“I—”
“You’re going to make some kind of call. If you make the right one, you’ll see I’m a man who tells the truth about who his friends are. If you make the wrong one, you’ll find out something else about me. When I come back, you tell me if you still want more money for that space, okay?”
* * *
1959 October 03 Saturday 16:22
* * *
“That was Nat,” Beaumont said, hanging up the phone.
“What could he want?”
“He said Dett used my name.”
“Well, he should, shouldn’t he? You were the one who sent him to Nat.”
“I’m not saying he did anything wrong. I’m just a little surprised. Nat was trying to shake Dett down for a few extra bucks. You’d think Dett would just pay it; what’s the big deal?”
“I don’t know.”
“Me, either. But what Nat really wanted was for me to be sure to tell Dett he called. Can you make any sense out of that?”
“I think he did something that scared the hell out of Nat,” Cynthia said. “And that’s not such an easy thing to do.”
* * *
1959 October 03 Saturday 22:22
* * *
“You got a name?”
“I’m the man who sent your boss the letter.”
“Oh. The cute guy. What d’you want now, pal?”
“I want to speak to your boss. Just like I said the last time I called.”
“The boss isn’t going to talk to some punk hustler. There’s a hundred ways you could have gotten that license.”
“You talking for your boss? Or are you just talking?”
“You’ll never know, pal.”
“Okay, messenger boy. Tell your boss I won’t be using the mail to deliver the next package.”
“Hey! If you—”
* * *
1959 October 03 Saturday 23:45
* * *
“What’d he look like?” Rufus asked Silk. The two men were in the back booth of a sawdust-floored juke joint, walled off from the other patrons by three men who stood in a fan around them, facing out.
“Like any of your regular hillbillies, man. Kind of tall, but not no giant. Slender, but not skinny. White skin, but not ex-con color. He just . . . average-looking, I guess. Not the kind of man leaves an impression. Except for his eyes.”
“What color?”
“I couldn’t even tell you, brother. Not in the light we was in. But it’s not the color, it’s the look.”
“Like nobody’s home?”
“That’s it! Even when he smiled—”
“And he gave you those?” Rufus asked Silk, looking down at the pimp’s open palm. “Just gave them to you?”
“You know what they are?”
“Looks like a pair of gold dice. With little diamonds where there’s supposed to be dots.”
“Solid gold, brother. Real diamonds. You never heard of these?”
“Supposed to be some kind of good-luck charm?” Rufus asked, his mind flashing to an image of the mojo Rosa Mae had described.
“You know how the greaseballs be moving in on our policy banks?”
“Our banks?”
“You know what I mean, man,” Silk said, deliberately not taking offense. “The numbers game is a colored thing. Always been. We invented it. Got a whole big industry behind it: dream books, charms, stuff like that. Naturally, Whitey sees us making some money, he wants it for himself.”
“You got me all the way over here so you could tell me that?”
“I know you don’t feature me, man. Behind what I do.”
“I don’t care what you do,” Rufus said. “I care about what you are. You’re a black pimp, that’s okay. What I got to find out is what comes first. Black, or pimp.”
Silk leaned back in the booth. He lit a cigarette with a small gold lighter. Half-closed his eyes. “Young boys, they think being a pimp takes a steel cock. What it takes is a steel mind.”
“Uh-huh.”
“They think it’s the perfect job, what I do,” Silk went on, unruffled. “All the free pussy in the world. What they don’t know is, there’s no such thing as free pussy. You pay, one way or the other.”
“Why you telling me all this?”
“Outsiders, they don’t understand The Life,” the pimp went on as if he had not been interrupted. “They think a whore’s a cold-blooded cunt. Like a slot machine—you slide in the money, and they open up. You want to know the truth? To be a high-class working girl, like the kind I got, you have to believe in love. That’s what they get from me. That’s what I pay with. See, a real mack, he knows everything comes from here,” Silk said, touching his temple in the same spot Dett had with his .45. “I talk for a living. I’m not going to do that with you. I came here to show you something. You don’t want it, I’ll just—”
“Something besides these trick dice?”
“Those dice are famous, man. Maybe not where you live, but every player this side of St. Louis knows them. Belong to Brutus Farley, king of the Cleveland policy game. That’s where I came up, Cleveland. Back then, the whole East Side belonged to Brutus. That policy money made him too rich for anyone to touch. He had all kinds of legit businesses. Colored businesses. Barbershops, liquor stores, gas stations. Owned him some apartment buildings, too. Word is, Brutus got his stake rolling bones; that’s what he started his bank with. Those were his lucky dice, man. He always carried them with him, wherever he went.”
“You’re sure those are the same ones?”
“Brutus always had men around him,” the pimp continued, ignoring the question. “Not collectors—you don’t need muscle to collect for numbers—bodyguards, like. He had a pair of motherfuckers so ugly make a gorilla run back into the jungle, he see them. Huge boys. Carried so much iron they clanked when they walked, too.
“A few years ago, Brutus disappears. Him and his two bodyguards. For a while, some of the people under him was able to keep things together, run the bank. But they couldn’t hold it. Now you still got a numbers game in Cleveland. And you still got our people working as runners. But the wops own it.”
