Chicago Hustle

by Odie Hawkins

  Elijah nestled in on them, playtime over. “Uh huhhhn,” he murmured, barely glancing at the building, and the people streaming out of it. “This is it, the place. There’s a lawyer sellin’ the best shit in town, on the thirteenth floor.”

  “Wowwww!” The tall one finally relented, releasing his pent-up enthusiasm. A ruby ring from a black dude for forty bucks and some Cambodian grass. How much more could you get away with in one day, especially with Tommy the Runt?

  Elijah gauged his thought patterns and swept in, anxious, now, to get rid of them.

  “Awright, how much you want?”

  “How much is it?” the short asked.

  “How much do you want?” Elijah squeezed out of the side of his mouth. “I can get you a motherfuckin’ pound, if that’s what you want.”

  The two soldiers stood, looking stunned for a moment, the last thought in their heads. “A pound!?”

  “Well?” he dug at them fiercely, making them feel like pootbutts. “How much? I got things to do, I can’t stand here all night.”

  “Uhh, how ’bout … uhhh, twenty bucks’ worth?” the tall one shot in.

  “Cool!” Elijah shot back at him. “Gimme twenty-five, that’s two dimes ’n a nickel, in ‘business’ language. I get five dollars as commission for doin’ the good deed.”

  The two soldiers, suddenly realizing that they were just small-time American boys, from places where people left their front doors unlocked, blinked in unison. And then divided the price of the grass between them, and the “commission.” Twelve dollars and fifty cents apiece.

  Elijah smiled indulgently and looked off into the distance as they surreptitiously placed the money in his hand.

  “It’s really good, huh?” the short one asked.

  “Dynamite!” Elijah replied emphatically, and marched into the office building lobby.

  “Wait for me in the lobby,” he said over his shoulder. He let the two men see him wink at the elevator starter as though he were in cahoots and caught the elevator upward.

  On the third floor he skipped off the elevator, looking around for the rear exit. He wandered around the third floor, peeking into the offices, checking out the unguarded typewriters and the other office paraphernalia, feeling frustrated after ten minutes, not being able to find the rear exit.

  The middle-aged black man pushing the scrub bucket down the long office building hallway saved him. “Hey, looka here, brother,” Elijah probed at him casually, certain of the cohesion between them. “Where’s the rear exit stairs? I’m parked out back.”

  The gray-haired black man looked up at him, four hundred years of tricks and antics in his grained brown eyes, and jerked his head toward a door Elijah had missed.

  “Gon’ through there, it’ll let you out down in the alley.”

  “Sho’ wanta thank ya, brotherman,” Elijah mumbled at him, striding toward the door.

  He breathed a complete sigh of relief on the way out … sixty-five dollars to the ghetto’s good.

  CHAPTER 5

  Elijah sat in a back booth of the Tiger Lounge with a sometime hustling buddy nicknamed Big Toe, listening to the house combo play a funky blues and to a would-be scheme of Big Toe’s.

  “Man, I’m tellin’ you, it’s a lead-pipe cinch!”

  Elijah took a long sip from his drink, already fifteen good-time, finger-poppin’ dollars into his afternoon rip-off.

  “The last nigger who shot me into that ‘lead-pipe cinch’ shit damned near got his throat cut.”

  Big Toe turned his glass around in the water ring it had made on the table.

  “Yeahhh, yeah,” Toe replied impatiently, “I heard about the shit that went down between you and Benny … but, hey, looka here, man … you know Benny always has been a treacherous motherfucker! The thang I’m runnin’ down to you is strictly on the up ’n up.”

  Both men felt the atmosphere of the club tighten up, the casual conversations cease, and knew why instinctively.

  The two detectives, Murphy and Jackson, strolled to the back booth, stood over Elijah and Big Joe, weighted down by shoulder holsters and authority.

  “Uhh, good evenin’, Officer Murphy … uhhh, Officer Jackson,” Toe mumbled nervously.

  “Don’t speak to us, thief …’til we speak to you, dig it?” Murphy growled and glared at him.

  “You the boss, Officer Murphy sir, you the boss,” Toe answered cautiously, not wanting to run any risks.

