Koo-bee Bryant hits a trey…
As we stood on the divider, about to begin our mad dash out into traffic, I looked back over my shoulder. Tinkerton's blue LTD came careening sideways down the slope at us, digging itself axel deep into the mud until it slid to a halt behind the Lincoln. Tinkerton sat behind the wheel and one of his goons rode shotgun. In their case, the goon probably did have a shotgun, but I tried not to think about that. When Tinkerton spotted us standing on the expressway barrier, he pounded his fist on the steering wheel in angry frustration.
“You know, you have a real talent for pissing people off,” Sandy quipped.
“Years of practice, honed to a fine edge,” I fired back as I took a firm grip on her hand. “Stay with me, one lane at a time.” I turned and searched the onrushing flow of northbound traffic for a break, but I didn't see much of one.
“Now!” I yelled as I jumped off the barrier and ran between a black BMW and a big moving van, and stopped on the first white line. An Atlas Van Lines eighteen-wheeler roared behind us and tight line of cars swept past in front of us, horns blaring, buffeting us with their back drafts. Four cars later, I saw another break coming and squeezed her hand again. “Now!” We sprinted in front of a red Dodge mini-van with a wide-eyed soccer mom behind the wheel, through a gap in the third lane, and jumped up on the relative safety of the next concrete divider that separated the local lanes from the express lanes.
“What a hoot!” Sandy screamed as she clutched her leather shoulder bag to her chest with one hand and me with the other. “God, they ought to put this on “The X-Games”, Talbott,” she said as we wobbled precariously on the divider.
“You wouldn't listen, would you?”
“What fun would that be?” She grinned from ear to ear.
Up ahead, a four-car El train pulled out of the station on the southbound tracks, taking most of the waiting passengers with it. Behind us, Tinkerton and the goon had gotten out of the LTD and were standing on the other side of the first divider, three lanes away, pointing at us, screaming. Two Chicago cops ran up next to him, pistols out, with expressions of total confusion. No doubt, they had never been in a high-speed chase quite like this one. Without a whole lot of thought, I smiled at Tinkerton and flipped him the bird, holding my finger high over my head. That completely unhinged him. His face turned red and he looked ready to have a stroke right then and there. He ripped a large automatic pistol from his shoulder holster and took aim at me. He would have shot me too, if one of the Chicago cops hadn't pulled his arm down.
“That's real smart,” Sandy shouted. “Why don't you get him good and pissed?”
“He didn't shoot did he?”
“Not because he didn't want to.”
I could almost read the cop's lips as he yelled at Tinkerton and pointed at the cars whizzing by on the freeway. I doubt it was compassion or concern for us that motivated the cop. More likely, it was the mountains of paperwork and the lawsuits he'd find himself buried in if Tinkerton missed and hit the wrong people. Frustrated and even angrier, Tinkerton surprised me by climbing over the divider and following us out into the fast-moving local lanes. He still had the gun in his hand, but at least it wasn't pointed at us. His goon followed, most unhappy about it, and the two Chicago cops took up the rear.
“I don't know about you.” Sandy's hand tightened on mine. “But I don't want to share this divider with anybody that big and angry, especially not one with a gun. Let's go.”
Together, we jumped down into the express lanes and I saw this was the big leagues. There were four lanes rather than three and the stream of cars was thicker and faster than in the locals. We could see panic on the face of almost every driver who flashed by us, and I'm sure they could see it on ours.
“Now!” I screamed and we cut behind a delivery van and kept moving through a gap between a Honda and Cadillac. We stopped, halfway there, toeing the white line as we waited for a break in the third lane. Behind us, I heard loud honking of horns and a sudden squeal of brakes followed by a sickening “Thump!” I looked back in time to see a blue-clad Chicago cop bounce high off the hood of a Toyota in the local lanes. He cart-wheeled through the air, arms and legs extended, followed by a loud series of sharp crashes as a half-dozen cars rear-ended each other trying to avoid the cop and the careening Toyota. The, all Hell broke loose, with more crashing metal, more squeals, and more loud horns.
“Well, that ought to slow them down a tad,” she yelled, wide-eyed.
Maybe, but we had enough problems of our own at that moment. Cars were speeding past, front and back. I glanced left and saw a Greyhound bus changing lanes, heading right for us, straddling the bright white line we were standing on.
