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You have to stay on your toes. That’s why every hustler I know carries a piece now. I’m going to start carrying one, too.

Harlem, 1945

Sammy pounds on the bathroom door. “Red! You gotta go, man. Gotta go!”

There’s a more distant banging now, too. West Indian Archie, out in the hallway, thumping on Sammy’s front door. Archie claims I lied about the fifty-cent bet I laid yesterday. I’m sure he’s come here to kill me.

I picked up my winnings this morning — three hundred dollars. Archie handed over the cash, no questions asked. I go over it and over it in my mind. It seemed so normal at the time, but, in retrospect, maybe there was a bit of a frown on his face. Maybe he looked at me from a little bit of a slant. Why didn’t he just
ask
me? We could have cleared up any confusion. As it was, I took the money and walked, already thinking about how to spend it. But now . . .

“Go!” Sammy shouts at me. “He’s coming!”

Nowhere
to
go. Huddled here on the bathroom tile, I wonder if my life will end today, at the hands of the one who is supposed to protect me. Hustlers know: live for today because you might not get a tomorrow. But it shouldn’t be over something like this.

The crack of splintering wood tells me that Archie’s busted in through the door of Sammy’s pad.

“Hey, man,” Sammy shouts. “You didn’t have to do that.”

I leap to my feet. This is why I carry a piece — so when someone busts in on me, I can at least defend myself. My hand scrambles to my pocket, but the gun is not there. I forgot — I had to ditch it over the bar when the cop searched me earlier.

I press my hand against the bathroom door, which is little more than a painted piece of plywood, with no lock. I’m dead.

“Where is he?” Archie demands.

My eye flies to the narrow bathroom window. We’re on the fourth floor. Too high to jump, but there’s a small ledge on the window and the living-room fire escape is just a few feet over. With my long legs, I think I can make it.

“Where’s who?” Sammy’s voice trembles. “You don’t gotta shoot me, man.”

Archie carries a .25 caliber pistol. Stubby-looking gun, but scary enough when it’s pointed at the bridge of your nose. “I want my money, Red!” he shouts. He knows I’m here. It’s only a matter of time.

“What money?” Sammy says, stalling.

“What money?” Archie sneers. Then shouts, “The three hundred you tried to con off me! I wasn’t born yesterday.”

I dive across the toilet, toward the bathroom window, but its frame is all painted and rusty. I can’t wedge it open far enough. I can get an arm out, or a leg, but not my shoulders or my head. I’m trapped.

The bathroom door bangs open. Archie barrels in, a steaming mass of sweat and fury. “Where is it?”

He glares at me, my body all jammed into the window recess. “What are you talking about?” I stay as calm as I can manage, but sweat pours off me. “That was my winnings.”

“You never laid that bet,” he says.

“I did so.”

“Are you saying you don’t have it?”

I do, in fact, have it. Right in my pocket. But I laid that bet, sure as I have a conk on my head.

“I’m saying I laid the bet!” I shout to Archie. “Like I always do. You know I did.”

“I’ll give you a day,” Archie says. “Twenty-four hours to pony up the cash, or next time we meet, there’ll be a bullet hole in you.”

Archie storms out, slamming the broken door behind him. The scent of him lingers, even after the echo of his presence fades to a dull hum.

“I thought you were a goner.” Sammy blows out a breath. “How much of it did you spend? I can loan you.”

“No. I got it all.”

“Shit,” Sammy says. “You shoulda given it to him.”

“I can’t hand it back,” I say. “That’s as good as admitting I lied. He’d have shot me.”

“Are you playing him?”

“No,” I insist. “I laid the bet.”

“Shit,” Sammy repeats. “He thinks you’re trying to roll into his territory.” This has happened before. Some young hotshot bookie tries to unseat the runner he works for. You stage a power play by conning the older guy out of some fake winnings, then mouth around that you one-upped the boss. Kill the boss’s credibility. Suddenly everyone’s laying bets with the new kid, moving up.

Does Archie think I’m a threat to him?

