Graham laid two dimes on the counter and stepped into the street. That connected the three places. What you had to do, then, was get inside, somehow. You knew they could recognize you in the Lantern. Must be able to. They'd been able to pick you out every time. Pick you out. Somebody knew exactly what you looked like. Funny. Your mind kept going back to Bill. But that was ridiculous. Bill hadn't tried to get the card away from you. He'd had the chance, too. And he'd helped you get away from the police.
The others had wanted to get the card away from you and then turn you over to the police. After all, you were their fall guy. Their sucker. They had framed you for Lois' murder.
A policeman was coming down the street. Harlem was full of police. Lousy with 'em. Better go somewhere. Graham thought swiftly--as swiftly as the sleepy fog in his mind allowed. You had to get inside. But how? Not directly. Sure as hell they'd recognize you in the Lantern or the Black Jewel.
He stared at the steady procession of zoot-suits purchasing their tickets and crowding into the theater. Funny. How happy these people looked. No decent jobs. No chance, even to get decent jobs because their skins were the wrong color. Crowded into one tightly policed section of the city. Forced to pay higher rents than anywhere else.
Caught on both sides, and living a happy, cheerfully disorganized life, resplendent with bright colored clothing for which they had probably sacrificed meals for half a week.
A taxi drew up in front of the theater and two naval officers in white summer uniforms got out, followed by two white girls. They bought tickets at the box-office and went inside. That decided Graham. He crossed the street, purchased a ticket. From the lobby a resonant voice was shouting: "No seats and no refunds! Standing room only and no refunds!"
The strains of a jazz band filtered thinly into the lobby, with a blast of refrigerated air from inside.
He pushed his way into a tiny opening in the crowd, and stared at the brilliantly lighted stage, where a jazz band was working itself into a frenzy.
He looked about him, studying the rapt faces on each side.
There was a heavy, sweet smell in the air, almost sickening in its intensity, and the beams of the spotlights trained on the stage were cones of luminescence against the dark ceiling.
He worked his way slowly to the left side of the theater, near the red exit-light. All you had to do was get out here and you'd be in one of those theatre-side alleys. They were all like that. The exit door and then a dark alley. A fine spot for a murder. [Isn't this a lovely spot to be caught in a murder ... No. That wasn't the way it went.]
He stood by the exit door, staring at the audience, watching the hot pinpoints of orange-colored light as the dark faces--and some light ones--dragged at their cigarettes. All reefers, probably, he decided. He wondered where they got them.
A small figure tapped him on the arm. He looked down. A negro with a wizened yellow face, looking more like a chimpanzee than a man, was staring up at him. "Want a stick?" he asked.
Graham said: "Not right now." The man started to move away. Graham hissed after him: "Wait a minute."
The small figure faced around and stood in front of him. "You got any of the white stuff?" Graham whispered.
The man spoke out of the side of his mouth, like a movie convict: "Ain' got none right heah with me. Yuh want it bad?"
"Yeah," Graham said. Not sure if that was the right answer. What did you do in a case like this? What did a narcotic addict do? He decided to tremble. He allowed his hands to shake energetically and held them up for the small man's observation. That seemed to be right.
"Oh, brother!" the small one said. "Look. Yuh meet me in the alley right heah," he gestured toward the exit. "Ah'll be theah in a coupla minutes."
He vanished in the tense mass of humanity about him. Graham watched the stage for a few seconds, then applied his weight to the cross bar which opened the exit door.
The alley was empty and dark. A rolling mass of storm clouds was moving overhead, occasionally flickering with little crackles of lightning. Graham waited in the alley, staring up at the two harsh brick walls. He could see a turn at the end of the alley. Two turns. One to the right and one to the left. There was the feeling about the alley that it should have been in a movie.
Graham plotted the scene in his mind: a street lamp at the end, casting a feeble yellow light across the mouth; a wisp of fog drifting high in the air; a skulking shadow moving in the yellow light. But it wasn't that way. Not really. Only the way it felt. You felt someone should be whistling a weird melody in the background--but instead the weakened brasses of the band seeped through the fireproof doors.
