But right in the middle of the act, we had some bad luck. A bullet grazed Sammy. We just barely
escaped.
Sammy fortunately wasn't really hurt. We split up, which was always wise to do.
Just before daybreak, I went to Sammy's apartment. His newest woman, one of those beautiful
but hot-headed Spanish Negroes, was in there crying and carrying on over Sammy. She went for
me, screaming and clawing; she knew I'd been in on it with him. I fended her off. Not able to
figure out why Sammy didn't shut her up, I did... and from the corner of my eye, I saw Sammy
going for his gun.
Sammy's reaction that way to my hitting his woman-close as he and I were-was the only weak
spot I'd ever glimpsed. The woman screamed and dove for him. She knew as I did that when your
best friend draws a gun on you, he usually has lost all control of his emotions, and he intends to
shoot. She distracted Sammy long enough for me to bolt through the door. Sammy chased me,
about a block.
We soon made up-on the surface. But things never are fully right again with anyone you have
seen trying to kill you.
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 days-
about 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