by Mary Leo
I thought perhaps Speck was just someone I could help, use the nursing skills I had learned from working at the State Institution in Redding. But I was wrong. I tried to talk to him when he escorted me down the hallway to my room. I even thought that perhaps he was taking me to Suzanne and Mary Ann. I tried to reason with him, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that he had gone way past any reasoning.
He startled me when the knife that he held up to my neck actually cut my skin a few times. I took a quick breath in and let out a painful, “Ahh.” That’s when he put the pillow over my face.
Chapter Thirty-one
The last time I knocked on Flukey Brown’s door, I was met with a .45 automatic. We couldn’t reach him by phone, so I volunteered to go pick him up. The director had to run a scene over again and Flukey happened to be in it. When Flukey saw who it was he put the gun down and apologized. For some reason, I hadn’t been afraid that day, but today, on this particular morning, sitting on his sofa, wearing my tight black leather skirt, and pink shirt, I feel entirely vulnerable.
“What’s a nice chick like you want with a gun?” Flukey asks while he leans against a bright blue table.
Flukey’s apartment, just off Maxwell Street, looks like something you’d find in an episode of Magnum P.I.—Hawaiian pastel. Neat. Clean. Not exactly what you’d expect in this neighborhood.
“You didn’t answer me. Why you want a gun for?” Flukey asks again. “They ain’t nothin’ but trouble. I don’t like givin’ no gun to a nice white girl like you. ‘Sides, what you think? Just ‘cause I’m black I got me a gun store? Maybe I’m Guns R Us or somethin’?” He stops and chuckles. “Hey, that’s funny. Ain’t that funny?”
“Yes,” I answer, smiling. Flukey laughs a little more and shakes his head as if he’s amazed by his own cleverness.
“I’m a funny man. Should’a been a comic like Richard Pryor. That’s one funny son of a bitch. Got hisself a drug habit, though. Now, there’s a brother who got everything—the money, the woman, the kids, livin’ out there in California and the fool can’t stop the habit. Like he’s still livin’ in the projects. You know him?”
“No,” I answer, angry now that he’s changed the subject.
“You know how to use a gun? I gonna give you a gun and you gonna shoot yourself in the foot then I gonna feel real bad, and I don’t like feelin’ bad over some crazy white chick from the movies. Talk to me, woman. You gotta be on the straight with me.”
“I know how to use a gun.”
“Good. That’s a good start. Now, what you want it for?”
“I need protection.”
“Protection? From the guy who gave you that lip?”
I don’t answer.
He yells out to the other room, “Terrell, you hear that? She needs protection. Come on in here, Terrell.”
Terrell walks in from the kitchen. A mountain of a man, dressed in a deep purple suit. He smiles. Between the two of them, neither one seems real. They look like caricatures of themselves. Flukey stands about six-foot-three, skinny as a stick, and wears a hot-pink suit. Terrell, his bodyguard, must be six-five and has to weigh in well over 300 pounds. Neither of them can be more than twenty-five years old. When they showed up on the set all decked out, Terrell in a floor-length mink and Flukey in a hot-pink leather overcoat, both carrying custom leather pool-cue cases, wardrobe wanted to redress them because they didn’t look authentic. Shows you what Hollywood knows.
“You want protection? My man Terrell’s here for protection. Who you want hit?” Flukey asks and sits down next to me on his pink floral sofa.
“I don’t want anybody hit. I just want a gun to protect myself—that simple.”
“To protect yourself. Ah-huh. And what makes you think I can get you this here gun you want…to protect yourself? What’s stoppin’ you from gettin’ it at a gun store? They got themselves some fine weapons. Terrell, what’s the name of that gun store over there in Riverdale?”
“Chuck’s Gun Club,” Terrell answers, sitting himself down on a rattan side chair that his body completely overwhelms.
Flukey continues, “Terrell here, can drive you over and—”
“I want a gun now. Today. Without any strings,” I insist.
“You gonna kill somebody today?” Flukey asks in a low voice, reaching up and touching my swollen lip. His tone deadly serious. A tone I’d never heard before.
