet and wet.”

She laughed and belly-banged his crotch. “What kinda pretty dreams you having wide awake?”

He fidgeted and yawned. “Ain't but one all the time.”

She pushed out her bottom lip. “Am I in it?”

He said, “Ain't that kind.”

She beat tiny fists against his chest. “What kind? What kind?”

He sighed, “Ain't gonna tell you, Ra.”

“Why can't you tell your wife?” she said and rolled off him and slapped wads of tissues between their legs.

He said, “ 'cause my wife might crack up and bust a gut.” He turned his back. “Sleep tight, Ra.”

She said, “I won't laugh. Tell me, Jessie.”

She razored a silver-lacquered fingernail down his spine to his buttocks. He shivered and howled and flipped to face her.

“Awright, Ra, the deal is, if you grin even, I'm gonna smack you cockeyed. A deal?”

“Damnit! Don't dangle me!” she said and swooped to scissor his nipple between her teeth. He flinched and pinched her honey-colored bottom.

He locked his eyes on her face and began. “Outta the box, you gotta know how the dream come to me through Uncle Willie. I growed to love him more than Bama even. Though I only knowed Uncle Willie a short spell, he's the foundation bricks of my dream.

“Before I knowed him I ain't doubted just a teeny mean look from a Mafia man woulda dreened pee down everybody's legs from the police to the president and me even. But no, no, not Uncle Willie, and 'cause I worshipped him, I kilt one and lost my fear of Mafia men.

“After Unc was buried I rounded up more'n three hundred of the baddest niggers on the Westside to heist and shake down numbers banks and dope dealers for the geeters to buy artillery to waste all the Mafia men in Chicago for killing Uncle Willie.

“I guess except for Bama and them brains in his big shiny skull, and Darrel wasn't no slouch, you wouldn't have no husband here in the bed. They heard my plans and pulled my coat to how to use our power to fuck up the Mafia. How to get politicking protection by rounding up sympathy and blessings of the biggest baddest power there is. And they the people! All peoples, black, white, and green, fear and hate the Mafia men and wish all a them was dead and stinking.

“So, Ra, you see we building more ‘n more tunnels and piling up guns. We training a army of commandos! It's all-out time by next Christmas to waste all the Mafia men in Chicago. Then we gonna waste them in New York, Detroit, Cleveland, and everywhere 'cross country.”

He raised and propped himself up against the headboard. His maroon eyes looked through Rachel.

He said, “Ra, after me and the Warriors waste the Mafia men 'cross country, I'm gonna . . . Hear me good now, Ra! . . . Me, a
convict street nigger, nothin' is gonna be the greatest, famous nigger the world is knowed, and more'n Joe Louis even.

“Ra, the people gonna know Jessie Taylor livin' and dyin' and dead even, and even white folks eating, crapping, or screwing, they gonna take time and feel sad when Jessie Taylor's leavin' and gone. Ra, that's my dream. What you think?”

She lay staring at his face through a long silence thinking,
How I thought I knew Jessie Taylor from way back . . . and I don't . . . but I love you.

He frowned and said, “My dream, Ra, what you think?”

She said, “It's such a big one, Jessie . . . I . . .”

His face was fierce. “Too big for a nigger, huh, Ra?”

“Hell, no, Jessie, I don't mean that,” she said, deciding to placate him, certain she would convert him in time to her more practical dream.

“But hear this, Jessie Taylor, Rachel Taylor will see that you leave this world if you try to trade her in on a fresher model when the glory days arrive. Let's go to sleep, Jessie, before the sun comes up.”

He grinned and kissed the back of her neck when she rolled into his arms.

Just before they fell asleep she said, “Daddy, darling, I'm so sorry we had a fight about past mess.”

He said, “Ra, I'm sorry too, but sorry even more that dirty nigger Dandy Ike was kilt by his own hand when I got to Detroit looking him up.”

•  •  •

And now in the parsonage office inside the Free Zone, T. saw the massive figure of Kong coming down the church walkway and his thoughts returned to the present and the possibility that Kong and Charming Mills were involved with the dope-jacking gang who had murdered L. C.

