American Gangster

11. Nice to Be Nice

At the same time Richie Roberts was settling in with his squad at an abandoned church in New Jersey, Frank Lucas was being shown around an Upper East Side penthouse in New York. Just as a city maintenance worker had watched Richie deciding, so did a real estate broker — an attractive white woman — stand patiently on the sidelines while Frank considered the high-ceilinged spaciousness of a grand, unfurnished apartment.

Frank liked the modern look of the place, which probably dated to the 1950s when things got sleeker and all atomic and shit. The light streaming in from the garden terrace was right out of an old painting in a museum, and the curtains were themselves twelve feet high; this wasn’t an apartment, it was a damn cathedral.

Without looking at the real estate agent, Frank said, “No loan, no contingencies.”

“That’s fine. How—”

“Cash sale.”

“Fine! I know you’ll just love it here...”

And he did know he would love it there. The penthouse would be his refuge, his sanctuary, from the streets and business, and even from Teaneck and his family. Country boys made good help and were great family, but Frank had goals and tastes that were not at all country.

His home away from home, however, was a nightclub called Small’s Paradise at the southwest corner of 135th Street. Harlem had lots of choices in the nightlife department, Mr. B’s, the Shalimar, the Gold Lounge. But Small’s had history; it was the kind of place where a guy like Frank Lucas, even back when he was a glorified bodyguard for Bumpy Johnson, could rub shoulders with the likes of Wilt Chamberlain or even Howard Hughes.

Rain had turned the streets as slick and glistening as black patent leather, and off that sheen reflected the neons of the night, including the Apollo sign itself, the famous theater just across the way and down — James Brown appearing. Outside Small’s, a welldressed lineup of blacks and whites waited behind a velvet rope for the doorman’s decision on whether they were cool enough for the room. In a beautifully tailored Brooks Brothers, Frank, of course, brushed right on by and in; he was a silent partner, after all.

Frank didn’t take a ringside table — he preferred not to be in the spotlight — and sat talking and drinking and laughing a little with two business associates, Charlie Williams and Cattano’s man, Rossi. Like Frank, the two men favored expensive threads, nothing flashy, but sharp. Even their women, two pretty black call girls, were tastefully attired, not so heavy on the makeup or jewelry, some cleavage but no Playboy Bunny spillage.

Up on the stage Joe Williams was tearing it up, doing his signature tune, “Every Day I Have the Blues.” The acts at Small’s were always big-time — last week King Curtis, next week Jimmy Smith and his Hammond.

When applause for his signature tune died down, the singer said, “We have a special guest here at Small’s Paradise tonight, ladies and gentlemen — Mr. Joe Louis!”

The legendary champ, still a powerful-looking man despite his age, stood and bowed, smiling shyly, and waved to the crowd, which was going wild with applause and whistles and cheers.

After one more tune, the singer went on break but the band started up again, “Green Onions” inspiring couples to flood out to claim their tiny pieces of real estate on the postage-stamp dance floor.

Frank looked past the dancers toward the table where the former champ sat with his dignified wife, Marva, and their guest, a stunningly beautiful young woman in her mid-twenties, her slender shape poured into a gold lamé gown, shoulder-length dark hair cascading to bare shoulders.

Rossi, noticing Frank’s eyes were on the Louis table, said, “Twelve years. No champ’ll ever pull that off again.”

“Who’s the beauty queen?”

Charlie chortled and said, “You called it, Frank: a beauty queen.”

Frank gave Charlie a sideways look.

“A real one, Frank,” Charlie said with a grin. “Miss Puerto fuckin’ Rico. No kiddin’.”

He found himself staring at her — her smile so real, so natural, her eyes dark and bright and taking everything in...

... including Frank, when her gaze momentarily caught and held his. He didn’t look away. He didn’t mind her knowing he was admiring her; he wasn’t some gaping pervert, but a man respectfully taking in a vision of beauty.

Anyway, their eyes didn’t lock long enough for her to get uneasy or him to be embarrassed, because both had their eyes drawn to a noisy group entering the club, some young dudes and their women striding in, loud as a gospel choir but not near as righteous, with a big ridiculous Superfly figure out front.

Christ, Frank thought, what idiots, and then he was embarrassed: it was his brothers, with Huey (who should the fuck know better!) in the lead, wearing a damn parrot-green suit with floppy wide-brimmed fedora and slung with a showcase worth of gold chains, acting like he owned the place.

When, after all, it was his brother who owned the place...

Frank didn’t even let the boys and their wives and girlfriends find their way to a table before he got up, went over and took Huey by the arm and hauled his ass unceremoniously in back to a small dressing room used by singers like Williams and comics like Nipsey Russell, empty at the moment and perfect for Frank’s purpose.

“What is this nonsense?” Frank demanded, turning Huey toward the mirror.

“What?” Huey said, mildly indignant, as if he had no idea what the hell his big brother was talking about. “These are my clothes. This is a very nice expensive—”

“Piece of crap,” Frank said, holding onto his brother’s green-clad arm. With his free hand, he gestured to his own sharp but not ostentatious apparel. “These are clothes.You’re wearing a costume. Fuckin’ Halloween, Huey.”

“That’s bullshit, man!”

