Chicago Hustle (5 page)

After fifteen minutes, and a last hit on the roaches they held between thumb and forefinger, they stepped out into the warm night air of the Westside, loaded.

Benny pulled out a scrap of paper and squinted at the address written on it under a street light. “It's in the middle of the block here.”

Elijah checked the neighborhood out closely. One of those mixed dwelling kind of places … stacked shelves of people next to one owner dwellings.

Elijah nodded to Benny as they paused in front of the target, slid up the passageway leading to the back door and listened. The unmistakeable sound of a black gambling scene played itself out to them. Men grumblin', gamblin' and bettin'. They smiled to each other as they adjusted handkerchieves over their noses.

Elijah removed the towel from the sawed-off shotgun, Benny pulled out his luger.

Benny tapped on the door with just the right amount of force, it would never do to have the gamblers think that they were the police.

“Yeah?” a voice asked from inside.

“Me, Sam,” Elijah slurred, knowing out front that they had to know a Sam, from somewhere.

They brushed past the doorman and stood with their backs to the door.

“Awright, everybody, freeze! Don't move another muscle!”

One of the eight men standing around the table turned with a cynical look on his face. “Man, c'mon on! you got t' be jivin'!”

By previous agreement Benny skipped over to the speaker and slapped him across the face with his luger. The other men understood now, that it was a gambling house robbery, probably by dope fiends, which meant they couldn't be monkeyin' around. They snatched their respective piles of money from the table and stood with their hands raised.

Elijah took an indecisive step toward the group with his piece at shoulder level, uncertain as to whether he should make them keep their hands on the table because he had said, don't move another muscle, or whether or not he should make them keep their hands in the air.

The tension was wiping his high away and making him feel higher at the same time. He mopped sweat from his brow.

“Everybody! kneel! faces to the floor! asses in the air!” he heard himself say loudly. Good! We can deal with them better on the floor.

Benny looked at him gratefully. There was something very intimidating about being in a dingy, smoked-filled room with a bunch of big ol' thug ass niggers, sweating bullets over a jiveass robbery.

One of the gamblers, a big, butter-necked dope peddler, pinky ring flashing, even in the dull light, grumbled, “Looka here, blood … you gon' make me get my suit all messed up.”

Elijah, on his job, knowing that all challenges had to be met and dealt with, if they hoped to survive, spoke coldly. “If you don't get your ass up in the air super quick, that ain't all you gon' get messed up!”

The utter seriousness of his tone, the shotgun and Benny efficiently snatching money away from hands, out of pockets and wherever else it could be found, confirmed the unspoken, dope fiend thing about them.

A nationalist in the bunch, terribly pissed, couldn't resist the urge to speak out against an outrage. “Y'all sho' is some cold-blooded motherfuckers! robbin' yo' own people!”

Benny kicked at the crack of his ass as hard as he could and almost fell.

Elijah spotted the toilet door on the other side of the room and almost fainted. What if there had been someone in the shithouse!

Being extra careful not to call Benny by name, he asked, “You got it all?”

Benny nodded, trying to pull the fat gambler's pinky ring off. The man offered no resistance and no aid.

Elijah allowed Benny a few pulls before beckoning for him to give it up. Diamond rings were worth a lot of bread sometimes.

“Awright! everybody in the shithouse! One at a time!”

Several of the men started to rise.

“Down! crawl!” Elijah poked his piece into several rib cages, being unnecessarily brutal in order to make his point.

Once again, he felt like fainting when he realized that they had not searched anyone, and that every one of the dudes crawling into the toilet might have a piece on him.

“Search 'em before they crawl in, man!” he called out to Benny.

Benny looked at him hatefully, for a quick moment. Why did he have to continue taking the dangerous chances involved with being close to these dudes, running the risk of being grabbed. He slapped out at a stray head, maintaining his brutality image as he haphazardly patted here and there on the men crawling past him.

“Hey, man … we can't all crawl into the shithouse, we got to stand up in order to get in here.”

Elijah motioned for the men rising up to stay down. “Crawl up on top of each other, don't stand up!”

