American Gangster
- Автор: Коллинз Макс Аллан
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Tom Doherty Associates
- ISBN: 978-0-7653-5901-8
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «American Gangster». Краткое содержание книги:
At the same time, Barnes’s chief rival was occupied in a conversation with Joe Louis, the champ having table-hopped his way to Frank’s, where he now sat and spoke respectfully to the man responsible for filling Harlem’s streets with a product called Blue Magic.
“It’s a tax thing,” Louis said with an embarrassed shrug of his massive shoulders. “It’s a mistake my lawyers’ll straighten out, you know? But for the time being, Frank, it’s a real headache.”
“How much you owe?” Frank asked.
“Nothing, nothing. Something like — fifty grand?”
Frank studied the battered, puffy and yet still handsome, iconic face of America’s greatest heavyweight champ, black or white. Was it an honor to have a celebrity of this stature asking to borrow money? Or a curse?
Either way, Frank could only smile and nod, a king granting a request from a down-on-his-luck knight.
Louis beamed in a shy country boy way that Frank could relate to. “Thank you, Frank. You’re tops. I’ll pay ya back soon as—”
“No. Joe. It’s a gift. Not a loan. You don’t owe me nothing. Just keep comin’ around the club here. You honor us with your presence.”
Meanwhile, Nicky Barnes was gliding around the club with his magazines and his crew, a long-legged good-looking gal on his sleeve. As Louis chatted with Charlie and Rossi, Frank watched the flashy fool make his rounds, lingering at Louis’s table where Mrs. Louis was introducing him to Miss Puerto Rico, Barnes holding onto the beautiful creature’s slender hand longer than a man with a girl on his arm should.
Frank had had enough. He glanced and nodded at Huey at a nearby table, by way of announcing he was splitting. Frank’s big bodyguard/driver, Doc, didn’t require a glance or a nod, knowing Frank’s moods well enough to read that he was ready to go. Doc got up even a beat before Frank.
At the hatcheck stand, Doc had Frank’s topcoat ready and he was slipping into it when Miss Puerto Rico — stepping from the ladies’ room into their path — came through.
She gave him that open, no b.s. smile, making no bones about them earlier having shared a look across the crowded club.
“I’m Eva,” she said.
“I’m Frank,” he said, and smiled just a little. Just enough.
That made her smile grow, and she said, “You’re Frank, and...” She gestured around the hopping club. “... this is your place.”
He kept the just-enough-of-a-smile going but otherwise didn’t reply.
She took that for “yes,” and said, “Then why is it called Small’s?”
“Fellow named Small opened it. Back in the days of the Harlem renaissance. Cotton Club and all.”
“That was a long time ago.” There was something impish, and nicely teasing, in her voice, which was lilting and musical, the Puerto Rican accent adding faint percussion. “Why don’t you call it ‘Frank’s’ now?”
“Because,” he said, “I don’t have to.”
And now he let the smile all the way, full-wattage. Normally he could make a girl forget her own name with that smile. Only right now, with her smiling back at him, he wasn’t sure he could remember his own...
12. The Judge
In the middle pew of a crowded courtroom, Richie Roberts, in a somber suit and tie, sat with his attorney, Sheila Allison, also in a severe (if stylish) suit, waiting their turn. Everyone in the courtroom was half of a divorced couple sitting with his or her attorney. Laurie Roberts and the male attorney representing her were on the other side, in more ways than one.
Richie had noticed the odd sight of attorneys bearing papers clipped with five-dollar bills or tens and sometimes even twenties, heading down the aisle toward the bench.
Sheila, a dark-haired woman, her professional demeanor taking not a whit off her blonde prettiness, was saying, “You should be prepared for your wife’s counsel to hit below the belt.”
“Who I had relations with,” he said, mildly defensive, “since we broke up, isn’t any of her business.”
He was specifically thinking of the fact that he and Sheila were sleeping together, and was wondering if having sex with your divorce attorney could be a black mark against you in a custody case.
“I wasn’t talking about your proclivities, Richie,” she said, patient but having to work at it. “Those I know only too well. This isn’t about you having a wandering eye.”
“What is it about then?”
Her expression was regretful, like a mother feeding a spoon of castor oil to her kid. “I’m talking about you being a cop.”
He made a face, waved that off. “You kidding? What, about me taking money? I don’t do that.” He laughed once, harshly. “You’ve seen where I live. Does it look like I care about money?”
But Sheila, like everybody else in this part of the world, couldn’t seem to get it through her lovely head that maybe not every cop was in it for the graft. “If you have taken money, Richie, I promise you, it will come out.”
“Fine. Swell. I haven’t.”
An eyebrow arched in the oval face. “You’re going to have to sit down with shrinks and social workers.”
“Big deal.”
“And your wife’s lawyers, and the judge, and there will be a lot of questions.”
“I’ll have answers.” He nodded toward the bench, in front of which a man in a gray suit was arranging the folders the lawyers had been bringing up to him. “What’s that about?”
She smiled tightly. “Scheduling.”
“I mean, the money.”
“The money is about scheduling. That’s the judge’s assistant. He’s rearranging the pre-trial cases in order of... rearranging them.”
“In order of the amount of gratuity, you mean?”
She didn’t answer his question. Instead she asked her own: “What about your old friends from the neighborhood? You still hang out with them?”
He shrugged. “Summer softball on Sundays with some guys.”
“With some wise guys, you mean. That’s going to look good, Richie. Just great.”
He felt red rising up his collar. “I grew up with those guys. Went to school with them. Big deal. I never did any business with them.”
Too casually, she asked, “What about Joseph Sadano?”
“What about Joseph Sadano?”
She paused. Took a deep breath. Let it out. “Richie, I’m just trying to understand certain things your wife has said. If they’re not true, just tell me. But if they are, well... what I don’t know can definitely hurt you.”
“Yeah, Joey’s a guy I hang with sometimes. Basketball. Poker.”
“You bet on basketball with him?”
“No. We play it. Badly.”
“What kind of poker games? High stakes?”
“Yeah, all the way up to a quarter a raise. Are you kidding me, Sheila?”
“Joey Sadano... he’s also your son’s godfather?”
He nodded, rolled his eyes. “Not that kind of godfather. Jesus.”
Sheila’s mouth tightened — it was not exactly a smile, and was almost a frown. She nodded toward the side of the courtroom where Laurie and her counsel sat. “Do you really care about this, Rich? Or do you just not want your ex to win — even when maybe she should.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sheila’s gaze wasn’t any more cutting than a laser beam. “How often do you see your son as it is?”
“Not enough as I should,” he admitted. “And it’s my fault, kind of work I do. But Laurie, Christ, she wants to make it never.”