Then Bumpy led both his watchdogs on, human and canine, a Red Sea of pedestrians parting — whether out of respect or fear, what did it matter? — and the two men approached the entrance to the big discount store.
Again Bumpy paused.
“Where’s the corner grocery? It’s a supermarket now. What happened to that funky old candy store? McDonald’s is squatting on its ruins. And this place...”
Bumpy indicated the yawning chasm of a store with its endless aisles and towering stacks of merchandise. A few customers wandered within, as if lost in an overseas airport, with no sales clerks to guide them.
“Where’s the pride of ownership, a warehouse like this?” Bumpy demanded. “Where’s people waiting on people? Does anybody work here?”
Frank did not know the term “rhetorical question,” but he knew one when he heard one, and didn’t reply. They were walking again, slowly, and now Bumpy was indicating a display window filled with Japanese stereo components.
“What right do they have, cutting out the suppliers, pushing all the middlemen out, buying direct from the manufacturer? Sony this, Toshiba that, all them slant-eyed sons of bitches putting Americans out of work! We fought a war for that?”
Bumpy stopped again, TVs replaced by cameras. His eyes widened, his nostrils flared.
“What’s an honest businessman like me supposed to do with a goddamn place like this, Frank?”
Now Frank wasn’t sure — maybe he was supposed to answer...
Bumpy shook his head in sheer frustration. “Who the hell am I supposed to ask for — the assistant manager? How do you collect from a goddamn octopus that won’t show you his fuckin’ head?”
Frank nodded. The protection racket was definitely going out of style, though he had never expressed this opinion out loud.
Bumpy stared back at the window of cameras. Again he pointed.
“That’s the problem, Frank. Eyes looking at you, but no faces. That’s the way it is, now: you can’t even find a heart to stick the knife in.”
Bumpy was still returning the cameras’ stare when his jaw went slack and his expression turned fearful.
Which shocked Frank, who did not shock easily. Thing was, in all these years, Frank Lucas had never seen Bumpy Johnson look afraid.
Now, astonishingly, the big man dropped to his knees, as if praying to this church of consumerism. Both Frank and the German shepherd stared down at their master in disbelief.
Then Frank was on his knees, too, asking, “What is it, Mr. Johnson? Bumpy!”
Hand splayed on the breast of the cashmere topcoat, Bumpy looked at Frank but remained slack-jawed, no words coming out, though the eyes pleaded.
Frank heard a voice yelling, “Somebody call an ambulance!”
It was his own voice.
He scrambled to the entrance of the cavernous discount store and yelled those words again, but the place seemed empty, the echo of his cry for help having a hollow ring, blending in with Muzak and cash registers ringing up sales that Bumpy would never see his piece of.
Frank threw a desperate glance at Bumpy, whose tear-filled eyes were on him.
And finally Bumpy managed to speak: “Forget it, Frank. Nobody’s in charge.”
As usual, Bumpy was right, even with his last words.
On the day of Bumpy’s funeral, the media was waiting outside the Lenox Terrace apartment house, recording the parade of limousines and the mourners who emerged from them, family and friends, of course, but also celebrities and politicians. This enormous crowd, mostly Harlemites, called for cops on horseback to maintain order; for a protection racketeer, Bumpy was beloved.
And in certain unmarked cars, FBI agents snapped pictures with their long-lensed cameras, their focus on the Italian gangsters coming to pay their respects, capo Dominic Cattano in particular. The black criminals were beneath their interest, though when Nicky Barnes in his tinted Gucci glasses stepped from his white Bentley, to pose happily for anybody with a camera, the feds felt obligated to snap a few of this attention-craving drug dealer.
The live coverage played on a television in the Johnson apartment, though no one was really watching.
“The passing of Ellsworth ‘Bumpy’ Johnson has brought together a who’s who of mourners on this chilly afternoon. The Governor has come down. The Mayor of New York and the Chief of Police and Commissioner join sports and entertainment luminaries...”
In a corner of Bumpy Johnson’s well-appointed garden apartment, Frank Lucas was sitting on a couch, half-listening to this March of Time obituary. Nearby but not right next to where Frank sat, Bumpy’s loyal German shepherd perched, watching all these intruders as suspiciously as Frank.
“According to the eulogies,” a male reporter down among the crowd below was saying, “Bumpy Johnson was a great man, a giving man, a man of the people. But no one chose to include in their remembrances the word most often associated with Johnson: gangster.”
Frank rose, went to the TV, switched it off and returned to his couch. This had been his boss’s private sanctuary, with its carved-ivory chess table and bookcase of leather-bound Shakespeare and a stereo console with a record collection running from classical music to Henry Mancini, no jazz or R & B at all. Frank was among the few to regularly hang out here with the boss.
Now the sanctuary had been invaded, on the pretense of respect. Among the vultures were the self-styled Superfly Nicky Barnes with his ever-present crew of ass-kissers, and that thug Tango Black, a big bald-headed bastard known to be quick for a man his size. Right now Tango was quick to scavenge food and booze at this catered wake.
Vulgar men in vulgar clothes, Frank thought. Ironic that the two Cosa Nostra types at the wet bar — elegant, hawkishly handsome Cattano, who Bumpy did business with, and his accountant-like minion, Rossi — were among the most truly respectful mourners here. While Tango and Nicky Barnes sloshed down the booze, Cattano sipped white wine. Class.
Taking the liberty of plopping himself down next to Frank was an anonymously respectable-looking white guy in a dark suit suitable for a mortician or banker. He was in fact the latter, with Chemical Bank in the Bronx.
“How you doing, Frank?”
“All right.”
“Terrible loss.”
Frank nodded.
The banker risked a small smile. “How are you... otherwise? Things okay financially?”
The banker was obviously wondering whether Frank had been appointed by Bumpy as his successor. But he didn’t reply: this was neither the time nor the place. The banker’s lack of tact, however, didn’t irritate him as much as seeing that waste of skin Tango Black plonk a watery glass filled with melting ice on the edge of Bumpy’s antique inlaid chess table.
The banker was pressing on: “Did Bumpy set anything up for you?”
“Excuse me.”
Frank got up and crossed to the chess table and picked up the glass and set it on a coaster.
Tango, noticing this, grinned at Frank and said, “Hey, while you’re at it, Frank, I could use an ashtray.”
Frank reached into his jacket. Tango frowned a little; so did the German shepherd, watching his master’s friend ever closely. His revolver in its shoulder holster was revealed, but what Frank was going for was his handkerchief, which he used to dry the condensation Tango’s spent drink glass had left.
Then, from a drawer of the chess table, Frank took an ashtray and held it out toward Tango.
The big man looked at Frank, at the ashtray and back at Frank; finally, unsure of whether this was a genuine response to his sarcastic comment or some kind of challenge, Tango wandered off to scavenge more free eats.