“Is it? Why don’t you just hang a sign around your neck says, ‘Arrest My Ass’? You look like Nicky fuckin’ Barnes.”

Huey blinked, looking more hurt than mad. “And what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with Nicky Barnes? I like Nicky. He’s cool.”

“Cool? You wanna be like Mr. Cool? You wanna be Superfly, when you don’t grow up? Then go work for him, Huey. End up in a cell with him, why don’t you?”

“Maybe I will.” Huey pulled himself free from his brother’s grasp. Trying to regain some pride, he smoothed his ruffled shirt and adjusted his outlandish hat.

Frank sighed. He took the edge out of his voice, stayed calm and even soothing. “Listen for a second, bro. Gotta understand, man — guy making all the noise in the room, he’s the weak one. That’s not who we are. That’s not who you want to be.”

Lightly, as if changing the subject would make all this go away, Huey said, “Nicky wants to talk to you, by the way. Told him I’d tell you.”

Frank’s found his primping brother’s eyes in the mirror. “You talked to Nicky about me?”

“Not about you,” Huey sputtered defensively. “We was just talking. Shooting the shit, y’know? And it come up in passing, like, that he had something he wanted to rap with you about.”

“Do I look like I want to have anything to do with that fool Nicky Barnes?”

“I’m just passing it along is all.”

Frank said nothing. He looked at his brother in the mirror, took in the gaudy threads and shook his head. “I am definitely taking you shopping tomorrow.”

“Why? I went shopping today.”

Frank’s eyebrows went up. “Yeah, I can see you did. Seems like you go shopping every day, Huey, like a goddamn girl.”

“That’s no way to talk.”

“That’s no way to dress. I’m introducing you to my tailor. God help us if he sees you in that getup.”

Frank waved his brother away, and the vision in green went out to find the other country boys and their womenfolk.

Half an hour or so after the Lucas brothers ended their conversation about Nicky Barnes and his influence on fashion, a cream-color Bentley rolled up at the curb outside Small’s Paradise and Barnes himself — and his entourage — piled out.

When Frank’s chief rival in the powder business swept in, Barnes — in a sable coat and brown leather suit and feathered fedora — had his arms full of copies of the recently released New York Times Sunday Magazine that depicted him on a cover emblazoned “Gangster Chic.” The flamboyant druglord was passing them out like a newsboy peddling an “extra,” often stopping to sign them.

At the same time, Barnes’s chief rival was occupied in a conversation with Joe Louis, the champ having table-hopped his way to Frank’s, where he now sat and spoke respectfully to the man responsible for filling Harlem’s streets with a product called Blue Magic.

“It’s a tax thing,” Louis said with an embarrassed shrug of his massive shoulders. “It’s a mistake my lawyers’ll straighten out, you know? But for the time being, Frank, it’s a real headache.”

“How much you owe?” Frank asked.

“Nothing, nothing. Something like — fifty grand?”

Frank studied the battered, puffy and yet still handsome, iconic face of America’s greatest heavyweight champ, black or white. Was it an honor to have a celebrity of this stature asking to borrow money? Or a curse?

Either way, Frank could only smile and nod, a king granting a request from a down-on-his-luck knight.

Louis beamed in a shy country boy way that Frank could relate to. “Thank you, Frank. You’re tops. I’ll pay ya back soon as—”

“No. Joe. It’s a gift. Not a loan. You don’t owe me nothing. Just keep comin’ around the club here. You honor us with your presence.”

Meanwhile, Nicky Barnes was gliding around the club with his magazines and his crew, a long-legged good-looking gal on his sleeve. As Louis chatted with Charlie and Rossi, Frank watched the flashy fool make his rounds, lingering at Louis’s table where Mrs. Louis was introducing him to Miss Puerto Rico, Barnes holding onto the beautiful creature’s slender hand longer than a man with a girl on his arm should.

Frank had had enough. He glanced and nodded at Huey at a nearby table, by way of announcing he was splitting. Frank’s big bodyguard/driver, Doc, didn’t require a glance or a nod, knowing Frank’s moods well enough to read that he was ready to go. Doc got up even a beat before Frank.

At the hatcheck stand, Doc had Frank’s topcoat ready and he was slipping into it when Miss Puerto Rico — stepping from the ladies’ room into their path — came through.

She gave him that open, no b.s. smile, making no bones about them earlier having shared a look across the crowded club.

“I’m Eva,” she said.

“I’m Frank,” he said, and smiled just a little. Just enough.

That made her smile grow, and she said, “You’re Frank, and...” She gestured around the hopping club. “... this is your place.”

He kept the just-enough-of-a-smile going but otherwise didn’t reply.

She took that for “yes,” and said, “Then why is it called Small’s?”

“Fellow named Small opened it. Back in the days of the Harlem renaissance. Cotton Club and all.”

“That was a long time ago.” There was something impish, and nicely teasing, in her voice, which was lilting and musical, the Puerto Rican accent adding faint percussion. “Why don’t you call it ‘Frank’s’ now?”

“Because,” he said, “I don’t have to.”

And now he let the smile all the way, full-wattage. Normally he could make a girl forget her own name with that smile. Only right now, with her smiling back at him, he wasn’t sure he could remember his own...