Brass, apparently, was Deep Voice. He held onto his shotgun as he got out of the car. I was still looking at Goatee, wondering if he got the nickname Chico because he had Puerto Rican blood.
They closed the car doors and went into the building, looking both ways as they stepped across the threshold.
“You ever been to Stateville, Gramps?” Glasses asked me.
“I take it you don’t mean the Illinois State Penitentiary,” I said.
The Stones around me laughed, all except the one who had the gun pressed into my side.
“He means the Congo Hilton, my man,” the Stone said.
“No,” I said. “I’ve never been inside this housing project.”
“Ain’t he nice and formal?” the driver said. “ ‘I’ve never been inside this housing project.’ You’d almost think he was gonna call you sir, Nate.”
“Ain’t nobody calls me sir without saluting first,” Glasses said. He, apparently, was Nate.
The others laughed again, but there were nervous edges to the laughter. Everyone kept a watch out, as if expecting trouble.
I didn’t move. Through the windshield, I could see the side of the building. On the tenth floor, several windows were missing and the concrete had been charred by fire.
Graffiti covered much of the lower walls, and there was only one piece I could read from this distance. In big red letters, someone had spray-painted BLACKSTONE IS STONE BLACK.
After a few minutes, the rain started in earnest, a shower that sprinkled fine drops on the windshield. The driver turned on the wipers, and the Stones near the side windows rolled them down. The second of my bodyguards—the one who wasn’t holding a gun on me—turned so that he could see out the back window.
I didn’t ask any questions. I knew better. I just waited with the rest of them, watching gangs of kids who should have been in school run past. There appeared to be no adults here, except for an elderly man who was making his way out of the front door.
It took nearly half an hour before Goatee and Deep Voice—Chico and Brass—reappeared. They loped across the parking lot and got into the car.
Chico hit his hand on the roof, making a pounding echo inside. “Let’s go.”
The driver didn’t have to be told twice. He spun out of the lot, his tires peeling.
“You take care of it?” Nate asked.
I felt cold.
“Nothing to take care of,” Brass said.
“You didn’t find them?” Nate asked.
Rain came in the windows, hitting everyone, including me. The Stones nearest the windows rolled them up.
“They turned up last night in Disciples turf,” Chico said, taking his gun back from Nate. “Squeak and his little brother, both dead.”
“Mom’s so broke up about it, she asked us for some smack.” Brass sounded disgusted.
I continued to stare out the windshield, watching the road. Cars passed us, many of them heading toward the Loop. We were driving south again.
I tried to stay motionless. The last thing I wanted to do was call attention to myself.
“Dead how?” Nate asked,
“Now this is the interesting part,” Chico said. “Shotgun.”
“Disciples don’t warning-kill like that,” Nate said.
“No shit,” Brass said. “This is a cop trick.”
Nate wrapped one arm around the seat and turned toward me. “You know about this, Gramps?”
“No,” I said, not willing to add more.
“Shit,” Nate said. “Ain’t no way to check your story now, old man.”
“Don’t need to check it,” Brass said. “Cops took Squeak and his brother to Disciple country, shot ’em, and left ’em there. We can blast Jump just to even everything out.”
“We ain’t going after him without proof, and I don’t know how we’re getting proof now.” Nate was still looking at me. “Do you, old man?”
“What do you want?” I asked. “Confirmation that he was there?”
“Shit, we know the Red Squad was there. We seen ’em,” Chico said.
“You drove by?” I asked.
“Shooting on the Gaza Strip,” Nate said. “Had to make sure it wasn’t one of ours.”
No, I thought, it was one of mine. And the anger flared again. Vitel had thought this all through. He knew someone would check on who ordered the hit, and he got rid of his witnesses.
All except one.
“The bartender,” I said.
“What? You goin’ senile, Gramps?”
“There’s still one witness,” I said. “The bartender at Greenwood’s.”
“Old Julius?”
