I said, “You haven’t heard about Iceberg Slim? He’s famous.”
He said, “You don’t associate with black filth like that I hope.”
I said, “Look Jack, I am Iceberg. Ain’t you proud of me? I’m the greatest Nigger that ever came outta our family. I got five whores humping sparks outta their asses.”
I thought he was going to have a heart attack. The apron was quivering over his ticker. He was supporting himself against a lamp post. His face was gray in shock under the streetlight. I jerked my shirt and coat sleeves up past spike hollow. I stuck the needle-scarred arm under his nose. He drew back from it.
I said, “Goddamnit Jack, what’s the matter? Shit, I shoot more scratch into that arm a day than you make in a week. I’ve come a long way since you bounced my skull off that wall. Stick your chest out in pride, Jack. I been in two prisons already. Shit, Jack, I’m on my way to the third any day now. You ain’t hip I’m important? Maybe one of these days I’ll really make you a proud father. I’ll croak a whore and make the Chair.”
I walked away from him. I caught a cab at the corner. The cabbie u-turned. I looked at my old man. He was sitting on the curb beside the lamp post. His white spats gleamed starkly in the gutter. He had his head on his knees. I saw his back jerking up and down. The poor joker was bawling his ass off.
I got home. I called Sweet. I banged a load of cocaine. It was the best I’d copped since Glass Top went to the joint.
15
IN A SEWER
After I had called Sweet and banged the cocaine, I had chilling thoughts.
“I’ve got five whores just like poor Preston had when Sweet crossed and destroyed him. I wonder if Sweet will dream up a cross to steal my whores from me? He knows where I’m padding. It would be as easy as lifting a telephone receiver. Sweet swears he loves me like I’m his son.
“These seven years on this fast track have hipped me to one solid truth. To a pimp there’s nothing more important than copping whores. While I’m holed up, I’ll keep my stable headaches a secret, I won’t give him a cue to volunteer his help. It would be a bitch to have him handling my stable. I’m sure glad Chris is a boss bottom bitch.
“Oh! This pressure is really screwing my skull around. Sweet wouldn’t cross me. I gotta stop mistrusting the only friend I got. I mean more to Sweet as his friend than any whore.
“Maybe I should make a run for it and set up shop in some other city. Christ! Why do I have to be red hot with federal heat? Why couldn’t it be city or state heat? On this fast track I’ve only been busted and mugged once. A dozen other times I paid off on the street.
“That F.B.I. is a sonuvabitching genius. No, I’d better keep my hot ass in town right here in this cruddy pig sty.
“The runt’s a whore. Maybe her new pimp or a trick will croak her. Then I could walk into the F.B.I. office and stick my black ass out to be kissed. They’d have no case without the runt as a witness.”
“The runt took Ophelia on all those out-of-state trips. I gave the runt instructions and expense money. I ain’t never told Ophelia to cross a state line. The runt was screwing Ophelia. That was really the runt’s bitch.”
“It’s a good thing I holed up in this rat’s nest. The F.B.I. would never look for a good pimp in a sewer.”
It was December, nineteen-forty-five. The war was over. The world was licking its bloody wounds. Drugs and the pimp game had hardened away my baby face. My hair was thinning. I was turning twenty-eight but I looked forty.
For seven years I had devoted myself to getting hip to that pimp’s book. I had labored with the zeal of a Catholic Brother agonizing for the Priesthood. I had thought and acted like a black God.
I was now trapped in my dingy one-room kitchenette. It was in a very old two-story building. I was on the first floor in the rear in number ten. Down the hall at night, rats would come scampering and squealing from the alley. They came under the back door which hung crookedly on its hinges.
I had a vague disturbing doubt in my skull. Was it possible I wasn’t even a poor imitation of a God? Maybe I was just a sucker black pimp on his way to a third bit in the joint.
Chris was the only one of the stable that visited me. We’d bang cocaine together. I wouldn’t let her know how worried I was. God couldn’t have skull aches.
I couldn’t let the others see me in a crummy setting. After all, how could a God live like a square chump? Chris knew all the reasons why. To her God’s farts still had the fragrant odor of roses. I worked out with Chris a smooth system. Even the best pimp has to keep some personal contact with his whores.
