by Iceberg Slim
The door swung open. It was like stepping into a perfumed cave. The only light came from a red glow behind a massive white sofa.
We looked down at Aunt Lula. If she’d had a set of horns growing out through her mass of krinkly white hair, she would have been a midget stereo of Satan wearing a wig.
Her light gray eyes gleamed in the red glow like cat orbs in the glare of headlights. She put a pale yellow hand, glittery with diamonds, in my arm.
She said, “Pocket called me and told me you were on your way. Now boys, we’ll all have to be very quiet and stay in the back of the house. A bunch of goddamn nosey housewives went past my vice-squad arrangement and got me busted last week. Follow me and choose a girl. It’s ten for a short time, and twenty for longer. A party with two girls is fifty.”
The swish of her red silk kimono floated a heavy wake of lilac perfume behind her as we followed to a large, well-lighted kitchen.
Four broads in baby-doll pajama bottoms were posing in a line. One of them was a white, bleached blonde. Two were sexy light yellow boots. I stared at the fourth.
She was the blackest broad I’d ever seen. Her skin was like luminous velvet. She flashed her brown saucer eyes at me. Then she started licking her lips and lapping her long red tongue across the top of her chin.
She raised her arm to her thick red lips. She sucked and licked her wrist and forearm. She lifted one of her big tits to her wide mouth. She pretended to gnaw at it with white teeth.
She never took her eyes off mine as she moaned in phony passion for a sale. She was ugly compared to the other broads. But I forgot they existed.
Livin’ chose the white broad. Lula opened a trapdoor in the kitchen floor. The four of us went through it down into clean, nice-looking bedrooms.
I gave the black broad a double-saw note. We stripped. She sat on the side of the bed. She took my hand and pulled me toward her. I stood between her beautiful hairy legs. I looked down at her upturned face and noticed she had a patch of silky hair across her top lip.
She shifted her eyes and gazed at Jim Dandy. She tickled him through her shiny mop of hair. She rubbed him across her cheek and the tip of her flat nose. She baby-talked him.
She crooned, “Black Kate is just so happy that this precious pink baby came to visit her. You’re glorious. I love you. You naughty, naughty little boy. Why did you wait so long to come to your mama?”
She smothered him with kisses. My knees quivered as I watched him disappear and appear again and again and again. Finally she was on her feet beside me. In one swift graceful motion, she swung her right leg to my shoulder and stood on one long leg with the back of her calf resting on the ridge of my shoulder. My supporting hands were slippery around her back. Jim Dandy rushed to disappear again, up, up.
Livin’ and I started the drive back to Chicago. I don’t remember any of Livin’s chatter about the white broad. I was thinking about Black Kate and how she had petted Jim Dandy after it was all over and begged him to hurry back to his sweet mama.
The way he tingled at the thought of her, I knew there wasn’t a chance that he wouldn’t. After all, no other broad had ever flattered him so, and treated him like a precious baby.
The next day, I took Livin’ Swell to Bert’s Haberdashery on Forty-seventh Street near the el. We went down the street to Power’s Restaurant for a sandwich while Bert was getting Livin’s garments altered at a tailor shop across the street.
When we came out of Bert’s, Livin’ had two suits, a hat, shoes, sport shirts and a topcoat. I spent close to five bills to give him a respectable appearance. He looked as good in his clothes as a five-nine tank can look.
He was so happy he almost cried. We went to the poolroom and shot the breeze with Pocket and Precious Jimmy.
Jimmy had become quite a dude. He wasn’t belly-sticking any more. He had a stable of whores kicking mud for him.
Old Man Mule was hustling slum on the Westside. We knocked around the poolroom until seven that night. We left and stopped at Sport’s Lounge on South Parkway Boulevard near Fiftieth Street.
At eight-thirty, I remembered that Blue was going to call me at home. We were just walking into the house when the phone rang.
It was Blue. We talked fifteen minutes or so. He was coming home in a couple of days with Tanja and Albert. Then in a week, it would be Vancouver for Tanja’s six-weeks booking up there.
Blue asked me how Livin’ was getting along. It was the cue I needed to ask him a very important question.
