Inky scrambled to his feet and stepped between them. "What about the captive, Sheik?" he asked in alarm.
"Damn the captive!" Sheik raved and whipped out a bone-handled knife, shaking open the six-inch blade with the same motion.
"Don't cut 'em!" Inky cried.
He knocked Inky into the iron steps with a back-handed slap and grabbed a handful of Choo-Choo's sweat shirt collar.
"You blab and I'll cut your mother-raping throat," he said.
Violence surged through him like runaway blood.
Choo-Choo's eyes turned three-quarters white and a feverish sweat popped out on his dark brown skin.
"I didn't mean nothing, Sheik," he whined desperately, talking low. "You know I didn't mean nothing. A man can talk 'bout his rathers, can't he?"
The violence receded but Sheik was still gripped in a murderous compulsion.
"If I thought you'd pigeon I'd kill you."
"You know I ain't gonna pigeon, Sheik. You know me better than that."
Sheik let go of his collar. Choo-Choo took a deep sighing breath.
Inky straightened up and rubbed his bruised shin. "You done made me lose the stick," he complained.
"Hell with the stick," Sheik said.
"That's what I mean," Sonny said. "This here gage they sells now will make you cut your own mamma's throat. They must be mixing it with loco weed or somethin'."
"Shut up!" Sheik said, still holding the open knife in his hand. "I ain't gonna tell you no more."
Sonny cast a look at the knife and said, "I ain't saying nothing."
"You better not," Sheik said. Then he turned to Inky. "Inky, you take the captive up on the roof and you and him start flying Caleb's pigeons. You, Sonny, when the cops come you tell them your name is Caleb Bowee and you're just trying to teach your pigeons how to fly at night. You got that?"
"Yeah," Sonny said skeptically.
"You know how to make pigeons fly?"
Sonny hesitated. "Chunk rocks at 'em?"
"Hell, nigger, your brain ain't big as a mustard seed. You can't chunk no rocks up there with all those cops about. What you got to do is take this pole and wave the end with the flag at 'em every time they try to light."
Sonny looked at the bamboo pole skeptically. "S'posin' they fly away and don't come back."
"They ain't going nowhere. They just fly in circles trying all the time to get back into the coop." Sheik doubled over suddenly and started laughing. "Pigeons ain't got no sense, man."
The rest of them just looked at him.
Finally Inky asked, "What you want me to do?"
Sheik straightened up quickly and stopped laughing. "You guard the captive and see that he don't escape."
"Oh!" Inky said. After a moment he asked, "What I'm gonna tell the cops when they ask me what I'm doin'?"
"Hell, you tell the cops Caleb is teaching you how to train pigeons."
Inky bent over and started rubbing his shins again. Without looking up he said, "You reckon the cops gonna fall for that, Sheik? You reckon they gonna be crazy enough to believe anybody's gonna be flying pigeons with all this going on all around here?"
"Hell, these is white cops," Sheik said contemptuously. "They believe spooks are crazy anyway. You and Sonny just act kind of simpleminded. They gonna to swallow it like it's chocolate ice cream. They ain't going to do nothing but kick you in the ass and laugh like hell about how crazy spooks are. They gonna go home and tell their old ladies and everybody they see about two simpleminded spooks up on the roof teaching pigeons how to fly at night all during the biggest dragnet they ever had in Harlem. You see if they don't."
Inky kept on rubbing his shin. "It ain't that I doubt you, Sheik, but s'posin' they don't believe it."
"God damn it, go ahead and do what I told you and don't stand there arguing with me," Sheik said, hit by another squall of fury. "I'd take me one look at you and this nigger here and I'd believe it myself, and I ain't even no gray cop."
Inky turned reluctantly and started up the stairs toward the roof. Sonny gave another sidelong look at Sheik's open knife and started to follow.
"Wait a minute, simple, don't forget the pole," Sheik said. "I've told you not to try chunking rocks at those pigeons. You might kill one and then you'd have to eat it." He doubled over laughing at his joke.
Sonny picked up the pole with a sober face and climbed slowly after Inky.
