Chapter 3 third chapter

Jackson climbed three flights and knocked on a small red door at the edge of the brightly lit hall.The metal plate covering the peephole has been removed.Jackson couldn't see the face of the man inside, but the man could see him. The door opened.Jackson entered an ordinary kitchen. "Would you like to play dice or pool?" asked the man who opened the door. "Dice." Jackson replied bluntly. The man who opened the door searched him, took his nail clippers, and put them on the shelf in the pantry, with several murder knives and pistols lying on it. "How can that thing hurt?" Jackson protested.

"You can stab their eyes with it." "The blade is not long enough to pierce the eyelid." "Come on, buddy, the last door to the right," said the porter, leaning against the table. On the protective cover of the door, there are three loose buttons.Pressing them, the janitor can control the lights in the living room, bedroom and dice room.One light would signal the arrival of new customers, and two lights would signal the arrival of the police. Another person opened the door to the dice room from the inside, and when Jackson entered, he closed and locked the door.

There was a pool table in the middle of the room, and on one wall were racks and cues for billiards.Gamblers crowded around the table under the blinding light of a green chandelier.The crapsman, feeling the dice and betting, stood on the other side of the table.On the stool opposite him sat a man who looked like a scammer, turning US dollar bills into silver dollars to earn the bank's difference.He put a quarter of all the bets on five dollars, and if he won, it would be fifty times five dollars. There are punters standing at each table.A brown-skinned, bald man nicknamed "Qianduier" squatted at the edge of the table; a gray-haired rabbi stood on the other side. "Money Pile" loses at the dice and goes all-in; the rabbi bets at either twelve or two.

①Here they are playing a double dice game. The rules of the game are: the dice thrower first throws a pair of dice to establish a point, and the bet is to see if the dice thrower can cast the same point again, but only four or five , Six, Eight, Nine or Ten can be counted as points. If you cast two, three or twelve, it means "out" and the next player wants to kill the child; if you cast seven or eleven points, it is called "out". Naturally, another player re-rolls the points to start the next game.Bettors have many different betting options, some with strings attached; and bettors can bet on the entire round, across several rounds, or just one roll of the dice.That's what makes this game interesting.

It was Harlem's biggest dice gamble ever. Jackson knew all the regular dice players who were famous in Harlem—Red Horse, Four Four, and Black Duck were professional gamblers, and Rummy, Candy Rock, Crack and "Beauty" are pimps; Dr. Henderson is a dentist and Mr. Volt is a bank clerk. "Red Horse" is throwing dice: he failed to roll an eight with his left hand, and is now switching to his right.The dice spun and rolled under the green velvet cover, stopping on four and three. "Four, take all," sang the steward, raking the dice with a rake, "Seven! Lost!  …"

Candy Rock reaches for the money in the jar. The "money pile" rakes through the money, and the rabbi wins and loses. "Are you still betting?" asked the croupier. "Red Horse" shook his head.He paid a dollar for numbers above three. "Next," sang the administrator, looking at Jackson, "what do you want, short, dark, or fat?" "Ten dollars." Jackson tossed ten dollars and fifty cents into the turntable. "Red horse" covered with money.The punters come down to place their bets.The steward threw the dice to Jackson, who grabbed them, held them in his hand, near his mouth, and said to the dice, "I don't want many, just enough to get me out of trouble." He crossed himself, palms The dice in the bag were all overheated.

"Let go, Priest! . . . " said the overseer, "they're not women's boobs, and you're not a child. Let them run wild in the corral! . . . " Jackson let them go.Like a frightened rabbit, the dice quickly jumped over the green tabletop, spun back and forth, and stopped exhaustedly on six and five. "Fantastic Eleven! . . . " sang the administrator, "Eleven from Heaven. Won! . . . " Jackson took his money and played another twenty.The result was a two.Later he rolled a ten and a seven.He still pressed twenty, but rolled another seven and was out again.He has lost twenty dollars.

He wiped the sweat from his face and head, took off his coat, put his hat and clothes on the hanger, opened his black double-breasted jacket, and said to the dice: "Dice, I use the tears in my eyes as big as watermelons I beg you." The result was another ten. Jackson knocked on the table three times with his hands and asked the administrator to change a pair of dice. "They don't know me," Jackson insisted. The administrator produced a pair of dice that looked like black eyes.Jackson rubbed them on his crotch.He has an eighty dollar bet.He took out fifty dollars and bet four on four, and the remaining thirty on ten.

"Those who place too much emphasis on winning and losing cannot gamble, and those who are timid cannot win." The administrator hummed. Bettors poured their bets on Jackson to lose.He eventually rolled a six and a seven and lost again. "Bet! . . . " sang the croupier, "The more you bet, the more you win." It was the next person's turn to roll the dice. At midnight, Jackson had a total of one hundred and eighty dollars in front of him.With savings, he now has $376.But he needed $657.95 to pay back Mr. Clay's $500 and pay the landlady $157.95. Jackson leaves the craps table and returns to the "old world" to see if he hits the numbers.The "final world" numbers that night were nine-one-nine, the arrangement of the dead.Jackson is back in the dice casino.

