Chicago Hustle (13 page)

“Awright everybody, twelve o'clock,” Simon announced from his office. Elijah strolled toward the exit, frowning. Asshole! He was worse than one of those ol' time cotton field strawbosses, the kind the Great White Father used to have keeping all the rest of the hands in line. The H.N.I.C.

“Brookes! hold up! I wanna talk to you for a minute!”

The rest of the men, glad to be free of the humdrum, split past Elijah as though they were two sections of a stream and he a rock in the middle.

He had the impulse, watching Simon lock his office door, to scream at him, “Hurry up, asshole! you makin' me miss the summertime!” But, instead, he waited patiently, determined to be cool.

“You know, you ain't such a bad guy as you pretend to be, Brookes … if you would go 'head 'n do your work when you was supposed to, and do as good a job as you can, you wouldn't have no trouble outta me. None at all.”

Elijah listened to Simon's slow, rumbling voice down five flights of stairs, looking across and up at the man, from time to time. Be a good nigger … that's all you saying to me, sho' will be … when hell freezes over!

“Just think about what I said, Brookes,” Simon concluded as they walked through the lobby, past the two senior citizen security guards.

“Yeahhh, I'll sho' 'nuff be doin' that, bruh Simon,” Elijah purred at him. Throw the mark out a home plate by slinging a bucket of honey at his head.

Simon blinked, surprised at the pleasant response he'd gotten from his lecture. Never could tell about guys like Brookes.

Elijah waved at Simon as a last, pleasant gesture and turned the corner of Jackson and State, heading for a midnight lakefront walk. Time to think, time to start trying to pick up the pieces, to start trying to figure out another game. One month of stomp down labor was too goddamned much to take.

Elijah sat at the bar of the Tiger Lounge, casually flirting with the daytime bartender, glad that he didn't have to avoid seeing any of the regulars.

“Why don't you stir your finger around in my drink, baby …?”

“What would that do?” she asked him, sliding a rum 'n Coke across to him.

“Well, it would make it taste better, for one thing.”

“Honey, if I stuck my finger in your drink, it would taste too good to drink … that'll be one twenty-five.”

He slid a couple singles off of his slim roll, trying to ignore the lady's cynical look. “Here you go, keep the change, sweet finger.”

“Thanks, big timer,” she replied in a cold, detached voice, and turned back to polishing glasses.

Rotten bitch, he decided casually, despite her big bumblebee ass and the cross-slashed blouse that took him past a breast outline and a nipple tip, overlaid by a piece of finely woven fishnet.

He hunched himself over his drink, staring at the bartender's buttocks, at the arrangement of tables and chairs behind him in the wall mirror across from him remembering all the scheming he had done sitting at one of those tables or another, and back to the bartender's buttocks grinding, shifting, tempting him. Yeahhh, the bitch can tell I ain't into too much from the fact that I'm up in here in the daytime. And from my garments.

He casually looked down at his shirt and pants. Wowww. I bet I look just like any plain ol' working dude. He had half an urge to ease off the stool, to somehow evade the putdown feeling he had, but decided to stick it out, through his drink anyway.

Bitch! he cursed the bartender in his mind for making him feel like a chump … a mark … a pootbutt. Funny, it never seemed to be anything but feast or famine. Never an in between thing. Either too much or too little. Browney. That cold-blooded white …

“How 'bout doin' this again, sweet finger?”

Elijah watched the lady go through her motions, not caring what she thought of him, what his image was, as he paid her the price of the drink and offered no tip.

Brooding over his current lightweight situation and how he was going to improve it prevented him from noticing Bro' Toe easing up to his side.

“Elijah! heyyyyy blood! wha's happenin'? I heard you was back on the set. Where you been keepin' yourself?”

Elijah took the figure standing at his side in, in sections. The expensive hat, the matching nowadays outfit, the Other kind of footwear, favored by those who could prove by wearing them that they didn't have to run from anybody. Made the way they were, it would've been impossible anyway.

“Oh heyyy Toe, what's goin' on?” Elijah responded, trying to sound supercasual.

Toe plopped down on the stool next to him, exposing his manicure and his pinkie ring to their best lights.