The pimp puffed lightly on his cigarette. “Nobody ever knew what happened to Brutus,” he said. “Some people say he had enough money, he just went someplace else, live out the rest of his life in peace. Some say he’s laying in the cut, waiting to make a comeback. But it was on the drums that he got done, and that’s what most people believe.”
“You think this guy, the one who snatched you, he did that?”
“Where else he get those dice, brother? You know him, right? You said he staying at your hotel. What do you think?”
“He’s . . . he’s kind of a nice guy. Real gent.”
“He was nice to me, too. Polite and everything. Kept his voice soft. But I’ll tell you this, Brother Omar. You don’t like what I do, but you know what it take to do it. My game, it is game. All game. You got to play people like a violin. Know what strings to stroke. And you can’t play them unless you can read them. This guy, what’d you say he called himself . . . ?”
“Walker Dett.”
“Yeah. I know he go by a lot of different names, but I never heard that one for him before.”
“What are you talking about, man?”
“You ain’t going to catch me saying his name out loud, brother. Not his real name—that’s the worst kind of bad luck there is,” Silk said fervently. “I never thought I’d ever see him, not with my own eyes. But I always knew he’d be a white man.”
* * *
1959 October 04 Sunday 00:06
* * *
Back in his room, Dett extracted a small brass canister from a compartment inside his suitcase. He unscrewed the top and carefully tapped several tiny crimson flakes into the palm of his hand. He licked them delicately off his palm, and immediately drank a full glass of water, swallowing slowly.
Seating himself, he dialed a local number. When it was picked up at the other end, Dett said, �
�That property we talked about? The one with the crawl space up top? I don’t believe I’m going to have an immediate use for it, as I had thought. I need to explore other options. When would be a convenient time for us to meet?”
Dett listened to the response, then hung up.
In the nightstand drawer, he found a local phone book. “Chambers” was a common name in the area. He found two “T. Chambers”es and three “C. Chambers”es. No Tussy, and no Carol. Working slowly through the addresses, Dett finally came to a match with the one Tussy had given him. The phone number was the same, too. Both listed under “Abner Chambers.”
Dett dialed the number.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice, sleepy-soft.
Dett hung up.
* * *
1959 October 04 Sunday 01:10
* * *
“There’s no way I can get that,” Lymon said, the mouthpiece of the telephone receiver cupped protectively in his hand. “I don’t even know when he goes out there to see him, never mind what they talk about.”
“You better get something,” a whiskey-roughened voice said. “If you can’t, you’re not much good to us, are you, then?”
“I already got—”
“—paid, is what you got. Paid good.”
“You know I’m not doing it for money. I’m with—”
“—us? You’re with us, are you? That’s fine, isn’t it? But you’re not a soldier, boyo, you’re a spy. A spy for peace. Remember what you were promised?”
“Yeah. You said there’d be no—”
“—and there won’t,” the voice assured him. “We’d rather do it peaceful. But we are going to do it. Now, listen to me, my friend. Being with us, that’s not like betting on a horse. It’s not even like riding a horse. You’ve got to be the horse.”
“I am, goddamn it. Haven’t I proved—?”
“All you proved, so far, is that you’re a smart man. Right now, we’d rather have a bloody dummy, if he had some good gen for us, understand?”
“Yeah. I’ll try and—”
“Try hard,” the voice said, its tone matching the last word.
* * *
1959 October 04 Sunday 01:15
* * *
“It’s too risky, boss,” Rufus said.
“Piece of cake,” the man in the driver’s seat of the Chrysler Imperial responded. He was slightly under average height, but his bodybuilder’s physique gave him the presence of a much larger man. “The guy who’ll be doing the search, he’ll already be a guest in that hotel. Checked in, all nice and legal. So, even if someone sees him in the hall, so what?”
“I ain’t worried about nobody seeing him in the hall, boss. Mr. Dett, he comes and goes. There ain’t no regular pattern to him. If he was to walk in and find someone searching his room . . .”
“You let us worry about that,” the man said, pursing his thick lips into a Cupid’s bow.
“Nah, sir. I cain’t do that. That little job is all I have, and I done had it a long time. The man finds out someone got into his room, he gonna know somebody used a passkey.”
“Anyone could pick one of those hotel-room locks.”
“Mebbe so. But how he gonna lock the door behind him when he go?”
“That’s where you come in,” the powerfully built man said. “All you have to do is—”
“I ain’t doing that, boss,” Rufus said, firmly. “Not for no kind of money.”
“Big words,” the man in the driver’s seat said.
“I’m big scared, boss.”
“Look, no job is such a—”
“It ain’t the job, boss. It’s that man I’m a-scared of. You ain’t met him.”
“I met plenty like him,” the bodybuilder said, confidently. “Just a hired gun. They’re the same as whores; they just do different things for their money.”
“If you says so, boss. You knows about things like that. I know you not scared of nothing. But, me, I cain’t do that. I just cain’t. Swear to Jesus. Even if I didn’t get caught doing it, that man would know.”
