by Dale Lucas
Then her uncle was upon her. He snagged a handful of her hair, lifted her head, and forced her to look into his leering, wrinkled old face. His eyes were mad and frightful, his tongue running over his lips.
"Don't you ever run away from me, you—"
And then, Fralene heard something else: heavy footfalls thumping down the staircase from above. She rolled her eyes and jerked her head sideward just in time to see Beau—her little brother Beau—rushing down toward the two of them, a look of confusion and worry on his face.
"Fralene, where the hell's—"
Her uncle looked up at the boy, sneered, then growled as an animal might, teeth clenched, the sound rising out of his chest and gullet.
Beau didn't hesitate—perhaps he couldn't, because momentum was carrying him downward. He slammed right into the two of them, seemed to roll over Fralene where she lay prone on the stairs, then collided with their uncle. In that confused instant, Fralene saw a tangle of limbs, her uncle's hands torn from her blouse and hair, Beau's hands falling on the old man, heard curses and a shout of fright from her younger brother.
Then they went rolling down the last few stairs, a heap of shoulders, elbows, feet and knees. When they hit the foyer floor, Beau was on top. Their uncle wasn't moving.
Fralene forced herself to her feet, using the bannister for support. She descended the last few stairs to the foyer floor and stood above them. Beau was just regaining his senses. He had a bad knot rising on his forehead and some blood trickling from his bitten lip. Under him, Uncle Barnabus stirred a little, but didn't seem capable of waking up.
Beau looked terrified. He stared at their uncle as he struggled to his feet. "I didn't mean to," he said. "I just heard you two yelling. I came to see what was wrong and he had his hands on you and… and… I didn't mean it! You've got to believe me!"
Fralene held Beau's face in her hands. He was seventeen years old, but at that moment, he looked like the scared and frightened child she still thought him to be. "It's alright," she said quietly, trying to control the sound of her voice, to project confidence, control. She was failing miserably. Her own hands were shaking.
"What's wrong with him?" Beau asked.
One of Uncle Barnabus's arms suddenly flopped out, his hand grasping emptily at the air. He muttered something incoherent. Fralene and Beau fell into one another's arms, terrified by the sudden spasm.
But he didn't wake, and he didn't rise. He lay there, still unconscious, breathing shallowly.
"I'll explain while we work," Fralene rasped. "Just help me, Beau. We're going to fix him."
"Get you girl…" Uncle Barnabus muttered, voice slurred and far away.
The danger hadn't passed. He was knocked silly, but he wasn't himself again. Fralene and Beau had to put him away somewhere—lock him up where he could do no harm until she could bring someone who could help him.
"What the hell's wrong with him?"Beau asked.
Fralene disentangled herself from Beau, grabbed one of her uncle's bony legs, then looked to her brother. "Help me," she said.
"Help you do what?" he demanded.
She cocked her head down the hall beside the stairway. "We're taking him to the basement."
11
The ice truck wasn't cool any more. The air was warm and moist, and the rain beating down on the roof reverberated within like the roar of Niagara Falls. It had been Willie's idea to climb in here. All his deliveries for the day were done and the boss—his father—didn't mind if Willie sometimes took the truck for a spin once there was no more block ice. You'll like it, Willie had told Esther. It's dark and cool. Private.
But Esther didn't like it—not one bit. With the two of them squeezed into the dark little refrigeration space, the outer door barely cracked, the air had turned swampy fast. Esther's head was pounding. The darkness and the noise drove her batty, and Willie's not-so-gentle insistence on reaching up under her skirt to yank down her drawers was starting to scare her.
"No," she said again. "We can pet, all right? But you ain't getting' into my knickers, Willie Bunyon."
"Come on," he groaned, and tried to slide his hand up there again, ragged nails raking her bare legs. He got one hand on her drawers and yanked again. Esther tried to wriggle away from his hand, but he only yanked harder. She heard something tear and tried to pedal out from under him, legs scrambling for purchase.
