"It's the season of short tempers," Acey said.
"You ain't lying, son," Grave Digger said. "How's Deucey?"
"Resting as usual," Acey said. "Far as I heard."
Deucey was the man he had bought the business from, and he had been dead for twenty-one years.
Grave Digger had already spotted their man down at the fourth table and led the way down the cramped aisle. He took a seat at one end of the table and Coffin Ed took a seat at the other.
Poor Boy was playing a slick half-white pool shark straight pool, twenty-no-count, for fifty cents a point, and was already down forty dollars.
The balls had been racked for the start of a new game. It was Poor Boy's break and he was chalking his cue stick. He looked slantwise from one detective to the other and chalked his stick for so long the shark said testily, "Go head and break, man, you got enough chalk on that mother-raping stick to make a fifteen-cushion billiard shot."
Poor Boy put his cue ball on the marker, worked his stick back and forth through the circle of his left index finger and scratched. He didn't tear the velvet, but he made a long white stripe. His cue ball trickled down the table and tapped the racked balls so lightly as to barely loosen them.
"That boy looks nervous," Coffin Ed said.
"He ain't been sleeping well," Grave Digger replied.
"I ain't nervous," the shark said.
He broke the balls and three dropped into pockets. Then he settled down and ran a hundred without stopping, going from the break seven times, and when he reached up with his cue stick and flipped the century marker against the other ninety-nine on the line overhead, all the other games had stopped and jokers were standing on the table edges to get a look.
"You ain't nervous yet," Coffin Ed corrected.
The shark looked at Coffin Ed defiantly and crowed, "I told you I wasn't nervous."
When the rack man put the paper sack holding the stakes on the table, Coffin Ed got down from his seat and picked it up.
"That's mine," the shark said.
Grave Digger moved in behind, putting both the shark and Poor Boy between himself and Coffin Ed.
"Don't start getting nervous now, son," he said. "We just want to look at your money."
"It ain't nothing but plain United States money," the shark argued. "Ain't you wise guys never seen no money?"
Coffin Ed upended the bag and dumped the contents onto the table. Dimes, quarters and half dollars spilled over the green velvet, along with a roll of greenbacks.
"You ain't been in Harlem long, son," he said to the shark. "He ain't goin' to be here long either," Grave Digger said, reaching out to flip the roll of greenbacks apart from the silver money. "There's your roll, son," he said. "Take it and find yourself another town. You're too smart for us country hicks in Harlem." When the shark opened his mouth to protest, he added roughly, "And don't say another God-damned word or I'll knock out your teeth."
The shark pocketed his roll and melted into the crowd. Poor Boy hadn't said a word.
Coffin Ed scooped up the change and put it back into the paper sack. Grave Digger touched the slim black boy on his T-shirted shoulder.
"Let's go, Poor Boy, we're going to take a ride."
Coffin Ed made an opening through the crowd. Silence followed them.
They put Poor Boy between them in the car and drove around the corner and parked.
"What would you rather have?" Grave Digger asked him. "A year in the Auburn state pen or thirty days in the city jail?"
Poor Boy looked at him slantwise through his long muddy eyes. "What you mean?" he asked in a husky Georgia voice.
"I mean you robbed that A and P store manager this morning."
"Naw suh, I ain't even seen no A and P store this morning. I made that money shining shoes down at the 125th Street Station."
Grave Digger hefted the sack of silver in his hand. "It's over a hundred dollars here," he said.
"I was lucky pitching halves and quarters," Poor Boy said. "You can ask anybody who was round there this morning."
"What I mean, son," Grave Digger explained, "is that when you steal over thirty-five dollars that makes it grand larceny, and that's a felony, and they give you one to five years in the state stir. But if you cooperate, the judge will let you take a plea to petty larceny and save the state the cost of a jury trial and appointing state lawyers, and you get off with thirty days in the workhouse. It depends on whether you want to cooperate."
"I ain't stole no money," Poor Boy said. "It's like what I done said, I made this money shining shoes and pitching halves."