The last four men crawled in over the backs of the others, mad, disgusted. When the last man had crawled in, Elijah stuffed a nearby chair under the knob. “That oughta hold 'em for a few minutes.”

They could hear the grumbling grow louder and louder as they moved to the door. A soft knock stopped them in their tracks.

The knock came again, a bit more urgently.

“Yeah?” Benny asked, creeping up to the door.

“Joe Mason and Clifford.”

He looked at the toilet doorknob twisting and popping against the back of the chair. Too bad I can't fire a round at them motherfuckers.

The two men, realizing that they had the advantage because they knew what was going down, nodded to each other with complete understanding.

Benny jerked the door open. Elijah cocked his piece on them. “Awright, goddamn you! c'mon in! quick!”

The two men strolled in, disgusted expressions stamped all over their faces. Benny took their money off of them, stuffed it into his pockets with all the rest and pushed them down to the floor. “Make one move 'n it's your ass!” he told them and kicked one of the men in the ribs for emphasis.

They shot through the door, realizing that it was a run for their asses now, mainly because it was, and because the dudes who had just come in were going to open the cage of tigers in the toilet the minute they were out of sight.

Running behind Benny through the narrow passageway to the street, Elijah had the sudden, sinking feeling that they had lost, that the gamblers were going to catch them and grind their asses under heel.

They hit the street, running, Elijah realized after a few quick steps, the wrong way.

“Benny! Benny!” he called out, disregarding a group of people lounging around on their front stoop. “Benny! the cars the other way!”

Benny looked around at Elijah, surprised and scared, realized that he was right and started back in the other direction with him. They raced past the gambling house just as the first of the gamblers were starting out. Elijah fired a round from the shotgun into the air, intimidating the first pursuers. And kept on steppin'.

By unspoken agreement, they decided not to head for the car, to give their getaway vehicle away … instead they raced into the first alley they came to.

Pausing under a porch light for breath, Elijah looked at Benny's sweat-soaked face and laughed. “Li'l bit outta shape, huh?”

Benny nodded yes, gasping for breath.

The close sound of a bunch of men talking started them off again, trying to do a big circle and make it back to the car. They hopped over a fence and into someone's back yard, complete with a huge German shepherd on a chain. The three of them froze for a full ten seconds, the animal's ears peaked up for this unusual intrusion.

The dog made his lunge at Benny, already scrambling back over the fence, screaming.

Elijah dropped over beside him, dealing with the awkward shotgun carefully.

“You awright, man?”

Benny whimpered like a baby and stood up to feel his behind. “Yeah, yeah … I'm okay, I thought he had ripped a hole in my ass for a minute, it's just my pants.”

The dog, not content to chase them out of his yard, began to woof at them from the other side of the fence.

“Who that down there?” a heavy male voice called from the shadows of one of the porches.

They trotted to the back gate, peeked out cautiously and continued their trip through the alley.

Trying to take a short cut through what looked like a small parking lot caused them both to trip over a low slung chair, draped across the entrance. Both men sprawled, moaning from the pain crackling up from their shins … the chase momentarily forgotten. Benny recovered first and, with deep compassion, helped Elijah to his feet. “C'mon, bruh … we can't lay here moanin' all night, we got to get to my ride.”

They hobbled off, groaning a bit from the pain, in deep trouble now, because most of the neighborhood, in its own hip, telepathic way, was aware that someone had robbed the gambling joint.

Elijah spotted them first and nudged Benny. Three men searching through the alley, coming toward them. Realizing they couldn't run away without exposing themselves, they eased up into the deep shadows of someone's back porch.

The noises of a party coming to their ears from the second floor made both of them feel naked, as though the men searching for them would automatically look underneath the party noises.

The squad car popped through from the other end of the alley, catching the three men squarely in its spotlight as they met, practically in front of Elijah and Benny's hiding place. Both of them tried to become invisible.

The two white men in the squad car, taking no chances in the ghetto, kept the three men in the light of their car as they leaned out, pistols drawn, and asked questions.

