American Gangster by Max Allan Collins Page A

remembered.
    If Tango was worried, though, he didn’t show it. He just stared at Frank, eyes cold under the gun barrel whose nose was dimpling his forehead, and the would-be king of 116th Street sneered some more as he said, “What’re you gonna do now, boy? Shoot me in broad daylight? Front of
everyone
?”
    The world froze.
    Life on the street stopped, like an atom bomb had just dropped, nobody moving, everybody looking at Frank and his captive audience.
    â€œBig show,” Tango said derisively. “Everybody looking at the big man. But what next? You really gonna shoot me, motherfucker?”
    â€œYeah,” Frank said, “I am.”
    Frank squeezed the trigger and Tango was dead so fast it didn’t have time to register in the insolent eyes, and the big man fell back and hit the pavement, hard, but feeling no pain. Blood and brains drained out under the bald head like somebody had dropped a melon off the stand.
    Tango was history but Frank still had a point to make.
    He emptied the revolver into the corpse’s chest and the shots made little cracks yet echoed like thunder down the canyon of buildings.
    When the gun was empty, and the echo had died away, silence again shrouding the street, Frank just stood there and, one by one, looked into the face of each spectator, including the bodyguard and the fruit vendor, daring them to remember him.
    Then, calmly as a meter maid giving a parking ticket, he knelt and reached inside Tango’s jacket and found a money clip fat with cash. He set the empty sugar dispenser down and jammed the money in.
    To nobody in particular, Frank said, “For the cops. Should be plenty.”
    Then he got to his feet, crossed the street—no cars at the moment, for some reason—and went back into the diner and sat back down with his brothers. He ignored their astonished stares and tucked his napkin back into his shirt collar, like any good country boy. The blue plate specials had arrived, steam rising off meat loaf.
    â€œThat’s basically the whole picture,” Frank said. He smiled from face to face, then asked, “Any questions?”

11. Nice to Be Nice
    At the same time Richie Roberts was settling in with his squad at an abandoned church in New Jersey, Frank Lucas was being shown around an Upper East Side penthouse in New York. Just as a city maintenance worker had watched Richie deciding, so did a real estate broker—an attractive white woman—stand patiently on the sidelines while Frank considered the high-ceilinged spaciousness of a grand, unfurnished apartment.
    Frank liked the modern look of the place, which probably dated to the 1950s when things got sleeker and all atomic and shit. The light streaming in from the garden terrace was right out of an old painting in a museum, and the curtains were themselves twelve feet high; this wasn’t an apartment, it was a damn cathedral.
    Without looking at the real estate agent, Frank said, “No loan, no contingencies.”
    â€œThat’s fine. How—”
    â€œCash sale.”
    â€œFine! I know you’ll just love it here. . . .”
    And he did know he would love it there. The penthouse would be his refuge, his sanctuary, from the streets and business, and even from Teaneck and his family. Country boys made good help and were great family, but Frank had goals and tastes that were not at all country.
    His home away from home, however, was a nightclub called Small’s Paradise at the southwest corner of 135th Street. Harlem had lots of choices in the nightlife department, Mr. B’s, the Shalimar, the Gold Lounge. But Small’s had history; it was the kind of place where a guy like Frank Lucas, even back when he was a glorified bodyguard for Bumpy Johnson, could rub shoulders with the likes of Wilt Chamberlain or even Howard Hughes.
    Rain had turned the streets as slick and glistening as black patent leather, and off that sheen reflected the neons