SOUTHSIDE HUSTLE: a gripping action thriller full of suspense

by LOU HOLLY

  Trick’s head dropped. “I … I was trying to provide for you and Pat.”

  “Don’t you know? Don’t you remember me telling you back then … over and over? We don’t need all this,” Ginger cried. “I would have been just as happy if you worked at a gas station and was home every night … instead of running around all hours with scumbags like that goofy Bob and Eddie Starnes. Taking stupid chances.”

  “I wanted financial security for us.” Trick stepped closer. “I didn’t want to live week to week, always worrying about what would happen if I got sick or lost my job.”

  Ginger placed her fingertips to her chest. “You didn’t do it for me and Pat. You did it for you.” She poked at Trick. “Had to be a big shot. Where did it get you?”

  “Look, I paid for my crimes. Lost nearly three years of my life. Quit punishing me already.”

  “You think Pat and I didn’t pay too?” Ginger’s lips quivered. “You know how difficult it was for us?”

  “Being separated from you two was agony. The only thing that kept me going was knowing I would be with my family again when it was all over. Then I get divorce papers delivered to me … in prison.”

  “It wasn’t an easy decision. But now I know I did the right thing.” Ginger shook her head. “Soon as you get out, you’re right back to your old tricks.”

  “It’s more complicated than that. You don’t know. Look, tell Pat I’ll try to get by to see him tomorrow.”

  “No. If you’re coming to see him, make it definite, or forget it.” Ginger wiped a tear away with the back of her hand. “I’m not going to let you hurt him any more than you already have.”

  “All right, all right.” Trick put his hand on her bare shoulder. “You been to a doctor?”

  “Going to see him in a few days.” Ginger took his hand from her shoulder. “I think you should leave now.”

  “Yeah. I’ll go.” Trick felt her hand slip from his. “But there’s something I want to talk to you about next time I see you. Really weird,” he said, heading for the door.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Have a seat … anywhere,” Bob said with a sweeping hand motion.

  Trick looked around the small kitchen in Bob’s trailer home. Felines occupied every available seating area. He counted … four, five cats. Two more crept in while another exited through a clear plastic trap door. Trick stepped over a Calico with a Hitler moustache, then brushed an American Shorthair from a red vinyl chair. “I’m a little out of touch. Who do you see about getting a heater these days?”

  “Heater? You mean a gun? Who are you, Jimmy Cagney?” Bob picked up a gray kitten by the scruff of his neck, pulled it close and nuzzled it. “What do you need a gun for?”

  “Never the fuck mind. You know someone or not?” Trick felt queasy from obnoxious odors permeating the air. “Obviously, I can’t go to a gun store, got a Class X felony on my back. I can’t legally own a gun.”

  “You never shot anyone.” Bob looked up from the green eyed kitten. “Did ya?”

  Trick stared at Bob. It was not a look that spoke of patience.

  “All right, yeah, I know a guy.” Bob crossed his feet on the kitchen table, accidently knocking over an open box of Meow Mix, sending his menagerie scrambling for the morsels. “What’re ya lookin’ for?”

  “A revolver. Something that’s not going to blow up in my hand.” Trick formed his right hand into the shape of a handgun. “Something that’s going to hit what I’m aiming at.”

  “Yeah, gotcha. I’ll make a call for ya. Make an introduction. But I don’t want to get in the middle of things. Know what I mean?”

  “Pick up your phone,” Trick said, waving his thumb. “I’m not talking about next week.”

  Bob got up, stepped over one of the many litter boxes scattered about and took the phone from the wall receiver. “What did you say you were gonna be aimin’ at?”

  “Dial.” A Bengal kitten resembling a miniature leopard walked across the kitchen table like he owned it, put his face within an inch of Trick’s and stared into his eyes. “Now.”

  After punching in the numbers, Bob took the phone by its long curly-cue cord into the living room while Trick watched the gang of cats wander around the kitchen, jumping up and down off surfaces as though playing a feline version of king of the hill.

  Bob reentered the kitchen, reminding Trick of one of the cats, a bigger, rounder one with a Cheshire grin. He hung up the phone, picked a bit of Meow Mix from the kitchen table and popped it in his mouth. “My guy’s gonna call you. I gave him your number at the condo.”

