Borrow Trouble (26 page)

“S
he's something to see alright,” Baltimore said as he peered through the crowd of customers at Uncle Chunk's bar and billiards. “But I'd watch my step around a woman like that if I was you. She looks to be the kind who might get froggy long before it's time to jump.” Baltimore was leery of the medium brown-toned, petite little number, with a high-class attitude, sitting at the end of Chunk's bar. She was turning her nose up at everyone, and at the proprietor in particular. When he saw her scowl at Uncle Chunk as if he were a dirty drinking glass, Baltimore was satisfied that she'd been involved in a slow grind with the older man that ended a lot worse than it began. However close to the truth that was, he didn't see putting that idea in Henry's head when it was obvious that he was falling for her. “If you ask me, she's trouble,” said Baltimore, making his way over to the wooden table. He unplugged the illegal phone line in the back room when he needed a certain amount of quiet to collect himself.

Henry eased up to the crack in the door to steal another glimpse at his new acquaintance. “Yeah, well, that might be so, but Estelle's the kind of trouble I've been looking to get into. Oh, here comes Frannie,” he informed Baltimore. Strutting through the crowd, Franchetta stared straight at the thin crease in the door as if she could read Henry's mind on the other side of it and didn't approve of his thoughts. “That woman's got ice water in her veins,” Henry said, turning toward the small table.

“Too bad I can't say the same for that chippie of yours,” Baltimore said and sighed casually.

As the door swung open slowly, noise from the dance area spilled inside. Franchetta's lips were pursed, although she tried to conceal her salty disposition. “Hey, fellas, what's the skinny on tonight? Rain's threatening to come down like sifted flour, the radio forecaster predicted.”

“I see you made it in alright,” Baltimore joked as he stood to greet her with a cordial embrace and friendly kiss on the cheek.

Franchetta smirked, knowing Baltimore's heart wasn't in it. “Yeah, I had the driver drop me right by the front door so's my sugar wouldn't melt none.” While amusing herself, Franchetta cast a looming glare at Henry, hiding in plain view. “Henry, is there something between us I need to know about?”

“Nah, I've been trying to shake the last time I saw you from my mind,” Henry answered, avoiding eye contact.

“Ooh, Henry Taylor, I do declare…You're blushing,” she sang pleasantly. “You are one of a kind.”

“Only thing is, ain't nobody been able to name it yet,” Baltimore offered, looking upside Henry's head for chasing behind a woman with the wrong kind of composition for his liking.

“Go on now with all of that, Baltimo',” Henry growled. “I'ma stroll out yonder for a quick look-see. Be back in a jiff.”

“Franchetta, take a load off,” Baltimore said, gesturing with his hand toward the seat opposite the table from his. She smiled as best she could but refused his offer, though not entirely.

“Thanks, but I'll sit here.” She took the seat closest to him. “I want to get a clear picture of the lie you're about to tell me.”

“I've never kept anything from you unless it was for your own good, but I won't fix my mouth to hold no lie. You know me better 'n that.” Franchetta lowered her head, feeling a slight bit ashamed of challenging Baltimore's integrity as a good friend and a man who had been nothing but honest with her in the past. “Here is it, down and dirty.” He was second-guessing himself on the other side of a stone poker face. “Me and a few local boys need to handle something tonight. I want you to work the phone and keep business flowing as usual. It'll be a might heavier 'cause of the rain, but that's okay. I'll be back 'round about midnight. Then we can all go out and have a ball…me, you, Melvina, and Daisy. Hell, Chick can even come along, too, but she's gotta wash her feet. Yeah, I heard about that.”

A strained chuckle sputtered from Franchetta's mouth. “We've tried dousing them with everything but turpentine already.”

“If it was up to me, I'd have gone for the turpentine straight away. Ain't too much worse than some funky ass feet,” he mused. He set a stack of writing paper by the phone for Franchetta to arrange hostesses. No sooner had the plug gone into the wall jack than the black rotary phone rang like it had been waiting every second of the past half hour to do so.