"Come on," Sheik said to Choo-Choo, "open the window and let's get back inside."
Before turning his back and bending to open the window, Choo-Choo said, "Listen, Sheik, I didn't mean nothing by that."
"Forget it," Sheik said.
Sissie and Sugartit were sitting silently side by side on the bed, looking frightened and dejected. Sugartit had stopped crying but her eyes were red and her cheeks stained.
"Jesus Christ, you'd think this is a funeral," Sheik said.
No one replied. Choo-Choo fidgeted from one foot to the other.
"I want you chicks to wipe those sad looks off your faces," Sheik said. "We got to look like we're balling and ain't got a thing to worry about when the cops get here."
"You go ahead and ball by yourself," Sissie said.
Sheik lunged forward and slapped her over on her side. She got up without a word and walked to the window. "If you go out that window I'll throw you down on the street," Sheik threatened.
She stood looking out the window with her back turned and didn't answer.
Sugartit sat quietly on the edge of the bed and trembled.
"Hell," Sheik said disgustedly and flopped lengthwise behind Sugartit on the bed.
She got up and went to stand in the window beside Sissie.
"Come on, Choo-Choo, to hell with those bitches," Sheik said. "Let's decide what to do with the captive."
"Now you're getting down to the gritty," Choo-Choo said enthusiastically, straddling a chair. "You got any plans?"
"Sure. Give me a butt."
Choo-Choo fished two Camels from a squashed package in his sweat shirt roll and lit them, passing one to Sheik.
"This square weed on top of gage makes you crazy," he said.
"Man, my head already feels like it's going to pop open, it's so full of ideas," Sheik said. "If I had me a real mob like Dutch Schultz's I could take over Harlem with the ideas I got. All I need is just the mob."
"Hell, you and me could do it alone," Choo-Choo said.
"We'd need some arms and stuff, some real factory-made heaters and a couple of machine guns and maybe some pineapples."
"If we croaked Grave Digger and the Monster we'd have two real cool heaters to start off with," Choo-Choo suggested.
"We ain't going to mess with those studs until after we're organized," Sheik said. "Then maybe we can import some talent to make the hit. But we'd need some dough."
"Hell, we can hold the prisoner for ransom," Choo-Choo said.
"Who'd ransom that nigger," Sheik said. "I bet even his own mamma wouldn't pay to get him back." "He can ransom hisself," Choo-Choo said. "He got a shine parlor, ain't he? Shine parlors make good dough. Maybe he's got a chariot too." "Hell, I knew all along he was valuable," Sheik said. "That's why I had us snatch him." "We can take over his shine parlor," Choo-Choo said. "I got some other plans too," Sheik said. "Maybe we can sell him to the Stars of David for some zip guns. They got lots of zip guns and they're scared to use them." "We could do that or we could swap him to the Puerto Rican Bandits for Burrhead. We promised Burrhead we'd pay his ransom and they been saying if we don't hurry up and get 'im they're gonna cut his throat." "Let 'em cut the black mother-raper's throat," Sheik said. "That chicken-hearted bastard ain't no good to us." "I tell you what, Sheik," Choo-Choo said exuberantly. "We could put him in a sack like them ancient cats like the Dutchman and them used to do and throw him into the Harlem river. I've always wanted to put some bastard into a sack." "You know how to put a mother-raper into a sack?" Sheik asked. "Sure, you — " "Shut up, I'm gonna to tell you how. You knock the mother-rape
r unconscious first; that's to keep him from jumping about. Then you put a noose with a slip-knot 'round his neck. Then you double him up into a Z and tie the other end of the wire around his knees. Then when you put him in the gunny sack you got to be sure it's big enough to give him some space to move around in. When the motherraper wakes up and tries to straighten out he chokes hisself to death. Ain't nobody killed 'im. The mother-raper has just committed suicide." Sheik rolled with laughter. "You got to tie his hands behind his back first," ChooChoo said. Sheik stopped laughing and his face became livid with fury. "Who don't know that, fool!" he shouted. "'Course you got to tie his hands behind his back. You trying to tell me I don't know how to put a mother-raper into a sack. I'll put you into a sack." "I know you know how, Sheik," Choo-Choo said hastily. "I just didn't want you to forget nothing when we put the captive in a sack." "I ain't going to forget nothing," Sheik said. "When we gonna put him in a sack?" Choo-Choo asked. "I know where to find a sack." "Okay, we'll put him in a sack just soon as the police finish here; then we take him down and leave him in the basement," Sheik said.