I move away from his touch. “Look, I can’t answer all your questions. You don’t need to know what the gun is for. I just want one, okay? I thought maybe you could help me out. If you can’t, tell me. I don’t need you to be my mother. I just need you to sell me a gun. Purely business. I’ll pay you whatever you want. If you can’t sell me one, then tell me who to go to. I don’t have time to dick around with you and your ideas about what a white girl like me should or shouldn’t do.”
I stand to look down at Flukey still sitting on the sofa. “I covered your ass when the FBI called the set looking for you. Gave you some time. Now I need a favor. I need a gun. Can you get it or not?”
Silence.
Not a word from either man. I wait, staring down at Flukey, shaking from the excitement of my anger. Trying not to think about how insane this whole scene is. Second-guessing myself.
Flukey gets up, walks over to a bedroom doorway, steps inside, makes a quick phone call to someone, comes back out wearing a hot-pink fedora and says, “You ever ride in a ‘68 Caddy? It’s like nothin’ else.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Terrell goes for the car while Flukey and I wait on the front stoop. My mother used to tell me stories about Maxwell Street when I was a little girl. It was the place to go if you wanted a bargain. There were more street vendors and pushcarts on Maxwell Street than any other street in Chicago. It’s where my grandmother bought our dining room table, where my friends’ parents bought their Persian rug, where a little bit of Western Europe seeped into the U.S. and stayed for more than three decades. Now the only things they’re selling are drugs and sex. Any kind of drugs and any kind of sex.
The neighborhood looks like a rerun of Combat, that WWII TV series. Each block has one or two buildings that are partially destroyed with bare walls still standing and bricks lying in piles. Other buildings have long since been condemned but kids still run up and down the front steps to their apartments. It’s the part of Chicago that the Daleys never talk about.
In the midst of this chaos, from around the corner, with sunshine glistening off each bumper and piece of chrome, comes a pink Cadillac that even Elvis would have drooled over. Not a stitch of rust anywhere.
“There she is. That’s my baby. Ain’t she somethin’? Better than a sweet ass,” Flukey says. I can see the love on his face.
“A classic,” I tell him.
Terrell stops the car at the curb and Flukey and I walk down the cement steps. The closer I get to the car the bigger it seems to grow, about the length of a small ship. Terrell gets out and holds the door open for Flukey and once he’s seated, Terrell comes around and opens my door. I slip into the front seat next to Flukey and Terrell squeezes into the back. Once inside I feel like I’m in Flukey’s living room rather than in his car. The seats are white leather with a wide pink stripe across the back. They feel like a plush sofa that you just want to sink into and never leave. The dash is mother-of-pearl. There’s enough headroom for Flukey, his hat and a midget. All in all, a family of five could move in and be quite comfortable.
“What you think of my lady? Is she not the finest thing you ever seen?” Flukey asks as he starts up the engine.
“Better than sex,” I tell him and slip down into the seat, moaning.
“Terrell, this here is my kinda woman. A woman that ‘preciates a Cadillac deserves a gun. And we gonna get you one. Right now. Yes we are,” Flukey says as he pulls away from the curb. “You my kinda woman. Yes sir. You sure is.”
As we drive south under the Illinois Central train tracks, Flukey waves and beeps to friends alo
ng the way. I notice that the sidewalks are crowded with regular folk, including some not so regular folk. Obvious hookers stroll in groups of twos and threes. Occasionally, a car stops alongside the girls, and one of them approaches the car, taking turns, no doubt. No movie could ever capture what this place really looks like. It’s too shocking, too downtrodden. The director would want it painted, and wardrobe would have to redress everybody. America couldn’t handle what their streets really look like. How some people really live. That their children live in filth only minutes away from the golden strip of Michigan Avenue.
After about twenty minutes and one eight-track of the Temptations’ Greatest Hits, we pull up in front of a hair salon named The Silk Touch. It’s a storefront on a four-story brick building with some of the windows boarded over. Once again, Terrell opens the car doors for us, but remains outside guarding the treasured Caddy.