I said, “Blue, Livin’ is all right. But he’s anxious to go into the streets to hustle. He wants me to hustle with him. But I’m not a cannon. I was wondering if it would be a violation of that con code you told me about to wise Livin’ up to the smack. Nothing else?”
Blue said, “Hell, no. I was talking about rank suckers, squares. Your pal is already a grifter. The only difference between you two is that he grifts with his mitts instead of his mouth. Go on, pull his coat. I hope you can turn him out.”
It took hours to convince Livin’ that con was better than the cannon hustle. I guess it was because Livin’ was a physical type. He wasn’t a dumb guy. We started rehearsing the cues and the lines of the smack. I found out later Livin’s awful flaw. He was lazy.
Blue, Tanja and Albert came home on August nineteenth. Blue liked Livin’. He made him officially welcome to stay with me for as long as he wanted.
Blue glowered at Albert for a week. Always when Tanja wasn’t looking, of course. Then they were gone again. I was beginning to think Blue might stay on the road with the princess until one of them died.
She sure must have been a sweet customer in the bed. But I’d bet a grand against a nickel that she wasn’t qualified to hold Black Kate’s red baby-doll pajama bottoms.
By the end of August, Livin’ and I were playing a fan-smack game together. It was more like we were dancing the Charleston for the marks, instead of like the ballet with Blue.
Livin’ was just split seconds tardy with his con backup. It can be a sweaty situation when you’re playing for a keyed-up mark. Another handicap was that we were open only on one end.
Livin’ just couldn’t catch marks smoothly. He couldn’t make them like him instantly. His cold distant personality was all wrong for the catch. I guess that long bit in the joint murdered all his charm.
I did all the catching. He did all the capping. The result was, we had to dig like hell for marks. It was discouraging for both of us. Then, like I said, he was lazy. After we made a score, he’d have to be persuaded to finish the day’s work. He didn’t want to try for the second and third scores. He complained constantly that his feet hurt.
In the middle of September, Nineteen Forty-three, the same year that Livin’ got out of jail, Livin’ started cracking about some guy called Butcher Knife Brown.
Livin’ had heard in jail that Brown could make a young guy rich overnight. Livin’s cellmate had been a dealer for Brown, who had connections for dope.
I could mention taking a trip to Aunt Lula’s and he’d run and jump into the Buick before I finished the sentence. He was all fun and no work. He should have been a pimp.
Around the last of September, Livin’ and I were on the way home from the Loop. He insisted that we stop in Square’s Bar on Thirty-first Street on the corner of Indiana Avenue. We hadn’t played for a mark all day.
We stood at the bar near the door guzzling suds. A tiny, dapper guy came through the door and stood at the bar next to Livin’. I wouldn’t have noticed the dwarf if he hadn’t had such a strange face. He looked like a pure-blooded Chinese that had been painted black. He was a weird-looking bird with his Chinese face and kinky hair.
Ten minutes later the phone rang at the other end of the bar. The bar broad hollered down the log.
“Knife, it’s for you. Catch it in the booth.”
The little guy waved a tiny, manicured hand through the air and went into the phone booth across the aisle.
Livin’ grabbed my elbow and whisper
ed, “Folks, that little stud is Butcher Knife Brown. I know he is. This is his corner and he fits the description I got in the joint to a tee. I gotta cut into him. Folks, that stud can make us both rich.”
I said, “Deal me out, Livin’. I’m going home. I just know I couldn’t get ready for a double dime in the pen. I’ll see you later.”
I got into the Buick and drove South on Indiana Avenue. I was really worried about Livin’. So I went to the poolroom to see Pocket.
He was trimming some middle-aged mark on the front table. I stood by the cigar case. It was almost the same spot where I had stood when the stool pigeon, Double-crossing Sammy, goaded me into that crazy rage. It was the same day I met Blue for the first time and belly-sticked for his flat-joint.
Finally Pocket picked the sucker clean. He racked his cue stick and came over and stood next to me.
I said, “Pocket, can you give me a rundown on a little black guy that looks like a Chinaman? They call him Butcher Knife Brown.”
Pocket gave me a level look and said, “Folks, you’ve lost your mind since Blue has been bird dogging that young bitch all over the country. Now you’re fooling around with the most treacherous nigger that God gave breath. What’s the matter, Folks, you’re tired of living, huh?”
