The Legend of Johnny Hustle: The Come Up

by Zach Tate

  The phone picked up on the first ring. Someone said, “Yo?”

  “Hey, Webb? I need you to come see me right now, man.”

  In a voice filled with concern he said, “Duke? What’s wrong with you, fam? What’s wrong, fam?”

  “Dude tried to rape my daughter, man.”

  “What? I ain’t know you had a daughter? Where he at, fam? Where he at?”

  “Right here.”

  “Right there? Right there-right there?”

  “Yeah. He knocked out. I don’t know what to do with him.”

  “I do. The cocksucker. Give me your address, fam, give me your address.”

  I gave him the address and room number to the Carter. I put the receiver down for a new dial tone and called Mrs. Walker. I told to her I wanted Mimi to be in her custody until she could find a decent home for her. I told her that if I found out that Mimi was placed in a home where she could be harmed, or at some other agency, I would do my best to kidnap her, and no one would ever see us again. I then offered her $15,000. She told me to keep my money, and that she was on her way.

  $$$

  Thirty minutes after I hung up the phone, there was a knock on the room door. Webb and his crime partner were standing there. I wasn’t surprised to see them, but when I saw a red gasoline can, a fire extinguisher from the hotel lobby, and a large paper bag in his hand, I was alarmed.

  “Move out the way, fam; where he at?” asked Webb. “Where he at?”

  The small bathroom was right in front of the room door.

  “You sure you want to see this, homey?” Jason asked with a large nap-sack on his back.

  I nodded. Jason shrugged his wide shoulders as if to say, “Have it your way.” He handed me one knee high stocking. He opened another pack of stockings, handed Webb one leg, and slipped on a pair of Isotoner gloves. Together they slipped the stockings over their faces, so I did the same. Webb slipped on his gloves while Jason used a hotel towel to wipe down every surface that their hands touched.

  Once the two masked men were prepared, a roll of silver duct tape was removed from Jason’s knapsack. He stepped into the bathroom when the man stirred again. I saw a flurry of blows that reminded me of the right way to throw a punch. He then stuffed the man’s mouth with a wash towel, and duct taped it shut.

  Webb got excited when he placed a nylon drawstring around the man’s wrist. He opened every window while Jason was out in the hallway doing the same. Webb removed the shower curtain and all other fabrics from the bathroom. With a twist of the chrome handle, the cold shower had the man awake.

  A pair of bulging eyes surfaced when the man saw three masked figures in the small space with him. His pleading eyes looked all around, and when Jason whispered, “Rape is a very bad thing,” the moans seeped through the splinters of duct tape.

  Like a psychoanalyst, or a serial killer, Jason sat on the side of the tub next to the man’s face and continued.

  “It disempowers the victim and there is no rebound. You steal a piece of their humanity and rob their innocence. Unlike other robberies, where the victim can be compensated by coping with the situation when money is replaced, a rapist always leaves his mark, and the victim stays a victim.”

  “Duke—duke, you always talking duke…enough of the talking!” Webb yelled at Jason. Webb looked down at the man in the tub. “I’ma do you like I did the last cock-sucker that wanted to rape me.” With rage in his eyes, Webb looked over at us and barked, “Back up—back up!”

  He sprinkled gasoline on the man’s body from his waist down. He lit the gasoline with a long thin light stick. The flames danced. The man screamed, and probably begged for mercy, but the thick gag of tape silenced his muted howling.

  While the heat removed the top layer of the man’s skin, Jason looked down at him.

  “It’s no use. The only way you can be stopped is if we remove your nuts and that’s…”

  “Duke—duke, put it out duke. Put it out! Then talk.”

  Jason moved suddenly. He remembered that he held the fire extinguisher. The cold foam that left the small nozzle was the only hope for the man. His heavy breathing and shallow tears found no compassion. Jason was just warming up.

  “Those tears. Those tears are the same tears your little victims shed when you are penetrating the unpenetrable. Each inch of your foul being seeps into crevices that were made for the pure, now you…”

  Webb didn’t speak; he just poured more gasoline on top of the man’s crotch. The smell of burnt flesh saturated the room. The man trembled, looking down at his organ peel its intricate layers. Webb said, “Look, you slimy foul piece of shit. Look down—look down, see what you’re—”

  Webb looked at Jason and me. “I’m done with this cock sucker.” He slowly poured a gasoline trail from the freak’s crotch up to his face so the flames would dance and singe his eyes.

