Trick Baby (38 page)

I didn't hear how much the fine was. It wouldn't have made any difference anyway. I was dead broke with only a piece of slum in my pocket.

At noon I was crammed into a big police van loaded with drunks and petty thieves on the way to the House of Correction.

The van stopped at a red light. I looked down through the wire grill at a platinum blonde in a Jaguar halted beside the van. I thought about the Goddess and wondered why the hell a bum like me hadn't swallowed a handful of those red devils at the Majestic Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio, long ago.

I
lay in darkness on the bottom bunk in the cell and listened to White Folks thrashing and groaning through a nightmare on the bunk above me. He had done nine days of his short bit, and the next morning he would be released.

I wasn't known as Iceberg Slim because I was wildly emotional. But after White Folks had told me his life story, I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. I felt like kicking my own ass for pimping all my life instead of conning.

At daybreak he jumped to the floor and sat on the john.

I said, “Well, White Folks, you'll be hitting those streets in a few hours. I'm going to miss you. What are your plans?”

He tented his long fingers beneath his chin. He smiled and said, “Iceberg, the first thing I'm going to do is sell the Cadillac. With that dough, I'm going to buy some nice clothes and a small used car. I'm going to gas it up and go to Montreal, Canada, to the Vicksburg Kid.

“I'm going to learn all the angles of the big white con. I'm going to lose myself in the white world. I'm going to break every classy white broad's heart that gives me a second gander. I'm going to eat and sleep and fuck with nothing but white people for the rest of my life.

“I'll never hear the goddamn tag, Trick Baby, again. Iceberg, I'm going to be the happiest white Nigger sonuvabitch there ever was. And that's the guaranteed truth.”

THE END

BELLY STICK, shill for a flat joint

BIG FOOT COUNTRY, in the deep South United States

BIG-TOP, state prison

BLOWOFF, to get rid of a mark after he's been fleeced.

BOODLE, fake bankroll used by con men to impress a sucker

BOOT, Negro

BOOST, brace of shills for a flat joint

BREAD, money

BURNED, cheated of one's share

CAP, back up con to the catch

CANNON, pickpocket

CATCH, to lure a victim into the first stage of a con game

COP A HEEL, to flee

CRIB, room, apartment, house, etc.

CRUMB CRUSHER, infant

DEEMER, a dime

EARIE, intense listening

END, share

FINAL, blowoff for a con game

FLASH, cheap flashy merchandise used to attract suckers to a flat joint; also fake jewelry

FLAT-JOINT, gambling concession in a carnival

FLIMFLAM, colloquial form of verb “con”

FLUFF, attractive female

FRENCH TICKLER, a thin rubber casing studded with various sized rubber nodules slipped over the penis to tickle and titillate the vaginal track during sexual intercourse

GAFF, a foot device to control a numbered carnival wheel GANDER, to look

GIRL, cocaine

JINKY, prone to be a jinx

JISM, seminal fluid; climatic discharge material of the male during sexual intercourse

MURDER-ONE, first degree murder

PADDY, white person

PECKERWOOD, contemptuous term referring to white men

PULL COAT, to inform or to alert

PUTZ, penis

QUILL, real, authentic

RAISE, pocket

SCRATCH, money

SHED, railroad or bus station

SHILL, confederate of a con man

SLUM, fake jewelry

SMACK, short con played with coins

SPANISH FLY, powdered insect used medicinally to increase urine flow—sometimes used as an aphrodisiac to seduce a woman

SPOOK, Negro

SQUEAL, victim's complaint to police

TRAIN, mass rape

TURNOUT, to teach and train for the con

TRICK BAG, any disadvantageous situation or condition

WASTE, kill, murder

WHITE STONES, crudely simulated diamonds

A preview of
LONG WHITE CON

T
he southwestern sky was sugary with rock candy stars. The four of them were happy, happy. Life was delicious! White Folks felt the sleek new '62 Eldorado under his hands cruise smoothly as a spaceship through a galaxy of neon. The four of them were Wade “Speedy” Jackson, ex-crack detective and ex-Harlem grifter whiz, his main squeeze, pixie Janie, and Folks' beauteous black Pearl seated beside him. You've made it Johnny O'Brien, he told himself. You've made it to become a big white con roper. Me, a closet nigger expatriate from the black southside of the Big Windy has made it!

