Black Gangster

by Donald Goines

  There was a slight tightening of nerves, and the tension in the room could be felt. "Well, all of you were in the car together, my man," Earl said sharply, staring at Billy's flushed face. Before Billy could reply, Earl continued. "And I know for a fact that Dicky didn't fuck with no junk, so it sure didn't belong to him, and he's the one that got five years for it."

  "That's bullshit and you know it!" Billy exploded. "They gave Dicky all that time because they knew he was driving a Cadillac that his white whores had bought for him. They been wantin' the man for years, and they got the chance and just socked it to him."

  Earl stared around the room at the other men. He was young, strong, and full of confidence. "Well, that may be the case," he said, "but for the record, I want you to know that I don't want any drugs in my car unless you done pulled my coat to it."

  "Aw, man, why you come up with that weak shit?" Billy asked, then added, "You act like I ain't got no Cadillac of my own, baby. I just ain't got to ride in yours.

  "Well, you said it, Billy, I didn't. But since you stated it, I think that's the best thing I've heard. I know you ain't goin' do right, and every time you get in somebody's car, you're going to be carryin' some kind of drugs-for either you or your woman. So, you know, take your own weight."

  "That's cool," Billy answered while in the process of snorting up some dope. "I guess you remember I left my car across town when I got in your car with you and Charles."

  "You don't have to worry, Billy Banks," Earl replied. "I'm going to drop you and Duke back off at your car when we leave. I just want you to let me know when you get into my car if you're carrying dope on you. I like to be careful. I hate to have the police find a package of stuff on my floor when I don't really know how it got there."

  The men stared at each other. Billy was far from being a fool, but he didn't really get angry over what Earl had said. If push came to shove, and he was in Earl's car and they got stopped, he knew in his heart that he'd stick the dope down in one of the cushions if he hadn't had the time to throw it out the window. Anything, just as long as he got rid of the dope so that the police couldn't take it out of his pocket. With the dope found in the car, he'd never have to worry about going to prison, not on a rap like that. Maybe Earl would end up losing his Cadillac, but that would be far better than getting a few years behind bars.

  The phone rang,. Charles was sitting right next to it; he got Earl's nod, then picked up the receiver.

  "It's long distance, Earl," he said, holding the phone out as Earl reached for it.

  "Hi, honey," Earl said, then hesitated and began to listen. He picked the phone up and started to walk away with it but changed his mind. "What's the name of the doctor you're seeing?" he asked suddenly. He waited, then continued. "Well, if the doctor thinks you should go into the hospital, honey, then you do what he says. Female trouble can become a problem if you don't take care of it. How much money have you got? Four hundred. Well, that should be enough. Get you a private room, and if the bill should run over that, let me know. But what you try and do is tell them you'll pay the rest, if it should turn out to be more than four hundred dollars. As soon as you get back to work, you should be able to take care of that yourself, Lill."

  He nodded his head at something she said, then hung up. "The bitch done come down with female trouble," he said to no one in particular. Earl turned his back and walked over to the window and stared out. His mind was busy with how to handle the problem that had just come up. While his girl was in the hospital, he would miss the money that came regularly from the whorehouse in Pennsylvania, but the money wasn't his real problem. What he was pon dering was whether or not he should send another girl up to fill the place of the one going to the hospital. If he did that, then when the one in the hospital got out, there would be confusion between the women. Lill was a good prostitute, but she couldn't get along with any of his other girls. That was one reason why he kept her working out of town. Whenever she came back to Detroit, she managed to always get into some kind of scrape with one of his other girls.

  "Damn, baby," Duke said loudly. "You sure believe in blowing your money, don't you?"

  Earl turned from the window and stared at him. "I don't know what you mean, man."

  Duke smiled, revealing yellow spots on his teeth. "I mean by blowing all that money on a hospital bill. All you had to do was have her check in a general hospital somewhere and, when she got well, just leave. Ain't no way they can make a whore pay no bill." He grinned widely at his own cleverness. "Yeah, baby, if she was mine, I'd of had her mail that four hundred, maybe lettin' her keep fifty or something like that. But she'd never have blown all that money for no doctor bill."

  "Yeah, I see what you mean," Earl replied, then laughed harshly. "That's the difference in pimpin' and simpin', man. I let all my ladies go first class, all the time. That's why I got a stable of good young whores instead of some dopefiend bitches that shoot up all the profit."

  "You can call it simpin' if you want to," Duke continued, determined to get his point across, "but I'd be four hundred bucks richer sometime today if I had been in your place."

