Gunmetal Black Read online

  Inside, the Caddy was clean and shiny. It smelled of a coconut-scented air freshener, which was too sweet. A miniature Puerto Rican flag hung from the rearview mirror. On the dashboard a small statue of Saint Judas, the one with the horn, kept watch.

  Tony horseshoed the sunglasses around the little statue, made the sign of the cross, and dropped the transmission into drive. The tires slipped and squealed. I gave Stateville the finger as we fishtailed off.

  After a minute I said, “It feels strange to ride in a car again.”

  Tony said, “Everything in the free world is gonna be like new to you.”

  We got on the interstate. I kept checking the speedometer, certain the car was pushing one hundred, but the needle never moved past seventy.

  Tony threw Fat Joe on the system and sparked a blunt. “Cuida’o,” he said, handing it over. “This ain’t that bunk you been smoking in Roundhouse.”

  I hit it. “Please, Tony, who taught who how to smoke weed?”

  But Tony was right, the shit was flame, and more banging than anything on the market inside. Two tokes and the music got tasty, the sky became infinite, and the road stretched to some unseen point beyond the horizon.

  Tony slapped my leg. “How the brothers doin’?”

  “The same, I guess.”

  “Probably gonna cut each other to pieces, now that you’re gone.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I sold my reefer business to Múcaro.”

  Tony shook his head. “I give that bug-eyed motherfucker a week before he catches another case behind it.”

  “Yeah, or lets the Aryans muscle him out.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Fuck it,” I said, toking. “That’s his problem now.”

  I turned the music down to listen for the wind. It was silent, but visible in the leaves and the flocks of birds that ricocheted like molecules in the turbulence.

  Tony glanced over. “So what’s up with your drums, bro? You don’t play no more? I thought I was gonna hear your tumbao.”

  It was my intention to buy new congas as part of my business venture. Like an expense. Part of me was eager to tell Tony all about it. But I knew it was too soon. I looked at him.

  “I’ll probably pick up some new congas, once I settle in somewhere. I didn’t wanna carry all that weight around. But how about you, Tone? What’re you up to?”

  Tony licked the corner of his mouth. “Me? Not much. Got a little crew goin’. Young bucks. You know, can’t tell their tongues from their assholes, but they do the trick.”

  Like most men we knew, Tony and I had fallen into gangbanging early on. We started by hanging out with friends from the neighborhood, and before we knew it, we were a crew slinging nickel bags of weed on the corner. Most of our operations had been fairly small-time.

  Ever since those early days, it had been Tony’s dream to make the shit more sophisticated, like a Latino version of La Cosa Nostra. Part of it was that Tony was a born schemer and a natural thug. Another part was his fetish for all things Italian. The only book he ever finished was about Lucky Luciano. At least half of Tony’s eight or nine illegitimate kids were, as he put it, “half-Guinea and part Wop.”

  I asked Tony a direct question. “So what exactly are you slinging these days?”

  “A little bit of everything. Mostly H-ball.”

  “Really? You cutting heroin now?”

  “Yep. Got a smooth operation going. You’d be surprised: the Hot Corner still gets traffic. I call my shit cornuto. Italian for ‘the horn.’ ” Tony glanced at me. “Don’t front like you don’t know what’s poppin’.”

  Tony knew full well that most of what happens on the street winds its way to the prison grapevine.

  I grinned. “You know them hags I did my stir with. Nothing to do inside but gamble, gossip, and smoke.”

  “Uh-huh. And talk shit about niggas too.” Tony paused, but I acted like I didn’t realize he was waiting for me to say something.

  He cocked his head at me. “So?”

  “So what, Tony?”

  “What did you hear?”

  “About you?” I turned to get a good look at him. “Nothin’ much. Just a couple rumors.”

  “Lies, you mean?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me, Tone. I heard a really wild one about how you muscled in on Roach’s cut.”

  “Oh, Roach’s cut?” Tony nodded like he absorbed it all. He took one last annoyed pull off his cigarette, then ground it into the ashtray. Smoke escaped from the corners of his mouth. “Let me tell you something, Eddie: that business fell into my lap. You understand? I didn’t muscle nobody outta nothin’.”

