I was six storefronts away from the Roost. He stood in the center of the sidewalk. I looked down at him. He was a foot shorter than the runt. He looked like a black baby who had taken ugly pills. His head was the size of a giant pumpkin. His voice was a squeal like a clappy joker makes when the croaker rams a sound down his dingus.
He squealed, “Shine ’em up, Hot Shot. If I had your ‘hand’ I’d throw mine away. Get on bigtime. Shines ain’t but a dime. Shine ’em up.”
I looked down at my Stomps. They could stand a gloss all right. I followed the pointing, gnarled finger to the dwarf’s open-air stand. It sat at the mouth of a gangway between two buildings. The red fringes of its tattered canvas top rippled in the breeze.
I climbed into the chair. The dwarf was slapping polish on my Stetsons. A thin stud with at least a half a grand in threads on his back took the other chair. He was wearing silver nail polish. He was reeking with perfume.
A gleaming black custom Duesenberg eased into the curb in front of me. The top was down. My peepers did a triple take.
A huge stud was sitting in the back seat. He had an ocelot in his lap dozing against his chest. The cat was wearing a stone-studded collar. A gold chain was strung to it.
He was sitting between two spectacular high-yellow whores. His diamonds were blazing under the streetlight. Three gorgeous white whores were in the front seat. He looked exactly like Boris Karloff in black-face.
He was rapping something. All five of those whores were turned toward him. They were listening and paying attention like he was God giving them a pass to Heaven. He could have been running down a safe place to hide because the world was coming to an end.
I said, “Who is that?”
The dwarf said, “You gotta be from outta town. That Sweet Jones. He’s the greatest Nigger pimp in the world.”
The thin joker said, “That spotted cat, Miss Peaches, is the only bitch he cares lives or croaks. Shit, them whores you pinning ain’t but half the stable. If they got Nigger pimps in outer space, he’s the best of them, too. He’s gonna take them whores into the Roost and pop some. He’s lugging twenty G’s in his raise. Ain’t no heist man crazy enough to stick him up though. He croaks Niggers for his recreation.”
I couldn’t believe what I saw. This was only nineteen-thirty-eight. Those Duesenbergs cost a fortune. He must have been the only black pimp in the country who owned one. My peepers jacked off just watching him and those high-powered whores. It was as exciting as maybe Christ making his encore.
The dwarf had shined my Stomps. I gave him a buck. I sat there and watched Sweet Jones and those whores get out of the Duesenberg and walk toward the Roost. The black-spotted cat slinked beside him.
I thought, “Tonight I got to cut into him. I got to be careful so I don’t blow him. The cut in has to be in the Roost. I’ll go in and cook up something in there.”
I got off the stand. I passed Poison’s problem whore. She was sitting beside a joker in a red Hog. She had a bottle of gin in her jib turned straight up. As I neared the Roost I saw old Preston trying to shoo two marks into the Greek’s joint. Just as I turned into the Roost he bucked his eyes and jerked his thumb at me. He was tipping me Sweet was in the Roost. I nodded my head and went in.
It was an off night for the combo. The jukebox was grinding out “Pennies From Heaven.” The joint hadn’t crowded yet. There were maybe a half dozen couples in the booths. Sweet Jones and his whores were the only people at the log. They were in the center. The cat was licking her paws beneath Sweet’s stool. I sat at the log near the front door facing him and the stable. The pretty Mexican broad was standing in front of him.
Sweet was buying the house a drink. She served his party. She glanced at me. She remembered my drink. She brought me a Planter’s Punch on Sweet. The floor waitress loaded a tray from the log and served the couples in the booths all on Sweet.
I sat there studying Sweet. He had to be six feet six. His face was like a black steel mask. Not a flicker of emotion played over it. He kept smashing the heels of his brute-sized hands together like he was crushing an invisible throat.
Even at a distance it made me edgy. I guess it kept his whores on the brink of peeing on themselves. If he had smiled maybe they would have dropped dead from shock. He sure proved pimping wasn’t a charm contest.
Those whores lit his cigarette. They took turns feeding him sips of his Coke. They fought to ram their noses up his ass.
I froze; one of the white broads was whispering in his ear. Those unearthly gray eyes of his in the ebony sockets were staring at me. I could hear the thud of those meat sledges.