  "Fuck all that shit!" Billy said loudly, as he snorted up the rest of his dope. "I'd have asked you to take a blow, Charles, but I know you don't want your big chief Earl to know that you like a toot now and then." He glanced up at Earl, "Hey, man, how about running us back over on Johnny-R street so I can pick up my car?"

  Earl picked up the vest that went with his mod walking suit. He walked into the bedroom to see if the brown silk outfit was fitting him properly. When he came out, he was ready to go. The rest of the men got up and followed him to the door.

  Billy laughed loudly as they walked out into the hallway. After closing the door and shaking it to make sure it was locked, Earl caught up with the group at the elevator. He spoke directly to Duke. "Everybody seems to have a lot of advice about how somebody else should treat their whores, but when it comes down to the real, all a nigger will find out is that all his socalled friends have but one thought in mind, and that's how to steal one of them whores from his stiff ass if he lets his game get funny."

  The elevator door opened in front of them. Earl stepped in before Duke could reply. There was an elderly, well-dressed couple already inside, so they discontinued the conversation.

  s

  AFTER DROPPING DUKE and Billy off, Earl, known in and out of all the craps-houses and afterhours joints in the city as "Earl the Black Pearl," decided to drive up on Twelfth and see what kind of action he could find on the corner so early in the evening. He didn't bother to ask the quiet man riding next to him if he wanted to go.

  Slumped down in the front seat, Charles stared out of the wide Cadillac window. "You know what we should do for this coming holiday?" he asked suddenly, his voice a deep bass and seeming to rumble as he spoke.

  "I don't know what we should do," Earl replied eas ily, "but I got a damn good idea of what I'm going to be doing." The news came on the radio, and Earl quickly switched on the tape recorder.

  Charles stared at the slim, dark-skinned man behind the steering wheel. Some black men seemed out of place behind the wheel of the expensive automobiles they drove, wearing work clothes, factory outfits in a ten-thousand-dollar car, but Earl appeared as if the car had been made for him. The white on the white Cadillac fitted him to perfection. The diamonds that he wore glittered as his hand moved over and flicked the button to let down the electric window a crack.

  He lit up a stick of reefer. "That don't mean that I won't listen to a good idea for the coming holiday, though. Run it down, baby, I just might go for it."

  "Naw, man, that's okay. It wouldn't have made no sense no way." Charles shrugged his shoulders and straightened up in the seat. "We just passed the Man coming out of that alley."

  Earl nodded and continued to smoke the weed. Every now and then, he'd check out the mirror. He started to speak, then caught himself. He didn't think he could get Charles to understand just what he meant, and he might
just give the wrong impression. It was just that he got a nervous feeling whenever he passed policemen. It wasn't a fear; it was more like a danger signal. In them, he saw the constant threat to his way of life.

  As he drove along, the neighborhood began its subtle change. He turned right on Twelfth, a one-way street, and pawnshops and nightclubs began to appear on each side of the street. Farther on, one could see the devastation of the sixties' burning and looting spree. It was everywhere. Here a gutted building, next door a large lot with the debris of past fires scattered over its barren surface.

  They stopped for a red light, and the early evening breeze drifted lightly around the car. Everywhere they looked there were the clusters of people that the good weather brought out; they pushed against each other in the cluttered entrances of open doorways to apartment houses and poolrooms and shine parlors. Girls with shortened skirts stood in the darkened doorways, while their counterparts patrolled the sidewalks in revealing hotpants outfits.

  Charles stared at one of the younger prostitutes hungrily.

  "I'd bet money, Charles, that you'd turn a trick with that young girl if you wasn't shamed she'd come back up on the corner and tell it," Earl said, tossing back his head and laughing. It was a deep sound, one full of mirth, with the kind of heaviness coming through that aroused women. It was also a practiced laugh, one that could be turned on and off at will.

  Charles joined in the laughter. He knew it was true. He'd never make a successful pimp of himself; he loved to groove too much. He fell in love with his woman's hips, and that love-joy was his downfall. Earl called it "having a tender dick."

  "That's right, boy, you need to laugh," Earl said. "If there's any man who's guilty of following his dick, it's you. For a hard-on, Charles, you'll fuck around and drive five hundred goddamn miles, get there, get the cock, and never bother to ask about the trap money." He laughed again and stared at his husky partner. Charles was by nature a thug. He took his by wit or pistol. Ever since they were childhood friends, Charles was a strong-arm man. At that step in their development, Charles was the boy most of them looked up to. He was the fighter, going to the gym at night, taking up boxing.

