by Mary Monroe
Honor, a strange bedfellow to most criminals, was one of the things Baltimore cherished whenever going in with other men on a caper. The heat of battle affected people in different ways—some cowered in its wake and others charged right through—but Baltimore could always count on a stack of money bringing out the very worst in men, the very worst. He’d have to choreograph the takedown and consider making preparations for the contingency of someone freezing up or getting it in their minds to freelance. Although there was no surefire way to guarantee everyone coming out alive, Baltimore persuaded the men that he’d come up with the best method to “snatch and grab” more loot than any of them had ever seen. And, if they kept their cool in the process, living long enough to spend it, it would make be worth their trouble. Everyone agreed, but somebody lied.
CHAPTER 10
DOWN AND DIRTY
“She’s something to see alright,” Baltimore said as he peered through the crowd of customers at Uncle Chunk’s bar and billiards. “But I’d watch my step around a woman like that if I was you. She looks to be the kind who might get froggy long before it’s time to jump.” Baltimore was leery of the medium brown-toned, petite little number, with a high-class attitude, sitting at the end of Chunk’s bar. She was turning her nose up at everyone, and at the proprietor in particular. When he saw her scowl at Uncle Chunk as if he were a dirty drinking glass, Baltimore was satisfied that she’d been involved in a slow grind with the older man that ended a lot worse than it began. However close to the truth that was, he didn’t see putting that idea in Henry’s head when it was obvious that he was falling for her. “If you ask me, she’s trouble,” said Baltimore, making his way over to the wooden table. He unplugged the illegal phone line in the back room when he needed a certain amount of quiet to collect himself.
Henry eased up to the crack in the door to steal another glimpse at his new acquaintance. “Yeah, well, that might be so, but Estelle’s the kind of trouble I’ve been looking to get into. Oh, here comes Frannie,” he informed Baltimore. Strutting through the crowd, Franchetta stared straight at the thin crease in the door as if she could read Henry’s mind on the other side of it and didn’t approve of his thoughts. “That woman’s got ice water in her veins,” Henry said, turning toward the small table.
“Too bad I can’t say the same for that chippie of yours,” Baltimore said and sighed casually.
As the door swung open slowly, noise from the dance area spilled inside. Franchetta’s lips were pursed, although she tried to conceal her salty disposition. “Hey, fellas, what’s the skinny on tonight? Rain’s threatening to come down like sifted flour, the radio forecaster predicted.”
“I see you made it in alright,” Baltimore joked as he stood to greet her with a cordial embrace and friendly kiss on the cheek.
Franchetta smirked, knowing Baltimore’s heart wasn’t in it. “Yeah, I had the driver drop me right by the front door so’s my sugar wouldn’t melt none.” While amusing herself, Franchetta cast a looming glare at Henry, hiding in plain view. “Henry, is there something between us I need to know about?”
“Nah, I’ve been trying to shake the last time I saw you from my mind,” Henry answered, avoiding eye contact.
“Ooh, Henry Taylor, I do declare…You’re blushing,” she sang pleasantly. “You are one of a kind.”
“Only thing is, ain’t nobody been able to name it yet,” Baltimore offered, looking upside Henry’s head for chasing behind a woman with the wrong kind of composition for his liking.
“Go on now with all of that, Baltimo’,” Henry growled. “I’ma stroll out yonder for a quick look-see. Be back in a jiff.”
“Franchetta, take a load off,” Baltimore said, gesturing with his hand toward the seat opposite the table from his. She smiled as best she could but refused his offer, though not entirely.
“Thanks, but I’ll sit here.” She took the seat closest to him. “I want to get a clear picture of the lie you’re about to tell me.”
“I’ve never kept anything from you unless it was for your own good, but I won’t fix my mouth to hold no lie. You know me better ’n that.” Franchetta lowered her head, feeling a slight bit ashamed of challenging Baltimore’s integrity as a good friend and a man who had been nothing but honest with her in the past. “Here is it, down and dirty.” He was second-guessing himself on the other side of a stone poker face. “Me and a few local boys need to handle something tonight. I want you to work the phone and keep business flowing as usual. It’ll be a might heavier ’cause of the rain, but that’s okay. I’ll be back ’round about midnight. Then we can all go out and have a ball…me, you, Melvina, and Daisy. Hell, Chick can even come along, too, but she’s gotta wash her feet. Yeah, I heard about that.”