I thought, “Christ Almighty! Mama darling, I hope my double hasn’t put the muscle on this broad for some snatch or scratch. Please don’t let this broad bum-finger me!”
He slid his terrible pearl-gray peepers off me. I saw him pound the bottom of his glass against the log. The Mexican broad expressed to him. He was rapping to her. She was nodding her head and looking down the log at me.
My Stetsons on the stool rung were slamming together like the heels of a Flamenco Dancer. The jukebox was sobbing Lady Day’s beef about her mean but sweet man. I wondered if I’d see the runt again, and if not, how soon she’d get another ass kicker.
The couples in the booths were bug-eying the arena. It was maybe like the Circus Maximus. The doomed Christian, me, pitted against the king of beasts, him, plus the ocelot.
The Mexican broad came slowly toward me. Her face was tight and serious as she stood before me. She had pity in her peepers. She hated capital punishment.
She said, “Mr. Jones wants you to come to him pronto.”
She turned and walked away. I staggered to my feet. I started hoofing that thousand miles to Mr. Jones. On the way I dusted off the hundred-and-seventy-five I. Q. in my skull.
I got to him. The cat snarled under the stool. It pasted its yellow eyes on me. I jerked my eyes from the cat and kept them riveted to the floor. I was afraid to look into Sweet’s glowing peepers up close. I knew I’d crap in my pants.
He whirled around on his stool, his back to the log. I glued my peepers to the tapping tips of his needle-toed patent leather stomps. I flinched at each crash of his huge hooks.
He whispered, “Nigger, you know who I am? Look at me when I’m spieling to you.”
That teletype in my skull hammered out the escape hatch.
It read, “For this maniac you gotta be just like a Mississippi Nigger. You gotta pretend he’s a white lynch-mob leader. You gotta con him, but be careful, don’t get cute. Keep your nose square in his ass. Jeff it out all the way.”
I said, “Sure I know who you are Mr. Jones. You’re the black God of the sporting world. Ain’t a Nigger alive, unless he’s stupid and deaf, that ain’t heard your fame and name ring. The reason I don’t look at you is because I remember what happened to that sucker in the Bible that snitched a peep.”
His whores broke out into gales of laughter. Miss Peaches wasn’t a lady. She broke wind and grinned. Those patent-leather toes stopped tapping. Could I be selling it?
He reached out and grabbed my chin. He held my head up and cupped it in his giant hook. I flexed my belly to take up the slack in my bowels. Those deadly gray slits almost slugged me into a dead faint. When he opened his Jib I saw spidery webs of spit for an instant bridge his fat lips.
He said, “Little Nigger, who are you and where you from? You kinda look like me. Maybe I layed your Mammy, huh?”
I neatly side-stepped his booby trap.
I said, “Mr. Jones, I’m nobody trying in your world to be somebody. I was born right here in your town. Could be my Mammy went for you. What bitch wouldn’t? If I was a bitch I’d give you some scratch to get some.”
He said, “Nigger, you like fine white pussy? This dog of mine wants you to lay her. I give my whores what they want. You going to lay her for a double saw?
My skull raced out the warning, “Fool! Watch your ass!”
I said, “Mr. Jones, I don??
?t want no kind of a pussy unless it hangs on my own whore. Mr. Jones, I’m a pimp, like you. I don’t want nothing but some pimp scratch. My principles won’t let me turn no reverse trick.
“Mr. Jones, I ain’t no party freak. I want to be great like you. I ain’t never going to amount to anything if I screw up the rules of the pimp game. You the greatest pimp on Earth. You got great pimping by the rules. Would you want a poor dumb pimp like me to chump out at the start?”
His freak white woman pouted at his side. She begged Nero to flip his thumbs down.
She said, “Mr. Jones, make this pretty punk freak off with your baby. You don’t let nobody say no to you. Since he’s dreaming he’s a pimp it will be wild kicks for me. Force him, Daddy, force him. Show him who’s boss. Sic Miss Peaches on him.”
He shoved her aside. The boa constrictor uncoiled from around my chest. I saw contempt paint over the skull and crossed bones in his peepers. I drew a deep breath.
He roared, “You little pissy, green-ass Nigger. You a pimp? You can’t spell pimp. You couldn’t make a pimple on a pimp’s ass. Nigger, I’ll blow your head off through that ceiling. Don’t let the word pimp come outta your jib in my presence. Now get outta my face, Pussy. I oughta stick my swipe in your jib.”