"That's not what Patrolman Harris and that A and P store manager are going to say when they see you in that line-up tomorrow morning," Grave Digger said.
Poor Boy thought that over. Sweat started beading on his forehead and in the circles underneath his eyes, and oily beads formed over the surface of his smooth flat nose.
"Cooperate how?" he said finally.
"Who was riding with Johnny Perry when he drove down Seventh Avenue early this morning, just a few minutes before you made your sting?" Grave Digger asked.
Poor Boy blew air from his nose as though he'd been holding his breath. "I ain't seen Johnny Perry's car," he said with relief.
Grave Digger reached down and turned on the ignition and started the motor.
Coffin Ed said, "Too bad, son, you ought to have better eyes. That's going to cost you eleven months."
"I swear to God I ain't seen Johnny's big Cad in nearmost two days," Poor Boy said.
Grave Digger pulled out into the street and began driving toward the 126th Street precinct station.
"Y'all gotta believe me," Poor Boy said. "I ain't seen nobody on all of Seventh Avenue."
Coffin Ed looked at the people standing on the sidewalks and sitting on the stoops uninterestedly. Grave Digger concentrated on driving.
"There warn't a car moving on the avenue, I swear to God," Poor Boy whined. " 'Ceptin' that store manager when he drove up and that cop what's always there."
Grave Digger pulled to the curb and parked just before turning into 126th Street.
"Who was with you?" he asked.
"Nobody," Poor Boy said. "I swear to God."
"That's just too bad," Grave Digger said, reaching toward the ignition key.
"Listen," Poor Boy said. "Wait a minute. You say all I'm goin' to get is thirty days."
"That depends on how good your eyes were at four-thirty this morning, and how good your memory is now."
"I didn't see nothing," Poor Boy said. "And that's the God's truth. And after I grabbed that poke I was running so fast I didn't have time to see nothing. But Iron Jaw might of seen something. He was hiding in a doorway on 132nd Street."
"Where were you?"
"I was on 131st Street, and when the man drove up Iron Jaw was supposed to start yelling bloody murder and draw the cop. But he ain't let out a peep, and there I was, had already done sneaked up beside the car, and I just had to grab the poke and run."
"Where's Iron Jaw now?" Coffin Ed asked.
"I don't know. I ain't seen him all day."
"Where does he usually hang out?'
"At Acey-Deucey's like me most times, else downstairs in the Boll Weevil."
"Where does he live?"
"He got a room at the Lighthouse Hotel at 123rd and Third Avenue, and if'n he ain't there he might be at work. He pick chickens at Goldstein's Poultry Store on 116th Street and sometimes they stay open 'til twelve o'clock."
Grave Digger started the motor again and turned into 126th Street toward the precinct station.
When they drew up before the entrance, Poor Boy asked, "It's gonna be like you say, ain't it? If I cop a plea I don't get but thirty days?"
"That depends on how much your pal Iron Jaw saw," Grave Digger said.
12
"I don't like these mother-raping mysteries," Johnny said.
His thick brown muscles knotted beneath his sweat-wet yellow crepe shirt as he banged the
lemonade glass on the glass top of the cocktail table.
"And that's for sure," he added.
He sat leaning forward in the center of a long green plush davenport, his silk-stockinged, sweaty feet planted on the bright red carpet. The veins coming from his temples were swollen like exposed tree roots, and the scar on his forehead wriggled like a knot of live snakes. His dark brown lumpy face was taut and sweaty. His eyes were hot, vein-laced and smoldering.
"I done told you a dozen times or more I don't know why that nigger preacher's been telling all those lies about me," Dulcy said in a whining defensive voice.
Johnny looked at her dangerously and said, "Yeah, and I'm good and God-damned tired of hearing you tell me."
Her gaze touched fleetingly on his tight-drawn face and ran off to look for something more serene.
But there wasn't anything serene in that violently colored room. The overstuffed pea green furniture garnished with pieces of blonde wood fought it out with the bright red carpet, but the eyes that had to look at it were the losers.