  “Let’s take a walk, Elijah,” Jackson said to Elijah. Elijah, trying to front it off, sipped at his drink before replying. “Take a walk, where?”

  Murphy, two hundred and fifteen pounds behind the whiskey on his breath, leaned across the table into Elijah’s face. “Don’t sit back on your ass tryin’ to be cute with me, I said, let’s take a walk, now move goddamn it!”

  Elijah almost spilled his drink complying with the command. It didn’t pay to take things too far with Murphy and Jackson because they believed in police brutality as a matter of course, and everyone who knew them knew that.

  Elijah hurriedly arranged himself between the two of them and walked out of the lounge, trying to maintain his cool and be meek at the same time.

  They walked him to their unmarked car under the sideview looks of the street corner regulars, out for the night’s doin’s, late working people and an assorted collection of just plain ol’ 47th Street folks.

  Jackson drove them to the forty-five hundred block of St. Lawrence Avenue and parked. Elijah breathed a little easier … at least this was no bust. Probably a shakedown. Or maybe they wanted him to stool.

  He pulled his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, lit up and slumped back beside Murphy.

  “What’s happenin’, Murph? You acted like you was gon’ chew my nuts off back there in the joint.”

  Murphy smiled across the distance between them maliciously. “I’ve told you two or three times, brotherman. Stop tryin’ to be cute with me. I started to knock you on your ass.”

  Jackson smiled up into the rear-view mirror at the exchange, carefully placed his .357 mag on the front seat and pulled a half-pint of good whiskey out of the glove compartment.

  He took a long pull and passed it to Murphy. Murphy almost drained it and passed the corner to Elijah.

  Elijah turned the bottle up, a little high already, but trying to be cool, steady about the whole business. What the fuck was going down?

  “Uggggh!” he shuddered, giving a little show for his captors. “I’d rather smoke dope any day than drink that rotgut.”

  “You may not be able to get either one for a bit, from the way things look,” Murphy dug in at him, his malicious sense of humor on display again.

  “Heyyyy, what’s the deal?” Elijah probed at him with a soft, nervous smile.

  “Homer, you break it down to ’im, you done had the most trainin’ in law.”

  Jackson, Murphy’s natural bone partner, draped his right arm across the back of the seat and began, pedantically. “Wellll, brother … here it is, in a nutshell. Looks like you and Benny held up the wrong crap game the other night.”

  Elijah, as scheduled, exclaimed, “Crap game!? What crap game?”

  “Awwww c’mon off it, man!” Murphy dug him hard in the ribs. “Save that bullshit for the other police.”

  “Evidently,” Jackson continued, “evidently you ’n Benny didn’t check into things too closely, else you never would’ve stuck up li’l John Diamond’s joint.”

  Elijah looked out at the smoked-up buildings around him, the dark figures passing the car, feeling sick at the pit of his stomach. “Li’l John Diamond? Is he a big dude with a pinkie ring on his left hand?”

  “That’s right!” Murphy laughed at the expression on Elijah’s face, cupping the bulk at his own wasteline with both hands. “Hahhh hahhh hahhaha, yeahhhh, that’s right, a big fat dude with a li’l diamond ring on his do-do finger.”

  “Anyway,” Jackson moved along, “to make a long story short, Li’l John, knowin’ the right people,
put three grand on the wire for you and Benny, which Murph and me are goin’ to split right down the middle for bringin’ you and Benny in.”

  Murphy closed Elijah’s beginning protest off with a wave of his hand. “We pulled Benny in this afternoon, stitches everywhere but under the bottom of his feet. It’s a wonder the poor fool ain’t dead from loss o’ blood.”

  Jackson winked in fake-warm fashion to Elijah. “Benny ain’t got no blood, has he, brother?”

  Elijah ignored Jackson’s attempt at joking, took a deep breath and started into some heavy conning.

  “Looka here, Murph, both of you dudes are righteous brothers. Lemme slide and I’ll make it worth your while. I promise on my momma’s grave, even if I have to send it back by carrier pigeon.”

  Murphy smirked. “Now, we thought you’d propose somethin’ weird like that … Officer Jackson?”

