In the spring of 1951, Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson, the godfather of crime in Harlem, was in an emotional place. He had been out of prison for about four years, and nearly all of those years had been a battle. He had done almost ten years in Danomora Prison for assault with a deadly weapon, and when he got out, he learned that the mafia had taken over much of his territory in Harlem. He had been through tense times as he brokered a new deal with the mob to gain back control of his kingdom. Then it took time and effort to rebuild his numbers racket and get the money flowing again. But over a couple years, he felt like things were getting better. Business improved, and he started a family. He married Mamie Hatcher, and they moved into a nice apartment. He brought a young man named Flash Walker into his operation, whom he and Mamie really liked. Bumpy treated Flash like a son, and may have viewed him as an heir to the throne. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, it started to go bad. And that was why Bumpy was on an emotional roller coaster. Behind Bumpy's back, Flash had apparently been cashing checks from the account of the daughter of a prominent politician. Basically, he was stealing the politician's money. Understandably, the politician was irate, and he threatened to send Bumpy to prison. In a rage, Bumpy had beaten Flash nearly to death on the street in broad daylight. Bumpy seemed to regret the violent outburst, but he did not forgive Flash Walker, and he told everyone that Flash was out of the operation. Bumpy's friends told him he'd made a mistake. Flash knew too much. Either Bumpy would have to make up with him or kill him. As the stalemate dragged on, Ed Smalls, a club owner and old friend of Bumpy's, tried to intervene to settle the feud. Ed asked Bumpy to come to his house. When Bumpy arrived, Ed said Bumpy needed to patch things up with Flash. Bumpy said he would do it when he was ready, and Ed told him that Flash Walker was in the next room. Flash had repeatedly tried to apologize to Bumpy, but Bumpy wouldn't give him the chance, and Bumpy wasn't ready to do so now. Instead of talking to the young man, Bumpy stood up and left. Soon afterward, the Johnson household received an unexpected visitor. It was an ex-girlfriend of Flash Walker's. She was distraught and scared. Apparently, Flash visited her with a kilo of heroin and told her to sneak it into Bumpy's house so that Flash could call the cops and frame Bumpy for dealing drugs. She couldn't do it, and she confessed to Bumpy instead. Bumpy was horrified. He had indirect financial ties to the heroin market because he received protection money from gangsters who sold heroin, but he wanted no part of the business himself. Heroin ruined lives and neighborhoods, and it was a fast ticket to prison. At that point, Bumpy realized he'd let the feud go on too long. Along with his most trusted lieutenants, he hit the streets looking for Flash. They needed to find him fast. Unfortunately for Bumpy, he was far too late. From BlackBeril Media, this is Infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling the story of Frank Lucas, one of the godfathers of crime in Harlem, New York, the man whose life was the inspiration for the film American Gangster. This is Episode Two, The Big Track Robbery. In May of 1951, Bumpy was returning home from a laundromat when a pair of agents from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics stopped him. The bureau had been created in 1930 and was the primary agency investigating drugs until it was dissolved in 1968 and replaced by the Drug Enforcement Administration. One of the agents told Bumpy they needed him to come downtown. He was under arrest for suspicion of drug trafficking. Bumpy knew he was clean, so he didn't resist. He took his laundry into his apartment, told Mamie to call their lawyer, and he went downtown. His bail was set at $25,000. According to Mamie, it was all a setup by Flash Walker. He'd been arrested for selling heroin the previous December, and he told the police that he was selling it for Bumpy Johnson. The feds immediately offered Flash a deal if he would rat on his boss, and he did. Even though many of the narcotics agents didn't really believe that Flash was running drugs for Bumpy, the opportunity to send Bumpy to prison for a long time was too good to pass up. Bumpy made bail and hired the best lawyer he could find. The trial was set for the second half of the following year, 1952, and Bumpy almost didn't live long enough to see the courtroom. In June of 1952, while Bumpy was out on bail, he was at the Vets Club on 122nd Street listening to jazz music until the early hours of the morning. At around 5.30 a.m., a half-drunk man at the bar was making a scene in front of a group of women. Bumpy told the man, Robert Hawkins, to chill out or leave. Hawkins left the bar, and Bumpy bought drinks for