It was a big front corner room with two windows on Edgecombe drive and one window on 159th Street.
"I'm just as tired of hearing you ask me all those goddam questions as you is tired of hearing me tell you I don't know the answers," she muttered.
The lemonade glass shattered in his hand. He threw the fragments across the floor and filled another one.
She sat on a yellow leather ottoman on the red carpet, facing the blond television-radio-record set that was placed in front of the closed-off fireplace beneath the mantlepiece.
"What the hell are you shivering for?" he asked.
"It's cold as hell in here," she complained.
She had shed down to her slip, and her legs and feet were bare. Her toenails were painted the same shade of crimson as her fingernails. Her smooth brown skin was sandy with goose pimples, but her upper lip was sweating, accentuating the downy black hairs of her faint moustache.
The big air conditioner unit in the side window behind her was going full blast, and a twelve-inch revolving fan beside it on the radiator cover sprayed her with cold air.
Johnny drank his glass of lemonade and put the glass down carefully, like a man who prided himself on self-control under any circumstances.
"No wonder," he said. "Why don't you get up and put some clothes on?"
"For Christsake, it's too hot to wear clothes," she said. Johnny poured and gulped another glass of lemonade to keep his brain from overheating.
"Listen, baby, I ain't being unreasonable," he said. "All I'm asking you is three simple things-"
"What's simple to you ain't simple to nobody else," she complained.
His hot glance struck her like a slap.
She said with quick apology, "I don't know why that preacher's got it in for me."
"Listen to me, baby," Johnny went on reasonably. "I just want to know why Mamie all of a sudden begins pleading your case when I ain't even suspected you of doing nothing. Is that unreasonable?"
"How the hell do I know what goes on in Aunt Mamie's head?" she flared.
Then, on seeing rage pass across his face like summer lightning, she gulped a big swallow of the brandy highball she was drinking and strangled.
Spookie, her black cocker spaniel bitch, who had been resting at her feet, jumped up and tried to climb into her lap.
"And quit drinking so God-damned much," Johnny said. "You don't know what you're saying when you're drunk."
She looked about guiltily for a place to put the glass, started to put it on the television set, caught his warning look, then put it on the floor beside her feet.
"And stop that damn dog from lapping you all the time," he said. "You think I want you always covered with dog spit?"
"Get down, Spookie," she said, pushing the dog from her lap.
The dog stuck his hind leg into the highball glass and turned it over.
Johnny looked at the stain spreading over the red carpet and his jaw muscles roped like ox tendons.
"Everybody knows I'm a reasonable man," he said. "All I'm asking you is three simple things. First, how come that preacher tells the police a story about Chink Charlie giving you that knife?"
"For God's sake, Johnny," she cried, and buried her face in her hands.
"Get me straight," he said. "I ain't said I believed that. But even if the mother-raper had it in for you-"
At that moment the commercial appeared on the television screen, and four cute blonde girls wearing sweaters and shorts began singing a commercial in a loud cheerful voice.
"Cut off that mother-raping noise," Johnny said.
Dulcy reached up quickly and toned down the voice, but the quartet of beautiful-legged pygmies continued to hop about in happy, zippy pantomine.
The veins started swelling in Johnny's forehead.
Suddenly the dog began to bark like a hound treeing a coon.
"Shut up, Spookie," Dulcy said quickly, but it was too late.
Johnny leaped up from his seat like a raving maniac, overturning the cocktail table and pitcher of lemonade, sprang across the floor and kicked the bitch in the ribs with his stockinged foot. The bitch sailed through the air and knocked over a red glass vase filled with imitation yellow roses sitting on a green lacquered end table. The vase shattered against the radiator, spilling paper yellow roses over the red carpet, and the bitch stuck its tail between its legs and ran yelping toward the kitchen.
The glass cover of the cocktail table had shattered against the overturned pitcher, and fragments of glass mingled with lumps of ice on the big wet splotch made by the spilt lemonade.
