American Gangster

10. Kill Kill Kill

Frank Lucas marched the small army of his brothers down 116th Street in Harlem. In his Armani suit, Frank looked like the Pied Piper, leading these country boys in their plaid and checked shirts and jeans and clodhoppers. The Lincoln Town Car was gliding along just behind them, keeping the same pace as they walked and talked and toured the street they would soon own.

He’d been telling them about Bumpy Johnson. How Bumpy ran one of the biggest companies in New York City for almost fifty years. That he’d been with Mr. Johnson every day for the last fifteen of those years, looking after him, taking care of things, protecting him and, most of all, learning from him.

His words seemed to impress these country boys, though they may have been even more impressed by the storekeepers who waved and smiled at their big brother, and the grown men who stepped out of his path like a red carpet was rolling out from under his well-polished shoes.

“Bumpy was rich,” Frank was saying, “but never white-man rich. Why? Because he didn’t own his own company. Oh, he thought he did. But really, he only managed it; somebody else owned the thing. So they owned him.”

This lecture continued as Frank led his brothers up the stairs of Red Top’s apartment building.

“Nobody owns me,” Frank told them. “Why? Because I own my own company.”

Soon they were heading down a hallway. “And my company,” Frank continued, “sells a product that’s better than my competitor’s... at a lower price.”

Frank stopped outside Red Top’s apartment door.

Huey, bright-eyed and as naive as a kid at his first county fair, asked, “What are we sellin’, Frank?”

“See for yourself.”

Frank unlocked the door onto a world his brothers had never seen before, outside of maybe a blaxploitation picture at a drive-in movie.

Five naked women — all in their twenties, with the kind of nice bodies that could make any boy’s mouth hang open, country or city — sat at worktables with their faces veiled by surgical masks. Four of the topless quintet were cutting heroin with lactose and quinine in a precise Frank Lucas — dictated mixture of controlled purity. Another of the women was stamping small packets of blue cellophane with the words “Blue Magic.”

Frank shut the door behind his slack-jawed brethren as Red Top — in a halter top and leather miniskirt — came over and smiled in that way of hers, both friendly and businesslike.

“Hi, Frank,” she said. “What turnip truck did these boys fall off of?”

“A truck out of Greensboro, honey,” he said good-naturedly. “These are my brothers.”

She grinned at them and started shaking hands, saying, “Any brother of yours, Frank. Any brother of yours.”

Huey was watching the women work, not just taking in their titties like the other boys. He asked Red Top, “Why are you putting ‘Blue Magic’ on the packets?”

She said, “There’s lots of brands of dope in Harlem — Tru Blue, Mean Machine, Could Be Fatal, Dick Down, more than you could count even with your shoes off.”

Frank picked it up: “Blue Magic’s a new brand name, our brand name, for this new, stronger shit.”

Red Top put in: “Ten percent purity, when other brands are five percent or less.”

Huey was paying close attention, even if Frank’s other brothers were still ogling the help.

Next stop on Frank’s nickel tour was just across the way, his favorite diner, where they pushed a couple of tables together and ordered lunch. As they waited for Charlene to bring their blue plate specials, Frank continued to hold court.

“What matters in business,” Frank was saying, “is honesty, integrity, hard work and loyalty.”

Out the window Frank spotted Tango Black, wearing his Shaft-like black leather jacket, bald head gleaming in the sunlight, standing at a fruit stand and helping himself. A fine-looking long-legged gal hung on his arm, and that bodyguard as big as Tango stood watch.

“Most important,” Frank said, reaching for the glass sugar dispenser, screwing off the lid, “is never forget where you come from.”

His brothers watched with eyes wide as Frank dumped the contents of the dispenser onto his plate, as if he was preparing to chow down on a hill of sugar.

“You are what you are,” Frank said, “and that’s one of two things: you’re nothing, or you’re something. You following this?”

His brothers managed to nod, though they remained fascinated by the empty sugar dispenser, its abandoned lid and the pile of sugar on his plate.

“Excuse me, fellas,” he said, and stood. “I’ll be right back.”

His brothers watched, bewildered, as Frank exited the diner and, weaving between this car and that one, headed across the street, where a big bald guy with a good-looking girl on his arm was filling a brown-paper grocery sack with fruit.

Empty sugar dispenser in his left hand, Frank approached Tango cheerfully, saying, “Hey, man, what’s up? I was just thinking about you.”

Tango turned and frowned, more confused than irritated.

Frank was saying, “You know, I was looking at the jar you told me about?” He held up the empty sugar dispenser. “And you know what? I didn’t see nothing in it.”

Tango sneered and snarled, “What the fuck you want, Frank?”

But Frank’s answer wasn’t words.

Frank’s answer was to pull his revolver from its shoulder holster and shove the gun’s snout into Tango’s forehead.

Right out on the sidewalk, on the street, in front of the fruit stand, in front of his brothers and Tango’s girl and bodyguard and God and everybody.

The ranks of “everybody,” however, were thinning, as people faded away in the deadly silence, including the bodyguard, who backed way the fuck off. Even the young long-legged gal wasn’t on Tango’s arm anymore — she was heading down the sidewalk, her high heels clicking on cement, like she had a doctor’s appointment she just remembered.

If Tango was worried, though, he didn’t show it. He just stared at Frank, eyes cold under the gun barrel whose nose was dimpling his forehead, and the would-be king of 116th Street sneered some more as he said, “What’re you gonna do now, boy? Shoot me in broad daylight? Front of everyone?”

The world froze.

Life on the street stopped, like an atom bomb had just dropped, nobody moving, everybody looking at Frank and his captive audience.

“Big show,” Tango said derisively. “Everybody looking at the big man. But what next? You really gonna shoot me, motherfucker?”

“Yeah,” Frank said, “I am.”

Frank squeezed the trigger and Tango was dead so fast it didn’t have time to register in the insolent eyes, and the big man fell back and hit the pavement, hard, but feeling no pain. Blood and brains drained out under the bald head like somebody had dropped a melon off the stand.

Tango was history but Frank still had a point to make.

He emptied the revolver into the corpse’s chest and the shots made little cracks yet echoed like thunder down the canyon of buildings.

When the gun was empty, and the echo had died away, silence again shrouding the street, Frank just stood there and, one by one, looked into the face of each spectator, including the bodyguard and the fruit vendor, daring them to remember him.

Then, calmly as a meter maid giving a parking ticket, he knelt and reached inside Tango’s jacket and found a money clip fat with cash. He set the empty sugar dispenser down and jammed the money in.

To nobody in particular, Frank said, “For the cops. Should be plenty.”

Then he got to his feet, crossed the street — no cars at the moment, for some reason — and went back into the diner and sat back down with his brothers. He ignored their astonished stares and tucked his napkin back into his shirt collar, like any good country boy. The blue plate specials had arrived, steam rising off meat loaf.

“That’s basically the whole picture,” Frank said. He smiled from face to face, then asked, “Any questions?”