You Play the Black & the Red Comes Up Up (5 page)

THE HOODOO BAG

I
t was funny how I got that bag down out of the tree. It just goes to show you how you figure and figure on something, and make it hard for yourself, and all the time it comes out as easy as pie.

The way I had planned it was that I would go along disguised as a gardener—get an old lizzie from somewhere, and put a lawn mower in it like the Japs do, and get a saw, and then drive right up to the tree and start pruning it. I could climb up the tree and lop off a few branches and then drop the bag into the car somehow.

But I figured I'd better look the ground over first, so I strolled, sort of casual, down the street and past the Jolly Time, and I got a shock that like to stop my heart. There were two kids, looking up into the tree where I'd thrown the bag.

I said, "What's the matter?"

"He lost his airplane up there," one said.

Then, right off, I saw how simple it was. I blew a big breath, and I said, "I'll get it for you."

I knew I was all right. If any cops were watching, I had a real alibi. It was luck playing right into my hands. I could say the kids had asked me to get up in the tree. I jumped up and caught a branch and pulled myself up, and all the dry pollen and gold blobs of the acacia tree came showering down on me.

I got a bit of a scare, for almost right away one of the kids yelled that the airplane had fallen down. I said, "Well, maybe there's another up here—or a ball, or something."

I saw the bag and grabbed it and stuffed it in my pants, and buttoned my coat over the top part.

Then I dropped right down all covered with yellow stuff from the blossoms.

"Gee, mister, thanks," one of the kids said.

I dusted myself off quickly and beat it home as fast as I could, but Mamie was in when I got there so I went right into the bathroom and stuffed the bag in the linen closet.

I chinned with Mamie a while, waiting for her to go out. I knew she'd go soon because she and Pat had gone hook, line, and sinker for this crazy Ecanaanomic gag, and they'd even rented deskspace in a real estate man's office. They'd go there every day, sending out letters and making out they were important and serious about it. Mamie was all full up of it as she got ready to go out.

When she went, I locked the door and began to figure out what to write. Finally I had it. I printed all the letters so's the police couldn't trace my handwriting. I said:

To Whom It May Concern:

Hernandez Felice, who you are holding for the holdup and murder of Maurice Gottstein, did not do it. In order to prove it, I am sending you the bag and money I took from Gottstein to show you Felice did not do it.

Then I signed it
Chicago Ed,
just to mix police up a bit. I had never been to Chicago.

Then I got to thinking about mailing it. I'd have to go somewhere to have it maile
d and I'd have to have the pack
age weighed. Then the man who weighed it would be sure to see it addressed to police, and he'd remember what I looked like. So I figured I'd better buy about a dollar's worth of stamps, which would be sure to cover it. And then I figured, too, I'd better go up to L.A. and mail it, so's the police wouldn't think to look right in town for the man who sent it.

I got that all figured out and then Mamie came home, and she was all of a twitter.

"Look, Handsome," she said, excitedly. "Look what the paper says. You know that Mexican, Felice, who was pinched in the jolly Time—you remember? That was the night I met you? Well, he didn't hold up that fellow who was killed."

"Well, what did he run for?" I said.

"That's funny—he thought they were after him for something else, so he just run. It was a statutory offense, that was all. That's attacking a girl under age, isn't it?"

"I don't know," I said.

I grabbed the paper and read it. It said:

Hernandez Felice, 42, was cleared of implication in the murder and holdup of Maurice Gottstein by police yesterday.

Jesus Angeles, owner of the Jolly Time Cafe, together with a dozen patrons of the cafe, told police that Felice had been in the cafe for at least two hours before he was arrested that evening, and could have had no part in the fatal shooting.

Felice, it is alleged, ran when police entered because he thought they were in search of him in connection with a statutory offense committed several days prior to the holdup.

"It was just a case of guilty conscience with Felice," Chief Mullarney declared. "We are sure he had nothing to do with the holdup. We have new clues leading to the real criminal, and expect important action within a few days."

Rosalinda Falcono, 14, is the girl implicated in the case. Her parents were loath to file compla
int against Felice. Police, how
ever, declared that action will follow and Felice stands liable both to prison sentence and to deportation.

I read that through over and over, and I kept thinking,
Now, it's all cleared up. It's all cleared up.

I was a sucker for thinking that everything was settled after the police had cleared Felice. It wasn't settled. It was worse. Because now I had the bag and the money, and it was one bad thing to have around. If the police had let Felice go, they would sure be looking for someone else. I knew I had to find some way to get rid of that bag.

I tell you, that bag of money kept me awake nights, and it got like a hoodoo. I was afraid Mamie would find it. So I'd keep moving it new places. It sure had the indian sign on me.

It was like I knew there was one particular thing I had to do with that money. I thought and thought and got nowhere for a while. But when I did get the answer it was so simple that I almost laughed.

I said to myself,
Look, you dummy. All you've got to do is get that money back where it belongs and then the Indian sign will be off you. All you've got to do is get that money back to Gottstein.
And that was simple.

