As was their habit, leisure hours were spent in a popular Seventh Ave. bar, ogling at the "big shots" of vice, gambling, prostitution, shoplifting, narcotics and the like.
Dillard rose quick through the ranks of the neighborhood as he showed his natural leadership skills, charisma, and qualities that may have brought him legitimate fame and fortune, had it been guided in the right channels.
[3] After deciding menial labor was not for him, Morrison quickly earned underworld credibility by robbing craps players and numbers runners in Harlem, growing into a bona fide gangster in the late 1930s.
His early criminal enterprises showed no shortage of ambition: disappointed with the take of one heist at Woolworth's, he immediately robbed a check-cashing shop.
In one case, he was ambushed by a pair of assailants who shot him in the leg, but he turned around and chased the gunmen all the way back to their getaway car.
"[3] Morrison came to the attention of the shot callers of that time, Women like "Mae," who ran the biggest brothel in town, and had a dozen shoplifters on her payroll.
[4] "Big Joe" ruled varied crime "Kingdoms" with an iron hand, yet succeeded by remaining an anonymity to all but his "lieutenants" and a few select friends.
In the mid-1940s, Morrison split with Big Joe and began buying heroin wholesale from Italian mobster Lucky Luciano, who imported it from Turkey via Sicily.
[5] Although an assistant district attorney called him "notorious"[citation needed] and a magistrate refused him bail because of his record, Morrison was released again when he appeared in court to face two charges.
At all times Morrison's hands were clean, and had it not been for his code of violence, he would have remained as unobtrusive as the many who have grown fat and respectable from the profits of the lucrative dope trade.
In their last ditch effort to capture the elusive Morrison, the authorities imported a young wise agent from the midwest to work himself into the web of Harlem narcotics operations.
[11] When two mafiosos showed up at his house with a brand-new red Cadillac El Dorado for him–a token of gratitude for not "snitching" on them in prison, he respectfully declined.
But months after his return, another event shook him from his path: the sudden death of his wife at age 33 of an allergic reaction to a penicillin injection.
There were more shootouts, bar brawls, and a drug deal set up by a federal agent that landed him back in jail for ten more years.
Ernie Andrews remembers Morrison sending money to help pay for the funeral of Sonny Payne, a drummer who played with Harry James and Count Basie.