7
Grave Digger flashed his badge at the two harness bulls guarding the door and pushed inside the Dew Drop Inn. The joint was jammed with colored people who'd seen the big white man die, but nobody seemed to be worrying about it. The jukebox was giving out with a stomp version of "Big-Legged 'Woman." Saxophones were pleading; the horns were teasing; the bass was patting; the drums were chatting; the piano was catting, laying and playing the jive, and a husky female voice was shouting:
"… you can feel my thigh
But don't you feel up high."
Happy-tail women were bouncing out of their dresses on the high bar stools.
Grave Digger trod on the sawdust sprinkled over the bloodstains that wouldn't wash off and parked on the stool at the end of the bar.
Big Smiley was serving drinks with his left arm in a sling.
The white manager, the sleeves of his tan silk shirt rolled up, was helping.
Big Smiley shuffled down the wet footing and showed Grave Digger most of his big yellow teeth.
"Is you drinking, Chief, or just sitting and thinking?"
"How's the wing?" Grave Digger asked.
"Favorable. It wasn't cut deep enough to do no real damage."
The manager came down and said, "If I'd thought there was going to be any trouble I'd have called the police right away."
"What do you calculate as trouble in this joint?" Grave Digger asked.
The manager reddened. "I meant about the white man getting killed."
"Just what started all the trouble in here?"
"It wasn't exactly what you'd call trouble, Chief," Big Smiley said. "It was only a drunk attacked one of my white customers with his shiv and naturally I had to protect my customer."
"What did he have against the white man?"
"Nothing, Chief. Not a single thing. He was sitting over there drinking one shot of rye after another and looking at the white man standing here tending to his own business. Then he gets red-eyed drunk and his evil tells him to get up and cut the man. That's all. And naturally I couldn't let him do that."
"He must have had some reason. You're not trying to tell me he got up and attacked the man without any reason whatever."
"Naw suh, Chief, I'll bet my life he ain't had no reason at all to wanta cut the man. You know how our folks is, Chief; he was just one of those evil niggers that when they get drunk they start hating white folks and get to remembering all the bad things white folks ever done to them. That's all. More than likely he was mad at some white man that done something bad to him twenty years ago down South and he just wanted to take it out on this white man in here. It's like I told that white detective who was in here, this white man was standing here at the bar by hisseif and that nigger just figgered with all those colored folk in here he could cut him and get away with it."
"Maybe. What's his name?"
"I ain't ever seen that nigger before tonight, Chief; I don't know what is his name."
A customer called from up the bar, "Hey, boss, how about a little service up here?"
"If you want me, Jones, just holler," the manager said, moving off to serve the customer.
"Yeah," Grave Digger said, then asked Big Smiley, "Who was the woman?"
"There she is," Big Smiley said, nodding toward a booth.
Grave Digger turned his head and scanned her.
The black lady in the pink jersey dress and red silk stockings was back in her original seat in a booth surrounded by three workers.
"It wasn't on account of her," Big Smiley added.
Grave Digger slid from his stool, went over to her booth and flashed his badge. "I want to talk to you."
She looked at the gold badge and complained, "Why don't you folks leave me alone? I done already told a white cop everything I know about that shooting, which ain't nothing."
"Come on, I'll buy you a drink," Grave Digger said.
"Well, in that case…" she said and went with him to the bar.
At Grave Digger's order Big Smiley grudgingly poured her a shot of gin and Grave Digger said, "Fill it up."
Big Smiley filled the glass and stayed there to listen.
"How well did you know the white man?" Grave Digger asked the lady.
"I didn't know him at all. I'd just seen him around here once or twice."