Flukey and I walk inside the shop together. Right away I can tell this is a jumpin’ place. A place where both men and woman come to get cool, look the part, be on the inside track of hair style. Every chair is occupied and every inch of waiting room is filled. Advertisements for Afro-Sheen, Jerry-Curl and Jhirmack hair products cover the walls. A red sign over the cash register reads: “If you can’t grow it, we’ll sew it.” Whitney Houston belts out one of her ballads and the whole place seems to move with the rhythm. Spike Lee couldn’t have set it up any better.
Hidden in the back of the salon stands the only other white woman in the place. She’s braiding a young woman’s hair, while a man with a 70s Afro sits at the empty station next to her. They’re having an animated conversation, laughing and talking like they’re alone. Flukey heads right for them.
“My man,” Flukey says as we get closer. The Afro stands up and he and Flukey give each other the High-Five. They talk to each other in jive for a few minutes and then come back to English. The Afro gives me the once over and says, “Who this here woman? She your woman? You ain’t told me about havin’ no woman that look like this.”
“No, man, she’s a friend. A good friend who wants to talk business.”
“This business friend got a name?”
I start to say my name but Flukey breaks in, “Yeah, man. Her name’s Ruby, Ruby Brown.”
“Ruby Brown. Let’s see now. That name sounds like I heard it before…yeah, I’m thinking that’s your mother’s name.”
“How ‘bout that? They got the same name.”
“Ain’t that somethin’?” He looks over at Flukey. “My name’s Ivory.” He turns back to me. “And this here’s my woman, Desire.” To which he briefly cups one of her butt cheeks in his hand. She smiles up at him and continues with her work.
Desire is older, maybe in her mid-fifties, I’m guessing Ivory can’t be more than thirty. They make a funny-looking couple. She’s short, big boned and stout. Ivory is tall and skinny. Too skinny. They remind me of that silly Mother Goose rhyme: Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean. Ivory suffers from a chronic case of disco fever. He wears a tight paisley polyester shirt, and gold, wide-flared pants with matching platform shoes. Desire dresses for her part with a V-neck sweater which shows off her ample breasts and her tight, black sweatpants accentuate the more important part of her anatomy…her large, round ass.
“I’ll be done here in a minute, hon. We can talk then,” Desire says to me. “In the meantime, you want a Coke or something? Ivory loves to make a woman happy. He’ll get you whatever you need.” She looks at Ivory and gives him a ga-ga smile. I figure their relationship must be pretty new.
“No, thank you. I’m fine,” I tell her.
Ivory leans over me and whispers, “If you was fine, you wouldn’t be here wantin’ to do business, now would you?”
I don’t answer him.
Flukey starts to flirt with the girl getting her hair braided and Ivory sits back down in his chair. I take the seat next to him and slide all the way back, trying to relax.
Desire yells over to me, “You ever go to one of them girly parties, hon?”
Apparently, she can tell from the look on my face that I don’t know what she’s talking about.
“You know. One of them pleasure parties where they sell all those Kama Sutra love potions and eatable panties and vibrators the size of your arm? Not that I need one of them. I got me Ivory, but that other stuff sure is nice. Look,” she pulls a small bottle out of her pocket. “Look what I bought.”
Desire walks over as she opens a tiny grey bottle. “Give me your arm. I have to show you this stuff. I keep it around so that I can get me a little pleasure whenever I want it.” I hold out my arm, palm up. She pours out a couple drops of red oil and rubs them into my wrist. “Now blow on it.” I follow her directions. My skin heats up. “Ain’t that something? Tastes good, too.” She rubs some on her cleavage. Ivory gets up and gently blows between her breasts. Then he licks off the red heat while she moans. “Ivory’s got the best tongue in the world, a woman’s dream come true. Show her your tongue, Ivory.”
Ivory is still facing Desire but he sticks out his tongue and touches the bottom of his chin, and then wiggles it around. I get the full side view. It is by far the longest, skinniest, pinkest tongue I have ever seen in my entire life. It looks like a pink snake trying to find a place to hide. I’m dumbstruck, but I know I have say something cool. “Desire must be a very happy woman.”
