Pimp

  It would be two hours at least before Chris would call back. I found his number. I called him. I told him, in code, I’d pick up six caps within the hour.

  I had a fat roll of scratch in a sock pinned inside the sleeve of a trench coat. I started to take it with me. I stuck it in my benny pocket. It bulged like a grapefruit. I’d be back before long. I pinned it back inside the sleeve.

  I had close to sixty-eight hundred slats stashed there. I fished out three saw bucks. I slipped pants and a shirt over my pajamas. I put on shoes and a heavy benny.

  I was in a helluva hurry. I pulled the door shut. I heard the spring-latch lock. Less than five minutes after I had talked to the peddler, I was on the way. It was four A.M. when I left. The wintry winds almost snatched my lid off my skull. It felt good though. It was the first time I’d walked in the fresh air for months.

  A bleak overcast blotting out the sky. Slipping and sliding on the icy sidewalks, I finally got to the connection. He lived on the second floor over an all-night chili joint. The joint was crowded. There was no one on the sidewalk. I went up the rickety stairs and copped five caps of H. He put the caps into the cellophane shell from a cigarette pack. He twisted the end and balled the package.

  I took it and went down the stairs to the street. I had the sizzle in my hand. I started to walk by the chili spot on my way home. Two neatly dressed brown skin studs were standing on the sidewalk in front of the joint. Its bright lights floodlighted the sidewalk. It was like walking a show-up stage at a police station.

  From the side vent in my eye I saw them pinning me. They stiffened. One of them reached toward his chest. I looked back. He was showing his buddy a small square of paper. I started walking fast away from them.

  I remembered the sizzle. I downed it and walked faster. I knew they couldn’t see in the darkness that I had dropped it. I glanced over my shoulder. I saw a rod in the hand of the taller one as they ran toward me. I ran.

  They were bellowing, “Halt! Police! Halt! Stop or we’ll shoot!”

  I had reached the corner and was halfway around it. I saw a fourman squad of white detectives. They were cruising toward me in a police car. They threw a blinding spotlight on me. I froze. They all looked at me. I saw a shotgun muzzle ease out of a fast-lowering rear side window.

  The two rollers chasing me skidded around the corner. In a way I was glad to see them. Those rollers in the cruiser probably hadn’t croaked anybody in a week. I really didn’t want them to break their luck on me.

  The two held onto me like I was Sutton. The white rollers shut off the spotlight and moved slowly down the street past us. The shorter one had handcuffed my hands behind me. He showed his buddy the picture. They looked up at me.

  The taller one said, “Yeah, it’s the bastard all right. Look at the eyes.”

  They searched me head to toe. They saw the lone saw buck I had. They hustled me back around the corner. We passed a skinny black joker standing on the corner. He nodded at me. I recognized him. He was in my building. I had sent him for groceries and change for the phone a dozen times.

  I got a fast glimpse of the picture as the roller slipped it back inside his coat pocket. It was me. I remembered the pearl-gray sharkskin suit and black shirt. Top and I had been together four years ago. The two white rollers who had hit on us hated Top because he had white whores. They wouldn’t take a pay off. They booked us on suspicion of homicide and mugged us. Top and I were out in less than two hours. It was the one and only time I had been taken in on the fast track.

  They put me into the rear seat of an unmarked Chevy. They were in the front seat as the tall one drove away.

  I said, “Gentlemen, it’s not gonna put any scratch in your mitts to take me in. Let me give you the price of a couple fine vines to cut me loose.”

  Slim said, “Shit, you couldn’t cop one bullshit vine in a hock shop with the scratch you’re carrying.”

  I said, “I got more scratch at my pad. Knowing I’m Iceberg you can believe that, can’t you? Just run me by there, I’ll get it, lay a coupla C’s apiece on you and fade away. How about it?”

  Slim and Shorty looked at each other.

  Shorty said, “You think we’re suckers? You got a federal warrant for white slavery outstanding. We didn’t hear a word you said about that chicken shit four C’s.”

  I said, “All right, so we’re all like black brothers. The bad difference is the F.B.I. wants to lynch your brother in court. You gonna throw me to the white folks for hanging? I’ll give you two grand apiece to beat the F.B.I. outta their pound of black meat.”

