Authors: Odie Hawkins

Chicago Hustle (23 page)

“Yeah, a legitimate thang, something I could put my talents to, as you put it. But, dig, you know what I came up with, in terms of really gettin' off into it? Z-ro!

“Number one.” he paused for another sip, trying to figure out where he was going as he talked.

Toni had an absorbed expression on her face, like, speak! say something about what's on your mind!

“Okay! I can read a mark, I can con a lady, I can milk a feelin' to the bone. Sometimes, when I feel super unusual on my job, I can damn near become invisible. But none of this kind of shit is employable. Can you dig where I'm comin' from, Toni?”

She nodded slowly, her mind on the love she felt for him, Sweet Nigger. “But, Elijah,” she started off, knowing that he would never give her a chance to carry on, now that he was tuned up.

“Naw! naw! lissen t' me, baby â¦ you can sniff up your nose at games, but it's one of the few kinds of thangs that people seem to really want to be into. Like, okay, dig it! a sucker will go off from his ol' lady for a few hours and rent out a pussy. The ho whose sellin' the trick the trim is really not runnin' a game on the trick, the trick is trickin' himself into believin' that he's buyin' some love. Awright, that one kind o' scene. In my situationâ” He felt like screamingâ“in my situation, I know that I'm offerin' a simple, human, public service to a large number of people who need it. I ain't bein' funny either, I mean it! I know, in my soul, that there is as much a need for streetologists, who take advantage of mentally displaced persons, as there is for psychologists, who don't offer half as much hope, most of the time.”

Toni leaned back in her seat, loving him, not really caring, behind her fourth marguerita, what he was talking about.

“Shit! you talk about legitimate thangs!? I've probably been on top of one of the most legitimate things happenin' in this country for years, which is â¦ ill-legitimacy! That means, if you can dig where I'm comin' from? that I'm offerin' an out. If the thing that you're doin', or that's doin' you too much, then what I'm doin' is offerin' a middle ground â¦ somethin' that may offer you a cloud bed in the sky, or a hard crust of nails, whichever it is that pleases you. And, heyyy, let's face it, baby â¦ lots o' people need these kinds of alternatives, escapes.

“Everything ain't just black 'n white, a lot of people are very much in tune with gray, which is what a lot of people would call cheatin', but which really ain't, because, sometimes, cheatin' is just another means of keepin' the faith.”

Toni signalled to the waiter, knowing, from the look on his stolid, Teutonic face, that he would be disappointed that they were not going from drink to food, but then, he didn't know niggers too well. How could he? the subject being as new as it was.

Elijah plunged into his wallet, anxious to show the world around him that he meant to care for, and not be cared for.

“Elijah?” Toni slurred at him, “why don't we go over to your place? I'm tired.”

Elijah doubled the waiter's tip and carefully made his way out of the restaurant behind Toni, new thoughts on his mind, inspired by his own rap.

CHAPTER 13

“Jamaica?!”

“Yeah, baby, Jamaica!”

The look in her face had bordered on the incredible. Jamaica!? He had been forced to explain how the whole thing had come about, and, as a topping, that he had done it all for her.

Her loving, in response to the gift of a Jamaican holiday, had been exceptionally special. Profound. Or maybe it had been the margueritas.

“Elijah, are you sure those people ain't gonna pull us off the plane and stick us in jail?”

“Not a chance, sweetthang. Dig it, the dude that the card was ripped off from, had it ripped off without him knowin' it, and when he finds out he won't be able to report it.”

“Why?”

“Well, for two big reasons, number one, he's dealin', 'n number two, he had it ripped off while he was layin' up. Believe me, baby, everything is cool. The word is out now, he wants his wallet 'n stuff back and he's offerin' five hundred for it. He won't know about the trip until he's billed at the end of the month.”

“I don't know, Elijah â¦ I just don't know, I'll have to give it a li'l thought.”

“What's there to think about? We'll go down 'n lay up in the sun for a bit â¦ and start talkin' about some kinda future for us.”

“Let me think on it for a day or so, okay?”

He shot past the Afro Lounge, in deep thought, his spirits high, coin in pocket, feeling groovy.

He spun around the corner and past the lounge again, feeling the urge to share his good vibes with someone he knew, anybody.

Parking on the side street, hearing much less noise than usual, made him feel uneasy, vaguely apprehensive. He got out of his car, probing the possibilities of what life would be like with Toni.

She's really a sho' 'nuff dynamite sister.

“Elijah?” the voice called softly from a dark doorway.

“Nawww, this is Phil, man,” Elijah answered, immediately slipping into a role. Sounds like â¦

“Don't gimme that shit! I know 'Lijah Brookes when I see 'im!”

Bennie. Bennie the Bandit. Yeahhh, that's who it would be. “You got the wrong dude, brotherman.”

Bennie tilted his hat back off his face as he stepped into the soft gleam of a streetlight.

“What makes you think that?”

Elijah stared at Bennie's face, a cold network of lines and scars. “Well, I'll be damned! my ol' buddy!” Elijah conned, trying to edge closer, to get an angle to work from.

Bennie pulled a large, ugly German luger from his belt. “Awww, no you don't! don't be givin' me that ol' buddy bullshit!”

Elijah, conning harder, folded his arms across his chest and laid a super-stern glare on Bennie.

“Heyyyy, what's happenin', brother?â¦ I thought we settled our beef a while back.”

“They sent me for the rest of the dough,” Bennie spoke in a low, determined voice, ignoring Elijah's question.

“They who, brotherman?”

“You know who! you got it!?”

Elijah edged a step at a time across the narrow expanse of sidewalk between himself and Bennie.

“Listen to me, sucker â¦ what're you gon' be, the white boy's errand boy? how much did they give you to come for your brother, âbrother'?”

“It didn't take too much, not to come for your rotten ass!”

Bennie's reflexes jerked off two rounds into Elijah's chest as the right hand whistled past his jaw.

Both men stumbled back from each other as though they were figures in a bad dream.

“You chickenshit â¦” Elijah started a sentence he couldn't finish and slumped to the sidewalk.

“Hey! what's goin' on down there?!” a voice called out from one of the buildings around them.

Bennie stepped closer to rob Elijah but found his cold, wolfish grin too much to deal with. He kicked at Elijah's head and missed â¦ the head, in death, seeming to dodge.

“What's happenin' down there!?” another voice called out â¦ the neighborhood waking up to discover another killing.

Bennie made another attempt to kick Elijah's face in, missed, and started moving away at a swift trot, afraid to attempt to deal with Elijah Brookes, the First, any more.

A pall hung over the atmosphere in the Afro Lounge, the grapevine bringing, in its own supersonic fashion, word of Elijah's death. The Toe, Leelah, Nick the Geech, Sid the Shark and several of the regular regulars, the bona fide fast people, looked off into faraway places, remembering.

“I hear he had close to nine thousand dollars on him when â¦” Whispers, the legend being formed â¦

Precious Percy, currently bitchless, but inevitably optimistic, working on an ex-cotton picker from Arkansas, strolled in, took a close reading of the scene and ordered a round for the house.

“I don't know what you niggers sittin' 'round here lookin' down in the mouth about, 'Lijah ain't dead, that motherfucker probably had somebody knocked off that looked like him â¦ so, so he could go off somewhere 'n get another kind o' game together.”

Leelah's head sank with grief as she watched Precious Percy shuffle out of the Afro Lounge, tears glistening in his eyes.

Time out!

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Originally published by Holloway House Publishing Company

Front cover photo by Zola Salena-Hawkins,

www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3569-9

Distributed in 2016 by Open Road Distribution

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