I said, “No, Pocket, I don’t want any hard stuff. And neither do you until this play is over. Tell you what, I’ll spring for a couple of quarts of Pabst Blue Ribbon if you’ll make the trip.”
He said, “You’re right about the hooch. I’ll get the suds. I want to go to the drug store too. I’m gonna buy one of those switchblades I saw. Old Pocket ain’t going to play for a crazy mark like Buster without some protection.
“A wise old Chinaman once said, ‘Even the shade of a toothpick is a blessing to a chump croaking in the desert sun.’”
We guzzled beer and rehearsed our lines until a quarter of three. I was propped up in bed and Pocket was in a chair beside me. We stared silently at the door.
At five after three my heart leaped at the three raps on the door. When Pocket went to the door I saw his legs trembling. He opened it and stuck his head into the hallway before stepping aside.
Blue came in followed by the brutish mark. I cocked my head sideways in the bird-like awareness of the blind. I hooked my eyes to wallpaper two feet away from the muscular black monster, as he stooped his six feet, seven inch bulk past the door frame. His slitted maroon eyes were burning through me.
Blue said, “Buster, this is Zambroski and his pal Hastings Street Harvey.”
The gorilla bared gold fangs and snarled in a Hell’s Kitchen accent, “Ah’m inna hurrih. Whah’s de spahklahs?”
I stared at the wallpaper and fumbled beneath the pillow for the canvas bag. It was hard not to focus my eyes on his evil black face, crisscrossed with puckered razor slashes.
From the corner of my eye I saw the nostrils of his smashed, bridgeless nose quivering. I held out the bag toward Pocket. I watched as Pocket switched on the two-hundred watt dresser lamp and dumped the fancy fakes to the top of the dresser beneath the flattering spotlight.
Buster and Blue held each ring up close to the light and examined them. I saw a tiny wad fall into the waste basket at the door when Buster turned from the dresser and walked several paces toward me.
He glared down at the fake leg wound and said, “Polack, dis stuff looks kosha. But I ain’t inna mood fuh no fuckin’ pig inna pok. I want ya boids should go wid us and lat a jooler peep at de rocks. Polack, gimme de line on de stuff.”
Blue stiffened. Pocket shuddered and his Adam’s apple fluttered. I didn’t get it. I thought the mark wanted a recap of the tale Blue had told him so he could cross check Blue. Deadly silence hammered my eardrums.
I was about to deliver the tale when Pocket cut in and blurted, “It’s a twenty-grand line. And we’re not dealing with people who look at real stuff and don’t know it. We don’t have to stick out our necks to get lopped off by some fink jeweler.
“We know the stuff is real. We’re sorry you don’t. Besides, at six tomorrow night we show the stuff to a buyer who knows what we got and won’t hassle. Forget it. We don’t want to sell.”
Pocket angrily scooped up the nine rings and hurled them into the bag. He walked to the bed and stuck the bag under my pillow. Buster looked at Blue.
Blue said, “The man has a right to be careful. We know the stuff is real. But what the hell is wrong about a jeweler backing up our opinion? That’s a lot of bullshit about having a buyer for those rocks. You hot bastards haven’t stuck your asses out of that door since I talked to you Saturday morning.
“The man hasn’t got ten grand. Maybe he can raise seven grand in an hour or so. We’ll be back for the stuff at seven grand. You’re fucking with the cemetery if we don’t get that stuff at our price. We got some muscle nailing down this hotel. So, don’t try to take a powder while we’re gone.”
Pocket followed them to the door and blubbered, “This poor white boy is blind. His rocks got a eighty-grand legit value. Why you gonna rob him with a measly seven grand? It ain’t right and I—”
The door slammed in his face. The ancient floor boards in the hallway squeaked as Blue and Bang Bang stomped away. Pocket mopped his brow with the back of his hand and sat in the chair beside the bed.
He shook his head and said, “Folks, my ticker almost stopped when Buster cracked on you for the line on the stuff. Line means the actual price doubled. It’s inside code that jewelers, pawnbrokers and fences use.
“A big time heist man with eighty grand in real rocks would know that. We’re lucky your stalling didn’t pull his coat that you were a phony. Let’s see the rocks. We want to make sure that Blue palmed the right fake that matches his real one for the appraisal.”