Johnny turned around, stepped over the debris and returned to his seat, like a man who prided himself on his self-control under all circumstances.
"Listen, baby," he said. "I'm a patient man. I'm the most reasonable man in the world. All I'm asking you is-"
"Three simple things," she muttered under her breath.
He took a long deep breath and ignored it.
"Listen, baby, all I want to know is how in the hell could that preacher make that up?"
"You always want to believe everybody but me," she said.
"And how come he keep on saying it was you who did it?" he kept on, ignoring her remark.
"God damn it, do you think I did it?" she flared.
"That ain't what's bothering me," he said, brushing that off. "What's bothering me is why in the hell he thinks you did it? What reason has he got to think you had for doing it?"
"You keep talking about mysteries," she said, showing signs of hysteria. "How come it was you didn't see Val all last night. He told me for sure he was going by the club and coming with you to the wake. He ain't had no reason to tell me he was if he wasn't. That's a mystery to me."
He looked at her long and thoughtfully. "If you keep popping off on that idea, that will get us all into trouble," he said.
"Then what you keep blowing off at me with all those crazy ideas you got about me, as if you think I kilt him," she said defiantly.
"It don't bother me who kilt him," he said, "He's dead and that's it. What bother me is all these mother-raping mysteries about you. You're alive and you're my woman, and I want to know why in the goddam hell all these people keep thinking things about you that I ain't never even thought of, and I'm your man."
Alamena came in from the hall and looked indifferently at the debris scattered about the room. She hadn't changed clothes but had put on a red plastic apron. The dog peeped out from behind her legs to see if the coast was clear, but decided that it wasn't.
"You all going to sit here and argue all night or do you want to come and get something to eat?" Alamena said indifferently, as though she didn't give a damn whether they ate or not.
For a moment both of them stared at her blankly, without replying. Then Johnny got to his feet.
Thinking Johnny didn't see her, with quick furtive motions Dulcy snatched up the glass the dog had stepped into and poured it half full of brandy fro
m a bottle she had cached behind the television set.
Johnny was walking toward the hallway, but he turned suddenly without a break of motion and slapped the glass from her hand. Brandy splashed in her face as the glass sailed through the air and went spinning across the floor.
She hit him in the face with her balled right fist as fast as a cat catching fish. It was a solid pop with fury in it, and it knocked tears from his eyes.
He turned in blind rage and clutched her by the shoulders and shook her until her teeth rattled.
"Woman!" he said, and for the first time she heard his voice change tone. It was deep, throaty and came out of his guts, and it worked on her like a aphrodisiac. "Woman!"
She shuddered and went candy. Her eyes got limpid and her mouth suddenly wet, and her body just folded into his.
He went as soft as drugstore cotton and pulled her to his chest. He kissed her eyes, her nose and throat, and bent over and kissed her neck and the curve of her shoulder.
Alamena turned quickly and went back to the kitchen.
"Why don't you believe me," Dulcy said against his biceps.
"I'm trying to, baby," he said. "But you got to admit it's hard."
She dropped her arms to her sides and he took his arms from around her and put his hands in his pockets. They went down the hall to the kitchen.
The two bedrooms, separated by the bathroom, were on the left side of the hall which opened onto the outside corridor. The dining room and the kitchen were on the right side. There was a back door in the kitchen, and a small alcove opening to the service staircase at the end of the corridor.
The three of them sat on the plastic-covered, foamrubber cushioned chairs about an enamel topped table covered with a red-and-white checked cloth and helped themselves from a steaming dish of boiled collard greens, okra, and pigs feet, a warmed-over bowl of black-eyed peas and a platter of cornbread.
There was half a bottle of bourbon whisky on the table, but the two women avoided it and Johnny asked, "Ain't there no lemonade left?"
Alamena got a gallon jar from the refrigerator and filled a glass pitcher without comment. They ate without talking.
The crazy kill (coffin johnson and grave digger jones) Page 9