  I ran out of the room. Every bit of food in my stomach erupted out of me, into a small wastebasket. I could hear Webb laughing at me while Jason sprayed the flames out.

  I thought of how my nephew had left my sister’s house at twelve years old. A man smacked her and Webb killed him. He was never charged with the homicide, but Child Welfare got involved with the case, based on the rumors of his Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn neighborhood.

  Instead of going to live with a foster family, separated from his eight siblings, Webb moved into the apartment of a drug addict couple in Queensbridge Projects. He used his street smarts and started paying rent at that early age. Rumor has it that the husband tried to rape Webb; they later found him floating in the East River. Not long after, the wife disappeared without a trace; Webb still occupied her apartment.

  While wiping the vomit from my shirt, I was convinced that the cold world of poverty shaped my nephew and there was nothing I could do about it. They both stepped into the room and Webb barked, “Cock-sucker still breathing.”

  Jason removed boxes of kitchen sized garbage bags from the paper bag and handed one to Webb. Webb walked into the shower and slipped the bag over the man’s head. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Instantly, the guns appeared. I went too far. In an effort to stop a massacre from going down, I told the mask pair to wait. I removed my mask, closed the bathroom door, and answered the knock.

  “Some-ting burn-hing?” It was Lee. When he saw me he said, “Oh, Mister Hustle? Lady upstairs with Suki looking for you.”

  From the way I suspiciously crept out of the room and closed it behind me, Lee caught on and walked back to the lobby. I reopened the door and told Webb and Jason to be cool. I didn’t want Mrs. Walker to get wind of what was going on.

  As I climbed the stairs to the third floor, I realized that my clothes smelled like burnt flesh. There was no way for me to change my clothes, because everyone was in my room. The light bulb went off in my head. I took the steps two at a time back down to the first floor where I opened Kimmy’s room.

  “Damn, you scared the hell out of me,” she said while holding her swollen face. “That dope is some gooood shit. It not only knocked me out, but it felt like somebody kicked the shit out of me.”

  I told her to get Mimi’s things together. Then I used her phone to call my room. When Suki picked up, I made it seem like Kimmy was being cooperative and that Suki and the social worker should come down and pick up all of her clothes. Then I told Suki to hurry; I knew I could depend on her to leave my room immediately.

  Back up the steps I went. When I reached the third floor, I put my ear to the room door and heard nothing. I raced in, threw my clothes in the wastebasket, and took a quick shower. After the shower, I quickly dressed into a suit and tie and raced down to the lobby. Suki, Mimi, and Mrs. Walker were coming out of the elevator. They must have been getting along. Mimi had a smile on her face.

  I feigned a smile while looking around the lobby for Lee. I didn’t want to leave the two killers up in the hotel unoccupied, but Lee was no where in sight. In front of Mrs. Walker, I started tapping my pockets like I left something in my roo
m and then excused myself while taking the steps two at a time.

  I knocked on the first floor door. It was cracked and I stared at the nozzle of a .45 Colt auto-magnum. Jason was on the other side of the gun. He lowered it when he saw me. I stepped in the newly crowded room. Lee was down, lying on his stomach with his hands behind his head. Webb was on the bed with a silenced .22 Magnum at the side of the Lee’s face.

  “You know duke, fam? Said he know you. Said he know you, fam. Said we going about the fat man all wrong.”

  I looked on the bathroom floor and saw the pedophile wrapped from head to toe in garbage bags and duct tape. My stomach flipped again and I got dizzy.

  “What you want us to do with this guy?” Jason asked with his gun pointed down at Lee.

  “Let him up.”

  Instantly the guns disappeared.

  “Thank you, thank you Miss-er Hustle. I try tell dees two that body go in bag after you chop-chop,” Lee said while making chopping motions with his hands. “Lee right back. I show you how to chop Yankee, okay?”