I dumped the bag of glass on the bed. The right one was missing. I noticed that all the ring bands were sticky. Pocket started feeling them. He reached for a corner of sheet to wipe them off.
I slapped his hand away. I got up and went to the waste basket. I remembered that I had seen something fall into it from Buster’s hand. I looked down at a blob of half-chewed gum. Then it struck me.
I said, “Pocket, that suspicious Buster bastard marked every piece of our slum with sticky juice from a wad of gum. He’s half-conned already that our stuff is real. The slick chump sonuvabitch took out insurance against a switch in rocks.
“Pocket! I just thought of something terrible. The genuine rock that Blue is going to switch in for the appraisal has no goo on it. What if Buster gets that ring in his mitt right after a jeweler has certified it, and before Blue has a chance to switch it out after the appraisal?”
Pocket sat for a long moment frowning in deep thought. Finally he grinned and said, “Shit, I ain’t gonna worry no more. Blue can handle that gorilla. I was leery at first. But after I heard Blue play that beautiful turn-around con for that mark, I ain’t got no doubt that Blue will let him wake up.
“What did Blue say, ‘Don’t try to take a powder. We got muscle nailing down the hotel’?
“Ain’t Blue playing some sweet con on that sucker? Blue took charge and out-gorilla’d the gorilla.”
I got up and checked out my noggin scar in the dresser mirror.
I said, “Pocket, you’re right. I guess Blue is just too fast and clever for a mark like Buster.”
A half hour later we heard three raps on the door. Pocket opened the door. Blue and Buster stepped in. Blue had a stern look on his face. The mark was poker faced. I rolled my eyes up to my favorite patch of wallpaper and cocked my head sideways.
Blue gritted, “All right, all right; the stuff, the stuff. Come up with it. The man has his seven grand.” I didn’t move a muscle.
Pocket mumbled, “It ain’t right. It just ain’t right.”
Blue thundered, “You ugly, shit-colored uncle-tomming motherfucker. Do I have to pistol whip your nappy head to make you understand that we want those rocks now—for seven grand?”
I trembled all over and pulled the bag from beneath the pillow.
I held it out and said, “Here, Harvey, all the rocks in the world aren’t worth a hair on your head.”
Pocket took it to the dresser and dumped the rings out. Blue and Buster examined them again. Buster ran a finger over each band for the goo test.
Blue winked at the mark. Then he turned and exploded, “There’s a piece missing. We looked at ten. Look in that bed for the missing one.”
Pocket came to the bed and fumbled around the pillow. He looked under the bed.
He shrugged his shoulders helplessly and pleaded, “I swear we ain’t holding out that piece. I don’t know where it is.”
Suddenly Blue and Buster burst out laughing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Buster shove his hand in front of Pocket’s eyes. The glass duplicate to Blue’s ring was on his pinkie.
Blue said, “You’re a piss-poor seeing-eye dog for the Polack. I took that sample of the rocks with us to make sure that my client was really buying the quill. Polack, you’re a damn fool to let the blind lead the blind.”
Buster counted a fat sheaf of bills to the dresser top. Pocket picked them up and counted them slowly.
He clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and said softly, “It ain’t right. It just
ain’t right that eighty grand in rocks should go for a measly seven grand. It just ain’t—”
Blue and Buster had gone through the door. We had made the score! I sprang from the bed and danced wildly to the window with Pocket in my arms.
I raised the shade and watched Blue and Buster shake hands and split up on the sidewalk. Just like Blue said, Buster went east on Madison Street toward the Loop. Blue U-turned and went west on Madison.
Pocket gave me the roll of C-notes. I counted fifteen of them into his palm. I pulled my scars off and scrubbed the stitches away with a wet thumb.
We dressed, and in less than ten minutes we were in the Buick. I U-turned and went up Madison to Kedsie, so that accidentally the mark wouldn’t be confused by the miracle of a blind Polack driving a car. I took a left turn at Kedsie Avenue and headed south.
At Forty-seventh and State Streets, Pocket said, “Don’t drop me at the poolroom. Take me home with you. I want to see Blue.”
