Max Collins: Murder by numbers

"When the big bell rings," Johnson said calmly, nibbling at a piece of pig's foot, "all our black asses is up for grabs."

Rufus was trembling; whether with rage or fear, Johnson couldn't tell. "What are you sayin'? They gon' try and kill old Rufus?" His laugh was as harsh as it was unconvincing. "Bunch of candy-ass paddies gon' come to my part of town and play that game?"

"Why not? Mr. Murphy. Please. Sit down. Enjoy this fine feast you made. I ain't the enemy."

Rufus swallowed, seeming embarrassed suddenly, and he sighed and sat. "What are they doin' here, anyway? The numbers ain't their game. It ain't never been a white man's game."

"I don't know about that. My mama said the Spanish conjured it."

"The Spanish ain't white."

A smile cracked Johnson's African mask of a face. "Whiter than us, but so what? The wops are movin' in. Prohibition is yesterday. Today it's a new racket they need." Johnson chuckled. "Ever since the income-tax boys took notice of your pal Holstein in Harlem, the world knows just how high off the hog you policy kings is livin'."

A forgotten piece of cornbread in his hand, Rufus studied his half-eaten plate of collard greens, okra, and pig's feet like a gypsy lady trying to divine a winning number from her crystal ball. Without looking up, he said, "They sent me a message."

Johnson looked up from his food, sharply. "What sort of message?"

Rufus got up, got himself another beer, opened it, drank half of it in one gulp, then sat again and winced as he said, "Frank Hogey sent one of his boys over to see me."

Hogey was the only white among black Cleveland's four policy kings. Most of his staff was colored.

With a weary shake of the head, his eyes glittering with anger, Rufus said, "Hogey's gonna go in with Lombardi. As a partner. I been offered the same deal."

"Which is what?"

"Black Sal gets twenty-five percent."

"For doin' what?"

"For doin' nothin'?" Rufus squeezed the piece of cornbread in his hand and yellow fragments of it popped from his sudden fist like teeth. "Hunky bastards. Why should I?"

Johnson shrugged. "Make a counter offer, why don't you? Offer 'em ten percent."

"Why the fuck should I?"

"They got the power, man. They got City Hall sewed up tighter than Dick's hatband. They got all them white cops in their pocket and more tally torpedoes than Carter's got pills."

"What the hell am I payin' you for?"

Johnson looked at him coldly. "I give you what protection I can. I can't protect you against the will of God and I can't protect you against this."

Rufus was almost sputtering now. "What the hell does Councilman Raney have to say about it?"

"He says you better play along."

"Shit, man! They got Raney in their pocket, too? Shit."

This disparagement of Councilman Eustice Raney made Johnson bristle. Raney was Johnson's political godfather. The two men had both served in the 372nd Regiment in the Great War; every man in the 372nd was black, and every one had either been killed or wounded in the Argonne in September 1918. Raney, a successful lawyer who became the city's first Negro assistant police prosecutor in 1924, had been good to Johnson and other survivors of the 372nd.

"You know better than that," Johnson said, in sharp reply to Murphy questioning the councilman's loyalty. "But Raney's one of three black sailors sittin' in a stone white boat. They got some pull in the Republican party, 'cause of the colored vote, yes; but do you really think three colored councilmen can do doodley-squat when the Mayfield Road mob is in the game?"

Rufus rubbed his face with a cloth napkin, which he wadded up and discarded contemptuously; a tip of the napkin found its way into the pot of greens, okra, and pig's feet.

He pushed away from the table, stood, and said, "It's all talk. Them guineas ain't gonna find the Roarin' Third open to white folks. Let 'em try to muscle in. We'll send 'em all back to Murray Hill with their pale asses bloody and drag-gin'."

Johnson had finished his food. He took a final swig of the Pabst, which was still cold. The conversation, and the meal, had been brief.

The detective rose and said, "I wish I could help, Mr. Murphy. I truly do."

Rufus warmed to that and came around and put a hand on the taller man's shoulder; he squeezed. "You a good friend, Toussaint. I know you always do your best."

The cop's hard features went momentarily soft; he felt something tender for this fat little man who'd done so much for him and the community.

He said, "I'm givin' you good advice, Mr. Murphy. Accommodate these white boys. Render under Caesar that which is his and you'll stay a king yo'self."

Rufus sighed and smiled and shook his head sadly, "I stopped servin' white folks a long time ago, son, when I quit the Santa Fe."

"You still in the United States, though," Johnson reminded him, gently, as they stood near the door.

The fat policy king laughed softly and patted the younger man on the back. "What's your hurry? Mamie made some pecan pie yesterday; they's a couple slabs left."

"No thanks, Mr. Murphy."

"For Christsakes, will you call me Rufus! Business talk is over."

Johnson smiled; it was a surprisingly warm smile for such a hard- and cold-looking man. "Sure, Rufus. I'll see you next week. Payday."

Rufus smiled on one side of his face. "You never miss a one of those, do you, son? Here, I'll walk you out."

The night had gotten colder; the sky was as black as shutting your eyes. Johnson folded his arms and gathered himself in. But Rufus seemed to drink the chill in like another cold beer. They moved slowly down the gentle slope of Murphy's driveway, the small fat man gesturing as they walked and talked.

"White folks think the policy game is gambling," Rufus said, laughing softly. "But we knows better."

"We do?"

"It's a religion, son." Even in the dark Murphy's gold teeth gleamed. "It's mystery. It's lucky numbers. It's hot numbers. It's taking the numbers offa the license plates of a car that done rear-ended you. It's the number off your streetcar transfer that suddenly stares up at you and says play me, I is the one. It's asking a chile for a number… children are lucky, ya know, they're best ones to give you winnin' gigs." He stopped and laughed heartily, hands on his hips, as merry a king as Ole King Cole. Then he extended an arm and spread the fingers of one big hand, as if assaying his dominion. "It's a dream you have at night, it's the dream book that tells you what the dream means in the mornin', it's gypsy fortune tellers, it's the date the President died…"

Johnson smiled a little, amused despite himself. "You love it, don't you, Rufus?"

"The numbers is a way of life," Rufus said, smiling, but serious. "And it ain't got a blessed motherfuckin' thing to do with white men."

"Money," said Johnson, dispensing some folk wisdom of his own, "attracts whites like flies on shit. That is the surest bet in town, Rufus."

Rufus shook his head, but his smile didn't disappear. "You got no poetry in your soul, Toussaint. You got your papa's business head, but you ain't got a drop of your mama's poetry."

"Maybe so." Johnson put on his hat, tipped it. "Goodnight, Rufus."

"Good-night, son."

The policy king began to trudge up the gentle incline of his paved driveway, while Johnson paused for the easy flow of traffic to let him cross. He stepped onto the opposite sidewalk, glancing back with affection at the fat little policy king, who was approaching the bushes near his garage.

An explosion of flame burst from the bushes, like a bizarre blossom, and Murphy's left arm flew off his body and smacked against the side of the garage, the hand slapping the wood. Then the limb dropped to the cement like a log. Blood geysered and Murphy tottered, like a wind-up toy winding down, and turned questioningly, drunkenly toward the bushes, covering insufficiently with his right hand the bloody fountain spraying from his shattered left shoulder where his arm had been, and a dark shape rose from behind the shrubs and the second shotgun blast blew a hole in Rufus Murphy's chest and knocked him down, flat on his back.