  Jackson cleared his throat, playing his role to the bus stop. “Well, you see … it’s like this, Elijah. We couldn’t let you slide, even if we wanted to … for three or four good reasons.

  “Number one: you’d probably never be able to send us anything from anywhere, because you’d more ’n likely be dead. Li’l John offered the reward for you two dead or alive. You should be happy we got to you before they did.

  “Number two: Benny sang like Ray Charles the minute we got his ass in the car.”

  “Guess he thought we was gon’ pop some of his stitches loose,” Murphy added with a tight smile.

  “Number three: it’ll look good for us, you know, bringin’ in a dangerous suspect. I mean, like, we couldn’t really let you slide after everybody had seen us pick you up, now could we?”

  “What would people think, baby?” Murphy widened his smile into a cruel grin.

  “And last, but not least,” Jackson exhaled, “we are both po’, broke, black and dee-terminated to up hold the law. Can you dig where we be comin’ from?”

  Murphy leaned forward to give his partner five. “Right on, brother! right on!”

  Elijah winced as though the slapping of their palms was a blow to his cheek.

  “Whoa! hold up a minute! I know damned well Li’l John, or nobody else is gon’ try to lay a case on me for … uhhh …”

  “Allegedly,” Jackson supplied the legal term.

  He really is a chickenshit motherfucker, Elijah thought.

  “Yeahhh, that’s right! for allegedly holdin’ up an illegal gamblin’ joint.”

  Murphy shook his head with disgust. “Awwww, c’mon on now, blood … you ain’t usin’ your head. You know better than that, that wouldn’t even come up in court.”

  “Awright then,” Elijah pulled his trump out, “if it can’t be that, what’s the beef?”

  Murphy, still playing cue card, signalled graciously to Jackson with a wave of his big right hand.

  “Detective Jackson, would you be so kind?”

  Jackson made a fist and popped a finger out to illustrate each point.

  “Grand theft, auto. I guess you know Benny was drivin’ a stolen vehicle, assault with a deadly weapon … that’s right, on Benny, receivin’ stolen goods, we been knowin’ about that for a long time.”

  “Hey man, forget about what we might stick you with, we can think somethin’ up on the way downtown. Li’l John wants your ass off the streets for a while and we want three grand.”

  Elijah’s head slumped to his chest, wondering if he could slug Murphy with the bottle and try to make it.

  Jackson, reading his mind, quietly pointed his piece over the seat at Elijah’s head.

  “You better put the cuffs on him, I feel some bad vibes startin’ to creep up.”

  Murphy backhanded him in the mouth.

  “You wasn’t thinkin’ about doin’ anything nasty, was you?”

  Elijah glared at him. Motherfucker! and threw the empty whiskey bottle out of the open window and held his hands up for the cuffs. Popped again. It never failed … just as everything was beginning to get together.

  “Behind, my man, you know how we do it,” Murphy stated in a matter-of-fact voice.

  Elijah held his hands behind him for the cold manacles, slumped back into the seat after they were shackled on. Well, at least I’ll be able to get a good lawyer with the dough from the holdup. Wonder what those people out at the airport will think when they open up that locker and pull out that suitcase with bricks in it?

  “What’s funny, brotherman?” Murphy asked, his fist raised for another mouth shot.

  “Ooohhh, nothin’, really … I was just wonderin’ if me ’n Benny would wind up in the same cell.”

  “We’ll try to see what we can arrange.” Jackson smiled pleasantly at him in the rear-view mirror. “Yeahhh, we’ll try to see what we can arrange.”

  The weeks in the county jail, the filth of it, the sight and sound of the homosexual assaults on the younger, more innocent prisoners, the clanging of steel doors, the involved legal language, the torture of not really knowing what was going to happen flashed through Elijah’s mind as he stood in front of the crusty-headed old white man in his black robes.

  He had resisted Leelah’s pleas to get a “good Jewish lawyer,” somebody that Browney the Fence had recommended, decided instead to have a brother defend him.

  “’Ey mon,” Nick the Geech had warned him during a visit, “you’d best be dahmed careful ya don’t get forty years with the brother defendin’.”

  Elijah had laughed at him and kept the faith. Now he was at the moment of truth, the point where all the legal hassling gave way to the decision that the judge would make.