“I guess we're open for business,” Franchetta said, leaning forward to pick up the receiver. “Yes, this is the right exchange,” she said into it, somewhat puzzled. “Oh yes, Baltimore, he's here.” She pressed the receiver against her chest and shrugged. “Somebody named Ash Can says he needs to speak with you personally and right away.”

Baltimore's chest tightened when he took the call. “Hi ya, Ash. This is Baltimore. Yep, yep,” he answered in a manner that insinuated he was being purposely secretive and running scenarios around in his head. “Now, I'm counting on you. Give it to me neat. Uhhhh-huh. Are you positive that's how it is? Yep, we can make that. Alright then. Alright.”

Ash Can gave it to Baltimore straight, with no chaser, just the way he liked it. The big game he'd been asking about had already gotten underway, according to the second-shift men's room attendant working the lobby. He'd overheard some of the hotel guests getting all worked up over a chance to take some of their competitors' money, along with a decent amount of their pride to boot. Chances were, the game would continue on deep into the night, but Baltimore wasn't willing to sit by and wait that long. He couldn't risk the rain letting up when it served as the perfect seventh man on the job, aiding in their setup and getaway. Even though Ash didn't mention anything about police protection, Baltimore accounted for the possibility of their interference, nonetheless.

Before Franchetta contemplated how much trouble awaited Baltimore on the other end of that phone conversation, he'd had a short conference with Uncle Chunk and snatched Henry up and away from the woman he didn't trust. In less time than it took Franchetta to remember how much she loved everything about Baltimore, he was out the rear exit and into a mounting storm.

Two blocks away, in the alley behind an abandoned cotton mill, Henry jiggled opened the padlock on the iron back gate with a crooked piece of metal wire.

“Come on, man. We got to move,” Baltimore insisted as he ducked inside the large warehouse, constructed of little more than rusted tin and rotting lumber. “Chunk's done put a call in to Pudge by now,” he said. “They'll be here before long.”

In the meantime, the two men worked diligently, cleaning and inspecting the guns Baltimore had copped from Rascal at the secondhand clothing store. There were two hardly used thirty-eight revolvers, a shotgun, and two stainless-steel forty-five-caliber canons, which Baltimore called
persuaders
because the mere sight of them often caused the hardest men to back down. Henry wiped the sawed-off double-barrel shotgun with a dry rag. He put it aside so he could open the boxes he'd stored in the corner a couple of hours before. Inside them lay bundles of police-issue raincoats, dark-colored vinyl coverall pants, and black rubber boots. When a car horn sounded after they'd been there nearly forty minutes, Henry dashed over to the large iron garage door to open it.

The lights on Pudge's taxi blinked twice before the car pulled in. Henry secured the garage door once the car cleared the entrance. Louis Strong was the first to hop from the car. He tried to appear calm when he rounded the front fender on the passenger side, but his eyes darted left and right continually, not sure what to expect or what was really expected of him at that point. Dank Battles made his way out of the back door on the driver's side at the same instance Pudge decided to get out and join the others. Pudge, a whole foot shorter than Dank, put Henry in mind of somebody's kid brother trying to hang with the big boys. The vast disparity in their sizes almost made Henry laugh, but he didn't. If they were going to execute a successful job, every man had to pull his own weight despite his physical dimensions.

Rot was the last to climb out of the long sedan. He looked pitiful, like death warmed over, tired and sickly around the eyes. Baltimore noticed right off and decided to keep an eye on the man, who'd likely gone off the wagon. He was likely to come down with a bad case of the shakes before the night was through. A sober drunk was better than one with a snoot full, Baltimore reasoned, so he decided to put his concerns on the back burner for the time being.