I put my hand on his shoulder.
I said, “Pocket, you’ve got it all wrong. Livin’ Swell is cutting into Brown right now on Thirty-first Street. Livin’ thinks Brown can make him a millionaire. I’m worried about Livin’. Brown gives me the creeps.”
Pocket said, “Do you remember the skinny dago, Nino, that checked out the flat-joint boxes on the carnival?”
I said, “Yes. Mule told us about Nino and Nino’s old man, the big wheel in the syndicate. But I understand that Brown is a dope connection. Nino is a flat-joint collector.”
Pocket said, “That’s stale history, Folks. All the dealers around here know that Nino is now boss of all the dope traffic on the south and west sides of Chicago.
“Brown is Nino’s trouble shooter on the Southside. He also distributes wholesale and to retail peddlers. Last month a wholesale H-dealer called Slew Foot Frank was found gutted from hipbone to hipbone in an alley on Thirty-fifth Street.
“He had three sales and one possession beef coming up in court against him. I heard a reliable wire say that Frank begged Brown after the second bust to let him stop dealing for awhile.
“Frank figured that with just two sales against him, he’d maybe have a chance to get a fine and a suspended sentence. And maybe, at worse, he’d get a two- or three-year bit in the joint. Brown made him keep dealing under that awful pressure.
“Frank lost a big supply of H when he got the last bust for possession. Brown forced more H on him to deal. Frank got slick. He staged a phony holdup of that stock of H he’d got on credit. Two days later he turned up croaked in the alley.
“Brown got the syndicate’s message across to all the dope dealers. Don’t try to back up from the operation. And don’t fuck with the outfit’s dope and dough.”
I said, “But Frank was in a trap. I just don’t understand how Brown could expect Frank to keep dealing like that. Frank was a cinch to wind up with forty or fifty years in the joint. How can Brown get away with cold-blooded murder?”
Pocket aimed his mouth at the ceiling and laughed loudly.
He said, “Folks, you’re in a trap when you start wholesaling syndicate H. You’ve joined a club you can’t quit.
“For twenty years I’ve seen big-shot peddlers riding in new Cadillacs and draped in the finest vines and rocks. But I’m not stupid enough to want into their club. Old One Pocket wants to die a natural death with a cue stick in his mitt.
“There are only two ways that a big dope dealer can cut loose from the Dagos. He croaks or he catches a bit in the joint. He’s like a whore in a killer-pimp’s stable. I’d rather drink muddy water and sleep in a hollow log than be like a whore for the outfit.
“You like that tub-of-lard pal of yours a lot. But if he cuts into Brown, you’d better cut Livin’ Swell loose in a hurry. You’d have to wind up in a world of trouble. It would be like sucking a broad’s tongue that’s got T.B.
“Doing business with Brown is like drinking a gutful of slow poison. There ain’t no doubt something fatal bad is going to happen to you down the line. The awful goddamn thing is, you just don’t know when and how.
“Folks, if you read the Chicago Defender for a few months, you’ll read about a lot of Nigger murders on the weekend that ain’t important enough to make the white papers. Some of those stiffs are chicken-shit dope peddlers and stickup men.
“They got croaked for putting the hustle on outfit dough or merchandise. Now the outfit is too clever to use their knock-off trademarks on Nigger small fry. They’d finger themselves to the scared citizens and the blast of the white newspapers. Too many of the trademarks hit the papers as is.
“Say some poor bastard gets his head jellied by a shotgun blast from a speeding car. Or maybe a stiff is found stuffed in the trunk of his car measled with icepick stabs, and his Jim Dandy and balls rammed down his throat.
“Those slick, big-shot politicians and rollers on the outfit payroll shit in their pants when the newspapers blat about those trademarks. So, the outfit uses Nigger gorillas like Butcher Knife Brown for the petty knockoffs in Nigger-town.
“The white, square people that could raise a stink and stop it don’t even know it’s going on. And if they did, their graft-rotten white leaders would con them that the stupid, drunken niggers are just croaking one another like always—celebrating Saturday night, Nigger Christmas.
