Recently, the last three numbers of the post office's new Zip Code for a postal district of Harlem
hit, and one banker almost went broke. Let this very book circulate widely in the black ghettoes of
the country, and-although I'm no longer a gambling person-I'd lay a small wager for your favorite
charity that millions of dollars would be bet by my poor, foolish black brothers and sisters upon,
say, whatever happens to be the number of this page, or whatever is the total of the whole book's
pages.
Every day in Small's Paradise Bar was fascinating to me. And from a Harlem point of view, I
couldn't have been in a more educational situation. Some of the ablest of New York's black
hustlers took a liking to me, and knowing that I still was green by their terms, soon began in a
paternal way to "straighten Red out."
Their methods would be indirect. A dark, businessman-looking West Indian often would sit at one
of my tables. One day when I brought his beer, he said, "Red, hold still a minute." He went over
me with one of those yellow tape measures, and jotted figures in his notebook. When I came to
work the next afternoon, one of the bartenders handed me a package. In it was an expensive,
dark blue suit, conservatively cut. The gift was thoughtful, and the message clear.
The bartenders let me know that this customer was one of the top executives of the fabulous
Forty Thieves gang. That was the gang of organized boosters, who would deliver, to order, in one
day, C.O.D., any kind of garment you desired. You would pay about one-third of the store's price.
I heard how they made mass hauls. A well-dressed member of the gang who wouldn't arouse
suspicion by his manner would go into a selected store about closing time, hide somewhere, and
get locked inside when the store closed.The police patrols would have been timed beforehand.
After dark, he'd pack suits in bags, then turn off the burglar alarm, and use the telephone to call a
waiting truck and crew. When the truck came, timed with the police patrols, it would be loaded
and gone within a few minutes. I later got to know several members of the Forty Thieves.
Plainclothes detectives soon were quietly identified to me, by a nod, a wink. Knowing the law
people in the area was elementary for the hustlers, and, like them, in time I would learn to sense
the presence of any police types. In late 1942, each of the military services had their civiliandress
eyes and ears picking up anything of interest to them, such as hustles being used to avoid
the draft, or who hadn't registered, or hustles that were being worked on servicemen.
Longshoremen, or fences for them, would come into the bars selling guns, cameras, perfumes,
watches, and the like, stolen from the shipping docks. These Negroes got what whitelongshoreman
thievery left over. Merchant marine sailors often brought in foreign items, bargains,
and the best marijuana cigarettes to be had were made of the gunja and kisca that merchant
sailors smuggled in from Africa and Persia.
In the daytime, whites were given a guarded treatment. Whites who came at night got a better
reception; the several Harlem nightclubs they patronized were geared to entertain and jive the
night white crowd to get their money.
And with so many law agencies guarding the "morals" of servicemen, any of them that came in,
and a lot did, were given what they asked for, and were spoken to if they spoke, and that was all,
unless someone knew them as natives of Harlem.
What I was learning was the hustling society's first rule; that you never trusted anyone outside of
your own closemouthed circle, and that you selected withtime and care before you made any
intimates even among these.
The bartenders would let me know which among the regular customers were mostly "fronts," and
which really had something going; which were really in the underworld, with downtown police or
political connections; which really handled some money, and which were making it from day to
day; which were the real gamblers, and which had just hit a little luck; and which ones never to
run afoul of in any way.
The latter were extremely well known about Harlem, and they were feared and respected. It was
known that if upset, they would break open your head and think nothing of it. These were oldtimers,
not to be confused with the various hotheaded, wild, young hustlers out trying to make a
name for themselves for being crazy with a pistol trigger or a knife. The old heads that I'm talking
about were such as "Black Sammy," "Bub" Hewlett, "King" Padmore and "West Indian Archie."
darsice
(darsice)
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