When Mamie was out down at the Ecanaanomic office, I got the bag from behind the bathtub. It was a soft leather bag with a chain running through eyelet rings at the top and a padlock on the end of the chain. It was simple to open. I just got Mamie's scissors and cut it open. There wasn't ten thousand in it like the papers said. There was only one thousand three hundred and eighty dollars in it.

After I counted the money I cut the leather bag into thin strips and flushed them down the toilet, one after another. I took the chain part and stuffed it in my pocket. I planned to throw that off the end of the pier in deep water.

A NIGHT TO HOWL

I
walked into Gottstein's place. It was like a bar—a long bar—with a roulette layout in front of every two seats. The roulette wheel wasn't a real one. It was on the wall, but instead of a ball it had an electric light going round and stopping at the winning number. It wasn't a real wheel, but you played the game just like roulette.

And that's what I had figured out. All I had to do was to play the money until I lost it back to Gottstein. It was his money and once he got it back the hoodoo would be off me and I'd be free. I'd be able to get some sleep and stop worrying about police. I'd be able to start figuring on how to get Dickie back again.

I knew I could lose the money fast, because the boards in these sucker joints not only have a zero, but a double zero and also a diamond. That makes the odds thirteen to twelve against you if you play the numbers, and if you play the odds and evens or the reds and blacks, it's even worse. They work out twenty-one chances for the house to eighteen for the sucker—or seven to six against you. Even if the wheel isn't coked up, you can't beat seven to six against you for very long. I knew that, so I decided to play the colors.

I sat down on a stool
and a fellow with black sleeve-
protectors came hustling over.

I said, "Got any five-dollar
chips?" making out I was a lit
tle oiled.

The bird looked hard at me, then he went away and brought another fellow. I knew they didn't have much playing as high as that, especially in the afternoons. When the second fellow came, I put on I was a little drunk, as if I was too foolish to care. The second fellow said: "What do you want to play?"

"Five-dollar chips," I said. I counted off five twenties.

"All right," he said. "The browns are five dollars."

He pushed me twenty chips and then put a chip marked with a five on top of the pile of browns. I decided to play slow at first, and then pretend to get reckless. There were three or four people came up and stood behind my stool. There are always people at those shore places out for a cheap thrill on someone else's money.

I played slow, just betting two or three chips, and the odds, sure enough, started to get at me. In five minutes I'd lost the twenty chips. I got twenty more, and they started to go. Then I'd lost them.

I decided I'd better pretend I was sore so I could work up and push it out a little faster. I wanted to get that hot money off my hands.

I got more chips and started playing the red. It came up black five times running. I could hear the kibitzers back of me sucking in their breath. I pretended I was sore. I got another hundred dollars' worth.

"God, what lousy luck," I said. "The damn wheel doesn't give me a break at all. All right if I play the pile?"

"It's your money," the man said.

The people crowded close
in back of me, and another fel
low came up behind the counter to watch. I figured sure now that the red must start turning up, so I decided to play the black. Then I'd lose like I wanted to. I pushed the pile on the black. It had just been black six times running.

The light started to slow down on the wheel so's you could see it. You couldn't see the light at first when it was going fast—only when it slowed down. We all watched. It came up black again for the seventh time.

"Gees, that's the old fight," I said, pretending to be glad. "I'll leave it there. Okay?"

"Okay," the man said.

He piled up twenty beside my first twenty. The wheel went round. It came up black again. That made eight blacks.

"Leave it there," I said. I was sure it couldn't come up nine times running.

That made four hundred on the black. I said to myself that it must come up red now. I'd leave it there until it came up red, then they'd win.

The light went round. It came up black for the ninth time. The people behind me all went: "Aa-a-a-ah!"

Everybody started to crowd round.

"Leave the eight hundred there," I said.

"Whyn't you pull down some," someone said.

"Look here, he can play without any advice," the man behind the counter said. "If you can't keep quiet, get out of here."

"Well, the man's drunk. He isn't fit to handle his money."

I turned round. It was a little old man, his hat all full of gray hair and mustache sticking out.

"I can play it," I said. "All on the black."

They started the light. It came up black again. That was ten times straight black had come up. The wheel had gone crazy and could only come up black.

That was sixteen hundred dollars I had.

By this time I didn't know what to do. I had kept playing the black, and the red wouldn't show up. I'd never seen a wheel come up one color ten times running. The old saying is that you play the black and the red comes up—but the saying wasn't true this time.

The man behind the counter piled up the chips. They were stacked all over the black square. And I didn't want to win.

"Play it all again?" he asked. He didn't seem too anxious.

"No, put it all on the red," I said. I figured the wheel was hoodooed and the black would come up forever.

"A bet—the pile on the red," he said.

The light slowed up behi
nd the wheel on the wall. Every
one was staring. It clicked, slower and slower. And it went on the red!

The first time red in eleven turns—and I had changed. I could hear all the people letting their breath out. I didn't know what to do.

"Leave it on the red," I
said. There was thirty-two hun
dred dollars there. I didn't know what to do.

"No bet," the man said. They didn't start the wheel.

Then, right off, an argument started. The little guy back of me started it. He started shouting that they had to take the bet and spin the wheel.

"Come on, spin that wheel!" he kept yelling. "Spin that wheel!"