The cat slithered from under the stool. She crouched on her belly and stared up at me.
I wasn’t David. Good thing I wasn’t. I was sure mad at the kooky bastard. I grinned and fished a fin out. I tossed it on the log and dragged tail out the door to the street. I was glad I hadn’t stacked that sling-shot switch blade in my pocket against that thirty-eight magnum stuck beneath Goliath’s belt.
The door smacked Preston a hard shot in the forehead. He had been peeping through a slat in the door blind. He rubbed his head. He looked scared.
He said, “Kid, I told you he’s nuts. You keep it up, a ground hog will be your mailman. To play it safe you better give me your Mama’s address. I gotta know where to ship your corpse. Where you going now?”
I said, “Look Preston, I didn’t cut into him. He cut into me. Hell, I ain’t no head-shrinker. I couldn’t handle the maniac. I’m splitting to the Ford to think.”
He was clucking his jib when I walked away from him. I collapsed onto the Ford’s seat. I was stinking from the fear-sweat in the bar. My pants were soggy.
I saw the white broad that was burning to freak off with me. She was holding the Roost door open. Sweet filed out. His whores strutted out behind him. They walked behind him to the Duesenberg.
A tall brown-skin joker with a gleaming head of processed hair got out of a red Hog. He was the gutty stud I saw pouring that gin down Poison’s girl.
Sweet’s stable had gotten into the Duesenberg. The shiny-topped joker and Sweet were rapping on the sidewalk. They pounded each other on the back. They looked like boon buddies. Miss Peaches stood lashing her tail at Sweet’s side.
I almost leaped out of my hide. It was Preston banging on the car window. I unlocked the door. He slid in. His peepers were ballooning, looking past me to Sweet on the other side of the street.
He was sucking air like a mackerel on the beach. He was shoving a rusty owl-head twenty-two pistol across the seat. He was trembling like the zero second had come to assassinate maybe F.D.R.
He said, “Kid, you sitting here hating him, ain’t you? You despise his guts. I saw the way you was looking at him. A bastard like him ain’t got a right to live on God’s green Earth.
“Do yourself and the world a favor, Kid. Take this rod and walk sneaky like down that sidewalk while he’s rapping to Glass Top. Stick the barrel in his ear and pull the trigger. Then quick, blow the cat’s brains out. It’s easy, Kid. You can do it.
“Every Nigger in the country will love you. Kid, it’s your chance to get great. Go on, Kid, do it now. You ain’t never gonna get a choicer chance.”
I said, “Preston, I’m not hip to the murder game. I don’t want to get hip to it. I don’t want to blow his brains out on that sidewalk and waste them. I want his brains to work inside my skull. You getting old, Preston. You can’t even dent the mustard. He screwed you around a thousand times worse than me.
“You can’t lose for winning. Why don’t you be the hero and croak him. Look Preston, take that tommy gun and split. I like you, but give me a break, huh? I’ve had a funky night and my skull needs a change.”
He said, “Kid, you think I ain’t got the guts? He ruined me, Kid. He destroyed me. He’s just another Nigger. He ain’t no bear, and that cat ain’t no tiger. I’m going over there right now and cash them out.”
Old Preston sprang out of the car. I watched him all the way. That game leg had him tilting from side to side. He looked like one of those doughty “Spirit of Seventy-Six” jokers on the posters around the Fourth of July.
I wondered if he was tanked up with enough rot-gut moxie to really fold Sweet’s dukes for good across his chest. Preston was on the other side of the street only twenty feet from Sweet and Glass Top. His mitt was rammed into his benny pocket keeping the rod warm and ready. Preston’s shoulders and back were stiff and straight. Sweet’s back was toward me. He was facing the sidewalk.
I thought, “The old Dingbat may do it. He sure had reasons. Sweet put the hurt to him all right. Will there be much gore? Will Sweet croak right away or flop around on the street like a chicken with its head wrung off? Will Miss Peaches leap up and cut Preston’s throat?
“If Preston croaks him I’ll have to cut into Poison. I’ll bleed his skull. He will be top pimp. Maybe a couple of those ten whores Sweet’s got will go for me. I’d be some kind of sonuvabitching young pimp in a Duesenberg.