“What's going on here?” the most aggressive one asked. “We got a report of a shooting.”

“Ain't no shootin' here, officer. Musta been a false call,” one of the men answered, the “right” tone of voice for rookie pigs carrying over into the shadows.

Elijah and Benny smiled.

“What're you guys doing out here in the alley?” the other cop asked.

“We lives out here … in the alley,” a sarcastic voice answered.

“Don't be funny with us, fella. Just answer the goddamned question!”

“Awww, he was just jivin', officer,” the first voice eased in, cooling the white boy out. “We on our way home from a stag show.”

The irritation that rang out in the cop's voice said many things. Mainly, I'd give anything to blow one of you bastards away. “Okay! okay! enough of this bullshit! Let's clear this alley! Move it!”

The three men, into their neighborhood in a way that the white men could never be, faded away into familiar passageways, disappearing for the period of time it would take the squad car to find something else to do.

Elijah tried to ease his squatting position into something more comfortable. Sweat slithered down the sides of Benny's face.

The men eased out of the shadows as soon as the car drove away and regrouped in the center of the alley to discuss what to do.

“Dig, Jack, why don't you 'n Nate get your car and wheel around a bit? They still 'round here somewhere. Melvin, Carson and J.D. went home for they pieces. We gon' find these rotten motherfuckers tonight.”

A couple party goers, half juiced, flowed out onto the porch and leaned over the bannisters.

“What's happenin' down there!? Whatch'all doin'? playin' in the garbage cans? hahh hahh hah.”

One of the searchers threw an empty can, half in play, half seriously, up at the drunk.

“Mind yo' own business, asshole! 'n leave ours alone.”

They waited for a few minutes, to allow the searchers to go on, before risking a few words.

“Lead pipe cinch my ass!” Elijah growled at Benny.

Benny, stuffed in a corner behind an old sofa, shrugged eloquently. They both maintained their positions … tired, hurt, aching, afraid.

“Heyyy, Benny … I got an idea, take off your coat 'n hat … we're goin' upstairs to a party.”

Benny stared across the distance between them, not believing his ears. “Mannnnn, have you gone in-sane?”

Elijah decided not to argue. He stood and took off his hip bush jacket, wrapped the broken down shotgun in it.

“This ain't registered, is it?”

“Hell no! but … ohh, I see, I see what you doin'. Yeahhh!” In order not to make their stuff look hidden, arousing someone's suspicions maybe, before they could get back to it, they crushed the wrapped-up shotgun and Benny's luger into a jumbled heap on the sofa, along with a pile of other rags, and eased up the stairs to the party.

“Hey, 'Lijah,” Benny whispered at the top of the stairs, “I got a rip in my pants, man.”

“You still got your ass, ain't you?” The two men eased into the back door into the kitchen, fending off the hostile stares of a few dudes lounging around who saw competition for the home stretch.

A tall, well-assembled woman stood behind a table loaded with fried chicken, wrinkles, potato salad, monkey bread, cole slaw, bean pies … a soul food smorgasbord, one fist mounted on a lush hip, a drink in the other.

“Awright people! let's buy some of these dinners! Me 'n Shirley didn't spend all day cleanin' these wrinkles for our health!”

Elijah moved obliquely over to the table, Benny scuttling along close to him, trying to conceal the rip in his pants.

“Uhh, I'd like a dinner, sister.”

She smiled at him warmly, and at the sudden line that developed behind him. She set her drink down and began to pile food onto a paper plate for Elijah.

“Somebody'll be taking my place in a few minutes,” she mumbled, her eyes boldly meeting Elijah's for a few seconds, “and I'll be ready to dance.”

He paid for the dinner and stepped away with a grin on his face, liking the down home flavor of the place, the music coming from the front, the food and the woman serving it.

“How is it, man?” Benny asked, pointing at the food with his nose.

“Why don't you buy a dinner 'n see?” Elijah teased him, drifting up a long hall to the source of the music, strobe lights flickering over a bunch of Westside black folks doin' the Funky Notion.