Cleo’s very existence becomes a threat to Shell Gordon, a powerful man running illegal businesses. In Lady in the Lake, Wood Harris plays Gordon.
Gordon has been running the illegal numbers game in Baltimore for twenty years. State Senator Myrtle Summer accuses him of also being involved in the drug trade.
Gordon owns the Pharaoh, a club where he conducts his illegal activities. Cleo not only works as a bartender there but also manages his books.
However, she is not yet involved in Gordon’s illegal dealings, as she intends to work full-time with Summer, Gordon’s biggest critic.
Cleo’s support of Summer does not sit well with Gordon, who warns her to stop volunteering for the senator if she wants to keep her job at the club.
Ordering Summer’s assassination
Gordon claims to care about his community, defending his numbers game as an investment in his community and its financial empowerment.
He is a powerful figure who has the police in his pocket through regular bribes. Even journalists fear going against him.
However, Summer has no such fears. Her vocal opposition to his numbers game and other businesses becomes a problem, so Gordon decides to have her killed.
He instructs his right-hand man, Reggie, who is like a son to him, to hire someone else to carry out the murder, not wanting to burden Reggie’s conscience.
Meanwhile, Cleo, realizing that Summer is never going to give her a full-time job, asks Gordon for more work and offers to manage his illegal books as well.
She proves her loyalty to Gordon by convincing Slappy to perform at his club, but she still needs to earn Gordon’s full trust.
Reggie, who needs to lay low as the police search for a Black man with injuries, sends Cleo to pay the assassins hired to kill Summer without Gordon’s knowledge.
He leads Cleo to believe that it is an order from Gordon. The assassination attempt on Summer fails, and now the police are after the assassins, including Cleo.
Tying up all the loose ends
When Gordon finds out that Reggie made Cleo pay the assassins, he is furious. Unlike Reggie, Cleo is not loyal to Gordon, and he fears that she might implicate him if she is caught by the police.
This prompts Gordon to kill the remaining assassin who has not yet been caught by Ferdie, and he orders Reggie to kill Cleo, no longer concerned about Reggie’s conscience.
Gordon wants to tie up all the loose ends. He ignores Reggie’s pleas not to kill Cleo on Christmas and insists the job be done without mistakes.
Reggie later informs Gordon that Cleo has been killed, but her murder only brings him under more scrutiny, with Maddie and Ferdie questioning him on different occasions.
Gordon then uses his contacts in the BPD to shut down Ferdie’s investigation. Ferdie is forced to resign, and Gordon believes that he has once again evaded justice.
What he does not anticipate is the betrayal by Reggie, who lost his girlfriend, Dora, because Gordon got her addicted to drugs. Reggie never killed Cleo.
Instead, he has joined forces with her to expose Gordon’s crimes. The two of them set fire to Gordon’s hotel and steal evidence to prove all his crimes.
At gunpoint, Reggie prevents Gordon from escaping before the police arrive. Reggie then testifies that Gordon ordered Summer’s and Cleo’s deaths.
As a result, Gordon, along with Reggie, is sentenced to prison, and his numbers game is taken over by the state
Also read: Ferdie Platt: Lady in the Lake character explained