American Gangster

21. Revenge

The snow was still white and fresh, New York not getting its chance to apply grime just yet, and the Christmas feeling in Manhattan was like everybody was living inside that old movie, A Miracle on 34th Street. The towering tree at Rockefeller Center had been turned on earlier that evening, its blinking red and blue and green lights casting a Yuletide glow on tourists and New Yorkers alike, who applauded as if electricity in the 20th century was still a miracle. Certainly Christmas was.

Frank Lucas did not delegate Christmas — he was still, at heart, a country boy, and the holiday meant something to him, not so much in a religious way as a time for family and friends. He had shopped at Saks Fifth Avenue for Eva, and at Macy’s for his momma, his brothers and the help. By the time Doc rolled up outside Frank’s penthouse, the car was piled with wrapped presents in the front and back, and though he wore not red and white but a tan cashmere topcoat, he felt just like fucking Santa Claus.

Too bad a Grinch had parked itself at the curb outside Frank’s building: Detective Trupo, in the replacement Mustang the detective had bought, no doubt, with some of the proceeds from that heroin he’d helped himself to.

“Frank...,” Doc began.

“Yeah, I see them. Not a problem. Pull in behind.”

Doc did as he was told. There was a big Christmas tree tied to the roof of the Town Car and the doorman came over to help Doc free the pine. In the meantime, Frank selected from among the presents two bottles of Crystal with festive bows choking their necks, and got out and went over to Trupo’s car.

The Zapata-mustached detective was behind the wheel, and in the rider’s seat was one of his partners. Frank had not bothered to learn any of the names of Trupo’s team — they were insects to him.

Still, he handed in both bottles and gave the pair his friendliest smile, his breath pluming in the chill. “Here you go, boys. Merry Christmas. One of my guys will drop by your restaurant with a little green for the season, next week.”

Trupo handed his bottle over to his rider for safekeeping, then returned Frank’s smile, wished Frank and his family a happy holiday, and the new Mustang rolled off into the gently snow-flecked night.

In honor of the season, Frank did not mutter anything under his breath about the evil pricks.

Half an hour later, with Christmas music playing softly on his stereo, Frank was in his vast, high-ceilinged living room on a ladder stringing lights. His old friend Charlie Williams, in sweater and slacks, was seated on a nearby sofa sipping a beer — nothing fancy for Charlie. No wonder Bumpy had loved the man so.

“It’s part of the game,” Charlie said philosophically, “greasing these palms. Price of doing business, Bumpy always said. Imagine how bad it would be for us if the cops weren’t crooked assholes?”

Frank reached up to loop the string of lights around a branch; he loved the strong pine scent — that, too, brought back memories of the backwoods.

“Paying cops is one thing,” Frank said. “I understand that. Hell, I been payin’ ’em since I was ten — put more of their fuckin’ kids through college than the National Merit Award.”

“You got that right,” Charlie chuckled.

“But this is different, these Special Investigation Unit dicks.” He cast his eyes over his shoulder, gazing right at Charlie. “These fuckers think they are special.”

“A badge has given a lot of small men big ideas, over history.”

“That’s the SIU fuzz to a tee.”

Charlie shrugged rather grandly; it was his third beer. “They’re just fuckin’ crooks, like any other fuckin’ crooks. Not cops who do their jobs and keep the streets looked after and make up for their shitty paychecks with a little gravy. No, these guys got no code of honor. These guys got the ethics of a goddamn sewer rat.”

Frank was down the ladder now. He knelt and plugged in the electrical cord and the tree glowed vividly in the otherwise under-illuminated room. Rockefeller Center had nothing on the Lucas tree.

Getting to his feet, Frank said, casually, “Somebody’s been following me.”

“Besides cops?”

“Besides cops.” He came over and sat next to his old friend, and the two men’s eyes met. “I see cars where they shouldn’t be. Driven by guys I don’t know.”

Charlie sighed. He put his beer down on a coaster on the glass-top coffee table.

“Me, too,” Charlie said.