Preston came abreast of Sweet. He had slowed to an amble. I could see his yellow mitt easing out of his pocket. He got maybe three feet past Sweet and stopped. He was going to do it! He was coming back for a fatal flank sneak.
At that instant Sweet turned his buffalo head and looked down at Preston. Miss Peaches stiffened. I saw a black cavern open in Preston’s toothless yellow face. The chicken-hearted bastard had been chilled by those awful gray orbs and the cat. He was grinning at Sweet. He scooted his empty hand out of his pocket.
Preston might have made it if Sweet hadn’t turned those lights on him. Old Preston bowed his bald head. He walked toward the Greek’s joint. His shoulders were sagging. His back was a stooped slouch. Old Preston had missed his choice chance at glory.
I just sat watching Sweet and trying to plot a way to cut into him. It looked hopeless. Finally, Sweet got in the rear seat of his Duesenberg. The cat leaped into his lap. One of the white broads roared it away. I saw Glass Top pat his greasy dome as he turned into the Roost.
I thought, “That glossy-top stud with a face like a pretty whore’s might be the tunnel to Sweet.”
I took my sponge out and freshened my makeup. I got out of the Ford and walked to the Roost. The joint was getting crowded. I was lucky. There was an empty stool in the middle of the log.
The beautiful joker was on a stool next to it. The memory of that four-slat tip out of the fin sent the tamale skidding to me. I sipped my Planter’s Punch. I drummed my Stetsons against the stool legs. Hamp’s “Flying Home” was rocking the joint.
A pack of white broads had a booth behind me. They looked like they had been to a P.T.A. meeting. Their perfume sent a medley of sexy odors through the joint. They were flirting their cans off. I guess they were writers. They were maybe doing urgent research on the “Sexual Habits of the Black Male.”
I wasted no time. I was afraid the pretty joker might split. I snatched my eyes from the excited pack in the mirror. I turned my head toward him and touched him lightly on the sleeve.
He was sure a wrong doer all right. He frogged at least three inches off his stool. It was like I’d stabbed him in the butt with a red-hot poker. He turned his shocked face toward mine. His silky long-lashed eyes were popped wide in alarm. He had panicked like maybe a cute nun caught naked in the Priest’s bedroom by the Mother Superior.
I
said, “Jeez, excuse me, Jim. I didn’t know you were in deep thought, I’m sorry I hit on you like a square. My name is Young Blood. I’m a friend of Preston’s. You must be the fabulous Glass Top. It would be a boss honor to buy you a taste.”
He patted his shiny mop and said, “Yeah, Man, I’m Glass Top. What’s your stupid story? You young studs sure ain’t got no finesse. It drags me to get hit on like that. When somebody touches me I like to be digging it and facing the stud, you know?
“I ain’t salty. I dig you ain’t nothing but a punk that needs his coat pulled to social polish and class. I ain’t no lush. You can spring for a Coke if you want. Tell her to sugar it heavy.”
The Mexican broad spooned sugar into a glass and brought his Coke. He stirred it with a straw. He raised the glass to drink. I noticed ugly black tracks tracing the veins on his light-brown mitt. He was a junkie for sure. He would know where to cop C, and probably gangster for the runt. He was also a pal of Sweet’s. Maybe I could make a two-bird killing here.
He said, “So, you know Preston? What’s your racket? You a till tapper or maybe a burglar, huh?”
I said, “I been knowing Preston since I was a kid. I used to buff his stomps when he was pimping. I’m no till tapper or burglar. I’m a pimp. You must be a pimp yourself. I saw you rapping to the best pimp there is.”
He said, “You a pimp? I ain’t never heard of you. Where you been pimping, in Siberia? Sweet ain’t the best pimp there is. I am. Pimps are just like cars. The best known ain’t no real yardstick to the best car. It’s like I’m a Duesenberg and Sweet’s a Ford. I got all the quality and beauty. He’s got all the advertising and all the luck.
“Sweet’s got ten whores, I got five. These whores in town ain’t hip to how great I am yet. When they wake up to me I’ll have to fight ’em off with a baseball bat. How many girls you got?”
I said, “I only got one girl now. I just got out of the joint, but I’m going to have ten in a year. This town will hear about me. I was thinking about cutting into some top pimp like Sweet. I’m not stupid enough to think I don’t need to learn a thousand times more about pimping than I know. I also need connections like for girl and gangster. I’m just a kid in darkness waiting for some brain to help light the way.”