  Slim said, “Where’s your pad?”

  I thought fast. It had been a mistake to crack about my pad. If I told them they could take my whole stash and still bust me or croak me. I was a fugitive. They might even come back to the stash after they took me in. I had the key to the kitchenette in my pocket. I tested them.

  I said, “You know Sweet Jones. He’s a friend of mine. I can get four G’s from him five minutes after we get to his place. I can’t take you to my pad. I got a close friend there. Suppose after we got there you’d change your minds about the deal. You’d have to book him for harboring me.”

  Slim said, “We can’t cut you loose. We couldn’t do it if you gave us forty G’s. I just remembered you were in that spotlight back there. One of those downtown men could have made you. Sorry brother, but what the hell? Federal joints ain’t bad to pull a bit in. Thanks for popping up like you did. You make a great pinch for us.”

  16

  AWAY FROM THE TRACK

  They locked me up in central jail. At dawn a jail trusty brought a basket of bologna sandwiches down the line of cells. A moment later another trusty brought a gigantic kettle of black stinking chicory. I passed up the delicacies.

  The tiny cell was too small for two men. Eight of us were in it. I was lying on the concrete floor. I was using my rolled up benny as a pillow. My lid shielded my eyes from the bright bare bulb in the corridor.

  My cellmates were bums and junkies. Two of them were getting sick. They were puking all over. The bums were stinking almost as bad as the junkies. A drunk lying beside me dug his fingernails into his scalp and crotch over and over. He scratched his back against the floor. He had to be lousy. It was rough going for a pimp all right.

  I thought, “If someone had told me a year ago I’d be back in a shit-house I’d have thought he was nuts. Christ! I hope nothing happens to Chris. She’s the only link to the outside I can trust to get my clothes and scratch.

  “I know after she calls and can’t get me at the pad she’ll check out all the shit-houses. It’s a good thing I’m not in the federal lockup at county jail. Here she can grease a mitt and see me. I hope she makes it before the U. S. Marshal shows to move me.”

  At nine the turnkey came and called out my name. I went to the cell door. He looked hard at me through the bar. He twisted the cell-lock open. I stepped out into the corridor and followed him.

  He took me to a break-proof glass window with a speaking hole in it. I saw Chris on the other side of it. She was crying. I couldn’t blame her. I felt like crying with her. I bent down and put my mouth to the hole. She stuck an ear against it on her side.

  I said, “Baby, there’s nothing to cry about. You’re Daddy’s brave bitch, remember? Now listen. I want you to give the copper at the property desk a double saw or so for the key to my pad.

  “I want you to get my scratch outta the sleeve of my green trench coat. Rent a safe-deposit box. Then move my stuff to your hotel. The Fed’s are gonna take me back to Wisconsin. They call it the point of origin for the runt’s beef.

  “They’ll set a bond for me there. I’ll get a slick lip in Wisconsin, Baby you keep checking. Get to Wisconsin a day before I do with the scratch. I’ll need it for the lip and bail, understand Sugar? Once I get bail, I’ll get our stable back and beat this rap.”

  I took my jib from the hole and put my horn there.

  She said, “Daddy, I’ll do everything the
way you say. I understand. Daddy, I’ll go and get the key to your latest hideout. Where did you move? I thought you were going to wait for my call?”

  It didn’t register. Maybe I was cracking up under all the strain and grief. Maybe I had moved before I got busted. I raised my head and looked at her. Her eyes were questioning. I pointed my index finger at the hole. I decided to risk my theory that I hadn’t moved.

  I said, “Chris, goddamnit! I haven’t moved! All my stuff is still on West Ave. Now come on, girl, this is not the time for jokes from Daddy’s witty bitch. You knocked on the door, I wasn’t there. Naturally, I couldn’t be, I was down here.”

  She said, “Daddy, I didn’t have to knock. The door was wide open. Both trunks and all the suitcases were gone. In fact the only thing left was your hair brush. I put it in my purse. Daddy, all this is too much for me. I must be losing my mind.”

  I stood there glaring hate at her. Her eyes were wide, staring at me.