“I don’t know what his name is.” I felt an urgency, wondering if Vitel had taken the bartender out as well. “But he saw Vitel talking to the other cop.”
“Ain’t nothing unusual about cops talking,” Nate said.
“Unless one leads the other into an ambush,” I said.
Nate studied me for a moment, his eyes distorted by the thickness of his glasses. They made his face vulnerable, almost soft.
“You want Vitel bad, don’t you, Gramps?”
“Don’t you?” I asked. “He used two Stones to kill an enemy of his, then killed the Stones so there weren’t any witnesses. Finally, he leaves the bodies in places that’ll make you guys and the Disciples escalate tensions.”
“‘Escalate tensions,’” the driver said, mocking me. “Shit, man, talk like a human being.”
“Nice picture you’re painting, Gramps, but we don’t know it wasn’t you what did it.” Nate tilted his head as he studied me. “How come you ain’t taking out Vitel yourself?”
It was a sign of my exhaustion that I almost told him. I blinked, forcing myself to remain alert. “I didn’t say anything about taking anyone out. I promised you information. I delivered. You’re the ones who are talking about taking people out.”
Nate grunted and turned around.
“Where’re we going?” the driver asked.
No one answered for a minute. Then Brass said in his deep voice, “Greenwood’s Tavern.”
Nate looked over his shoulder at him.
“Hey, you made a deal with the old man. Let’s find out if his information is right. If he’s feeding us a line of bull, then we get to mess with his kid.” Brass gave me a sideways look, filled with cunning.
I forced myself to breathe evenly, to remain calm. “All I’m doing is keeping up my end,” I said, glad my voice didn’t betray my anger. “If you need proof of that, fine. But my goal here is the same as it’s always been. I take care of my family. Giving you information when I have it is part of that. There’s no way I would jeopardize anyone I know to bring you false information.”
“Let’s just see.” Nate waved a hand at the driver. “Brass’s right. Greenwood’s Tavern. Let’s see what Old Julius has to say.”
THIRTY-FOUR
EVEN THOUGH it was only ten-thirty in the morning, the tavern’s doors were open. The driver passed the alley door first—it was propped open with a box—and then he turned onto Woodlawn.
There were no other cars on the road. It looked deserted. No one watched from the windows, and the ruined buildings made the entire place look empty.
The driver pulled up in front of the tavern. The Stones opened the car’s doors, and everyone got out. The Stone with the gun trained on me pulled me out curbside, and I nearly lost my balance without my hands to steady me.
The air was cooler down here, and the rain felt like a fine mist. All I saw, though, was the sidewalk. Despite the rain and yesterday’s flash-flooding, a large stain still marked the concrete where Truman Johnson’s body had fallen.
My shoulders straightened. The Stone next to me looked at me with alarm, but I didn’t move. I kept studying that stain. It was why I was here, the reason I had chosen this path.
Johnson had tried to protect the woman he loved, and had failed.
I would make certain the job got done right.
“Whas
samatta, Pops?” My Stone bodyguard asked. “You never seen filth before?”
I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t answer him, and tell him that what he had called filth was the spot where a good man had lost his life.
“Inside, Daddy-O,” said Charles, pushing me forward. I stumbled up the curb.
“I’m not going to fight any of you here in this neighborhood,” I said. “I’m not suicidal. And I know you could shoot me if I tried to leave before I was excused. So would you mind untying my hands? I promise not to do anything funny.”
“We like funny,” Brass said as he passed me, heading down the stairs into the tavern.
“But we don’t need it right now.” Nate snapped his fingers, and the other bodyguard untied my hands.
I brought them around the front of my body and rubbed my wrists. The rope hadn’t been tight, but it had chafed. I was gonna have rope burns for the next week.
The two Stone guards and Charles led me down the stairs. This door was propped open as well. The tavern’s scent of stale beer and old cigarette smoke reached me before I stepped inside.
An overhead light was on, and the candles on the tables weren’t lit. The bartender I had seen the day before was standing near the edge of the bar, wiping his hands on a rag.