A toothy attendant, in a red velvet monkey suit, scrambled to open the doors of the Eldorado. He drove it away to park. They caught a reflection of themselves, resplendent in dinner attire, mirrored in the glass doors as they stepped into the elegant maw of the supper club.

The room's diners played muted music with the Rogers' silver as the lyrics of their animated chitchat
sotto voced
politely across the Damask snow of the tablecloths. A strolling violinist teased haunting classics from his fiddle.

Writhing flamelets from candelabras sanctified the diners' faces, ignited their jewels that showered a confetti of congealed fire in the posh haze. A maitre d' from Naples, with a charming
appreciation for half C-notes, seated them grandly at a table reserved for V.I.P.'s.

They had just finished the fourth course of Speedy's birthday supper when she and her entourage walked in. The diners stared at Christina Buckmeister, the coal mines, banking, real estate heiress. Folks thought, she carries herself like the finishing schools and long bread had turned her out, arrogantly,
prima ballerina
gracefully. A lush petticoat snare to the bone.

She paused for a mini instant in passing to her table. He had met her once, casually. Her dog-in-the-manger brother, Trevor, was the Vicksburg Kid's source for the police and bank fixes for Kid's con mob operation.

Christina gave Folks a gray, deliberate blast of she-wolf eyes as she nodded and moved past. Pearl barraged eye-gouging vibes when he smiled stingily and nodded back.

He was irritated with himself as he fought to keep his eyes off her even after she had seated herself facing him several tables away. In the cathedral ambience, her flawless patrician features and rosebud mouth shot a lance, half of thrill, half of hatred, through his head. She had a painful resemblance to Camille Costain. He'd never forget that racist assassin of his heart.

He smiled grimly, remembering how his precious white Chicago socialite Goddess had been fatally in love with him before he had confessed he was a nigger that night on Chicago's outer drive at the edge of Lake Michigan. The heartless bitch had cut him loose, crucified his foolish young soul, nearly drowned him, mad and dead, in an ocean of booze to stop the pain that took months to fade away.

The fiddler paused for a moment at his side to break memory's spell with his melodic
Clair de Lune.

He stared at Christina and wondered if she'd ever visited one of her nightmare coal pits. Wondered if she'd ever heard the pitiful bellow of a black lunger's cough. How he despised that blonde bitch Camille Costain look-alike across the way. He remembered the
horror stories he'd read about the coal pit victims of the imperialist, heartless class she symbolized. He fantasized a mob of street bums gang raping her, punching her blue blood guts to ribbons.

But even as he despised her, he felt himself drawn to her. He wanted to garrote her with ropes of come. He was palpitating to despoil her, hurt her, violate her with a hate fuck.

Pearl sneaked a hand beneath the table and pinched his swipe to jolt him from his trance. Pearl said, “Who is that? I'd be thrilled to meet her. Introduce me, Sugar?”

He said, “She's the sister of a business acquaintance . . . there's a rumor she's not thrilled to mix with the common folk.”

Pearl persisted, “Well, since you obviously are an exception, couldn't you try for this little Harlem Belle?”

Ebonic Janie piped up, “Yeah Johnny, include this li'l old Central Avenue Fox in, too.”

Speedy glared at her and said, “Janie, use your mouth to put some curves on that skinny ass.”

Pearl leaned close, begging, “Please, Daddy Sweetback, introduce me . . . who did you say she was?”

He said, “She's Christina Buckmeister. I'll introduce you when we all make the Blue Book and Who's Who.”

Janie exclaimed, “Wow! Spee, don't you work for them?”

Speedy said, “Yeah, finish that creamed corn.”

The wire thin Vicksburg Kid, and his fluff, junoesque Rita, finally showed to break up the cat game. Since he was late, Folks wondered if the Kid was lugging bad news. They sat down and greeted all around. Kid's tender, brown eyes were placid, so Folks knew the fix and the play for C.P. Stilwell II, the restauranteur mark, were set in smooth concrete for the next day.

Their waiter was just serving the chocolate mousse. He gave Kid and Rita menus. Buxom Rita started rattling off a string of calorie loaded items. Kid gently relieved her of the menu and ordered just a salad for them.