“You got that right, hon.” Desire moans.
Ivory gives Desire one last long lick then moves out from between her breasts and smiles at me. He turns to Flukey, nodding back toward me. “She’s cool. Smooth. Alright.” To me he says, “Let’s you and me and my woman step into the back for a minute.”
I get up from my chair but slip on some recently cut hair lying on the floor. Desire grabs my arm from behind. “Gotta be careful where you step. You never know what you might be getting yourself into,” she says and walks alongside of me while we follow Ivory down a hallway and into a back room. I turn to see if Flukey is following us. He’s not. Braid-girl has claimed all of his attention.
When we get into the back room, filled with various hair products, Desire is the one who initiates the conversation.
“You’re one of them movie people Flukey’s been talking about.”
“Yes, I’m in extras casting, working on a movie right now.”
“Flukey loves the movies. Always did. I used to take him to see all the Pink Panther and James Bond flicks when he was a little boy. I think I screwed up his head with all of that. What do you think?”
“Well, the man seems to really like pink.”
“Yeah, he sure does. That’s Flukey. Can always see him comin’. I like them old Doris Day flicks, myself. Must’ve seen Pillow Talk a hundred times. I still watch that movie whenever it’s on TV. Can’t get enough. You like Doris Day?”
“Sure.”
“Which movie?”
My mind swirls with old movies. Movies I’d forgotten in the last few years. Movies that Mike likes to rent. “The one with Cary Grant where he takes her away for the weekend and she breaks out in spots, then, after they get married, he breaks out in spots. Can’t think of the name.”
“And you’re in the business? That Touch of Mink. I liked the coat Cary bought her. The one with the mink on the inside. That’s my kind of coat. Can’t wear mink now. Them animal rights folks’ll throw paint on you. It’s a shame a woman can’t enjoy a good mink coat anymore.”
“Yeah, it’s too bad,” I tell her, wondering when we’re going to get to the gun part of this conversation.
“Flukey’s a good kid. I knew his daddy. His daddy and me used to—but that ain’t what you’re here for. What kind of weapon you looking for, hon?” She sits down behind a beat-up wooden desk while Ivory leans on the wall next to the closed door behind us. The room suddenly feels hot. Tight. A small dusty window fan moves stale air around the room. The sound only adds to the heat.
I turn to ask Ivory, “What kind of weapon can you get me?”
&
nbsp; “Ivory won’t be getting you a weapon. I will,” Desire says. I turn back to her. She gives me a sarcastic little smile and says, “‘We’ve come a long way, baby.’ Whatever kind you want. Got a nice .9 millimeter Baretta that just came in today. Or I have a Ruger P85 that handles like a charm, then there’s always a .357, but it all depends on what you want to do with this weapon. You looking to scare somebody or take ‘em out?”
I’m still struggling with the fact that it’s Desire doing the business and not Ivory. Shows you what the movies can do to distort a person’s view of things. “I have to be able to get it into a highly visible place.”
Ivory speaks up from behind, “You talkin’ ‘bout doin’ five to ten easy just for packin’.”
“I know the risk,” I tell him with some sarcasm, turning to see his face. I’m feeling edgy, testy, trapped with these strangers. Wishing Flukey were back here.
“That’s good. You in control,” he says, smiling at me.
Desire continues, “How about something smaller, like a Derringer? Got one that I’ve been holding onto for myself. Takes a .38, has a pearl handle with a stainless finish. She’s made for a lady just like you, and this one’s ready to go, if you know what I mean.” She turns in her chair, leans over, digs inside her large green handbag sitting on the floor and comes up with what looks like the perfect weapon.
“How soon you need it?”
“I was hoping to get it today.”
“That urgent, huh?”
“Well, I—”
“Tell you what, hon, here’s the thing. I can let it go for an even hundred, and a walk-on for me and Ivory here. Flukey’s always talking about how easy it is to be in the movies. Well, Ivory and me want to be in a movie too. You have one that we can be in?”