  “What did you do that for?” Trick jumped to his feet. “I don’t want some gun runner knowing where I live.”

  “Whadja expect?”

  “I expected you to get the ball rolling, put me on the phone with him or get me a number. Damn. When’s he going to call? I’ve got a million things to do. Can’t be hanging around the condo waiting.”

  “Do ya a favor and ya complain.” Bob lifted his leg and farted loudly.

  “Damn, Bob. It smells bad enough in here already.” Trick waved his hand. “Call him back. Tell him anything. Say you gave him the wrong number. Let me talk to the guy.”

  “Not gonna happen. I’m not callin’ him back. You’ll make me look stupid.” Bob scratched his spiky dark mullet and burped, sounding like a bullfrog in spring. “This’s the way he does things.”

  “OK, what’s his name?” Trick headed for the door, holding his nose as one of the cats relieved itself in a litter box that was already in need of cleaning.

  “Don’t know his real name, goes by Sun Bin. He’ll call you sometime tonight.”

  ***

  Trick parked further away than usual in the condo complex and looked around for Starnes and Moogie, or worse yet, his south-of-the-border tormentors. He let himself in the back door of the building and entered by the kitchen door. After closing the living room drapes of the first floor condo, he went back to the kitchen and poured a few fingers of Jack Daniel’s into a rock glass. He changed his clothes and sprayed on some Aramis cologne, feeling as though he still smelled like ammonia from Bob’s cats.

  Sitting on the carpet, sipping his sour mash and leaning against the couch, Trick dozed off. In the grips of a nightmare about being surrounded by banditos with machetes in the Mexican desert, he stirred when he heard muffled voices. Disoriented, he blinked a couple times and saw shadows on his drapes.

  “These drapes were open before,” the familiar sounding voice travelled through the wall-unit air conditioner. “I’m sure of it.”

  No mistaking, Trick thought. It was Moogie’s voice followed by Starnes saying, “He might be in there.” Trick crouched down and made his way to the bedroom just as the phone rang loudly. “Not now,” he thought, picking up the phone from the nightstand.

  Trick didn’t say anything; he held the phone to his ear until he heard, “This Trick?”

  “Yeah, it’s me,” Trick answered, keeping his voice low, “you Sun?”

  “Affirmative. Where do you want to meet?”

  The voices and shadows moved to his open curtained bedroom window. Trick crouched next to his bed and whispered loudly, “There’s a place, Juke Box Saturday Night, 159th and Laramie.”

  “Yeah, I know, Oak Forest. I’ll find it. But I can hardly hear you. Speak up.”

  “Sorry, I got laryngitis.” Trick glanced at the illuminated clock on the nightstand. “Give me an hour.”

  Sun Bin asked, “What do you look like?”

  “Five eleven, hundred seventy-five, dark blond hair. What about you?”

  “How many Chinese guys are gonna be there?”

  “Oh, yeah. Gotcha.”

  Trick sat in the silence of his bedroom for forty-five minutes, hoping that Starnes and Moogie got tired of waiting around. He crept to his back door, cracked it open and glanced around. The coast looked clear so he jogged to his car and drove to Juke Box Saturday Night. He walked under the front end of a 1957 Chevy mounted over the entran
ce and into the 1950s and 60s music bar. Trick made his way through the large, dimly lit room. At the far end of the rear bar was a short but rough looking young man of Chinese descent in a silvery silk suit with a white patch taped over one eye.

  Trick walked straight to him, nodded and pointed at his drink. “Can I get you another?”

  Sun Bin shook his head no and replied, “Your voice problem cleared up quick.”

  “Comes and goes. Where do you want to do this?”

  “Outside, in the van.” Sun downed his tall red drink and wiped his wispy black moustache with a purple silk pocket square.

  They walked through the dimly-lit rear parking area and up to a white van that was adorned with Chinese and English lettering for a noodle company. The van was running with its lights off and Trick was surprised when Sun opened the sliding side door. It revealed two more Asian men sitting across from one another at a small round table, playing a board game he wasn’t familiar with.