Blue’s car was in the driveway and the front door was open when I pulled up to the front of the house. We went into the living room. Blue was sitting on the sofa. There were bottles of bourbon, rum, gin and scotch on the coffee table in front of him. We sat down beside him. I gave Blue a fifty-dollar bill and twenty-seven C-notes.
Blue said, “That mark is going to be in town until next week. Then he’s got to go back to New York to his muscle job for his numbers racket boss. He only had a two weeks vacation.
“Folks and I are going to lie low here in the house until he blows. Pocket, I would advise you to do the same somewhere.”
Pocket said, “Blue, I wanted to talk to you about laying around here with you and Folks. That is, if you got room for me.”
Blue patted his shoulder and said, “Sure I got room for you, Pocket. Stay as long as you like. Now I’m going to get on the phone and have three fine young pussies to come out here and stay overnight with us. It’s all on me. What do you want? White, yellow, brown or black?”
Pocket said, “I ain’t choicy, just so it’s young and tender and got a sweet taste.”
I poured four fingers of rum and said, “I pass, Blue. I’m not interested. I’m going to make a short call before you call the broads.”
I took my glass and went to the phone in the kitchen and called the Goddess.
17
MR. TRICK BAG
Blue, Pocket and I stayed off the streets until August. Pocket went back to his pool hustle. Blue and I went back to the smack, the drag, the flue and the rocks.
Two days after we had done our volunteer sentence at home, we were finishing our steaks in the Brass Rail Bar. We had just blown off a rocks mark. He paid a grand for the three hoops that cost us sixty dollars.
I said, “Blue, I was really tense playing for that mark. I thought he would crack something about rocks I wasn’t wise to. I can’t forget Buster’s crack about line on the rocks.
“Blue, I don’t understand why I never heard you or the old Jew that we get our slum from crack anything about line. It’s a bad feeling to have a mark crack something that I’m not wise to.”
Blue said, “Frankly, I didn’t pull your coat to it when I taught you the rocks because I didn’t think of it. The old Jew never cracked it when we went to buy stock because you were obviously my partner.
“I got wise to it years ago when I first came to Chicago. Every time I’d go to pawn something, the pawnbrokers would look at my goods and quibble among themselves about the line to let me have.
“I’d, for instance, ask for ten dollars on a suit. Finally, they’d agree with each other on a ten line loan. I’d walk out the door with five dollars. I woke up to their price code that way.
“Folks, I wouldn’t worry if I were you. Crack-wise marks like Bang Bang are few and far between. Besides, I’ll lay you odds that the line was the only thing I forgot to tell you about in any of the con games that we play. I wouldn’t put you in a trick bag. Say, Folks, why don’t you make Joe Hughes’s joint with me tonight? It crawls with fine young broads.”
I said, “Maybe next time. I’d doing my playing in the Loop tonight.”
I went to the phone and made a date with the Goddess for nine P.M. that night at the Palmer House. It was a plush hotel in the Loop that housed the famous Pump Room bistro. It was a favorite watering spot for top theatrical celebrities and business executives.
I was leading a hectic double life. The Goddess and I did our eating and drinking and sleeping together in the Loop’s finest restaurants and hotels.
She was wealthy, beautiful and lived in River Forest. But she wasn’t part of Chicago’s top social crust. Her Cicero beginnings were too humble to qualify her. Or perhaps she didn’t have enough dough to buy a membership. However, this was an advantage for us. We flitted tipsily like carefree butterflies through the neon and chrome gardens. We didn’t hide our affair.
We were together at least twice a week, and many weeks, more often than that. We were really getting to each other. The few nights that we didn’t meet were spent on the telephone. I had my own phone put in my bedroom so we could spend hours lying on our beds, sweet-talking to each other.
She had changed so much. Only rarely did she have the cruel, mean moods that I suffered through when we first met. I’d be in a dreamy fog while playing the con with Blue in the street.
I never got her out of my mind for a moment. Her emerald-flecked eyes radiated love for me.
When we met, we’d squeeze ourselves together like we’d been separated for years. At last I knew the racy, mad sorcery of love. Whenever I entered her, I felt the insane excitement that perhaps a gold prospector feels when he discovers a glory hole. We’d lie in fragrant shadows. She’d tell me in her gypsy-violin voice how much she loved me and that one day, she knew, I’d be her husband.