“Silent Night” by a children’s choir was singing in the background as the two men chatted about the possibilities, none of which were what either wanted for Christmas, or any other day.

Frank sat and watched Eva, lovely in a dark sweater and skirt, hanging tinsel on the tree. She’d already been up on the ladder and now was doing the lower branches; when she bent over to apply the silver glittery stuff, the sight of her nicely rounded bottom made him glad to be alive.

She was everything he needed — let the other guys have their mistresses and whores. He had his personal beauty queen, right under his own roof.

Also, he had Bumpy, the German shepherd, who Eva graciously allowed to invade the penthouse a few days a week; Bumpy was perfectly housebroken and a real gentleman, well deserving of the dog toy Frank had bought him at Macy’s.

Since Frank figured the dog didn’t know Christmas from Easter, he gave the animal its present early, tossing the rubber thingie to the dog, who proceeded to have the time of his life tossing it around like a dead squirrel.

Enjoying the dog’s enjoyment, Frank wandered over to Eva; he was sipping a glass of eggnog with a little rum in it. “I love it here. With you.”

“Me, too.” She flashed a smile at him but something sad lurked within. “But it is nice to go out, sometimes.”

“Bumpy almost never went out, after a certain point. He liked to stay in, and read, and watch TV and listen to music. Play chess. He didn’t go out much.”

“That sounds like prison.”

“Not hardly!” He gestured around at the lavish living room. “You think this is prison?”

She said nothing, just applied another strand of tinsel to another branch.

Frank came over and touched her shoulder. “Bumpy couldn’t go out without... something happening.”

“He was more of a public figure than you, Frank.”

“True.”

“We can still go out. Even tonight.”

Frank sighed, moved off a few steps, gesturing. “Where? With who? Everybody I know is under surveillance. I’m being watched these days and I don’t even know who by. I can’t even be with my family at Christmas.”

“Why not?”

“Too obvious a target — for cops and business rivals.”

He leaned down and played with the dog some more, tossing the damp toy, getting it back, tossing it again. Then he wandered over to a window, drew back the drape just enough to peek out at the decorative wooden Christmas angels stretched out across the street. People were out walking in the lightly falling snow; he watched them, envying them, and then took in the parked cars across the way. Idly he wondered which of them held undercover cops.

Eva’s hand touched his shoulder so unexpectedly, he flinched a little.

Her head was cocked, her eyes yearning. “Why don’t you just pay who you have to pay? Then maybe we’d have a little more freedom.”

“Baby, I do pay them — I pay them all. Cops, accountants, lawyers, who don’t I pay?Everybody’s on my payroll — and I shell out a fortune, but it don’t matter. Doesn’t satisfy ’em. More you pay, the more they expect.”

“That doesn’t make sense, Frank...”

“Of course not. Because it’s like dope. You pay them off once and they can’t stop coming back for more. They always want more.”

The worry coloring her lovely features made him heartsick — this was his life, and his problems, that had put them in their penthouse prison.

He smiled gently at her, took her by both shoulders. “Go put on something nice.”

“What?”

“We’re going out.”

Frank had Doc pick them up the back way, which meant going down the service elevator and exiting through a long dark hallway into an alley between garbage cans. Not an auspicious start for a nice night out — Eva had on a mink coat over her beautiful evening dress, and Frank was snappy in gray sharkskin under the cashmere topcoat, and they were a stunning-looking couple, who at the moment were acting like a couple of deadbeat tenants running out on their landlord.

When they got to Small’s Paradise, things weren’t any better: Nicky Barnes was in the process of climbing out of his sky-blue Bentley, in typical Superfly threads topped off by a Santa Claus cap.

“Aw shit,” Frank said. “Keep going.”

Doc looked at Frank in the rearview mirror. “Around back?”

“Fuck that. Sneaking out of my apartment building was bad enough. I’m not playin’ backdoor man at my own damn club... Just drive.”

They tried several other nightspots, but some were closed Christmas Eve, and assorted reasons made the others impractical as well, so they wound up at a Chinese restaurant where nobody knew Frank from Adam and it would be an hour for a table. So they ordered takeout.

