Phoebe Judge

You and I have a meeting in 17 minutes.

Just enough time for me to pop downstairs and get a Johnny Pop.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

On the morning of May 20th in 1957, a man named Don King was alone at home.

Don King wasn't famous yet as a boxing promoter, but in Cleveland, he was known as the number czar.

This is Professor Carolyn Long.

When Don King was 10, his father was killed in an accident at his job at a steel factory.

Don King and his brother started running an illegal lottery known as The Numbers.

They would sell peanuts to the gambling houses in town.

Each bag of nuts contained a square paper with lottery numbers on it.

They would shout, get your hot roasted peanuts and your lucky number.

By the time he was 25, he was well known for running illegal gambling in Cleveland.

At one point, he was making $15,000 a day from his gambling operation.

In Cleveland, vice crimes were handled by a unit called the Special Bureau of Investigation.

One officer there was Sergeant Carl DeLau.

He'd arrested Don King for illegal gambling in 1954.

But afterwards, Don King and Carl DeLau became friendly, and sometimes Don King told Carl about rival gambling operations, and that he had to pay money to local gangsters for protection.

And then, on the morning of May 20th, 1957, a bomb exploded under Don King's front porch.

A few days later, Carl DeLau got an anonymous tip about the bomb.