Thin Walls: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  Leather Jacket let out a small whistle. Glasses shook his head. Charles crossed his arms.

  “We can’t do nothing about that, man,” Goatee said.

  “You can remove your stuff,” I said.

  “We don’t got stuff there,” Leather Jacket said.

  “At least that’s what Reverend Fry thinks,” said Glasses, and they all laughed. I didn’t.

  “I don’t care what you do with the information,” I said, “but I know what I’d do.”

  “Take care of your stuff,” Goatee said.

  I shook my head. “I’d have the church defend its own property. I’d make sure they know about the threat. They’re not too happy about the last time the cops raided.”

  “Hell, there’s still bullet holes in the damn walls,” Charles said.

  “So let the church take care of it. They can use legal means to keep the police out. You can’t. All you guys have to do this weekend is stay as far away from the church as possible.”

  Goatee tilted his head while I was talking, his small brown eyes assessing me. “You got brains, old man.”

  I shrugged.

  “How’d we know this ain’t no setup?” he asked.

  “Don’t do anything and see,” I said.

  He nodded his head, then smiled a little. “You know, sometimes the cost of protection goes up.”

  This was exactly one of my fears. If they liked my information, they would want more of it.

  “I would expect that,” I said.

  “Just so’s you know.”

  “And just so that you know,” I said. “I’m not going to become your representative. If I overhear things, like I did this last time, that’s one thing. But I’m not going to do any work for you. I may come back if I hear something, and that’s it.”

  “You got strict rules, old man.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I do.”

  “You know we could shoot you where you stand and no one’d care.”

  “A few people would care,” I said. “But you’re right. No one would touch you for the murder.”

  “Jesus,” Malcolm whispered.

  “So why ain’t you scared?” Goatee asked.

  “Right now, I’m too much trouble to kill. Especially with the Gang Intelligence Unit outside.”

  “They your protection?” He sounded surprised, maybe a little betrayed.

  “Not in the way you think,” I said. “They’re looking for any excuse to shut you down. If they hear gunshots coming from this place, they’ll be inside before you can dispose of my body. They’d go after the Main 21, and you know it. So I feel pretty safe this afternoon.”

  “What about tonight?” Goatee asked.

  Voices shouted in the main room and all four of the Stones turned toward the door. They had their pistols out as the doors opened.

  Twelve men walked in, carrying rifles and wearing ammunition belts over their shoulders. They were dressed like a military cadre: black leather jackets, black pants, and black turtlenecks. The black berets—worn rakishly down one side of their heads—marked them as Black Panthers.

  “Shit,” Malcolm said, so softly that I was the only one who heard him. I grabbed his arm and pulled him close.

  I scanned the Panthers for familiar faces and thought I saw a few from the meeting where I’d met Epstein. But Fred Hampton wasn’t with them, and neither, it seemed, were any of the men who’d been on stage with him.

  More Stones piled into the room, pointing their weapons at the Panthers. I hadn’t seen this much artillery in one place since Korea.

  “We come for Mr. Jeff Fort,” one of the Panthers said.

  “You don’t belong down here,” Goatee said.

  “We come in the spirit of brotherhood,” one of the other Panthers said. “Chairman Fred Hampton wants to talk to you about joining the revolution.”

  “Shit, man, how stupid are you?” Glasses asked. “We don’t give a flying fuck about no revolution.”

  “Hey, man,” said the first Panther. “We’re stronger together than we are separate. If we band together, build our own city out of these thin walls, then we can take down the white enemy, bring him to his knees.”

  I inched Malcolm backward, toward the side of the stage. No one was watching us. They were keeping the guns trained on each other.

  “Enemy ain’t always white,” Leather Jacket said, glaring at the Panthers.

  “It’s the white capitalist system,” said one of the Panthers.

  “Born of slavery,” said another.

  “We can’t let them continue to oppress us,” said a third.

  “We ain’t oppressed,” Glasses said.

  I wondered how he could say that with a straight face. Then I realized the gang was their protection against oppression. They grouped together and saw themselves as powerful. And right now, the threat to that power was the Panthers, not the cops.

  Malcolm was right. We were in trouble. And I wasn’t sure how to get us out of it.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “CHAIRMAN HAMPTON wants to have a meeting with Mr. Fort and the Main 21. He wants to discuss an alliance with them, not with you.” The Panther spokesman, who seemed both older and taller than the others, spoke slowly, as if he didn’t expect the Stones in front of him to understand.

  Malcolm and I were close to the stage. The twelve Panthers stood in a semicircle, some with their backs pressed against each other’s, near the door we’d come in. More and more Stones surrounded them.

  “I don’t care what your man wants,” said Goatee. “We don’t make alliances. Either you with us or you against us. That’s all. Nothing more. You don’t need Jeff for that.”

  Another door banged open and in the room behind the Panthers, screaming and shouting started, along with the sounds of crashing furniture and breaking glass.

  “C-o-o-ops!” someone screamed.

  The Panthers bolted through the main door, knocking down the Stones in their path. Their movements were so quick they caught everyone by surprise. There was more shouting from the front of the building.

