CHAPTER EIGHT

TRAPPED

There was the knocking at the door. Sammy, lying on his bed in pajamas and a bathrobe, called
"Who?"
When West Indian Archie answered, Sammy slid the round, two-sided shaving mirror under the
bed, with what little of the cocaine powder-or crystals, actually-was left, and I opened the door.
"Red-I want my money!"
A .32-20 is a funny kind of gun. It's bigger than a .32. But it's not as big as a .38. I had faced down
some dangerous Negroes. But no one who wasn't ready to die messed with West Indian Archie.
I couldn't believe it. He truly scared me. I was so incredulous at what was happening that it was
hard to form words with my brain and my mouth.
"Man-what's the beef?"
West Indian Archie said he'd thought I was trying something when I'd told him I'd hit, but he'd paid
me the three hundred dollars until he could double-check his written betting slips; and, as he'd
thought, I hadn't combinated the number I'd claimed, but another.
"Man, you're crazy!" I talked fast; I'd seen out of the corner of my eye Sammy's hand easing
under his pillow where he kept his Army .45. "Archie, smart a man as you're supposed to be,
you'd pay somebody who hadn't hit?"
The .32-20 moved, and Sammy froze. West Indian Archie told him, "I ought to shoot you through
the ear." And he looked back at me. "You don't have my money?"
I must have shaken my head. "I'll give you until twelve o'clock tomorrow." And he put his hand
behind him and pulled open the door. He backed out, and slammed it.

It was a classic hustler-code impasse. The money wasn't the problem. I still had about two
hundred dollars of it. Had money been the issue, Sammy could have made up the difference; if it
wasn't in his pocket, his women could quickly have raised it. West Indian Archie himself, for that
matter, would have loaned me three hundred dollars if I'd ever asked him, as many thousands of
dollars of mine as he'd gotten ten percent of. Once, in fact, when he'd heard I was broke, he had
looked me up and handed me some money and grunted, "Stick this in your pocket."
The issue was the position which his action had put us both into. For a hustler in our sidewalk
jungle world, "face" and "honor" were important. No hustler could have it known that he'd been
"hyped," meaning outsmarted or made a fool of. And worse, a hustler could never afford to have it
demonstrated that he could be bluffed, that he could be frightened by a threat, that he lacked
nerve.
West Indian Archie knew that some young hustlers rose in stature in our world when they
somehow hoodwinked older hustlers, then put it on the wire for everyone to hear. He believed I
was trying that.
In turn, I knew he would be protecting his stature by broadcasting all over the wire his threat to
me.