American Gangster

19. Harlem Hijack

In the back of his brother Huey’s Cadillac, Frank — in a tan cashmere topcoat as anonymous as the chinchilla had been flamboyant, yet almost as expensive — sat and listened, trying not to be irritated that business was taking him away from his family on this day of thanks.

Huey was saying, “I keep hearing our shit is weak. Man, our shit is strong, you know our shit is strong...”

“Nicky’s been stepping on it?”

“Stepping on it! He’s been jumping the fuck up and down on it! Been cuttin’ it so much, it’s down to two, three percent pure.”

Frank frowned. “And you tested it? You’re sure?”

Huey said, “Does the pope shit in the woods? Is a bear Catholic?”

Frank noticed driver Jimmy’s eyes on them, in the rearview mirror, and scowled at his stupid cousin, saying, “The fuck you lookin’ at?”

And Jimmy’s eyes went back to the road.

Frank breathed out and, half under his breath, said to his brother, “Shoulda never let you talk me into hanging onto that chump.”

Dusk had fallen when the Cadillac drew up in front of a nondescript building in the clothing district. Frank instructed Jimmy to stay with the car, and he and Huey went on inside.

The interior was chrome and mirrors and Naugahyde and looked like a nightclub out of Cotton Comes to Harlem. This was Nicky Barnes’s “members only” club, and today had been open only to family and staff — turkey carcasses and empty pie tins on the bar indicated those partying here today had, to some degree, enjoyed a traditional Thanksgiving.

But things got less traditional quickly, as a bodyguard led Frank and Huey into an area resembling the VIP section of a strip club, right down to the naked girls who were cavorting with Nicky and a couple of his pals.

“Frank!” Nicky said, a long-legged wench on his lap. Nicky was in purple velour and lots of gold chain work. He gestured around the naked woman, a magnanimous host. “Welcome. Make yourself to home.”

Frank just stood there. “We need to talk.”

“Great!” Nicky moved the naked girl off his lap, like a guy moving a potted plant to one side. “Girls, get the fuck out.”

The girls, giggling, a little high, gathered their scanty things and disappeared into the adjacent bar. At Nicky’s nod, his two bodyguards exited, too, so Frank gave Huey a look, to wait in the other room.

Across from Nicky, with a little black table between them, was a modernistic black-leather chair, the seat of which Frank cleaned off with a handkerchief, which he then discarded.

Nicky leaned forward and laid out several lines of coke, then offered his guest first sniff, handing a rolled-up C-note as a straw toward Frank.

“No thanks,” Frank said.

“You must’ve been talking to Charlie,” Nicky said good-naturedly.

Frank hadn’t been, but said nothing.

“You must wanna hear about this big idea of mine, this Black Coalition. It’s great you’re here. I’ll explain it to you...”

That is, Nicky would explain as soon as he’d bent over to suck up a line of that coke.

Frank sat back, folded his arms. Despite the numerous bodyguards in the next room, Frank felt safe enough; he had a nine millimeter in his waistband and, anyway, he was the golden goose of dope suppliers. Even Nicky Barnes wasn’t dumb enough to kill the golden goose.

“This Black Coalition,” Nicky was saying, as high on this idea as on the coke, “it’ll change everything—”

“Not why I’m here,” Frank said flatly. “Glad to talk about that another time, Nicky. But not today.”

Nicky looked up quizzically before doing the second line. “Why you here, then, my brother? We ate all the fuckin’ turkey.”

And Nicky grinned, teeth as white as the coke. Frank did not grin. “You look happy, Nicky.”

“I am happy.”

Nicky did another line.

“No,” Frank said. “You’re not. Everybody’s happy — Charlie, Baz, cops, Italians... everybody. Everybody but you.”

“I’m fuckin’ happy! All right?”

Frank grunted. “Then I don’t understand. If you’re happy, why take something that’s perfectly good the way it is, and ruin it?”

Nicky shook his head, not getting it; or, anyway, pretending not.

Frank rolled out the charming smile. “This is America, Nicky. We’re capitalists. In wholesale business, working through retailers. And in a capitalistic country, brand names mean something. Consumers rely on brand names, to know what they’re getting.”