“I can’t serve you liquor until noon,” he said to Nate.
He probably, legally, couldn’t serve Nate liquor at all. I seemed to be the only person in the room, besides the bartender, who was of age.
“Like you’re afraid of the Liquor Commission.” Nate clapped a hand on the bartender’s arm. “Old Julius, meet Gramps. Gramps, this here be Julius Hammond, proud owner of this lovely establishment.”
“We’ve met,” I said.
“Gramps here says you seen Jump Vitel leading a cop out of this place right into a hit. Is that right, Old Julius?”
The bartender glared at me. “I didn’t recognize nobody,” he said between clenched teeth.
“Really?” Nate’s hand tightened on his arm. “Not even Jump Vitel, who’s in here all the time?”
“I don’t even recognize you,” the bartender said.
“Good boy,” Nate said. “You ain’t supposed to recognize me.”
Then he shoved his glasses up his nose and frowned.
“Of course,” Nate added, “I doubt you’re supposed to recognize Mr. Jump Vitel, either.”
“I can serve you some food,” the bartender said. “That’s about all I can do.”
My frustration built. I wanted to cross the room and shake the bartender. He had seen Johnson lying dead out front. How could he pretend he didn’t know what happened?
“You could,” Nate said, his voice very smooth. “And your little bar here could suffer a suspicious fire, too, while you was cookin’. What would your money-bags brother say about that, Old Julius?”
“Wouldn’t say nothing if Old Julius got trapped in the kitchen, didn’t make it out ‘cept as a corpse.” Chico smiled as he spoke, as if he were talking about the weather.
The bartender kept wiping his hands on that towel.
“Don’t threaten him, boys,” Brass said. “You threaten him, he’ll make up any damn thing.”
“Just want him to tell the truth, don’t we, Gramps?” Nate said.
I moved slightly so that the bartender could see the gun trained on me. “It would help,” I said.
“If I tell you what I saw, you aren’t going to do anything to me, right?” the bartender asked Nate.
“Except let you go on, pretending to get along with the Red Squad, the Disciples, and us.” Nate pulled him close. “Now, I asked you a question. Did you see Jump Vitel lead that cop out into that hit yesterday?”
The bartender closed his eyes. He looked like he was praying. “Yes.”
Nate raised his eyebrows and tilted his head at me, as if he was surprised. “Then what did our friend Jump do?”
The bartender grimaced, opened his eyes, and looked directly at me. “Came back in here, got his gun and his coat, and went out the alley door.”
“What was out the alley door?” Nate asked.
“The Red Squad’s van. He told the cops who showed up later that he tried to stop the hit.”
“But you know better,” Nate said.
The bartender nodded.
“Was the rest of the Red Squad involved?”
“I don’t think so,” the bartender said. His cheeks were flushed. “My brother was back there. Paying them.”
Protection money. How did this tavern survive, paying protection to the gangs and the police?
“Sooo,” Nate said to the other Stones. “We got Officer Jump Vitel breaking our code, killing cops and blaming it on us, and killing kids and blaming it on the Disciples. Ain’t it interesting how much shit one law-abiding man can get away with in his lifetime?”
Then, with one quick move Nate grabbed the bartender by the neck and slammed his face on the bar. I started, not expecting the violence. My Stone bodyguard shoved his gun deeper into my ribcage.
“He been dealing out of here again, our buddy Jump?” Nate asked, his face pressed close to the bartender’s.
“Yeah.” The word was muffled against the bar.
“He been sharing the profits with you?”
“Yeah.”
Nate let the bartender go. The bartender wiped his mouth with a shaking hand. The entire left side of his face was crimson from the force of the blow against the bar.
It took me a moment to understand Nate’s last two questions. If the bartender hadn’t been getting the drug money, he would have had a reason to set up Jump Vitel.
For the first time, I was relieved that Vitel had paid his debts.