My paralyzed throat would ache to speak the truth that I really was the son of a black woman. I wasn’t sure enough of her yet to risk the confession. I couldn’t forget the hateful flare-up of disdain in her eyes whenever she talked about coons.
When October came, we had crushed countless dozens of roses. We’d often look wonderingly at each other and remark how strange it was that our few short months together seemed like always.
We drank a lot of champagne and Cutty Sark Scotch. I went to Peacock Jeweler’s and bought a beautiful platinum and ruby necklace for her. I was blowing a lot of dough. But what is dough when you’ve caught a Goddess in your lucky arms?
The first week in November I was alone at the breakfast table. Blue was still asleep. It was about five-thirty A.M. I hadn’t slept well for weeks.
I laced my coffee with Scotch. I had been doing it for a couple of weeks. I never ate breakfast anymore. I raised the coffee cup for a sip. I glanced at an open magazine on the table.
A big type caption posed a silly question to me. “Are you an alcoholic?”
I started to read the first paragraph. I snickered at the phrases, “morning imbibing, defective sleep patterns, physical dependence and oral compulsion to drink.”
I wasn’t hooked on the juice. I didn’t have to drink. In fact, I could stop at any time, and never miss it. I read the rest of the article. It wiped the amused grin off my face. The damn piece fitted the alcoholic symptoms to me like a glove.
I got up and dumped the heavily-laced coffee into the sink. I went to the bathroom and looked at myself critically in the mirror. Was I imagining that the whites of my eyes had an almost invisible pale aqua tint, overcast by a network of tiny red veins?
The slight puffiness of my face made my nose look shorter and smaller. I thrust my face closer to the mirror. Phantom lavender encircled my eye sockets. My palms got gluey with sweat when I remembered the scabby drunks festering on Madison Street’s skid row.
I went and sat on the side of the bed in deep thought. I’d prove to myself that I wasn’t a sucker for alcohol. I was certain I wasn’t an alcoholic. I was too young. I would just turn twenty-three on the fifteenth of January coming.
&n
bsp; Only old guys and broads could be alcoholics. But, yes, I was drinking too much. That’s why I didn’t sleep well and my face had a funny look.
Well I was a grifter, not a weak square John. I’d stop drinking hard stuff from this moment on. Maybe I’d still sip just a little sociable champagne with the Goddess on our dates. Everybody knew champagne was harmless, probably even therapeutic.
I took the fifth of Cutty Sark Scotch off the nightstand and dumped it into the toilet bowl. I put on my robe and went to the Buick. I got three unopened fifths from the trunk.
I dumped them into the toilet and said, “Mr. Trick Bag, you bastard, I’m through with you. Don’t think it’s been a pleasure. It hasn’t.”
I’d show the cocky author of that article that his rundown on chump drunks didn’t really fit me after all. For the next two days I didn’t take a drop. I slept worse and I had no pep in the street with Blue.
On the third day I got a tonic for pep from the drug store, I finished the bottle that same day. It boosted me from the washed-out feeling. That night I drank half a Jeroboam of champagne with the Goddess.
The fourth day after I had taken the pledge, Blue and I had just blown off a smack mark near the Greyhound Bus Station in the loop. I had a bottle of the tonic in my topcoat pocket. Blue was on the sidewalk watching me walk east and the mark west, to prove that we weren’t partners that had cheated Blue out of his money.
Suddenly, I and the milling crowd and the cars were sucked into a black, booming, nauseous whirlpool. My tongue staggered across my desert-dry lips. I tasted the brine streaming down my inflamed face.
My rubbery legs started telescoping down toward the pavement. I stumbled to a light pole, and turned and looked back at Blue. A pair of wide eyes starkly white, bobbed in a choppy sea of people.
He was staring at me with his mouth open. He glanced back over his shoulder. The mark wasn’t out of sight. As sick as I was, I realized how sticky the blowoff would be if the mark saw me leaning weakly against the pole.
He’d know I wasn’t on my way to meet him around the block to get his money back, and half of what we’d taken from Blue. He’d come back and loiter around to protect his dough. A bunco cop could make the scene and get wise.