“Hail, hail, the gang's all here,” Baltimore said, with a heaping dose of trepidation when his bunch of scoundrels came across like a ragtag bunch of miscreants. There was no time to go out recruiting a better crew. He had to make his bed with these, although he had a bad feeling about going through with it.

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis replied, after taking a long gander at the guns on display. “We's ready, too. Y'all sho' got some fine heaters.”

“Where're we going, anyway?” spouted Dank. “I need to get me some money.”

After pushing one of the boxes across the cold cement floor, Henry began taking off his damp jacket. “You'll know when we get there,” he said, as if Dank had said something out of line.

“He's right, Dank,” Baltimore chimed in quickly, so as not to cause dissension from the outset. “It's better that we get down to the nuts and bolts and save the where-ats until we understand how the plans are put together for a reason and don't need to be changed. Now then, Dank, you'll come inside with me and Henry. Rot, I'll need you to keep an eye on the side door to the street. Louis, you'll be posted between the side door and the money room. You don't let nobody get the jump on us from behind. And, Pudge, course you'll be the wheelman. When the money bags reach the car, that means it's time to catch hell outta that place because we'll be coming out hot.” Each of the men was nodding agreeably. Louis kept an eye on the shotgun because it was bound to speak the loudest if danger reared its ugly head. “Go on and get it, Lou,” said Baltimore, “if you can handle it.”

Louis leapt at the chance, grabbing a handful of shells for backup. After all of the other guns were allocated except for one of the heavy forty-fives, Baltimore whipped out the one he'd taken from Darby Kent the night he and Henry killed him on the train. “I'll pack this one with that persuader so's it don't get lonely. Why on't y'all get on some of those rain clothes and take a handkerchief from this pack.” He held out a small plastic bag, and each of the men took one as instructed. “Hold on to it until we get around the corner from the spot. Now, let's load up.” When the men began digging into the boxes with rain gear inside, Baltimore pulled Rot aside so the others couldn't hear their conversation. “I know this must be hard on you, Rot. Here, take a little nip to settle your nerves.” Without hesitation, Rot accepted the fifth of gin bottle from Baltimore and took a nice swig.

“Thank you, Baltimore. It's good to see you haven't changed a bit. You still have a kind heart. I don't know if I could've made it without a li'l taste.”

“I need you to be right on this, Rot. Can I count on you?”

“You can put your life on it,” Rot answered, with a thin remnant of liquor rimming his upper lip.

“I hope so 'cause that's exactly what I'm doing,” replied Baltimore, before patting him on the back. As the men prepared to take off, Henry opened the garage door for the taxi to pull out of the warehouse. When he returned, wet and a bit musty, Baltimore stared at him to see if he was mentally dialed in or simply going along because of his loyalties. There was nothing but resolve masking Henry's face as far as Baltimore could tell. Neither of them knew that resolve would be their trump card when the last chip fell.

A
s the taxi idled in the alley a few streets over from the Marquette Hotel, rain began pounding the streets in sheets, like the radio weatherman had forecasted. Baltimore was glad he'd gotten his predictions correct for once. “Now, this is the way it goes,” he announced. “There's a heap of money piled up on a table in the hospitality suite over at the 'Quette. I know they don't allow no Negros up in there unless they carrying bags, so we'll abide like they want us to, only we'll be carrying 'em out.” Baltimore reached beneath the front seat and pulled out two large canvas mailbags. “C'mon, Pudge, let's get it over and done with.”

At 11:15, a taxicab with five gunmen packed inside parked along the curb on Holmes. It was as quiet as a cemetery on the lonely one-way side street, while very few cars passed in front of the hotel on Twelfth. “Good. No innocent bystanders to get in the way on our way out,” Baltimore reveled as he peered at the deserted intersection. “Pudge, we'll be back directly, so keep this old clunker fired up. Dank, Henry, I got only two things to say before we go in. Don't hesitate to shoot, but only if we have to, because there will be some men whose families will stop at nothing to catch us if one of them was to get killed.”