The door opened, and Graham pressed back against the wall. The monkey-like figure of the small man emerged, looked both ways, and stepped close to Graham.
From the side of his mouth he said: "Whatcha want, C or H?" Graham thought quickly. C must be Cocaine. And H would be Heroin. Heroin seemed reasonable. He said: "H."
The side of the chimpanzee's mouth said: "O.K. It's four smackers a deck."
There was a suspicious look in the little man's eye. A sort of question mark.
Graham said: "That's kind of high, isn't it? More than I paid last time."
The suspicious look vanished. "Look, Mister," the small one said. "I'm takin' a pretty big chance on this business. I ain't givin' dis stuff away. Other guys can cut theah prices all they wanna. Mah price is foah bucks--take it oah leave it."
Graham remembered to tremble. "O.K.," he said. "Give me two decks." He quivered his hand into his pocket, extracted a five and three ones, extending them to the little man. He saw the man's face. That had been wrong. He knew that, now. Maybe the addicts took four decks. Maybe they only took one. He didn't know. But something was wrong.
Anyway, the little man was taking the money and handing over two tiny envelopes. But he was suspicious. Well. It couldn't be helped.
"You comin' back inside?" the little man asked. He was holding his foot in the theater exit door.
"No. No, thanks," Graham said, remembering to keep on trembling. He thrust the small envelopes into his pocket, and buttoned the flap over them.
"O.K.," the little man said. He popped through the doorway and was gone.
The instant the door clicked shut Graham was in motion. He dashed to the end of the alley. One offshoot was open, apparently, running parallel to 125th Street, and then turning sharply left toward 126th. That was the way out. Graham made a mental note.
To the left was a cul de sac, a short alley between two close brick walls. On the front building, the one facing on 125th, there was a fire escape overhead. Farther in the cul de sac was a stair going down, and an open door at the bottom. The entrance to the Lantern.
The fire escape was of the weighted ladder type. He stared up at it, gauging the distance to the bottom rung. Nine feet. Maybe ten. Had to take a chance.
He stepped back from directly below the ladder. One long step. Two. Three. Enough. He took a running leap for the base of the ladder, touched it lightly with his fingers, and dropped to the concrete bottom of the alley.
Back again, farther this time. Ran. Leaped. Caught at the ladder, and hung tight, feeling it slipping downward beneath his weight.
Down. Now his feet were touching the ground, and the bottom rung of the ladder firmly in his grasp. He drew it down farther, leaped, and pulled himself rapidly up the rungs. The ladder was sinking beneath him as he climbed, until, with a clang, it stopped on contact with the pavement. He was half way up now, and there was a sound coming from the theater door.
That would be the monkey, coming after him. He jerked himself up the rungs, stepped off onto the platform, and dragged at the ladder, lifting it behind him.
He could hear pounding from around the corner in the passageway from the theater. He gave one despairing yank at the ladder, felt it rising under the pull of the counterweight, and flung himself flat on the fire escape platform.
They were at the end, now, looking in the two offshoots. He c
ouldn't see them. But he could hear their voices. He listened ... tense, ready to turn and face up the fire-escape at the first movement in his direction.
Chapter XV
VOICES OUTSIDE
The lightning flickered in the tossing grey masses of the clouds roofing over the narrow canyon between the two buildings. One look up and they'd see him.
Couldn't help it. The lightning would outline his black form through the grillwork of the fire escape. He crouched silently, peering into the gathering shadows in the alley.
A harsh voice below said: "You ain't so damned smart, giving him the stuff after he said two decks."
And the little man's voice answered: "Don' matter. Wasn't no witnesses aroun'. Man, yuah makin' one awful fuss bout dis heah business. Ah tol' you ain't no point botherin'. Man's jus' new, dasall."
"Well, then," harsh-voice demanded, "where did he go?"
"Back inside, likely. Ain' no otheh place to go fum heah."
Then the other alley went to a dead end, too. That was bad. Well, anyway, there was always the roof.
