Taking It on the Lam by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Page 136
Ring: A gang, mob.
Rod: A gun.
Rodded: Carrying a gun.
Roscoe: A gun.
Round heels: A prostitute. A woman of easy virtue.
Rub out: A killing. To rub out someone is to kill them.
Rug cutter: Dancer.
Rumpot: A drunkard or an alcoholic.
Rumpus: Disturbance, excitement, dust up, fight.
Russian thistle: Tumbleweed.
Rusty dusty: Rump.
Salt and pepper: Having black-and-white or dark and light color intermingled. A salt and pepper neighborhood is made up of both whites and blacks. Someone with salt and pepper hair would have a mixture of gray and dark hair.
Sap: A dumb guy or a blackjack, as in’ “Marlowe calls his sap
‘the persuader.’”
Saratoga lake houses: A group of nightclubs operating in the vicinity of Lake Lonely on the east side of Saratoga Springs, a community most known for its good air used to comfort the tubercular and otherwise breathing impaired, starting in the 1920s. They offered fine dining and entertainment along with illegal gambling and illegal liquor during Prohibition.
Sawbuck: Ten dollar bill.
Scratch: Money.
Screw: Jail guard.
Send over: Send to jail, send to prison.
Settee: An upholstered sofa.
Shadow: Follow.
Shakedown: Blackmail, extortion. The act of obtaining from a person by force or intimidation something of value, usually money.
Shamus: A private detective.
Share crop: Sexually promiscuous girl.
Sheik: A man whose chief interest is seducing women.
Shellacked: Intoxicated; tight; stewed to the hat.
Shine: A black person.
Shot: Intoxicated; tight; stewed to the hat.
Shyster: A person who is professionally unscrupulous, especially in the practices of law and lending; also a mouthpiece.
Taking It on the Lam