Urban Renewal (7 page)

“Even those girls—”

“Got pimps, you’re gonna say? Nah, they got ‘managers.’ And most of
those
are women themselves, how’s that? It’s about the money, sure. But this business of turning what you earned over at the end of the night, that’s dead. The only cash they ever see comes in tips—and even that’s no sure bet, no matter how good they are.

“It’s all credit cards. Money transfers. Stuff like that. Fools—and
all
johns are suckers, boy; never forget that—leave a clearer trail to follow than if they was paying off in orange money.”

“What’s orange money?”

“Boy, sometimes I worry about you. When some fool robs a bank, the teller hands over banded stacks of bills. Idea is that some of those stacks, they got little bombs in them. Not enough to hurt no one, but they shoot this orange dye all over the money. You supposed to
burn
those bills, but …

“Anyway, just listen, all right? You just interrupting to
prove you don’t know nothing. Now, those ‘escort’ girls, they fine, sure enough. But every one of them is stone treacherous. You think a street girl got her a little black book? You still
that
dumb, you probably think those escort girls
don’t
.

“What you got on the street today is nothing but trouble. I mean
serious
trouble. In my day, a mack man could drive a Rolls with mink upholstery, be
draped
in diamonds. And his women, they’d be
proud
to see their man showing so fine.

“But what you got out there now? You don’t be seeing a player riding around, checking on his string, making sure they working. He probably don’t have the gas money for some half-ass ride he most likely don’t even own.”

“But if a woman wants to give you her money …?”

“What
money
, son? Those sorry skanks couldn’t bring you a yard a night. And even if they did, it wouldn’t be for long. Think you could really protect them if that kind of talk wasn’t just game? There’s other cars trolling those strolls. Every night, they’re out there. A girl gets in one of
those
cars, she’s not coming back. And ain’t nobody gonna come looking for her, either.”

“I drive a Lincoln. Brand-new.”

“And not paid for. You don’t own it, so you can’t … 
personalize
it, understand? Somebody spots you behind the wheel of that Lincoln, you know what they see? Another nigger limo driver. Ain’t
that
special? You got a girl, works in some hair place, makes the payments, right?”

The old man paused just long enough to glance at his nephew’s face.

“Yeah, I thought so. Same for your fancy phone. You didn’t pull that woman, boy—she pulled
you
.”

“But if I had—”

“You ain’t
never
gonna have enough legit women to put you where you want to be, boy. They don’t sell steak in no fish store.”

“So how could a man do it? Do it right, I mean.”

“You already passed the first step, boy. The young man who think he know it all shows he don’t know nothing. But you sitting there, paying attention like you was in school. And you know I earned heavy back in the day. I got paid. So I’m worth listening to, and you already done that math in your head.

“Okay. First, you don’t even
think
about cutting into one of those escort girls. They all got connects. Some of them got brands on them, too. Mess with one of those girls the Russians own, you gonna have yourself a real bad accident—like if you fell into a chainsaw, face-first. No. Where you go is the clubs.”

“I go all the time. I’m even known in some of them.”

“Known for what? You’re not in the dope game, and you’re not a shooter. You’re known because you throw money around. That’s gonna bring some girls close, and you can stand that kind of inspection—you a pretty thing, sure enough.

“But you need a lot more than that to close the trap. Unless you want to live off some heifer—maybe even a couple, three, four of them—you need a ride that’s worthy. And you need a place to park it.”

“I told you—”

“Yeah. You told me. That rented Lincoln. And I told
you
that’s not gonna get it. I know you got a whole closet-full of threads. How I know that? ’Cause you still living in your mama’s basement, boy.”

“Well, I got plans.”

“No, you don’t, boy. What you got is dreams. You wanna make them come true, you got to listen to Mr. Blue. Those clubs, you looking for the kind of girl that wouldn’t get near anybody without
real
coin. What you want is a stripper, son. Sure, she’s making money on that stage, but she looks around every night. And you know what she sees? Younger stuff than her already coming up. How many years you think a girl can work that pole?

“If she’s an independent, what
she’s
looking for is some stockbroker, some politician, some fool with a credit card. And a wife. She don’t want no wannabe rapper, no man-sized baby, no horse that can’t run on the fast track. She wants to be a rich man’s pet.”

“A rich man? How am I going to come across like that?”

“You
already
all that. A born-pure con man. A hustler. That don’t mean a gambler—that’s not professional. A hustler don’t play with dice. He don’t work for nobody; he works the marks.

“So you need a racket where you got to have a lot of pure, sweet
smooth
to get over. If a girl believes you working on some million-dollar score, she’ll
wait
, you with me? And while she’s waiting, she’s earning. Earning and turning, okay? She’s gonna understand how a for-real, don’t-have-to-work-no-more score can take a long time to put together. She’s gonna understand how you got partners she never gets to meet. And she’s gonna understand how, some nights when she comes home, you ain’t gonna be there.

“Start her off like you training a dog. She gets home by six in the morning, you not there. But a couple of hours later, just when she’s starting to get thinking you gone for good, you roll in. So she never knows.

“Got to give a girl one night off. Take her someplace nice. Throw some money around. But no more than that one night. And you make sure it’s not the
same
night every week. Make it so she can count on you coming back, but not on
when
, understand?”

“So she’s off balance?”

“No, boy. So she’s
confident
. You and her, you’re in it for the long haul. Together. Soon as this big score you’re working on comes through, you can’t be hanging around—some very bad people be looking for you. You not gonna put your own woman in the crosshairs, not the woman you love.

“She’s gotta understand that. Accept it. Believe you’re gonna send for her when you get settled in … I don’t know, place like Cleveland. Not out of the country, but not next door, neither.”

