Black Gangster

by Donald Goines

  Now that it was out in the open, Prince could see the man's desire. His hesitation was only a fake-out. "What? I mean, I don't do those kind of things," the young man replied uneasily. He was nervous, and his hands shook slightly as he lit a cigarette.

  "Don't give me that shit," Prince answered harshly. "You been had before. I been trying to place you ever since we left the joint, and now I got you pegged. You used to be Eddie Townsend's woman in the joint. Don't bullshit me, 'cause it won't do you any good."

  The young man shook his head. "That's not true," he said. "You really must have me mixed up with someone else."

  "Bullshit!" Prince answered coldly. "What did you say your name was? Johnnie. Yeah, that's right. They used to call you Johnnie-may. I remember your little fine ass now."

  Johnnie dropped his head, too frightened or ashamed to speak. He dropped his eyes, afraid to return Prince's stare.

  Now that Prince had hit on the right track, he continued more ruthless than he needed to be. He wanted to browbeat the kid. "You know you been had, Johnnie boy, ain't you? So why you want to start acting like a man now? You didn't act like one while you was in the joint, did you?" He laughed harshly, the sound of his laughter filling the coach.

  The young man's eyes searched Prince's face with desperation. He muttered brokenly, "They made me do it. They made me, I swear to God, they forced me to.

  Beginning to tire of his little game, Prince said flatly, "I knew there wasn't no way for no fine young blond bitch like you to go behind the walls and come out without being touched up." His words beat at Johnnie like a tattoo. "Why did you come on with all that motorcycle crap when you sat down here anyway, boy? Was that your way of making me think you're bad or something?" Prince shook his head. "Well anyway, boy, you ain't got to worry about me. I don't use. I don't care if you're a punk or not. It don't make me any difference one way or the other."

  Prince didn't even glance around when Johnnie got up and walked to the front of the coach. He bent down and spoke softly to the driver. At the next red light the driver pulled over. With his small shoe box clutched under his arm, Johnnie jumped from the bus.

  Prince watched him depart, carrying the accumulation of junk that he had collected while in prison. As the bus pulled away, Johnnie started to wave, then caught himself and looked away. Prince smiled to himself as he stared at his own reflection in the window. His heavy eyebrows seemed to meet as he scowled out at the passing scenery.

  In a few minutes the bus was parking in the terminal. Prince grabbed up his few belongings and pushed his way to the front. One woman complained loudly as he pushed his way between her and her children. He glanced back over his shoulder and caught her with an icicle glare. For years he had waited and thought of the day when he would return home. In none of his wildest dreams had he imagined being cursed out by some woman on his first day out. For a brief moment, some of the ruthlessness he kept concealed beneath a front of good humor revealed itself.

  The woman glanced away from him quickly and busied herself with her four children. As she bent down to straighten out one of her kids' jackets, Prince got a glimpse of a full black bosom and his anger left. It had been years since he had seen anything close to a woman's breasts, and the sight was rewarding enough to restore his anticipation. He continued on his way, elbowing a fat salesman out of his path as he hurried down the steps of the bus.

  Once free from the pushing of the crowd of departing passengers, Prince stopped and allowed himself to breathe deeply, enjoying the taste of freedom. He stared around as if it were his first time in a big city. Any passerby would have taken him for a country boy on his first trip to a large city. His face lit up with a broad smile as he stared around at the milling crowd of people. His happiness was easy to see.

  Suddenly he spotted a group of teenagers standing off to the side. People seemed to be giving them a lot of room. He waved and started to make his way in their direction. The leader of the group was standing out in front of them, posing, and scrutinizing the passengers with as much disgust in his stare as he could possibly manage.

  A look of recognition appeared in Roman's eyes as he noticed Prince breaking through the crowd. "Over here, baby," he yelled loudly. The gang rushed forward to meet Prince. They crowded around him, banging him on his back roughly.