“Where you been keepin' yourself?” Toe asked again, as though he really wanted to know.

Elijah stared into his glass for a long minute. Where have I been keeping myself?

“I got a thang goin' on, over on the Westside,” he answered vaguely.

Toe, playing soft con, deliberately looked Elijah over, from head to foot, making it very obvious that he was doing exactly that. “Tough, huh? I mean, gettin' it back together again.”

Elijah took a long pull on his drink. Why bullshit the Toe? he was hip to the hustler's ups 'n downs. “Well, you know how it is. Ain't the first time I've had to start from scratch.”

“If you got some scratch to start with,” Toe added.

“Yeahhh, if you got some scratch to start with,” Elijah mumbled in a monotone.

Toe dug down into his pocket and peeled two twenties off of a fat roll under the log's edge. “Here, man,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “pay me when you git it. Cool? Uhhh … whatchu into? anything heavy?”

Elijah carefully folded the money and stuffed it into his pocket. Who in the fuck refuses money? 'cept in the movies. “I got a gig, Toe,” he replied drily, the second rum 'n Coke loosening him up.

Toe straightened up, the perfect picture of someone completely surprised by something he had heard. “You got a what?” he asked.

“You heard me,” Elijah replied in a low voice. “I got a gig, a yoke, a slave, a job.”

Toe began to laugh, ignoring the bartender-lady's bright smile and attentive stance in front of them. He laughed, at first because of the absurdity of what he had heard, and after a few seconds, because it was really funny to him.

Elijah felt tempted to laugh himself. It
was
funny.

Wiping tears out from the corners of his eyes, with his pinkie cuttin' up, Toe turned semi-serious. “You wouldn't be jivin' me, would you, man?”

“I sure in fuck wish I was.”

The bartender leveled a glancing smile and twelve feet of cleavage at the Toe as she scooted away to deal with two people at the end of the bar.

“Yeahhh, well, we was wonderin' what had happened to you down at the Stickhall. I asked Sid about you the other day. Seriously, you actually workin'?”

“Uh huh.”

Toe made a grand motion with his right hand, summoning the bartender-lady.

“We'll have another of whatever my friend is drinkin' 'n a double Johnny Red on the stones for me, bring 'em on over to the table, will ya, baby?”

Elijah gulped the rest of his drink and allowed Toe to steer him by the elbow, over to the table section. He gestured away from the back booth. “Anywhere but back there. I got bad vibes about the whole area.”

Toe smiled, remembering the bust. “Yeahhh, I remember that spot too.” He settled them at a table against the far wall, gave the bartender, now turned shit eatin' waitress for a two-dollar tip, to place their drinks on the table. “Yeahhh, I sho' 'nuff remember that spot. You know I had 'bout six ounces o' shit pinned between my legs the night they busted you?”

Elijah took a sip of his drink. What was there to say? Maybe the next time would be the Toe's turn.

“What's happenin' with Murph and Jackson?”

“Oh, they still fuckin' with people whenever they want to, you know how it is.”

The two men stirred their drinks simultaneously, each of them aware that the other one had something to lay on the other one … in due course.

“Uhh, what's happenin' with Bennie?”

Elijah allowed a disdainful look to sweep across his face. “Last time I saw Bennie, a couple brothers was spreadin' some o' his shit on they dicks.”

“Really?! that's too bad.”

“Yeah, well, you know how it is, if you can't hold your mug. But hey, man … I don't want to talk about Bennie. What's on your mind?”

Toe slugged his double down and signalled for a fresh round. “Mannnnn.” He leaned in close, takin' care business-time. “Dig, I'm into a dynamite scene. It's called the pots 'n pans game.”

Elijah found his smile giving way to a belly laugh before he had a chance to control it. Pots 'n pans?!

“Uhhh, go 'head, Toe … I'm sorry, man … it just struck me funny for a minute. Pots 'n pans?”

“I can dig it,” the Toe leaned back to slide his hand down the bartender's back before paying for their drinks.

“Anything else?” she asked, trying to get deeper into Toe's roll.

“Not just now, baby … maybe later.”

She nudged his shoulder with her left breast making change and graciously accepted the three-dollar tip.

