Good morning, Phil Kronfeld’s menswear. How can I help you?”
“This is Frank Lucas. Let me speak to Mike Green.”
“Speaking. What can I do for you, Mr. Lucas?”
“I heard you got some new material in.”
“Just got in a really nice wool blend from Merino, Italy.”
“How many different colors?”
“Ten.”
“I need twenty suits. Two in each color. Send ’em to the house.”
“Which house, sir? Teaneck?”
“Send five to each address.”
“Yes, sir.”
I was too restless and paranoid to stay in any one place for more than a few nights in a row. I was still on the run from Babyface, who found me way too often for my tastes. Even after I bought the house in Teaneck, I kept an apartment at the Regency and at the Essex House and had a few other apartments sprinkled around the city.
I was truly a rolling stone in a lot of ways. Wherever I laid my hat was my home. I had a full wardrobe at each place. I really liked my place at 3333 Henry Hudson Parkway. Beautiful building, indoor heated pool, attentive staff. Very upscale neighborhood. And very upper-class neighbors. As far as the people in that building were concerned, I was a wealthy businessman with a housewife and a young daughter. I left the house in the finest suits and drove new, shiny cars and exchanged no more and no less than good morning to the white businessmen I encountered in the underground parking garage. I liked that the building was low-key and not too flashy. Drawing attention to myself had never been my style.
In the early years of my marriage to Julie, before we bought the house in Teaneck, we lived together at the place on Henry Hudson Parkway. As far as I knew, there was only one other drug dealer in the building, a man who lived on the first floor with his wife. Women talk. And the wife ended up telling Julie what her husband did for a living. But the man was quiet and kept to himself, so I didn’t mind.
Julie and I had a typical family lifestyle. But because I was in the streets, it was like I lived two separate lives. I’d lived three lifetimes before I even met her. I’d had the twins, down in North Carolina. And then I’d had little Yogi and Frankie Jr., too.
Right before I’d married Julie, I had another child, a baby girl named Candace. Candace’s mother was a woman from Alabama named Sarah. She was a pretty little country girl and had just come up north for work. Sarah was young. And she was still a virgin. She met me and the rest was history. She had my daughter Candace and they lived uptown, over on 123rd Street between 7th and Lenox. I checked in with Sarah and my daughter Candace whenever I could to make sure they had everything they could possibly need.
After Julie and I moved out to Teaneck, I kept the place at 3333 Henry Hudson Parkway as one of my side spots if I needed to be in the city late at night to check on one of my kids or take care of business. One night, I was in the parking garage, getting in my Cadillac to go visit my daughter Candace, when I heard a voice calling out my name. I looked around. No one in that building knew me by name. And if they did, they would be calling me Mr. Lucas.
Who do I see walking toward me but Nicky Barnes. I rolled my eyes.
“Fucking Nicky Barnes. What the hell are you doing here?” I said. “Nicky, please don’t tell me you live here.”
“Been here for a month. How’s it going, Frank?” He grinned at me like he was a mouse who just spotted some cheese.
“Hey, Nicky,” I said.
I’m not spending much time on Nicky Barnes in this book. I’ll tell you the bare-bones basics of what you need to know. I was Frank Lucas. He was not. Nicky was a drug dealer. I was a supplier. Nicky was a common criminal. I was an entrepreneur who dabbled in illegal enterprises. Nicky was a junkie. I never touched the stuff.
I crossed paths with Nicky here and there, mostly on the social scene. But the way Nicky operated was very distasteful to me. He was always being photographed, always talking toreporters. He was in shootouts with the cops in broad daylight, speeding through New York City like something out of a movie. He brought way too much attention to the underworld. And plus, I just didn’t like him. Too loud and too excitable. I didn’t get down with him at all. And I was pissed off when I saw him in that parking garage.
“Nice building, right, Frank? I like it a lot.”
“Is that so?”
“Frank, you said we could talk about you joining The Council.”
Nicky had been on me for years to join some kind of organization with him and a few other dealers. The very idea of that was a joke to me. None of them were on my level. I worked alone, headed up my own shit. And I didn’t want anything to do with the rest of them.
“Let’s talk about it right now,” I said. “I’m not joining shit.”
“We need to protect ourselves, Frank. It’s getting crazy out there.”
“And you think I need your protection?”
“I just think we’d make more money if we divided the city up. You could have—”
“Are you out of your mind? Divide the city up for what? What would that do for me? You try selling your weak shit anywhere near me and you know you’ll be flat broke. The whole city is mine. And I don’t share.”
“Just think about it. Don’t have to decide right now.”
“Anything else, Nicky?”
“Need you to front me a few keys. I’m short this month. You know I’m good for it.”
I opened the door to my car and climbed in.
“Fine. Call Doc.”
“Thanks, Frank,” Nicky said, as I started to close the door. “Guess I’ll be seeing you all the time now!”
“Imagine that,” I said, before starting the car and peeling out of the garage on two wheels.
I never went back to the apartment at 3333 Henry Hudson Parkway again. Didn’t get any of my clothes or other personal effects. I wasn’t trying to be within one hundred feet of Nicky Barnes. Especially not at my home. No idea what happened to that apartment. I’d paid my rent in full and in advance for about a year. But that didn’t matter to me one bit. I had to be comfortable wherever I lived. And if Nicky wanted to live there, he could have that building all to himself.