Trick Baby (11 page)

He said, “Goddamn, it took a lotta' muscle to stop you from playing the murder game. I got a sucker's tender ticker. I couldn't stand to see even that rat croaked.

“What the hell, you didn't need to waste him to convince him your old lady wasn't no whore. Besides, you're lucky those scufflers in there didn't stomp you to death. I guess they hate that rat stool pigeon worse than your white skin.”

I said, “I'm sorry. You're right. I'm glad I didn't kill him. I don't know what happened to me in there. I've never been that mad in my life. Thanks for stopping me, One Pocket.”

A
tomato-red Cadillac glided to the curb in front of us. A tall heavyset guy in a white shimmery tropical suit got out. I'd seen him a hundred times going into the Du Sable Hotel on Oakwood near Thirty-ninth Street.

His processed black hair glittered like a satin skullcap in the sun. A monstrous rock on his ebony right hand flashed like a hunk of rainbow.

I said, “Who is the rich guy?”

Pocket said, “He's Blue Howard.”

He came across the sidewalk towards us. One Pocket took a step to meet him and said, “Well, Blue, what's in the barnyard for a hawk?”

The giant grinned down at One Pocket. In a very soft voice, he said, “I'm flat-jointing with an outfit operation on Lake Street. I fired all of my thieving boost last night. Pocket, I could use you on the outside to feed the belly-sticks and to heckle the marks for the usual ten percent of the box. Don't worry, you'll make a buck. Do I have to tell you that the dagos don't play in bad locations? Well?”

One Pocket threw his hands into the air palms up. He said, “Blue, I ain't played nothing but funny pool in a week. My rep has all the hustlers scared shitless. I gotta wait for chumps who ain't
heard of me to get a game. I'll rib marks and handle the sticks for you. How many sticks you using?”

Blue looked over Pocket's head and said, “I need three. How about your young white friend? Maybe he'd like to pick up a sawbuck or so. He'd give the joint inviting flavor for any white marks over there.”

Pocket said, “Blue, the kid ain't white. He's a boot. But it's the same difference ain't it? Blue, I like him. You should have seen him punch the puke outta Double-crossing Sammy.”

Then he glanced over his shoulder at me. He said, “Kid, you want a job?”

I said, “Sure, but I don't know anything about it.”

Blue said, “You're the whitest spade I've ever seen. Kid, there isn't a helluva lot a belly-stick has to know. All you do is keep your belly against the joint counter and let me make you lucky on the wheel. Pocket will give you a rundown on the scratch and the feed. You get paid every night.”

I said, “I learn fast. I'll be the best stick you ever saw.”

Pocket turned and went to the poolroom doorway. He shouted, “First and last call for two sober belly-sticks in clean clothes. It's a Westside spot, there and back in a brand new Cadillac.”

A half dozen prospects galloped to the sidewalk. They stood in slouched attention like a squad of bedraggled soldiers waiting for a pass from no man's land.

Pocket eyed them from head to toe. Finally he said, “I want Precious Jimmy and Old Man Mule. The rest of you ain't in the shape like you could have the measly scratch to blow on a wheel.”

Precious was a tall handsome light brown-skinned fellow about twenty-two years old. Mule was old, black and ugly, with the longest ears I'd ever seen except on a mule.

The turndowns dragged back into the poolroom. We all got into the Cadillac. Pocket sat in the front seat with Blue. The Caddie leaped from the curb like a red jackrabbit.

I closed my eyes and leaned back in the plush seat between Precious and Mule. It was like floating on air. It felt a little like the train ride Phala and I took from Kansas City to Chicago, long ago. This ride was smoother and I didn't feel so tiny and afraid like on the train.

Blue said, “What's your name, kid?”

I opened my eyes. They met his in the rear-view mirror. I said, “Johnny O'Brien.”

He said, “That's no name at all for a young hustler. You've got to have a street moniker that's jazzy and proper. How about ‘White Folks?' It's a natural for you, just like ‘Blue' for me because I'm so black.”

I said, “I don't like that one. I don't want people hating me because they think I'm bragging I'm white. If I'm going to have a moniker it ought to brag that I'm a Nigger.”

Blue said, “I'm glad you said that. That's just what that moniker does for you. It's got a solid Nigger sound. There never was, and there never will be a genuine white hustler with that tag. It shouts that you're really a Nigger with white skin. Convinced, White Folks?”

I said, “The way you explain it makes sense. I just hope it makes everybody sure that I'm a Nigger.”

We had reached the Westside when Pocket turned his long head back toward me and said, “White Folks, don't never speak to me when we're playing a mark in the joint. You run out of dough to make your plays on the wheel, you hold your mitts palms up so on your last play Blue can see you're tapped. He'll toss you a light cop on your number.

“Say a mark is right beside you in the joint, Blue is gonna gaff that wheel on your number and heave you a heavy cop to excite the mark. Now I'm telling the three of you belly-sticks the time to go off to piss ain't that time when you got that big scratch in your duke.

“Put that heavy cop in your mitt flat against your thigh furthest
from the mark. I'm gonna be right there patting your mitt to take off that scratch. Just slap that scratch easy-like into my palm.

“Then like a real happy winner get the hell away from the joint. Come back after them marks in the joint have been played.

“You get five percent of the box. The joint takes in two bills, you get a sawbuck. It takes in a half a grand, you got twenty-five slats coming.

“There ain't no roller problems. The mob's got that captain in the district in their ass pocket. Any questions?”

I said, “What is a gaff?”

Precious and Mule snickered.

Pocket said, “It's a gimmick that stops that wheel wherever Blue wants. He can stop that paper arrow on the middle of a pinhead.

“There's the spot. We'll get out first. Then split up and walk around the lot until Blue gets ready for us. Ain't no use to let early suckers see us together. Keep your eyes on me. I'm gonna scratch my chin to pull you into the joint.”

Blue pulled to the side of a huge lot at Hoyne Avenue and Lake Street. We scrambled out and walked into the dusty lot.

There were several Puerto Rican men and women with just a few black women and children on the lot. About a dozen canvas tents in a rough circle squatted in the gray dust like tattered buzzards.

In the center were the ferris wheel, a midget car ride and food stands. A candy-striped merry-go-round spun in the champagne sun like a mammoth musical top. It was calliope-ing
Stairway to the Stars
, I felt a quick quake of sorrow. It was Phala's favorite tune.

I noticed that Blue was the only black operator on the lot. He was counting stacks of coins glinting on the joint's long counter.

I saw Pocket casually walk to the front of Blue's joint. I saw Pocket's index finger scratching the point of his chin. Mule and Precious drifted into the joint seconds after I got there.

Pocket gave each of us three dollars in quarters to play the numbers on a long oilcloth strip stretched the length of the pine-board
counter. Those numbers matched the numbers on the wheel in the center of the counter.

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?”