Chicago Hustle (17 page)

Her eyes met his from the other side of the fireplace and held. Once, twice, three times. Yeahhh, uhh huh, I'm for real, they seemed to say.

He looked around coolly, cautiously. Where is Ramona? What the hell, he decided, I shouldn't even be here with her square ass anyway.

He took his time circling to her side, checking for obstacles as he made his way.

He paused within her peripheral vision for a few minutes, giving her a full understanding of his intentions with his slow movements. Finally, he wedged himself next to her. “How you doin', Miss Lady?” he whispered near her ear.

She gazed up at him from her seat on the bricks, a nice even expression in her eyes. “Fine and you?” she answered in a low, private voice.

Elijah shrugged expressively. What could you say? He measured her three quarters of profile carefully. Thirty-one-two, maybe. Some kind of Indian woman, dress wrapped all 'round her body, close-cropped pixie haircut, bamboo cane earrings dangling. Pretty cocoa-colored lady, hip, Out There.

She gave his shrug a half smile and slowly returned her attention to the debate, showing obvious boredom with the proceedings.

He leaned back to her ear, a fine, delicate perfume floating up to his nose, “Uh, I notice you don't have a drink, can I get you one?” She turned her face fully to his.

“I'd rather have a smoke.”

He juggled his cigarette pack out before realizing his mistake. A smoke?! a smoke … right on!

“Sorry 'bout that,” he covered up suavely. “I got some smokes … but, uhhh …”

She stood up to reveal a well-designed five feet five. “Well, make a move, brother, I'm right behind you, ain't that the way it's supposed to be?”

The question sounded so sarcastic that he frowned.

“Well,
ain't
that the way it's supposed to be?” she repeated.

Elijah turned away without attempting an answer and walked ahead, clearing people from their path.

They were in the middle of the block when Elijah heard Ramona call him. “Phillip! Phillip! Phillip!”

He ignored the desperate voice, confident that she would never be indiscreet or indignant enough to come out onto the sidewalk.

He lit one of the joints, took a couple deep hits and passed it to her.

Toni Mathews clicked the radio onto the local jazz station.

“Did I hear your li'l ladyfriend call you Phillip?”

Elijah exhaled slowly, trying to look innocent.

She laughed softly in the darkness. “Awwww, c'mon on, you don't have to bullshit me. You should be able to tell by now that I'm regular people.”

Elijah forced himself to laugh in turn. “My fo' real friends call me Elijah, Elijah Brookes. You didn't tell me your name?”

She sucked in a big swallow of smoke before replying. “I've been called a sack load of things, but
my
fo' real friends call me Toni, Toni Mathews.”

“That's a pretty hip name,” Elijah tried flattering her.

She shrugged and passed the joint back, three-fourths smoked. He pulled on it, down to the roach level, flicked it out of the window and lit another one.

They passed it back and forth, getting high.

“That's pretty mellow smoke,” she announced after a few more hits.

“Glad you like it,” he replied suavely, and slid down in the seat to let his mind play with the reflections on the water, the good herb smoke in his head, Mark on the radio, Toni's perfume, Toni Mathews.

He quietly turned to stare at her profile, suddenly loving the idea of being parked on the lakefront at half past midnight with an elegant, groovy sister.

“Can you dig this?” he asked, not indicating anything in particular, but everything …

“Uhh huh,” she nodded, completely at ease, her head laid back on the seat, her eyes half slitted from the dope.

A few minutes later, minutes passing like giant globs of time, mistaking her quiet for an invitation, Elijah slid his light hand up the crease in the center of her dress, from knees to upper thighs.

“Oooh no, no baby.” She eased his hand away gently. “No hot 'n heavy touchin'. Momma is on her bad days.”

Elijah dealt with the putdown by sliding over against the door. Where is this bitch comin' from?

He felt like pressing the issue, but decided not to, for fear of being guilty of the kind of behavior that would cool out any future play, if there was going to be any … but, he was still feeling severely pissed. Where is this bitch comin' from?

After reordering himself, staring at the waves for a few minutes, he asked, in as cool a voice as he could manage, “Where would you like to go?”

