Chicago Hustle (3 page)

“Well, the way you came up on the broad the third time, for example. The bitch was supposed to be feelin' so threatened by your nigger nasty-ass behavior that she damn near forgets she countin' change out to me … but that ain't what happened 'cause you had let your energy level drop too low.”

“Uhh huh, I dig whot you're sayin', I got t' be the nigger they think I am, the unloved one, and you be the loved one.”

Elijah stabbed the back of Nick's head with both eyes as they went through the checkout station, barely able to contain himself.

“Look, man!” he talked urgently across the cafeteria table into Nick's face, “I don't give a fuck how them people feel about me. All I know is this, in order to play on how they minds work, we got to have our shit up tight. Can you dig where I'm comin' from, brotherman?”

Nick spooned up a heap of bland macaroni. “Hey mahn, you know I'm just jivin'. The name of the game is success.”

He reached his free hand over for Elijah to slap, and started into the assorted plates on his tray in earnest, wishing that there was some goat meat on one of them.

Elijah studied his movements for a few seconds. That's the groovy thang about Nick the Geech, he takes every fuckin' thing seriously. They nodded to the regulars smoking their after-dinner cigarettes, on their way out, bellies puffed out, wallets fat.

“Well, that's what that was. They don't have good food but at least it fools you into being full.”

Nick slapped his palm and looked over his shoulder at the cafeteria entrance, disdainfully.

“Yeahhh, you can say that again.”

A moment of mutual good feeling passed between them, taking in the balmy Chicago air.

“Think I'm gon' call it a day, bruh Nick … I feel almost like I been workin'.”

“Yeah, I'll bet,” Nick slid in slyly, signifyin'. “Somebody tol' me they saw Dee Dee rip you off the corner. I had doubts about us gittin' down when I heard …”

“Ain't been a piece o' pussy slit that would keep me from takin' care business. And Lawd knows Dee Dee has sho' 'nuff got a good 'un.”

“How long you and that broad been into it?”

Elijah followed the woman's body passing by with an expert's interest. Forty-two, three, on her last legs but still tryin' to look good. Too bad she didn't do some sit-ups when she was younger, it might've kept her belly from hangin' down between her legs like that.

“What did you say, man?”

“Yeah, that bitch sho' has got a helluva turdcutter on it, ain't she?” Nick contributed his own esthetic considerations. “I was askin' how long you 'n Dee Dee had been into it?”

Elijah smiled slightly. Nick would love to fuck Dee Dee, I know he would.

“Awww man, ever since I was in high school. I dropped out in my second year, she graduated, shacked up or married a couple times, nobody really knows, had a couple crumbcrushers and we ain't never stopped doin' it durin' all that time. I just don't seem to be able to cut the bitch loose.”

Nick adjusted his hat, preparing to get on off into Saturday. “Well, if you ever decide to, let me have first shot.”

Elijah gave his hustlin' partner a quick, understanding wink. Like, hey nigger, you ain't gon' never get none o' the pussy if you expect me to ever step aside 'n let you in.

“Uhh huh, riight on!” he mumbled. “You goin' back down on the block?”

“Yeahhh, I was thinkin' 'bout playin' a li'l poker tonight. What're you up to?”

Elijah started backing away, wanting to move, his blood still alive from the day's games.

“I don't know, a li'l this 'n a li'l that.”

“Right on!” Nick winked, made a clenched fist, Black Power salute in a tight arch at the chest level, and started for the nearest El station.

Elijah watched him, dipping a bit in the knees, body alert for whatever, mind even sharper, heading for the Southside, and some barbeque, probably.

Elijah accidentally released a sound as he smiled about the way his friend functioned in the world. Good ol' Nick the Geech … couldn't find too many like him. You could pull it off with him 'cause he knew how to play. Yeahhh, he was a player.

A stem-faced, white-haired white man in a mackinaw shirt and a straw hat smiled indulgently at Elijah in his, to his mind, funny clothes, as they passed each other on the steps of the train station, one coming, the other going.