  The man with his back to the rear of the van had a large stiletto in a sheath, belted across his wide chest. The knifeman got up and said, “Sit here,” before moving out of view behind him. Trick sat on the small folding chair, suddenly feeling caged. The man sitting across from him wore a black fedora with a white hatband. At first, he appeared to be in his twenties, like Sun. But he seemed to age a couple decades when he removed his green tinted glasses and spoke in a commanding sing-song accent, “You copper?”

  “Me?” Trick brought his fingers to his chest. “No, no. I just got out of prison a couple weeks ago.”

  “Give me wallet,” the man in the fedora commanded.

  Looking to Sun, who was crouched on one knee, Trick raised his eyebrows as if asking an unspoken question.

  “Give Laoban the wallet. He needs to know you’re not with law enforcement.” Sun flashed a quick staged smile revealing a gold tooth. “Go on, relax. He’s not going to rob you. As long as you’re who you say you are, you’ll live another day.”

  Trick removed his wallet from the inside pocket of his lambskin blazer and handed it over to the hat-wearing man in charge.

  Laoban removed Trick’s driver’s license and tossed the wallet onto the table. “Patrick Halloran. Irish.” He looked up at Trick again. “I knew a Halloran in New York. Ran heroin from Malaysia. You know?”

  “No, never been to New York.”

  “I not ask where you been. I ask you related.”

  “Not that I know of.” Trick shook his head. “No.”

  “Where you go prison? What for?”

  “Well, I started out in Cook County, after that Joliet, then I got shipped to Vandalia. Went in on a cocaine beef.” Trick picked up his wallet and said, “I’ll take that license.”

  The knifeman behind Trick moved close enough that he could feel his hot breath on the back of his neck.

  “Maybe you get busted again. Want to set me up to reduce your sentence.” Laoban’s voice took on a menacing tone, “Huh? You wear wire?”

  The man behind Trick reached around with his knife and in short order sliced two buttons off his shirt. He pulled Trick’s shirt open, revealing only his brown-haired chest.

  “Look.” Trick hated the unexpected quiver in his voice. “I’m not a cop.” He looked to Sun. “Ask Bob. He’ll vouch for me. You think he’d send me to see you if I was a cop?”

  “Bob is a piece of shit,” Sun spoke up. “I’d slice his throat and set him on fire for fun. His only worth to us is moving heroin.”

  “All I’m looking for is a gun. A revolver. That’s it. I’m not looking to get in the arms business or anything else.”

  “What you do with gun? You just get out of jail. If you caught, it parole violation.” Laoban crossed his fingers across his chest and scrutinized Trick’s face. “They ask you where you get gun. What you say?”

  “I’ll say what I always say to the cops … nothing. I’m not a rat. When I got busted I kept my mouth shut and did my bit.” Trick stood, hoping to leave without any trouble. “What I do with a gun’s my business.”

  After an uncomfortable silence, Laoban said, “I just fuck with you, my man.” The three Chinese men laughed. “If you rat, we just kill you and family. Sit down, Irish,” Laoban continued, holding out Trick’s driver’s license.

  Trick snatched it, sat back down and stared at Laoban straight-faced. “What’ve you got for me?”

  Laoban opened an ornately painted wooden box that sat on the table next to him. He removed a Ruger .357 Magnum and pointed it at the roof. “You OK-Joe. I hear good things about you on street,” he said, setting the gun on the table between them.

  “You heard about me?” Trick said, with surprise in his voice. “Why did you fuck with me like that?”

  “I need to see for myself, look in your eyes, if you man of rock or paper.” He reached across the small table, grabbed Trick’s forearm, nodded in approval and said, “Gun business not important. I need man in southwest suburbs to move product for me. Sun, give Trick new shirt. Large.”

  Sun reached into a bag and pulled out a neatly folded silk shirt wrapped in a paper band with Chinese lettering. Sun handed it to Trick and said, “Here. Sorry about your shirt but I think you sweated it up pretty good anyway.” The Chinese men laughed again.