T. remembered Bama's sound advice about staying cool and springing a psychodrama trap for Mills and Kong to prove them
innocent or guilty. But T. was bursting inside to confront and quiz Kong at least in some oblique way and get the matter settled. T. heard Kong's heavy feet pass the office door and go down the hall toward his quarters.

T. was about to rise when he heard stealthy feet on the carpet behind him and felt soft hands clap across his eyes. He touched them and said, “Fluffy,” as he spun the chair around and faced his teenage daughter.

She sat on his knee and fiddled with the blue wool collar of his shirt. “Mama sent me to get you to come to bed so she can sleep,” she said. “Did I find you or what?”

He grinned, and she slid to her feet as he rose from the chair.

“You found me, Fluffy, and tell Ra I'm coming.”

They walked to the door embracing waists. He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead and said, “Baby girl, reading late is got them pretty eyes red. You gonna go to sleep now for T. Dad?”

She smiled up at him. “If I get a big hug and a good-night kiss,” she said with her bright tan pixie face upturned.

He hugged her fondly and kissed her tip-tilted nose. She pranced her long, shapely legs down the hall a few paces and came back with enormous gray eyes sparkling intrigue. She looked up into his eyes and said, “T. Dad, I'm not nervous and tenderhearted like Mama, and you say I'm very good with a rifle. So promise me I can stay and fight with you if and when they come.”

He looked at her for a long moment before he said gently, “Fluffy, you ain't never gonna shoot at no true target 'cause T. Dad gonna keep them too busy for them to come here.”

He spanked her rump, and she went down the hall beneath a row of cut-glass chandeliers that gleamed her black natural.

He waited until she disappeared and strode briskly down the hall toward Kong's door. He stood at the door fighting for control of his rising temper, with hand extended to knock. Suddenly, he heard an insistent hissing sound behind him and spun around to face
Bama across the hall outside his apartment. T. stood with mouth ajar watching Bama's index finger crooking in the air. T. sighed and crossed the hall with a sheepish look on his face.

Bama whispered, “Man, will you take your ass to the gym or between Rachel's legs and work that gorilla out of you before you blow our plan?”

T. said, “Bama, you right. I gotta come to myself.” He turned away and went toward his apartment. But he quickly stopped and came back to Bama.

Bama said, “Well?”

T. said, “I wonder if Love Bone Larry's sister is in the phone book?”

Bama said, “Why?”

T. said, “ 'cause I'm gonna have her called to wire her straight about the dago being the one behind Love's wasting.”

Bama nodded, and T. leaned forward and said, “How'd you know I was gonna get on Kong's case?”

Bama grinned and said, “It was easy, nigger. Your moniker is Tit For Tat, ain't it?”

They laughed, and T. went away shaking his head.

T
onelli, with his arm around Collucci's shoulder, had seated him at the conference table in the glare of a ceiling lamp. Collucci knew it was done to humiliate him.

Collucci had slipped on sunglasses and listened for many minutes to the programmed mouth of underboss Cocio spew a thinly veiled attack on him. His dark face was bland, but his eyes were slitted in hatred and contempt behind the black windows of his glasses.

Family
consigliere
Louis “Papa” Bellini was seated near the end of the table with Collucci. Bellini fidgeted and pressed his gnarled fingertips against his temples as if in pain.

Joe Tonelli was smugly neutral.

Cocio paused to sip from a glass of water. Collucci stared at his widow's peak slashing down the olive forehead toward his hooked nose and thought,
That little cocksucker sure looks the part for where I'm sending him.

Frank Cocio set the glass down and locked his unblinking black
eyes on Collucci's face. He said in Sicilian, “Giacomo, tell me, does your ambition roar so loud inside your head it drowns out your hearing to the truth I spoke about the lousy drug business?”

Collucci lifted the corners of his mouth in a barely perceptible sneer. “Please, sir, excuse me, but in defense of my ambition I am forced to . . . remind you that many years ago under your hand and teaching I became ambitious enough to lead a mob that snatched a thousand cars a year for you.”