  I thought, “Poison or Sweet has stolen this Judas-bitch from me. I’m in a cross. One of them has rehearsed this bitch. She’s a sonuvabitching actress. A sucker looking at that innocent look she’s got would have to buy the con. I hate this bitch worse than I do the runt. If I could just get my hands around her throat. I’d love to see her tongue turned black, flopping across her chin.

  “Well, I can’t croak her through that glass wall. No matter what, I’ve gotta stay Iceberg, I can’t let her take back a chump emotional scene to report. She and her new man are not gonna get their kicks at my expense.”

  I turned and walked away from her. I saw the turnkey at the far end of the corridor with his back to me. Good thing for me he hadn’t been close enough to lock me back in the cell right away. I was twenty feet from her when it exploded in my skull.

  I thought, “It’s the skinny flunky! It’s the skinny flunky! It’s the bastard that saw me get busted! He rushed back and sprang that spring latch. I gotta go back to Chris and really play some game. If she gets hip I don’t trust her she’ll blow for sure. She’s the only stick I got to fight with.”

  I turned back toward her. She was still standing there. She was crying harder than before. I walked to the glass and spoke into the hole.

  I said, “Chris, a joker in the building saw me get busted. He cleaned me out. Baby, we’ve been so close. I had a crazy thought that if you’d been there I wouldn’t have been robbed. What the hell, Sugar, I’m the bastard that kept you away. It wasn’t your fault at all.

  “Christ! I’ll be glad when this is over. Give a lip here in town a half a yard or so. Have him come to county jail and bring me whatever papers are needed to sell the Hog. Get the slip on the Hog from the property desk. It’s in my wallet. We should get twenty-five hundred or so for it. Bring that scratch and all you can hump up onto Wisconsin.”

  They moved me to Wisconsin. Chris came to county jail there and put three-thousand dollars in my jail account.

  Mama came to see me. She was in pieces. She thought the government was going to give me fifty years.

  At my hearing, bail was set at twenty-thousand. A bondsman put up the face amount. His fee was two G’s. I got the state’s best criminal lip. I gave him a G retainer.

  Chris and I went back to the track. I stayed out on bail for four months. I had two turnouts and three seasoned whores during that time. None stayed longer than a month.

  Everybody in the street knew about that rap over my head. I guess the whores didn’t want to fatten a frog for snakes. Sweet and I didn’t see much of each other. I didn’t feel close to him any more. I was a pimp on the skids. Poison was top pimp.

  Every slat I got my hands on I wired to the lip. I had to. I was getting one continuance after another. Finally I went to trial. The runt and Ophelia were there. They were afraid to look at me. They gave the government a penitentiary case all right.

  They grinned at each other when I got eighteen months. Mama fainted. Chris boo-hooed. I had a good lip though. With the counts against me I could have gotten ten years. Chris went back to the track. She swore she’d stick until I got out.

  Leavenworth was what the government called a class-A joint. It was big and escape proof. It was run by master psychologists. There was no screw brutality. It wasn’t necessary. The invisible mental shackles were subtle but harder than the steel bars. Alcatraz was the grim trump the officials held over our heads.

  It was a joint of con cliques. The most dangerous clique was the Southern cons. They hated Negroes!

  I had references as a cellhouse orderly from other joints. I got a spot in a cellhouse with mostly pimps, dope dealers and stick-up men.

  I was out at night until ten exchanging newspapers and magazines for the cons. I’d been in the joint about six months. I stopped in front of a cell to rap to a pimp pal. He was excited and standing gripping the bars of his cell door. He was a yellow version of Top. They called him Doll Baby.

  He said, “’Berg, you told me I couldn’t steal the beautiful bitch. Well, the bitch sent me a kite this morning. She’s transferring to the shoe shop. I already got the spot picked out where I can sock it into her.

  “I told you that square-ass peckerwood she’s got couldn’t out-play me. The bitch is got four bills on the books. She’s getting me a big order on commissary this week. Shit, on the street or in the joint it’s all the same to pimping Doll Baby.”

  I had seen the beautiful bitch. He was a lanky white boy with watery blue eyes and bleached corn-silk hair. A fat red-faced Southern con was madly in love with him. The beautiful bitch would lie in the fat con’s arms in the yard and pick at the pimples on his face. The con was feared by everyone. He was the leader of a treacherous band of Southern cons.