Kid said patiently, “Rita, you're on a diet. You've been gobbling booze and junk all day. Trust Pappy to save what's left of what you had that hooked me.”

Rita batted her rhinestoned eyelashes seductively like the Vegas chorus pony she once, recently, was. “Please, darlingkins! Let me have a full supper. I promise I won't eat even a bite all day tomorrow to make up.”

Kid patted the slight protuberance of her alabaster belly gleaming through her see-through tunic. He resolutely crooned, “Sorry, Big Stuff. Your mouth is a dangerous weapon. I can't let you harm yourself further.”

Janie and Pearl, on giggle road, excused themselves for a trek to the powder room.

Before they were out of view, Kid said, “Dove, your nose is reflecting the candelabra. Go fix it.”

She snatched a jeweled compact from the sable handbag that matched her wrap and studied her elfin face.

She said, “You need an ophthalmologist, Pappy Dear.”

Kid said, “Then cop a heel and pee.”

She muttered an inaudible expletive as she gave him a filthy look and stomped away. Her steepled coiffure glittered like a cache of platinum in the wash of the candelabra glow.

Kid leaned his silver fox head in close to Speedy and Folks. He stage whispered, “Now laddies, there's no cause for undue alarm, but I received some additional research info on that customer we're playing for tomorrow. Stilwell drowned a chum about a fluff when he was sixteen. He's been in the psycho ward of two asylums in the past twenty years. The gent is violence prone! I've alerted the High Ass Marvel, Kate and the shills, so Johnny, we'll have to give him an eggshell play.

“Oh, by the way, Speedy, wire up Victoria Buckmeister's limo, phone and bedroom. Since Trevor has advised me that his mother is cancerous and rapidly losing her mental powers, I want to be privy
to any radical business decisions she might make. Especially since Trevor believes the old girl has plans to dump him as Buckmeister Major Domo and place his witch of a sister in charge. I want tapes of every word she utters.”

Speedy's hound dog face slackened with awe. He said, “Kid, you and Trevor angled me into the position of Chief of Security for the Buckmeister castle and bank . . . not the old dame's nurse. No one else could get the opportunity and time to bug her bedroom.”

Kid patted Speedy's shoulder. “You're bright and creative aren't you, laddie? Find a way and do it within the next forty-eight hours.”

Speedy shrugged and grinned. “Sure, Kid. You know me.”

They glanced at the girls coming back. They assumed normal postures and made small talk. They all stayed to keep Kid and Rita company through their salad.

All the way home, Folks couldn't think of anything except C.P. Stilwell, the sizzling mark, and Christina Buckmeister. Pearl's sloe eyes were bright when he slid into bed beside her. He was strung up on a double rack, he thought.

Pearl knew he had been preoccupied since supper. He didn't have to be a mental wizard to bet a nickel against a C-note she was toying with the suspicion that he was in a fugue from the highbrow shimmer of the Buckmeister broad. He had hurt his woman with his neurotic space-out, he told himself.

He gave her tender, quickie fore pleasure and fast-paced her to a double orgasm to buy some space and time to think about the ways to tighten up his play for the mark. Pearl didn't go to sleep as usual after he had done his number.

Her husky voice was laced with hassle. “Say, Love, I've got a lightweight critique I'd like to give about the trip we just took. Okay?”

He sighed. “Sure, Pearl Delight, but it was a quickie because your old man has a busy day upcoming. I'd like to be sharp and bushy-tailed.”

He squeezed her close and kissed her with zest. He whispered, “Now sleep well, puppy pussy. Goodnight Sugarface.”

She sat up and said, “Nigger, quickie wasn't it. You were there and yet away somewhere else at the same time. Your jones, the quality of your erection was low, low Daddy, Dear. Where was Mama's baby?”

She was a jealous junkie. He knew he'd have to play to turn her around from her relapse. He didn't answer. He arranged a stricken expression. Then he let his eyes marinate her with pity. She hated that. He put on his pajamas and robe. Her eyes softened. She was chronically ill and she knew it. He'd had a case on Pearl stretching back to Montreal. The case was strongly physical, he decided guiltily. Perhaps her jealousy is forcing me to pity her instead of love her. He was irritated, angry with her for wasting his energy. He needed full energy to play quality con. He turned and made for the doorway.