Nicky was staring at Frank like maybe this was a hallucination.

Frank continued evenly: “Consumers know a company they’ve relied upon, done business with, isn’t gonna try to fool them with an inferior product. They buy a Ford, they know they’re gonna get a Ford — not a fuckin’ Datsun.”

Nicky was shaking his head. “What the fuck are you talkin’ about, Frank?”

“Blue Magic, Nicky. Blue Magic is what I’m talkin’ about. It’s a brand name, like Pepsi or Coke, and I don’t mean that snow you’re sniffing. I own the Blue Magic brand name, Nicky. I stand behind it. Guarantee it, and people know that, even if they don’t know me personally any more than they know the chairman of General fucking Mills. They know Blue Magic and what they get from it and what it stands for.”

Nicky waved his hands. “You’re over my fuckin’ head, Frank! I have no idea what the fuck—”

“What you’re doing,” Frank said, still superficially pleasant, “far as I’m concerned, when you chop my dope down to five percent or three or two? Is trademark infringement.”

Finally Nicky got it.

The gaudy dealer sighed, nodded, then said, in a reasonable tone (for Nicky), “All due respect, Frank, if I buy something, I can do whatever the hell I wanna do with it.”

Frank shook his head. “Not true. That’s where you’re wrong.”

But Nicky was insistent: “I buy a car, I can paint the fucker, can’t I?”

“For your personal use. You can’t pass it off as a showroom model, anymore.”

Nicky frowned; if the creases on his forehead had been any deeper, you could hide dimes in there. “You can’t tell me how to do my business, Frank.”

“No, but I can tell you how to do mine.” Frank sat forward. “Nicky, you don’t need to dilute my stuff. You don’t need to make more money than you already can with Blue Magic, just the way it is. Nobody does. Christ, at a certain point it’s just plain greed.”

Nicky’s eyes flared. “That’s easy for you to say, on your high horse. I got my own expenses, and needs, and I got customers for this shit, even stepped on — hell, stepped on it’s still good shit.”

“Better than what some sell, yes. But that’s not the point.”

Nicky was clearly working to control himself. “What can I do about this, Frank? You want me to call it something else?”

“Yes,” Frank said simply. “I have to insist — you cut my shit, and then call it Blue Magic, that’s misrepresentation.”

Nicky shrugged, and some defiance was in there, despite the capitulation. “Fine. I’ll call it Red Magic. Don’t sound as good, but it’ll do just fine out on the street.”

Frank shrugged back at him, gestured with open palms. “That’s all I’m saying. Wrap it in red cellophane, and—”

“Pink magic,” Nicky was saying, thinking out loud. “Black magic, maybe.”

“I don’t give two shits,” Frank said. “Whack it down to nothing, tie a bow around it and call it Blue Scumbag, if you want, just don’t let me catch you doing this again.”

Nicky’s eyes grew cold, and their coldness settled on Frank, who felt the chill but did not show it.

“ ‘Catch’ me?” Nicky said, a lilting threat in his voice. “ ‘Insist?’ ‘In-fuckin’-fringe-ment?’ I don’t like words like that. Better to hear ‘please,’ ‘thank you,’ ‘sorry to bother you, Nicky.’ These are better words for business associates to use, especially when they come into my fuckin’ place without a goddamn invitation.”

Frank just looked at him. Nicky seemed to be waiting for a response, a diplomatic word or two, but Frank wouldn’t dignify the fool’s rant with any.

Then Frank lifted an eyebrow as if to say, We cool?

Nicky sighed, shook his head; but then he nodded. “Okay, fine,” he said, but it sounded more like a warning than an acceptance.

On his way out, Frank found Huey off to one side in a chair with one of the naked broads grinding on his lap and Huey grinning goofily into space. Frank pulled her off his brother and she said, “Hey,” but Huey didn’t argue, just followed Frank dutifully out into the twilight.

Frank went to the Caddy, where Jimmy was leaned against the car, smoking as he waited. Holding out his hand, Frank said to the driver, “Keys. Take a cab home.”

Jimmy nodded, handed over the keys and disappeared down the street.

Huey drove. Both brothers were in the front seat. Neither said anything for a while.