Graham rolled silently over on his back and looked up. Yeah. The fire escape ran all the way up. There was sure to be another way down somewhere on the block. All the buildings were the same height around here.
They were still talking below. "Anyway, somebody better tell the boss. He'll get madder'n hell if you don't tell him."
"Yeah-man," the little man said. Emphatically. "But that ain' nothin' to how mad he'll get if'n yuh do."
"Can't help that. We gotta tell him ..." The men retreated into the alleyway, still arguing. Graham rose from the metal floor of the fire escape and began mounting the steps. The steps were rusty. Not painted for years. The oxidation crunched under his feet, and the noise worried him. But it couldn't have been audible over the rolling thunder. He looked at his watch, studying the hands in the flashes of lightning. It was almost eight o'clock. Hard to tell exactly in the irregular light.
He readied the second platform of the fire escape, studied the two windows that faced him. It was impossible to see whether or not they were latched. He tugged at one, and felt it rising slightly. It wasn't latched. He wriggled it back and forth, loosening it in the frame. Felt like it had been closed for years. It was rising slowly in the back and forth movement. Suddenly it was loose. It slid upward and crashed the sash-weights inside the jamb.
Graham leaped into the room, trusting to luck to find a hiding place if anyone came.
He found himself in a recording room. Turntables, with fresh discs, ungrooved, resting on them and the stylus set, ready to record. Control panels. Tangles of electric cable. A newly opened box of recording platters from which the two on the turntables had come. Loose portable speakers, amplifier boxes. His eyes sorted out the jumbled materials in the intermittent illumination from the window. The turntables were mounted on a sort of huge box-affair, a cupboard. He opened the door and started to peer inside ...
There was a clatter of footsteps on stairs from somewhere outside the small room. He pulled the cupboard door open wide and looked inside. Big enough to hide him. He wormed his way into the crowded space. Dusty. Liable to sneeze. Have to take a chance. He pulled the door closed behind him.
A door was opening, now, with a jingle of keys and a rattle of voices. They were coming into the room.
A voice said; "Nobody in here," as a crack of light shone into his hiding-place from beneath the doors. He pressed his fingers hard against his upper lip to hold back the insistent sneeze. "Window's open," another voice shouted. "He got out that way. Up on the roof."
There was the sound of men's bodies moving through the opened window, and the clatter of their running feet on the fire escape.
Graham started to push open the door of the cupboard. The hiss of a scuffed shoe-sole stopped him. There was someone still in the room. He moved his eye close to a crack, saw a light, yellow, moving about. Flashlight. Somebody was still searching. "Doesn't seem to have bothered anything here," a voice said. Funny. Graham knew that voice. He couldn't place it. But he knew it.
A guttural voice answered: "Yeah, but I ain't takin' any chances. Boss said he might come up here tonight. And Chimp at the Minerva unloaded some stuff to a guy who disappeared around this way. Chimp couldn't describe him because it was dark." The click of a light switch came through the doorway and a steady glow leaked through the crack under the door.
The first voice, the familiar voice, said: "Seems to me you boys are getting a little careless. Understand, I'm not complaining. But this election is going to be a pretty close thing, even with the dough we're spending and the parade tonight. All that has to happen is for somebody to get a line on you, and all the voters you have lined up will fade out cold." Graham twisted his brain frantically, trying to identify the voice. Familiar. Very familiar. But, somehow, wrong. As though the speaker were disguising it.
"Can't worry about that now ... Hey, they're coming back." The returning footsteps on the fire escape came through the window with an obbligato of thunder. The storm was getting close. "Well?" the guttural voice demanded.
"Ain't there, boss. Not a sign of him."
"Never mind. Put a man down in that alley and keep him there. You, Jack. And keep your eyes open. I'll settle with Chimp later."
Heavy footsteps receded down the stairway. There was a minute or so of silence.
The familiar voice said: "Good thing you got that record back."
"Yeah. The soundman said he'd played it over for somebody. But it sounded like Graham from the description, and he won't cause us any trouble much longer."