Toni sighed, a little disappointed that he hadn't tried harder, but at the same time relieved because he hadn't.

By the time he made his way back to the block, driving as slowly as he could, he had decided that he definitely wanted to get next to her, in the worst way possible. There was something about her that turned him on. She was no Dee Dee, no Leelah, nor anything like the amateurs he had been playing on. She was a style of her own. An original.

“Uhhh, would it be possible to get in touch with you?” he asked, getting out of the car, hating himself for the tone of voice he heard creep into his question.

“Are you sure you want to?”

“Why not? shit, between the two of us, ain't no tellin' what we might get off into. I'm damned sure we can have a better time than we had tonight.”

Toni looked up at him from the driver's seat and pouted her lips out at him playfully. “Awwww, did Momma give you a bad time, baby? here, let me kiss the bad vibes away.”

She reached out for both sides of his face with her long-nailed fingers and spooled a half yard of lascivious tongue into his mouth.

He stood back to look at her after the kiss, trying to decide whether he should press his luck or control his frustration, or what?

Toni dug into her purse and handed him a card. “Don't call before six p.m., I don't get up 'til late, usually.”

He solemnly saluted her with the card between his fingers as she pulled away, waving at him in her rear-view mirror. Wowwwww …

He strolled to his car, muted party sounds coming to him from down the street, Ramona Brown all but forgotten, sat at the curb thinking about the past forty-five minutes.

Miss Toni Mathews was obviously into something. He pulled the last joint out, the one he had been saving for the Total Experience Motel, lit it smiling at the memory, and wheeled away from the curb, the seeds of a game crinkling up his forehead … it would take some heavy sugar to get into a bitch like Toni, some heavy sugar.

CHAPTER 9

Elijah slouched inconspicuously at one of the stand-up desks alongside the east wall of the First National Bank, making all the motions to give the appearance of writing out a deposit or withdrawal slip, one eye on the plainclothes security man and the other one riveted on the slow actions of an apple-cheeked, blue rinse-haired grandmother type transacting business at a nearby window. He slowly, studiously scrawled a number of doodles on the withdrawal pad, allowing the grandmother maximum time to finish her drawn-out transaction and leave the bank before he followed. This was the eighth likely prospect he had tried to pin in three days. Was she with someone? Was she driving? Was she …?! Beautiful!

From midway the block, he watched her stop in the southbound bus zone and casually check out the sign telling which busses were going where. Beautiful! the bus. What could be better?

He rushed to board the bus at the last minute, being very careful to keep himself fully out of the woman's sight.

He positioned himself close enough to observe her as they held onto the strap holders of the swaying, lurching bus. Sixty, if she's a day, not rich or else she wouldn't be on the bus, but not poor either, from the look of her garments. And kindly looking … yeahhh, kindly looking.

Yeahhh, this looked like the one, awright. There had only been one other one who seemed a more likely prospect before this one, but for some reason his instincts pulled him back from her. Something a li'l bit too robust about her, a li'l too keen looking. His heart thumped a little faster as the bus wound around a corner and headed into a Hyde Park route.

At this point, I wouldn't care if she was the chief of police's momma, I'd still make my play. A salt 'n pepper neighborhood to play in, not too much danger of someone calling the pigs just because a black had been spotted on the block. What could be better?

The game had buzzed around in his mind for a week after the party. When was that bitch going to answer her own telephone? “Don't call before six p.m., I don't get up 'til late, usually.”

He reviewed the times he had called and left messages with her service. “Elijah, alias Phillip, called you six-fifteen.” “Elijah Brookes, the First, called … seven-fifteen.”

The corners of his mouth dragged down with the thought of his frustration. It never failed, let some cold-blooded bitch stick her finger up … oops …!

He shut off his other flow of thoughts and got back on his game; the grandmother was getting off the bus. The Hyde Park shopping plaza.

