American Gangster by Max Allan Collins Page A

thought it was. The new Lincoln Town Car parked just outside the garage may have given some of them doubts—how could that be their brother Frank’s ride? One of the younger Lucas boys said he didn’t want to get shot for trespassing or nothing.
    And Frank’s mother had said, “Shot for trespassing or
anything
, Cleon.”
    That was when Huey noticed Frank, and there were hollers and hoots as Frank went straight to Momma and took her in his arms and held her for the longest time.
    Then he gave each of his brothers a quick hug, which may have surprised them, since he was normally not demonstrative. But he was happy as hell to see them, and could hardly contain himself.
    Frank had spent two days picking out the furniture himself and the last of it had been delivered just this afternoon, so the place had not only a showroom look but smell. Momma had never seen a kitchen this big, even in the restaurants where she’d worked from time to time, and—Frank having anticipated her needs with his own trip to the supermarket—the new house was soon filled with the old smells of downhome cooking.
    Within two hours of their arrival, the extended Lucas clan was sitting around a vast dining room table passing platters around. Even Nate’s joint in Bangkok couldn’t hold a candle to this soul food. And of course Frank, loving having everybody here, sat at the head of the table.
    At the moment, brother Turner was bragging on his eighteen-year-old son, Stevie.
    â€œBoy’s got an arm on him, Frank,” Turner was saying as he navigated a chunk of corn bread, “major league arm, I’m tellin’ ya. Ain’t that right?”
    Nobody at the table argued, though Stevie himself just smiled shyly and shrugged.
    Frank, spooning some black-eyed peas onto his plate, gave the kid a smile and asked gently, “Show me after supper?”
    Stevie grinned and nodded.
    But his proud papa wasn’t finished: “You can’t catch him, Frank. Why, he’ll take your head clean off. Talkin’ 95-mile-a-
hour
. Any idea how fast that is? Here’s how fast: you see the ball leave his hand, and that’s the last you see of it, ’fore it knocks you flat.”
    That made Frank laugh. “Is that right,” he said.
    At that moment, if pressed, Frank Lucas might well have admitted never feeling happier.
    But before Frank went back outside, to try to catch a fastball in the dying light of day, he abducted his mother from the kitchen—the other girls could take care of clean-up patrol—and gave her the grand tour.
    The downstairs remained alive with the noises of a big family, but was muffled and distant up here. Up here, it was just Frank and Momma.
    Of his preparations over the last week, from buying this house to furnishing it and even doing the grocery shopping, Momma’s room was Frank’s proudest hour. He ushered her into a space larger than the shack he’d grown up in, and her eyes opened wide and her jawdropped as she took in an array of Early American furnishings that would have staggered Betsy Ross.
    â€œThis,” he said simply, “is your room.”
    Momma was clearly awestruck by the splendor of it. But of all the furnishings, an old vanity table, dotted with French perfume bottles, was what drew her eyes and herself.
    She stood touching the table, as if testing its reality, asking her son, “How did you . . . ?”
    â€œIt’s not magic,” he said and found himself grinning like a fool. “It’s something I put in motion months ago, to send you for your birthday. But now that you’re up here with me? Well.”
    â€œI don’t understand, Frank.”
    â€œI had it made. From memory.”
    She was shaking her head. “But you were
five
when they took it away. How could you remember it?”
    â€œI remember.”
    â€œIt’s perfect,” she said. She gazed around the