Hard Luck And Trouble

by Gammy L. Singer

  We traveled at a snail’s pace, me eyeballing each house, my body hung halfway out of the car.

  “Give me a sign, a clue, anything,” I shouted to the passing houses. Wouldn’t you know, that’s when I spotted it. A huge lavender mansion sheltered behind ten-foot walls and an electric gate at the entrance. The Arranger was listening.

  I yelled at Seltzer to stop the car. The idiot braked, and I almost fell out. I glared at him, and then looked back at the gate. Molded across the top was a large crown, about the size of Harry’s ego, and the words, “King Harry’s Castle.” See what I’m saying? What were the odds of that?

  “Bingo.” I smiled.

  But no sooner had Seltzer and me scrambled out of the car than a New Jersey black-and-white showed, and rolled up behind us, lights flashing. The unlocked briefcase, chunk full of money, sat big as all get out on the back seat of Seltzer’s car, and I started to sweat.

  Two giddy-up cops with identical mustaches and hands touching their holsters strode towards us. Oh man, deep in the brown stuff now.

  “What you boys up to? Been following you for the last fifteen minutes.”

  Seltzer’s age and mine probably totaled five times both those cops’ ages, but then wasn’t the time to get rankled by cops calling us boys. Had to tread lightly. Wasn’t even on my own turf. Before I had time to pull together an answer, Seltzer began acting like a bona fide fool, and did the best Step-n’-Fetchit imitation that I had ever had the displeasure to see. He plastered a grin across his face and acted like he was greeting his two best friends.

  “Howdy, officers. Doing a job for somebody up here, and dang it, if we ain’t left the address at home. All these places look alike, don’t-cha know.”

  The cops looked at each other. “Let’s see some I.D. Who you working for?”

  “Uh, uh, Peter, Porter, uh ...” Seltzer scratched his head and peeled his lips back like a baboon.

  I couldn’t take it any more, and jumped in, “Bridges, we’re looking for a Mister Harry Bridges.” I handed over my identification.

  The cop with the red mustache glanced toward his partner. A silent exchange passed between them. Harry’s name triggered something. Their eyes turned mean. Something told me I had made a big mistake.

  The cop sneered, “Bridges, huh. What kind of work you doing for him?” This wasn’t going too good. He strolled over and peered into Seltzer’s car. My stomach flipped.

  I took a few steps forward and the other cop stopped me. “Hold it right there,” he said.

  Seltzer chimed in, “Fix-it work, officer. Repairs.”

  The two cops ignored Seltzer and focused on me. Red Mustache said, “You don’t look like you’d know the right end of a hammer. Looks more like a drug dealer, don’t he, Sal?” He turned to the other cop and the other mustache grunted.

  So much for my Brooks Brothers’ shirt and slacks. I tried not to show I was nervous, but sweat rolled down into the crack of my butt. I took a cue from Seltzer, grinned like a motherfucker. Whatever worked. I dismissed the briefcase with a wave of my hand, “Contracts, work orders,” and I took a step toward the trunk of the car and pointed. “Tools in there. Want to see?”

  Uncertain, the two cops stood there. Finally, Red Mustache gestured to Seltzer, “You, open the trunk.” Seltzer scurried to comply.

  Seltzer had everything but the kitchen sink crammed in his trunk. I wasn’t disappointed, but the cops were. Red Mustache looked at his partner, and pointed to a stereo sitting alongside a bunch of tools. “What’s this?”

  “That? Ain’t nothing but an old stereo I been trying to get working,” said Seltzer.

  The cops looked skeptical. Red Mustache said to his partner, “Run a make on the car.”

  It was Seltzer’s turn to sweat. I looked at him, curious, wondering what secret he harbored. Red Mustache instructed us to take a seat on the curb.

  We sat and waited for a half an hour. Whatever news came across their radio, they pulled out handcuffs to haul us to the nearest station house. Visions of my balls being served up on a platter by Harry made me try to talk them out of it, but they didn’t listen.

  Seltzer pleaded with them to let him lock up the car. I didn’t want to call attention to the briefcase, so I said nothing. I hoped Seltzer had enough smarts to slide the briefcase to the floor, at least. I watched him while they cuffed me. He looked like he did it. Off to the pokey we went.