the women. An hour later, Hawkins returned, even more drunk, and pointed a gun at Bumpy Johnson. Because Bumpy was out on bail, he was unarmed. He'd tried to talk sense to the man, but Hawkins was too drunk and too mad to care. Bumpy smashed a potted plant against Hawkins' face, but Hawkins was already pulling the trigger. He shot Bumpy three times, then fled the scene. Bumpy's friends took him to the hospital. Later, a surgeon told Mamie Johnson that if one of the bullets had been a tenth of an inch to the left, Bumpy would have died. Bumpy Johnson spent the next year recovering from the near-fatal gunshot wounds, and Robert Hawkins disappeared from New York. In 1953, Bumpy finally went to trial. On the stand, Flash Walker claimed he'd been running heroin for Bumpy since 1949, a claim that Bumpy adamantly denied. According to Bumpy's biography, Flash Walker's testimony was riddled with inconsistencies, and another witness to Bumpy's supposed heroin operation was a man who Bumpy had never met in his life. For all of its dramatic prelude, the trial was short. Bumpy's team went to lunch on the third day of the trial, and three hours later, the jury delivered a guilty verdict. Apparently, Bumpy tried to bribe the judge with $100,000, but the judge turned it down and gave Bumpy a 15-year sentence. Bumpy's team appealed the case all the way to the Supreme Court, but to no avail. The conviction held, and Bumpy went to federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas. But before long, he was transferred to Alcatraz, where he lived with a notorious cast of characters during the final years of the most famous prison in American history. Bumpy Johnson was at Alcatraz from 1954 until the prison closed in March of 1963. During that time, he rubbed shoulders with Alvin Creepy Carpice of the Barker Gang, Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz, Mickey Cohen, the Los Angeles gangster who was the protege of Bugsy Siegel, James Whitey Bulger, the legendary Boston crime boss, and the three men who staged one of the most elaborate and creative prison breaks of all time, Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin. And while Bumpy endured the monotony of life at the Rock, Frank Lucas was planning the heist that would set him on a collision course with the godfather of Harlem. While Bumpy sat in prison for his second ten-year stretch, some things changed and others remained the same. The music, the clothes, and the cars slowly evolved, but the numbers racket kept going. All manner of gambling stayed popular. Prostitution remained constant, and robberies were a mainstay. Robbery was how Frank Lucas had scratched out a living in New York since he had hitchhiked from North Carolina in 1944. Frank had arrived as a 15-year-old kid who didn't know nothing or nobody. He had committed a slew of petty crimes down south, and he continued in the big city. He robbed jewelry stores, clothing stores, restaurants, and bodegas. Like most thieves, he served a couple stints in jail, but he always went back to what he knew. Toward the end of Bumpy Johnson's prison sentence, Frank landed a score that put all the others to shame. It started when he robbed a jewelry store and ended up walking away with handfuls of diamonds. He was able to fence them for $30,000. That would be more than $300,000 today. Suddenly, he was rich, and he wanted to stay rich. The man who owned the jewelry store was the key to a mountain of money. The owner, as it turned out, was a regular patron of a gambling place that Frank referred to as the Big Track. While the name made it sound like a horse racing operation, it was actually a set of craps tables in the basement of a high-rise apartment building on 145th Street. Dozens of rich men gambled enormous amounts of money in the illegal craps games. It wasn't fancy, but it didn't have to be. The high rollers were there to gamble, not to show off. And, critically, the private venue did not have security beyond the doorman. The room was full of powerful and dangerous men. A person would have to be crazy or stupid to rob them. Frank was able to scope the place easily enough. An acquaintance named Johnny was one of the guys who worked the door, and Johnny gave Frank a quick tour. Johnny provided the lowdown on the gamblers, which ones were regulars and which ones were the big fish. As a random guy with Johnny, no one paid any attention to Frank. By the end of the tour, Frank had decided he was going to rob the Big Track. The best guess for the date of the robbery is sometime in July of 1963. Frank Lucas went back to the apartment building basement on 145th Street, wearing an overcoat in spite of the heat. Johnny wasn't working that day, but the doorman recognized Frank as Johnny's friend and let him in. Frank stepped into the basement and surveyed the room. After a few moments, he opened his coat and pulled out a 45-caliber automatic and a 44-caliber