Low Road (11 page)

More than a few names became legendary as both heroes and villains in numbers lore. Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson, for example, rose in status from bodyguard to esteemed king of Harlem when he stood his ground against a white organized-crime invasion led by thug Dutch Schultz, who attempted to move in on the numbers racket overseen by Johnson's boss, Stephanie St. Clair. At the height of the Martinique native's 1930s reign before she was jailed, St. Clair shoveled in as much as $50,000 a week. The vast appeal of the numbers that made the game so lucrative was the fact that its penny and nickel bets could be turned into hundreds. Lower-level managers generally took about 10 percent on winnings, while the bankers took about 25 percent. Apart from its employment of runners and managers throughout various urban centers, the racket was largely supported by the black community because of the reciprocal role its organizers played in building institutions. Philanthropic gestures by policy makers provided supplemental income to the businesses that fronted for numbers stations. Additionally, hospitals, social organizations, and other well-regarded establishments received assistance in keeping their doors open and making their services to the public available. Policy organizers were seen as men and women of the people.

The people themselves—as in the players of the game—were a study in techniques. A number of them paid regular visits to the neighborhood fortune-teller. They saw the investment in a card reading or similar “psychic” interpretation as worth the potential in gaining an edge against the thousands and thousands of other competitors. Many times they learned their own supposed lucky numbers but with the convenient disclaimer that was less certain to determine when their particular combination would come up on The Wheel or in the harness results. Also popular was the use of “dream books” as a policy betting method. Available at the local newsstand, the publications assigned specified numerals to words and images, which allowed the players to translate their thoughts and experiences, as well as what they could recollect from psychological activities during sleep, into bets. Among the male gamblers, it was not uncommon that digits the books represented with specific sex acts or erotic associations were favored, particularly when attractive women took their bets. A brown-skinned, wide-smiling sister with firm, round breasts might be appealing on more levels than one. Others simply guessed at the winning three numbers, while there were those who preferred to take a variety of other sources as their bettors cue. Suggestions from children. Significant dates denoting births, deaths, marriages and other events. License plates from wrecked vehicles. Hymn boards in churches. Not even the preacher's Sunday-morning sermon was too sacred for a player with a hunch or premonition about the real meaning behind chapter 3, verse 14 from the book of Proverbs in its reference to the virtues of wisdom: “For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.”

Ever watchful in the black community, police officers were, nonetheless, subject to bribery. Now and then there might be a raid of a policy station for the sake of appearances, to show the mayor and taxpayers that they were earning their salaries. Then, in keeping with the well-orchestrated routine, as well as keeping their sources of pocket-liner available to make police work a bit more rewarding, law enforcers made sure the arrested parties bonded out. The law, however, wasn't the only element for which there was a need to be on the watch. Any number of street predators would lie in waiting for the chance to catch a runner slipping in his diligence, maybe stopping for a soda or taking a shortcut through a dimly lit area. A female runner without male protection would be considered an easy mark. Likewise, a manager spotted fucking up a security measure at a policy house could expect to face a pistol or maybe get a lump on the head. Particularly for a frustrated bettor, the temptation loomed to wade more deeply in the waters of the underground. Or for a predator to knock off any sucker wearing a target.

Court records would later tell the story of January 25, 1961, when Donnie hooked up with two acquaintances, Donald Hawkins and Marion Higgins. Hawkins and Higgins lived in the same neighborhood on East Canfield. The three men had set their sights on a numbers house not far away. Katherine Peek was minding the money when Donnie and his accomplices made their way into the place. Donnie was carrying the gun. The men made their intentions clear. As their robbery got underway, they heard the sounds of a child coming from another room. Fearing what might become of her as the victim of a crime, Peek quickly got an idea. She asked if the men would allow her to excuse herself, just so she could stop the baby from crying. Feeling momentarily vulnerable to his true humanity and probably confident that she was frightened by the sight of the weapon he held, Donnie gave her permission. In the brief moment that Peek disappeared from sight, she called the police. A month later, Donnie, Hawkins, and Higgins were in Recorder's Court. Donnie pled guilty of assault with attempt to rob while armed. He and Hawkins were sentenced to two to twenty years at the state prison in Jackson. With its imposing gun towers, Jackson was the largest walled prison in the country at the time. Higgins was given three to four years at the lockup for a lesser charge of felonious assault. Donnie would be released on parole in 1962.

But the relatively brief incarceration did little to affect his penchant for get-rich-quick schemes. Robbery simply wasn't his forte. In another episode, Donnie found himself stopped cold and looking every bit of a damned fool. The same type of shortsighted judgment led him to his only arrest by an authority worse than any policeman. Donnie liked to hit the racetrack now and then, and on this day he blew all his shit. He seemed to pick any horse but the winner. So, dejected and desperate to get a fix, he left. Then, packing two pistols, he decided on what should have been an easy mark for a stickup job. Myrtle made it her practice to attend weekly bingo. It was one of her pastimes and ways of getting out of the house. She was first shocked and then furious when, as she and others were assembled for their evening game, a young man busted into the hall demanding money. It was Donnie. As he gripped his weapons, he may not have realized his mistake until she was already upon him. Maybe he was too strung out to see her approaching.

“Boy, put that down! What the hell is wrong with you?”

Unfazed by the presence of the handguns, Myrtle slapped his face twice, as if he were still just a child. Donnie had fucked up, and it damn sure wouldn't be the last he heard about it from his mother. But at least her intervention might have saved him a trip to the County.