“Oh, shit!” Sandy said as she pulled me forward. We darted in front of the bus and kept running, across the last lane of traffic, and onto the relative safety of the El station median. Hand-in-hand, we jumped onto the low concrete retaining wall as a big Mercedes sped past behind us, horn blaring, narrowly missing us. The wall was perhaps twelve inches wide and four feet high, separating the busy express lanes from the steel tracks. Twelve inches wasn't very much. Sandy tottered back and forth next to me as we fought to keep our balance. Maybe I was too concerned about her making it up to the top with me, and maybe I was a bigger klutz than she was to begin with, but I couldn't stop. I let go of her hand, but my momentum carried me over the top and I fell face-first on the grimy, sharp-edged gravel of the railroad bed.
“Eee-Yeeagh!” My hands and knees rebelled in pain.
“Uh, Talbott,” Sandy shouted a warning. “See that blue-black rail in the middle? The one next to your left hand?”
“Yeah,” I answered as I looked down. My shins rested on the brightly polished track where the train's wheels ran and my right hand was a few inches away. Next to my left hand, where I had narrowly missed landing, was an evil-looking, blue-black rail.
“That's the third rail. There's about a gazillion volts of electricity in that thing. You touch it; it'll ruin your whole day.”
“Hey, I'm from LA,” I replied. “What do I know from rails?” Carefully, very carefully, I rose to my feet and brushed the dirt and gravel off my hands, giving the third rail a wide berth. Sandy jumped down next to me and we looked up at the subway platform. The concrete slab was even higher than the divider, at my eye level, and there was no ladder or stairs to climb. To make matters worse, I saw the front headlight of a fast moving train coming up the northbound tracks, heading straight for us.
“Here,” I said as I put my hands together and bent my knees. “Give me your foot. Quick. I'll boost you up.”
“No sweat, it'll slow down as it comes in,” she announced confidently, slowly raising her left foot and placing it in my hands. As she did, I glanced past her again. The train was close enough for me to see the panicked expression on the engineer's face as he saw us standing on his tracks.
Fortunately, Sandy did not weigh very much. “One, two… three,” I yelled and flipped her upward. She soared onto the air in a tight, acrobatic flip and landed on the platform on both feet, light as a feather.
I looked left again and I could see she was dead wrong about the train. It had not slowed a bit. I was tall and in pretty good shape. Desperation and a speeding train can make great motivators, so I put my hands flat on the platform and launched myself upward, rolling over the edge just as the lead El car roared past.
“Oops. Guess that was an express,” I heard her say as I lay on the platform looking up at the concrete roof of the station, thankful I was able to look up at anything at all.
That was when I heard a loud, sarcastic, and very black male voice say, “My, my, what do we have here?”
“They be the Fucking Wallendas, Jamal. You know, them dudes in the circus,” a second voice added.
“Yeah, das who they be,” came a third voice, “the Fucking Wallendas.”
“Check out the mess they made back on LaSalle. Dey fucked that up good.”
“Check it out, Rashid. All them po-lice cars? Cops gonna be really pissed.”
I looked around as six young, black men closed around us in a tight circle, complete with dark sunglasses, oversized, cockeyed baseball caps — mostly White Sox and Bears — blue jeans slung below their hips, and unlaced, hi-top work boots. Harlem, Watts, or the South Side of Chicago, it was definitely your urban gang-banger-out-on-the-town outfit, complete with matching blue plaid flannel shirts hanging out at the waist and “do-rags” on their heads under the hats.
“You be right, Toothpick. You be right,” the one in the center said as he looked back toward the chaos on the expressway with a smile. “But why the Fucking Wallendas drop in on my El platform this fine morning? Das what ah wants to know.”
Toothpick was the biggest of the lot, maybe 6’ 6”, well over 300 lbs, and fat as a house. He grinned as he reached out and ran a finger slowly down Sandy's arm. “Lookey here, Jamal,” he said. “The Wallendas done brung us lunch.”
His finger didn't make it as far as her elbow. In one smooth motion, Sandy jumped four feet in the air. With a blood-curdling scream, her Reeboks lashed out in a series of lightening-quick karate kicks. She caught Toothpick at the base of his throat, in the face, and a coup-de-grace in the groin, dropping him to his knees, bug-eyed, holding his throat and his crotch and coughing, all at once. The others took a step toward her, but she had dropped back on the platform and into a defensive Karate crouch, fingers out, eyes darting back and forth. “The next one who gets smart goes to intensive care.”
Jamal defused the situation. “Nice hang time, girl,” he laughed.
I got to my feet and stood behind her, figuring my best efforts would be spent covering her back, but Jamal was more effective.