  “No?”

  “Fuck no.” Tony shut the music off. “I don’t know what them tricks inside been telling you, Eddie, but—”

  “Forget about what you think I heard, Tony. Just tell me the truth.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  I did not change my expression.

  Tony shifted. “Roach must’ve got a bad shipment of Pitorro.”

  “What?”

  “Pitorro. Puerto Rican moonshine.”

  “I know what it means.”

  “Well, that’s what Roach calls his dope: ‘Pitorro.’ Maybe he stepped on it with something toxic, I don’t know.”

  “Why, what happened?”

  “Junkies started droppin’ like panties in a two-dollar whorehouse.”

  “ODs?”

  “Yup.”

  “Only Roach’s customers? Not yours?”

  “Nope. Four or five a day, for like a week.”

  “A bad batch of Pitorro?”

  “Looks like it. Bucketheads on the street started calling it ‘Da Holocaust.’ It was all over the news.”

  I knew the news accounts. I read the Sun-Times every day. “You know what I don’t understand, Tony?”

  “What?”

  “How Roach’s junkies going belly up add up to you walking away with his clientele.”

  “Do the math, Eddie.”

  “Whyn’t you do it for me, Tone?”

  “Junkies wanna live too. Roach’s clients needed a place to cop. Someplace safe. They didn’t wanna drop Pitorro anymore, not if they could help it. Everybody out here knew you shoot that, it’s Russian roulette. Roach tried to rename it, but everybody knew it was from the same source and looked for another shop.”

  “So you set up your own franchise?”

  “Hey, it’s a free country.”

  “Cornuto to the rescue.”

  “The fuck you want, Eddie? I saw a market.”

  It was exactly what I expected Tony to say. I looked him over. No sweating. No shifting. Tony was a killer at poker.

  I sucked my teeth. “So you got no idea who spiked Roach’s supply?”

  Tony knew exactly what I was asking. He sniffed. “C’mon, Eddie, you know I don’t play dirty pool.”

  I let out a sharp, one-second laugh.

  “All right,” said Tony. “Sometimes I play dirty pool. But not this time. You know I’d tell you.”

  I wondered. Long as I’d known Tony, I just couldn’t be sure.

  “So? How’s the money?”

  Tony slanted an eyebrow. “In heroin?”

  It was a stupid question.

  Tony flicked the gold necklace that hung heavily around his neck. “Like a sweet piece of ass on a Sunday morning.”

  Tony’s cell phone rang. He fished it out and flipped it open, secret agent–style. “Yo. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh.” He glanced over at me. “Whenever I get there. Quit breaking my balls.” He shut the phone.

  I said, “Girlfriend?”

  “What?”

  “Who was that on the phone?”

  Tony hesitated. “Nobody. Customers. Where was I?”

  “You were telling me about your business.”

  “Right. Anyway, the thing is, right now I got a chance to invest in some serious weight. Brown stuff, the good sticky shit. So pure, you can step on it and restep on it. I’m getting it fro
m some Sicilians. Profits’ll be through the roof.”

  “Yeah, Tony? And what about Roach?”

  “What about him?”

  “How you gonna deal him out?”

  Tony tilted his head. “The old-fashioned way, I guess.”

  Not smart, I thought. With a big drop in business, Roach was certain to be desperate and more dangerous than ever.

  I shook my head. “Tony, aren’t we a little senior for this?”

  “For what?”

  “Street war. You got beef with Roach right now, and I mean I got your back and everything, but—”

  “Hey, Eddie, do I look like I’m asking you to fight my battles?”

  “Yeah, Tony, as a matter of fact, you do. I was all set to ride to Miami.”

  “Miami? To do what?”

  “That girl you sent said you needed my help on something.”

  “I do.”

  “She made it sound important.”

  “It is. But it ain’t got nothing to do with this other shit about Roach. That’s my business. But how come you gotta be so serious? We ain’t seen each other in two years.”