Then Frank said, “Don’t go around there any more.”

“What?”

“I don’t want you hanging with Nicky. Problem?”

“No.”

They rode in more silence, then Frank noticed that Huey’s eyes were staying on the rearview mirror, his expression turning sick. The reflection of blazing white light caught Frank’s attention, too, and he glanced back to see a car behind them, flashing its brights.

Cops in an unmarked.

Frank touched Huey’s arm. “It’s okay — pull over. What are they gonna do? Give us a ticket? We’ll live.”

Huey pulled over, but Frank’s words hadn’t calmed him much.

Behind them, Detective Trupo and another SIU dick, both in their black-leather dusters, were climbing out of the unmarked, heading for the Caddy. The garment district was deserted on this holiday, and if this were a hit, nobody would see it but those involved, living and dead.

Huey whispered, “Frank, Jesus, Frank, I’m sorry... but there’s some stuff in the trunk.”

Frank glared at Huey, who reacted to the look as if his brother had slapped him.

Then Trupo was standing outside Frank’s rider’s window. Frank powered the window down and Trupo leaned in, like a satanic car hop.

“Why, hello, Frank,” Trupo said and grinned his terrible handsome grin.

“Detective. How’s it going? You have to work Thanksgiving? That’s too bad.”

“Yeah,” Trupo said slowly, “it’s been a fucked-up Thanksgiving at that, matter of fact... Get out of the car, fellas.”

The Lucas brothers got out and convened on the sidewalk with the two SIU dicks.

The unmarked was a Chevy Caprice, nothing special.

“Didn’t recognize you in that car, Detective,” Frank said easily. “Save the Shelby for off-duty these days?”

“The Shelby’s gone, Frank.”

“Too bad. It was a beauty. You trade it?”

Trupo said nothing, but his upper lip curled in a sneer as he walked around to the driver’s side, reached in and snatched the Caddy keys from the ignition.

The detective went back to the trunk and opened it up, and Frank and Huey swapped glances.

Silence, but for distant bridge traffic, accompanied Trupo standing there, looking down into the trunk for what seemed the longest time, and was maybe ten seconds.

“Wanna come over here a minute, Frank?” Trupo asked politely.

Frank came over.

Six kilos of heroin basked in the meager illumination of the trunk light.

“Now what are we gonna do about this?” Trupo asked. “This is illegal contraband, you know.”

“We’re gonna shut the trunk,” Frank said, “and say good night, and forget you even pulled us over.”

“No.” Trupo raised a forefinger. “You know, I think I have a better idea.”

Then the SIU dick leaned in, plucked two heroin bricks from the group, and tucked them under his arm. “Okay with you, Frank? ’Cause we got other options.”

“Do we.”

“I mean, if you rather I took it all and threw you and your brother in the fuckin’ river, is another option.”

Frank, expressionless, said, “Here’s a third: next time it’s your whole fuckin’ house blows up and not just your candyass car.”

The two men stared at each other. Neither face held any expression; neither man blinked, either.

Not until Trupo, genuine sadness crawling into his expression, said, “I loved that car.”

“A pity.”

“You wouldn’t know where I could get a turkey butchered, would you? Do they keep overnight, once they been shot in the head?”

“Couldn’t help you with that.”

Trupo sucked in breath, then slammed the trunk closed, yelled to his partner, “Let’s go,” and walked away with his cut of the heroin tucked under his arm like a couple loaves of bread.

Frank got in on the rider’s side of the Caddy, Huey on the driver’s, and Huey was about to start the car when Frank slammed his brother’s head into the window so hard, the safety glass cracked.

Huey groaned, and choked off sobs.

Frank leaned in and his upper lip peeled back over his teeth as he said, “Don’t you ever put me in a car with dope in it again. Or you’ll be the one thrown in the fuckin’ river.”

In another unmarked car, Richie Roberts — pleased with himself for abandoning his bleak Thanksgiving for staking out Nicky Barnes’s club — sat and watched through binoculars. He couldn’t see exactly what happened in the parked Caddy, but he’d seen the SIU detectives, helping themselves to a small fortune in heroin.

Someday, Richie thought. Someday...