“Thas enough, Toothpick, we don't want you to hurt her no more, now do we?” he said as he raised his hand and the others immediately stopped. “Very im-pressive, very im-pressive indeed,” he said as he slowly clapped his hands. Clearly, he was their leader. He looked over at the growing line of police cars back on LaSalle Street, his eyes dancing with amusement. “But ya'll seem to have gotten seriously lost. This here ain't Oak-brook or Win-net-ka. This here be the south side — my south side — and we call it “The People's Republic of 35th Street.” So, ya'll need to show some respect.”
“Look,” she said. “All we want is to get on the next train out of here, that's all.”
“Thas all?” Jamal pointed at the police cars and grinned like a malevolent shark. “What you think them pigs up on LaSalle want? You the fuckin' Tupperware Lady? They come down here to give you a po-lice escort through the projects? No, ah think they be chasin’ yo’ asses, thas what ah think.”
We stood our ground and the six gang members did the same. That was something, but I could tell Jamal wasn't finished with us. He was cagey and street-smart. Behind those Oakley sunglasses, his dark-brown eyes were studying all the angles. Down here, a man couldn't reach his eighteenth birthday alive and out of jail if he was stupid.
“’Speakin’ of chasin’,” Jamal looked across the expressway, “Ah don't know what ya'll done, but them two “suits” down there running between the cars want yo little white ass some kinda bad, girl.”
“We didn't do anything,” I told him.
“They sho think you did.”
“They're wrong.”
“Imagine that! The Chi-ca-go Po-lice chasin’ somebody on 35th Street — a white man and a white woman at that — and they got it wrong?”
In the distance, I saw another train coming toward us. This one was on the southbound tracks heading out of the city, and I intended for us to be on it. The cops had given up and turned back toward LaSalle, but Tinkerton and his goon managed to get across the express lanes and had reached the retaining wall on the other side of the tracks, barely ten feet away. Time was running out.
“What do you want?” I asked Jamal.
“You askin' what we want?” A homie in a blue-plaid shirt shot back. “Shit, we takes what we want.”
“Reparations, man. We want reparations.” Another homie postured.
“Yeah, some serious reparations.”
“Ya'll trespassin’ on our turf without permission, without no passports or visas.”
“And look at what she done to Toothpick, man.”
“Yeah, that was flat out rude, man.”
Sandy cocked her head and took a long look at the gang leader. “Hey, I know you. That's Jamal Sanders hiding behind those “Oaks”, isn't it?”
“Jamal don't hide, bitch!” Toothpick threatened again, but Sandy's foot twitched and Toothpick took a step back.
She came out of her crouch and pulled her camera out of her shoulder bag for Jamal to see. “Yeah, Jamal Sanders of the Black P-stone Disciples? Right?”
“We now the Disciple 35 ^th Nation. We be franchisin’,” Jamal corrected her. “And ah do remember. You that crazy bitch with the camera walked thru the ‘hood and took all those pictures wif me. The brothers over on Cottage Grove called you “Lil’ Sister”. When was that? Two years ago? Yeah, ah remember you, all right.”
“Crazy? You never saw better shots — of you, the homies, or life in the projects — have you? That was a great spread.”
“Yeah. Got you some kinda award, didn't it?” he asked. “What it get us?”
“Got your face all over the front page of the Trib. That was serious pub, my man, better than you ever seen before, and you didn't have to go to jail to get it, did you?”
“There is that.”
“Was I fair?”
“Oh, yeah. You was fair. Ah'll give you that much, Lil’ Sister.”
To our left, the outbound train roared into the station and ground to a halt. In the lead car, the motorman looked at us with round, terrified eyes as he saw what was going on, but it was too late for him to do anything about it. The train stopped, the doors automatically opened with a loud hiss, and a dozen black passengers stepped out onto the open platform. They took one look at the gang, at us, and at the cop cars with their sirens and flashing lights, and thought better of it. In unison, they stepped back inside the cars and prayed the doors would quickly close.
As they did, I heard a voice shout up at us from the track bed to our right. “You, up on the platform, stay the fuck where you are.” I looked down and saw Tinkerton's dark-suited goon standing on the tracks below us.
“I'd do what he says, Pete,” Ralph Tinkerton's sarcastic, hardscrabble twang joined in. His usually cold, gray eyes were red-hot and angry as he tasted his impending victory. “You too, Miz Kasmarek.”