Collucci paused, shrugged, and said, “Excuse me again please for saying that since that time I was inspired to my present ambition by your example. I thought I heard you say the hard drugs have more value and profit in the smallest package than gold, and even money in most of its denominations. If my hearing is not good then I apologize.”

Cocio said, “You heard me say that, but you could have assumed I was aware of the profits in narcotics. Are you denying that the blood and the trouble of the drug business outweigh the returns?”

Collucci shrugged. “Sir, how can I deny what Mr. Tonelli said earlier was decided by the National Commission?”

Cocio tented his fingertips beneath his pointed chin and stared balefully at Collucci. Cocio tapped the Love Bone Larry Flambert death account on the front page of the black
Daily Defender
on the table before him. “This is what I mean, narcotics and killings on the front page of this colored paper. It's already hinting dope and Mafia and stoking the kind of heat that the Commission and everybody wants to avoid.”

Collucci said, “We . . . The Commission can't be hurt because some spick broad and her jigaboo get knocked off.”

Bellini said, “Francesco, aren't the white press and police buying the jealous spick theory?”

Cocio said, “Yes, Luigi, but maybe his sister or somebody will dig up a connection that some hungry bastard from one of the white dailies will run down to ‘publishable substance.'”

Tonelli said, “We got real stand-up political friends from the big city and state governments all the way into the White House.” He shrugged and lit a cigar. “As a member of the National Commission, I can assure that anybody who affects adversely any of our important friendships will be finished quickly.”

Cocio said to Collucci, “The girl . . . was it necessary to . . . ?”

Collucci said, “Excuse me, sir, but at his trial she heard too much. I ask you respectfully to trust my judgment and efficiency since you yourself guided me in the old days in matters of this kind.”

Cocio said, “The old days are gone, and your romancing around with dope and blood must stop before
you
make the headlines.” Cocio glanced at Tonelli and continued, “You want to be a fucking star, go to Hollywood. And you'll find more broads than even you can handle.”

Collucci glared venomously at Cocio and thought,
The lovesick bastard wants the Commission to hit me so he can beg to suck Olivia's shit through a straw. So, snake, here's a kick in the ticker.

Collucci calmly said, “I was through with the drug business the instant Mr. Tonelli told me the Commission's wishes.” He glanced at Tonelli and said to Cocio, “Excuse me, sir, but you have perhaps insulted the father of Olivia Tonelli Collucci when you suggest my unfaithfulness. If you could but imagine yourself the husband of the magnificent Olivia, you would realize the impossibility of my unfaithfulness.”

Cocio darted an embarrassed look at Tonelli and said, “Mr. Tonelli knows I meant no insult.”

Tonelli smiled and pushed his palms in the air toward Cocio. “Francesco, I would advise my son-in-law to dally with broads here and there along the road.” He shrugged. “After all, how otherwise can any guy fully appreciate a truly superior woman?”

Cocio studied a report of raids made on the organization-protected enterprises on the South and Westsides by Tat Taylor's Warriors.

Tonelli said, “Giacomo, your respect for the Commission pleases me very much.” Then Tonelli put his elbows on the table. He clasped his hands together and compassion flooded his face. “The dope is bad . . . very bad,” Tonelli said.

Collucci stared at him in awe as he remembered Tonelli's long track record of cold-blooded nonfeeling.

Tonelli went on with great pain on his face, “The kids, Giacomo . . . I saw little colored kids in Harlem no older than Petey with a habit. I am saddened at the thought my beautiful twin girls could one day be poisoned with the dope. You, myself, all fathers, a wise man said, ‘must realize their obligation of fatherhood to all children.' Think about it, Giacomo, and feel proud to drop the goddamn dope business.”

Collucci smiled and nodded assent. A thrill of superiority and power shot through him to hear and see the softness and vulnerability of Tonelli crop out. For the first time at the table Collucci felt some of his tension drain away. He lit a cigarette and stared at Tonelli with a warm smile. He thought,
You senile old cunt, soon I will put you out of your misery.