  “I’ll let you know about the other thing,” Trick said diplomatically. He opened the cylinder of the Ruger and spun it, counting six empty bullet chambers. “Right now I’ve got a problem … six of them.” Taking an educated guess at the street price, Trick held out a folded stack of twenties. “Two hundred?”

  “For you, one eighty.” Laoban handed Trick a small carton. “I throw in box of bullets. You give me answer about important powder business. One week. Sun call you.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Trick brought a steak knife, thumbtacks and Super Glue into the condo bedroom and knelt in front of the smoke-mirror covered wall. With each mirror being one foot square, he carefully worked the blade under a corner mirror on the lowest row. He cautiously maneuvered the knife further under and side to side. After removing the mirror, he glued a thumbtack onto each corner on the backside. He then used the serrated knife to cut a hole in the drywall about eight inches around, giving the glue time to dry. Next to him sat the $50,000 he robbed from the drug deal between Rebel and Beasley. He took stacks of rubber-banded cash and put them through the hole, reaching in and piling them up behind the wall. After he was through, he pushed the mirror back using the thumbtacks to hold it in place, then cleaned up the telltale drywall residue. Trick grabbed a light jacket and headed out the door into the warm Indian summer weather, driving the short distance to Ginger’s apartment.

  “You’re early,” Ginger said, opening her door. “Pat doesn’t get home for another ten minutes.”

  “I wanted to talk to you first,” Trick said, brushing past her, “about something important.”

  “I already told you; forget about us getting back together.” Ginger lit a cigarette, then coughed.

  “No,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “It’s about something else.” The calming scent of a lit vanilla candle took Trick back to earlier days with Ginger and he absentmindedly removed his left hand from his jacket pocket. “I don’t have anyone else to talk to.”

  “Oh my God!” Ginger exclaimed, dropping her lit cigarette on the carpet. “What the hell happened to your finger?”

  “Oh, that.” Trick looked at his bandaged finger, trying to act nonchalant. “It was an accident. I was walking down the street, minding my own business when this huge Doberman attacked me.” He slid his hand back into his pocket. “He only bit off a little bit.”

  “What? Oh no.” She picked up her cigarette, rubbed her bare foot over the scorch mark and studied Trick’s face. “First it’s your nose, now it’s your finger. What’s going on with you … really?”

  “Nothing.” Trick looked out the picture window and studied the multicolored leaves, avoiding eye contact. “Nothing’s going on.”

  “Well, trouble
seems to follow you around and I don’t want it touching Pat.”

  “I would never let anyone or anything hurt our boy. I’d give my life to protect him.” Trick expelled a lungful of air. “I got to tell you about something. I met a guy in a bar. He claims to be my father.”

  “No! What’s his name? What’s he look like?”

  “Name’s Stanley Krupnik. A little taller than me, about six foot. Thick, dark graying hair. Good looking, kind of. I don’t know, late forties maybe. Blue eyes like me. Otherwise, I don’t see any resemblance.”

  “Did he say anything about your birth mother?”

  “Yeah.” Trick wrinkled his brow. “Said she died.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all really weird.” Trick shook his head. “Don’t know what to think. I need to see some kind of proof.”

  “Well, yeah, of course.” Ginger looked around the room then tapped cigarette ash into her open palm. “But how do you feel about it?”

  “I’m not sure. I got mixed feelings. On one hand, I always wanted to meet my parents but something about this … I don’t know, doesn’t sit well with me.”

  “So, you’re saying you don’t trust this guy. No surprise. You don’t trust anyone.” Ginger took a drag and exhaled smoke from round, pursed lips. “I don’t know what to tell you. Something you’ll have to figure out for yourself.” She paused and pointed at Trick, raising an eyebrow. “But don’t let him meet Pat unless you’re one-hundred percent positive.”

  “Of course. Wait, that sounds like him now.” Trick heard footsteps coming up the apartment stairs and opened the door for Pat. “Hey, pal. Good to see you.”

  Pat read his mother’s serious expression and frowned, sensing the heavy mood in the room. “Are you and Mommy fighting again?”

  “No. Mommy and me were just talking about how much we love you.” Trick called to Ginger as she doused her cigarette and ashes in the toilet. “Right, Mommy?”