“It’s a no-win,” Sammy says. “You’re finished.”

I smoke some weed with Sammy to pass the time, because . . . shit. My life as I know it is over. I don’t know who put it in the air, that I’m crooked. I pay my money faithfully every week. Never had a thought in my head of trying to hustle Archie. I know it’s breaking the law in the strictest sense, but it’s pure. With numbers, the magic is all in the luck of it, a thing that’s out of my hands and everyone else’s. We offer up our dreams, a penny at a time, to the chance that they might come true. Every penny I put on the numbers is a penny well spent; it buys me that moment to think:
What if?

Nothing unites Negroes in Harlem or anywhere else like playing the numbers. Everyone, up and down the street, the ones who are doing OK right down to the ones who have to scrounge the penny out of the gutter to get a chance to play — all of us throw up our hands and plead. Like a prayer, to a God we know isn’t listening. There’s hope in that, even though it’s little more than the desperate tossing of a coin. Desperate to believe that luck can offer us a more promising fate.

“What are you gonna do, man?” Sammy’s voice floats at me.

“I don’t know,” I answer.

“He’s gonna kill you.”

“Then, I guess . . . I guess I’m gonna have to kill him first.”

I can’t believe it’s come to this. Archie has promised me things. All the great hustles we were going to pull together.
You’re going places, kid.
More stories. More wishes that are never to be. Is everything in this whole damn world a lie?

I ring up Jean and tell her I’ll pick her up at eight. She and I usually celebrate numbers winnings, and if this is going to be my last ride, I’ll at least go out in style. It’ll be harder for Archie to find me if I’m not crouched at Sammy’s like a sitting duck.

Sammy loans me his .32 pistol, since I gave mine up in the bar earlier. I stick it in my pants, because with a guy like Archie, you just never know. If he comes back around, if he has his gun on him, he might not give me another day to fix it up.

Not hanging around Harlem seems like a good idea. I’m always dodging the cops as it is, and now I’m dodging West Indian Archie on top of it. I take Jean down to a club in midtown. Billie Holiday’s singing.

“We saw her together once before, didn’t we?” Jean says.

“Yeah,” I answer. But I don’t want to think about that night. I know Billie now, from the Braddock. Everyone hangs out there, and I’ve been around long enough. For a second I get a bit of longing for the old days, when I used to be able to roll up in a room like that, with or without sticks for sale, and just slap skin with folks whose voices were on the hottest records selling nationwide. There was something perfect in that. It aches sometimes, that I messed it up so hard.

Jean says, “Let’s go uptown,” and I’ve had enough drinks at this point that I don’t see the problem with it. We go to a bar down the road from Small’s. West Indian Archie’s territory for sure, but I don’t figure it matters. He gave me until noon tomorrow, and, anyway, I know I’m in the right.

I feel the shiver on the back of my neck. At first I think it’s just Jean, back from the ladies’ room, trying to have some fun. A little whisper.

But the feeling is cold, not warm. Slowly I turn. In the doorway stands West Indian Archie.

We share a glance. Here I am, spending what he thinks is his money on a night on the town. On a girl. And he has to take a stand — anyone would. I know this.

He bears down upon me with the heat of the sun. “Detroit Red,” he calls out. My goose is cooked. Why does it have to be in front of everyone?

Archie walks toward me, real deliberate steps.

“You said we would talk tomorrow,” I say.

“I said you had a day to raise my money back. Not spend it.”

He’s making it public. There’s no turning back now. Anyone who didn’t know Archie was out to get me will know after this. I’m finished.

We’re going to have to have a showdown.

He’s going to speak at me so that everyone will hear. Then he’ll walk out on the street. I’ll have to follow him. No choice in the matter. All my pride at stake.

I’m carrying Sammy’s gun, tucked down my back. Archie’s carrying, for sure. We’ll shoot it out on the street. My heart pounds. One of us will die. The other will go to prison. Life. Maybe even the chair.

So we’re both dead, looking at each other across the high-top bar table.

“Go home,” I tell Jean out the side of my mouth. “Just get on out of here.”