  I already knew that Tony had crossed into Roach’s turf. Even a donkey could see that equals street war. For me, it was the most logical thing in the world to expect Tony to ask me to back him up on that. Now it appeared he wanted something else.

  “I just wanna know the scheme, Tony. Why did you send for me?”

  Tony nodded. “OK. You have a right. But keep an open mind, ’cause this? This shit is over the top.” Tony licked the corner of his mouth. “I need you to muscle with me on another heist.”

  “Another what?”

  “A heist, bro. A stick job. You, me. Couple other cats. Shotguns and balls. Like the olden days.”

  And that’s just how he said it. Like he was talking about baking a cake or putting up some drywall. I should’ve told Tony to drop it right there. To take me to the airport, the bus depot, drop me anywhere. Hell, if I’d have jumped out of the car at seventy miles an hour, I’d have been better off.

  But then Tony said, “Listen, we’re talking about a fuckload of money here, papa,” and it was hypnosis. Like seeing your fat aunt’s humongous tit, the dark brown nipple, that time she forgot to lock the bathroom. Or a cat with its guts hanging out.

  I licked my bottom lip. “How much is a fuckload?”

  “A million. Maybe more.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Per man, Eddie. A million dollars per swinging dick on this job.”

  “Tony, you been smoking too much of that happy stick.”

  “Naw, kid. How you think I’m getting the buy money for that shipment I told you about? That’s at least three quarters of a mill right there.”

  “Three quarters of a mill?” Tony had grown up on welfare like the rest of us. Even in our heyday as burglars and coke dealers, we never pulled a six-figure job. And we spent every penny without ever investing. “Tony, who the fuck you know that’s got that much paper lying around?”

  “Casinos.”

  “Like Las Vegas?”

  “Uh-uh. Joliet. Shit’s full of ’em now. Right down the block from Stateville. Big-ass boats on the river.”

  I almost laughed. “Tony, you ain’t heisting no friggin’ casino boat.”

  “You bet your brown ass I am. Pelón’s got a foolproof plan.”

  My jaw muscles tensed. “Pelón? He’s in on this?”

  “Of course. He’s the mastermind.”

  I took a second to make certain I heard Tony correctly. “Tony, are you telling me you still deal with that prick? Even after that shit he pulled?”

  “Like he had a choice? C’mon, you were there, the bullets were flying. You can’t hold that armored-car thing against him forever.”

  “Just keep him away from me.”

  Tony said, “I ain’t asking you to lick his twat. The man generates paper, and I want in on that.”

  “Tony, you do what you want, but do it without me.”

  “I told you to have an open mind, Eddie. Pelón’s got a surefire plan this time. He’s cased the boat. He knows which way to go. Wait’ll you see his crib.”

  “Tony, you really think you’re gonna walk out of a casino with their loot? Them places got security up the ass. Cameras watch everything.”

  “That ain’t stoppin’ us.”

  “No? What, Pelón figure a way to make your ass invisible?”

  Tony didn’t come back.

  “Fill me in, Tone. What’s this master plan?”

  Tony kept silent. The wipers ticked and a thousand beads of rainwater streaked across the surface of the windshield. Tony shifted in his seat.

  “I can’t do it, Eddie.”

  “You can’t do what?”

  “I can’t give away the store like that.”

  Tony lit a cigarette and blew a thick stream of smoke, which crashed against the windshield and spread in an uneven circle. Then he turned on the radio and flipped through the stations.

  I looked at him. “Tony, are you holding out on me?”

  He looked over. “You know that ain’t how it is. Pelón said mum’s the word. Not unless you come on board. I already said too much.”

  I knew this made Tony uncomfortable. He was sentimental, and he thought of me as his best friend. He probably worried that I felt betrayed.

  I shook my head. “Pelón’s jerking your chain, kid.”

  “No he isn’t.”

  “Sure he is. You’re buying his loada crap, and you don’t even know what’s underneath.”

