Trick Baby (14 page)

Phala slowly raised her head and looked up at me. The once radiant brown eyes were gigantic dull blanks in her razor-thin face. I put the bouquet of roses on the bench beside her. For the first time in my life I called her mama.

I said, “Hi, Mama. It's Johnny. Gee, I've missed you.”

She drew away. Her fingers were a blur in her lap as she pounded together her fingertips even more furiously. They made a staccato pulpy sound.

I stooped down and leaned close to her. I thought maybe I could coax at least a shadow of remembrance into the cold vacant eyes. I
gazed into them for a long time. But I saw only the ghostly image of the sighing willow tree, swaying behind me. I stood up. I couldn't stand any more of it.

I felt a tight, aching ball of pity inflate inside my chest. I had to leave her before I broke down. I leaned over and kissed her gently on the mouth.

She giggled, rolled her belly and thrashed her thighs together. I leaped back from her hand streaking for my crotch. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

In a whiny voice she pleaded, “Lemme feel it, huh? Lemme snatch it off, huh? Lemme see it bleed, huh? Lemme mash it, huh? Lemme, huh? Lemme, huh?”

I turned and walked away to the administration building. I looked back. The husky nurse was massaging Phala's shoulders. Phala's bony hand was still clawing at the air.

I broke down on the way back to Chicago. I cried longer and harder than I did when Phala fussed at the crow on that bottle of Old Crow whiskey.

Blue patted my shoulder and said, “How is she doing? Did she look bad?”

I said, “She looked terrible and old. It's a funny thing. I used to laugh when she'd tell me that she wanted to be cremated if she were old and ugly when she died. I thought she'd always be beautiful.”

By the last of September the weather got awful chilly. Fewer and fewer suckers came to the carnival locations to get trimmed in the flat-joints. In October the season closed.

I had close to three bills under the rug. I hadn't yet walked through the bathroom to Midge's bedroom. I had lots of opportunities. Blue was out of town three or four days a week playing the smack with Memphis Shorty.

Blue promised me he'd teach me the smack and the next winter I would be his partner. Blue kept the big white kitchen well stocked with food.

I had learned to cook when I was a kid and Phala worked in River Forest. Midge and I took turns fixing our meals. Twice a week a woman came in to clean the house and do the laundry.

We had lots of fun playing cards on the dining room table. Whenever there was a Robert Taylor or Charles Boyer picture on, I'd take Midge to the Tivoli Theater at Sixty-third Street and Cottage Grove Avenue. She'd fidget in her seat, hot as hell. But she wouldn't let me kiss her.

We had a lot of good clean fun together. I figured I'd play it cool. And after I got her to really like me, I'd make a fast move into her pants. She was still knocking around with the queer broads at
Cocktails For Two
on most weekends. Except for that it would have been a breeze for a guy with my gift of gab to lay her down.

I was living the best life I'd ever lived. But I couldn't forget Phala's face and that creepy giggle that day at the sanitarium. Sometimes I'd dream about it. I'd wake up soaked with sweat.

Blue also kept a well-stocked liquor closet. I started downing a glass of rum and coke before I went to bed. Instead of nightmares about Phala, I had wild wet, half-nightmares about Midge. Jesus! They were weird.

At first Midge and I would be kissing and fooling around. Then I'd be taking a sweet ride. A burly broad would pop up. She had a loud coarse laugh. The ugly big-tit broad would stand there buck naked with a jock three times the size of my own.

She'd flop the damn thing from side to side with both her hands. I'd keep pushing Midge's head away so she'd stop staring at it. I'd leap up and hurl my foot with all my might against the broad's deformed pecker.

The broad would screech and vanish. Then the ride would get sweeter than ever. The final explosion would blast me awake. I'd lie there panting and hating my burly tormentor.

I'd get a headache trying to figure out what those slick queer broads did with a fluff in bed. It had to be mysterious, powerful loving. I knew that.

On Christmas Eve Blue drove me to see Phala. I took her a big basket of fruit and candy. She was even thinner. We just sat in the visiting lounge and stared at each other for a half hour. I didn't kiss her goodbye. I was afraid she might get horny and break me down again.