magnum revolver. He raised both weapons and shouted for everyone to put their hands up and get up against the wall. The gamblers and dealers froze. According to Frank's account of the event, there were no armed guards in the basement. The gamblers thought someone would have to be insane to rob them, and yet Frank Lucas was doing it in the middle of the day without wearing a mask. So yeah, it might have been insane, but when Frank fired one of his guns to get their attention, they knew he was serious. He told them to take off their pants and throw them into the center of the room. As the men complied, Frank rifled through the pants and took as much money as he could find. He stuffed the cash into his pockets without counting it and headed for the door. He shouted after them that if any of them followed him, he'd shoot him dead. He ran up the basement stairs and burst out of the high-rise. He hurried down the street until he was sure no one was following him. Then he slowed down to a walk and made his way to his room at a boarding house. When he was safely in his room, he counted his hall. Ironically, it was only $15,000, about half of what he had made from the stolen diamonds. It was still a lot of money, but Frank was disappointed. He had only been able to rob the men of what they had in their pockets. He had not been able to take the cash that was on the tables, and that was the real money. If he had had an accomplice who could have kept guns on the gamblers while he grabbed the money from the tables, he could have taken everything. But it was still a successful rip, and Frank wasn't going to waste time brooding over what might have been. He stowed most of the cash, took a few hundred for himself, and went straight to his favorite bar, where he bought a round of drinks for everyone in celebration. A few hours later, his good mood was interrupted by the sudden arrival of his friend Johnny, the doorman from the Big Track. Johnny told Frank to get out of New York as fast as possible. The men from the Big Track wanted him dead. They had described him around town and had placed a price on his head. And Frank decided he was not going to run. One way or another, Harlem was his home, and he'd see it through to the end. After the Big Track robbery, Frank Lucas spent several weeks expecting a bullet at every moment. But for whatever reason, the promised hit didn't happen. And soon enough, Frank had a powerful ally who would make sure it never happened. At some unspecified time a few weeks after the robbery, Frank was in a pool hall watching some guys play and hoping for a chance to jump in. By that point, Frank had burned through all $15,000 from the robbery. The guys at the pool hall were playing for big money, and Frank would need someone to stake him so he could get into a game and then make money for himself. Frank approached a guy at one of the tables, a hitman for hire called Ice Pick Red, and asked for a game. Ice Pick Red said he wouldn't play anyone who couldn't put down at least $1,000 on a game. That was when the door opened and a man in a dark blue suit stepped in. He asked Frank if he thought he could beat Ice Pick Red. Frank replied confidently that he could. Frank didn't recognize Bumpy Johnson by sight, but he quickly understood who the man in the dark blue suit was by reputation. A decade behind bars hadn't lessened Bumpy's standing. Bumpy Johnson, the godfather of Harlem, had been paroled on May 4, 1963, about two months before Frank Lucas robbed the big track. Bumpy was 55 years old, Frank was 33, and Bumpy wanted to check out the guy who had brazenly robbed the big track. Bumpy staked Frank Lucas at the pool table and Frank soundly beat Ice Pick Red, as promised. Red was humiliated, but he knew better than to make a scene with Bumpy there. After the game, Bumpy drove Frank around town, and Frank pointed out the guys who wanted to kill him. Bumpy talked to each man, and from that point forward, Frank Lucas was one of Bumpy's guys. Initially, Frank did various jobs for Bumpy. He ran errands, helped with the numbers spots, and drove Bumpy around when Bumpy didn't feel like driving himself. According to Frank, he idolized Bumpy. Bumpy, meanwhile, had mixed feelings about Frank. Frank was clearly smart and audacious, but he was also reckless and uncultured. He didn't even know how to read. As they worked together for the next few years, Frank never lost his love of life in the fast lane. Working the numbers racket was too much like accounting. The heavy work was more exciting. Like the night Frank received a call from Bumpy, who said one of his friends had been robbed and assaulted in his home by Ice Pick Red. It had been a couple years since their encounter with Red at the pool table, and the assault and robbery might not have been payback for that humiliating moment, but the reason didn't matter. Bumpy and his gang drove to New Jersey, where his friend lived. They