A Rage in Harlem

by Chester Himes

  “Do you mean to sit there, Brother Jackson, and tell me that your brother’s body with its throat cut and your woman’s trunk full of gold ore are in that hearse out there, parked in front of my house?” he asked in horror.

  “No sir. I lost them. They fell out somewhere, I don’t know where.”

  “They fell out of the hearse? Into the street?”

  “It must have been in the street. I didn’t drive anywhere else.”

  “Just why did you come here, Brother Jackson? Why did you come to me?”

  “I just wanted to kneel here beside you, Reverend Gaines, and give myself up to the Lord.”

  “What!” Reverend Gaines started as though Jackson had uttered blasphemy. “Give yourself up to the Lord? Jesus Christ, man, what do you take the Lord for? You have to go and give yourself up to the police. The Lord won’t get you out of that kind of mess.”

  23

  The rays of the rising sun over the Harlem River shone blood-red on the top floor of the building where Billie ran her after-hours joint.

  “Can’t I just wait in the car?” Imabelle asked. She was having trouble with her breathing.

  “Get out,” Grave Digger said flatly.

  “What do you need me for? They’re up there, I tell you. You know I can’t run anywhere with these handcuffs on.”

  He saw that she was scared. She was trembling all over.

  “Well, Little Sister, if it’s your grave, just remember that you dug it,” he said without mercy. “If Ed was here to see you I’d let you stay.”

  She got out, stumbling as her legs buckled. Grave Digger came around from the other side, took her by the arm, steered her up a flight of concrete stairs, through the glass double-doors, into a small immaculate foyer furnished with a long table, polished chairs and parchment-shaded lights flanking wall mirrors.

  Not a sound could be heard.

  “These slick hustlers live high on the hog,” he muttered. “But at least they’re quiet.”

  They rode in a push-button elevator to the sixth floor, and turned toward the jade-green door at the left of a square hall.

  “I beg you,” Imabelle pleaded, trembling.

  “Go ahead and buzz her,” Grave Digger ordered, flattening himself against the wall beside the door and drawing his long-barreled nickel-plated pistol.

  She pushed the button. After a time the Judas window clicked open.

  “Oh, it’s you, honey,” said a deep feminine voice, strangely pleasant.

  The door was unlocked.

  Grave Digger held his .38 in his right hand, put his left hand on the doorknob, and rode it in.

  A vague shape in the almost pitch-dark hall moved slowly to one side to let him enter, and the deep voice said to Imabelle, not so pleasantly, “Well, come on inside and shut the door.”

  Imabelle pushed in behind Grave Digger, and the front of the dark hall was crowded. The faint sound of her teeth chattering could be heard in the silence.

  The woman closed the door and locked it without speaking.

  “You got some friends I want, Billie,” Grave Digger said.

  “Come into my office a moment, Digger.”

  She unlocked the first door to the left with a Yale key attached to a chain about her neck. A copper-shaded lamp spilled a soft glow on a blond-oak writing desk. When she switched on the bright overhead light, a luxurious bedroom suite, planted in the deep pile of a vermilion rug, sprang into view. She quickly closed the door behind them.

  Grave Digger searched the room with one quick glance, looked an instant longer at the knobs of the doors to the closet and bathroom, then moved out into the room so that Billie was a target against the hall door.

  “Talk fast,” he said. “It’s getting late.”

  She was a brown-skinned woman in her middle forties, with a compact husky body filling a red gabardine dress. With a man’s haircut and a smooth, thick, silky mustache, her face resembled that of a handsome man. But her body was a cross. The top two buttons of the dress were open, and between her two immense uplifted breasts was a thick growth of satiny black hair. When she talked a diamond flashed betwen her two front teeth.

  She flicked a glance at Imabelle’s swollen, purple-tinted cheek, across Imabelle’s scared-sick eyes, and then gave her whole attention to Grave Digger.

  “Don’t take them in the house, Digger. I’ll send them out.”

  “Are they all together?”

  “All? There’s only two here now. Hank and Jodie.”