“That's only one thing, Baltimore,” answered Dank, with a perplexed expression. “What's the other one?”

Baltimore held up his handkerchief and then folded it diagonally. “Don't be stupid,” he responded casually as he slipped it on to conceal his face. “Tie 'em on now. Let's get this show on the road.” Just before the men piled out of the car and stepped into the puddles on the sidewalk, Baltimore checked both of his guns again and flashed a glare at Pudge. “If this car ain't here when I get back, you'd better keep on driving all the way to hell.” He didn't wait on a reply after making his point crystal clear.

Dressed in dark, police-issued garb from head to toe, and with handkerchiefs tied just below their eyes, they exited the car one by one. Henry found the side door unlocked, just as Ash Can had promised it would be. He cracked it open, peeked in, and waved for the others to come forth. Dank and Baltimore eased inside. So far the coast was clear. There was no one to be seen. The well-made plans had been discussed in strict detail, and the time had come to follow them to the letter.

Rot, just about evenly tempered after that quick hit of gin, was as steady as he was going to be. Louis climbed the backstairs behind the other three, who were going after the cash. He stopped halfway up the second flight, where he could tiptoe and see if anyone was coming down the long corridor. Baltimore signaled that that was the perfect place to stay put, but close enough to help mow someone down if it came to that.

Moving in formation, as if rehearsed, Henry and Dank followed closely behind their leader, with their guns drawn. Baltimore crept along the wall in the direction of the hospitality suite situated in the middle of the second-floor hallway. His heart raced faster as adrenaline filled his veins.

With each step he took, the uncertainty of what awaited on the other side of that wall intensified, although he couldn't allow that to deter him. If he wanted to shake that bad luck shadow for good, he'd need money to cinch it. With the right amount in his hands, Baltimore figured to change his luck for a long while. He'd climbed off of that train to make it happen. This was his chance to redirect his fate, and there'd be no turning back.

Directly outside of the door leading into the suite, Baltimore motioned for Henry and Dank to stand on either side of it while he rapped on it three times. It wasn't that he knew of any friendly signal; three knocks had always gotten him into any speakeasy he wanted in, so he went with it. The door opened quickly as a thin, neatly dressed white man wearing a gray suit saluted his contemporaries, with a contented grin and a stiff drink in his hand.

“Night, fellas,” the white man hailed loudly. “I'm going up to spend some of my winnings with a choice piece of jigaboo tail that bellboy ordered up for me.” With the door wide open and cigar smoke clouding the room, he failed to read the eyes of the men inside, who saw reason to be alarmed. “Why the dirty looks?” he asked, totally unaware. “These nigger bitches are supposed to be cleaner than a Safeway chicken.” The cocktail he held flew into the air when Baltimore kicked him square in the behind with the sole of his rubber boot.

“What in the hell is this, Horace?” asked one the older men seated at the poker table. “You said this was a safe game.” Not one of the other seven men inside the room moved a muscle. They simply gawked, with their mouths hung open, at what appeared to be three renegade colored policemen.

“It's okay, Mr. Greenly. This must be some sort of prank,” the one called Horace surmised, standing up from the dip he'd worn into the love seat. “Right, guys? Isn't this a joke?”

“Hell, nah, it ain't!” Baltimore shouted, giving the room a once over to see if there was anyone hiding. What he did discover was a bigger stack of money than he'd witnessed on the train, possibly twice as much. This was the jackpot, and soon he would walk away with it, barring no one tried to stop him. “I want everybody to get up, shake your pockets out on the table, and then step away from it.” When no one acted as if they were going to comply, Baltimore cocked the forty-five and shoved the canon in the face of the one they called Horace. “I'm not in the mood to say it again.”

On cue, the middle-aged white man, wearing a scowl and a cheap brown suit, raised his hands reluctantly. “He-he's serious!” Horace said, his voice rattling noticeably. “Just do it. Whatever he says, do it!”

