Storm Fall
Page 22
Chapter 1
Tourists always underestimated just how oppressive a Memphis summer could be. Locals crouched in the shade, watching as red-faced visitors in khaki shorts and expensive sandals realized for the first time why Southerners were “lazy” and why the blues had grown out of the Mississippi’s muddy banks. But to Darius Simms, the summer months weren’t blue at all. No school meant no truant officers hassling him for cutting, and the influx of tourists meant easy money.
He stood behind a folding card table at the corner of Second Street and Mulberry, running a single playing card across his knuckles like a leaf on the breeze. Darius had learned long ago that marks feared the well-dressed and friendly people almost as much as they did the shabby and angry. He rode the middle as hard as he could, choosing pragmatically rolled-up slacks and loafers with a white tank top and an untucked dress shirt. That was the game, really, making yourself look like you weren’t trying too hard, and Darius was very good at it. He had been taught by the best, after all.
People had been walking by his table for nearly an hour now, casting curious glances but little else. Just as he was getting ready to pack up and let Zoe buy dinner after all, Darius found the answer to his prayers, in the form of the biggest poser he had ever seen. The man was a little over five and a half feet tall, and his sparse hair was shaped into immaculate spikes with frosted tips. He had a narrow line of beard running from ear to chin to ear, in what Darius assumed was an attempt to suggest the shape of a jawline, and he wore a shirt with Tony Montana from Scarface printed on it. As the man walked near the table, Darius snapped his card back into the deck.
“Yo,” he said.
The poser stopped, looked around, saw Darius, and raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, you, man. Where you headed?”
“Beale Street,” the man said after a moment of hesitation.
Darius leaned back against the wall and started cutting his deck. He shook his head and adopted a knowing, patronizing smile. “Beale Street, man. And here I thought you looked cool.”
“What’s wrong with Beale Street?” He stepped closer to the table.
“Nothing’s wrong with it, if you wanna be a tourist. You just didn’t have the look, is all.”
The man’s face brightened at the idea that he could pass for a local. He was hooked, Darius could tell, but the trick was not to reel him in too fast.
“Listen, man,” Darius said. “B Street don’t have nothing for folks like us. You wanna have some real fun, you stick with me, yeah?”
“What did you have in mind?” the man said. He leaned against the table. “Name’s Owen, by the way. Friends call me O.G.”
Darius smiled, flipped his cards into his left hand, and held out his right. “Cool. I’m Quincy. You ever run a hustle, Owen?”
The poser looked up and down the street, probably watching out for cops. “Sort of. I mean, I listen to a lot of rap, and I’m a salesman, so—”
“Look, this ain’t a job interview,” Darius said. “You can just tell me no. Everybody has to start someplace, you feel me?”
“Yeah! Okay, well then, no, I’ve never been involved in one.”
“All right then. I’ll tell you straight up, Owen, I usually don’t trust somebody right out the gate like this, but all my regular boys bailed on me, and I got a need for some money, like, five minutes ago. So I need your help. You in?”
Owen looked up and down the street again. “What do you need me to do?”
Darius stood up straight. “You ever hear of three-card monte?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it done once or twice.” Owen narrowed his eyes. “You need a shill.”
“Awwwww, man, shill’s such a dirty word. I need a confidante. A man-at-arms. A wingman. You’re cool, right? I thought you was down.”
Owen held up his hands. “No, man, no, it’s cool. Just tell me what you need.”
“All right, good,” Darius said. He slid one hand into his pocket and hit send while he spoke, sending a pretyped message to Oscar, who was currently sitting in an air-conditioned coffee shop two blocks away. “So here’s how it goes: You play the game while folks walk by. You’ll win a couple and lose a couple, but it’ll look like the game ain’t rigged either way. When I drum my fingers, that means you pick the left card. When I scratch my nose, you pick the middle card. You follow?”
Owen nodded.
“Good. So when a mark comes by and plays a couple games, you pull him aside and tell him you figured out what my tells are and let him think he can win. I’ll give him the first couple of games, and then when he gets confident, I’ll take him for all he’s worth, and in the meantime you’ve left to take a walk around the block. And when you get back we start the whole thing over, got me?”
Owen nodded but looked a little dubious. All the same, Darius knew he wouldn’t back out at this point.
“How much money you got? I don’t wanna sketch you out or nothin’, but we’ll need to be trading real money back and forth or it won’t seem convincing.”