She doesn’t need to be told twice. She slides off the stool and melts into the crowd. She’s the only thing moving. Everyone around us has stopped to stare. West Indian Archie cuts an imposing figure under normal circumstances — when he’s mad like this, he seems enormous.

I am several inches taller, but I don’t feel it. Archie is large with power, with age, with this conviction that I have wronged him. Which I didn’t. Did I?

My brain scrambles itself. I was high when I bet. High when I collected. High now . . . and suddenly confused. Did I get my numbers wrong?

I shake myself out of the doubt. It doesn’t matter. There’s no going back now. For me or for Archie.

The accusation is out there. We’re locked on the path to the showdown.

A sharp pain explodes across my chest.
He’s shot me,
I think. But . . . no. It’s just the sting of seeing the flaming, furious look stamped on his dark, familiar face. It hurts worse than a bullet. I can see behind his eyes, the intent to punish me. To make me pay.

Then, for an instant, something different flashes across his face, a regretful scowl, as if to say,
Why did it have to come to this?

I feel the same way, looking back at him. What we have going is great and perfect; Archie’s always telling me I’m the best bookie he has running. Telling me how much more I can do. I thought he wanted me to follow him. He’s proud of me. I can see it when he looks at me. He’s proud of what I can do.

You can do anything you put your mind to.

For a strange second, I don’t know who I’m hearing, whispering in my ear.

Two hustler friends of Archie’s ease their way to the front of the crowd. They step alongside Archie, ready to come between us. It’s the only chance I’m ever going to have.

I dive backward, thrashing through a cluster of surprised onlookers. I race out onto the street. It’s dark and mostly still. A few passersby glide in and out of sight through the streetlight puddles. I plunge into the shadows and wait. Draw Sammy’s gun into my hand.

Any second now, Archie’s going to follow me out. Gun in front of him, no doubt. When he walks through the door, I will kill him. Just like that. Before he has a chance to look and see me. Before I have to read again the disappointment on his face.
Back at you, Archie. I would have followed you forever.

I’m ready. Finger on the trigger, curled and calm. Ready.

I flinch every time the door hinges creak. Several groups of people do leave the bar, but I see no signs of Archie. Ten minutes.

Fueled by the hurt of Archie’s betrayal, I’m ready to lash out and kill.

Come out and face me.
But Archie doesn’t appear.

Fifteen minutes. Twenty.

I back away down the street. After half a block, I lower the gun. Tuck it back in place.

Sammy’s place is my refuge. Archie might come looking for me there again, but I’ve got no place else to go. I tuck myself down between the sofa and coffee table. Try to believe. I am Detroit Red. I am triumphant. The cops can’t get me. West Indian Archie can’t get me.

At least not while I’m huddled down here.

I squeeze myself as small as I can, as small as the child I once was. The only comfort I can imagine is my mother’s arms, a thing I haven’t wished for — let myself wish for — in such a long time. All there is now is a broken circle.

For the first time, maybe ever, the high isn’t taking. I am low. So low. I’m tiny. Breathing. Fragile. And afraid.

In the strange stillness, I can feel the breath of Papa’s shame.
Have you looked at yourself, my son? What has become of you?
If there is a heaven, which I doubt, I wonder if he has turned his face away. I hear his voice in my head, but the words are like ghosts. My hands pass right through; no substance. Try as I might, I cannot feel him. Haven’t wanted to in so long. Maybe all the pushing down, all the forgetting, has finally worked.

Sammy comes in. “Red?” he calls. “Where you at?”

He peers down at me. Laughs. “You’re losing it, man.” He raps my shoulder blade with his knuckles. “Get up.”

I unfold myself. Sammy’s here, watching my back. It’s not so bad when I’m not alone.

“You got somebody waiting on you downstairs,” he says. “Said he’s looking for his homeboy. Called you by name, so I figure he’s legit. . . .”

I’m already looking out the window, and then I’m out the door in a hot-streak second. I pound the stairs so hard my bones rattle.