Authors: Iceberg Slim
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.”
He said, “Stay cool, Blood. I just remembered I left my kitty’s slammer open. I’ll be back after I lock it.”
I looked in the mirror and saw him go out. He turned left towards the Greek’s joint. I knew he was going to Preston to check me out. When he walked out that panting pack behind me turned as one. It was like Gary Grant had walked out.
The jukebox was moaning gut-bucket blues. Some joker was singing “Going down slow; Don’t send no Doctor; Doctor sure can’t do no good; Please write my mother, tell her the shape I’m in; I’m going down slow.”
I remembered it had been my father’s favorite record. He had kept it spinning on the rich Victrola. I remembered his shocked face there in the doorway when he discovered it and everything else gone. I wondered if he were alive and still in town. If I ran into him I sure wouldn’t know what to say to him after all these years.
I saw the silk chicks crane their necks toward the door. I switched my eyes left in the mirror. I saw Glass Top coming in. Those chickens were clucking when he sat down.
I said, “Jack, aren’t you afraid those silk broads behind us will rape you?”
He said, “Shit, if you stripped and searched all of ’em you wouldn’t find a C note. They ain’t nothing but square housewives. They sick of that half-ass screwing at home. They laying to swindle chump Niggers outta their youth.
“They know enough on each other to keep all their jibs sealed. Ain’t a chance for their husbands to tumble to what’s going on. So what if some white joker who knows ’em made this scene and saw ’em? Everyone of ’em is just slumming out with the girls. Jack, what they got is a secret sex club.”
I said, “Top, I’m frayed. I sure wish I had a snort of girl. Can you score?”
He told me, “Blood, I believe you are a down young stud. I got news for you. You can score right with me. I got the best girl and boy in town. Even my reefer is dynamite. Blood, I love you. You got heart. How much stuff you want?”
I said, “What’s the bite for girl?”
“A fin a number-five cap. A sixteenth for a C. A piece for a grand. I got a cozy pad around the corner. There you can fly to the moon, Pimping Buddy.”
I said, “Top, let’s split to your pad. If your girl is mellow I’ll maybe go for a C note.”
I threw a fin on the log. The Mexican showed me her choppers like I was her dentist. Three square black studs were standing rapping to the purring pack in the booth.
We went out and got in Glass Top’s Hog. My foot struck a bottle. I looked down. It was the dead gin soldier Poison’s whore had sucked dry. The Hog shot from the curb like a red torpedo. Eckstein’s syrupy “Cottage For Sale” oozed from the Hog’s radio.
I thought, “I sure gotta hurry and get my ass into a Hog at least. I’ll cop a Duesenberg in maybe a year. Geez, it must be one-thirty. I shoulda checked on the runt. My luck is changing though. This glossy-top joker is my in to Sweet.”
He lived in a plush apartment building. It had all the jazz. Technicolored lights spotlighted the exterior. Fake rubber plants stood tall in the foyer.
We took a chrome-and-brass elevator to his second-floor pad. Thick red broadloom carpet wall to wall in the hall. Fresh black and gold paint sparkled the walls and ceilings.
A Polynesian-type dream took our bennys and my lid in a small silver-mirrored entrance hall. My feet sank into the soft lavender carpet. I could hear the deep-throated boom of a console phonograph. The Ink Spots’ lead tenor was parfaiting “Whispering Grass.”
I followed Top and the olive-tinted beauty into the womb-like living room. Double heavy lavender drapes covered the windows. Not a beam of street light or sunshine could violate this pimp’s lair.
Top and I sat on a long gray sofa. It had cost him a big buck to lower the ceiling with the silver lame fabric. The only light came from the glass-topped cocktail table. It gurgled and flashed a pale blue light.
A score of yellow, red, and orange tropical fish streaked inside the aquarium built six inches below the tabletop. Two gray rubber hoses at each end of the tank ran down into the lavender carpet. It was a slick drain off and fresh water gimmick.
The broad was almost naked. She stood wide legged in front of us like a bellhop waiting for orders. The table’s blue light behind her silhouetted her Coca Cola bottle curves inside the flame red shortie gown. I saw a four-inch cone of jet hair between her thighs. She had a rare cat with that extra dimension. I unglued my eyes and looked into her face. She had the dreamy eyes of a freakish “Mona Lisa.”
He said, “Bitch, bring a coupla outfits and some caps of girl and boy. Oh yeah, Blood, this is Radell.”
That awesome round butt of her’s jiggled as she wiggled past me. The big white phonograph in the corner was booming out a novelty tune. “When your pipes get dry then you know you’re high. Everything is dandy. You truck on down to the candy store but you don’t get no peppermint candy. Then you know your body’s sent, you don’t care if you don’t pay rent. Light a tea and let it be if you’re a viper.”
“This pretty gowster is sure pimping his ass off,” I thought.
“He’s a crazy gowster if he thinks he’ll con me into banging any
H. I’m not even sure about shooting the girl. Of course, I can’t come off like a hayseed either.”
I said, “Jim, you sure ain’t jiving. Your layout is a sonuvabitch.”
He said, “I got five bedrooms here. These whores on this fast track dig front and flash. You can’t pimp here unless you got ’em. Jack, this C I got ain’t going to let you split for awhile. You may as well shed your threads and get in the groove.”
The broad brought the outfits, a spoon and a dozen white and brown caps. She put them on the cocktail table. She slid it closer to us. The water tidal-waved in the tank. The fish darted in a frenzy. She stooped and started unlacing Top’s shoes. I reached into my pocket for a C note. I had peeled it off from my crotch stash before leaving the Haven.
He said, “This flight is on me. It’s a sample. You can cop what you want later.”
We stripped our clothes off to our shorts. His were candy-striped silk. I felt like a bum in my white cotton jocks.
The broad draped our clothes on each arm of the gray overstuffed chair across the room. She didn’t have any of my scratch in her mit when she came away. She stood next to me. The phone on the end table beside him jangled. He uncradled it.
He said, “Castle of Joy, what’s your desire? Oh yeah, Angelo, she’s here. Hell no she ain’t dossing. She’s on her way.”
He hung up and said, “Bitch, just slip your benny on and get
downtown to that head bellboy at the Franklin Arms. Dimples and the other girls are getting more action than they can turn. Take the key to the kitty and get there fast.”
The broad zipped out of there in less than three minutes. She sure liked getting her man some money. Those tricks at the Franklin were going to give their swipes a treat all right.