  I said, “Doll, you better cut that bitch loose. Her old man is from Mississippi. He’s a cinch to cut your heart out in that yard. He can’t let a Nigger steal his broad. Take my advice, pal. I like you. You’ve only a year to go.”

  The next time on the yard I saw Doll and his bitch billing and cooing on the grass. They didn’t see any of the ball game. The game was over. The fat con and his band of Southern shiv men had been evil eyeing Doll’s show. I was fifty yards back of Doll when it happened.

  Hundreds of cons were pressed together filing from the bleachers and playing field. I saw Doll throw up his hands and scream. He disappeared. The gray tide moved on. Three screws were standing over him. He was on his back. Blood was gushing from his open mouth. Blood seeped from holes in his jacket.

  He lived, but he had a bitch of a time making it. He stayed hitchless for the rest of his bit.

  Chris stopped sending me scratch or anything. I got a wire she’d squared up and married a pullman porter. She even had a baby. I wondered if the sucker knew what a boss bitch he had.

  I was filing out to sick call one morning. A group of cons on the other side of the road was filing to work. I saw a con marching behind a dark-complexioned con raise something that glinted in the sun. It was a shiv. He was chopping away at the con. Finally the con folded dead. Screws rushed up and took the hatchet man away.

  I was two months from release. I had stopped to rap to an old con forger who knew Sweet. We were shooting the breeze about stick-up men and how they stacked up in the skull department with pimps and con men. We were rapping loud. I knew the night screw was at his desk four tiers down on the ground floor.

  I said, “Pops, a stick-up man is gotta be nuts. The stupid bastard maybe passes a grocery store. He sees the owner checking his till. Right away a stupid idea flashes inside his crazy skull. ‘That’s my scratch.’

  “The screwy heist man walks in. Maybe the grocer is a magician or an ex-acrobat with a degree in karate, worse an ex-marine. The silly sonuvabitch doesn’t realize the awful odds. He ain’t got enough in his dim skull to think about the trillion human elements. Any one of them can put him in his grave. The suicidal sonuvabitch maybe has his back to the street with his rod in his mitt. Pops, the stick-up man is champ lunatic in the underworld.”

  Po
ps agreed and I walked away down the tier. I heard a hiss from the cell next to Pops’. A new transfer was standing at his cell door. He was skinny with a rat face. I stopped. He was sneering at me. His hands were trying to crush the rolled-steel bars.

  He stuttered, “You you lousy pim-pim-pimp motherfucker. You you pu-pu-pussy-eating sonuvabitch. You-you ain’t going to live your bit out.”

  I went fast to get a rundown on the nut from a stud on the tier below.

  He said, “Ah, ’Berg, I hope you haven’t crossed that dizzy bastard. He croaked a stud in Lewisburg. They hung fifty on him. He’s a heist man. You better watch him close. He’s a cinch to make the Rock or loony bin.”

  It was a week later just after the cellhouse filed out to the shops. The cellhouse screw had signaled “sick call.” I was standing in the back of the cellhouse on the flag. I was lighting a cigarette to smoke before I started mopping and waxing the flag.

  Somewhere above me an excited voice shouted, “Look out, ’Berg.”

  I looked up and chilled. A plummeting shadow flashed like black lightning in my eyes. I heard a whooshing whistle as it scraped gently against the cloth of my shirt at the tip of my shoulder. A dozen cymbals clashed as it grenaded against the flagstone at my side. I looked down. A steel mop wringer lay in three pieces. There was a Rorschach crater in the flagstone. Its outline was like a headshrinker’s blot.

  I stared at it and idly wondered what the prison head-shrinker could make of it. He was a slick joker. Months ago he had told me, “Pimps have deep mother hatred and severe guilt feelings.”

  I looked up. It wouldn’t take a head-shrinker to figure this one. The rat-faced heist man was grinning down at me. He was on his gallery on the fourth tier near the ceiling. He had stayed for “sick call” to bomb my skull off. The crater symbol was easy. Rat-face hated pimps without guilt feelings tied in. That night I took a pack of butts to the con who had screamed out the warning to me.