Elijah took it all in. The play. A slight smile still on his lips. Pots, pans, buffers. Shit! the next thing would be kitchen cleanser and house cleaning.

“Okay, dig, Elijah … lemme run it down to you. I may as well tell you right now, I
know
that you gon' wanna get in on this …”

Elijah leaned in closer, glancing into Toe's eyes, from time to time, checking out the pulse vein on the side of his throat, watching his hands as he talked, paying close attention to all the things that might tell him whether or not the bullshitter was trying to bullshit the bullshitter.

CHAPTER 7

Elijah allowed himself to get caught up in the afternoon, downtown, lunch hour crowd … maintaining his own unhurried pace in the middle of the lemming movement.

He caught sight of himself in a store window and paused to admire his image. No hat because the Toe had explained that sometimes the ladies didn't trust dudes when they couldn't see all of him, like from top to bottom. But everything else was there, the very prosperous look of a successful operator. Now. With a hip little attache case yet.

He caught the reflection of the building he had worked in, up until a week ago, at the same time he caught sight of his prey dawdling along, trying to use up that ten or twelve minutes that she hadn't used up, rushing from her office building to a nearby coffee shop and back.

He locked his step into hers ten paces behind. Everything was timing. Timing was everything. If he hit at her too far away from her job she would feel threatened by a delay. If he approached her too close to her job and she was a priggy type, she might be terribly offended for appearances' sake, at the idea of a strange dude stopping her on the street.

For the hundreth time, he thought, too bad it's got to be sisters, but that's what the program calls for.

He appraised her body as he closed in. Beautiful li'l brown skinned sister, ass stuck out like it had a shelf under it, nice legs too, and a pretty face. Yeahhh …

He suaved himself up to her left shoulder and with a languid motion presented her his card, stopping her in her tracks as he instantly began to rap.

This was a delicate section of the game too. He knew, from past experiences, that he had to give her enough time to read the card but not enough time to think about it.

“Good afternoon, Miss”… nothing too flirty … “my name is Phillip Dobson, Regional Sales Representative for Astro Cookware Products. The card I've just handed you can be used for a discount on any Astro product. Now then, at this point, may I ask whether or not you're married?”

He carefully concealed his urge to strike a hip pose as she gave him the once over. He knew the look … it seemed as though they had stolen it directly from the faces of a thousand bargain-hunting white middle-aged women on a thousand daytime quiz shows.

“Well, no. Not yet. I'm engaged,” she informed him, through white, even teeth and rosebud lips.

Ain't this somethin'… a sister talkin' 'bout she's “engaged.” Why didn't she just come on out and say she 'n some dude is fuckin' regular. Lawwwd, I swear! my people!

“Beautiful! that's fine! Now, to make absolutely certain that you are eligible for Astro Cookware service, may I ask if you are twenty-four or younger? I can just about tell from lookin' at your pretty skin that you must be about that … am I right?”

“I'm twenty-two.” She flashed her eyelashes at him and held her wristwatch up theatrically. “And I have to get back to work in a few minutes. Why?”

Elijah nodded his head in agreement and pulled the stopper out. “I'm glad you asked that question before I had a chance to give you an answer. Our company has taken a survey to determine the greatest household need of single black career women … like yourself … aged twenty-four and younger … who are, of course, plannin' to get married sometime. Or …” He paused for a really roguish wink. “Hah hah hah, set up housekeepin' of one sort or another.

“The one single item we have discovered, that is always necessary, aside from love and affection, is pots and pans. May sound incredible but it's the absolute truth. Now, we invite you to consider one thing seriously … your husband may support you. He may even do the cooking for you, even if it's only boiling an egg, but one thing is certain … you are definitely goin' to need cookware.

“Would you be kind enough to provide us with your name, address and telephone number? I would like to phone you, arrange to drop in, at your convenience, for a complete, no-obligation-to-buy demonstration of our Astro Cookware.”

Elijah held the ballpoint and contract out to her with complete assurance that she would sign on the dotted line, and she did. “Thank you, very much, Miss … uhhh … Sister Brown. Could you give me the best possible time to … uhhh?”