A smooth-looking little bird came up, and the men behind the counter kept talking, low, to him. The people were all poking their noses in, saying they had to run the wheel.

"Look here," said the smooth-looking little bird, "we don't have to take any bets we don't want to."

"Well, this is a crooked game," shouted the gray-haired guy. He was old, but full of ginger. He kept yelling it was crooked.

"It's not crooked," the other fellow said. "We are open and above board. But we are not forced to take any bets. We have a ten-dollar limit."

"Well, you were ready to take his hundred bucks if you'd won," the little guy said, full of fight.

"Is that so? Well, we don't have to take this bet—or any bet we don't want to at any time. You see that?"

The smooth bird pointed to a sign on the wall that said:
We reserve the right to refuse accommodation.

All right,
I thought.
I was going to see this dump got its money back. All right, just for that I'll see you in hell first.

"Come on, you heel," I said. "Pay me off."

"I'd like to talk to you," the smooth bird said.

"Listen, I don't want any talk. I want three thousand two hundred bucks," I said. "And I want it right here and right now."

"I'm going to pay you."

"You're goddam right you're going to pay me!" I said. "And you ain't going to talk me out of one thin dime of it. You're goddam right you're going to pay me."

I was talking plenty loud, and the little grayheaded guy wasn't making the place any calmer.

"We'll stay right here until we see him paid, too," he said. "You'll not get away with any hanky-panky business right in open daylight."

There was so much noise that a cop showed up and wanted to know what was happening. The crowd all started telling him at once.

"Now what's it all about?" the cop started, talking at me. I pulled a twenty from my pocket and edged it into his hand.

"It's just like they said. I just won thirty-two hundred bucks."

He pretended to cough, so's he could put up his hand and see how much I'd slipped him.

"And we're all witnesses
that he won, officer," the gray
headed old man kept shouting. "We're witnesses, and we'll stand on our Constitutional rights."

"What do you mean?" the copper asked.

"The Constitution of these United States declares that it is the bounden duty of every citizen to see that the law is observed and that justice is done. That's in the Constitution! And if you don't observe that you're a Red," the little man said.

The cop didn't know what to say to that. It had him stopped.

"I'm sorry, Manny, you'd ought to pay this gentleman off," the cop said finally.

So I guessed that the smooth bird was Manny Gottstein, brother of the fellow who was killed. He suddenly changed. I guess he figured he might as well do it the right way since he had to.

"Gentlemen," he said. "This establishment has never failed to pay off any winner. I will have to send to the bank— but I want all you gentlemen to stay here until the messenger returns, and then you will be able to see that this gentleman is paid in good United States dollars for every cent he's won. That's the kind of place this is, gentlemen."

So we all stood around there for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then Gottstein showed up again and counted out the money. Three thousand two hundred dollars he counted out, all in hundreds. Then I slipped the copper one, and the bunch of people followed me out. I slipped one to the little gray-headed guy. He didn't want to take it. So I said:

"All right. Share it among the others."

That got rid of them and gave me a chance to get away. I left them by the honky-tonks, all down there by the shooting-galleries and the smell of hot dogs and buttered popcorn, all crowded round the old man.

It wasn't till I got home I realized what I'd done. Just because I got sore, instead of fourteen hundred dollars I now had about four thousand dollars.

But I got to thinking,
Now it's my money, anyhow. Didn't I give him a chance to get it back?

I went on like that, and first thing you know I had myself convinced that it was my money.

Then Mamie came home, and right off I had to tell her about it. I couldn't keep quiet. I told her I'd worked up from a few dollars. She got excited. She wanted to celebrate, so we went right on down the shore boulevard, down beyond Laguna until we hit a beer joint. We sat in there playing slot machines, and I hit the jackpot on the quarter machine, and Mamie got a big bang out of it. She kept yelling, "I'm a great big curly wolf and this is my night to howl."

It was cold when we started driving home. I can always drive right no matter how full I am. I hate to see a machine get treated badly.

We were driving home, and she said:

"Tell me, my big lucky handsome boy, how'd you get money to start on?"

"Oh," I said. "I had a couple of dollars."

"Oh, my big lucky handsome guy! Making five thousand out of a couple of bucks. I knew you were my sweetheart the moment I saw you. When you came running in the night that guy was killed I knew it. That night when the cops came in, I knew you were my good boy friend. I knew it. I did, right that night the guy was killed, I did."

She kept on like that until I got the willies—her talking about me running in and the police coming in right after me and Gottstein getting killed. And first thing you know I was cold sober.

"Come on, think up another tune," I said. "Tell me the one about the curly wolf/'

"Does my big boy want to hear about the curly wolf?"

"Sure I do."

"Really, really truly?"

"Sure."

"No, say really really truly. Say really really truly big boy wants to hear Mamie do the big bad curly wolf."

"Okay."

"No, say it."

"Okay. I want to hear Mamie do the big bad curly wolf."

"Say really really truly you do."

"Really really truly I do."

"All right, hold your hats, boys, here we go again."

Then she started saying she was a big bad curly wolf and this was her night to howl, and every time at the end she'd throw her head back and yowl with a sort of yodel in it.