by Iceberg Slim
When the wheel was spun, a slender paper indicator fitted to a center arm of the wheel would stop at a number. Each number was bracketed by nails that circled the outer edge of the wheel.
Within a couple of hours the lot was crowded with blacks, whites and Puerto Ricans. Only a few marks came into our joint. None had dropped more than several dollars.
I was sweaty, bored and hungry. I had started to wonder whether belly-sticking was better than ushering at the theater.
Then some excitement started. An elderly white man stopped and started playing the wheel. His wallet bulged with tens and twenties. Blue leaned across the counter to case the contents.
He stood next to Mule. Blue started building him for the kill. Each time the wheel was spun Blue would cover a number on the wheel with a red disc.
Then Blue would chant, “Your number wins and you win if it stops on any red. Ten dollars still gets a hundred.”
Pocket stood behind Mule and the mark. He fed Mule paper money against the thigh.
He kept telling Mule in loud whispers before each bet, “Jesus Christ, man! What the hell you hesitatin’ for. Are you blind? Can’t you see? You can’t lose now. The wheel is almost all red.”
The old man had dropped close to two hundred dollars. The wheel had only four black spaces.
Blue chanted, “A hundred gets a thousand.”
Pocket fed Mule a wad of bills and said to him, “By gravy, you’ve got him by the balls now. Goddammit, put the hundred on your number.”
The white mark was still fumbling inside his wallet when Mule put down the hundred and spun the wheel. Blue stopped the wheel on red. Blue threw a bundle of bills to Mule.
Blue said, “Count it fair and you’ll find it’s there.”
Mule scooped it off the counter. He turned sideways and fanned through it. He dropped his right hand to his side holding the bills. Pocket took it off. Mule walked away.
Blue covered a black space with a red disc. Only the mark’s number and two other black spaces were left on the wheel. Blue chanted again, “I haven’t been hurt. That thousand was chicken feed. Any lucky number or any red gets two thousand for two hundred.”
The mark trembled a thin sheaf of bills from his wallet.
The mark turned to Pocket and said, “I have only a hundred and eighty-three dollars left.”
Blue turned his head and coughed.
Pocket winked at the mark and placed a twenty dollar bill in his hand. The mark wavered and rubbed his nose.
Pocket punched the old man hard in the side with his elbow and shouted, “Are you crazy? You can’t lose now. Ain’t you got as much faith in yourself as I got in you? Put that two hundred on your number and make that big nigger cry.”
The mark just stood there in a trance. Pocket snatched the bills from his hand and threw them on his number. Blue spun the wheel. The mark’s head revolved with the wheel. It stopped in a black losing space.
Blue picked up the money and shoved the three dollar bills back toward the mark. Pocket picked them up and stuck them into the mark’s shirt pocket. The mark walked away muttering.
Blue threw a fifty-cent piece to each stick. He said, “You can go one at a time for a sandwich and a cold drink.”
I went last.
Blue counted all the silver and paper money in the joint. Then he stuck the bills the old mark had lost into the slot of a padlocked steel box.
Then be said to Pocket, “You’re a good man on the outside of a joint. But don’t tear off white marks like that. It would foul up the fix for the whole carnival if we got an important white beef. The spades and spies we can rough-house. But I’m telling you, go easy and smooth on white marks in this district.”
After I’d eaten, I felt better about my new job. I felt sorry for the old mark. But I remembered that I had more than twenty dollars coming from that box. When I got off I’d rent a room in a hotel until Phala got out of the hospital. I’d have to go back to our apartment soon to get our things out before the rent was due again.
At twilight the carnival lights blazed on. The crowd was bigger and noisier. By ten o’clock, our joint had taken in close to six hundred dollars, according to my secret tally. I was thinking about how that twenty had grown to thirty dollars I had made.
I was feeling very good. Then I saw the old white mark and two uniformed white cops coming toward the joint. Pocket melted into the crowd. Blue grinned at them when they got to the front of the joint.
The taller cop said, “This gentleman charges that he lost close to four hundred dollars to you in a gambling game. What about it?”