found Bumpy's friend lying dead in his living room. The man's wife was hysterical and she told him about the attack. As Bumpy listened, Frank had never seen him so angry. The next night, Frank and some of Bumpy's crew found Ice Pick Red on the streets. They pulled up to him, pointed guns at him, and shoved him into their car before he could make a move. They drove Red to a basement where Bumpy Johnson was waiting. According to Frank, whose story should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism, Bumpy held two jars and a small paintbrush. He told Frank and the others to gag Ice Pick Red, strip him, and tie him to one of the pipes. They did, and Bumpy opened the first jar. It held a paste that looked like honey. Bumpy spread it on Ice Pick Red's skin with the paint brush. He set the jar aside and opened the second jar. It contained fire ants. Bumpy poured the ants onto Ice Pick Red's honey-smeared body and let them do their work. It was an age-old Native American torture that was designed to kill a person slowly and painfully. Regardless of the truth of the story, Ice Pick Red was never a problem again. Throughout Frank Lucas' employment with Bumpy Johnson, Frank continued to sell heroin on the side from time to time. In his mind, it was worth the extra risk because the profits were so big, and Frank was surprised that Bumpy Johnson didn't want any part of the business. Frank surely would have known about the saga with Flash Walker, but he probably thought, again, that the profit was greater than the risk. But at the same time, even though Frank had been in and out of jail several times, he hadn't spent the better part of 20 years of his life in a maximum security prison, and he was 20 years younger than Bumpy. Bumpy had never liked the heroin business, and as he grew older, he definitely wanted no part of it. But one night in the mid-60s, Frank Lucas saw the news report that gave him the epiphany which finally prompted him to talk to his boss. The report was about American servicemen in Vietnam who had become addicted to heroin while fighting the war. That part of Southeast Asia was known in the heroin business as the Golden Triangle, which encompassed Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, and Laos. The news reporter said that heroin supplied from the Golden Triangle was cheaper and stronger than the heroin that could be purchased in the United States. The description stuck in Frank's mind, cheaper and stronger. Frank knew how to cut heroin to extend a good supply, but the idea of having a product that was cheaper and stronger, that was the holy grail. He could cut it several times over and still make a huge profit. Despite Bumpy's long time stance against heroin, Frank decided to talk to Bumpy about his brainstorm. One morning outside of one of Bumpy's number spots, Frank explained his new business idea. Every heroin dealer in Harlem got their supply from the Italians at a steep markup. If Bumpy's crew could secure a source in the Golden Triangle, they could sell heroin at much higher profit margins. They could bring in many more millions every year. Bumpy seemed to consider the idea, but when he spoke again, he was adamant. They were not going to deal heroin, not now, not ever. Frank tried to protest, but a stern look from Bumpy shut him down. What Frank didn't know was that Bumpy was not totally against selling drugs, and he had no problem cutting out the middleman in such an enterprise. As early as 1965, Bumpy had a direct line on cocaine from Peru. Since leaving Alcatraz in 1963, he had been looking for ways to diversify his business. While he thought heroin was too big a risk, cocaine was recreational and therefore a safer bet. His wife, Mamie, later said that cocaine sold for $35,000 per kilo in 1965. That would be more than $350,000 today. Eventually, it became Bumpy's most profitable enterprise. But Frank Lucas was never part of Bumpy's drug business. So far as Frank knew, Bumpy was opposed to selling any kind of drug. Frank was disappointed and he went back to his normal work, but he would soon learn the truth of Bumpy's drug business. Bumpy's health was starting to fail, which eventually led to the revelation of his cocaine empire. During a heavy snowstorm in February of 1967, Bumpy Johnson was walking out of a club when he clutched his chest and slumped against his Cadillac. A nearby drug dealer saw him and ran to his side. In moments, the two of them were rushing to the nearest hospital. Bumpy had suffered a heart attack and words spread fast through Harlem. Crowds of people started gathering outside the hospital to see Bumpy, but none were allowed inside. Frank Lucas joined the crowd as soon as he heard and they waited through several anxious hours for news. Eventually, they learned Bumpy had pulled through. Bumpy's supporters were relieved, but their relief was temporary. Three months later, in May, Bumpy suffered