develop until she was his virtual slave.
Around Harlem, the narcotics squad detectives didn't take long to find out I was selling reefers,
and occasionally one of them would follow me. Many a peddler was in jail because he had been
caught with the evidence on his person; I figured a way to avoid that. The law specified that if the
evidence wasn't actually in your possession, you couldn't be arrested. Hollowed-out shoe heels,
fake hat-linings, these things were old stuff to the detectives.
I carried about fifty sticks in a small package inside my coat, under my armpit, keeping my arm
flat against my side. Moving about, I kept my eyes open. If anybody looked suspicious, I'd quickly
cross the street, or go through a door, or turn a comer, loosening my arm enough to let the
package drop. At night, when I usually did my selling, any suspicious person wouldn't be likely to
see thetrick. If I decided I had been mistaken, I'd go back and get my sticks.
However, I lost many a stick this way. Sometimes, I knew I had frustrated a detective. And I kept
out of the courts.
One morning, though, I came in and found signs that my room had been entered. I knew it had
been detectives. I'd heard too many times how if they couldn't find any evidence, they would plant
some, where you would never find it, then they'd come back in and "find" it. I didn't even have to
think twice what to do. I packed my few belongings and never looked back. When I went to sleep
again, it was in another room.
It was then that I began carrying a little .25 automatic. I got it, for some reefers, from an addict
who I knew had stolen it somewhere. I carried it pressed under my belt right down the center of
my back. Someone had told me that the cops never hit there in any routine patting-down. And
unless I knew who I was with, I never allowed myself to get caught in any crush of people. The
narcotics cops had been known to rush up and get their o hands on you and plant evidence while
"searching." I felt that as long as I kept on the go, and in the open, I had a good chance. I don't
know now what my real thoughts were about carrying the pistol. But I imagine I felt that I wasn't
going to get put away if somebody tried framing me in any situation that I could help.
I sold less than before because having to be so careful consumed so much time. Every now and
then, on a hunch, I'd move to another room. I told nobody but Sammy where I slept.
Finally, it was on the wire that the Harlem narcotics squad had me on its special list.
Now, every other day or so, usually in some public place, they would flash thebadge to search
me. But I'd tell them at once, loud enough for others standing about to hear me, that I had nothing
on me, and I didn't want to get anything planted on me. Then they wouldn't, because Harlem
already thought little enough of the law, and they did have to be careful that some crowd of
Negroes would not intervene roughly. Negroes were starting to get very tense in Harlem. One
could almost smell trouble ready to break out-as it did very soon.
But it was really tough on me then. I was having to hide my sticks in various places near where I
was selling. I'd put five sticks in an empty cigarette pack, and drop the empty-looking pack by a
lamppost, or behind a garbage can, or a box. And I'd first tell customers to pay me, and then
where to pick up.
But my regular customers didn't go for that. You couldn't expect a well-known musician to go
grubbing behind a garbage can. So I began to pick up some of the street trade, the people you
could see looked high. I collected a number of empty Red Cross bandage boxes and used them
for drops. That worked pretty good.
But the middle-Harlem narcotics force found so many ways to harass me that I had to change my
area. I moved down to lower Harlem, around 110th Street. There were many more reefer smokers