Blue looked shocked and said, “Now officer, the dumbest fool in town knows it’s against the law to gamble in Chicago. The only money anybody can lose here is quarters. Everybody is welcome to his chance to win one of those gorgeous stuffed animals, hanging back there.
“I don’t know why this fine gentleman is lying. But maybe he doesn’t know that if I’m arrested for gambling, you’d have to arrest him, too. I sure as hell can’t gamble by myself, now can I, officers?”
The old man turned flour white and whispered something to the short cop. The cop whispered back and waved the mark away. He scurried away into the crowd. There was a flash of green in Blue’s palm when he shook hands with the tall cop. Both cops smiled happily and walked away.
Pocket popped back on the scene.
Blue said, “Pocket, I squared that squeal with a lousy double saw. If that mark had a brain in his head, he would have by-passed the district police with his beef.
“All he had to do was go downtown to the commissioner and the old bastard probably could have gotten every nickel of his loss kicked back.
“You sticks turn in your silver. I’m breaking the joint down. The outfit boys have started to check the other joints anyway. You sticks walk around the lot until after the box is checked. Pocket will pull you back for the payoff.”
The three of us walked away and stood against a cotton candy stand. The crowd was thinning fast.
Precious said, “I hope we don’t get burned for our fair share of that box.”
Mule said, “Blue ain’t going to burn us. I just hope those slick dago bastards don’t ram a bad count into Blue.”
I said, “How much does Blue get of that box?”
Mule said, “He gets fifty percent of what’s left after the sticks and the outside man are paid, minus maybe a half a hundred a night for the district rollers.
“Blue should clear for himself something like a bill, twenty-five for the night’s work. It ain’t bad scratch. But the outfit gets the real gravy.
“They ain’t doing nothing but collecting and they get fifty percent of every flat-joint box on this lot.”
We saw two sharply dressed white men go behind Blue’s counter. They unlocked the box and started counting money.
Mule said, “That skinny, baby-faced dago is Nino Parelli. He’s only twenty-two. His old man is a powerful wheel in the syndicate.
“Nino is learning the ABC’s of the rackets. Don’t let that baby face fool you. He’s cold as a grave. His old man beat a murder rap for him in his teens. He blew his best pal’s brains out in a dime card game.”
Blue had dismantled the wheel and taken the flash dolls and stuffed animals off the back wall when the dapper hoodlums finished their counting. They handed Blue a roll of money and went to a flat-joint at the corner of the lot.
Pocket finally scratched his chin. We went to the joint. Blue slapped thin rolls of bills into our palms.
He said, “The box was six and a half bills. You got thirty-three slats each, a half a buck overpay. It’s almost midnight. You sticks take the car keys, grab that wheel and that box of flash. Put them in the trunk of the car. We’re getting the hell out of here.”
Blue and Pocket came moments later. It really felt fine to sit down on the Cadillac’s soft seat after bellying up to the joint for almost twelve hours.
We were crossing Cermak Road going south on Michigan Avenue w
hen Blue said, “Pocket, that punk Nino lopped that double saw I gave the heat from our end of the take. I should have held out a C-note or so from that box.”
Pocket snorted like a dog with pepper up his muzzle.
He said, “Bullshit, Blue, even if you had guts like that, you’d rather put the heist on Fort Knox. You ain’t stupid. You ain’t never gonna fuck with one mill of syndicate scratch.
“If Nino ever heard you crack it, the odds are he’d dump you in a sewer with a mouth full of your balls. He’d figure you’d burned him all along. In fact, Nino could shove his bare ass in your face and you’d kiss his dago ass cherry red.”
Blue chuckled and said, “You’re right, Pocket. But I can dream, can’t I?
“Mule, you repaired stills for the Genna brothers back in the Twenties. You’ve seen a lot of tough young hoods come and go. How do you rate Nino?”
Mule said, “He ain’t nothing but a baby. If he don’t get croaked, ain’t no doubt that down the road he’ll make a lot of mob bigshots shit bloody turds. He ain’t the type to be happy with crumbs.”