Rushing to get off, he almost knocked a middle-aged black woman with a shopping bag off her feet. She glared at him. “I swear fo' God, y'all …”

He was off the bus and trailing his prey at a discreet distance before the woman had finished her lecture on his manners. Be cool … be cool … he warned himself, filtering into the late-afternoon crowd of shoppers, strollers, Hare Krishna-ites, bearded University types, blacks, whites, Sikhs, yellows, the University of Chicago announcing itself through the interracial character of the neighborhood.

He followed her to the co-op supermarket and decided to wait in the mall … no need to follow the old girl around a damned supermarket, that would be, how would they say it? “counterproductive.” He lounged around the front of the bookstore opposite the supermarket for a full ten minutes, studying titles and hairy-faced authors, wandered over into the big concrete patio of the mall and sat on a bench, waiting, a good profile of the supermarket's exit doors in view.

Assuring himself that he had the best seat in the house, to keep tabs on the lady, he gazed around the patio. A couple third-rate fiddlers scraping their hearts out about something. He gave them a half nod and a cold smile … they didn't seem to have too bad a hustle, if you had the patience to wait for enough suckers to fill up your hat.

A trio of white dudes with their hiking shoes laced across their sleeping bag-back packs, full beards framing their innocent, sunburnt faces, limped past him, almost made him laugh aloud. The Eternal White Boy, never satisfied with life as it is, always got to try and make it harder. Too bad they couldn't've been born with some cold ashes in they jibbs.

Couple brothers with Japanese chicks … or Chinese, or whatever they were, hard to tell the difference … hmmm … that's a different scene. Niggers and chinks … yeahhh, that's sho' 'nuff a different scene.

A couple young sisters, skulls braided to the bone, swept through and gave him an opaque look. He gave them his full admiration look and received an even more opaque look in return. He crinkled the corners of his mouth into a sign of mild displeasure. Some of the latter-day sisters could be so stuck up 'n shitty sometimes. They talk about you like you stole something if you don't pay 'em no attention, and then, when you do, they look at you like you got a tail.

Damn! why won't this bitch give me a play? I guess I'll give her a ring later on, see what's happenin'…

He slouched on the bench and dug his hands deeper into his pockets. Got to leave the goddamned hosses alone, oats 'n blankets, that's all I'm doin'… buyin' oats 'n blankets for hosses. Gotta make a payment to Browney this weekend too. Wonder what Leelah is up to?

The sudden stress of all his things-to-do coming to his mind all at once almost made him miss the little grandmother, moving through the exit doors with a phalanx of evening shoppers.

Elijah stood and stretched himself indulgently. This is it. He reviewed his list of needs and wants, used them to reinforce his strategy … I needs this break, he whispered to himself.

He followed the woman, shopping bag in her left hand with a stalk of celery sticking out of it, wishing that he had all the answers to the questions he wanted to ask before he really got off on her, but there was no way … he'd just have to play it by ear.

He bridged the distance between them, half running, when she turned into a four-storied courtway apartment. Damn it! don't tell me I'm gon' get this far and lose!

He peeked around the corner of the building at her back, checking her mailbox. He took in a couple deep breaths. Good thing old people move so slow. He gave her ten full minutes, from mailbox to apartment, walking slowly to the corner and back, before checking the name on the mailbox. Mrs. H.T. Campbell. Mrs.? No Mr.?

He pushed the buzzer under her name, adrenalin flowing moderately fast, prepared to deal with whatever. Campbell? What kind of name is that? Irish?… Scotch?

“Yessss?” A slightly hesitant voice came down through the intercom system.

“Don Adams, Mrs. Campbell, investigation unit of the First National Bank,” he answered in his best blustering, authoritative voice. He smiled at the sudden buzz-in he received. People really nutted out behind official-sounding voices.

He deliberately slowed himself down on the way to the second floor; better to let her watch me approach than to open the door and get shook up by seeing my black ass in the doorway.

“Yessss?” Mrs. Campbell leaned out of her apartment, immediate apprehension forcing her left hand up to her throat at the sight of Elijah's dark, smiling face.

He whipped his phony I.D. card out, the one with his picture on it, as he approached the last three steps … best put the ol' girl as much at ease as possible.