  Prince shook the hands of the boys and girls surrounding him, then stepped over to where Roman stood all alone, watching the group of teenagers. As Prince held his hand out towards Roman, his mind went back into the past. It had been over four years since they had parted company. On that occasion they had been locked up in the bullpen in the city jail, each man sunk deep in his own thoughts. Both of them were aware that neither one of them would likely get out for a long time. They had been caught red-handed, with a car full of stolen television sets.

  "Glad to see you, Prince," Roman said softly, his black eyes flashing with concealed amusement. He was medium in size, just under six feet, with slim, boyish shoulders. What caught the attention immediately was his keen features. His sharp nose was set off by the constant sneer on his tightly clenched lips.

  In height, Prince towered over him. As the two men stared at each other, Prince held his hawklike eyes on Roman until the smaller man dropped his eyes. "Did you take care of everything like I told you to, Roman?" he asked quietly.

  "Everything's been taken care of, Prince. We've just been waiting for you to get out so we can really stretch out."

  Prince smiled slightly. Neither man spoke further until they left the station and entered the parking lot. One of the girls screamed sharply, then began to curse loudly.

  "Goddamnit, Joan, can't you act like a young lady instead of some fuckin' whore who happened to be out for the night?" Roman yelled over his shoulder at the cursing woman. "You bitches can't go nowhere without cussing like goddamn fools."

  "Prince," she called, "this sonofabitch here should be locked up in a goddamn cage somewhere." She pointed her finger at one of the members of the gang who was bringing up the rear.

  Brute, the man she pointed out, grinned broadly. "Her ass is softer than cotton candy," he said loudly, to the amusement of his friends.

  She stopped and pulled her sweater up, then removed a large knife from her bra. With a well-practiced, swift motion she pointed it towards Brute. "You put your fuckin' hands under my dress again, Brute, and I'll cut some of that fat off your lard-ass."

  "Don't tell me a friendly little feel goin' cost Brute some of his ass?" one of the other members remarked, as they joked back and forth.

  Joan, a tall, underweight, light-brown-skinned woman, kept up a steady flow of curse words until they reached the cars. She was pretending to be more angry than she actually was. Most of the men in the gang had had her at one time or another. What she really hoped to do was impress Prince. Knowing that he had just come home from prison, she hoped that he would end up spending the night with her. It would really be a feather in her cap if she could bed down with the big man. In her daydreams she could see herself as his number-one girl. She stared at his broad back as they stood beside the cars. She preferred tall black men, and Prince fit the bill perfectly. To her, he was the most handsome man she had ever seen.

  Roman opened the door to a beat-up '62 Ford. "We ain't got but the two cars, baby, but I know things are going to change now that you're back home." He nodded towards the older car parked beside the Ford.

  Joan forced her way into the car with Roman and Prince, pushing ahead of the two other girls who were trying to get in with them.

  "The rest of you broads get in the other car," Roman ordered, after three girls climbed into the backseat. Everyone wanted to be close to Prince, the women most of all.

  "Damn, baby," Roman exclaimed, "it seems as if all the bitches got hot pants for you, Prince. When your old lady gets out, she's goin' have big fun kickin' these back-stabbing bitches in the ass."

  "Yeah man, they ain't never had no cherry before, and they think this is a cherry they'll be ge
tting," Prince replied and laughed. He tossed his arm over the front car seat.

  Roman, sitting between Prince and the driver, moved slightly to avoid his arm. "I should have put one of the broads up front," he said.

  Shortman, a muscular, narrow-faced man, drove expertly, taking most of the side streets to avoid the downtown traffic. He turned on Michigan Avenue and followed it on out until he reached the slums. It was swarming with Mexicans, Italians, and other foreigners. Shortman slowed down in the worst part of the slum quarters and parked in front of the Roost.