I stopped on my way back home. I sent my old pal, Lester Gray, a sawbuck money order up in Saint Charles Reformatory.

On Christmas day Midge cooked the best dinner I'd ever eaten, for Blue and me. There were piles of gifts under the beautiful Christmas tree for Blue, Midge and me. A cheerful blaze roared in the fireplace.

That night a gang of con men, friends of Blue, came and drank until daybreak. It was the best Christmas I ever had.

Of all my gifts I liked best the Philco table radio from Blue. I listened to sweet music from the Aragon Ballroom until the wee hours and thought about Midge. Midge must have spent a considerable part of her Christmas allowance for the Bulova wristwatch she gave me.

I spent almost a hundred dollars on gifts for Midge and Blue. It seemed that I'd known them for a lifetime. I was sure happy and crazy about them, and that's the guaranteed truth.

Blue had a birthday party for me at home on January fifteenth, Nineteen Forty. Precious Jimmy, Mule and Pocket were there to see me blow out the seventeen candles on my big pink birthday cake.

Midge had promised me she'd be home to celebrate with me. At two
A.M
. the party broke up. She still wasn't home. I was lying in bed listening for her to come in. I was wondering if she was hollering in joy on some broad's bed, when Blue came in and sat down on the side of the bed.

I said, “Blue, I hope you're not worried about Midge. She'll come in pretty soon, safe as always.”

He said, “Folks, I'm not worried about her. I couldn't sleep for another reason. Kid, we're not going back to the flat-joint this spring. I'm going to teach you con.

“You're only seventeen. But with your build and poise you come
off like twenty-five. I'm going to dump that whiskey head, Memphis Kid and build you into my full-time partner.”

I said, “That's good news. Tell me all about the wire store and what I have to tell a sucker to put him on the send for all his money.”

The shadow of his big head waggled on the wall.

He said, “Wire stores shouldn't concern you, now. Anyway, they're almost out of style. It's the rag and payoff stores that most white con mobs have set up to play for rich suckers that ropers lug in for trimming.

“It's all long con. But hell, kid, first you have to be taught the basics of the short con.”

I said, “Are there any Nigger long con mobs?”

He said, “No, Niggers don't have the feel for the organization and the big dough to finance and operate a long con store. Besides, a store has to buy its fix from powerful white politicians. Niggers don't have connections like that.

“An all-Nigger store would have to play for Nigger marks. There just aren't enough fat, Nigger suckers to support a black store.

“The best black con men are drag men. The newspapers call it the pigeon drop. The drag is long con because the mark is put on the send for his money.”

I said, “Are we going to play the drag together, Blue?”

He said, “Maybe. But a Nigger drag man sometimes has to prowl the streets for weeks looking for a mark. Along with its other bad features, it's a felony.

“No, Folks, I'm not going to do a ten spot in the joint for playing a slow game like drag. Fast frequent short con touches are best for us as a start. But maybe later, now I said maybe, if you are as bright as I think you are, I'll see Felix the Fixer and find out if he can handle the fix for drag.

“Since you look white, our drag scores would come off bigger and faster. You could catch white marks that a black grifter couldn't stop. We'll wait and see how apt you are for con.”

I said, “But Blue, you still haven't told me how the stores and the drag work. Do you really know?”

He laughed and said, “You're a natural for the con all right. Here you are ribbing the teacher so he has to give you the dope you want.

“All right, I'll convince you I know everything about con, short and long. I'm going to give you a fast rundown on the stores and the drag. You don't really need it. But I'm going to make the student respect his teacher.

“Folks, a wire store is a fake telegraph office that a con mob sets up to look just like a real one. A roper brings the sucker to be trimmed to the boss of this store who is the inside con man just like I'm the boss inside the flat-joint.

“To the mark he pretends to be a dissatisfied employee of the vast Western Union Company. The inside man and the roper cut the mark in on a plot to beat horse-racing books.

“An idiot would know it's a cinch to make a fortune when you can pick a winner in a horse race that's already been run.

“The inside man cons the mark he will make it possible by delaying the teletyped race results to the books until after the roper and the mark have laid their bets.