Record. Soundman. O'Hannagan. That was it. The familiar voice was the friend of the people. Vox populi. So O'Hannagan was mixed up in this.
Graham turned over, carefully, studying the complex wiring inches above his head in the faint light reflected from the floor. He'd played around with this recording stuff once. Trick was to start the machine from below. The stylus was already in place. All you had to do was find the wires that controlled the switch and pray there was an open microphone around.
He reached one hand up into the inclined panel, feeling for the jacks. His hand encountered a complex metal protrusion. That was the jack, all right. And there was a mike plugged in. He couldn't tell where. Have to take a chance on that. After a while he found the back of the volume rheostat and opened it all the way. He found the amplifier switch, turned it on, and found the cupboard was lighted with a sedate yellow glow. The conversation was still going on outside. O'Hannagan said: "Where's the Boss now?"
Guttural voice chuckled. "He wanted to get in on the parade--just like a kid. He's playing the drum on the bandwagon."
O'Hannagan laughed. "He's a nice guy, all right. Man you can count on."
Graham found the switch--unexpectedly. A thrilling shock flowed through his fingers, tickled his elbow. He jerked his hand away, striking it hard against the wall of the cupboard.
They were going to find him, now. That noise would bring them. But it didn't. And, after a second or so, his mind sorted out the sounds. There had been a violent roll of thunder just as his hand struck the wood.
He found the wire again, carefully, this time, and pulled it loose. He touched it to the other. There was a comforting, faint rumble of gears immediately above his head.
He sat back. Now all you could do was hope they'd talk. The recording would get it all down, and they'd have to leave the room some time.
The thunder was rolling overhead. Louder, now. Crashing and distinct. That would get on the record, too. Spoil about half of it. But it couldn't be helped. And there were other things to worry about. The stylus cutting the surface of the disk picked up a curl of acetate. If that twisted around the needle it would ruin the whole thing. You were supposed to stand there with a brush and remove the curl as it formed. But Graham was in no position to remove anything. And if the microphone was close to them the high volume would made the needle overcut on the record; run one groove into another. Oh, well.
"Nothing to worry about, O'Hannagan," guttural-voice said. "The boss has arranged everything. He's a smart politician. Knows the ropes. And, once you're in, you can clean up the town with the information we'll supply. That'll leave us with a free hand."
O'Hannagan said: "All right. Only I don't want to know anything about the machinations of your boss. I'm only agreeing to this because he can help me get in."
"That's understood," the other answered. "I got to get downstairs, now. Have to keep an eye on that place. All it needs is just a little bit of trouble to have the whole police force on our necks."
There was a sudden crash of thunder.
"Hope the storm doesn't spoil the parade," O'Hannagan said. "What time does it start, Vince?"
"Fine politician you are," Vince told him, "not knowing about your own parades. Nine o'clock."
Graham was timing the record by his heartbeats. His watch had no second hand. It was a sixteen inch disk--he knew that. And that meant it was recording at 33 turns. That gave you about fifteen minutes of recording to the disk. That is, it gave you that if the coil of cutting from the record didn't foul up the stylus. He could hear a faint rasping from above. That would be the loose cuttings, scraping against the record surface.
"Almost nine now," O'Hannagan said. "I'd better get going, if I'm going to ride in this parade. Personally I think it's a lousy idea. That sort of thing is outdated."
Vince sneered in his harsh deep voice: "Not in Harlem. You just leave things to the boss. He knows his way around. He wants you in, and you'll be in--party backing or no party backing."
"And mainly no party backing," O'Hannagan said, cynically. Graham thought tensely: When are they going to say something? There wasn't much left of the record, now. Better get the other turntable ready to start. He reached his hands upward toward the rear of the control panel, saw them bathed in the weird light from the tubes coated with a white powder. He drew them down, gingerly touched them to his lips, tasted the bitterness. His fingers trembled with excitement as he took one of the tiny envelopes from his pocket, gently shook out a few of the crystals it contained in his palm. He touched them with his tongue.
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