“Oh, um,” Owen said, and there was that doubt again, but he pulled his wallet out all the same. Darius got a glimpse of a half dozen shiny credit cards and a fat wad of twenty-dollar bills, and all his guilt melted away. Darius wasn’t a communist or anything, but he’d met a lot of people in his life and as far as he’d ever seen, the amount of money people had was inversely related to how much they’d had to work to get it. Owen took a handful of the twenties from his billfold, placed them in his pocket, and looked at Darius expectantly.
“All right,” Darius said. His spine tingled with anticipation. He’d been wanting to try a three-card monte—with his own personal twist, of course. His father had always told him that the perfect crime is one that isn’t, and like most of the man’s advice, Darius hated how true it was.
“Let’s get started.” Darius slapped three cards down on the table and started moving them around. “The lady’s elusive, my friend. The lady knows how to dance. She wants you something fierce, though, that she does. So follow the lady if you’re man enough . . .”
He went on like that for about a minute each time, making a show of sliding the three cards around on the table. He finished his first rearrangement and slapped his hand down.
“The lady’s in distress, my friend! Can you find the red lady?”
As Darius said this he rubbed his nose. Owen nodded and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. Darius took it and stepped back as Owen lifted the middle card, revealing the red queen. Darius handed over Owen’s twenty and another twenty he’d brought along as “venture capital.” Then he started the game again.
This time, things went a little differently. Darius scratched his ear, Owen handed him a twenty and picked up the left card, and the queen was missing. Darius kept the twenty. Owen “lost” the next game as well, thinking all the while that he was playing his part in a larger con—which was technically true. This went on for the next ten minutes, with Owen winning one round for every two he lost. He should have been breaking even, and he probably thought he was, but that was because he hadn’t noticed that, after that first time, Darius had stopped giving him twenties back. By the time Oscar finally came around the corner, Owen had become the unwitting owner of a pocketful of one-dollar bills.
“What’re y’all playin’?” Oscar said. He walked with a pronounced swagger, his hands jammed in his pockets. He was a tall, lanky kid about Darius’s age. His head was shaved, and he wore a pair of aviators.
“Just a friendly game of chance.” Owen winked at Darius.
“Friendly, my ass!” Darius said. “You’re cleaning me out, man!”
“Whoa!” Owen said, holding up his hands. “No hard feelings, okay? Luck’s luck, after all. Tell you what though, I’m gonna make room for somebody else. It’s like the gambler says: You gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, and, most importantly, know when to walk away.” He stood up, shook Darius’s hand, and started to leave, but as he walked past Oscar he leaned in
and whispered something. Oscar’s eyes widened, and he nodded.
“Good t’know,” Oscar said. “You have a good day now, man.”
Darius exchanged a look with Oscar and, as soon as Owen was out of sight, began packing everything up.
“How much?” Oscar said. He leaned against the wall and stretched lazily.
“Two hundred, I think. Haven’t counted it yet. Should be about fifty for you, one-fifty for me.”
“Aw, how’s that fair?”
“I did all the work,” Darius said. “And besides, Zoe’s leaving for New York tomorrow. You want me to take my girl out for a good-bye date with an empty wallet?”
Darius folded the table under his arm and stood—only to feel an intense wave of dizziness wash over him. It felt almost like déjà vu, but stronger than he’d ever known it before in his life. He looked around, trying to regain his bearings, and as he did he caught sight of a black Cadillac parked on the street corner.
A woman in a suit sat in the passenger seat, her eyes hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses. At first it looked like she was asleep, but suddenly, those dark glasses turned toward Darius. Had that car been there the whole time?
Owen was probably five minutes from getting back, but Darius was still overcome by a sudden urge to sprint away. Instead, he forced himself to walk nonchalantly across the street.
“You okay?” Oscar asked, running to catch up, a note of concern in his voice.
Darius wasn’t used to seeing his friend express emotions—beyond hunger or tiredness—and it only added to his agitation. An engine turned over behind him. He swiveled to look and watched, wide-eyed, as the black Cadillac drove slowly past.
The woman with the glasses waved without smiling.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Storm Fall © 2014 by Tracy Banghart
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Alloy Entertainment. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), write to permission@alloyentertainment.com. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Produced by Alloy Entertainment
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First edition December 2014
Cover design by Elaine Damasco
Map design by Natalie C. Sousa
Cover photo © Photobank gallery under license from Shutterstock.com
Map illustration © Robert Adrian Hillman used under license from Shutterstock.com
Author photo © Regina Wamba
ISBN 978-1-939106-45-2