  How the worm turns, Earl thought coldly. He had been one of the cool ones during this period, always standing back against the wall, posing, and at all times as sharp as his wardrobe would allow him to be.

  Another red light caught them. As they sat at the light, two brown-skinned girls crossed the street, flirting openly with the men in the Cadillac.

  "Boy oh boy," Charles exclaimed. "You sure get a lot of action when you ride in a hog!"

  Earl's laughter rang out sharp and clear. "It don't have to be the Caddie, baby; it just might have been me they were giving that action to, man."

  "Shit!" Charles said loudly. "It was the Caddie, baby, that's what it was. Them bitches was lookin' at the ride. It wouldn't have made any difference if two apes was sitting in here!"

  "Okay, baby," Earl replied easily. "I ain't about to start arguing over it with you, but one day you'll find out. It ain't always the car, but sometimes it helps out." He laughed again, this time softer.

  Another red light caught them. As they sat waiting for it to change, a long, gold Eldorado turned the cor ner. The driver recognized Earl and blew the Eldorado's deep horn.

  Earl waved at the driver. "Old Bobby Spencer," he said, speaking more to himself than to Charles. "That old man has handled more money than any four niggers in this city," he stated.

  "I guess so," Charles answered. "If I had the good coke connect that he's got, I'd handle the same kind of money myself."

  "Maybe. That man has been selling cocaine for over twenty years now, Charles, and he ain't got busted yet. Now that's what I call a smart street nigger."

  "It ain't that he's all that smart, Earl, or that he can't get busted. He's just been lucky that them bitches that he's got dealing for him ain't never switched around on him and cracked him downtown. Shit, every time one of his broads gets busted, they take the weight themselves. Ain't none of them ever gave him no trouble." Charles fell silent, waiting for Earl to agree with him.

  "That ain't luck, Charles, that's business. It shows the man knows what's happening. He must tell his women just how to handle it, 'cause if you don't explain it to a bitch and leave it to her to handle, she'll fuck it up every time."

  "I don't know," Charles mumbled. "It seems like luck to me. If it was me, the bitch would get downtown and tell it all."

  "I'll agree with that," Earl said. "More than likely, you'd have left it up to the woman to handle it, never taking the time to sit her down and explain just what to tell them white folks downtown whenever the bust came. So when the bitch got busted, she'd be feeling on her own and she'd try shifting the weight. It's all in being a top-notch player or just another mediocreass nigger out here in the streets."

  After the exchange, they rode on in silence, neither man bothering to break the quiet. Each man sank down in his own thoughts, Charles thinking that he was right, that it was just a matter of luck, and Earl knowing that he was right, that it was just a matter of taking care of business. He saw a parking spot in front of a small barbecue restaurant, pulled over, and let his white convertible top down.

  As the top went back slowly, four young girls standing in the front of the greasy spoon restaurant stared at the occupants of the car brazenly. In their glance, there was an invitation that needed no words to explain. The weather was warm, the evening was young, and a ride in a convertible would beat the hell out of standing in front of a dirty restaurant. The girls were more than eager. They were ready.

  Without seeming to, Earl steadily examined the women. Suddenly, there was a quick movement to his eyes as they focused on one of the girls in particular. "Hummmmmm," he murmured. "What a lovely creature that is."

  Before he had time to make a move of his own, Charles took the play out of his hands. "Come here, baby," he yelled, not picking out any particular girl.

  Two of the young girls moved away from the window and walked over to the car. The beauty that Earl had noticed was one of them. When the girls reached the car, Charles began to fidget. Now that the action was right in front of him, he was at a loss for words. Earl watched his friend, amused, and his lips turned down in a cold sneer that he was unconscious of.

  The girls were amused by Charles' seeming inability to follow up on his bold approach. "Uh," he began, "uh, ain't you got a sister, girl, that works out of the Honey-bunch Bar?" he asked, trying the break the cold silence.

  The tall brown-skinned girl, to whom he had addressed the question, put her hand on her hip. "No, baby, I'm afraid you've got me mixed up with somebody else." She answered frankly, her eyes shifting over to Earl. It was obvious that she wasn't interested in Charles.

  The slight rejection stung Charles, and he became nasty. "Bitch, I ain't got you mixed up with nobody. Your sister is whoring out of the motherfuckin' bar, so you ain't got to lie about it!"

  Now she gave Charles her full attention. She stared straight into his eyes and answered. "If I do have a sister working out of there at night, I don't see why you should be concerned with it, 'cause she sure ain't got no stiff-ass nigger like you for her man." She rocked back on her heels, spreading her legs so that the tight, tiny skirt seemed about to burst.

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