  Seltzer and I were silent during the ride.

  I hadn’t been in an interrogation room in years. Believe me, it wasn’t something I missed. My anxiety level rose, but for a different reason. I sweated bullets about the money left in Seltzer’s car, and about the one o’clock meet. I wondered if they would keep us all night.

  They put Seltzer and me in separate rooms and leaned on me hard. Asked all kinds of questions about Harry, for God’s sake, which didn’t have anything to do with the robbery I was supposed to have committed. I claimed ignorance and stuck to it. It wasn’t the hardest thing I ever did. They had nothing on me. I knew it and they knew it. My juvenile record was sealed, and my record was clean as far as they knew. They didn’t like it, but they finally had to let me go.

  I worried about Seltzer, though. He had a temper that wouldn’t quit if you got him riled, and I wondered if they were sweating him. Released at nine o’clock that night, I got my answer. Seltzer waited outside. He didn’t need to say a word. I could tell by the bruise on his face and the look in his eyes that they had been rough on him.

  We hurried through the streets looking for a taxi. New Jersey taxis flew past us the same way taxis in New York City did. I held money in the air and finally one stopped. A brother was driving. We jumped in and told him to take us back to Harry’s. I gave him the address and prayed the money would be there.

  On the way, Seltzer let it be known about his priors—two assaults. I raised my eyebrows.

  He said, “When you’re a small man, people tend to pick on you. I had to let some people know they couldn’t do that.”

  I nodded. I understood. “You’re a member of a large club—Kappa Kappa Jailbird, the black man’s fraternity.” We slapped hands.

  After a few minutes, he added, “And the robbery charge against me was bogus. I was never convicted.”

  Now I wondered. Then when Seltzer started up again, talking about an indecent exposure arrest, I shut him up. The cab driver darted nervous glances back at us in his rearview mirror. I said to Seltzer, “Look, you don’t have to explain. I ain’t blaming you, man. I was the one got you mixed up in this.”

  Seltzer and I rode in silence the rest of the way. Seltzer kept touching the bruise on his face. I felt guilty as hell.

  When the taxi rolled up to a stop in front of Harry’s lavender mansion, I clutched my chest to keep my heart from dropping to my knees. The car was gone. Gone.

  Chapter 31

  Seltzer tore out of the cab and ran around in circles, flapping his wings, screaming about his missing tools to a street lamp. I charged after him, wrestled with him for a minute, and then grabbed the little runt by his lapels and hissed a reminder in his ear, “The money, fool, the money. A hundred thousand dollars.”

  His hysteria stopped as quickly as it started. “Oh yeah,” he said. I dragged him back into the cab, and we huffed and puffed in the back seat. What was there to say? The cabbie looked at us through his mirror as he munched on a sandwich. “Dinner. No time to eat. Is there a problem?” he said.

  I let him know our transpo had sort of, well, disappeared.

  “Ought to pay attention to signs, my brother.” He indicated a NO PARKING sign illuminated by the gate lights of Harry’s pad. “They done towed your ride,” he said.

  I thumped my head several times against the front seat. Could my luck get any worse? “Where would they have towed it to?”

  “Outside the city.”

  “Can you take us there?”

  “This time of night? Ain’t nobody there.”

  “Good,” I said. “W
e don’t need for nobody to be there.”

  Seltzer said, “But—”

  I silenced him with a look.

  “Aww, naw, mister,” the cabbie said. “I ain’t up for no hanky-panky. I make an honest living. Driving a cab, that’s all I do.”

  “That’s all I want you to do, son.” I flashed a hundred-dollar bill at him.

  Seltzer mumbled to himself. The cabbie ran a finger around his collar that had suddenly gotten too tight for him. “Uh, uh ... well ...”

  “Just take us there. You don’t have to do anything else. What do you say?”

  His nervous eyes shifted back and forth. “Uh, uh, okay.”

  I looked at my watch. Time was whipping by. It was eleven-fucking-thirty.

  “Let’s ride,” I ordered. Seltzer’s protest was muffled by the screech of tires as the cab rocketed away. He shouted, “You crazy as a bedbug, Amos Brown.”