  “You think I’m that stupid, Eddie?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  It was a left jab, light, but square on the chin, calculated to shake Tony loose. Maybe he’d spill more info. But he didn’t flinch. I had come prepared to discuss a street war. To let Tony know that I wasn’t gangbanging anymore, how much it bored me. I was not prepared to talk about a heist of any kind. I retreated.

  “Tony, this is silly. Let’s just drop it.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ll take it up with Pelón myself. If he’s got the guts to face me.”

  “That’s fine. He wants to talk to you.”

  “I’ll bet he does. But like I said, he’s feeding you a load.”

  Tony scrunched his shoulders. “¡Coño, man! I thought the shit was dropped?”

  We rode in silence for a while. Tony sparked another joint and switched the CD to a classic, Lo Mato by Willie Colón. I thought about the wild things that poured out of Tony’s mouth: Pitorro. Cornuto. Money. Big shipments. Shotguns and balls.

  But then I got high again and all I could think about was the poetry of the lyrics, the menace and melancholy of the music, trombone, the spell-casting voice of Héctor Lavoe.

  And that’s when it hit me: I was out. I was outside. I was in the open. I was free. No bars. No walls to contain me. I could choose my own direction. I was not restrained. The emotion of that moment rose. I shut my eyes and let it swell.

  After a moment Tony said, “Yo, I know you must be ready to bust a nut, though.”

  I opened my eyes and smiled. “Brother, it’s been so long, I get solid if I blink too much.”

  Tony laughed. “Relief is on the way, maestro. Chicago’s a pussy buffet.”

  “I ain’t sweating that.”

  Tony smirked. “Yeah you are.”

  It was true that a strange feeling had begun to invade me in the months prior to my release. Not the raw lust that Tony was talking about, although that was always there. Something else. A hunger maybe. Consciousness of emptiness. The sense that I had missed out by never getting married, never starting a family, never letting a woman get close. The day that I received Tony’s messenger in the visiting area, I saw another inmate kiss his wife with such passion, it almost hurt. It was their one weekly visit, their only weekly kiss hello, and they meant it. I realized then that there had always been something unnatural about being alone. Like Adam by himself in the Garden. I didn’t sa
y any of this to Tony.

  I cracked my knuckles. “Yeah, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of skirts to chase. Right now I’m just looking forward to being able to go for a walk.”

  We rode in silence. After a while the skyline came into view.

  Tony nodded. “My kind of town.” He switched the CD to “When the Levee Breaks,” by Led Zeppelin. “Still my first love,” he said. “Rock and roll.”

  Ahead of us, Chicago spread like a multicolored fire on the plain. Giant buildings reached for something they could never know. And above them were the black and purple clouds. They hung like bunting over the unsuspecting city.

  CHAPTER 02:

  SAGITTARIUS (DEEP INSIDE)

  Tony pulled up to the curb and pointed to a bar with a lit Old Style beer sign. “One of my accounts.”

  The place was empty except for an old man sitting at the far end of the bar watching the Bears struggle on TV. The bartender sat on his own stool, chin in hand, fixed on the game. He watched the third down and the punt before he ambled to where Tony and I leaned on the bar.

  Tony made the peace sign. “Two cold ones.”

  The bartender opened two sweaty bottles and placed them in front of us. He took Tony’s twenty from the bar.

  Tony raised his bottle. “To you, brother. The Man tried to break you, but you held it down. Welcome back to the real world.”

  We clinked our bottles. The beer was cold and it chased away the cotton mouth. The bartender returned Tony’s change, which Tony pocketed right away. He downed his beer. I left most of mine. We split.

  Once in the car, we drove until we hit a stoplight. Tony reached in his jacket pocket, pulled out the change, counted it. Two hundred and twenty dollars.

  I rubbed my nose. “Didn’t you pay with a twenty?”

  “Good eye, Eddie. Every week I go there, I collect two bills.”

  “For what?”

  “Protection.”

  “That old racket?”

  “Two hundred a week, from that Polack alone. Plus a free beer.”

  Next we stopped at a Mexican panadería, where Tony pulled the same stunt. He ordered a bagful of pastries, paid with a twenty, got back a couple hundred, plus the original twenty.