“You slept all day,” Coffin Ed cut in with an outburst of contempt.
“You see, boss, I been sick,” Sugar explained.
“For eight months?”
“Let him get to the point,” Grave Digger said.
“Well, last Saturday night I got held up in a poker game and didn’t get home until after ten o’clock. I figured she was going to be mad all right, because that’s when we generally got together, but I didn’t expect her to grab me by the collar and throw me out of the house. That’s what first made me suspicious, but all I suspected at first was she’d got herself another man. That worried me -”
“I’ll bet it did,” Coffin Ed cut in again.
“Yassuh, it sure did,” Sugar admitted. “So I went down to the bar and thought about it, and the more I thought about it the madder I got. So after a while I crept up on the roof and started to come down the fire escape to sort of spy through the bedroom window. I had made me a little peephole in the window shade in case I was ever going to need it, and I figgered I needed it then. But, when I started to come down from the roof, I saw some joker on the fire escape spying through her window, too. I started to holler at him, but I didn’t want -”
“Wait a minute,” Grave Digger said. “You saw a man looking through her bedroom window?”
“Trying to, anyway. But he saw me ’bout the same time I saw him, and he took off down -”
“Hold on. You saw this man?”
“Yassuh, but I didn’t see him good. The fire escape is in the back, and he was gone on down to the bottom ’fore I could get close to him. I would have chased him, but -”
“Hold on, hold on!” Grave Digger grated. “What did he look like?”
“Like I said, boss, I didn’t see him plain but -”
“Big man or little?”
“Big. Rough-looking. Looked like he was young, the way he went down them rungs.”
“How was he dressed?”
“I didn’t notice too plain, boss. He was wearing a big hat and a coat like everybody else. He was a colored man, that’s for sure.”
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed looked at one another in silence.
“You think he’s lying?” Coffin Ed suggested.
“Let him go on. If he’s lying, we’ll find out,” Grave Digger said.
“And, if you are, it’s going to be rough,” Coffin Ed promised.
“I ain’t lying, boss, I swear before God,” Sugar said, knuckling the sweat out of his eyes. “And I couldn’t be mistaken, ’cause I seen him again.”
“You saw him again?” Grave Digger echoed.
“Yassuh, when I come down the second time I found him in the same place, and he run down to the bottom again like he done before.”
“And you didn’t see him any better?”
“I forgot to tell you. I seen he had on boots - cowboy boots.”
“Boots!” Grave Digger said.
“Yes suh, black and white cowboy boots. I wondered if he belonged to a gang, but I hadn’t heard of no gang what wears cowboy boots.”
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed exchanged looks again.
“Sounds a little like him,” Coffin Ed said.
“Could be,” Grave Digger admitted. “It begins to figure.” He turned back to Sugar. “How did you figure it?”
Sugar looked puzzled. “Him, you mean? I didn’t think nothing of it. Just another prowler - that neighborhood is full of prowlers. She didn’t have nothing for him to steal –” He broke off. His eyes bucked suddenly, and his jaw dropped open. “Christ almighty, I bet he was after her money!” he exclaimed.
“You just now thought of that?” Grave Digger asked incredulously.
“Well, boss, I admit I’ve been thinking like a square,” Sugar said. “But I hadn’t figgered out when I first seen him that she had any money. I was looking for another joker in her bed. So I just figgered he was another prowler, and I didn’t give him no more thought.”
“All right, all right - if you’re lying, we’re going to find it out,” Grave Digger said. “So when did you figger out she had some money?”
“Well, when I seen she didn’t have no other joker in her bed, I figgered she must have got hold of some money, because that’s the only reason she’d have for throwing me out the house - to keep me from finding out. Then when I seen her praying -”
“Praying!” Coffin Ed exclaimed.
“Yassuh, boss, she was kneeling beside the bed with her arms hanging down, praying. I figgered right away then she had hit the numbers for a big stake. It figgered. She hadn’t had nothing before worth praying about.”