His failure notwithstanding, Donnie's quest for the big hustle, for untouchable criminal status, was as driven as it had ever been after he got home from Jackson. So it was by fate and circumstance—combined with their common interest in money—that Donnie became close friends with a woman who was called Miss Hattie. A senior citizen who was given the respect of an elder in the community, Miss Hattie was of an age that had brought her wisdom in more ways than one. The old lady operated an after-hours establishment and whore joint. She supplemented her income through the production and sale of bootleg corn liquor. Joanie would look down toward Miss Hattie's house and laugh at the sparrows in the alley when they tried to fly after pecking at fermented corn kernels that had been thrown out. Miss Hattie shared her bootlegging secrets with Donnie, who decided he would become a distiller and sell his product to other after-hours social clubs in the city, like Miss Hattie's. But having paid little attention to his science classes, he knew little about chemistry. The first makeshift still he opened for production overheated and exploded. Donnie would try again. Determination could be a motherfucker.

*   *   *

“United States of America
versus
Donald J. Goines.”

The clerk at the Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Michigan announced the case in traditional fashion. Not
“United States of America
versus
Bad Ass Nigger”
or
“United States
versus
Public Enemy Number One.”
Even without the flashy introduction, however, Donnie knew it: This was the federal system. For better or worse, he had finally made it to the big time. It was another sentencing day, August 2, 1965. The Honorable Wade H. McCree Jr. took to the bench and addressed the young man before him.

“Mr. Goines, you are before the court for the purpose of having sentence pronounced for the offense of unlawful possession of a still, sugar syrup solution, and unlawfully working in a distillery, of which you were found guilty by a jury when you were before the court previously.”

From the beginning, it had looked pretty bad for Donnie. The prosecution spelled out its allegations against him: Under an assumed name, Donnie rented the lower section of a two-family flat in Detroit. His landlady declined to lease him the upstairs, but gave him the keys to it. Donnie later advised her that he had done the service of letting the upper for her to Johnnie Young, a brother who worked for Ford. Later investigation determined that no such person existed. A fed had placed the building—and presumably its occupants—under surveillance after he smelled fermenting whiskey coming from the home. Donnie was spotted at one point carrying two cement blocks into the second-floor apartment and was seen the following morning with his cousin, Curtis Stewart, entering the upstairs together. They remained inside for about twenty minutes. Not long after that, an agent watched Donnie and Curtis deliver fuel to the site of the distillery. While he was on his way to work later the same day, November 23, 1964, authorities for the government's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division took Donnie into custody. Curtis was snatched up just as quickly. Having acquired a search warrant, feds went into the flat and investigated. There on the second floor, a 110-gallon drum, or “stillpot,” was discovered propped up on blocks of cement. Inside the stillpot were 100 gallons of sugar solution. Also strewn about the upstairs were “various barrels and jugs, some with whiskey mash inside,” a report indicated. Empty sugar bags littered the apartment, and some were even found on the first floor, where Donnie was a tenant. There were all the makings of a fledgling criminal empire, and Donnie, the would-be king of it, had been at the center. The government felt there was “ample” evidence to convict him.

Donnie had waited as Curtis faced the judge. He didn't make out so bad, all things considered. Two years probation sounded like a sweet deal compared with federal jail time. The harshest words Curtis received had been issued for a matter completely unrelated to the whiskey still.

“Oh, you have got a bad traffic record,” McCree told him. “In fact, it is a disgraceful record, I would say. There appear to be ten traffic violations over about a ten-year period.”

“I don't have any moving violations,” Curtis interjected.

“Pardon me?”

“I don't have any moving violations in there.”

Curtis explained that the offenses were for illegal parking during the time when he worked as a cab driver. After that, McCree decided maybe the background data in front of him wasn't so bad. “There are some problems of nonsupport of your family, which troubles me,” the judge briefly lectured. “There are no felony convictions, though. You have never apparently committed a crime involving moral turpitude or requiring felonious intent.”

A few more moments of questioning revealed that Curtis was training at Washington Trade School to become a steel fitter. In five days, he would complete the program. Soon, he was practically shining like new money in the courtroom. Curtis was going to get a chance to avoid being locked up. Instead, he'd get to take his pick of two or three available job opportunities at a rate of almost three dollars an hour. He could virtually walk away as if the federal conviction had never even happened. McCree closed with the remaining words of the lecture he had begun a few minutes earlier: “Now this is in consideration of the following facts: First, you have this family to support; second, you are re-training and you are equipping yourself to do this in a better way; and third, you have no previous felony convictions. Now, this means that if you make good, as we hope you will, we will close your file two years from now. If you violate any of the terms of your probation—and the probation office will give you those terms, and they are my terms—you will be brought in and the sentence here will be executed. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Curtis received instructions to make his probation appointment, and was told to have a seat. Judge McCree took his time as he prepared to share and discuss what he had learned about the remaining defendant in the courtroom. Donnie listened. “I have ordered a presentence report, which was prepared for me, and it reflects a great deal about your background,” McCree began. “I will tell you what it shows me. It is not altogether good. Oh, we start in 1958—there are some minor ones earlier—with a charge of Junction City, Kansas, where you received a twenty-day sentence, apparently involving some prostitutes working for you in and about an army base. Do you remember that?”

Donnie spoke up. He attempted to cast the charge in a not-so-seedy light.

“I did twenty days for vagrancy, your Honor.”

“That was the official charge,” McCree noted, “but it is reported as involving that kind of activity. Then, in Flint, a twenty-dollar fine and thirty days for frequenting a house of prostitution. Do you remember that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then July 19, 1959, in Detroit, Michigan, a ten-dollar fine and thirty days in the house of correction on a charge of aiding and abetting. Was this the same kind of activity?”

“Similar.”

Judge McCree continued studying the report as he spoke.

“I am overlooking some driver's license and other traffic offenses. Then we get a serious one. January 25, 1961, assault with intent to rob, armed, in the Recorder's Court, this is Judge Murphy—was that Judge George Murphy?”