In October 1945, Harlem’s most powerful numbers banker walked into a room where he knew a poisoned glass of wine was waiting for him. For two weeks, Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson had known that Raymond Coleman, his closest friend of 15 years, had been paid $30,000 by the Genovese crime family to kill him with arsenic-laced wine. The money came from Vito Genovese, who wanted Bumpy dead for refusing to allow heroin trafficking into Harlem. Despite the knowledge, Bumpy walked into the trap anyway.
The saga began months earlier when the Italians, frustrated by Bumpy’s repeated refusals to flood Harlem with heroin, decided to eliminate him. Vito Genovese found his weapon in Ray Ray Coleman, Bumpy’s trusted brother, a man who had saved Bumpy’s life in 1936, taking a knife blade across his ribs in a Brooklyn ambush. Bumpy had nursed him back to health, paid his hospital bills and taught him the finer things in life, including a shared love of Chateau Margot 1937 wine. But $30,000 proved stronger than 15 years of brotherhood.
On October 12th, 1945, Ray Ray phoned Bumpy, claiming the Italians wanted a peaceful meeting at Small’s Paradise nightclub in Harlem. He invoked the name of Lucky Luciano, saying the mob boss had vouched for the meeting’s safety and sincerity. Bumpy agreed to attend, but not blindly. He armed himself with a .
38 revolver and a hidden knife, aware that something felt off in Ray Ray’s voice. Inside the back room of Small’s, Bumpy found20 men awaiting him, including Ray Ray, three Genovese enforcers led by Sal Benedetto, and his own numbers runners and policy bankers. Ray Ray poured everyone glasses of expensive 1937 Chateau Margaux, announcing a toast to new partnerships and the future of Harlem. Bumpy did not drink.
He quietly noted the sweat on Ray Ray’s upper lip, his trembling hand, and his nervous glances toward the Italian enforcers. Bumpy directed atthe wine, mentioning how the Nazis had looted Bordeaux’s best vintages during the occupation, and asking Ray Ray what arsenic tasted like. He revealed the poison’s bitter almond taste, explaining that most men would not detect it in wine this rich,and be dead within 40 minutes. He then exposed the betrayal with a stack of photographs, including images of Ray Ray meeting with Sal Benedetto, accepting an envelope, counting $30,000, and his mother wearing a new fur coat.
Bumpy revealed he had known everything for two weeks, and then delivered the decisive blow: he had switched the glasses. The glass Ray Ray raised for the toast was the poisoned one; Bumpy’s own glass was clean. Sal Benedetto drew his gun, threatening Bumpy, but Bumpy remained calm, telling him he would not walk out of Harlem alive if he fired, and that a war with Bumpy’s empire would bleed both families for years. He then pulled out a telephone and called Lucky Luciano directly.
After a brief conversation, he handed the phone to Sal, whose confidence visibly drained as he listened to the mob boss. Upon hanging up, Sal agreed to leave. Bumpy then demanded $30,000 from the Italians, the same amount they had paid to have him killed, as payment for their lives. Sal produced the envelope containing the second half of the assassination payment, handing it over.
Bumpy’s man counted it confirmingly. Sal and his two men left defeated, with a warning that Vito would not forget this, which Bumpy dismissed, noting that Lucky had already sided with him and that Vito could not start a war without Lucky’s permission. With the Italians gone, Bumpy turned back to Ray Ray, who still held the poisoned glass. Bumpy offered him no mercy.
Ray Ray, weeping, brought the glass to his lips and drank. Over the next seven minutes, he convulsed and died at the table while Bumpy calmly counted the payment. Before leaving, Bumpy told the room that crossing him cost everything, and that he got paid either way. The next morning, Lucky Luciano called with one sentence: “You handled that right.
” The Italians never attempted to move heroin into Harlem again. Bumpy used the $30,000 to purchase three buildings in Harlem, giving them to widows whose husbands had died working the numbers. Ray Ray Coleman’s name was never spoken in Harlem again, and the back room of Small’s Paradise remained closed for six months, with rumors that the smell of wine still lingered.
October 12th, 1945 became legend, not because Bumpy killed a traitor, but because he turned an assassination into a payday, made his enemies pay for the privilege of staying alive, and won without ever firing a shot.