“All right, it figured,” Grave Digger conceded. “What did you do then.”
“I stayed there, watching all night so she wouldn’t get away, but after she turned out the light she didn’t get up again. When it got day I had to leave because the people in the windows across the way began watching me suspiciously. I went across the street and watched the door, and when she came out I followed her. When I seen her go into Sweet Prophet’s house, I figgered she was giving him the money to keep, so I kissed it goodbye, went to the bar and had some drinks. But after a while I figgered I ought to go back - I was getting tired and hungry by then. And that’s when I found her getting ready for the baptism and the picnic. I fell in and went along with her because there wasn’t nothing else to do. But when I knowed she hadn’t given any money to Sweet Prophet was when she told about her dream -”
“Her dream?” Coffin Ed echoed.
“Yassuh, she jumped up right in the middle of the ceremony and said she had dreamed she was baking three pies and when she took them out the oven they exploded with hundred-dollar bills. I knew then she had played the money row in all three houses and had hit; and I knew she hadn’t given the money to Sweet Prophet from the way he licked his chops and his eyes bugged out. I could see it was the first he had heard of it, and I knew she still had the money hidden somewhere. So when she was getting herself baptized, I dropped a little mickey into her bottle of drinking water.”
“You had the mickey ready beforehand,” Grave Digger said.
“I always carry a mickey,” Sugar confessed. “Other folks has their knives and pistols, but I ain’t no fighter. And I has to have some kind of way to protect myself. So I just carrys me a little Mickey Finn. But I didn’t figger she was going to take the bottle to Sweet Prophet to get it blessed and then start drinking it right away. I figgered she’d drink it while we were having our picnic lunch, and then the other sisters would take her and lay her out somewhere and it would give me a chance to search the house. I didn’t have no idea it would cause such a big rumpus. When the people started running and screaming, thinking she’d dropped dead, I beat it before somebody connected me with her and had me held. I had a key to her place what she didn’t know about, so I beat it around there and searched it.”
“Then you were there before Rufus and the Jew got there?” Grave Digger said.
“It was me that got them there,” Sugar confessed. “When I didn’t find nothing in the mattress, I remembered that Rufus and the Jew worked this furniture racket, and I made a deal with Rufus to sell the Jew the television set and have him take it away. The way I had it planned was that I’d go get Alberta and bring her home, and when she found the set missing she’d get so scared for her money she’d rush right away to see if it was safe, and I’d find out where it was at. But when I went back to get Alberta, I found out they had taken her away in a hearse and didn’t nobody know where she was. So I went back to her place to see if she’d come home but didn’t nobody answer. I’d given Rufus my key, so I snuck down the fire escape again and spied through the window. That’s when I found out they’d taken all of her furniture.”
“You went after Rufus,” Grave Digger interjected.
“Yassuh, but not with no knife,” Sugar denied. “Rufus claimed he hadn’t found the money and that’s why he sold all the furniture, but he promised to take another look.”
“Then it was
Rufus who went to the Jew’s warehouse looking for the money,” Grave Digger said.
“I don’t know, boss, I’m just telling you what he said.”
“And you went with him,” Coffin Ed put in.
“Nawsufa, boss, I didn’t even know where it was at.”
“The Bronx police figure there were two men there when the Jew was killed,” Coffin Ed persisted.
“It sure weren’t me,” Sugar denied.
“Let him get on,” Grave Digger said. “Time is getting short.” He asked Sugar, “What were you doing all this time?”