  Some of the Stones moved to the wall behind the door, holding their pistols ready.

  I pushed Malcolm ahead of me. He nearly tripped climbing the stage. He ran for the backstage area and I followed.

  Strangely, the shouting was louder here. The stage opened into the hallway we’d entered through—and beyond that, I could see the main room. There had to be twenty-five police in uniform grabbing at Stones, looking in their faces, and then throwing them aside.

  The cops weren’t here to raid the Stones; they were after the Panthers.

  There were no Panthers in sight. I supposed they had gone out through the pawnshop, but I wasn’t certain. Cars started up outside, engines roaring, and I hoped no one was stealing my ancient Impala.

  “Smoke!” Malcolm called. He’d found the back door. He peered through the glass window. “There’s a cop out there.”

  I looked. Sure enough, a black cop in uniform guarded the back, his hand on the butt of his gun.

  We couldn’t go out the front because of the cops and Stones, we couldn’t go out the pawnshop because of the Panthers and all their firepower. Our only hope was the back door.

  My mind worked furiously. The only advantages we had were my age and the element of surprise. Twenty-five cops. That meant a lot of them had come from various parts of the South Side for this raid.

  “Okay,” I said. “Malcolm, put your hands behind your back like I’ve cuffed you. We’re going to pretend you’re my prisoner and I’m a cop.”

  “He’ll know.”

  “He won’t think about it, not in the amount of time we give him,” I said. “You give me lip, fight just a little, but don’t make it look out of control. Then when I tell you to run, you go for the car. If there are too many cops and weapons out there, you hit the deck. I’ll figure out another way to get us out of here. You clear on this?”

  “I think so,” he said.

  “Good.”
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br />   He put his hands behind his back and I pulled my gun, making certain the safety was on. Then I put it in the center of his spine.

  “Smoke!”

  “Trust me,” I said, hoping that nothing went wrong.

  Then I pulled the door open and shoved him outside. Cold rain dripped on us, covering us in an icy slime.

  Malcolm started shouting, “You stupid, fucking Oreo! Ain’t you got no sense? You cain’t hold me, man. It ain’t right!”

  The cop at the bottom of the stairs looked startled. He pulled his gun.

  “I got him,” I said. “They need backup inside.”

  He was young, thank God, and he looked confused. “They told me to stay out here.”

  “And you should, you motherfucker!” Malcolm yelled. He was too good at this.

  I shook him to shut him up. It worked for a moment. “Can’t you hear what’s going on around here?” I said to the cop. “It all went to hell. It’s a war in there. They need backup.”

  “Should I call it in?”

  “Shit, no,” I said. “I’ll do that when I put this asshole in the squad. Now, go. Go!”

  Fortunately, the cop didn’t second-guess me. Nor did he look at Malcolm’s hands as he ran into the building. The door banged shut behind him.

  “Let’s go,” I said to Malcolm, lowering my gun.

  “You didn’t say run,” he said as he took off.

  He was faster than I was, and moved with an effortlessness I could only remember. I followed, keeping my gun pointed at the ground because I had just taken the safety off.

  More engines revved as we reached the street. There were two squad cars in front of the building, and the Gang Intelligence Unit van around the corner. But there were no cops outside, and no Panthers either.

  Sirens blared and as I looked up Blackstone, I saw about six squads going after some cars. It looked like a scene out of a movie.

  “What the hell?” Malcolm asked.

  “Get in the car,” I said.

  He didn’t have to be told twice. He got into the Impala and locked the door behind him. I climbed in, too, set the gun on the seat between us, and started the engine.

  No one came out of the building. No one seemed to care that we were taking off.

  “Is this weird?” Malcolm asked.

  “Very strange.” I eased out of the parking space, then made a U-turn, heading away from the chase. In my rearview mirror, I saw two cops leave the Stones headquarters. They didn’t even look at us.

  Some of the Stones came out, too. They looked like affronted citizens, gesturing and pointing. Their guns were gone.

  “You looking at the road?” Malcolm asked.

  I wasn’t. I swerved to get back into my lane.

  I drove several blocks south, then turned on Eightieth, cutting east until I reached State. Then I headed north.

  My heart rate was beginning to slow down.

  “You got the watch?” Malcolm asked.

  It was a warm lump in my pocket. “Yeah.”

  “Was that worth it?”

  “Worth what?” I asked.

  “That confrontation with the Stones. Was it worth the watch?”

  I glanced at him. His skin was gray, and sweat still dotted his forehead. “I was already on their radar, Malcolm.”

  “Yeah, and now they’ll come after you,” he said. “They’re going to think you brought the cops there. Especially since we just vanished.”

  “If that’s what they believe, then they’ll think I did them another favor. The cops weren’t after them. They were after the Panthers.”

  The sound of sirens had faded in the distance. The afternoon had grown dark. The snow-rain mixture was still falling, leaving large, wet splashes on the windshield, splashes that came with ice the size of diamond chips.

  The road was getting slick. I slowed down, hoping my bald tires could handle the weather.

  “So?” Malcolm said. He was still frightened. I had scared him, and I didn’t know how to calm him.