"That ain't right, Willie," she said. "That ain't right at all—"
"Baby, you know it's right," he murmured in her ear. He then licked her lobe, nibbled it. His probing fingers brushed her privates. The sensation was terrible and exciting all at once—mostly terrible. It all seemed so wrong all of the sudden—laying down here in the back of a damp, empty ice truck with Willie Bunyon rutting and grab-assing atop her.
"You better stop," Esther said.
"Ain't stoppin'," Willie assured her. His hand dove for her privates again.
She locked her legs shut, laid both hands on his chest, and shoved.
Willie was a big, thick fellow. It wasn't easy raising him up. He stared down at her, small, dark eyes narrowed in the darkness.
"Woman, what are you on about?"
"I ain't havin' you manhandle me in this ice truck," Esther said. "I said pettin' and that's all."
"Pet, hell, baby," he said, and there went his hand again, searching under her skirt for the place that he'd uncovered when he tore her panties away. "All we been doin' is pettin'."
She squirmed. Kicked. She wanted to lock her legs again, but she couldn't kick and close all at once.
Her protests seemed to excite him. He set himself atop her, all his weight pinning her, then he reached down with one hand to open his fly. Esther tried to wriggle out from under him, but he really had her now. He dropped one leg between her knees and prized them apart.
"Willie, quit it," she said. She sounded like a child to herself, quavering and fearful.
"Just a little," Willie said, and worked her skirt up with a sweep of his engorged cock. "Just a little bit of sugar, baby—"
The little door to the icebox suddenly swung open. Second-hand street light dulled by falling rain spilled inside. Esther screamed, she was so surprised, and Willie raised his eyes.
"Push on, nigger!" Willie said, not sure who was bursting in on them, but rebuking them with authority just the same.
Esther couldn't see the man in the doorway clearly. The ambient light was too dim and it came from behind him, making him little more than a wall of darkness punched out of the shimmering curtain of rain. The only thing she could see clearly puzzled her.
He wore a top hat.
Then one gloved fist reached into the icebox, snagging Willie by the collar. Willie was dragged bodily off of Esther, kicking and screaming as he went.
Esther scrambled up off her back and onto her knees. She couldn't find her panties in the dark. She did her best to make sure her skirt was down and her blouse buttoned, then dove for the icebox door. It was still swinging on its hinges.
When Esther opened the door and stuck her head through, she saw Willie on his knees in the street, mouth agape, eyes rolling in his brown face like two big stones. The stranger in the top hat loomed over him, Willie's collar in one hand, a big black gun in the other. The gun's muzzle lay firmly against Willie's temple.
Strange as it seemed—even to her—Esther screamed. "Don't hurt him!" she cried, and did her damnedest to scurry out of the icebox. It was tough, negotiating that little portal. When she tried to plant one foot on the rear bumper, she slipped and dinged her other shin hard on the lip of the door. Instead of trying to right herself, she just threw her body forward and landed face-first in the rain-swollen gutter.
The gunman loomed over her. His face was dead white, painted like a skull, and he had a head full of weird braids that flared out from under the top hat like a lion's mane. He glared at her with dark eyes.
"Don't hurt him!" she sobbed, crying as much from the pain of her awkward landing as for Willie's well-being
. "He didn't do nothing!"
"That's right!" Willie chimed. "I didn't do nothing!"
The muzzle of the gun pressed hard against his forehead. "I didn't ask you any questions," the gunman snarled.
Esther threw herself at the gunman's feet. "Please! Please! I'll be good from here on, mister! Just don't hurt him! He don't deserve it, he don't!"
"Yes, he does," the gunman said.
"Please," Esther pleaded.
"Run home, Esther," the gunman said, and Esther thought hearing her name from his lips was the most terrifying sensation she'd ever known.
"What?" she asked.
"Don't you leave me!" Willie said.
"I said, run home," the gunman repeated. "Your mama's waiting. Tell her Willie here got fresh, and you don't think you're gonna see him anymore."
"What?" Willie asked
The gunman turned his dark gaze on Willie. "I wasn't talking to you."
Esther was on her feet, her legs loose beneath her like a couple of licorice whips.
"Please, sir… please."
"Go," he said.
She went, leaving one of her shoes where it lay in the roiling gutter.