The place was a joint, no place to sit while you waited under harsh, buzzing fluorescent lighting, and steam everywhere. Eva was getting pretty steamed herself.

“Listen,” she said, “I’ll sit in the car.”

Doc said, “Go ahead, Frank. I’ll wait for the stuff.”

Frank asked, “Can you carry it all? We ordered a ton.”

“Sure, no problem. Go on.” Doc’s expression was that of a man who understood the difficulties of keeping a woman happy.

Frank slipped the big man a couple twenties, then turned to take Eva’s arm, but she’d already stepped outside.

“Don’t forget the hot mustard,” Frank said.

“What’s that, that yellow sauce?”

“Yeah, the yellow sauce.”

When Frank got out the door, he saw Eva half a block down, trying to get in the car, which was locked. Snow was falling good and hard now, and he slipped a little on the sidewalk when he trotted down to her, but kept his balance.

“Damn,” Frank said, not even having to search his pockets, just knowing, “Doc’s got the keys. We better go back.”

She shook her head, squinted; snow was dusting her mink. “I can’t, Frank. Those lights give me a headache — you go.”

“What, and leave you standing on the street?”

Her hands were in the pockets of the fur, and she was hopping on her heels a little, shivering, her breath visible. “Frank, it’s cold. It’s just down on the corner — go! Get the keys.”

He knew arguing with her was pointless right now, so he headed back; seemed to him the snow was coming down harder by the second. A drab-looking Chevy went by, a little too fast for the weather, catching Frank’s attention. He was about to go in the restaurant when he glanced back, toward Eva, and saw the Chevy down there round the corner.

Though the vehicle had apparently moved on, something had the nape of Frank’s neck tingling. He did not go in the restaurant to help Doc, who was paying and getting yellow sauce, his arms already filled with a bunch of stained sacks.

For some reason, Frank just stood out in the snow and the cold and waited, and then he saw the car coming back around that corner, and he ran, placing every step carefully so as not to slip and fall and not make it to Eva in time. He could see her standing next to the car, her expression turning curious as she saw him running toward her.

Then he had her by the wrist and she didn’t have time to ask him why, as he ran with her toward that restaurant, the only door they could get into on this block. The Chevy was almost on them, gunning its engine, and then Frank pushed in through the doors with Eva, and Doc — arms full of sacks — saw his boss dive for the grimy floor and take his wife with him.

The windows shattered under an explosion of gunfire, a grease gun most likely, and patrons were screaming, and cooks and waitresses were chattering in Chinese as if gibberish could make the threat disappear.

Doc had ducked down himself, the sacks of food spilled all over the place, and had a pistol in either hand, firing out at the car through the now open window. He hit the Chevy a couple times, puckering metal, and the vehicle — which had slowed to a near stop to make the hit — screeched off.

Like a presidential bodyguard, Doc gathered Eva and Frank up off the floor and hustled them out of the decimated hole-in-the-wall and down to the car and piled them in back.

Blood had soaked through Frank’s topcoat on his left shoulder, but he didn’t feel anything but anger. “What the fuck was that?”

“Are you hit?” Doc asked.

“Just drive.”

Doc did.

Christmas Eve or not, security was stepped up at Frank’s penthouse, Frank’s own people including his brothers as well as cops on the payroll — not SIU, of course — patrolling not just the Lucas floor but every floor of the building.

An older black doctor who had been Bumpy Johnson’s medic of choice attended Frank in the master bedroom. His brothers hung around on the periphery as the doc worked on Frank’s shoulder wound. Stretched out on top of the covers, Frank had been given some painkiller and felt fine, except for somebody having the fucking nerve to shoot at him... and to launch the hit when he was out with his goddamn wife. That was fucking low.

Upon getting back to the penthouse, Eva had disappeared, and an hour had passed before she returned bearing early editions of the papers. She’d gotten these in the lobby, from a flunky Frank had sent to gather them. Now, having made her delivery, she was perched on her side of the bed, supportive of her husband but staying out of the doctor’s way.