  The Roost was the main clubhouse of the Rulers, the best organized and most vicious young gang of teenagers Detroit had ever encountered. After convicting Prince and sending him to the state penitentiary, the police department's vice squad had made the blunder of thinking they had broken up this highly organized gang. After months of crime, the rumors began to come in that Prince was still running the organization, even though it was from behind prison walls.

  Prince, waving right and left, led the way down the cellar steps into the Roost. Music blasted out of the open door. The couches along the walls were occupied by young couples locked in each other's arms. At the end of the room, ten young men wearing identical outfits were sitting on soft stools beside a long bar watching a girl swing her hips along with the beat of the music.

  One of the men at the bar spotted Prince weaving through the crowd. He rose, walked over to the wall, and hit the light switch, flooding the room with light. A low mutter of discontent welled up, only to die down as Prince put his hands on his hips.

  "If there's anybody in here who's not a gang leader," he said loudly, "step outside until after this meeting is over." Some of the fellows sitting by the wall began to leave, followed by their girls. Two of the men sitting at the bar stood up.

  Prince waved them down. "All the members of the Rulers stay," he ordered. He waited until the door closed behind the last lagging person.

  "Okay," he began, looking out over the still crowded room, "now we can get down to business. I guess all of you already know just about what I'm going to say, but you're not really hep to what the rewards are going to be. I hope that by the end of this week each of you will have your own private car for business and pleasure alike. From here on nobody makes a move without the okay of their district leader." He stopped speaking to make sure everyone was paying attention. "Before, you guys were fighting over such small things as what turfs or blocks each gang ruled. That kid shit is out." His voice carried the conviction that he wouldn't accept any interference. "In case any of you studs out there with twenty or thirty punks in your gang should happen to think you're a little too strong to have to take orders, look around you."

  Slowly, Prince lit a cigarette. "Each man and woman here has at least ten followers in his gang. For those of you who can't count too goddamn good, there's at least sixty people here, not counting the broads, so that would be about six hundred studs. Are there any comments?"

  "Yeah," a tall redheaded boy said. "If we can't make a score when we want to, man, how in the hell are we going to make our pocket money?"

  "Don't worry!" Prince replied. "After today all of you are on my payroll. Each gang leader will receive fifty dollars for every ten members in his or her club."

  "Say man," one of the guys yelled from the back suspiciously, "just what the hell we going to have to do for this money?"

  "Don't worry," Prince assured him, "you won't have to do no more than what you've been doing. The only difference is that this time you'll be organized."

  "Well, Prince, what about us?" one of the girls asked.

  "The same goes for the women. You won't be called on to do much more than you're already doing."

  "Just what do you mean," a slim girl standing on the side asked, "by too much more?"

  "From here on out," Prince answered abruptly, "anytime one of you girls becomes strung out on drugs, we'll find a whorehouse for you to work out of before some pimp gets his hands on you. Also, whenever you find out one of the debs in your gang is screwing everybody and everything, that's whorehouse material, and the organization wants to know about it." He stared coldly at the women until they looked away.

  "Now," Prince said softly, "there's one more thing you had better know. From here on out, whenever you see someone wearing one of these outfits," he turned and pointed at the outfits his gang members wore, "you can spread the word that there is going to be a hit made somewhere in this city. Other than that," he added significantly, "you'll never see them wear anything but silks or sport clothes."

  He waited until he was sure they understood what he meant, then continued. "We're going to start an organization that almost every one of us in this room will sooner or later take a part in. All of you are aware of the rising cry of the sixties-'Black is Beautiful.' Well, we are going to jump on the grandstand with all the rest of the organizations that use this as their rallying cry. Before the month is out, we'll be backing a group of our own called `F.N.L.M.' Those letters will mean `Freedom Now Liberation Movement.' Behind that organization we'll be able to manipulate a whole lot of squares that ordinarily wouldn't go along with our program."

  Prince removed a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow. "There's no reason now for me to explain to you why we need this front or what we are going to do with it. All you need to know is that one day soon we'll be behind it."

