RECORDING NYSNB-1157 (CONTINUING). TAPED at 2:17 P.M., 19 June, 1968, at Mama’s Soul Food, 125th Street and Hannox Avenue, New York City. Participants John Anderson and Samuel Johnson have been identified by a paid informer present at the scene.
Samuel “Skeets” Johnson, thirty-three, was a Negro, light tan, with long black greased hair combed in a high “conk” (pompadour). Approximately 6 feet 2 inches; 178 pounds. Deep razor scar on left cheek. Hearing impairment of 75 percent in left ear. Dressed in expensive clothing of bright hues. Wore light pink polish on fingernails. At last report, drove a 1967 Cadillac convertible (electric blue), New Jersey license plates 4CB-6732A, registered to Jane Martha Goody, 149 Hempy Street, Hackensack, New Jersey. Johnson’s criminal record included arrests for loitering, petty larceny, committing a public nuisance, resisting arrest, simple assault, assault with intent to kill, threatening bodily harm, breaking parole, breaking and entering, armed robbery, and expectorating on a public sidewalk. He had served a total of six years, eleven months, fourteen days in Dawson School for Boys, Hillcrest Reformatory, and Dannemora. This man had the unusual ability of being able to add a series of as many as twenty dictated numbers of eight digits each in his head and arriving at the correct sum within seconds. Frequently carried a switchblade knife in a small leather sheath strapped to right ankle. Frequently spoke in rhymed slang.
ANDERSON: How you doing, Skeets?
JOHNSON: Slip me five, I’m still alive. Now that you’re here, have a beer. If you’re in the mood, make it food.
ANDERSON: Just a beer.
JOHNSON: I thought you dug this soul food crap—knuckles and hocks and greens?
ANDERSON: Yeah, I like it. Don’t you?
JOHNSON: Shit no, man. I go for a good Chateaubriand or maybe some of them frogs’ legs swimming in butter and garlic. That’s eating. This stuff sucks. Just a beer? That all you want?
ANDERSON: That’s all. What’d you find out?
JOHNSON: Wait for the beer, and then give ear.
[Lapse of twenty-seven seconds.]
JOHNSON: By the way, I’m picking up the knock.
ANDERSON: Thanks.
JOHNSON: I got to thank you, lad, ’cause you made me glad.
Anderson: How’s that?
JOHNSON: That little Andronica you put me onto. Oh, so sweet and juicy. You spend a night with her, all you need is a spoon and a straw. She’s a double-dip strawberry sundae with a big whoosh of white whipped cream on top and then a big red cherry sticking up in the air.
ANDERSON: And the first thing you bit off was that cherry.
JOHNSON: Ask me no questions, and I tell you no lies.
ANDERSON: You pushing her?
JOHNSON: Every chance I get—which ain’t often. She gets one night off a week. Then we fly. And we had two matinee sessions. Oh, she so cuddly and wiggly and squirming. I could eat her up.
ANDERSON: And I bet you do.
JOHNSON: On occasion, Great White Father, on occasion.
ANDERSON: How did you make the meet?
JOHNSON: What you want to know for?
ANDERSON: How am I going to learn to operate if you don’t tell me things?
JOHNSON: Ah, Duke, Duke … you got more shit than a Christmas goose. You forgotten more than I could ever teach you. Well, I got this old family friend. A real coon type. But that’s just front. This cat is into everything. I mean, he’s a black Billy the Kid. Slick. You dig?
ANDERSON: Sure.
JOHNSON: So I slip him a double Z. He meets this Andronica when she comes out of the supermarket. My pal puts his paws on her. “You dirty sex fiend,” I scream at him, “how dare you touch and annoy and defile and molest this dear, sweet, little innocent chick?”
ANDERSON: Beautiful.
JOHNSON: I feed him a knuckle sandwich—which he slips. He takes off down the avenue. Andronica is shook.
ANDERSON: And grateful.
JOHNSON: Yeah—and grateful. So I help her wheel her little wagon of groceries home. One thing leads to another.
ANDERSON: So? What did she spill?
JOHNSON: That coin collection is insured for fifty big ones. There’s a wall safe behind a painting of a vase of flowers in the study. That’s where Mrs. Sheldon keeps her ice. My baby thinks there’s other goodies in there, too. Bonds. Maybe some green. Sound good?
ANDERSON: Not bad. They going to be around all summer?
JOHNSON: I regrets to report, massa, they are not. The family moves out this weekend to Montauk. Old man Sheldon will go out every weekend until after Labor Day. That means no more sweet push for pops for another three months unless we can work something out—like her coming into the city or me going out there.
ANDERSON: You’ll work it out.
JOHNSON: I mean to. I really mean to. I must see Andronica so she can blow my harmonica.
ANDERSON: What about the cold room? The room in the basement. Remember?
JOHNSON: I didn’t forget, white man who speaks with forked tongue. Guess what it is.
ANDERSON: I been trying to. I can’t.
JOHNSON: When the house was built, that’s where they kept their fruits and vegetables. Then after they had refrigerators, the old geezer who built the joint kept his wines down there. Those walls are thick.
ANDERSON: And now? What’s it used for? Wine?
JOHNSON: No, indeedy. They got a little refrigerator-like in there and a machine that takes the water out of the air. It’s cold and it’s dry. And everyone who lives in that house—the women, that is—they puts their fur coats in there for storage come warm weather. No extra charge. They got their own fur storage locker right there on the premises. How do you like that?
ANDERSON: I like it. I like it very much.
JOHNSON: Thought you would. Duke, if you planning anything—and notice I say if—and you need an extra field hand, you know who’s available, don’t you?
ANDERSON: I give you your due; it could be you.
JOHNSON: Ah, baby, now you’re singing our song!
ANDERSON: Reach under the table; it’s your other bill.
JOHNSON: Your gelt I’ll take, and that’s no fake. But why pay me for just what’s due? I should pay you for what I screw.
ANDERSON: See you around.