THE RUNNER/SCREENPLAY, BRIAN R. LUNDIN [best classic books to read .txt] 📗

until eight in the morning and they occupied the beds left by the morning shift. The harden young offenders, the robbers, rapist and killers, no matter what age was sent to the adult Cook County Jail. It was cold. The bright orange sun was already low in the sky hidden behind the jumble of buildings of downtown Chicago. Although it was only five o’clock, Jewett knew that in another hour it would’ve set in its winter position in the southwest. Jewett and his “Spotters,” or lookout, Alonzo Jones drug spot was under the Chicago Transit Authority elevated train at 43rd South Calumet Avenue. At nine o’clock that evening, a bleak CTA northbound elevated train rumbled over Jewett’s head. The el tracks above the alley was about two stories above ground level set on arched metal legs a long iron centipede meandering past the desolate apartment buildings and leading north. The addicts paid Jewett and Alonzo would retrieve the drugs usually stashed in garbage can in the alley. Blackjack was one of Jewett regular customers and had tried on occasions to scare him into giving him the drugs, but Jewett did not scare easily and refused. Snow had started to fall and the north wind coming off Lake Michigan lowered the already frigid conditions when Blackjack and two other junkies, whom were also Jewett customers, approached. At first Blackjack begged Jewett for a twenty dollar bag on credit, promising to pay the next day, but when Jewett refused, Blackjack grabbed him and pushed him into the alley under the elevator tracks and the two other junkies grabbed the spotter.


BLACKJACK
(screaming)

Give me the shit, little muthafucker!


JEWITT
Fuck you!


Blackjack and his two companions were sick; they had to get the drugs. Holding Jewett by his collar, Blackjack slapped him hard across his face causing his lips to bleed.

BLACKJACK
“Where is the shit?

JEWITT
(spitting out blood)
Fuck you!


Another one of the junkies came forward and kneed Jewett in his groin and Jewett pitched forward but was held up by Blackjack.

BLACKJACK
Where is the fuckin’ shit?

Blackjack eyes bloodshot and wild and sweat had started running down Jewett face and snot streamed from his nose, he felt dizzy.

BLACKJACK
You’re going to tell us little muthafucker or we’re goin’ to kill both of you mutherfuckers.

Blackjack hit Jewett again upside his head with a beat-up looking bat. Sweat and blood ran into Jewett eyes blurring his vision as a series of hot and cold flashes coursed though his body. Jewett saw the other two men beating his spotter and then he passed out. The men continued to beat the spotter until he told them were the drugs were. After getting twenty, $20.00 bags of heroin, Blackjack crushed the spotter’s skull with a brick. The three men left the semi-conscious Jewett and his dead spotter in the alley. Jewett heard the noisy Chicago Transit Authority elevated train braked at its 43rd Street stop. The tracks rumbled and a girder groaned as the train pulled away. Soot and pieces of rust rained down from the tracks. A few listless passengers descended the stairs; saw the two young men lying in the alley and hurried on their way. A man waiting for his wife at the elevator Station saw Jewett unconscious and the other dead young man. He called the police who took Jewett to Provident Hospital. Jewett gave the hospital clerk Pops name and phone number. When Pops and Cinque arrived at the hospital, a nurse told them that before Jewett died he told her what happened and who was responsible.

Blackjack kept all the drugs and did not share them with his partners in the robbery and murder. Blackjack spent the next two days getting high in his $2.00 a day, rats and roaches infested twelve by eight foot room. An outside weak flashing neon red light blinked inside the dingy room with its dirty windows and emitted an eerie glow. The rotting wooded floor was covered with cracked blue and white linoleum, stained with dozens of spilled whisky drops. The only furniture was a dirty mattress covered by a dirty sheet on a swaybacked bed and a dilapidated dresser drawer discolored by too many years of cigarette butts and age. It was the sort of room that a john brought a cheap whore, a win came to escape the cold as he drunk himself to death or where a junkie went to get high, but it was home to Blackjack, and he sat on the bed and injected himself into a state of euphoria. A week after the murder of Jewett and his spotter, Pops was ready for revenge.

POPS
(to Cinque)
Get your guys together; we have some bizness to take care of.

CINQUE
Done!

Three days later Pops sent BOBBY RANDALL, another one of his young drug dealers to Jewett drug spot. Watching him were Cinque, Pops and five Simbas who were sitting in a window booth at Ioala’s Restaurant across the street. Cinque was the first to notice Blackjack as he approached Bobby. Blackjack and Bobby was talking when two other men began walking east, approached them. Cinque and Pops slowly drifted out of the restaurant and the Simbas also began to drift out. Blackjack had pulled Bobby into the alley and was holding him by his collar. Another man had broken a Budweiser beer bottle and had it jagged edges up to Bobby’s face when Pops and his men came into the alley, Blackjack, still holding Bobby.

BLACKJACK
What in the fuck you little niggers want?

CINQUE
You!