  “I heard that, Seltzer.”

  “I meant for you to, ya damn fool.”

  I looked at him and back at my watch. Eleven thirty-three and counting.

  Chapter 32

  The barbed wire at the top of the chain-link fence gave me a little something to think about, but the Dobermans guarding the yard stopped me cold. They looked vicious. Where I figured the office to be was dark. The yard was lit up like Christmas, and Seltzer and me stood outside the front gate, exposed and vulnerable. I was ready to give it up and proceed to plan B, but Seltzer talked me out of it. Besides, we didn’t have a plan A, so plan B was a joke.

  Seltzer conversed in doggie-talk with the two mutts and, what do you know, the dogs stopped yapping. Seltzer cooed, “Nice doggies” to the both of them, and tried to squeeze his hand through the padlocked gates to pet the pooches. The dumb shit. They growled deep in their throats and I jerked his ass away.

  We circled the perimeter as far as we were able. At the rear of the yard was a small building and a large carport. Along the side of the fence where the wire ended and the concrete wall began was a space—big enough, maybe, to climb through and over the top. Maybe. It had been a while since I had scaled any fences.

  Seltzer spotted his raggedy Buick, sitting in the first row of cars, next to a Benz. Equality—what I liked to see. The yard was filled with all kinds of cars. The dust on some of them looked like they’d sat there for months. Selz and me rapidly concocted a plan. It was iffy, but there was no alternative, and hey, I was good to go.

  We trotted back to the waiting cab. Brother-Man the cabdriver was nervous as a cat. I didn’t blame him. He wasn’t by himself. We snatched his sandwich out of his mouth and his lunch off the seat, and Seltzer asked him if he had a blanket or something stashed in the trunk. “Or something” turned out to be a padded mat. Good. Our luck had improved. About time.

  Seltzer returned to the front gate, did his doggie thing again, and slipped grapes to the mutts and what was left of Brother-Man’s sandwich. I jogged back to the side of the fence where I had seen an opening and scaled it, the mat thrown over my shoulder.

  When I reached the top, I doubled the mat, laid it across part of the prickly wire, and then eased myself over. Should I leave the mat for a swift retreat? I looked to where the dogs were. Naw. I dropped to the ground and took it with me.

  I passed swiftly along the row of cars until I reached Seltzer’s heap. The dogs started up their barking again. I turned back. Uh-oh. They were tearing across the yard, heading for me. I fumbled in my pocket for Seltzer’s keys as the dogs bounded closer. I unlocked the door, flung it open. The dogs leaped through the air to attack. I dove inside and pulled the door shut, in the nick, as they say, and the mutts slammed into the side of the car.

  I clipped one, and he yelped and tumbled backward on top of the other. You think that stopped them? Both hounds recovered quickly and scrambled to their feet and lunged again. I thumbed my nose at them. That made them madder, and they barked and threw themselves repeatedly against the side of the car. The car rocked like a cradle. I was sweating. I threw the blanket off me, and told myself to think. Think.

  Thud. Bump. The shocks were catching hell. I climbed over the front seat and pawed through the junk in the back.

  Thud. Bump. Thud. Bump.

  The briefcase wasn’t there. I panicked. My fingers dipped into something sticky. Damn. Junk flew. Time was short.

  Outside, between leaps, the dogs’ barks turned to howls. I gave up. No use. The briefcase was not there. I almost wept.

  I looked through the car window. Seltzer had come around and was standing outside the fence hollering and waving at me. I rolled down the window an inch or two. The dogs lunged with renewed viciousness.

  Again, he shouted something, but I couldn’t hear because of the damn dogs.

  “What?” I screamed.

  He pantomimed and made an O with his right hand, and with his left index finger jabbed it in and out of the hole. Was he trying to say, “Screw me”?

  “Hole, hole,” he screamed. I finally caught it.

  Hole. I looked down. Sure enough, there was a tear in the upholstery across the bottom of the back seat. I slid my hand through and, hot-cha-cha, touched the handle of the briefcase.

  I tugged, and out it came, tearing away more of the upholstery. I checked to see if the money was there. It was. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  I looked out at the dogs. Foam dripped from their mouths. How would I get out of the car without being eaten alive?