  I was the only sane man in the room. With my approval, Webb and Jason allowed Lee to leave, but protested that he was a witness and that he may not come back. To be honest, I wanted to leave and didn’t want to go back. But in what seemed like three minutes, Lee was back. He carried a large tool bag. When he told Webb and Jason to put the man back into the tub, and pulled out a three-foot hack saw, it was time for me to go. On the way down to the lobby, I was sure the three of them would get along.

  $$$

  I reached the lobby and explained to Mimi that she was going with Mrs. Walker. She asked me to come with her. Mrs. Walker spelled out to me the words so that Mimi wouldn’t understand. She let me know that she was going to take her home, and once Mimi went to sleep, that I could take a cab back down to the hotel. I agreed, and we both stepped outside and jumped into her girlfriends BMW.

  The ride to Co-op City in the Bronx was a short one. When we arrived, Mimi was already asleep. I took the ride to the thirteenth floor just in case she awoke and didn’t see me there. The apartment was immaculate, and I immediately felt secure that Mimi was in safe hands. Mrs. Walker informed me that she was going to use every connection she had for Mimi to be placed with a woman named Mother Happy at the Happy House in Harlem. She told me that Mother Happy took in children who had drug addicted mothers, and that Mimi would fit the criteria by the time she was done.

  Good-byes were said. I made, and kept, my promise of going to check up on Mimi, and then the hustle got to me in whole different way.

  $$$

  When I returned to the Carter, Webb and Jason were gone. Lee was in the first floor room scrubbing the bathroom. When he saw me he smiled. I wasn’t about to even ask what happened to the body or my nephew.

  I smelled the lemon fresh cleaning fluid Lee used, and knew that no matter how packed the hotel ever got, no one would ever occupy that room again.

  In an effort to put my conscious to rest, I left Lee in the room and went to see Proverb. I took a $10,000 withdrawal, and walked back to the hotel where I gave a happy Lee every cent.

  Before I was able to head to my room to figure out the changes in my life, Kimmy stopped me in the hallway. Her face was swollen, and she had on a windbreaker like she was going somewhere.

  “Some Jamaican bitch just came and took your little play thang.” She felt she was informing me. “I know you probably mad, but that was a blessing for me. Now I ain’t got to share a dime of my money with them little heifers, and I can get tore up without a soul messing with my high.”

  I did enough damage for the day. I looked at Kimmy and took the stairs to my room.

  $$$

  For three weeks I didn’t leave my room. I was in a deep depression. My sense of meaning was taken away. I was filled with guilt, and didn’t know where my life was heading. A few of the other hustlers came by asking for me, but I told Suki to send them away. I called Webb and told him where he and Jason could find Phil with bills clocking cash. I felt like I owed Keiki that much. During those weeks I had died a little more, and my heart became bitter, so nothing really mattered.

  Roxy came by and told me that she wanted permission to turn tricks for me in the bar. She told me that since the day she had sex with me, that she was dedicated to me. She explained that since I was in the room and not hustling, that she was going to do her part to make sure I was all right, but only if I approved. I cursed her and kicked her out of my room.

  I blamed Suki for the sexual attempt on Mimi. She had let me down and broke my heart. Everyday while I was in that room, I verbally abused her and pushed her away. I planned on blocking the world out, until one morning there was a knock at my door. I opened the door and a slim Black man with a huge White man was standing there in suits.

  “You the man they call Johnny Hustle?” The White man asked while the Black one had a gun out.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “Smart ass, huh?” He pulled out a badge. “My name is Detective Vance,” he pointed to the black man with his thumb. “This is Detective Jackson. We want you to come down to the station regarding a missing person.”

  My heart was ready to jump out of my chest. In an effort to stop my leg from shaking, I said, “I ain’t missing nobody, and I know nobody ain’t missing me.”

  The Black officer pointed his gun at me. “Hey dick-head, get dressed. We going down to the station.”

  Of course, I was in the Midtown South precinct again, but that time I had no cuffs on my wrists. The men walked me to a small glass encased interrogation room and sat me under a light. I thought they only did that in the movies, but those two jokers were dead serious.

  “Listen, we got a tip that you know the whereabouts of one Tom O’Brien,” said Officer Vance.

  “He was last seen at the Carter Hotel by his co-workers who was there for a plastic-ware convention in New York. When the time came for him to show up for a flight to Phoenix, he was a no-show,” Officer Jackson added.