Blue turned into Forty-seventh Street. He turned again at Calumet Ave. and stopped in front of the poolroom.
He said, “Tomorrow is Sunday. Anybody that wants to work, be here at noon.”
We all got out. Pocket and the two sticks went into the poolroom. I stood on the sidewalk thinking about where I could rent a room by the week. I watched Blue pull out.
He went about thirty feet up Calumet. He braked hard and blew his horn. I walked over to the driver’s side.
He said, “White Folks, are you showing for work tomorrow?”
I said, “I sure am. That was the easiest thirty-three dollars I ever made. Thanks a lot for the chance.”
He said, “I’ve never seen you around here. Where do you live?”
I said, “On Thirty-ninth Street.”
He said, “Well, get in. I’ll drop you off down there.”
I said, “I can’t stay there anymore. I’m dodging some people.”
Blue said, “If you’re in trouble maybe I can help you. Get in and tell me about it.”
I got in. He parked on Calumet. I told him all about Phala and Pearl. And about how I was afraid the juvenile officers would lock me up.
When I finished, he said, “I would never have guessed you were only sixteen years old. You’re tall and big enough to be twenty at least. You’ve got problems all right.
“White Folks, I like you. You’ve got lots of heart and class. Tell you what. You can stay at my place until you get things straightened out. Midge, my daughter, is your age. You’ll like her.
“You’ll get work in the flat-joint for the rest of the summer. I’ll find out the score on your mother in the morning. You haven’t any reason to worry when Blue’s your friend. Okay?”
I said, “Mr. Blue, I appreciate everything. But I was going to pay rent some place anyway. I’ve got to pay you if I stay in your house. Would seven bucks a week be all right with you?”
He frowned and said, “White Folks, I don’t run a rooming house. Anybody who stays at my house is a guest. Keep your scratch and try to build a bankroll. No hustler is worth a bottle of shit without one.
“And for Chrissake, don’t put a sucker handle on my name. Just call me plain Blue.”
It was one A.M. on the Caddie’s dashboard clock when Blue pulled into the driveway of his house. It was on the far Southside, in the middle of the block on Langley Avenue between Sixty-second and Sixty-third Streets.
We got out. Blue locked the car. I stood there in the driveway for a long moment and gazed at the house. I swear to heaven that the very thought that I was going to live in the pink frame dream wobbled my knees.
We walked across the lawn that was like scented sable beneath my airy feet. We went down the walk toward the front door. The lush spice of honeysuckle floated about me.
I thought about Minnie. She had worn the scent beneath her golden pyramids, honey-dipped. And she had worn it between her yellow satin thighs. Tiny spasms jerked at the very root of my plunger when I remembered inhaling pungent little zephyrs of raw female and honeysuckle at each thrust when our bellies smashed together.
I followed Blue up four white steps to the latticed porch. Moonlight rippled indigo stripes across his white suit. Blue unlocked the door.
We walked through a deep red-carpeted hallway to the living room. He flicked a wall switch near the doorway. A crystal chandelier glittered like a cache of diamonds in the lavender ceiling.
Blue said, “White Folks, make yourself comfortable. It’s getting late. I want to make sure Midge is home.”
He walked away to the hallway. I walked across the tawny oriental carpet to a long, red silk sofa. I eased down onto it. A huge fireplace yawned across the room. There was a wide mirror above it. I wondered who played the white grand piano squatting starkly against the midnight-blue backdrop of floor-to-ceiling drapes.
I was dazzled. It was like in the movies and pictures I had seen in the magazines that Phala had brought home from River Forest.
I looked at a wedding picture on a table at the end of the sofa. A slender black giant towered above a sweet-faced mulatto girl in a lace wedding dress. A shadow fell across the picture. I looked up. Blue was standing before me with a wry look on his face. He sighed and said, “I was a happy sucker the day that shot was taken. She was a fine wife and mother.
“For a helluva long time I thought Pauline and I would never take the marriage leap. Her old man was one of those highfalutin Nigger doctors. He lectured her goofy from the moment he met me. He wanted her to be a concert pianist. In his eyes I was just a black tramp with only the gutter to offer his pet.