I looked longingly at the El cars behind us, but we had blown our chance. The doors closed with a loud “Hiss” and the train immediately started up. It gathered speed and pulled away as quickly as the anxious motorman could make it move, to the obvious relief of his frightened passengers. That was when Tinkerton's goon raised his Glock and pointed it up at us. That was a big mistake. All around us, I heard shuffling feet and loud clicks as a dozen other handguns suddenly materialized in the gang member's hands, one and often two per man. There were matte-black Glocks, a wicked. 357 Magnum, a long barreled. 38, a. 45 Colt, and a huge, chrome. 44 Magnum “Dirty Harry” cannon among others, and they were all pointed down at Tinkerton and his goon.
Jamal folded his arms across his chest. “This really be some morning,” he crowed. “Everybody be forgettin' themselves today, forgettin' where they be.”
“Ralph,” I smiled down at him. “This isn't the Columbus Rotary Club up here. I'd be real careful if I were you.”
Tinkerton burned with anger, but that didn‘t make him stupid. “Pete,” he managed a smile. “You and I need to talk.”
“I don't think so. The last time we tried that, I got cut and you got that bruise on your cheek and that big, ugly bandage on your hand. Is that from the fire?” Tinkerton glared and said nothing. “Too bad it didn't fry your sorry ass.”
Jamal and the rest of the gang broke up laughing, pointing down at Tinkerton, and chattering. “He diss'ed you, Chuck.” “The White Boy diss'ed you good.” “Swish!” “Two points. Two points for White Boy.”
Tinkerton could barely contain his rage. “Look, Talbott… Pete.” He tried another tack. “You can't win this thing. You can't run fast enough or far enough. I can reach out and grab you by the throat anywhere you try to hide.”
“So far, your grab ain't been too good, Ralph,” I said.
“Two more points for White Boy.”
“He be killin' you, Chuck.”
“You been poster-ized, my man.”
“No mas, no mas!” another homie ridiculed him.
Tinkerton's eyes flashed up at them. “If you continue with this folly, you're only going to earn yourself a lot of pain. You should remember that before you go dragging other people into it with you.”
“Nobody dragged me into anything,” Sandy snapped.
“No, no!” Someone in the crowd called out. “The bitch don't count. Dis be one-on-one.” And, “Yeah, dat be a technical. She be on da bench.”
“You be right, Doughboy,” The others joined in. “Jus’ White Boy and Chuck. Da bitch don't count.”
“Yeah, 'cause she could kick both their sorry asses, she want to.”
They all broke up laughing, all except Toothpick who was still holding his crotch. “Yeah, ya'll got that right,” he added warily.
“The score still White Boy four, Chuck zip.”
“Look, Pete, you're an intelligent fellow,” Tinkerton said, pointedly glancing around at the homies. “I won't scam you or try to scare you anymore. The world's full of two kinds of people — those who understand the moment and seize it, and those who let it run roughshod over them. As I told you in Columbus, we're the good guys. We're cleaning up this country, putting the low lifes and the riff-raff in jail where they belong.”
“Low lifes? Riff-raff?” I heard from the crowd. “Who he talkin' 'bout Jamal?”
Tinkerton ignored them and kept his eyes focused on me. “We'll be running this country soon enough and we can use someone with your determination and your resourcefulness on our side,” he said with a big Texas smile. “Unfortunately, you haven't had a chance to see the big picture yet.”
I looked down at him with an equally big smile and said, “Ralph, if you're the big picture, it's time somebody tore it down off the wall and hung up a new one.”
The gang went crazy. “A trey, a trey!”
“Shit, a trey from half-court, man.”
“He be da white Kooo-beee Bryant.”
“Das it, game over. White Boy win.”
“I want them.” Tinkerton turned and shouted at Jamal, pointing at us.
“Like, I'm supposed to give a shit?” Jamal laughed.
“How much do you want for them?” Tinkerton looked at me then back at Jamal with a thin, sinister smile. “I'll buy them.”
“Reparations? Now thas a different story.”
“How much?” Tinkerton seethed with anger.
Jamal thumbed his chin for a moment and pointed. “That gold Rolex on yo' arm.”
“He's with the government. He wants to kill us,” Sandy said.
“That right, Chuck?” Jamal asked. “You gov'ment?”
“Why do you care?” Tinkerton answered as he pulled the big, solid-gold watch off his wrist and tossed it up to Jamal.
“The man do have a point, Lil’ Sister,” Jamal said as he slipped the watch over his wrist, admiring the way the solid-gold band gleamed in the bright morning light. He turned and looked at Sandy, then shrugged. “Why do ah care?”