  He dropped his cigarette on the floor and stepped on it. "I haven't run down everything yet, but whatever else I've got to say to you, I'll get in touch with you over the phone. Sometime tomorrow the person who will be giving you your orders will stop by each of your clubhouses and you can get your questions answered completely."

  Turning his back on the crowd, Prince said wearily, "I want all the members of the Rulers to meet me at my apartment within the next hour."

  He turned abruptly and started through the crowd, followed by some of his more intimate friends. Behind him, a murmur of subdued voices whispered back and forth. It was as though a giant had just left their presence.

  3

  PRINCE STOPPED ON the sidewalk, inhaled the fresh evening air, and let his eyes rove over a couple of the young miniskirted girls as they passed by. They flirted with him boldly, switching their firm hips. Prince continued to watch them as they walked down the street. He hoped the short skirts would stay in style for another two or three years.

  "I'll be damn glad when Ruby gets out," Prince said sharply. The sight of the girls had aroused his desire more than he wanted to admit.

  "They gave her ten days last week for driving without a goddamn license," Shortman replied quickly, not aware that it was about the hundredth time someone had told Prince the same thing that day.

  "She should get out Friday, Prince, if she don't go and fuck up some kind of way," Roman added as he came up behind them.

  Prince turned and glanced over his shoulder. Most of the members of the Rulers had come out of the club to form a crowd behind him.

  "Well, let's get over to my place before we get picked up for loitering," Prince said and laughed pleasantly. Before the words were out of his mouth, young men and women began to pile into cars up and down the street. The elite of the gang scampered for seats in the car with Prince and Roman.

  Brute, Fatdaddy, and Apeman used a flying wedge to monopolize the backseat. Danny, a vicious-natured young man in his early twenties, got in under the steering wheel.

  Prince squeezed in the front seat between Roman and the driver, then twisted around. "What's been happening, Apeman? You look like you're trying to catch up with Fatdaddy in pounds," Prince said and grinned at the dark-skinned, hairy-armed man. Apeman, huge and brutal, grinned back. On his wide face the grin looked like a sneer, but it wasn't. He had been dedicated to Prince ever since grade school. There was a bond between them that Apeman held dear.

  Among the three large men in the backseat of the car there was a constant challenge over which was the roughest. Fatdaddy might have exceeded the other two
men by a few pounds, but when it came to viciousness, they were equal.

  As the car moved away from the curb, Prince settled back in his seat and fell silent, thinking over some things that Roman had said to him earlier. He had spent four years planning, so Roman's objections were nothing new to him.

  Prince spoke his thoughts out loud. "I didn't just start thinking about this thing, Roman. I been kicking your objections around, man, and I can see where you're coming from. I know when things get rough somebody is going to talk, but by the time we get finished with whoever does talk, it will be quite a while before somebody else tries to snitch on us again."

  Danny gave a sharp bark that went for a laugh. "Yeah, baby, if there's one thing a nigger fears, it's the thought of someone sticking a blade between his shoulder blades." His harsh laughter sounded again. To people who did not know him, it would have been a chilling sound. But to these men who lived beside him, he was just being himself. They all knew that he was a dangerous man, but they considered themselves just as dangerous, if not more so.

  Roman laughed. "What are you going to use to enforce this fear, Prince," he asked sardonically, "the fearsome three sitting in the backseat?"

  Brute spoke up. "I don't see what's so goddamn funny about that, Roman. You ain't the big wheel in the show no more, so be cool. Prince might give us the go-ahead and you'll see just how efficient we can be."

  "Sweet Jesus!" Danny exclaimed. "I wouldn't mind helping out the fearsome three if that's the case."

  Roman frowned at Danny. "You better keep your lip buttoned, punk," he said, "or you might find yourself unable to close it."

  With a casual gesture, Danny removed a straight razor from his pocket. "The only reason I've followed you up to now, Roman," he said, "is because I've had my orders from Prince; other than that, boy, I'd have stuck my razor in your ass long ago."