  The cabbie sprinted over to Seltzer and screamed, “The cops. The cops are coming,” and pointed off in the distance. Him I heard. I had to get my butt out of there. No time to think. I jumped into the driver’s seat, turned on the ignition, hit the pedal, and aimed the car for the front gates.

  Ker-boom. I plowed into them and my head butted against the windshield. The glass didn’t break, but my head did. Blood trickled down into my eyes. I was dizzy. And the damn locks didn’t pop like I expected, but I had succeeded in getting the gates to buckle—maybe enough to squeeze through the top of the bent gate.

  Did I lose the dogs? Hell no. They chased after the car, barking louder. I whipped off my belt, wrapped the mat twice around me, and secured it with the belt. While the dogs tried to rip my arm off, I opened the car window, pushed the briefcase up and onto the roof.

  I opened the door a fraction, then wham, kicked the door hard into the jumping dogs. They flew backward, and I made it to the roof of the car—almost. One hound from hell charged at my backside. I kicked at him, the mat barely offering protection, and struggled to pull myself to the roof. He caught my pant leg and hung on. I was beltless and my pants were being pulled halfway down my ass.

  Seltzer and the cabbie screamed. This was insane. I managed to half sit on the roof of the car. I hurled the briefcase over the gate to Seltzer, and yelled to Brother-Man to start his cab. With the dog hanging on to my pant leg, I squeezed through the opening in the gate, got stuck halfway. Seltzer yanked from the other side and pulled me the rest of the way through. The jerk made the hound from hell let go of my pant leg and the dog skidded off the car, and took half of my pant leg with him.

  The sirens loomed closer.

  “Let’s get to getting,” I shouted.

  The taxi was already rolling when Seltzer and me jumped into it. Tires squealed as we tore out of there. Two blocks down the street we almost crashed into the black-and-white that careened around the corner. The cabdriver gave the finger to the cops and yelled obscenities. The cops ignored him and roared past, sirens wailing. I gave Brother-Man a look of admiration.

  “Offensive tactics. Where to?” he said, grinning.

  I looked at my watch. Twelve forty-five.

  “Harlem. Floor it.” I stuffed a hundred-dollar bill in his unused ashtray and waved another hundred under his nose.

  “A hundred and thirty-fifth Street and Harlem River Drive.”

  He smiled again and put pedal to metal; the speedometer soared. The old cab shook as we boogied through the night.

  Chapter 33


  We were late by five minutes. The taxi parked one block over. Brother-Man promised to wait for twenty minutes. Any time after that, he said, we were on our own. The moon shone foolishly. A limp summer breeze carried the smell of ripe garbage and the Harlem River to our nostrils.

  I moved like a wooden puppet across the deserted expanse of street; muscles coiled, my body resisted each step of the way. Deep within I knew I didn’t want to do this, but still, like a robot, I laid one foot after the other, Seltzer at my side. We headed for the underpass and, I knew, straight into the mouth of hell.

  As we approached the meeting place, I slowed, peered into the darkness ahead, and listened. I heard the hum of a car’s engine and stopped.

  Seltzer asked, “What is it, boss?”

  Through the gloom I saw the outline of two cars parked fifty feet from each other, headlights off. The shape of the second car disturbed me. It had an official look to it. “Trouble, I think.”

  “My knife’s back at the station house. Boss, you got a gun?”

  Seltzer’s question hit me like a bullet to my brain.

  The guns were stashed back at the office, and no help to us here. I froze. The doors on the car to my right opened. Two white guys climbed out, one short, one tall.

  I pegged them immediately as cops. Cops. What had I got myself into? I backed up slowly and whispered to Seltzer, “How fast can you run?”

  Before we could take off, the tall one whipped out a big-dick gun and said, “Hold it.” Jesus. If I were Catholic, this was sure enough the time to start saying Hail Marys.

  A loud bang sounded off to my left, and I flinched, thinking I was being shot at. Two men exploded out of the second car. For the first time ever, I was happy to see Blood Clot. But who in the hell was that with him?

  Nooo ... Zeke? Zeke? I was stunned. Seltzer clawed at my arm. He was as surprised as I was. What the devil was Zeke doing here?