Tinkerton smiled, supremely confident now, figuring we were cheap at twice the price as he motioned for the goon to climb up on the platform.
“Not so fast, Chuck,” Jamal raised his hand. “All the green in yo' pockets, too. Toss it on up here.”
Off to our right, we all heard the unmistakable sound of another El train coming in. Heads turned. This time the train was on the northbound track where Tinkerton and the goon were standing. They saw it, and so did we. Tinkerton was on the verge of losing it, but he did what Jamal said. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a money clip with a thick wad of bills and tossed it at the feet of the young black man.
“Done!” Tinkerton answered through clenched teeth. “Now toss them down.”
“His too,” Jamal said, pointing at the goon.
The goon frowned. “Give it to him!” Tinkerton shouted at him as the train came closer and closer. The goon did what he was told. He pulled out his wallet and tossed his loose cash onto the platform.
“Shee-it, Jamal,” one of the gang laughed as he picked the money up and started counting. “Gov'ment sho don't pay like it used to. You think Richie Daley or Jesse Jackson make chump change like this? Ah don't think so.”
“The guns, too,” Toothpick added.
“The guns?” Tinkerton glowered up at him. “No deal.”
“Your choice, Chuck,” Jamal smiled. “Put the guns up here or go fuck yo'self, ‘cause we don't want nobody pullin' none of that shot-in-the-back-while-escapin crap.”
Reluctantly, Tinkerton and the goon laid their automatics on the edge of the concrete platform. Black hands quickly scooped them up and they disappeared in pockets. Tinkerton looked down the track at the onrushing train and began to fidget noticeably. “All right, you bastard! Now throw them down here.”
“Uh, oh!” A gang member moaned. “Chuck jus’ diss'ed Jamal's mama.”
“He gonna be real sorry ‘bout dat,” another chuckled.
Jamal looked down at Tinkerton and shook his head. “Chuck, time you learned, some things ain't fo’ sale down here. You want ‘em, ya'll can come on up here and get 'em yourselves. Dey be all yours.”
Tinkerton's eyes flared as he knew he'd been had. He grabbed the edge of the platform and tried to pull himself up, but his bandaged hand wouldn't support his weight and he fell back onto the tracks. Behind him, the goon had not even gotten that far. Given the choice of climbing up alone and facing the gang or staying in the path of an onrushing El train, the goon decided the top of the concrete barrier was the safer bet. Tinkerton looked at the train and gave up too, climbing up onto the barrier next to him. The ring of black faces laughed at them even harder now. In less than three minutes, they had picked Tinkerton and his goon clean and completely outmaneuvered him.
Tinkerton knew it too. He looked up at me in angry frustration and said, “I'm warning you, Talbott. It doesn't end here.”
“You got that right, Ralph.”
“You don't understand. They were scum. All of them. Scum!” he screamed, but his words were drowned out by the El as it roared into the station and stopped. The train doors opened. I grabbed Sandy's hand and headed for the open door, but she turned back.
“Thanks, Jamal,” she told him.
He smiled, “Most fun we've had all week, Lil’ Sister. A tidy profit, too. But you best watch out for that big dude. He be pissed at you and he really pissed at White Boy. He goin’ cap his ass, he get the chance.” With that, Jamal and his homies ran down the platform and climbed the stairs to the street.
We got on the train and looked out the window. Standing on the barrier next to us, I saw Tinkerton's face only inches from the glass. This had become personal. It had nothing to do with Columbus or the bodies, or the mob. He wasn't accustomed to losing or be humiliated like this, as I escaped from his grasp once again.
“Good thing the homies got his gun.” Sandy chuckled. “Your lawyer friend's mad enough to melt the window glass.” She pulled out her camera and began snapping shots at Tinkerton and the chaos on the Dan Ryan and back on LaSalle.
Behind Tinkerton, a growing crowd of dark-suited goons and Chicago cops yelled at each other and pointed up at the El car, but they were too late. The motorman was not about to wait around in the middle of all this chaos with all those guns out. The doors of the car closed and the train began to roll, picking up speed as we left the station.
“You know, Talbott, I gotta hand it to you,” Sandy said, grinning from ear to ear. “Yesterday, I thought you were just another tight-ass nerd. What a hoot!” As Tinkerton and his goon watched, she reached up and threw her arms around my neck. “Shows how little I know,” she said as she gave me a big, wet kiss on the lips.