  “Slim ought to be here too,” Imabelle said ina breathless voice. Both Grave Digger and Billie turned to stare at her.

  “Maybe he’s out looking for me.”

  Billie looked away from her first. Grave Digger stared an instant longer. Then both turned back toward each other.

  “I’ll take those two,” Grave Digger said.

  “Not in the house, Digger. They’re hopped to the gills and kill-happy. I’ve got two of my best girls with them.”

  “That’s the chance you take running this kind of joint.”

  “I don’t run it for free, you know. I pay like hell. And the captain promised me there wouldn’t be any rumbles in here.”

  “Where are they?”

  “The captain won’t like it, Digger.”

  Grave Digger looked at her thoughtfully.

  “Billie, they threw acid in Ed’s eyes.”

  Billie shuddered.

  “Listen, Digger, I’ll set them up. I’ll take them down to the foyer myself and hand them over to you with their hands full of air.”

  “You know goddamn well they don’t intend to leave that way. They’re planning on going over the roof and coming out of the house next door.”

  “All right. Listen. I’ll trade you. I’ll give you three purse-snatchers, a prowler you’ve been wanting for a long time—”

  “It’s getting late, Billie.”

  “–and the Wilson murderer. The one who killed the liquor-store man during that stickup last month.”

  “I’m going to come back for them. But I’ll take these two now.”

  She turned quickly and pulled open a top bureau-drawer.

  Grave Digger drew a bead on the middle of her spine.

  She pulled the drawer clear out, threw it on the bed. It was filled evenly with stacks of brand-new twenty-dollar bills.

  “There’s five grand. It’s yours.”

  He didn’t look at the money.

  “Where are they, Billie? There isn’t much time.”

  “They’re in the pad. But they’ve got themselves locked in and they won’t open even for me.”

  “They’ll open for her,” Grave Digger said, nodding toward Imabelle.

  Billie turned to stare at Imabelle.

  Imabelle had turned a sour-cream yellow with blue-black half-moons beneath her dog-sick eyes. She was trembling like a leaf.

  “Don’t make me do it. Please don’t make me do it.”

  Tears streamed down her face. She knelt on the floor, clutched Grave Digger about the legs.

  “I’ll do anything. I’ll be your woman, or a circus girl—”

  “Get up,” Grave Digger said without mercy. “Get up, or I’ll blast open the door, holding you in front of me as a shield.”

  She got to her feet like an old woman.

  Billie looked at her without pity.

  “You know Hank when you see him?” Imabelle asked Grave Digger, talking in gasps. “The one who threw the acid?”

  “I’d know that bastard in hell.”

  “He’s the one who’s got the gun.”

  “Digger, for God’s sake be careful,” Billie pleaded. “They got two of my best young girls in there. Jeanie’s only sixteen and she’s with Jodie—”

  “You’re talking yourself out of business.”

  “—and Jodie’s on a kill-crazy edge with that knife. And Carol’s only nineteen herself.”

  “Let’s just hope neither of their numbers comes up,” Grave Digger said.

 
; He turned to Imabelle. “Go down and knock on the door.”

  When they came out of the room, a white man came from the bathroom next door, buttoning his fly, gave them a drunken look, and staggered quietly back to the sitting room.

  Imabelle went down the hall as to her death.

  There were six rooms and a bath in the flat, the four bedrooms facing across the long center-hall, the bath between Billie’s office and the small bedroom called the pad. The hall ran into a big front combination dining-sitting room with shaded windows overlooking both 155th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue; a small electrically equipped kitchen was to the right.

  There was a jukebox playing softly at one end of the sitting room; two white men sat on divans with three colored girls. At the other end, toward the kitchen, two colored men and a colored woman sat at a large mahogany dining table eating fried chicken and potato salad. The lights were low, the air faintly tinted with incense.

  In one of the bedrooms a white man and a colored girl lay embraced between sky-blue sheets. In another, five colored men played a nearly wordless game of stud poker in the smoke-filled air, drinking cold beer from bottles and eating sandwiches.