“I hope you can pull your pal Livin’ Swell’s coat before Brown slices some of that lard off his gut. Good luck, Folks. Say, look at that! One of my prize suckers is taking a cue stick from the rack to make the trip to trim city.”
I walked to the Buick and got in. I wondered if I should race back to Thirty-first Street and use muscle to yank Livin’ out of the joint.
No, it was too late for that. By this time he’d cut himself into Brown or he hadn’t made it. I drove home and sat in the beige leather chair.
I left the front door unlocked for Livin’. I sat there for an hour trying to figure a way to turn Livin’ away from his sucker idea to peddle dope.
I really liked the guy. And I was getting mad at him for making me worry. That’s one drawback to having a pal. Their troubles sneak in and gnaw at your insides.
I was in the bathroom stuffing a wad of cotton and oil of cloves into a small cavity in a rear tooth, when I heard Livin’ come in the front door. I heard him stomping down the hallway.
I looked at him through the cabinet mirror when he barged excitedly into the bathroom. His tawny, strange eyes were blazing in triumph. He bounced a paw off my shoulder blade.
He said, “Folks, I’m in! Knife quizzed me ragged about the stud in Saint Charles who gave me the rundown on him. Then he opened the door. Folks, he’s the hippest stud on drugs you ever saw.
“He ran it down to me. I invest a half a grand in cocaine and H. It’s good enough so I can cut it twice with milk sugar and still have the best stuff on Thirty-fifth Street. That measly five bills will get me five grand right outta the box.
“Folks, the stud really likes me. For instance, he’s gonna show me how to cut the stuff, how to cap it up and where to sell it. He said there’s a junkie bar at Thirty-fifth and State where I can deal out of the shithouse and make a mint.
“Ain’t I a bitch, Folks? I’m outta the joint a few weeks and a ton of bread is laying in these streets for Livin’ Swell Fats. You’re my boon coon, Folks. Let’s do this thing together.”
The pitiful slob had let Brown con him. And that mere thought shot new jolts of pain through the nerve core of the cavity. The joy and stupid triumph I saw on his face cancelled out my self-control. I pivoted and glared at him.
I shouted, “Sucker, are you for real? You should see yourself. You look like a stupid, black baboon that’s been con
ned with a stalk of rubber bananas.
“Brown is going to use you like a whore. One thing for sure, you’ll be the dumbest whore in his dope stable.”
I saw the muscles lumping and rolling at the back of his jawbone. I heard the grinding scrape of his gritting teeth. I moved my hand toward his shoulder. He hunched his shoulders and moved away.
I said softly, “Livin’, when I left you I went to an old hustler and got a rundown on Brown. He’s poison. He butchers niggers for the syndicate. If you do business with him, you’ll wind up dead or pulling a forty- or fifty-year bit in the penitentiary.
“Livin’, we’ve been pals since we were little kids. Wake up. Don’t be a sucker. Livin’, you’re nutty from that long bit you did. Let your buddy pull your coat.
“Be patient. Stay with con. I’ll tell you what. I’ll teach you the drag. We can get rich together. It will just take a little longer. Come on now, pal. Tell me you’re going to throw Brown and the dope racket out of your mind, and make smart dough. Please, Livin’. I’m worried about you, pal. I hate to say it. But if you’re going to deal dope, I’ll have to cut you loose.”
He stared at me with his mouth open. I stepped back from the tawny brutes raging in their sockets. He doubled up his powerful hands into black bludgeons and boomed them against his chest. He narrowed his fat lips against his clenched teeth.
He roared, “You jive, half-peckerwood sonuvabitch! If I didn’t like you, I’d put my fist through you and stomp you to death. Say I won’t! Say I won’t!
“Don’t call me a sucker and a baboon. You think it makes you great because your nigger mammy let a pecker-wood pop you off in her ass. What the hell were you when I taught you to pick a pocket?
“I’m not a pussy. Why the hell should I be afraid of Brown? I can take my hands and crush him like eggshells. Cut me loose—ain’t that a bitch?
“What’s great about the con racket? I ain’t no freak for walking and sweating my ass off to take two, three bills from some funky mark. I want big bread fast. White Folks, I’m cutting you loose. ‘Livin’, I’ll have to cut you loose.’ You think that’s new? Everybody has always cut Livin’ loose.