Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) to hand over a large sum of money which will then be returned in smaller portions.

1945

H.B. Darrach Jr. ‘Sticktown Nocturne’ in Baltimore Sun (MD) 12 Aug. A-1/2: Rooms upstairs, rents them to Jacks. Hit the beach, maybe thousand [...] of cabbage, piece it off to Fanny, get it back fifty, hundred at a time .