“I can't believe this,” remarked the other man with enough gall to speak up. With three guns aimed in his direction, he stood up and raised his stubby arms in the air. “Horace, you're fired. We've paid you for three days to protect us, and now that we actually need your sorry ass, you're as useless as tits on a bull.”

“Now that's funny,” Baltimore said, moving all of the men to the far side of the room by fanning the pistol at them. “Let's get what we come for and leave peaceful, if these gentlemen wanna cooperate.” Baltimore shook his gun in Dank's direction for him to gather up the money covering the circular wooden table decorated in green felt.

“Horace, you a house detective?” Baltimore asked while Henry stood just inside the doorway. “Do me a favor and put your gun on the table with all of those greenbacks.”

The chubby man in the roach brown suit pulled a weapon from his side holster in a slow, careful, and deliberate manner. “Uh-uh…a Kansas City detective!” he barked angrily. “That's why you'd best forget about busting in here and taking what doesn't belong to you.”

“Ain't that just like a cracker?” Louis quipped, entering the room from Henry's flank. “Man's gotta rod pointed at his snoot, and he's still tryin' a call the shots.”

“Uh-uh,” Baltimore grunted in order to shut Louis up, when he was supposed to be covering their exit from the staircase. “Get back to your post,” Baltimore demanded.

“Not before I get even for all the hell ol' Horace Spivey over there put my baby brother through some years ago,” Louis debated. “I was standing out there on the stairs, wondering what was taking y'all so long. Then I come up to see for myself. And I'll be damned if you didn't get the drop on the crookedest cop in Kaycee. I always said if I ever got the chance, I would bust all the teeth out of his mouth.” When the other white men heard Louis's vicious declaration, they moved decidedly away from Horace. “See, this pecker would come around every time somebody said, ‘A nigga did it,' but he couldn't find nobody to answer for the crime. Yeah, he'd blame all kinds of muck on me and my kid brother, until he got a murder rap to stick.”

“That may be so, but we didn't come for that,” Baltimore argued insistently. Dank raised two mailbags stuffed with bills to signify it was time to depart. “Let it go. We're done here.”

“I on't think so,” Louis refused. “Teddy was killed in the pen because of that rat bastard getting an eyewitness to lie on him.”

“That's it!” Baltimore yelled to everyone involved. “Y'all take the bags and wait outside in the car!” Dank and Henry didn't waste another minute taking the money and exiting the same way they came in, hurriedly. Dank was glad to be out of there, but Henry knew that it wasn't over. If he had to bet on it, Horace wasn't the only one who was going to die that night if Louis kept after it.

“Horace likes to keep a throwaway in his ankle holster so he can plant the spare on a dead body he shoots in self-defense,” Louis educated the room. “Ain't that right,
Dee-tective Spivey?
” Suddenly, the detective's eyes grew broad with terror. He was genuinely scared now, and it showed on his face. “Something wrong, you fat, lazy stiff?”

“I thought I recognized your voice,” Horace Spivey confessed, to his own detriment. “You're Louis Strong. I put your punk of a little brother, Teddy, away,” he spat, trading venom for fear.

Baltimore took a calculated step to the right when he heard the detective's revelation, knowing what the next move would be. “Damn you, Louis!” Baltimore hollered, preparing to do what had to be done.

“What!” Louis fussed, before the hot lead from Baltimore's gun ripped through the detective's skull. Several of the men bolted for cover, hoping they wouldn't be next. “Dammit, man,” Louis complained, turning toward the shooter. “You're crazy for croaking a cop. They'll hunt you down like a mad dog.”

“Not if my trail ends with you,” Baltimore enlightened him, a split second before blowing two giant holes in Louis's chest. Baltimore made sure he took a steady aim so Louis's mother would still have the option of an open-casket funeral for her son. However, he didn't hold the same respect for the detective's family. “Everybody on the floor, and count to a hundred before you move,” he ordered to a completely compliant room.