another heart attack. Like the first, it wasn't fatal, but Bumpy was clearly shaken. He was 61 years old and it seemed like time would catch up to him soon. In July 1967, two months after Bumpy's second heart attack, he was standing by his car in front of a high-rise apartment building when two narcotics approached him. The men said they needed to see him downtown. Bumpy must have felt a sense of deja vu. This was exactly what had happened before he went to Alcatraz. That time, he went along quietly. This time, he didn't. He shoved his driver out of the way and jumped into his Cadillac. His tires squealed as he peeled away with the agents in pursuit. Bumpy sped toward Queens as fast as he could go with the agents' cars close behind. They forced him to the side of the freeway and blocked him in. Unable to drive anymore, he got out and started swinging. Finally, the agents subdued him and booked him. The newspaper the next morning read, Acting on indictments handed up by a federal grand jury, federal narcotics agents yesterday arrested the suspected kingpin of a ring that smuggled many millions of pounds of cocaine in the U.S. Arrested after an 80-mile-an-hour chase along the Van Wick Expressway for 15 miles, was Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson, 60, described by authorities as the brains and money behind the largest import of cocaine in the nation. Nearly 15 years earlier, Bumpy believed he had been framed by Flash Walker for running a heroin operation. Now, he was not being framed. It's probably debatable as to whether or not his cocaine operation was the largest in the country, but regardless of size, it was big and it was real. He was guilty of cocaine trafficking, and he would likely go to prison for the rest of his natural life. Like before, he posted bail and was released from jail for the long wait between his arrest and his trial. But the trial never happened. On July 7, 1968, a full year after his arrest, Bumpy was at a late-night spot in Harlem called Wells Restaurant with some of his oldest friends. At around 2 a.m., he doubled over with another heart attack, and it was his last. Bumpy Johnson died at the restaurant at 62 years old. When the news reached Frank Lucas, he was shattered like the rest of Bumpy's friends and supporters. Four days later, on July 11, friends and relatives crowded into St. Martin's Episcopal Church for the funeral of the godfather of Harlem. The event for Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson was an enormous spectacle. More than a thousand people packed the streets outside the church, and police lined the nearby rooftops with shotguns. Some of Bumpy's famous friends, including actor Sidney Portier and singer Lena Horne, stayed away from the funeral. But others, like boxers Joe Lewis and Sugar Ray Robinson, showed up. To the public at large, Bumpy Johnson was a well-known gangster who committed nearly every crime in the book. In Harlem, he was a king and a legend. And yes, he had committed all those crimes, but he was also a patron of the arts who commanded immense respect. Now, the king was dead, and it was not a foregone conclusion that Frank Lucas would inherit the crown. Frank was two months shy of his 38th birthday. He'd been a petty thief and part-time heroin dealer until he joined Bumpy's crew. He had worked for Bumpy for five years, so it was somewhat surprising that Zach Robinson, an associate of Bumpy's and a prominent gangster in his own right, approached Frank after the funeral. According to Frank, Zach Robinson said, Bumpy's enterprises are yours. You know that. If you have any trouble with anyone, you let me know. Robinson may have said it, but that didn't mean everyone believed it. Frank apparently had the support of some of Bumpy's lieutenants, but not all. Frank was going to have to do something big to establish himself as a major player in Harlem, and he knew exactly what to do. Before the end of the summer of 1968, he was on a plane to Thailand to secure a heroin pipeline to the Golden Triangle. Next time on Infamous America, Frank Lucas takes an enormous gamble on his plan to import heroin from Southeast Asia. Against the odds, he succeeds, but maintaining the pipeline nearly kills him. And as he rakes in the millions, he lands squarely on the radar of the new Drug Enforcement Administration. Frank Lucas becomes a Harlem kingpin next week on Infamous America. To binge all the episodes of a new season and to listen to every episode of the podcast with no commercials, subscribe in Apple podcasts or sign up through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. This episode would not have been possible without the book Harlem Godfather by Mamie Johnson and Karen E. Quinones Miller. It's available wherever books are sold. This series was researched and written by Robert Teemstra. Additional writing by me, Chris Wimmer. Original music by Rob Valiere. Thanks for listening.