“He’s a fortune-teller, too?”
“Boss, please. I got another idea. Get you the same thing you want, I promise.”
“I’m listening,” the man said. He spread his hands before him, palms-down, admiring the manicure he’d gotten earlier that day.
“Your man, he just wants to search the room, right?”
“Right.”
“So how about I does it for you, boss? You tells me what you wants me to look for, I tells you if it’s there.”
“Searching a place, that’s no job for a—for an amateur. There’s ways to do it, make sure nobody knows you’ve ever been looking. There’s guys do that for a living, they’re like ghosts. Float in, float out, never leave a trace.”
“I could do it, boss,” Rufus said, eagerly. “It’s not like this the man’s house; it’s a hotel room. Guests, they be expectin’ people goin’ in and out, all the time. You got the maids, the maintenance men, the room-service people. You got—”
The man in the driver’s seat leaned back against the thickly padded cushions, scratched a spot on his dimpled chin. “You’re a good man, Rufus,” he said. “We’ve been doing business a long time. You’re reliable, I know that. You say you’re going to do something, you do it. I can count on you.”
“Thank you, boss.”
“But this here job, no offense, it takes a lot of . . . You got to be able to think, not just do what you’re told—make decisions on the spot.”
“I don’t understand, boss.”
“Yeah. That’s kind of what I’m afraid of. Look, Rufus. Let’s say I ask you to find a little red box in his room, you could do that, right?”
“Sho’!”
“Uh-huh. Now, what if I ask you, just find out what you can about the man, what do you do then?”
Rufus nodded several times, as if pondering the problem before solidifying his thoughts.
“I looks for papers, boss. Papers and numbers.”
“Tell me more,” the man said, a slight posture-shift revealing his heightened alertness.
“Anything with names or numbers on it, that wouldn’t mean nothing to me, I guess. But I figure you would know what stuff like that means.”
The bodybuilder turned to look at Rufus’s earnest face, again noticing that slight yellowish cast in the man’s eyes that had always disconcerted him. Probably got one of those nigger diseases, he thought.
“You’re smarter than you look,” the bodybuilder said. “And that’s a very good thing.”
* * *
1959 October 04 Sunday 02:12
* * *
Buick Roadmaster, four-door hardtop, coral body, with a white roof, Dett thought to himself, watching the empty car. This guy, he’s making enough to afford an Imperial, like his boss, but he’s smart, driving something a step down. Shows respect. They like that stuff.
Dett had spotted the Roadmaster during one of his careful sweeps of what Beaumont had called a “fringe territory.” The target’s car was docked just off a decrepit street lined with storefronts—two liquor stores, a spot-labor joint, a deserted-looking greasy spoon, and a Chinese laundry. Most of the storefronts were empty. Some were boarded up; others forlornly displayed FOR RENT signs in their dirt-encrusted windows.
Before he had located the Roadmaster, Dett had eye-marked a half-dozen teenagers moving along the sidewalk. They were identically dressed in shiny black rayon jackets, with “Hawks” on the back, in gold lettering. The rest of their uniform consisted of gold chauffeur’s caps with black bills, narrow-cuffed jeans, and engineer boots. Garrison belts, with the buckles sharpened, probably some switchblades, Dett thought, dismissing the idea of those kids carrying firearms. The gang moved in a wedge behind their leader, sweeping down the empty sidewalk. As they passed a storefront with black-painted windows, they all moved to the edge of the curb.
They don’t want any part of that place, Dett thought. Must be Dioguardi’s joint. Which means that
’s where the target is now. So his car’s got to be around here somewhere, too. Those kids, they probably keep an eye on it for him. . . .
Dett gave the gang a two-block lead, then slowly followed in their wake. They descended a flight of stairs below street level, and disappeared.
Dioguardi owns that building, Dett calculated. Lets them use the basement for a clubhouse; they watch the street for him. Same as it’s done everywhere.
After a quick glance at his watch, Dett shrugged his shoulders and kept driving, heading for Lambert Avenue. “That’s the dividing line,” Beaumont had told him. “You got white on one side, colored on the other. Only time they cross is to rumble. The white kids are the Golden Hawks; the coloreds call themselves the South Side Kings.”
“You know how big they are?” Dett had asked him.
“The Hawks? Maybe twelve, fifteen of them are real members. But, for a fight, they might get some other white kids to pitch in, even if they weren’t affiliated. The coloreds, it seems like there’s more of them, but I couldn’t tell you for sure.”
I could tell you, Dett had said to himself, thinking of a recent job he’d done in Chicago. But he had only nodded.
A few blocks away, Dett brought his rented Impala to a stop on Lambert, a wide boulevard lined with what appeared to be thriving businesses on both sides. The DMZ, he thought to himself, noting the pair of black-and-white patrol cars down the block. The cars were pointed in opposite directions—one parked at the curb, the other blocking an oncoming lane of late-night traffic—as the drivers discussed something through their opened windows.
As Dett watched, another prowl car loomed in his rearview mirror. Three in five minutes, he thought. A few blocks south of here, I didn’t see one in over an hour.
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