  “I hereby sentence you to a term of one year and one day in the county jail,” came to him as though someone were speaking through a foghorn.

  “Bailiff, remove the prisoner, next case!”

  A year and a day. A year and a day. A year and a day … Elijah muttered in his mind being led away, smiling sickly at Leelah crying, Nick the Geech, Big Toe, Zelma, Precious Percy and three other fringe members of their circle who had decided to brave the daytime in order to see him sentenced.

  His lawyer gave him a soul shake and a pain-filled look. “Sorry, blood … I did the best I could.”

  “I ain’t got no complaints, man,” Elijah spoke between clenched teeth, on the verge of tears … not because of the year and a day itself, but because he was going to have to do it in the lousy ass county jail.

  He sat over in a corner of the bullpen casually studying the weirdos, the diamond-hard cliques, the homo triangles, the chess game that seemed to have started from the day he was brought in, nine months earlier.

  Nine months. Elijah slumped down on the wooden bench, feeling gritty under the arms from not washing, a strong crotch funk floating up to his nostrils.

  Nine months in the county jail. He turned his attention back to his fellow inmates, avoiding the seductive looks of a couple drag queens … nine months in the county jail, dead time, nothing to do but scrounge, scheme, connive and sit up in the bullpen listening, looking, thinking.

  “Hey man, you got a cigarette?”

  Elijah looked up into the face of the figure in front of him and almost answered, automatically, no, buy your own, motherfucker. But, in a moment of compassion—like, after all, the dude was just a simple alimony hostage who didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground—he flicked him a cigarette from his pack … what the hell. The man took the cigarette, nodding gratefully, lit up and stood near Elijah puffing deeply.

  “Wowwww, sho’ feels good to smoke, ’specially when you ain’t done it in a li’l while.”

  Elijah frowned at the late middle-aged black man, turning him off. He had enough to think about, the last thing he needed was the clammy friendship of a dumb sap doing bad time on an alimony beef. The man made a few more hesitant attempts at conversation and then wandered away after receiving no encouragement.

  Elijah looked at his back, a dozen descriptions of what he thought of the man swelling up in his head. Mark. Chump. Sucker. Sap. Asshole. Fool. I
n jail for non-payment of alimony. Shit! the chump had probably been supporting some jiveass bitch for days, missed two payments and she had gotten him locked up, incarcerated, as they said in the joint.

  He stared at the man’s back as he took his place on the fringe of a circle of dudes arguing, jawing at each other, as usual. What else was there to do in the county jail, after the watery oatmeal, crusty toast and slimy coffee?

  “All I’m sayin’ to you, stupid ass, ignunt motherfucker, is that, in order to believe the truth, you have to first hear it, and I’ll bet you two cartons of cigarettes against your grimy asshole that you wouldn’t recognize the truth if you heard it, simply because you’ve never been told anything but lies, all your black ass life!”

  Elijah slumped a little lower on the bench, tired of the sounds of the eternal discussions, debates, that started from the time they were clanged awake ’til the time they were told, “Lights out, beddy bye!”

  “I know what the truth is, chump,” a bass voice thumped back at the other voice. “The truth is … listen to me! goddamn it! don’t be standin’ there playin’ with your nuts and lookin’ all smug!”

  “I am listenin’ to you. I can play with my nuts if I want to, they mine!”

  The group of men in the circle around the two men laughed, subconsciously thankful that anyone could provide them with some kind of outlet.

  The two debaters, recognizing jailhouse debating etiquette, paused to allow the cynical laughter to die down.

  “Awright, here is the truth. Damned near every one of us in here is a hostage of the state.”

  “A what? What’s that you say, brother?” a voice deep in the circle called out for clarification.

  “I said that damned near every one of us in here is a hostage of the state. The reason why, mainly, is because we, us black folks, have never realized, not since they lied to us and told us we were free, that we were being conditioned to be slaves in another kind of way.”

  Elijah glanced across the large enclosure at a small, tightly knit group of motorcycle club members, the Nazi Brother Group, someone had nicknamed them. The group turned red in the face collectively as they attempted to ignore the black speakers.