Death List (12 page)

"What is it?" Kenyatta yelled into the receiver, then waited to make sure he had the person he wanted to talk to. "Listen, bro, I got something important for you, so when you pull up from that joint, stop at a pay phone and give me a ring, okay? Make it as soon as possible, 'cause it's important, my man," Kenyatta stated, then hung up the receiver, not bothering to wait to see if he was understood.

The person who didn't understand was the switchboard operator, who had kept his switchboard key open so that he could hear what was said. He was curious about the strange looking man who stayed in room 12. The man had moved like an animal. At first the operator had been frightened that the man might stick him up; then his curiosity had just got the best of him. The man in number 12 looked like a criminal to him, yet he hadn't done anything wrong. In fact, he paid his rent ahead of time and didn't bother him making silly phone calls all day long like some people.

But the police had asked him to listen in on conversations by people who seemed suspicious. The last time they had raided a room at the motel, they had asked him to listen in on any calls by some of the occupants who rented the high-priced rooms. No black person living honestly could afford those rates anyway. At least not the daily rates. At one time the motel had been used by affluent dope pushers, until the police came through and cleaned it out. Now the police used the switchboard operator to listen in, mainly on the ones who drove the long, expensive Cadillacs. It made him mad to see them pull up in the driveway. He knew that he would never be able to buy one of the luxurious cars and resented the longhaired black men who bought them as if they were small compact cars. Half of the niggers didn't work. He could tell that after they had stayed for a week or two, flashing their huge bankrolls every time they paid their rent.

There were two Cadillacs sitting in the driveway now, and one of the owners had two white girls with him, so the white operator knew that this was probably one of the many black pimps who came in and out. Now all he was waiting for was a chance to catch them with some white tricks in their room and he would call the vice squad immediately and bust their asses.

As the man who was going under the name of Marcus Gregory walked out of his room, the operator was trying to decide if it was important enough to call his buddy down on the vice squad. The only thing he had to go on was the fact that the caller had asked him to go out and find a pay phone.

He took a glance out the window just as the Creeper went by. One look at the ugly face on the man made up his mind for him. Any nigger who looked like that had to be up to something wrong. Why else would a woman first ask for him, then let a man take the phone, who then only ordered the ugly bastard to go out and find a pay phone? Yes, he reasoned, as he sat before his switchboard, something out of the ordinary was going on-he would be willing to bet his ass on it. The switchboard operator dialed police headquarters. He knew the number by heart.

Kenyatta sat on the bed rubbing the leg of the beautiful woman who was next to him. Betty stretched out on the bed with her arms thrown back over her head. Maybe, just maybe, she wished silently. For some reason, she couldn't get enough of this man. Kenyatta was her very life.

The telephone in their room rang shrilly. "Yeah," Kenyatta roared into the receiver. "Hang that mother- fuckin' receiver up downstairs; I got the phone upstairs here!"

"Hey, baby boy, you at a pay phone now?" He wait ed for the reply, then continued. "Listen, brother, I got an important job for you, man. It's very important, and it's got to be taken care of immediately. Are you strapped down for business?"

The Creeper patted the gun under his armpit as if the man he was talking to could see his action. "I'm ready and willin', bro," he answered sharply.

"Good, then," Kenyatta replied quickly. "I want you to put a hit on this white sonofabitch Angelo. Angelo Benita will be the name he's under. The cat is staying at the Holiday Inn on Woodward in Highland Park. You know where the place is?" Again, Kenyatta waited for the Creeper's answer before continuing. "Now, dig this, bro," he said, making sure he never used the man's nickname because he sensed that the Creeper didn't like the name. "Okay, now dig this, boy. The fat honky is staying in room...." He hesitated and dug out a small piece of paper from his pocket. "In room 204-that's right, 204. Now, he should be loaded with bread, but if you ain't got the time after makin' the hit, fuck the bread. Don't even worry about it, 'cause you ain't going there after the money. I want this fat-ass bastard dead before the fuckin' night is over. And listen, bro, I got this hunch that the motherfucker is about to split."

The Creeper asked a question and Kenyatta listened patiently before replying. "Yeah, you know him, bro; it's the same motherfucker we pick the guns up from. Yeah, well, the bastard has decided not to supply us with guns anymore, because of them hits you made on them bigshot honkies uptown. Yeah, it kind of got to Angelo so he's decided to freeze us out. That's right, bro, the honky don't want any more of our business, so I want his ass loaded up. Yeah, he's the one who sold us the motherfuckin' list; now he's gettin' an attitude because we're takin' care of business."

Kenyatta listened to the Creeper's heavy voice coming back over the wires, then cut him off. "You got enough bread to hold you, haven't you?" he inquired, then added after the man answered, "Good, that's enough cash for you if something should happen. You know, enough so that you can get around until I can get some more bread to you, but there's also the chance that you might catch Angelo on full, but you had better hurry. Like I said, the peckerwood is gettin' ready to run. Yeah, I can smell it, plus the fact that I think he's going to try and sell us out to them dagos.

"Yeah, they'd love to know who's been knockin' their buddies off, but we ain't goin' give the snitch time to sell us down the drain-not if we can reach him in time. Yeah, so baby, you had better get on the case. Each minute we stand here rappin' about it gives the motherfucker that much more time to slide out of the trap we're about to spring on his white ass."

The telephone went dead in his ear and Kenyatta knew his instrument of death was on its way. If Angelo hadn't already run, he would not live to run tomorrow, because Creeper didn't miss. The man loved his work too much. The thought flashed through Kenyatta's mind about the children that the Creeper had knocked off, and he shrugged. It was something he hadn't foreseen. If he had, he would have given the man direct orders to leave the kids alone. They weren't old enough to hurt them, they couldn't identify him because of their age. So the man had killed them out of pleasure, and only pleasure. No one knew that better than Kenyatta.