He prayed over the dice, begging for them: "My heart aches like a razor, and the pain in my heart is as deep as the ocean and as high as the rocky mountain." When it was his turn to roll the dice a second time, he simply took off his clothes.His shirt was wet and his pants scoured his crotch.When it was his turn to roll the dice for the third time, he even loosened his belt so that it dangled over his leg. Jackson rolled more sevens and elevens today than usual, and more twos, threes, and twelves than he ever threw sevens and elevens.And as anyone who is proficient in craps knows, bet on the opposite side of yours.

By the end of the game, it was daylight.Jackson lost in the end.Cold as a rock, he borrowed fifty cents from someone and walked slowly to the fast food restaurant of the Teresa Hotel.Bought a cup of coffee and two donuts for fifty cents and ate them standing in the corner. His eyes were clouded, and his dark skin had turned to a muddy gray.He was so tired that he seemed to have just plowed a stony field with a team of mules. "You look like you've lost a battle," the waiter said with a smile. "I felt terrible, like I was in the belly of a whale on the bottom of the ocean," Jackson admitted. The waiter watched as he devoured donuts and downed his coffee. "You must have lost money at the dice." "Yes." Jackson admitted again. "It is said that a rich man lacks enough sleep, but a penniless man lacks enough food." Jackson raised his head and looked at the clock on the wall. The time was tight. At nine o'clock Mr. Clay would come down from his house.Jackson knew: If he wanted to get away with it, he had to go to Mr. Clay's house with the money and find a way to put it in before Mr. Clay opened the safe. Imabella can go out and make money, but Jackson is unwilling to ask her for help.For her to make money, it means that she has to ignorant of her conscience.However, their current trouble is as uncomfortable as a mouse eating pepper. There is no one in the hotel corridor at this time, except for some workers rushing to work.They had to be in town at eight o'clock, and they were hurrying to get their simple breakfast of bacon from the grill. Jackson walked to the hotel next door and called back to his room.It was his landlady who answered the phone. "Is Imabella home?" Jackson asked. "Your yellow woman is in prison, and you should go in too," she replied viciously. "In prison? What's the matter?" "Last night, just after you called, an American policeman came back with her under escort. That policeman was looking for you, Jackson, and if I knew where you were, I'd have told him. He thought you two boys , committed the crime of counterfeiting banknotes." "An American cop? Did he detain her? What did he look like?" "He said you knew him. He sent her to jail, that's all," said the landlord savagely. "And he confiscated her box to see if there was any clue in it that would lead him to you." "Her box?" Jackson was so shocked that he could hardly speak. "He confiscated her box?" "He did, sweet boy. When he found you..." "God Almighty! He confiscated her box? Did he say his name?" "Don't ask me unnecessary questions, Jackson. I don't intend to help you escape, and I don't want to get in trouble for it." "You really don't have the mercy of Christ at all." After Jackson finished speaking, he hung up the receiver slowly. Leaning against the wall of the phone booth, he felt like he was caught on a dangerous rope, and every time he tried to escape, he sank deeper. Jackson didn't know how the police got Imabella's box.How did he discover what was inside? …Unless Imabella was forced to confess the box through intimidation.If that's the case, it means Imabella is in trouble. What made Jackson feel worst was that he didn't know where to go to find the policeman.He didn't even know where the police had caught Imabella.He believed the police wouldn't send Imabella to federal prison because, well, that cop got everything he wanted.If the police still wanted to dig some clues from himself, they would not take Imabella's box. He would use the box as bait to arrest him.Now even if he knows which policeman took the box, he doesn't know what to do to get it back. Standing on the deserted sidewalk in front of Teresa's Hotel, Jackson tried to get out of his predicament.He looked haggard from the night of gambling. Finally, he muttered to himself: "It's useless to stand here stupidly." He thought of going to his twin brother, Goldie, who knew everyone in Harlem. But Jackson didn't know where Goldie lived, so he had to wait until noon, when Goldie would appear on the street.Jackson didn't like wandering the streets alone.There was a movie theater in this block that opened at eight o'clock in the morning, but he had no money to buy tickets.It occurred to Jackson that there was a clinic in the office building on the corner of 125th Street. He climbed up to the second floor and sat in the waiting room of the clinic. The doctor hadn't gone to work yet, but there were already four patients waiting.As soon as the doctor arrived, Jackson retreated to the back of the line, putting everyone in front of him. The receptionist glanced at him now and then, and finally asked in a dead voice, "Are you sick?" It was already noon. "I was sick, but I feel better now," he said, putting on his hat, and hurried away.