In Frank’s lap — hurting him way more than any shoulder wound — was a front page with a big nasty tabloid picture of Charlie Williams gunned down on the floor of a jazz club toilet. The only thing lower than those SIU cops, Frank figured, were the reporters who thrived on tragedies like this.

Brother Huey was pacing at the foot of the bed. “Was it Nicky did this? You think it was Nicky, Frank?”

Frank said nothing.

“To think I thought that guy was...” Huey, tears in his eyes, was trembling with fury. “I’ll fuckin’ kill that bastard, whether it was him or not, you tell me to. Say the word, Frank. Just say the word.”

Frank said nothing.

Huey gestured with two hands, pleading. “What do you want me to do, Frank? Your brothers are just waiting for the word. We can’t just sit here and—”

“Hitting me, I understand,” Frank said, reflectively. “But Charlie? Who did Charlie ever hurt? And who didn’t like Charlie? Everybody liked Charlie...”

Expressions were exchanged among the brothers: somebody didn’t. But no one said it.

Eva said, “I feel bad about Charlie, too, Frank. But what I’m wondering — who shot at us?”

Frank said nothing.

“You’re right,” Eva said, and she smiled — as icy a smile as Frank had ever seen from her. “It doesn’t matter. Because we’re leaving. Are you finished, Doctor?”

The doctor blinked at the woman of the house. “Yes. I can wait in the living room, to discuss medication, if you’d like some time alone with your husband...”

“I would. Please leave us. Everyone?”

Frank said to Huey and the others, “Go home — go see your kids. Christmas Eve, for Christ’s sake.”

The brothers and bodyguards and various onlookers filed out, and Eva went over and shut the door on those loitering in the hall.

On her way to her dresser, Eva flicked a look at Frank, saying, “It doesn’t matter who shot at us. Because we’re leaving.”

She yanked open a drawer and took out their passports, slapped them on the dresser; then she went to the closet and got two suitcases and began packing.

He was too weak to get out of bed, but his voice was strong: “Where did you go? Where have you been? You go out alone, after we get shot at?”

She said nothing, going to the closet again and carefully picking out items, quickly and efficiently, like a skilled shopper at a fire sale.

“Eva, what are you doing?”

“We can leave from here. Money’s in the car.”

Frank blinked. “What money?”

“Everything you stashed at your mother’s house.”

“In your car? The Corvette?”

“Yes. That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“And where is your car?”

“Out front.”

“With ten million dollars in it?”

She shrugged. “I guess. I didn’t stop to count it.” He climbed out of bed; he was weaving, but his concern and anger fueled him. “Are you crazy, woman? We gotta get that cash back to Teaneck. Who went with you?”

“Nobody.”

She was at the dresser getting stuff from drawers and he could look over her shoulder into the mirror at her — not that her eyes met his that often.

He said, “You went out driving around without security? After what went down out there?... Doc’ll take you back.”

She had one bag packed and started on another. “We’re not going to Teaneck. We’re going to the airport.”

“The airport.”

“We’re leaving the country.”

“To where? No, we are not leaving the country.”

She turned to him and her eyes were wild. “Frank, Charlie’s dead. And they tried to kill us. What else has to happen before you come to your senses? We have all the money we could ever—”

He took her into his arms and held her close and calmed her like a child. “Come on now, baby. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

She wasn’t crying, but she was close; and when her breathing slowed, he asked her, “Where are we going, anyway? Spain? China? Which fuckin’ place is it to be, girl?”

Her chin got crinkly. “We can go anywhere we want. We can live anywhere.”

“We can run and hide,” Frank said, “is what you’re saying.”

“You make it sound—”

“Like something I would never under any circumstance do. Listen, baby — this is where I’m from. This is where my business is. Where my family is, my mother. This penthouse, this is my place, our place, too.”

Tears pearled her eyelashes. “I’m scared, Frank.”

“I know you are. I know you are. But this is my country, Eva. This is America. And you don’t run from America — you run to America.”

And he took her to bed where she slept under his good shoulder, and he tended to her as if she were the wounded one, which perhaps was right.