Death Wish by Iceberg Slim Page A

T.’s and Kong’s wounds healed in the prison ward of county hospital, two crooked detectives put T. and Kong on show-up. Two of their shakedown victims had reported fake armed robberies. They fingered sixteen-year-old T. and Kong into Pontiac Reformatory until they were twenty-one years old.
    They were put to work in the kitchen of the crowded prison and lived in a four-man cell. T. and Kong soon became the most feared cons in the tough joint.
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    Thirty days before T.’s release, Skinny Man Blake, a Devastator member, came in from the street. A half-dozen Devastators serving bits, including T. and Kong, led Blake to an uncrowded corner of the yard to get a rundown on recent street happenings in the free world.
    They stripped off their shirts and lay on the grass in a semicircle around Blake. Beneath the lush June sun they shimmered like seals lolling on a jade beach.
    Blake said, “I guess you all hip to the trouble the Devastators was in when we lost T. and Kong. The club died a year ago from members OD’ing, bits in these joints, square-ups with wives and squealers, and the rest Lupo Collucci’s Sicilians crippled or wasted.”
    T. said, “I’m gonna chase Lupo back up his mammy’s ass when I hit the bricks next month.”
    Blake took a puff of his cigarette. “T., lemme pull your coat to the fact Collucci is poison you don’t wanta take.” He walled his eyes fearfully and almost whispered, “The dude is a Mafia man.”
    Kong said, “Ain’t that a bitch, T.?”
    T. said, “Yeah, we been standing still in a cage while the free world is speeding.”
    Blake said, “No shit, T., like when you and Kong got busted,there was maybe a dozen hustlers making a big buck. But now, on the Westside and the Southside, boo koo niggers, poor as Lazrus a coupla years ago, is living like kings.”
    Kong said, “How?”
    â€œOffa dealing dope. Mafia dope,” Blake said. “All of ’em got new Lincolns and hogs. Their customers is everywhere, thick as bedbugs in a flop joint. They stealing and nodding and dying.”
    Blake paused while the captain of the yard, with brass buttons a-dazzle, passed swinging a leaded cane and beaming his sweet psychotic smile.
    Blake continued. “Remember all the fat gut niggers that usta own the numbers and policy banks? Well, all of them, except one, is got a new partner taking sixty percent off the top, and the bankers gotta meet the nut outta their ends.”
    T. said, “When did the Mafia muscle in?”
    Blake said, “Amos Lightfoot got a bit in Leavenworth for income tax a coupla years ago. Amos got diarrhea of the jib and woke up a dago hood from the Windy about the gold mine behind the nickel-and-dime policy game.”
    One of the original Devastators said, “Who is the policy dude shaking his dick at the Mafia?”
    Blake said, “Willie Poe, outta the Apple. When the Mafia first moved in they killed Poe’s son and dumped a banker into an alley with a mouth fulla balls. Willie Poe tried to organize the bankers. But they was all on their knees with shit for blood.
    â€œCoupla months ago, Poe shot and stomped two Mafia runners to death. Willie Poe is the only nigger in the history of the world that ever stuck his black ass out and told the Mafia to kiss it. He’s the greatest and the baddest on the planet.”
    The whistle screamed that the yard period was over. T. lagged back with Blake as the cons moved off the yard into the cell houses.
    T. said, “Blake, I ain’t got my nose open and nothing like that.Understand me, for real, but about Rachel, she ain’t answered my kites for six months. She died or what?”
    Blake said, “T., you know I love you and I know you. Forget about her.”
    T. knifed his fingernails into Blake’s arm and said, “Nigger, I’ll tear your arm off if you dangle me about my