A strained chuckle sputtered from Franchetta’s mouth. “We’ve tried dousing them with everything but turpentine already.”
“If it was up to me, I’d have gone for the turpentine straight away. Ain’t too much worse than some funky ass feet,” he mused. He set a stack of writing paper by the phone for Franchetta to arrange hostesses. No sooner had the plug gone into the wall jack than the black rotary phone rang like it had been waiting every second of the past half hour to do so.
“I guess we’re open for business,” Franchetta said, leaning forward to pick up the receiver. “Yes, this is the right exchange,” she said into it, somewhat puzzled. “Oh yes, Baltimore, he’s here.” She pressed the receiver against her chest and shrugged. “Somebody named Ash Can says he needs to speak with you personally and right away.”
Baltimore’s chest tightened when he took the call. “Hi ya, Ash. This is Baltimore. Yep, yep,” he answered in a manner that insinuated he was being purposely secretive and running scenarios around in his head. “Now, I’m counting on you. Give it to me neat. Uhhhh-huh. Are you positive that’s how it is? Yep, we can make that. Alright then. Alright.”
Ash Can gave it to Baltimore straight, with no chaser, just the way he liked it. The big game he’d been asking about had already gotten underway, according to the second-shift men’s room attendant working the lobby. He’d overheard some of the hotel guests getting all worked up over a chance to take some of their competitors’ money, along with a decent amount of their pride to boot. Chances were, the game would continue on deep into the night, but Baltimore wasn’t willing to sit by and wait that long. He couldn’t risk the rain letting up when it served as the perfect seventh man on the job, aiding in their setup and getaway. Even though Ash didn’t mention anything about police protection, Baltimore accounted for the possibility of their interference, nonetheless.
Before Franchetta contemplated how much trouble awaited Baltimore on the other end of that phone conversation, he’d had a short conference with Uncle Chunk and snatched Henry up and away from the woman he didn’t trust. In less time than it took Franchetta to remember how much she loved everything about Baltimore, he was out the rear exit and into a mounting storm.
Two blocks away, in the alley behind an abandoned cotton mill, Henry jiggled opened the padlock on the iron back gate with a crooked piece of metal wire.
“Come on, man. We got to move,” Baltimore insisted as he ducked inside the large warehouse, constructed of little more than rusted tin and rotting lumber. “Chunk’s done put a call in to Pudge by now,” he said. “They’ll be here before long.”
In the meantime, the two men worked diligently, cleaning and inspecting the guns Baltimore had copped from Rascal at the secondhand clothing store. There were two hardly used thirty-eight revolvers, a shotgun, and two stainless-steel forty-five-caliber canons, which Baltimore called persuaders because the mere sight of them often caused the hardest men to back down. Henry wiped the sawed-off double-barrel shotgun with a dry rag. He put it aside so he could open the boxes he’d stored in the corner a couple of hours before. Inside them lay bundles of police-issue raincoats, dark-colored vinyl coverall pants, and black rubber boots. When a car horn sounded after they’d been there nearly forty minutes, Henr
y dashed over to the large iron garage door to open it.
The lights on Pudge’s taxi blinked twice before the car pulled in. Henry secured the garage door once the car cleared the entrance. Louis Strong was the first to hop from the car. He tried to appear calm when he rounded the front fender on the passenger side, but his eyes darted left and right continually, not sure what to expect or what was really expected of him at that point. Dank Battles made his way out of the back door on the driver’s side at the same instance Pudge decided to get out and join the others. Pudge, a whole foot shorter than Dank, put Henry in mind of somebody’s kid brother trying to hang with the big boys. The vast disparity in their sizes almost made Henry laugh, but he didn’t. If they were going to execute a successful job, every man had to pull his own weight despite his physical dimensions.
