Elliot turned around and watched Costas Cartage, Limited burn. FBI agents and Chicago Police Department personnel argued in the light of the fire, as Chicago firefighters controlled the blaze as best they could.
“Looks like you have enough to do.”
Elliot walked toward the bridge.
“I’ll let you know what comes of it,” Creamer said, watching his only colored friend disappear in the darkness.
He made it across the foot bridge, walked over to the car and got in.
“We done?” Amos asked.
“Yeah.”
“That looks bad,” Ned said, as he eyed Elliot’s shoulder.
“We’re going to a hospital,” George said.
“Home, George,” Elliot said. His voice cracked. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes.
“I just want to go home.”
CHAPTER 25
It was a balmy December, atypical to the region, but not the most opportune as that meant snow would likely fall in February and March. They’d have to adjust for a late planting season. As they had the money to bring on a few hands, they resolved to make up the difference planting additional crops. Elliot suggested something simple to gestate, like beans. He cited Thoreau’s philosophical works, but Buster and Frank were simpler men and didn’t want to hear all that high-minded nonsense. To them, planting was work. No one wanted to work, unless they had it far too good to be farmers in the first place.
On the odd Saturday, Uncle Buster had Frank busy yanking up the old fence posts that had been neglected for so long. Elliot didn’t help on account of his shoulder. Though Doc’s care was considerably better than the back-alley butcher he saw the first time, he lost cartilage in his rotator. It would give him trouble for the rest of his life.
He stepped out on the porch to see how Frank and Buster were faring. Their mutual connection to Mississippi—and perhaps their mutual skin tone—bonded them together in ways Elliot couldn’t share. He knew that Frank was good for his uncle and vice versa, so he resolved to accept things as they were, though he wondered if anything was waiting for him in the world beyond living the life of a rogue.
“Y’all need a hand?”
“All you got is one,” Frank said. Buster chuckled.
“That’s a lot of mouth for someone who hasn’t gotten their pay this week!”
“Gonna do me like the man, huh, boss?” Frank said, raising his hands in surrender. Elliot fished in his pocket for a hand-rolled.
“Hey, boss. You expectin’ someone?”
Frank gestured toward the access gate. Elliot looked to see a black car with federal plates approaching the house. Elliot knew it couldn’t be anyone else. He opened the door and grabbed his coat off the hat rack. His arm was still in a sling, so he draped it over his shoulder as he walked. The car stopped halfway up the access road. Elliot approached as John Creamer got out. He figured he wouldn’t exactly be welcome.
“How are you healing?”
“Slow and painful,” Elliot said. “How’s life at the bureau?”
“I’m not there anymore.”
The wind blew, and Elliot could hear crows chatting amongst themselves. He imagined they spoke about him getting screwed. Again. By the same man.
“Oh?”
“I’m headed out to Menard. Our friend Nickelson is stashed there.”
“Stashed?”
John Creamer looked away.
“He’s gonna turn, isn’t he?”
“He is.”
Elliot grabbed John by the collar, even before he realized it.
“Let go, Elliot,” John said. He grabbed Elliot’s wrist. Frank and Buster watched.
“How many bullets do I have to take for you, Creamer?”
“You brought him to me, remember?”
“You screwed me, just like before.”
“Not like before,” John said. “They’re reconvening the committee.”
Elliot turned Creamer’s collar loose and stepped back three feet.
“Eisenhower will be in office,” John said. “He’s got no stake. No extrajudicial interference.”
“You sold it to him.”
“Elliot, these things work a certain way.”
“Just be straight.” Elliot couldn’t look at John Creamer. “I gave you the golden goose.”
Creamer nodded.
“You took it to Washington.”
“I did.”
Something unique happened within John Creamer. Something, prior to this moment, Elliot figured wasn’t possible. His old college friend—the well-intentioned white man with the money to be angry for Negroes, whether they were or not—was guilty.
“Fuck me in the face. You’re back in with Kefauver.”
John Creamer looked away, saying nothing.
“That motherfucker Wiggins?”
John nodded. Elliot screamed. He kicked the gravel on the road. If he had use of his other arm, John Creamer may have gotten the shit kicked out of him, right at the Caprice Family Farm. Creamer held out his hands in the body language of a man pleading with someone who he knows has good reason to be through with his ass.
“Everything we did together to advance the fight against organized crime is back on the table. And this time, I’m out in front.”
Elliot moaned aloud.
“All that bullshit before. It’s never going to happen again.”
“Sure it isn’t.”
John put his hand on Elliot’s good shoulder.
“When the committee reconvenes, it has a completely new agenda. The Chicago Outfit comes second to the New York and Sicily connection. Accardo’s out. Genovese is in. I’ll keep you out of it—”
Elliot laughed in John’s face.
“Once you come in as my special witness—”
“What?”
John Creamer smiled wide, as if he was granting Elliot a prize.
“Oh, fuck you.”
“It’s not a hiding to nothing anymore.”
“I’m not testifyin’ in open session for the world to see, John.”
“Closed door testimony, I promise.”
“No.”
Creamer stared back at Elliot. His gaze turned cold as steel. It was the same look as in his family’s rooftop atrium, the night Elliot’s career and life was ruined.
“Then I can’t help you.”
The two stood in front of one another, silent.
“At the dock, you said that we were friends,” Elliot said. John Creamer looked through him.
“This is bigger than friendship.”
“How’s it goin’ down there, boss?” Frank said. Elliot waved without looking.