  The pad had a door opening into the hall, and another on the side at the back which opened into one end of the kitchen. Both doors were locked, with the keys in the locks. There was a single window opening onto the landing of the fire escape, but it was hidden behind heavy drapes drawn over Venetian blinds.

  Hank lay on a couch, dressed in his blue suit, his head propped on two sofa pillows. He was slowly puffing opium through a water pipe. The shallow bowl with the bubbling opium pill rested on a brazier on a glass-covered cocktail table. The smoke passed through a short curved stem, bubbled in a glass decanter half-filled with tepid water, was drawn through a long transparent plastic tube into the amber mouthpiece which Hank held loosely between slack lips.

  His .38 automatic lay beside him, out of sight against the wall.

  A young girl wearing a white blouse over full, ripened breasts and tight-fitting slacks sat on the green carpet, her knees drawn up and her head resting back against the sofa. She had a smooth seal-brown face, big staring eyes, and a wide-lipped, flower-like mouth.

  Jodie sat across the room, on a green leather ottoman. His head was bent over almost inside of the speaker of a console combination as he listened to a Hot Lips Page recording of Bottom Blues, playing it over and over so low that the notes were heard distinctly only by his drug-sharpened sense of hearing.

  A girl sat on the floor between his outstretched legs. She wore a lemon-yellow blouse over budding breasts, and Paisley slacks. She had an olive-skinned, heart-shaped face, long black lashes concealing dark-brown eyes, and a mouth too small for the thickness of the lips. Her head rested on Jodie’s knee.

  Jodie was staring over her head, lost in the blue music. He ran his left hand slowly back and forth over her crisp brown curls as though he liked the sensation. His right arm rested on his thigh and in his right hand he held the bone-handled switch-blade knife, snapping it open and shut.

  “Don’t you have another record?” Hank asked, as if from a great distance.

  “I like this record.”

  “Doesn’t it have another side?”

  “I like this side.”

  Jodie started the record again. Hank looked dreamily at the ceiling.

  “When are we going?” Jodie asked.

  “As soon as it gets daylight.”

  Jodie stared at the dial of his wrist watch.

  “It ought to be daylight now.”

  “Give it some time. Ain’t no hurry.”

  “I want to be on the road. I’m getting nervous sitting around here.”

  “Wait a while. Give it some time. Let some traffic get on the road. We don’t want to be the only car leaving town with California plates.”

  “How the hell you know there’s going to be any others?”

  “Ohio plates, then. Illinois plates. Give it some time.”

  “I’m giving it some mother— time.”

  The record came to a stop. Jodie started it over again, bent his ear to the speaker, and clicked the knife open and shut.

  “Stop clicking that knife,” Hank said indifferently.

  “I didn’t know I was clicking it.”

  A hesitant knock sounded above the low-playing blues.

  Hank stared dreamily at the locked door. Jodie stared tensely. The girls didn’t look up.

  “See who’s there, Carol,” Hank said to the girl beside him. She started to get up. “Just ask.”

  “Who is it?” she asked in a harsh, startling voice.

  “Me. Imabelle.”

  Hank and Jodie kept staring at the locked door. The girls turned and stared at it also. No one answered.

  “It’s me, Imabelle. Let me in.”

  Hank reached down along his side and wrapped his fingers about the butt of the automatic. Jodie’s knife clicked open.

  “Who’s with you?” Hank asked in a lazy voice.

  “Nobody.”

  “Where’s Billie?”

  “She’s here.”

  “Call her.”

  “Billie, Hank wants to talk to you.”

  “Hank?” Hank said. “Who’s Hank?”

  “Don’t use that name,” Billie said, then to Hank, “I’m here. What do you want?”

  “Who’s with Imabelle?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Open the door a crack,” Hank said to Carol.

  She got up and crossed the room in a hip-swinging walk, unlocked the door and opened it a crack. Hank had his automatic aimed at the crack.

  Imabelle put her face in view.