“To test the system for the mark and to give him a powerful convincer, this inside man gives them a winner. The roper takes the mark to a phony bookie joint and they both win a small bet.

“The mark's head is swimming with greed. He's seen the shills lose and win stacks of long green. Now he believes it's a mortal cinch to cheat the book out of a fortune.

“The larceny in his heart makes it easy for the roper and the inside man to put him on the send for a bundle of his dough. Just like the sucker playing against the flat-joint, he's got no chance to win because the roper fouls up the inside man's dope on the crucial race.

“The sucker is stricken and fleeced by the roper's stupid mistake. The inside man and the mark curse and abuse the hell out of the roper.

“The inside man puts the mark on a train. He promises the mark he'll contact him and next time, with a new bankroll and no stupid guy like the roper around to foul things up, they'll win back their losses and make that big fortune to boot.

“Flunkies strip the fake stores of the convincing props until time to play for another mark. Now the—”

I was so excited I cut him off, “I look white. Let's get a bunch of real white guys together and open a store. You could train me for the inside. Nobody would get wise that it was really a nigger store.”

He exploded, “Goddamnit, Folks! Stay cool and stop letting your mind leapfrog like a screwy sucker. Hell, even I couldn't do it.

“The marks are smart, high-class businessmen, doctors, even lawyers. The inside man is the guts of a store. He makes one mistake and he's lost the mark and the score.

“The Vicksburg Kid was playing inside at twenty-eight. But he's a genius. Control yourself. You get confused, I won't be able to teach you the lousy short con.

“As I was trying to say, the rag store play is almost like that of the wire store. It is rigged up as a brokerage office. The mark is trimmed with fake shares of stock and phony stock market information.

“The payoff store can be a wire store or a rag store setup. The inside man, instead of delaying race results and letting the mark bet his own money on a winner to convince him, gives the mark money to bet on a fixed race.

“The same powerful payoff gimmick is used for the rag store. No Western Union setup is used in the payoff on the nags.

“The first sure-shot tip on the fixed race is the reward the inside man gives the roper and the mark when they return his lost wallet stuffed with important and valuable papers.

“The sucker's greed is fired up and he's trimmed in a lavish bookie setup just like in the wire play. The same gimmicks are used in the rag store. It's the bogus shares of stock and fake inside market information that trim the sucker in that case.

“Now the drag is a crude distant relative of the stores.”

I cut him off again. I said, “Blue, please don't blow up again, but I want you to tell me some of the real words that con men say to suckers.”

He said, “All right, kid, all right! Now the drag is really a desperate try of poor Nigger con men to imitate the big front and play of the white long con.

“Before Dirty Red got con goofy we played the drag together. A working day started when the banks and post offices opened. We were open on both ends. We both could catch and cap. Which means that either of us was capable of cutting into a sucker, holding him and finding out if he had scratch to play for.

“Both of us could cap on or build up a sucker who had been caught. We caught and played for our marks in the streets. Say I saw an elderly man who looked like a prospect. I'd block his way and rip my hat off my head.

“I'd say, ‘Excuse me, sir. I know it's bad manners to stop a stranger on the street without a proper introduction. But I'm black like you and I'm in desperate need of information. You look like a kind, intelligent gentleman. Please help me.'

“Then I'd tell him about how I had just came to town from Alabama. I was carrying a large sum of money. I was afraid because a white man on the train coming north warned me about flimflammers and unfair white banks.

“I wondered if it was true that the banks up North gave five percent interest to white depositors and only three percent to Nigger depositors. What were flimflammers, and did his experience with the banks make the white man on the train tell me a lie or the truth?

“If he'd never heard of flimflammers and he had money, I'd signal Red across the street that the mark was qualified. I'd nudge the mark and point to Red picking up a fat wallet in the gutter.

“I'd say, ‘Now ain't that a shame, Mr. Smith? A rich white man just pulled away in a new Cadillac. He must have dropped that
wallet. Look at the Nigger trembling and shaking. Don't he know that you ain't a thief when you find something? Besides, a white man lost it and poor Niggers ain't got nothing nohow. I think we ought to call him and put his mind at ease.'