XX
Ace Fincher emerged from the basement into a dim, rain-beaten alley. He supposed he should be worried about the lousy weather—maybe even button his overcoat—but neither the chill, the rain nor his health were concerns at the moment. He had pretty big knot of mazuma in hand—over a grand if he counted right—so his first order of business wasn't buttoning up or taking shelter from the rain: it was getting the hell out of Harlem, before somebody dry-gulched him and took it on the lam with his scratch.
Ace came uptown because he knew two or three of the seats at Rondo's game would be occupied by high-rollers prone to crash-and-burn gambling binges. One of them, Fitzwilliam Jones, a.k.a. Fitzy, was a small-time con man and some-time pimp who'd been downtown just the night before. Fitzy had lifted a bundle off a drunk Mick in Danny Doll's gang. Word had it Fitzy had started shooting his mouth off before he even made it back uptown, gum-flapping to a back room croupier, a speak-tender, and a nigger hack about how he'd taken one of those Hells Kitchen 'tater-eaters to town and now he'd have a hefty poke to buy into Rondo's Wednesday night basement game. Ace—being unaffiliated with any particular crew and moving in many nefarious circles—had overheard talk of Fitzy's braggadocio and knew that he'd be wise to find out who Rondo was and where his game was happening, before somebody else got wise. The Micks might come gunning for Fitzy if word got back to them. Worse, Fitzy could come up this way and just blow the whole poke in the game, pissing all that cash away on a couple of able card-sharks who were probably conning the con-man from the moment he sat down at the table.
So it was Fitzy's hijinks that led Ace uptown. He was even more delighted when he saw the other two players.
Blue Lou Bundy was the dealer, the ranking sharp at the table. Everybody called him Blue Lou because he never smiled, but Ace figured it could just as easily be for how dark he was—like, made-of-African-tar dark— so black he reallywas almost blue. Ace knew Blue Lou by reputation, and he knew that his sour puss and doped demeanor hid a canny mind, a wad of dough, and a savage temper.
Sitting on Blue Lou's right had been Brown Tom. Word had it his name was really Tom Brown, but somewhere along the way, somebody'd called him Brown Tom and it stuck. He was a grass dealer and petty thief who sometimes made ends meet playing slap bass in speakeasies and at rent parties. When Ace arrived, Brown Tom was grinning ear to ear telling Rondo—the host of the game, but not sitting in—all about how he'd found his girlfriend, Debbie, going down on some high yalla bohunk rail porter—walked right in on them. He'd been packing at the time, so he drew his piece, smacked Debbie head-wise, then leveled his popper in the bohunk's face. Poor sap was scared so bad he pissed in Debbie's face. Brown Tom told that pissin' John to empty his pockets, and Brown Tom hit the mother lode. The poor sap pulled a five hundred dollar stash (apparently, he'd had a good night in Atlantic city just before he made it to the Apple). Brown Tom took the whole five C's and shook down Debbie too—who he actually had no special attachment to—and got another fifty. Off he went, leaving the bohunk shaking, Debbie with piss on her face, and himself with a fat wad of lettuce.
Ace knew when he heard Brown Tom's story that he'd come to the right place. When Fitzy arrived, it was clinched: Ace would take all three of these teapots for a ride and he'd leave this basement with all their money or not at all. The jigs didn't want to let him sit in at first, but Rondo knew Ace's name and reputation and said it was okay—providing the rest of them knew not to give Ace an inch of wiggle room. Ace even demonstrated his honesty by stripping his jacket and rolling up his sleeves.
Funny part was, in the end, he barely used any of his tricks: he was on, and his card mates were decidedly off. After three hours, Ace had the whole pot. He didn't even have to break a sweat or load his hand to do it.
But they were pissed.
Man, were they.
Oh, they stayed cool. They didn't whine. Didn't make threats. Didn't even beg for another chance. They were soundly whipped, and they knew it—but their chilly silence and smoldering acceptance of their losses convinced Ace he needed to air out, fast.
So he tipped his hat, made gracious obsequies, and fled the basement, with Rondo laughing behind him, dressing down the three big losers for being so stupid as to let Ace take them to the cleaners.