“I had to take her away from him, kid. That yellow chump bawled more at the wedding than he did at her funeral a year ago.”
I said, “Is your daughter home?”
He bit his bottom lip and sat down beside me. He spun a red porcelain ashtray on the blue glass top of the coffee table in front of us.
He said softly, “No, she’s still out. She hangs out in Cocktails For Two on Forty-seventh Street, under the el. She’s gone wild since Pauline passed. It’s a goddamn crime that I take this torture after those long hours in the flat-joint. She does it every Friday and Saturday.”
I said, “Blue, you could have stopped on our way to let us out at the poolroom. You could have brought her home then.”
He grunted and said, “I tried that not long ago. I went into that funky nest of pansies and freaks. When she saw me come in the door, she giggled and ran behind the bar.
“I chased her around the joint for ten minutes. Those bastard faggots and lesbians had a screaming cheering ball. I never did catch her. I felt like a goddamn circus clown who had done his bit in the center ring.”
I said, “Why does she hang around people like that?”
He said, “She claims they’re more sincere and understand life and her better than other kinds of people, including me, her own father. Too bad she isn’t sweet and obedient like Pauline was. Come on, I’ll show you your room.
I followed him down the red-carpeted hallway. He paused at a doorway on the left. I looked through it at the biggest, shiniest bedroom I’d ever seen.
The massive mahogany dresser and bed had a rich red glow. A large gold-framed print of Botticelli’s “Allegory Of Spring” hung on the pearl wall over the carved headboard of the bed. The midnight-blue rug matched the floor-to-ceiling drapes. A fat candle burned inside a crystal jar sitting on a nightstand. The nymphs in the picture seemed alive with movement in the flickering light.
He said, “This is my bedroom.” I was wondering about the candle when he said, “That seven-day candle is the only religion I have. I burn them for good luck. It never fails to keep suckers coming my way.”
We walked down the hallway. We passed another doorway. I got a glimpse of soft pink and white.
Blue said, “That’s Midge’s room.”
At the end of the hallway,
we went into my bedroom. He nipped a wall switch. If I had been a dame I would have kissed him in joy. I stood on the cushiony beige carpet and gazed at the white furniture flecked with antique gold. Gold satin drapes at the windows matched the spread on the wide bed.
Blue opened a door to a gleaming green-tiled bathroom. He said, “My room has a private bath. You and Midge will have to share this one. Well, Folks, how do you like the setup?”
I said, “Blue, I’m in a dream. Don’t worry, I’ll keep the whole place clean.”
He said, “White Folks, hustlers don’t do housework. Besides I have an old dame who comes in to clean and wash and iron. I have a gardener that comes once a week to do the yard. How about a snack?”
I said, “I’m not a bit hungry. I think I’ll take a bath and go to bed.”
He said, “You’ll find towels in the cabinet. I’ll bring you a pair of pajamas. Christ! I wish Midge would come in.”
He went down the hall. I stripped and hung my slack suit in the closet. I went to the bathroom and drew a tub full of steamy water. I lay there in the giant tub, soaking the tiredness and carnival grime from my body.
It was wonderful. I’d never enjoyed a bath so much. And that’s the guaranteed truth. I got out of the tub and toweled off.
I washed my socks, shorts and t-shirt in the bathtub and hung them on a towel rack. I scrubbed the tub clean and went into the bedroom.
I slipped into a pair of blue silk pajamas lying across the bed. The sight of the frosty glass of milk and ham sandwich made me suddenly hungry, I sat in a beige leather chair and wolfed down the sandwich. Blue was sure a thoughtful guy.
I remembered my toothbrush in my trouser pocket. I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. I opened the door to Midge’s room. Her furniture was like mine.
I went back to my room and put the light out. Moonlight flooded the room when I pulled the drape cord. I looked out the window into the backyard. Clusters of tulips and roses swayed in the pale blueness.
I pulled back the covers and got into bed. I closed my eyes. I heard the gleeful chirping of crickets. And far away the bubbly song of a night bird echoed through the whispery rustle of trees and flowers.