  “I wasn’t lying about the Gang Intelligence Unit van out there. If they’d wanted to come after the Stones, they’d have done so long before the Panthers showed up. Did you see all the cops? They came in squads. Either they followed the Panthers down there or the Gang Squad called this in when the Panthers arrived.”

  “Why?” Malcolm turned to me.

  I shrugged. “Maybe the cops see the Panthers as more of a threat. They certainly talk a tougher game than the Stones.”

  “I still don’t see how all of this will get them to leave Jimmy alone.”

  “They’re not going to mess with us for a while. Recruiting Jim and Keith and anyone related to us is too much trouble right now. It looks like they’re going to have some problems with the Panthers, and they already have problems with the cops. They don’t need us as a minor inconvenience.”

  Malcolm grunted and leaned back in his seat. The color was coming back to his face.

  “You think it’s all done then?” he asked after a moment.

  “For now,” I said.

  “For now?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Like the man said, sometimes the price of protection goes up. I just hope they’ll have forgotten about us by then.”

  “What do you think the chances of that are?” Malcolm asked.

  I smiled at him. “I wouldn’t have gone into that building,” I said, “if I hadn’t thought the chances were pretty damn good.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  ON THE PRETEXT of having to do another interview about the Foster case, Malcolm and I returned the watch to Van Spillars. I’d never seen a happier boy. If he’d been younger, he might have hugged me. As it was, he grinned and bounced around his parents’ yard like a Mexican jumping bean.

  When he finally stopped, he tried to compose himself and act adult. “You just don’t know what my mom woulda done,” he said. “I’d’ve died.”

  As we walked back to the car, Malcolm nodded, once, as if he were having an argument with himself.

  “Okay,” he said after a moment. “You win. It was worth facing all those guns.”

  I grinned at him. Every once in a while, you got a chance to do it right.

  * * *

  That night, we had the neighborhood meeting to determine the children’s after-school education. The meeting was at Franklin’s house because he couldn’t find any function room that would rent space to him this close to Christmas. I’d promised Franklin I would run the meeting since he’d done me so many favors the previous week, and he held me to that promise.

  Fortunately, everyone brought food and no one seemed to care that they had to sit on the floor. I felt crushed in my chair against the wall, next to the television. Althea had opened all the windows, and the cold night air barely managed to make the indoor temperature tolerable. I figured it would only get worse with all those people inside and all the conversation they would generate.

  So much had changed since the week before that I could barely remember what my plans were. Grace Kirkland sat beside me, wearing her best dress and looking regal. Franklin had warned her that her offer to educate the children might be put to a vote—and people might discuss her as if she weren’t there.

  She didn’t care. She wanted to do this.

  Franklin wanted to do it, too, and from the conversations I’d heard as I clawed my way to my chair in the tight corner, so did most of the parents.

  I was the one having trouble. Here I was, forming a neighborhood group dedicated to watching out for its citizens, just like the group in Sinkovich’s neighborhood, like the group I was going after tomorrow near Delevan’s old house.

  I’d managed to get ahold of Johnson, and he’d grudgingly agreed to meet me at my apartment at noon. I still hadn’t completely decided about calling Sinkovich.

  The meeting went better than I expected. A number of people testified to the need for additional education; Grace made a small speech, talking about her son at Yale and her credentials as a teacher, crede
ntials I hadn’t known about when I proposed her for the job. Then I talked about financing. One of the local businesses donated some unused space behind its offices rent free, and we finally agreed to pay Grace on a per-child basis. We set the base fee for each child, which Grace said could be paid either in trade or in cash. Franklin let everyone know that he would be monitoring payments, and he wouldn’t allow anyone to be late.

  When it was all over, I helped the Grimshaws clean up. Then I went upstairs, woke Jimmy up, and drove him home. I should have felt vindicated by how easy that all had been, by the fact that we were actually moving to change something that hadn’t been working.

  But my mind was filled with the next day, the apologies I might have to make and the risks I might have to take. My plan for catching Foster’s killer, which had seemed so fine this morning, now seemed like a lot of effort for a shaky return.

  * * *

  Johnson confirmed the feeling. He arrived at the apartment promptly at noon, did not demand an apology—nor did I—and seemed testy. When I told him the plan, he shook his head.

  “How many times have I warned you, Grimshaw, not to interfere in a police investigation?”

  “This isn’t a police investigation,” I said. “You made that abundantly clear with your little vigilante-justice speech the other day.”

  Johnson glared at me. “There’s a whole number of things I can’t do here. I can’t involve a civilian. I can’t do this without backup. And if I bring in backup, they’ll just screw it up, especially if this perp has machine connections. You can’t convict somebody with machine connections in this town unless the machine wants him convicted or the machine has washed their hands of him.”

  “Last point first,” I said, grabbing my heavy coat. “Our reporter puts the pressure on the machine from outside the city. Second point, you’ll have backup. And third, I’m a ghost. No one’s gonna know I’m involved.”

  “Then you don’t understand a sting, Grimshaw,” Johnson said. “The purpose of the sting is to catch someone in the act of committing a crime.”