Fuck 'em. They were all grifters. This was the game. Every hand was played fair and square.
But that didn't really make Ace feel any better as he marched through the dark and rainy alley toward Fifth Avenue just up ahead. Crying fair and square really wouldn't take you far if your card mates were poor losers. Fair and square didn't put your teeth back in your head or work out the kinks in your broken fingers.
So Ace ankled it. He'd scurry to the train station and head back to his end of the Apple. If he was smart, he'd sock a chunk of this cabbage for a rainy day and only take a small portion of it to Moshe's casino on Saturday night.
If he was smart.
The problem was—though he hated to admit it—sometimes, he wasn't smart.
And sometimes, he was too smart by half.
He wondered which it was that undid him this time—not smart, or too smart—when a big, broad shadow suddenly stepped into his path, blocking the mouth of the alleyway and his Fifth Avenue escape.
It was Blue Lou. Nobody else had a head so much like a melon or shoulders that wide.
Ace froze in his tracks. Rainwater spilled off the drooping lip of his hat and ran riot down the shoulders of his rain coat. He quickly stuffed the wad of cash into an inside coat pocket.
"That you, Lou?" he asked.
Blue Lou didn't say anything.
"Did I leave something?" Ace asked, hoping the answer was, Yeah, you dumb heeb—you forgot your cigarette lighter. Damn fine one, too. Shame to lose it.
But no. That wasn't the response he got.
"You're gonna leave something," somebody said behind him. Ace turned a little, just to get a look.
Brown Tom and Fitzy stood about twenty feet behind him, blocking a retreat.
Eyes forward again. Ace saw Blue Lou take a single long step forward, then heard the thunder crack of the knuckles on both his big, black hands.
"Come on!" Ace said, his voice wavering and whiny. He turned sideways, so that they were to his right and left instead of in front and behind. "I won those hands fair and square, fellas! If you don't want to lose, you shouldn't oughta play."
"You stiffed us," Fitzy said. He and Brown Tom were close in now. Although it was pretty dark in the alleyway, Ace saw that Brown Tom had a pistol in his hand—probably the same pistol he'd used on the high yalla bohunk. Fitzy had something long and shiny: a stiletto. An ugly one, too.
"Jesus Christ, what a bunch of little girls," Ace snorted, shaking his head. It was all bravado. He was scared shitless. "You can't stand losin' so you gang up on the
guy who beat you, fair and square."
"Fair and square is my foot in your ass," Fitzy said.
"Fair and square's our money," Blue Lou said, and Ace didn't care for the depth and darkness of the man's voice—not one bit. "Right now."
Ace went into his pocket and produced the wad. He started stripping bills off.
"Fine," he said, "I'll take back my buy-in, and you chiselin' jigs can take the rest. But I'm gonna tell everybody about this! Queens to the ferry, nobody's gonna sit for a game at Rondo's anymore, and you three can just sit there all by your lonesome and have a circle jerk!"
"Buy-in, hell," Brown Tom said, and raised his pistol. It was small and short, but goddamned if looking down that barrel didn't make it look like a howitzer. "You just drop that green and run, Abe."
Ace couldn't help himself. A terrible indignance overtook him. He heard himself raging before he could even employ his better judgment and keep his mouth shut. "You gotta be fuckin' kidding me! Is this really how you Uncle Toms play cards?"
Fitzy had him then. He slammed Ace up against the bricks at his back. Ace saw stars. The money fell from his hands. He felt something sharp at his throat.
"This look like I'm fuckin' kiddin', asshole?"
Blue Lou grabbed his coat in one ham fist.
Brown Tom leveled the gun at his head.
Then somebody jacked the pump on a scattergun and everyone froze.
Scattergun? Ace didn't remember any of these guys packing heat that large. But he sure as shit knew what the ka-chak of a shotgun pump sounded like.
He opened his eyes. His three assailants were all frozen in position, crowded around him like dogs about to tear into crippled prey. All eyes stared at the mouth of the alley that spilled onto Fifth Avenue.
There were a bunch of niggers with guns there, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, two or three deep.
A fat man with skin the color of a Hershey bar stood in the center of the armed posse.