Elijah methodically checked the usual nesting spots of the station's detectives. His eyes went from track No. 16 to No. 20 on the left and from No. 1 to No. 9 on the right … he spotted the one he and Brotherman had nicknamed Dolores because he was such a punk that he didn't even know it himself.

He brushed Dolores away with a thought. He'll probably be goin' off into the men's toilet in a couple minutes to see if he can catch a couple of these gay commuters playin' with each other's li'l pink peckers. And besides, he's on the other side of the shopping plaza.

He took one last sweep before reaching the ground level. Beautiful, nobody treacherous in sight.

Keeping an I-got-a-purpose-here look on his face, he dug through his pockets in the wall locker storage section, opened one of the lockers and pulled out his “grab bag.” The house bricks inside the valise gave his arm just the right amount of strain when he picked it up.

The grab bag. He had to do it fast because they all knew him at the station. Sometimes, when he was high, and consequently invisible, he knew that they couldn't see him, but he wasn't high now, although he really wanted to be.

As usual, it popped up in front of him as though someone had deliberately placed it there.

With that sly, all-encompassing look that allowed him to see everybody in a room full of people all at once, he swept the station floor, checking out every face that might seem to be checking him, even as he watched the tall, erect, well-dressed white dude head for the schedule-of-departure board. Satisfied that it was cool, he stood near the suitcase the man had left sitting in the middle of the station.

Elijah sometimes felt like the only man in the world when he did the grab bag … because it was as though everyone knew what he was doing, and out of the hundreds milling around, it seemed only natural that someone would scream on him, but so far, in three years straight, he had only been paranoided out of his game five times.

He took a deep breath as he bent slightly and placed his suitcase near the expensive number. Beautiful, just about the same size.

It didn't matter if the color were different, that was cool … from a distance the mark would think he had misplaced his bag and be bewildered just long enough for Elijah to cut a corner and be gone.

He paused in the magazine section, set the suitcase down and browsed through
Players
for a full fifteen minutes, his heart skipping against his chest like a wet towel.

His whole self wanted to be trotting up the stairs to the outside, to a cab, but he knew from experience that that's how dudes got caught a lot of times … they'd start rushing up the steps like they were going to catch a train, and what they never remembered … the white man wasn't stupid, any nigger running up any stairs, anywhere, had to be up to no good.

Finally, calmed down and feeling supercool, he started up the stairs, being careful to pause after every few steps, to allow his hands and wrists a rest from their heavy burden.

Outside the station he hailed a cab and felt such a sense of power that he felt tempted to go back and exchange the valise he had for somebody else's.

“Where you wanna go, man?” the cab driver, a working man, looked up in the mirror at the man of wits and sneered.

“Forty-seventh 'n King Drive, good brother,” Elijah answered him quietly. Didn't do too much good to get egotistical with cab drivers, they could help you out sometimes, in different ways.

He looked at the grab bag closely. Nice grained leather, expensive make. Wowwww! I really got one today.

He watched the shading of the people, of the neighborhoods change … from the brick, metal and glass world of where he had gone to feed, so to speak … turn to the rich, soft, lush velvet of black people getting ready to do a beautiful summer Saturday night number. At 43rd Street, he started thinking about what he was going to wear and where he was going to style it off. Maybe with Leelah. I know she's probably home by now.

CHAPTER 2

He eased into the room behind the sound of Coltrane, checked out the trio of clock radios, the chair with six expensively tailored suits flopped across the back, the two portable television sets, both color, and the wooden box with the wristwatches in it on the dresser. All thieved for.

Leelah Dobbs was sprawled out flat on her belly, talking on the telephone as usual, he noted.

He closed the door softly, sat the grab bag down and looked closely at his main lady. Small, brown, fine. An old slash mark running from her left ear to her cheekbone made a spectacular dimple when she smiled … a thug bitch if ever there was one, both of them out of the same can of worms.

“Hey, look! fool!” she growled into the receiver after having obviously listened to enough bullshit, “don't be givin' me all that static! You can talk to him about it … he just walked in.”

“Who is it?”

“That simple assed Leo,” she spoke past the receiver, wanting Leo to know what she thought of him.

“Hey Leo, what's happenin'?”

