The hustler felt that Pepper would be in a sweet state for pressure if solid evidence could be gotten showing Pepper as the dog she was.
The hustler was sure he could force her to help him in his scheme to trim the old man. He needed clear unfaked photographs.
His plan would be simple. Once he got the club over Pepper’s head, he would force her to sneak in phony “hit” slips against the policy wheel.
The hustler had discovered that for Pepper, from her inside position in the wheel, it would be very simple.
The hustler would pay me five bills after I had brought Pepper to a prearranged set up.
I was all for the scratch, and eager to give Pepper some grief for the way she had used me, and outslicked me.
Weeping told me the trap was set. I was to wait until Pepper itched enough to call me. I was not to call her.
Whenever she called I was to tell her to meet me in the bathroom of an old, but still elegant hotel on the fringe of the arcade and shooting gallery section of town.
I was then to call him. I was to make sure that at least two hours passed between her call and when I went to the desk and asked for the key to apartment two-fourteen. My name would be Barksdale. That name I’ll never forget if I live to get a hundred.
On the third day after I had gotten the rundown on the trap, Pepper called the store. It was eight fifty-five P.M., five minutes before closing. I answered the phone. She was burning blisters for one of our parties.
She invited me to her place as usual. I told her that I had to tidy up the store and also mail an important package at the downtown post office for my boss.
I asked her if she could get dressed and meet me by ten-thirty in the bar room of the hotel. It would be more convenient that way. She agreed.
I called Weeping. He told me to maneuver Pepper’s face toward the head of the bed as much as possible when we got into the act.
I went to the bar room and drank rum and coke until she got there.
I almost felt sorry for her when I saw her coming through the door. She looked so innocent and clean, not at all like the cruddy filly that humped up a funky lather beneath a mob of jockeys.
We took a booth so I could watch the clock. She was Jacqueline the Ripper with a fly, but she had a great gentle touch inside if you know what I mean.
She was a space buff all right. She was checking out my readiness for entry into inner space.
At eleven sharp Mr. and Mrs. Barksdale picked up the key to their pad. We walked onto the stage.
Wyatt Earp would have gone ape over the pad.
It was overstuffed horse-hair living room. Gleaming brass bed, giant cherubs on the wall, Gideon Bible on the marble top bedroom table. Midget, efficiency kitchen cubicle. So what, we hadn’t come to cook.
High on the wall over the bed were the two gold colored cherubs. Their eyes were holes, their mouths popped wide holding the light fixtures.
When we got into the brass bed we got the show on the road.
I was almost sure some steamed up joker in the adjoining room had his gizmo focused on the carnival through a drilled hole peeking from a cherub’s empty eye socket.
Pepper let me out of her Hog at one-thirty in the A.M. just two blocks from Weeping’s whore stand. I felt good. I was going to collect five fat ones for my pleasant night’s work. It was like having a license to steal.
I spotted Weeping’s pin-head in his Buick. As I walked toward him, I couldn’t stop thinking about that Eastern blackmailer. I thought about that green rain that would fall when Pepper started rolling those phony hits in. I thought about how I could catch a few palms full.
Smooth as silk the pay-off came off. When Weeping handed me my scratch he gave me a funny look.
He said, “Take it easy Blood, take it easy.”
The next day I went downtown and got clean.
It was the early years for the Nat “King” Cole Trio. They were playing for a two-buck dance that night at Liberty Hall. Party and I were in the balcony at a table overlooking the crowded dance floor. We were slaving like sand hogs trying to tunnel into the flashy high yellows on our laps. They were almost stoned. Ready for the killing floor.
Party saw him first coming in the front door of the auditorium. He knifed me in the side with his elbow.
Then con style, from the side of his mouth, he whispered, “Dalanski, the heat.”
The bastard’s head was on a swivel. He was looking everywhere at once. I felt mad butterflies with stingers ricocheting in my belly when his eyes spotted me and locked on me. I froze, his eyes were still riveted to me as he walked up the stairway straight for me.
I pretended to ignore him. He walked up behind me and stood there for a long moment. Then he dropped a hand like an anvil on my shoulder.
He said, “Get up! I want to talk to you.”
My legs were shuddery as I stood in a small alcove with him.
He said, “Where were you around ten and after last night?”
Relief and courage flooded me. That was easy; I hedged.
“Why?”
He said, “Look punk, don’t get cute. Where were you? Don’t answer. I know where you were. You were out on Crystal Road in the nighttime burglarizing the home of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Ibbetts. Night-time burglary is five to ten.”
My courage and relief swiftly drained out. Frank Ibbetts was Pepper’s old man. He was roughly frisking me now. He ran his hands into my side pockets. With one hand he brought out the three hundred dollars left from my pay-off, plus twenty clean dollars. The other came out with a strange brass door key.
He said, “Jeez, for a flunky in a drug store you got a helluva bankroll. Where did you get it and where and what does this key fit?”
I said, “Officer, that’s crap-game money. I have never seen that key before.”
He grabbed me firmly like he had captured Sutton and walked me through the dancers out the door to his short.
He took me down and booked me on suspicion of Grand Theft burglary. He also booked the scratch and key as evidence.
Mama came down bright and early the next morning. She was in a near fainting dither. She was clutching her chest over her heart.
She said, “Bobby, you are going to kill your mama. You haven’t been out six months and now you are back in trouble. What’s wrong with you? Are you crazy? You need prayer. Get down on your knees and pray to the good Lord.”
I said, “I don’t need to pray. Mama, believe me there is nothing to worry about. I didn’t steal anything from Pepper’s house. I am not nuts. Pepper will tell them the truth. Mama, I was with her.”
I got my first nightmare inkling of the cork-screw criss-cross when Mama broke into tears. She rolled her eyes to heaven.
She blubbered, “Bobby, there’s no hope for you. You are going to spend your young life in prisons. Don’t you know Son, your mama loves you? You don’t have to lie to me.”
“I went out to see her early this morning,” she said. “She told me she hasn’t seen you in a week. Mr. Dalanski has brought Pepper’s spare key down here. That key in your pocket was one you stole when you made a delivery out there.”
Finally, she went down the corridor. Her shoulders were jerking in her sobbing.
It was an iron cross. My public defender went to that hotel to get corroboration for my alibi. The joint had been too crowded, too hectic. None of the employees remembered Pepper and me. At least they said they didn’t.
The desk man on that night had been a substitute and wasn’t now available. My signature wasn’t on the register anyway.
I went into court again with the dirty end of the stick. I was a parolee arrested at one A.M. with a bottle of