The system was simple and for a while effective. Chris and I would go out into the hall to the phone on the wall. She could call the stable at their pad. It would always be three or four o’clock in the morning.
One of the girls would pick up. Chris would pretend to be a long-distance operator. It was rare luck that Chris had a talent for mimicry. They didn’t get hip to it. It would always be a person-toperson call from me to one of them. Chris and I conned them the calls came from New York, Boston, and Philadelphia.
I would get on the line and talk to all four of them. There were extensions in all four bedrooms. I could con and tighten my game on all of them at the same time.
The first call we made was supposed to be from New York. It took maybe a minute for me to have all their horns to receivers.
I said, “Well girls, I know you’ve missed Daddy. You’ve all probably wondered, when in the hell is Daddy coming back to town? Jesus Christ! Has he forgotten a whore needs to see her man some time? Sure we’re in his corner. We prove that when we hump our asses off in the street. We check our scratch into Chris to send to him.
“Goddamnit, what could be so important that he neglects his whores? Well girls, I’m gonna show the kinda confidence Daddy’s got in you. I’m gonna hip you to a million-dollar secret. I know all of you will keep your jibs buttoned.”
Chris cut in crisply and said, “Three minutes are up, Sir. Please signal when through.”
I continued, “You are the luckiest whores alive. Your man’s got a genius white engraver for his pal. He used to be an engraver for the government. We’ve got some plates he’s just finished. We’ve turned out three-hundred of the prettiest hundred-slat bills the human eye has ever seen. They’re perfect. Even the government couldn’t get hip to a difference from real scratch. There ain’t any.
“We got one problem we’re gonna solve if it takes a year. We’ve run outta the special paper the government prints its scratch on. My white genius pal even knows how to make the paper. We are playing it cool and traveling and copping inks and other stuff we need. It’s tough to cop some of it, but for millions who’s going to give up? As soon as we get the paper made up we’re gonna run off a couplamillion or so slats.
“I’m gonna breeze back into town the only millionaire pimp in the world. I’m gonna buy a beach and a mansion in Hawaii for my stable. If we run outta scratch, we’ll just run off another bale.
“So stay cool and keep humping. Oh yeah, Chris got a cab to the airport an hour ago. She should be getting home in a coupla hours or so. She’s bringing each of you a piece of that beautiful lettuce. Spend it on anything you want. Take it anywhere, even a bank. Believe me, it’s perfect.”
I hung up. I had electrified them with the story. I could hear the excited thrill in their voices when they chorused goodbye. I told Chris to crack the genius had a way to make all the serial numbers on the bills different. I already knew what my story would be whenever I got the heat off me.
I could stall them a lifetime. I could say the genius got busted on another beef. I had to wait until he got out. He wouldn’t tell me where the plates were hidden. He could even croak while doing his bit.
Chris called the next day. The whores were walking on air. They rapped all night about that perfect “queer.” I was sure I had found the way to hold my stable. I felt like a genius myself.
Each time I talked to the stable after
that, the genius and I had just copped another vital item we needed. It wouldn’t be long now I assured them. Sweet had dropped the word in the street that I was on the West Coast taking off long scratch from a rich square broad.
It was getting almost impossible to sleep. I would almost jump from my skin when a tenant would knock. I would think it was the heat. The tenant would be calling me to the phone in the hall. When I did fall off into fitful sleep I’d have nightmares. Those dreams about Mama would hog-tie me on a sweaty rack of misery. I had an awful fear of another jolt in the joint. The guilty daydreams on the heels of the nightmares were torturing my skull.
I stopped banging cocaine. It only magnified my terror and worry. I remembered how serene Top used to look after a bang of H. He’d sit and coast like he was in a beautiful peaceful dream. Maybe he’d been right. Maybe sable H came after mink cocaine.
Chris came on Christmas Eve. She stayed until Christmas Day afternoon. She brought me pajamas, cologne and robes from herself and the girls. She had given them scratch from me.
My one-room kitchenette hideout was crammed wall to wall with trunks and suitcases. I had all those fine threads and no place to go. I was a lonely pimp bastard!