“Saaayyy, looka here, bruh … I heard what yo' woman said 'bout me!” Leo slurred into Elijah's ear.

“Skip all that, what's happenin'?”

“Awwww, uhhh … awright, dig it. I done dropped three o' those bullets I … uhhh … copped from you yes-ta-day and I don't feel. Git no kinda feelin' at all. I don't feel shhhiiit!”

“You a motherfuckin' lie, Leo! If you didn't feel nothin' you wouldn't be callin' me to tell me about it.”

“You … uhhh … you … thank I'm trippin', huhhh?”

“You goddamned right you trippin'! Now git outta my ear with this bullshit!”

“Yeeeahhhh, uhhh huh, awright, Mr. Elijah, you the boss.”

“Take care, Leo … I'll catch you later on.” He hung up and spoke casually to Leelah, like a man coming home from his job. “Hey sweetthang, what's to it?”

Leelah lit a cigarette and let her bottom lip out slightly more than necessary exhaling.

“I thought you said you was gon' call me this afternoon?”

Elijah rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, faking disgust.

“Now come on, Leelah! Don't be givin' me a hard time! I got three shifts o' police ticklin' me in the ass, a whole boatload o' crazy motherfuckers tryin' to git into my head and a whole bunch of other thangs weighin' me down. The
last
thing I need is some square bitch bullshit about ‘you was 'sposed to call at noontime!'”

Leelah withdrew her bottom lip slightly, her bluff called. “Well, you said you was! I didn't ask you to.”

Elijah, realizing that the challenge had been met, relaxed his stance. “Yeah! yeahhh, well, I couldn't. I was tied up,” and checked the goods cluttering up the apartment.

Leelah made a remark, half to herself, half to him, “You always tied up”… that he ignored.

“What is all this shit still doin' here? I thought you 'n Zelma was 'sposed to be gettin' rid o' this shit?”

Leelah rolled over onto her back, bullshit past, taking care of business now.

“I got in touch with Browney and he said he wouldn't be able to handle it 'til Monday. Unless … hahhahhah … you wanted to do a credit thing with him.”

“Credit?! Credit what?!”

Leelah smirked, knowing her man.

“You know, he would have the stuff picked up and pay you Monday. I told 'im you wouldn't go for it.”

“You told 'im right, baby! You know somethin'? I think that honky been dealin' with in-sane niggers so long that he thinks we all crazy. Well, we definitely gon' have to clean house pretty soon, fo' real. You checked it out? Li'l Bit 'n him is hangin' 'round like buzzards.”

“Uh huh, really! Like I said, he told me he'd be able to take care business Monday, for sure. Whatchu got in the grab bag?”

Elijah hefted the suitcase onto the bed beside her. “Let's see.” He broke the flimsy lock with a shoe heel and opened the suitcase slowly, silently hoping that it would be filled with money.

“Wowww! Looks like you hit the jackpot today, brother.”

The two of them looked over the contents of the suitcase with seasoned, trader's eyes.

A couple well-tailored suits, two expensive German cameras, and the usual assortment of traveler's clothes.

“Dude must be into photography.”

Leelah pulled both of the cameras out and weighed one in each hand. “I know a dude who'll take both of these 'n give a good price.”

Elijah stood up to try on one of the suitcoats. “Cool, take 'em.”

“Thought you said you were goin' after women's things for a while?”

“Gotta take what the good Lord sends, baby. Don't worry, you gon' always get yours. Nice fit, huh?”

“I've seen better,” she replied, a little of her petulence returning.

Elijah draped the coat across the end of the bed and sat down beside her for a kiss. She turned her head away slightly.

“I saw Dee Dee this evenin' and she spoke to me for the first time in a month, even had the nerve to try to smile, with her bucktooth self!”

Elijah permitted himself a dry smile. Women!

“You say that to say what?”

“I ain't sayin' that to say nothin'. I just don't want that bitch laughin' 'n grinnin' in my face.”

He made a spontaneous decision to defuse the situation. “Awww goddamn! Leelah! pull your ass off your shoulder! You talk like she's my woman or somethin'!”