  “He has a history of abducting small children. We thought he was kiddy hunting and loved what New York had to offer, so we didn’t think anything on a homicide level. It still hasn’t reached that far yet, but then a reliable source told us that he had a problem with your daughter, and he never walked out of the hotel,” Vance said.

  After slamming his chair to the ground and getting in my face, the Black officer said, “Listen, dirt bag. We know you had something to do with the disappearance of the man. So tell us what you know, and we can cut a deal. Make it light on yourself right now.”

  The hustler was reborn. I was in deep trouble and the pressure was on. Every bit of schooling Yoda gave me was energizing my body. I knew my fate depended on the next few words that came out of my mouth. That voice in my head rose to the occasion and said, Action.

  I sat up straight, looked the White officer in the face. “My name is Harold Dinkins. First cousin to David Dinkins. You know, that Black man that’s about to be mayor in two weeks? Yeah, well, I’ve spent my summer in the Carter Hotel because I am doing a survey funded by the Midtown Enforcement Project, who’s interested in, and spent tons of capital to revitalize the Times Square area.”

  I folded my legs while fixing my tie. “To get intimate with the true mechanisms of what elements are destroying the city, I sought out the predators of crime so that my cousin can properly rid the city of such scum. I told these predators that my name was Johnny Hustle in an effort to bond, befriend, and investigate their recalcitrant patterns. Evidently one of these rouges is onto me and sent you to do what you are doing, because I am gay and I don’t have a daughter.”

  The officers almost blew a gasket when they heard that.

  “Nevertheless gentlemen, feel free to give me a polygraph-lie detector test. Along with attaining a search warrant for my room, or every room for that matter, in the effort to detect forensic evidence.”

  I stood and pointed to Officer Vance. “Better yet, you Mister White man. Why don’t you bea
t a confession out of me? This way I can contact my legal council. She can contact the PBA, CCRB, NBC News, the Theater Group and, of course my cousin, your next mayor, Mr. David Dinkins. Please arrest me, I’m begging you to.”

  They both stood after that one. Their emotions were so high that they forgot that I was in the room. The White officer argued with the Black one about letting me go. Then in what should have been a whisper, Jackson said, “Russ ain’t gonna give me a bad tip. He never has. This guy is lying. You’re making a mistake on this one.”

  I said, “Gentlemen, I’m waiting for the cuffs, let’s make this quick so that I can make my phone call.”

  The White officer took a deep breath, opened the door, and said, “Get the hell out of here before my partner loses his job over you.”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. I hightailed it out of that precinct. I wasn’t going to wait around for them to see that they were turned into marks and fell for a short con. I couldn’t believe they went for it. I caught a cab to the Deuce, and came to the conclusion that I was a bigger threat to the hustling community than I thought. I hadn’t done anything for Money Russ to send the police my way, but I planned on laying low and being cautious for awhile.

  When I exited the cab on the Deuce, I went into Proverb’s shop. I made another withdrawal of $10,000, and I headed to my new destination. Roxy was on my mind. I needed to make some cash. I was spending money too fast, and where I was going, I was sure she would have no problem following me.

  My life had changed for the worst with Keiki’s death. It changed with losing Mimi, and it changed with the death of Tom O’Brien. The next change that I was going to make was one I controlled.

  Meet Zach Tate

  Zach Tate is the critically-acclaimed, #1 best-selling author of the classic novels, No Way Out, Lost and Turned Out and The Legend of Johnny Hustle. He is the Maestro behind some of the best penned and most popular novels across many genres and is known as the “Ghostwriters Ghost Writer” for his ability to create authors who are living legends from his words and epic storytelling. Zach Tate comes well-equipped with a healthy dose of authentic storytelling complete with everything his loyal readers have come to expect from him. Born in the Bronx, New York and raised by the hard knocks of life, he’s reemerging with a mission to bring back quality stories full of substance. In his partnership with award-winning author and publishing mogul, Elissa Gabrielle, Zach Tate will release his catalog under “The Imprint” beginning in 2015. A writer of screen and stage plays, poetry, songs, novels and television shows, Zach wears the crown as King of Fiction proudly. He currently resides in North America, where he is building a legacy, enjoying the fellowship of his readers and working on the next big thing.