“All I was doing was hanging around outside of Rufus’s house watching to see what he would do,” Sugar confessed. “He didn’t come out until after it got dark - it must have been about nine-thirty - then he got in his car and drove off. I didn’t want to be seen hanging around so much in the street, so I went over to Eighth Avenue and hung out in a bar. I was there when I heard the patrol cars passing, and I knew something had happened. When I got back to Manhattan Avenue, I saw the people crowding in the street and the police looking at Rufus’s car; and, when I seen the blood on the seat and all over the sidewalk, I knew it was Rufus who’d been stabbed, even before they found him. I didn’t want to get caught there, so I moseyed on back to Eighth. And the next thing I knew I saw the cops arresting Alberta, and I figgered they’d be looking for me next so I beat it. I didn’t know the Jew had been killed till I went to Alberta’s house and the woman there in the window told me. I was scared to stay there; then the next thing I knew Dummy caught up with me on the street and told me the cops was looking for me - as if I didn’t know.”
“Dummy!” Grave Digger echoed. “What was Dummy doing there?”
“I don’t know, boss. I figgered he must have been looking for the money, too.”
When he had finished telling the part he had seen Dummy take in the search, he became terrified at the detectives’ anger.
“I was just trying to get it back for her,” he whined.
“You and Dummy teamed up,” Coffin Ed accused.
“Nawsuh, boss, he went his way and I went mine,” Sugar denied. “I went back to Alberta’s place, got in through the window and searched it again. Then I just went to sleep, boss. I was beat. But somebody else came here whilst I was sleeping, ’cause they left the window open - but I don’t know whether it was Dummy or not; I didn’t wake up.”
“It figures close enough,” Grave Digger said. “Only it doesn’t leave us much time.”
“All I’m scared of is somebody might hurt her,” Sugar said.
Coffin Ed knocked him off the stool and started to kick him in the face, but Grave Digger restrained him.
“Easy, Ed, he’ll keep,” he said.
They didn’t wait to cross-examine him. They didn’t have time. Where before it had been urgent, now it was desperate. They booked him on suspicion and left the station running.
“Dummy first?” Coffin Ed suggested.
“Later,” Grave Digger said. “We got to find the woman before they kill her. Let the money go for the time being.”
22
GRAVE DIGGER TURNED OFF the lights before turning the corner and cut off the motor before reaching the entrance. The car coasted to a stop in front of the entrance to the tenement on 118th Street.
“Let’s just hope we’re right,” he said.
They got from the car fast, but with a minimum of sound, and approached the door like grim reapers.
“Pssst!” the big fat black window-watcher called to them.
She looked as though she hadn’t left her post. In the shadow she resembled a melted lump of wax.
“If you looking for her, she ain’t come back,” she said.
Grave Digger felt his heart sink. Coffin Ed grunted as though he had been punched in the stomach. But neither of them hesitated.
The entrance door was closed. Grave Digger gripped the knob and pushed. The door didn’t give.
The woman was leaning over the sill, trying to see what he was doing.
“This door is locked,” he said.
“Locked!” the woman croaked in amazement. “That door ain’t been locked since I lived here, and that’s been six years.”
“It’s locked now. Who has a key?”
Coffin Ed had his pistol out. The long nickel-plated barrel gleamed in the dim light.
“Move over,” he said. “I’ll blow it open.”
“Easy does it,” Grave Digger cautioned. “Let’s don’t risk any noise.”
“I got a key,” the woman said, groaning as she got from her chair. “But I ain’t never used it, and I don’t know exactly where it is.”
Coffin Ed pushed at the edge of the door. “It ought to break easy enough,” he said.
“Take it easy,” Grave Digger said tightly. “We don’t want to make any graves.”
“I found it,” the woman called from the window in a stage whisper.
“Give it here,” Grave Digger said, leaning over to take it.
“It won’t work from the outside,’ the woman said.
“Then go open it, woman,” Grave Digger said savagely. “What’s wrong with you?”
They heard her door open softly and padded feet slither across the hall floor. The key was inserted with a slight grating sound, and the rusty bolt creaked as it moved.
They entered the front hall. In the dim light the woman looked about to cave in from exhaustion. The skin of her face had shrunken and turned gray, and lines like spider webs had formed about her eyes, which were as red as live coals.
“I been watching just like you told me,” she croaked.