Sweet came to see me at midnight in January, the tenth I think. He took off his velvet-collared Melton benny. He hung it in the tiny closet. It had been ten-below-zero or colder for a week.
It was a brand new year, nineteen-forty-six. The new Hogs were out for the first time in several years. The garage rent was paid for a year for my old Hog. Chris had gone out several times to run its engine for awhile.
I thought “Christ it would be a kick to trade off and flash through the fresh air in a new Hog.”
It was the first time Sweet had visited me. He was getting white around his temples. There was less fiery voltage in his gray eyes. That H and the fast track had him looking terrible. He was getting old all right. He sat down on a suitcase at the head of the bed. I was lying down. Miss Peaches was an old lady, but still gorgeous in her mink coat and fur bootees. He slipped off her coat and shoes. He put them on the dresser. She sat on the floor looking up at me.
He said, “’Berg got bad news for you. The street wire says city rollers are carrying a mug shot of you around. You’re really hot now. I gotta wire that pimping Poison is nosing around your girls in the street. If you ain’t got Chris tight, he’ll steal her. She’s gonna hip him where you’re hiding.
“Maybe you oughta get outta this joint tonight. Take another hide out. Don’t let Chris or any whore you got know where you are. I’m your bosom buddy, sweetheart, and I love you. I’ll keep the stable in line for you.
“In the meantime I could figure an angle to get your balls outta the hot sand. All you gotta do is call your girls. Tell ’em you want Uncle Sweet to look out for ’em for a coupla weeks. It’s easy, Pal.”
I just lay there for a long moment feeling myself tremble. If he had been lovable Henry, my stepfather, saying he hated me, I couldn’t have felt worse. True, I had conquered the fast track, but that sucker inside me I couldn’t kill was hurting the hell out of me. I looked at him. Somehow I kept my voice steady and the pain outta my eyes.
I said, “Jeez Sweet, I’d have a bitch of a time trying to cop another friend like you. I feel like bawling just to think about it. I ran down my life story to you. You know I love you like I loved Henry. Maybe I love you, Sweet, more than I love Mama.
“Don’t think I’m a chump square when I say it. Sweet, you taught me to be cold-hearted. You’re the only person on Earth who could hurt me. The jokers in the street call me Iceberg.
“They’d laugh their asses off if they knew I was weak for a stud I love like a father. Sweet please don’t hip them I got a sucker weakness. Don’t ever do anything to croak my love for you. Sweet, if you ever do, they’ll all get hip.
“I’ll maybe fall apart and run through the streets wailing like a crazy bitch. Sweet, I’ll wait and think for a day or so. Poison can’t steal Chris. I’ll kick things around in my skull. Maybe you should be looking out for the stable.
The whole time I was talking, he had run his index fingers along the sword edges of his pant’s creases. His gray eyes had found the suitcases and cluttered room fascinating works of art. He swallowed air and tented his bejeweled fingers under his first chin.
He said, “’Berg, this joint is wrecking your skull. Sweet would chop his right arm off before he’d cross you. You’re the only friend I got, sweetheart. Shit, Honey, you could have a hundred whores and I could be whoreless. I’d ask you to give me a bitch. I wouldn’t try to steal no whore from you, Darling. You need anything? I gotta split. I got two whores I gotta pick up downtown.”
I said, “No Sweet, I don’t need anything. I’ll rap to you tomorrow. If you hear anything, wire me fast. I’m sure glad you dropped by.”
I heard his heavy feet pounding down the linoleum in the hall. They stopped. I heard them getting louder. He was coming back. I looked around the suitcase where he had been sitting. I didn’t see anything he had left. He thumped the door. I opened it. He had Miss Peaches in his arms. He was flashing the first gold-toothed grin I’d ever seen on his face.
He said, “’Berg I forgot to tell you. They found old Pretty Preston frozen stiff in the alley back of the Roost. The poor bastard had wrapped himself in newspapers. The Greek fired him a week ago for staying near the fire and not pulling marks on the sidewalk. The drunk half-white bastard thought the newspapers could stand off ten-below-zero.”