Nate grinned at me. “Looks like you were right, Gramps. You done real good. That little family of yours must be awful proud of you.”
“You have your proof,” I said. “May I go?”
“Shit no.” Nate walked over to me and wrapped an arm around my neck. He had to reach up to do it. The gesture was meant to be a friendly hug. “Why would you want to leave, old man? The party’s just getting started.”
“It’s not really my party,” I said.
“Bullshit.” Nate pulled on my neck so that he could lean his head close to mine. His glasses brushed my cheek. “Don’t give me none of that jive, bro. It’s all your party.”
“And,” Brass said with a grin, “you get to stay until the very end.”
THIRTY-FIVE
NATE LET ME GO, then clapped his hand on my back, as falsely friendly with me as he had been with the bartender.
“Let’s give Gramps a good seat for the show,” Nate said.
Brass grabbed one of the wooden chairs and set it against the brick wall, facing the entrance. “This good, Nate?”
“Perfect.” Nate grinned at me. “Watch and learn, old man. Watch and learn.”
The bodyguard guided me to the chair, and I sat down. The chair creaked beneath my weight. I could see through the door, up the steps and into the empty street. If I had been sitting here the day before, I would have seen Jump Vitel lead Truman Johnson up those steps—probably talking all the way—and pause as they got into the street.
I would have seen the bike, the kids, the shotgun, the shot—and then Jump himself running back in here, grabbing his own gun, waving to the bartender, and disappearing out the door beside me, off to be a failed hero, someone who tried to stop a shooting, and missed by only a few seconds.
Nate peered at me. “Comfortable?”
“I could use a beer,” I said, not exactly lying.
He laughed. “You heard Old Julius. It’s against the law to drink this early in the morning in the City of Chicago. But this is the Gaza Strip. Get my man a beer, Julius.”
The bartender didn’t even look at me as he went around the bar. He grabbed a stein off the pile of glasses and filled it.
“And I need the phone,” Nate said.
The bartender grabbed the phone and set it on the bar. Then he brought m
e my beer. Foam poured down the sides and pooled underneath the glass. The smell was awful, cloying and grainy, but I took a sip anyway, to continue my bravado.
Nate picked up the receiver, looked at it, and handed it to the bartender as he came back to the bar.
“You need to make a call,” Nate said to the bartender. “You need to call your friend Jump Vitel and inform him that my man Chico here just scored some stuff and wants to sell it. You thought you’d be a citizen and let Jump know about it, so he can pocket some cash along with you. Can you do that for me, Old Julius?”
The bartender took the receiver. “Jump’s gonna know something’s wrong.”
“No, he ain’t,” Brass said. “You’ve made this call a hundred times before. Stop with the bullshit or I really will see how easy it is to torch this place.”
The bartender shot me a frightened glance. I picked up my beer and saluted him with it, then took another sip. It tasted as bad as it smelled.
The bartender dialed—from memory—and said, “Patch me through to Jump.”
Everyone watched him. The bartender leaned against the bar, looking tired and older than he had fifteen minutes before.
“Jump? Julius. I got Chico down here with some stuff. You wanna risk coming down here after yesterday?”
A warning sentence. Nate flicked his fingers against the bartender’s ear. Brass reached into the ashtray next to him, pulled out a book of matches, and opened it. He lit one and stared at the flame.
The bartender’s eyes widened.
“Okay,” the bartender said, although I wasn’t sure it was to the Stones or Jump Vitel. “You better come fast. He’s not gonna stay here long.”
“Right on, man!” Chico yelled. “I don’t get my money in twenty, I’m doing business elsewhere.”
Brass lit another match and waved it under the bartender’s nose. The bartender moved his head away, trying to keep from getting burned.
I was holding my breath.
“Okay,” the bartender said again, sounding calmer than most people would have if a match was near their nose hair. “See you in fifteen.”
Then he hung up.
“You didn’t tell him to come alone,” Chico said.
Stone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 35