“Got me by the shorties, huh?”
“I’d like to think of it as finishing what we started,” Creamer said. “Doing our duty.”
Elliot looked back to Buster and Frank. They now sat on the porch, keeping watch.
“I got a different idea of duty.”
John Creamer got back in his car. He rolled down the window.
“So I’ll be calling you.”
“When?”
“It’s going to be a while. You know how Kefauver likes to set up the big show. Don’t worry about Nickelson. He’s got no friends anymore.”
“Imagine that.”
John Creamer rolled up the window. Elliot watched as he reversed the car out the access gate before he walked back to the house.
“Takin’ a break, huh?”
“What’s that about?” Frank asked.
“Just some old nonsense.”
Elliot looked at the house. Not even John Creamer’s orange weenie could ruin his moment.
“Let’s do a white picket fence this time.”
“That’s a lot of work,” Buster said.
“That’s why we got the big man.”
“Speakin’ of that,” Frank said. Frank returned to pulling fence posts. Elliot sat next to Uncle Buster.
“I was thinkin’, when the weather breaks we can paint the house. Fix the g
utters.”
“Finish that porch, so you don’t freeze to death.”
“Mm hm.”
“You tryin’ to sell the place?”
“Naw,” Elliot said. “Least not ’til you dead.” He laughed.
“Well, you gon be waitin’ a while. I’m feelin’ like a new man.”
“Is that right?”
Buster nodded. Elliot placed his good arm around his uncle’s shoulder. His old frame was as warm to him then as when he was a boy.
“That’s good, old man. We got ourselves a lot of livin’ yet.”
“Then don’t leave again.”
Buster looked Elliot in the eye. His worry was plain.
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Elliot looked at the old oak, with the branches that reached to the section of roof outside his bedroom window.
“Everything that matters is right here.”
Back to TOC
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
If you’re still reading, you’re my kind of people.
By now, you likely have some idea of this book’s precarious journey from my fantasies to your lap. I imagine that my first acknowledgment should be my mother, Rosalita, who taught me to say “fuck this shit” to all obstacles, which is a rather powerful signature spell, no wand necessary.
Before Lieutenant William Drury could anchor in the plot of this novel, he was a real human being with a family. The tragedy of his death in 1950 affected not only his wife and children but the entire city of Chicago and helped shape the fight against organized crime. I feel he is a true Chicago hero and his life deserves to be known by everyone. My apologies to his descendants for fictionalizing his story. I attempted to show his memory great love and respect. He deserves a statue in Lincoln Park.
Elizabeth Kracht, of Kimberly Cameron and Associates, saw life in this book’s pages and worked hard with me to make it possible for it to live on. She stood with me when a difficult work, then tainted by its rocky beginnings, took the slings and arrows. May it be as fulfilling for her as it has been for me.
Eric Campbell, Grand Puba of Down & Out Books, showed no fear in taking us in and displayed his commitment to our mutual success by beating the hell out of my book. In accepting his findings I was able to enhance and expand my original work into what I always hoped it would be. It ain’t the same book. I ain’t the same writer. We’re both better off.
From the night she purchased two copies of the first edition at a reading in Berkeley, Allison Davis has been my patron, confidante, co-conspirator, and champion. She also gets me into a lot of frickin’ trouble, of which I should have been in a long time ago.
Michael King has read every word I’ve ever written, taught me about my style, argued with me when I’d considered chang-ing course, and has given me every bit of a quality education as he does his students at Harvard. I can only hope I’ve been as good of a friend to him.
JT Lindroos somehow conjured a frame from the movie that’s been playing in my head since I created Elliot twenty-seven years ago and made a boss cover out of it. Once I saw it, I began to accept I was in the clear.
And now the friend list of all time: Joe Clifford, Tom Pitts, Simon Wood, Steve W. Lauden, Josh and Erika Stallings, Christa Faust, Gabino Iglesias, Rob W. Hart, the great Gary Phillips, Michael Pool, dearest Pam Stack, Art Taylor, Renee Pickup, Andre Battiste, Richard Yaker, Joshua Bitton, Jen Hitchcock and BOOK SHOW LA, Eric Beetner, Julian Bevan, Paul Bishop, Scott Waldyn, Sarah Chen, David Cranmer, Kate Pilarcik, Larry Gasper, Elaine Ash, James Ziskin, David Ivester, Les Edgerton, Will “The Thrill” Viharo, Anonymous-9, and everyone else word count prohibits me from listing here. All of you made this thing so much fun. That made giving up impos-sible.
Finally, a special note to Ashley, Maryam, Danny Jr., and John Laymon. When I think of you, I run out of words.
Back to TOC
From his beginnings as a young stand-up comedian (Def Comedy Jam All-Stars vol. 12), Danny Gardner has enjoyed careers as an actor, director, and screenwriter. He is a recent Pushcart Prize nominee for his creative non-fiction piece Forever. In an Instant., published by Literary Orphans Journal. His first short fiction piece, Labor Day, appeared in Beat to a Pulp, and his flash fiction has been featured in Out of the Gutter and on Noir On The Air. He is a frequent reader at Noir at the Bar events nationwide. He blogs regularly at 7 Criminal Minds. He is a proud member of the Mystery Writers of America and the International Thriller Writers.
Danny lives in Los Angeles by way of Chicago. A Negro and an Ofay is his first novel.
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A Negro and an Ofay (The Tales of Elliot Caprice Book 1) Page 25