As Baltimore lit out of the hospitality suite, other hotel guests poked their heads out of their rooms after hearing the thunderous blasts. The only thing on Baltimore's mind was getting to Pudge's taxi before something else went awry. He knew the car would be right where it was when he had climbed out of it, unless one of his misfits went left and put a hole in Henry. Baltimore's breathing labored increasingly when he neared the side door leading out into the street. He wasn't into the backseat a full second when he screamed at Pudge. “Move, man! They's coming. Let's get outta here!”

Pudge stared out of the fogged-up window, waiting on Louis to come pouring out of the same door Baltimore had. “Hey, where's Lou?” he shouted, mashing on the gas pedal.

The other men braced themselves for a barrage of gunfire. Baltimore surveyed the car for his two hefty bags of newly acquired currency. It was only after he'd located the mailbags that he thought it necessary to explain about Louis. “That detective he was needling recognized him and called out his name. That old boy had a snub-nose strapped to his leg. I tried to get Lou outta there, but that cop shot him while he was mouthing off. He didn't make it,” Baltimore told them, as if he was torn up about it. “But then, neither did that cop.”

Henry was correct, after all. Louis was as good as dead the minute he deviated from Baltimore's instructions, allowing personal issues to creep in and corrupt his plot. The mere thought of police catching up with Louis and forcing him to spill the beans on his cronies had compelled Baltimore to ice the trail at the feet of a dead loudmouth, who didn't know when to shut up. Looking back over his shoulder for the next ten years was not a viable option. Unfortunately for Louis “Slow Fuse” Strong, there were no two ways about it, there just weren't.

There wasn't another word uttered between the remaining thieves inside Pudge's taxi as they sloshed through streets of rising water. Just as he'd done previously, Henry hopped from the old Ford in order to open the huge metal garage door at the cottonmill. “Pull it all the way in, Pudge!” he yelled, taking a moment to scan their immediate surroundings. Riddled with mixed emotions, Henry yanked on the looping link chain to lower the garage door afterwards, thinking how close they were to pulling off the perfect crime without a hitch.

Dank rocked back and forth as he stood over the fire he was told to start in the deserted cottonmill's smokestack. “All of a sudden, I caught a chill,” he said, to no one in particular.

“Hurrup y'all and get out of those wet clothes before we all catch our death o' cold,” Henry ordered harshly.

Baltimore situated himself in front of an elevated concrete slab once used for stacking pallets of cotton headed for northbound freight cars. He nodded his head while dividing the bills into various denominations. “Henry's right. There's nothing like a man getting himself killed and having to deal with a heavy storm to stir your insides. Get off everything tying you to this stickup and toss it into the fire. Oh yeah, and I'ma need those guns back. Henry, Pudge,” Baltimore said in a serious manner, “round 'em up so's we can shell out what the fellows are owed.” Rot, sunken down to his knees, dry heaved continually after he vomited a second time. Dank, there's a jigger of booze in the glove box. See to it that Rot gets a taste.” Dank, assuming Baltimore knew best, trotted to the opposite side of the taxi and retrieved the bottle. Rot stumbled to his feet, used his sleeve to wipe at his mouth, and then bent his elbow until the last drop of hooch was gone.

“That Baltimo' is a good man,” Rot swore to everyone as he started to feel better immediately. “Yeah, I'll be right as rain in a tick, right as rain.”

With Henry posted behind Dank, Rot, and Pudge, Baltimore felt comfortable about doling out the money as he saw fit. If any of the men objected, there'd soon be one less to figure in and more cash to divvy up among the survivors. “Fellas, Louis didn't come out of this on the right end because he brought it on his self,” said Baltimore, as a reminder in case they developed other ideas later on. “The total grab was just about thirty-seven thousand dollars,” he said, to a chorus of oohs and ahhs in return.