Every weekend, I'd pay my bill-anywhere from fifty to even one hundred dollars, if I had really
plunged on some hunch. And when, once or twice, I did hit, always just some combination, as I've
described, West Indian Archie paid me off from his own roll.
The six months finally ended for my boss and his wife. They had done well. Their runners got nice
tips, and promptly were snatched up by other bankers. I continued working for my boss and his
wife in a gambling house they opened.
A Harlem madam I'd come to know-through having done a friend of hers a favor-introduced me to
a special facet of the Harlem night world, something which the riot had only interrupted. It was the
world where, behind locked doors, Negroes catered to monied white people's weird sexual tastes.
The whites I'd known loved to rub shoulders publicly with black folks in the after-hours clubs and
speakeasies. These, on the other hand, were whites who did not want it known that they had
been anywhere near Harlem. The riot had made these exclusive white customers nervous. Their
slipping into and about Harlem hadn't been so noticeable when other whites were also around.
But now they would be conspicuous; they also feared the recently aroused anger of Harlem
Negroes. So the madam was safeguarding her growing operation by offering me a steerer's job.
During the war, it was extremely difficult to get a telephone. One day the madam told me to stay
at my apartment the next morning. She talked to somebody. I don't know who it was, but before
the next noon, I dialed the madam from my own telephone-unlisted.
This madam was a specialist in her field. If her own girls could not-or would not-accommodate a
customer, she would send me to another place, usually an apartment somewhere else in Harlem,
where the requested "specialty" was done.
My post for picking up the customers was right outside the Astor Hotel, that always-busy
northwest comer of 45th Street and Broadway. Watching the moving traffic, I was soon able to
spot the taxi, car, or limousine-even before it slowed down-with the anxious white faces peering
out for the tall, reddish-brown-complexioned Negro wearing a dark suit, or raincoat, with a white
flower in his lapel.
If they were in a private car, unless it was chauffeured I would take the wheel and drive where we
were going. But if they were in a taxi, I would always tell the cabbie, "The Apollo Theater in
Harlem, please," since among New York City taxis a certain percentage are driven by cops. We
would get another cab-driven by a black man-and I'd give him the right address.
As soon as I got that party settled, I'd telephone the madam. She would generally have me rush
by taxi right back downtown to be on the 45th Street and Broadway comer at a specified time.
Appointments were strictly punctual; rarely was I on the corner as much as five minutes. And I
knew how to keep moving about so as not to attract the attention of any vice squad plainclothesmen
or uniformed cops.
With tips, which were often heavy, sometimes I would make over a hundred dollars a night
steering up to ten customers in a party-to see anything, to do anything, to have anything done to
them, that they wanted. I hardly ever knewthe identities of my customers, but the few I did
recognize, or whose names I happened to hear, remind me now of the Profumo case in England.
The English are not far ahead of rich and influential Americans when it comes to seeking rarities
and oddities.
Rich men, middle-aged and beyond, men well past their prime: these weren't college boys, these
were their Ivy League fathers. Even grandfathers, I guess. Society leaders. Big politicians.
Tycoons. Important friends from out of town. City government big shots. All kinds of professional
people. Star performing artists. Theatrical and Hollywood celebrities. And, of course, racketeers.
Harlem was their sin-den, their fleshpot. They stole off among taboo black people, and took off
whatever antiseptic, important, dignified masks they wore in their white world. These were men
who could afford to spend large amounts of money for two, three, or four hours indulging their
strange appetites.
But in this black-white nether world, nobody judged the customers. Anything they could name,
anything they could imagine, anything they could describe, they could do, or could have done to
them, just as long as they paid.