Rot was the last to climb out of the long sedan. He looked pitiful, like death warmed over, tired and sickly around the eyes. Baltimore noticed right off and decided to keep an eye on the man, who’d likely gone off the wagon. He was likely to come down with a bad case of the shakes before the night was through. A sober drunk was better than one with a snoot full, Baltimore reasoned, so he decided to put his concerns on the back burner for the time being.
“Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,” Baltimore said, with a heaping dose of trepidation when his bunch of scoundrels came across like a ragtag bunch of miscreants. There was no time to go out recruiting a better crew. He had to make his bed with these, although he had a bad feeling about going through with it.
“Yeah, yeah,” Louis replied, after taking a long gander at the guns on display. “We’s ready, too. Y’all sho’ got some fine heaters.”
“Where’re we going, anyway?” spouted Dank. “I need to get me some money.”
After pushing one of the boxes across the cold cement floor, Henry began taking off his damp jacket. “You’ll know when we get there,” he said, as if Dank had said something out of line.
“He’s right, Dank,” Baltimore chimed in quickly, so as not to cause dissension from the outset. “It’s better that we get down to the nuts and bolts and save the where-ats until we understand how the plans are put together for a reason and don’t need to be changed. Now then, Dank, you’ll come inside with me and Henry. Rot, I’ll need you to keep an eye on the side door to the street. Louis, you’ll be posted between the side door and the money room. You don’t let nobody get the jump on us from behind. And, Pudge, course you’ll be the wheelman. When the money bags reach the car, that means it’s time to catch hell outta that place because we’ll be coming out hot.” Each of the men was nodding agreeably. Louis kept an eye on the shotgun because it was bound to speak the loudest if danger reared its ugly head. “Go on and get it, Lou,” said Baltimore, “if you can handle it.”
Louis leapt at the chance, grabbing a handful of shells for backup. After all of the other guns were allocated except for one of the heavy forty-fives, Baltimore whipped out the one he’d taken from Darby Kent the night he and Henry killed him on the train. “I’ll pack this one with that persuader so’s it don’t get lonely. Why on’t y’all get on some of those rain clothes and take a handkerchief from this pack.” He held out a small plastic bag, and each of the men took one as instructed. “Hold on to it until we get around the corner from the spot. Now, let’s load up.” When the men began digging into the boxes with rain gear inside, Baltimore pulled Rot aside so the others couldn’t hear their conversation. “I know this must be hard on you, Rot. Here, take a little nip to settle your nerves.” Without hesitation, Rot accepted the fifth of gin bottle from Baltimore and took a nice swig.
“Thank you, Baltimore. It’s good to see you haven’t changed a bit. You still have a kind heart. I don’t know if I could’ve made it without a li’l taste.”
“I need you to be right on this, Rot. Can I count on you?”
“You can put your life on it,” Rot answered, with a thin remnant of liquor rimming his upper lip.
“I hope so ’cause that’s exactly what I’m doing,” replied Baltimore, before patting him on the back. As the men prepared to take off, Henry opened the garage door for the taxi to pull out of the warehouse. When he returned, wet and a bit musty, Baltimore stared at him to see if he was mentally dialed in or simply going along because of his loyalties. There was nothing but resolve masking Henry’s face as far as Baltimore could tell. Neither of them knew that resolve would be their trump card when the last chip fell.
CHAPTER 11
’ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT
As the taxi idled in the alley a few streets over from the Marquette Hotel, rain began pounding the streets in sheets, like the radio weatherman had forecasted. Baltimore was glad he’d gotten his predictions correct for once. “Now, this is the way it goes,” he announced. “There’s a heap of money piled up on a table in the hospitality suite over at the ’Quette. I know they don’t allow no Negros up in there unless they carrying bags, so we’ll abide like they want us to, only we’ll be carrying ’em out.” Baltimore reached beneath the front seat and pulled out two large canvas mailbags. “C’mon, Pudge, let’s get it over and done with.”