Before Blackjack could react Cinque stabbed him in the neck with an arrow. The arrow went in the left side and protruded out the right side of Blackjacks neck. Blackjack released Bobby as he felled to the ground, blood gushing from his neck. The man with the beer bottle approached Cinque but another Simba hit him hard over the head with a zap, he fell back against the wall and slowly slid down, his eyes gazed. The other man threw up his hands in a sign of surrender. Cinque was approaching him with a big Bowie knife, preparing to give him a deadly thrust when he was stopped by Pops.

POPS
Bring him to me.

One of the Simbas led the frighten man where Pops was standing. The man was trembling, as he looked at Blackjack body twisting and turning on the ground and his other companion lying unconscious. He attempted to say something but before he could, Cinque smacked him hard in the face and his nose started to bleed.

CINQUE
Shut the fuck up!

POPS
We have taken over from the Italians and all the dope shit is ours, the only reason you are alive is I want you to pass the word to your junkie friends, fuck with any of our people and this what you get.

Pops nodding at Cinque who strolled to where the unconscious man was lying and slowly cut his throat, the man standing with Pops started to throw up. Cinque, Pops and the other Simbas left the alley and Bobby returned to work, there were no more robberies of Pops drug dealers. Pops and his Gang went to work, observing Vito’s drug dealers. The black drug dealers usually did their business in the alleys under the Chicago Transit Authority elevated stations on east 43rd, 47th and 51st Streets. They mainly sold heroin and marijuana. The heroin addict or “Junkie,” would tell the dealer how much he wanted, usually a five or ten dollar bag, pay him and the dealer would go to his “Stash,” which was usually in a garbage can in the alley and get the drugs. The drug suppliers, members of Vito’s crew, would collect the money and supply the dealer with more drugs. The Simbas were the enforcer for the gang and Pops personal bodyguards. All of these young men had served time in the penitentiary and killed someone, but they were fierce and very loyal to Pops and the gang. The Simbas began robbing and beating up the black dealers, taking their money and drugs. Many of them became so afraid that they quit. When word got back to Vito on what was happening he was livid.

VITO
(talking to Johnnie Palermone, the head of his narcotic crew)
They are doing what?

JOHNNIE
Them little Niggers are robbing and beating up our people, taking our money and drugs.

JIMMY
Who are these Nigras?

JOHNNIE
Its them young niggers from the Robert Taylor Homes call themselves the State Street Boys.

VITO
State Street Boys, huh, well I got something for them Nigra.

Cinque was waiting with some of his men as they watched a drug dealer on 43rd Street, next to Skeets Tailor Shop. It had just gotten dark when Cinque gave the signal and two Simbas approached and grabbed the dealer and pushed him into the alley. Suddenly, three white men jumped out their car and opened fire, killing the two Simbas and the drug dealer.

The following morning the killing of the two young black men were front page headlines in the Defender Newspaper in bold red ink, “TWO YOUNG BLACK MEN KILLED ON 43RD STREET BY WHITE GANGSTERS.” Vito had his war, but not with Jerome McLemore, but the State Street Boys. The State Street Boys retaliated for the killing of the two Simbas by ambushing Vito’s suppliers. Vito retaliated by sending his men in a caravan of cars into Robert Taylor Homes randomly shooting and killing any blacks on the street, men women and children. Every edition of the Defender listed the names of the blacks killed and demanded police action. Vinnie Acosta was at his north side home with his wife, Marie watching the news reports of the war. Television news programs showed graphic pictures of little black kids crying and bloody. Their hysterical mothers restrained by other blacks as they watched their children being placed in ambulances.

The mayor directed his police chief to form a taskforce to investigate the recent crime wave in the Wabash Avenue Police District and the chief placed Commander Hollis in charge of the taskforce. The taskforce consisted of department’s gang crime unit detectives, vice and homicide detectives the FBI and the DEA signed on as advisor. Sergeant Reginald Lundgrin addressed the group at an early morning meeting in the roll call room at the district station.

POPS
We won the war, but I don’t how to get any goods, I was wondering if you had any connections in Mexico or some place.

JEROME
No, I don’t, I’ve never been involved in that business, so I know nothing about it, the only one with those connections are the Italians, probably Vito.

POPS
Damn, I can’t stand that spaghetti eating muthafucker.

JEROME
I know, neither can I, but business is business and Vito need you as much as you need him, so you’ve got to do business with him.

POPS
Yeah, I guess you’re right.

The following day, Pops called Jimmy and requested a meeting with Vito.

JIMMY
Them little Nigras want a sit-down boss.
VITO
I knew that would have to come through us, they ain’t got enough sense to make any connections on their own.


JIMMY
I set it up for 5:30 tonight 5:30 tonight and I told them no guns or muscle.

Vito shot Jimmy a dirty look, but did not say anything. Jimmy lowered his head anyway.

Jimmy left the office with his head still lowered. Pops and Cinque arrived at Vito’s office on time and Jimmy led them into Vito’s