After setting the telephone back on the bed, he turned to the woman lying next to him. He took her in his arms and kissed her gently, until his desire became stronger and his embrace tighter. He clutched her to him, feeling her passion matching his. He could think only of what he held in his arms. He pushed the red gown off her shoulders revealing her young, hard nipples. He planted a kiss on each one, nibbling slowly and tenderly.

Suddenly the door flew open. Ali stood there grinning down at the half-naked couple. "I heard you were up here in a business conference, and I thought that I'd come up and join the conference informally."

"Well," Kenyatta growled, his anger rising, "you see we're not in conference now, so how about closing the motherfuckin' door? This ain't no fuckin' peepshow for freaks," he added.

"'Scuse me, boss, iff'n I's done wrong," Ali drawled with a put-on accent.

As Kenyatta rolled over in the bed and sat up, he could see the lust in Ali's eyes. The man still stood in the doorway, allowing his eyes to roam over Betty. He couldn't take his eyes off the woman.

"I ain't goin' ask you again to close that mother- fuckin' door," Kenyatta stated, the rage in his voice quite apparent.

"Okay, brother, just keep your shirt on," Ali said as he backed out of the door, his eyes still going over the woman's exposed breasts.

Even after the door was closed and the man was gone, the mood between the two people was broken. Kenyatta sat on the edge of the bed, brooding, trying to decide if he should follow Ali downstairs and bring things to a head. There was something building up between the two men. There was something eating at the man, and it wouldn't let go.

"Honey," Betty began, "please don't let it upset you like that. You know what his problem is, daddy. He just can't accept the idea that you're the big fish in the pond and he's only a small one."

For a second he was tempted to go on downstairs, but the feel of her hands on his bare back, her fingers moving slowly but surely, changed his mind. He slumped back down on the king-sized bed and tried to relax, yet the man's leering face kept coming between him and what he was enjoying. Betty worked slowly. He could feel the slight tug on his pants, then they were off. His shorts came next, and then he stretched out and let himself enjoy the sensations his woman was sending his way.

He closed his eyes as he felt something hot and moist gripping his penis, and then he could feel her tongue moving up and down the sides. The sensation was almost unbearable at first. But then he stretched back and really began to enjoy the love his woman was making to him.

AS EVENING BEGAN TO FALL outside the motel, Angelo moved swiftly around his room. It had taken a while for him to make up his mind, but now that it was made up, he knew he wanted to get out of the city for a while. He couldn't understand what force was pushing him, but he was used to playing his hunches. Now, a desperate need to get away was upon him.

The desire to flee the city had come quite suddenly. Them crazy niggers was one thought that came flashing back in his mind. He didn't have any fear of what they might do to him, because he couldn't see any reason for them to want to hurt him. He had left that bastard Kenyatta up in the air over the guns, not telling him straight out that it was over with, just leading him on. He tried to make him believe it would be a short period before they started doing business again. But he knew in his mind that they'd never do business again, not as long as he lived. Them niggers didn't have the sense God gave them, killing every fuckin' body in the city. All they were doing was causing a blood bath, killing like mad dogs.

For the thousandth time, he regretted that he had sold that list to Kenyatta. He hadn't had the slightest notion that the nigger would really follow up his big ideas. He couldn't imagine them spades really reaching the men he had put down on the list. Especially those three men whose names he had used just because they had been in the newspapers lately and everybody took them to be top Mafia men. He had known that none of the three had anything to do with dope. Now one of them was dead, and all because he had been pressed for money. If he had known, he could have put a couple of his debtors on the list. That way, he could have really got something out of it.

As he grabbed the last suits out of the closet, he glanced uneasily toward the doorway. What the hell was wrong with him tonight, he wondered. It wasn't like him to be nervous and jittery for no reason at all. He took another quick glance at his watch. He still had two hours to go before his plane left for Florida, so there was no rush. He had his rented car, and now all he had to do was put his few bags in the trunk and get on his way. It didn't take but twenty minutes to get to the airport, so he would still have over an hour and a half to kill. He couldn't see sitting out there all that time waiting for his plane to take off. Yet he still wanted to rush off.

Impatiently he snapped on the television, then tried to force himself to sit still and watch the six o'clock news. The killing of Kingfisher's men was the top story of the hour, and Angelo watched in shocked horror. He knew who had done it at once. The mention of the submachine guns put him right on their case. After that, the newsman gave a quick rundown on what had happened to the family of Mr. Kingfisher's bodyguard. Kingfisher was described as a "real-estate broker" who was being terrorized by someone in the city demanding money or his life.

Angelo cursed as he got up and began pacing. The mention of the atrocious way the bodyguard's children had been killed sent shivers up his spine. Which one of them bastards would have been behind that, he wondered. Since he knew so many of them, he tried to figure out which one of the niggers he knew could have done it. Then one face came into his mind. He pictured the one they called "the Creeper" as he had seen the man the last time, when he had come to pick up some guns. A shiver ran down his back and he decided he would feel much better being out at the airport with people around him. He could go into the bar and get himself juiced up.

Angelo's mind wouldn't allow him to relax, so he started moving the few bags next to the door. As he went back into the bathroom to get his shaving kit, he wondered if he could sell the information to one of the big boys without getting himself involved. If he came out and told them he had supplied the guns to the niggers, they would put two and two together and come up with his name bigger than shit.