At 11:15, a taxicab with five gunmen packed inside parked along the curb on Holmes. It was as quiet as a cemetery on the lonely one-way side street, while very few cars passed in front of the hotel on Twelfth. “Good. No innocent bystanders to get in the way on our way out,” Baltimore reveled as he peered at the deserted intersection. “Pudge, we’ll be back directly, so keep this old clunker fired up. Dank, Henry, I got only two things to say before we go in. Don’t hesitate to shoot, but only if we have to, because there will be some men whose families will stop at nothing to catch us if one of them was to get killed.”
“That’s only one thing, Baltimore,” answered Dank, with a perplexed expression. “What’s the other one?”
Baltimore held up his handkerchief and then folded it diagonally. “Don’t be stupid,” he responded casually as he slipped it on to conceal his face. “Tie ’em on now. Let’s get this show on the road.” Just before the men piled out of the car and stepped into the puddles on the sidewalk, Baltimore checked both of his guns again and flashed a glare at Pudge. “If this car ain’t here when I get back, you’d better keep on driving all the way to hell.” He didn’t wait on a reply after making his point crystal clear.
Dressed in dark, police-issued garb from head to toe, and with handkerchiefs tied just below their eyes, they exited the car one by one. Henry found the side door unlocked, just as Ash Can had promised it would be. He cracked it open, peeked in, and waved for the others to come forth. Dank and Baltimore eased inside. So far the coast was clear. There was no one to be seen. The well-made plans had been discussed in strict detail, and the time had come to follow them to the letter.
Rot, just about evenly tempered after that quick hit of gin, was as steady as he was going to be. Louis climbed the backstairs behind the other three, who were going after the cash. He stopped halfway up the second flight, where he could tiptoe and see if anyone was coming down the long corridor. Baltimore signaled that that was the perfect place to stay put, but close enough to help mow someone down if it came to that.
Moving in formation, as if rehearsed, Henry and Dank followed closely behind their leader, with their guns drawn. Baltimore crept along the wall in the direction of the hospitality suite situated in the middle of the second-floor hallway. His heart raced faster as adrenaline filled his veins.
With each step he took, the uncertainty of what awaited on the other side of that wall intensified, although he couldn’t allow that to deter him. If he wanted to shake that bad luck shadow for good, he’d need money to cinch it. With the right amount in his hands, Baltimore figured to change his luck for a long while. He’d climbed off of that train to make it happen. This was his chance to redirect his fate, and there’d be no turning back.
Directly outside of the door leading into the suite, Baltimore motioned for Henry and Dank to stand on either side of it whi
le he rapped on it three times. It wasn’t that he knew of any friendly signal; three knocks had always gotten him into any speakeasy he wanted in, so he went with it. The door opened quickly as a thin, neatly dressed white man wearing a gray suit saluted his contemporaries, with a contented grin and a stiff drink in his hand.
“Night, fellas,” the white man hailed loudly. “I’m going up to spend some of my winnings with a choice piece of jigaboo tail that bellboy ordered up for me.” With the door wide open and cigar smoke clouding the room, he failed to read the eyes of the men inside, who saw reason to be alarmed. “Why the dirty looks?” he asked, totally unaware. “These nigger bitches are supposed to be cleaner than a Safeway chicken.” The cocktail he held flew into the air when Baltimore kicked him square in the behind with the sole of his rubber boot.
“What in the hell is this, Horace?” asked one the older men seated at the poker table. “You said this was a safe game.” Not one of the other seven men inside the room moved a muscle. They simply gawked, with their mouths hung open, at what appeared to be three renegade colored policemen.
“It’s okay, Mr. Greenly. This must be some sort of prank,” the one called Horace surmised, standing up from the dip he’d worn into the love seat. “Right, guys? Isn’t this a joke?”
“Hell, nah, it ain’t!” Baltimore shouted, giving the room a once over to see if there was anyone hiding. What he did discover was a bigger stack of money than he’d witnessed on the train, possibly twice as much. This was the jackpot, and soon he would walk away with it, barring no one tried to stop him. “I want everybody to get up, shake your pockets out on the table, and then step away from it.” When no one acted as if they were going to comply, Baltimore cocked the forty-five and shoved the canon in the face of the one they called Horace. “I’m not in the mood to say it again.”