“But with just the one girl, I’m always on the bounce.”

“First of all, I never said nothing about
one
girl, did I? That’s why you make sure the girl can’t count on any particular day of the week. You can run two of them like that. Not no more. Two is the max, understand?

“And you play it real, real careful. You need three phones. One for each girl—they
gonna
play detective on you, go through your phone while you sleep. And what do they find?
Their
number.
Their
picture. Load up the phone with anything else, don’t matter. But only one
girl
on each.”

“You said no more than two—”

“Two
girls
, not two
phones
. That third phone, that’s for new stuff. You got to always be scouting.”

“Ah.”

“All right. If you play this correctly, you won’t even need your own place. You tell them, ain’t safe for them to come
around where you live. Not ’cause of the neighborhood, ’cause of your partners.
They
can’t have no woman in the picture. Bad men, these guys. They see a face they don’t know, they might get suspicious. You got to sell it: girl wouldn’t want
those
kinda guys getting suspicious about her.”

“Because of this big score I’ve been scouting out?”

“Oh, yes! But, remember, the ride, that has got to be righteous.”

“Can’t do it.”

“That’s right, you can’t. Way you’re going, you getting older, not smarter.”

“If I was smarter, what would I be doing?”

“Listening.”

“I’m listening. I
been
listening. But—”

“How bad you want it, son?” the old man cut him off.

“How bad? If I had something that kept on making bank, I’d do … hell, damn near anything.”

“I can get you a hundred large.”

“Yeah? Who I gotta kill?”

“Boy calls himself the ‘Chi-Town Terror.’ ”

“The rapper? Him? You got to be crazy, old man.”

“What I got to be is what I am now: old. Get it? I buried a hundred men, and I’m not gonna die from no bullet.”

“You were a killer?”

“No, fool. I needed that done, I always paid some sucker to do it. I mean, I’ve watched a hundred men go. And I’m still here. Did I roll the bones? Sure. Swig champagne? Snort some powder? Of
course
—that’s what a mack man did then. I came up same way you should. By getting schooled.

“The man who taught
me
the game told me something I never forgot: The one thing you can’t never pick up is the
one thing you can’t never shake. You know what that is? Worse than the clap, worse than a crazy whore who’ll slice you in your sleep, worse than a prison jolt. The worst thing a man can pick up is a
need
.

“You never even go
near
anything you can’t walk away from. That’s the only law a pimp has to know. But he has to have it memorized and internalized. Down cold. A pimp on the spike is just a junkie with some nice clothes. A pimp on the bottle is just a drunk with a Cadillac that he’s gonna drive into a wall. A pimp who can’t stay away from the tables, he’s gonna end up
under
those tables.”

“I get it.”

“Not yet, you don’t. You understand,
maybe
you understand, you don’t play a game you can’t win. But you got to be willing to die before you even get to try.”

“Come on, old man. That rhyme-time thing is too old-school for me. I can’t break it down.”

“Try this, then. This ‘Chi-Town Terror’ has made himself a mistake. The worst a man can make. When it comes to rap, there’s East Coast and West Coast. That’s it. There ain’t no Midwest. And there ain’t no ‘neutral,’ either. He thinks, okay, maybe he can’t travel, but this town is big enough for him to
be
big in. See, he ain’t signed. He wants to run his own show. Produce his own stuff. Sign up talent. Keep all the money.”

“So?”

“So, if he pulls that off, gonna make a lot of people brave. You think they ain’t got rappers all the way from Denver to Dallas? The way it is now, some go left and some go right. But who goes to the middle? Chicago, that’s the middle. East and West, they go to the death to prove who’s the best. Only thing they agree on is there can’t be no
‘rest’
—you see the
picture I’m painting for you?” The old man sighed and took another deep inhale from his oxygen tank. “You surprised I know this, I can tell.”

“I didn’t think you even listened to rap.”

“I don’t. But I listen to the drums. Never stopped, even when they changed the beat. So—tell me, boy: you down with the whole rap scene, right?”

“Well, not—”

“Never mind. That ain’t the point. ’Cause I know what you
can’t
tell me. Who killed Tupac? Who killed Biggie?”

The young man said nothing, but his posture finally completed its gradual shift from half-slouch to full-attention.

“One hundred large for the Chi-Town Terror. All you got to do is walk up and put a couple in his head.”

“Me?”

“You.”

“I don’t even have a gun.”

“I do. And I got something even better. I got his crib.”

“That palace on Lakeshore? How could I even get past the doorman, never mind his bodyguards?”

“Not his showroom, boy. His home-crib. When they tore down the high-rises, he moved his mother out to Chicago Heights. Ain’t as nice as it sounds. Been a hard town for as long as I can remember. But it’s a private house.”

“Sure. Probably guarded around the—”

“Boy,
try
and listen! That house ain’t guarded with guns; it’s guarded with knowledge. Even his own crew don’t know about it. When he comes over to see his mama, he goes Plain-Jane on the ride. And he goes alone.”

“How did you—?”

“Stop acting the fool! I found out
from
a fool. You could torture that sucker for days and he still wouldn’t say my
name. He didn’t even know what he was telling me while he was doing it.”

“How could—?”

“Boy, how much time you think I have to keep filling in the blanks for you? The fool with the mouth, that’s his mother’s man. Younger than her, but he ain’t nothing special, and he knows it. He’s still in the saddle—he don’t work for a living, but he’s never broke. All he knows is that the old lady’s son comes by, gives her cash. The rest I figured out for myself. And figured it was info I’d save for a rainy day. Check the weather out there, young boy—this is Chicago, not L.A. When it rains here, it rains
hard
.”