  “It’s Imabelle,” Carol said.

  Billie pushed the door open wider and looked past Imabelle at Hank. “Do you want to see her?”

  “Sure, let her come in,” Hank said, putting the gun out of sight beside him.

  Carol opened the door wide and Imabelle stepped into the room. She was so scared she was biting down vomit.

  Hank and Jodie stared at her tear-streaked face and swollen, purple-tinted cheek.

  “Close the door,” Hank said dreamily.

  Imabelle stepped to one side, and Grave Digger came out of the dark hall like an apparition coming up from the sea. He had a nickel-plated pistol in each hand.

  “Straighten up,” he said thickly.

  “It’s a mother— plant,” Jodie grated.

  Jodie had his left hand resting on Jeanie’s curly head, his right hand extended, the knife open. With a sudden tight grip his left hand closed and he lifted the girl up from the floor by her hair, holding her in front of him as a shield, and put the sharp naked blade tight against her throat as he came violently to his feet.

  The girl didn’t cry out, didn’t utter a sound, didn’t faint. Her body went flaccid beneath Jodie’s grip. Her face was stretched into distortion, a drop of blood trickled slowly down her taut neck. Her eyes were huge black pools of animal terror, slanting upwards at the edges, overwhelming her small distorted face. She didn’t breathe.

  Grave Digger caught a look at her face from the corner of his eye, and didn’t move for fear of starting that knife across her throat.

  Hank stared at Grave Digger dreamily without moving, his fingers still curled about the butt of the hidden .38. Grave Digger stared back. They were watching the flicker of each other’s eyes, paying no attention to Jodie and the paralyzed girl. Nobody spoke. Carol stood frozen with one hand on the door knob. Imabelle stood trembling, out of range on the other side. Everything was in pantomime.

  Jodie backed toward the door that opened into the kitchen. The girl backed with him, followed his every motion with a corresponding motion, as if performing some macabre dance. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead in pools of undripping tears.

  Jodie brought up against the door. “Reach around me and open it,” he ordered the girl.

  The girl reached her left hand carefully around his body, felt for the key, turned
it, and opened the door.

  Jodie backed into the kitchen, still holding the girl in front of him.

  Billie stood silently beside the white enamel electric range with a double-bladed wood-chopper’s axe held poised over her right shoulder, waiting for Jodie to come into reach. He took another step backward, his eyes on Grave Digger’s guns. Billie chopped his upper forearm in a forward-moving strike to knock the knife blade forward from the girl’s throat. Jodie wheeled in violent reflex his knife-arm flopping like an empty sleeve, as the knife clattered on the tiled floor, struck out backwards with the edge of his left hand. Billie took the blow across the mouth as she chopped him in the center of the back between the shoulder blades, like splitting a log, knocking him forward to his knees.

  His head flew about to look at her as he cried, “Mother-raping—”

  She put her whole weight in a down-chopping blow and sank the sharp blade of the axe into the side of his neck with such force it hewed through the spinal column and left his head dangling over his left shoulder on a thin strip of flesh, the epithet still on his lips.

  Blood geysered from red stump of neck over the fainting girl as Billie dropped the axe, picked her bodily in her arms, and showered her with kisses.

  As if it were a signal Hank was waiting for, he swung up the black snout of his .38 automatic, knowing that he didn’t have a chance.

  Before it had cleared his hip, Grave Digger shot him through the right eye with his own pistol held in his right hand. While Hank’s body was jerking from the bullet in the brain, Grave Digger said, “For you, Ed,” took dead aim with Coffin Ed’s pistol held in his left hand, and shot the dying killer through the staring left eye.

  Pandemonium broke loose in the house. Imabelle slipped beneath Grave Digger’s arm and bolted toward the door. Guests poured from the rooms into the narrow hall in a panic-stricken stampede.

  But Grave Digger had already wheeled into the hall after Imabelle, pushed her into the corner, and blocked the door. He flicked on the bright overhead lights with the barrel of one gun and stood with his back against the door with a gun in each hand.