"Doing what-"
"Just chasing."
"Alone?"
"Yeah."
"Did you see him pick up anyone?"
"Naw, he was one of those particular kind. He never saw nothing he liked."
"Who was the colored man who tried to cut him?"
"How the hell should I know?"
"He wasn't a relative of yours?"
"A relation of mine. I should hope not."
"Just exactly what did he say to the white man when he started to attack him?"
"I don't remember exactly; he just said something 'bout him messing about with his gal."
"That's the same thing the other man, Sonny Pickens, accused him of."
"I don't know nothing about that."
He thanked her and wrote down her name and address.
She went back to her seat.
He returned back to Big Smiley. "What did Pickens and the man argue about?"
"They ain't had no argument, Chief. Not in here. It wasn't on account of nothing that happened in here that he was shot."
"It was on account of something," Grave Digger said. "Robbery doesn't figure, and people in Harlem don't kill for revenge."
"Naw suh, leastwise they don't shoot."
"More than likely they'll throw acid or hot lye," Grave Digger said.
"Naw, suh, not on no white gennelman."
"So what else is there left but a woman," Grave Digger said.
"Naw suh," Big Smiley contradicted flatly. "You know better'n that, Chief. A colored woman don't consider diddling with a white man as being unfaithful. They don't consider it no more than just working in service, only they is getting better paid and the work is less straining. 'Sides which, the hours is shorter. And they old men don't neither. Both she and her old man figger it's like finding money in the street. And I don't mean no cruisers neither; I means church people and Christians and all the rest."
"How old are you, Smiley?" Grave Digger asked.
"I be forty-nine come December seventh."
"You're talking about old times, son. These young colored men don't go in for that slavery-time deal anymore."
"Shucks, Chief, you just kidding. This is old Smiley. I got dirt on these women in Harlem ain't never been plowed. Shucks, you and me both can put our finger on high society colored ladies here who got their whole rep just by going with some big important white man. And their old men is cashing in on it, too; makes them important, too, to have their old ladies going with some big-shot gray. Shucks, even a hard-working nigger wouldn't shoot a white man if he come home and found him in bed with his old
lady with his pants down. He might whup his old lady just to show her who was boss, after he done took the money 'way from her, but he wouldn't sure 'nough hurt her like he'd do if he caught her screwing some other nigger."
"I wouldn't bet on it," Grave Digger said.
"Have it your own way, Chief, but I still think you're barking up the wrong tree. Lissen, the only way I figger a colored man in Harlem gonna kill a white man is in a fight. He'll draw his shiv if he getting his ass whupped and maybe stab him to death. But I'll bet my life ain't no nigger up here gonna shoot down no white man in cold blood — no important white gennelman like him."
"Would the killer have to know he was important?"
"He'd know it," Big Smiley said positively.
"You knew him?" Grave Digger said.
"Naw suh, not to say knew him. He come in here two, three times before but I didn't know his name."
"You expect me to believe he came in here two or three times and you didn't find out who he was?"
"I didn't mean exactly I didn't know his name," Big Smiley hemmed. "But I'se telling you, Chief, ain't no leads 'round here, that's for sure."
"You're going to have to tell me more than that, son," Grave Digger said in a flat, toneless voice.
Big Smiley looked at him; then suddenly he leaned across the bar and said in a low voice, "Try at Bucky's, Chief."
"Why Bucky's?"
"I seen him come in here once with a pimp what hangs 'round in Bucky's."
"What's his name?"
"I don't recollect his name, Chief. They driv up in his car and just stopped for a minute like they was looking for somebody and went out and drive away."
"Don't play with me," Grave Digger said with a sudden show of anger. "This ain't the movies; this is real. A white man has been killed in Harlem and Harlem is my beat. I'll take you down to the station and turn a dozen white cops loose on you and they'll work you over until the black comes off."
"Name's Ready Belcher, Chief, but I don't want nobody to know I told you," Big Smiley said in a whisper. "I don't want no trouble with that starker."
"Ready," Grave Digger said and got down from his stool.
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