Intuition told us that we had better lay low for a good while. The worst thing was that we'd been
seen. The police in that nearby town had surely circulated our general descriptions.
I just couldn't forget that incident over Sammy's woman. I came to rely more and more upon my
brother Reginald as the only one in my world I could completely trust.
Reginald was lazy, I'd discovered that. He had quit his hustle altogether. But I didn't mind that,
really, because one could be as lazy as he wanted, if he would only use his head, as Reginald
was doing. He had left my apartment by now.He was living off his "old settler" woman-when he
was in town. I had also taught Reginald how he could work a little while for a railroad, then use
his identification card to travel for nothing-and Reginald loved to travel. Several times, he had
gone visiting all around, among our brothers and sisters. They had now begun to scatter to
different cities. In Boston, Reginald was closer to our sister Mary man to Ella, who had been my
favorite. Both Reginald and Mary were quiet types, and Ella and I were extroverts. And Shorty in
Boston had given my brother a royal time.
Because of my reputation, it was easy for me to get into the numbers racket. That was probably
Harlem's only hustle which hadn't slumped in business. In return for a favor to some white
mobster, my new boss and his wife had just been given a six-months numbers banking privilege
for the Bronx railroad area called Motthaven Yards. The white mobsters had the numbers racket
split into specific areas. A designated area would be assigned to someone for a specified period
of time. My boss's wife had been Dutch Schultz's secretary in the 1930's, during the time when
Schultz had strong-armed his way into control of the Harlem numbers business.
My job now was to ride a bus across the George Washington Bridge where a fellow was waiting
for me to hand him a bag of numbers betting slips. We never spoke. I'd cross the street and catch
the next bus back to Harlem. I never knew who that fellow was. I never knew who picked up the
betting money for the slips that I handled. You didn't ask questions in the rackets.
My boss's wife and Gladys Hampton were the only two women I ever met in Harlem whose
business ability I really respected. My boss's wife, when she had the time and the inclination to
talk, would tell me many interesting things. She would talk to me about the Dutch Schultz daysabout
deals that she had known, about graft paid to officials-rookie cops and shyster lawyers right
on up into the top levels of police and politics. She knew from personal experiencehow crime
existed only to the degree that the law cooperated with it. She showed me how, in the country's
entire social, political and economic structure, the criminal, the law, and the politicians were
actually inseparable partners.
It was at this time that I changed from my old numbers man, the one I'd used since I first worked
in Small's Paradise. He hated to lose a heavy player, but he readily understood why I would now
want to play with a runner of my own outfit. That was how I began placing my bets with West
Indian Archie. I've mentioned him before-one of Harlem's really bad Negroes; one of those
former Dutch Schultz strong-arm men around Harlem.
West Indian Archie had finished time in Sing Sing not long before I came to Harlem. But my
boss's wife had hired him not just because she knew him from the old days. West Indian Archie
had the kind of photographic memory that put him among the elite of numbers runners. He never
wrote down your number; even in the case of combination plays, he would just nod. He was able
to file all the numbers in his head, and write them down for the banker only when he turned in his
money. This made him the ideal runner because cops could never catch him with any betting
slips.
I've often reflected upon such black veteran numbers men as West Indian Archie. If they had lived
in another kind of society, their exceptional mathematical talents might have been better used.
But they were black.
Anyway, it was status just to be known as a client of West Indian Archie's, because he handled
only sizable bettors. He also required integrity and sound credit: it wasn't necessary that you pay
as you played; you could pay West Indian Archie by the week. He always carried a couple of
thousand dollars on him, his own money. If a client came up to him and said he'd hit for some
moderate amount, say a fifty-cent or one-dollar combination, West Indian Archiewould peel off the
three or six hundred dollars, and later get his money back from the banker.
darsice
(darsice)
#1