He sang, “Shootin’ ’em up inside, heavy and good. Scratch piled up like cords of wood. Geez you look lucky, Jack. Seven, eleven point right back. That’s sure you, Jack. Go in fast. Come out quicker. Lady Luck is a bitch but you can stick her.”
His topcoat was a threadbare green-checked antique. The tops of his shabby black shoes had criss-cross holes snipped out. His bulging corns were humps pressing through the vents. He stank like a bootlegger’s garbage. There was something ghostly familiar in the banana yellow, Basset-Hound face.
I said, “Jim, I’m not in the mood to whale the craps. Say, don’t I know you?”
His transient eyes jerked their bags. They moved over my shoulder, searching down the sidewalk for a fresh prospect. His bald head glistened like a tiny yellow lake under the street lamp.
He said, “Jack, I can’t put a pistol on you. I can’t force you to go inside and collect your scratch. Kid, you too young to know me. You might a heard of me. I’m Pretty Preston. I gave the whores blues in the night when I was pimping at my peak. Who are you?”
His name triggered my clear memory of him. He had driven a gleaming black La Salle car. I had shined his shoes back in the pressing shop days.
Then he had been sleek and handsome like a yellow Valentino. I remembered his diamonds. They had winked and sparkled brightly on his fingers, in his shirt cuffs, even on his shirt front.
I thought, “Could this really be the same dandy? What had happened to him?”
I said, “Preston, I know you. I’m the kid who used to shine your Stacy’s back on Main Street. Remember me? I’m pimping myself now. You sure pimped up a storm when I was a kid. What happened? Why are you steering for this craps joint?”
He had a dreamy, far-away look in his dull brown eyes. He was probably remembering his long ago flashy pimp days. He sighed and put his arms around my shoulders. I walked with him through the door of the craps trap.
The raw stink of gamblers’ sweat punched up into my nose. We sat on a battered sofa in the almost dark front of the joint. Through a partition I could hear the tinkle of silver coins. I heard the flat cackle of the bone dice laughing at the cursing shooters begging for a natural.
He said, “Sure, Kid, I remember you. Christ, you got tall. I gotta be getting old. What’s your name? Kid, I been getting funky breaks since I came to this raggedy city twelve years ago. I’m just steering for a pal who runs the joint.
“Hell he needs me more than I need him. I’m gonna catch a hot number, or a wild daily double. Old Preston’s name will ring again. How many girls you got?”
I said, “Slim Lancaster, but they call me Young Blood. Blood for short. I only got one now, but with all the whores here I’ll have bookoos in a month. I just got in town tonight. I want to put my girl to work. Give me a rundown on some streets after I dash next door for a slab of ribs. I haven’t dirtied a plate since noon. Anything I can get you?”
He said, “Blood, if you must do something, get me a half-pint of Old Taylor at the corner liquor store. I’ll rundown for you, but you ain’t going to like my tail-end rundown at all.”
It felt good to step out into the fresh, chilly air. I stopped in the rib joint and put my order in. I saw the front of the Roost on my way to the corner.
I tiptoed and peeked through the bottom of the window blind. The joint was jumping. Pimps, whores, and white men crowded the circular bar.
Some skinny joker with scald burns on his face was fronting a combo. He tried to ape the Birds phrasing and tone. His tan face had turned black. He was choking on his horn.
Mixed couples danced to “Stomping at the Savoy” on a carpetsized dance floor in the rear. Silk broads itching for forbidden fruit sat in booths lining the walls.
Their faces glowed starkly in the red dimness. Their long hair flopped around their shoulders as they threw their heads back. They laughed drunkenly with their black lovers.
I took my peepers out of the slot. I walked toward the corner to cop the bottle for Preston. I made a skull note to pop into the Roost after Preston’s rundown.
I was fifty feet from the corner when I saw him. He was in the center of a small crowd. His high crown white hat was bobbing a foot above it. He was a nut brown giant.
As I drew closer I could see his snow white teeth. His heavy lips were drawn back in a snarl. His wide shoulders jiggled. He was stomping on something. It was like maybe he was a sharply togged fire dancer or maybe a dapper grape crusher from Sicily.
I squeezed through the crowd for a ringside view. He was grunting. His labor was yanking the sweat out of him. The crowd stood tittering and excited like a Salem mob watching the execution of a witch.
The witch was black. She had the slant eyes and doll features of a Geisha girl.
The chill breeze whipped back the bottom of his benny. The giant’s thigh muscles rippled inside the pants leg of his two-hundred-dollar vine.
Again and again he slammed his size-thirteen shoe down on the witch’s belly and chest. She was out cold. Her jaw hinge was awry and red frothy bubbles bunched at the corners of her crooked mouth.
At last he scooped her from the pavement. She looked like an infant in his arms. His eyes were strangely damp. He wedged through the crowd to a purple Hog at the curb. He looked down into her unconscious face.
He muttered, “Baby, why, why do you make me do you like this? Why don’t you hump and stop lushing and bullshitting with the tricks?”
Still holding her tenderly, he stooped and opened the front door of the Hog. He placed her on the front seat. He shut the door and walked around the Hog to the driver’s side. He got in and the Hog roared away into the night.
The crowd was scattering. I turned to a fellow about my age. His eyes were glazed. He was sucking a stick of gangster.
I said, “That stud would have gotten busted sure as Hell if the heat had made the scene.”
He stepped back and looked at me like I was fresh in town from a monastery in Tibet.
He said, “You must be that square, Rip Van Winkle, I heard about. He’s heat. He’s vice heat. They call him Poison. He’s got nine whores. He’s a pimp. That broad is one of ’em. She got drunk with a trick.”
I went into the liquor store. It was five-after-twelve. I ordered the half pint. The clerk put it on the counter. I swung my topcoat away to get my hide in my hip pocket. I had two hundred in fives and tens in it. I had five C notes pinned to my shorts in a tobacco sack between my legs.
My fingers touched the bottom of the pocket. My right hip pocket was empty. I was sure my hide had been on that side. I dug my left hand into the left pocket. Empty!
Within seconds both my sweaty hands had darted in and explored all my pockets a half-dozen times. The clerk just stood there amused watching the show. His hairy paw slid the half pint back toward him away from foul territory.
He said, “Whatsa matter, Buddy, some broad ram it into you for your poke or did you leave it in your other Strides?”
My mind was ferreting. It back pedaled, tore apart the scenes and moves I had made. I was a confused, jazzy punk.
I said, “Jack, your score is zero. I’m not a vic. I just remembered I got my scratch on Mars. I’ll be back when I get back.”
He was shaking his head when I walked out. I crossed the street. I was headed toward the Ford. I wasn’t going there to look for my hide on the seat. I was going there to peel off one of those C notes next to my balls.
I had remembered the scene back in the hype joint. I saw that rattlesnake lightning again. For the first time I saw the thrill of the cop on the face of the horse. The Fox had sure held my balls in the fire for Horseface.
I thought, “As slick as those two bastards are they can’t miss making a million or getting croaked.”
From that day to this one almost thirty years later no scratch has ever been in my hide.
I copped the bottle. I was hurrying to pick up my rib order. Old Preston was back out there bird-dogging suckers. I saw him point a joker into the joint. He slapped the balking sucker on the rump. The vic went inside. He saw me and hobbled toward me. For the first time I saw his crippled walk. He grinned when I laid the bottle on him. He said, “Thanks Kid, want first suck?” I said, “Jack, it’s all yours. After I get my ribs I’ll duck back in the joint and rap with you.”