He turned and walked down the hall. I shut the door and fell across the bed. At three Chris called. I told her to stay away until my next phony long-distance call to the girls. I told her Poison might try to tail her, and maybe the F.B.I.
She told me they didn’t have a chance. She went in front doors of a half-dozen buildings then out the back doors before she came to me. When she got to my place she’d come in the back door and walk through the front door. She’d go through the alley then through the back door again before she came to my door.
Maybe they couldn’t keep a tail on her. I told her to stay away to play safe. I told her not to call from the pad. It would be a bitch if one of the girls picked up an extension.
Sweet called the next morning at one A.M. The broad next door answered the phone. She knocked on my door. I slipped on an overcoat and walked into the hall. It felt like zero out there.
He said, “’Berg, I just got the wire. Poison stole your young bitch, Fay. I hope she ain’t hip to anything that can cross you. ‘Berg,’ you gotta make some moves. I’ll keep my horns to the wire.”
He hung up. I was in trouble. I went and got back in bed.
I thought, “Poison’s gonna quiz that stinking bitch. She’s gonna spill that ‘queer scratch’ con I’ve been playing. To tighten his game on her he’s gonna wake her to the con. He’s gonna tell her I’m hiding out in the city.
“It’s a good thing Chris is in on the con. I could blow whoreless in an hour if she wasn’t. I need her to take the rest of the stable underground. Maybe I shoulda split outta town when I first got hot. I gotta move the rest of the stable fast.
“Poison is a cinch to pull their coats to the con I played. It’s the ace to play for a fast cop of maybe the other three. They’ll be salty as hell with me if he gets a chance to wake ’em up. Hurry Chris and call!”
At three Chris called. I ran to the phone in my pajamas. I almost froze to death talking to her.
She said, “Daddy, I had to call you from home. Poison just left with Fay and her clothes. The black bastard has wised up the whole family to that game we played. Dot, Rose, and Penny are larcenied to the gills. They’re crying and packing their clothes. I can’t hold them. They hate me. Poison came into my bedroom before he split. He acted and rapped like I was already his whore. If I’d had a pistol I’d have croaked the strong bastard.
“He said, ‘Well Miss Bitch, your Nigger is finished. You’re the only whore he’s got left. I know a fast pretty bitch like you
don’t want no pimp you gotta solo for. With my Fay cop, I got eight whores. I’m on the inside of this game. None of my whores take falls. I’m top pimp in town.
“‘You’re the best whore in town. There ain’t nobody but me you can take for your man. Bitch, come to me and you can be queen boss bitch of the eight-whore stable. Get your domes and get outta here with me and Fay. Iceberg is going to the federal joint.’”
She said, “Daddy, what happens now? Maybe Poison will come back and gorilla me. I’m so upset, I know any minute I’ll scream myself into a padded cell.”
The zero drafts blasting through the gap under the back door kept me from passing out. I felt cold sweat dripping down my shaking legs. My throat was having dry convulsions. My voice sounded like it came from an echo chamber.
I stammered, “Chris, don’t lose your cool. This is Iceberg remember? Like always I’ll put an angle together. Now listen carefully. Pack your things. Go down and get the building flunky. Pay him to take you to a hotel near the garage where the Hog is stashed.
“Check in and leave your things. Go to the Hog. Drive back and pick up your stuff. Go downtown and check into a hotel. Drive the Hog back and stash it back in the garage. Take an El train back to your hotel. Call me then.”
I went back and washed my face in cold water. I looked in the mirror. I looked like I had on a Halloween fright mask. I sure didn’t look a bit like a fresh-faced kid any more. The whites of my oncebright eyes were blood-shot and faded. The deep black circles looked like some tricky practical joker had conned me to ram inked spyglasses against the sockets.
I started looking for a yellow. I had to put a damper on my nerves. I had a little cocaine. I didn’t need racing. I needed some skull pacifying. I was out of yellows.
Somewhere in one of the suitcases I had a notebook. The phone number of a connection no farther than fifteen blocks away was in it. Maybe he had yellows. If not, what the hell, I’d cop a cap of H. One cap couldn’t hook me. Horse was a cinch to kick the jitters outta my skull.