Neither of them answered. With drawn pistols they started up the stairs, taking them three at a time, Grave Digger leading and Coffin Ed at his heels. Their pistols swung in gleaming arcs like the swords of warriors of old.
At the top, they slowed down and moved cautiously. Making as little sound as possible, they bent, their heads together, and listened at the panel of Alberta’s door. They did not hear a sound.
Coffin Ed took out his pocket flashlight and held it in his free hand. Grave Digger gripped the knob, tightened it with a slow pull, turned it silently and pushed. The door didn’t budge. He took out his own flashlight.
They looked at one another. Grave Digger nodded. They drew back, angled their shoulders and hit the door simultaneously.
The lock broke, and the door was flung back to the wall. They went through the opening side by side and leaped far apart. Their flashlights raked the darkness; their pistols swung in arcs.
The room was empty. The door to the bedroom was closed. In the next flat a man laughed and a woman’s voice was heard distinctly through the thin wall: “I tole him his eyes may shine and his teeth may grit …” From below, the bass notes from a jazz recording came up through the floor as though someone were hammering on the ceiling with the meaty part of their fist.
They crossed the room on tiptoe and flung open the bedroom door. The drawn shade rustled suddenly in the current of air from the open window, and the muzzles of their pistols leveled in that direction at the height of a man’s heart.
The room was empty. They released their breath in a soft sigh and looked at each other again.
“Where do we go from here?” Coffin Ed asked.
Grave Digger nodded toward the kitchen door.
They crossed the room, and Grave Digger opened the door without caution. Their lights focused suddenly on a body lying on the floor.
“Too late,” Grave Digger said in a thick cottony voice. “Too late,” he repeated bitterly.
“Maybe not,” Coffin Ed said.
She lay doubled up on her side on the linoleum floor. She still wore the same uniform in which she had been baptized, but now it was black with dirt. Her hands were tied behind her with a cotton clothesline, which had been run down between her feet and wrapped about her ankles. Her feet had been drawn up to the level of her hands. She was gagged with a yellow bath towel, which was knotted at the bac
k of her head. There was a large red stain on the underside, where blood had soaked into it from the corner of her mouth. Blood, seeping slowly from her greasy matted hair, came from a wound in the top of her head. Her eyes wee closed, and her face looked peaceful. She looked like she was asleep.
Coffin Ed switched on the overhead light, and both detectives holstered their pistols. Grave Digger knelt beside the body and felt for the pulse. Coffin Ed unknotted the gag. She moaned suddenly when the gag was removed and swallowed her tongue. Coffin Ed reached two fingers down her throat and pulled it up, and blood that had collected there poured from her mouth. Grave Digger found a serving spoon in the cupboard drawer and bent the handle to form a hook. Coffin Ed eased his fingers from her mouth while Grave Digger inserted the spoon to hold her tongue in place and hooked the handle over her upper lip.
They found two small burns on each side of her mouth. There were cigarette butts and the stems of burned paper matches on the floor.
“I’ll go and call for the ambulance,” Coffin Ed said, whispering.
“No need for silence now,” Grave Digger said.
He heard Coffin Ed thundering down the stairs as he cut the cotton rope binding her hands and feet and gently straightened out her legs. He found more of the small round burns on the back of her hand. His neck was swollen and corded until the flesh bulged over his collar, and he seemed to have difficulty with his breathing. He lifted her head slightly and inserted a flat pan under her so that it lay level. He didn’t turn her over. He didn’t touch the wound.
He poked at the cigarette butts with his fingertips. One was the butt of a marijuana cigarette. He didn’t bother to pick them up. Finally he got to his feet and looked around, but there was nothing to see.
Coffin Ed returned.
“They’re rushing an ambulance from Harlem Hospital,” he said, then after a moment added, “Anderson said he’d telephone the Homicide Bureau to see what they wanted done.”
“They didn’t get anything out of her, so they knocked her in the head,” Grave Digger said in a thick, cottony voice.
The Big Gold Dream Page 16