Cotton Comes to Harlem (3 page)

Grave Digger perched a ham on the edge of the desk and cocked his head; but Coffin Ed backed against the wall into the shadow to hide his face, as was his habit when he expected the unexpected.

“You’re to cover Deke O’Hara,” Anderson read.

The two colored detectives stared at him, alert but unquestioning, waiting for him to go on and give the handle to the joke.

“He was released ten months ago from the federal prison in Atlanta.”

“As who in Harlem doesn’t know,” Grave Digger said drily.

“Many people don’t know that ex-con Deke O’Hara is Reverend Deke O’Malley, leader of the new Back-to-Africa movement.”

“All right, omit the squares.”

“He’s on the spot; the syndicate has voted to kill him,” Anderson said as if imparting information.

“Bullshit,” Grave Digger said bluntly. “If the syndicate had wanted to kill him, he’d be decomposed by now.”

“Maybe.”

“What
maybe
? You could find a dozen punks in Harlem who’d kill him for a C-note.”

“O’Malley’s not that easy to kill.”

“Anybody’s easy to kill,” Coffin Ed stated. “That’s why we police wear pistols.”

“I don’t dig this,” Grave Digger said, slapping his right thigh absentmindedly. “Here’s a rat who stooled on his former policy racketeer bosses, got thirteen indicted by the federal grand jury — even one of us, Lieutenant Brandon over in Brooklyn—”

“There’s always one black bean,” Lieutenant Anderson said unwittingly.

Grave Digger stared at him. “Damn right,” he said flatly.

Anderson blushed. “I didn’t mean it the way you’re thinking.”

“I know how you meant it, but you don’t know how I’m thinking.”

“Well, how are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking do you know why he did it?”

“For the reward,” Anderson said.

“Yeah, that’s why. This world is full of people who will do anything for enough money. He thought he was going to get a half million bucks as the ten per cent reward for exposing tax cheats. He told how they’d swindled the government out of over five million in taxes. Seven out of thirteen went to prison; even the rat himself. He was doing so much squealing he confessed he hadn’t paid any taxes either. So he got sent down too. He did thirty-one months and now he’s out. I don’t know how much Judas money he got.”

“About fifty grand,” Lieutenant Anderson said. “He’s put it all in his setup.”

“Digger and me could use fifty G’s, but we’re cops. If we squeal it all goes on the old pay cheque,” Coffin Ed said from the shadows.

“Let’s not worry about that,” Lieutenant Anderson said impatiently. “The point is to keep him alive.”

“Yeah, the syndicate’s out to kill him, poor little rat,” Grave Digger said. “I heard all about it. They were saying, ‘O’Malley may run but he can’t hide.’ O’Malley didn’t run and all the hiding he’s been doing is behind the Bible. But he isn’t dead. So what I would like to know is how all of a sudden he got important enough for a police cover when the syndicate had ten months to make the hit if they had wanted to.”

“Well, for one thing, the people here in Harlem, responsible people, the pastors and race leaders and politicians and such, believe he’s doing a lot of good for the community. He paid off the mortgage on an old church and started this new Back-to-Africa movement —”

“The original Back-to-Africa movment denies him,” Coffin Ed interrupted.

“— and people have been pestering the commissioner to give him police protection because of his following. They’ve convinced the commissioner that there’ll be a race riot if any white gunmen from downtown come up here and kill him.”

“Do you believe that, Lieutenant? Do you believe they’ve convinced the commissioner of that crap? That the syndicate’s out to kill him after ten months?”

“Maybe it took these citizens that long to find out how useful
he is to the community,” Anderson said.

“That’s one thing,” Grave Digger conceded. “What are some other things?”

“The commissioner didn’t say. He doesn’t always take me and the captain into his confidence,” the lieutenant said with slight sarcasm.

“Only when he’s having nightmares about Digger and me shooting down all these innocent people,” Coffin Ed said.

“
 ‘Ours not to reason why, ours but to do or die,’ 
” Anderson quoted.

“Those days are gone forever,” Grave Digger said. “Wait until the next war and tell somebody that.”

“Well, let’s get down to business,” Lieutenant Anderson said. “O’Malley is co-operating with us.”

“Why shouldn’t he? It’s not costing him anything and it might save his life. O’Malley’s a rat, but he’s not a fool.”

“I’m going to feel downright ashamed nursemaiding that excon,” Coffin Ed said.

“Orders are orders,” Anderson said. “And maybe it’s not going to be like you think.”

“I just don’t want anybody to tell me that crime doesn’t pay,” Grave Digger said and stood up.

“You know the story about the prodigal son,” Anderson said.

“Yeah, I know it. But do you know the story about the fatted calf?”

“What about the fatted calf?”

“When the prodigal son returned, they couldn’t find the fatted calf. They looked high and low and finally had to give up. So they went to the prodigal son to apologize, but when they saw how fat he’d gotten to be, they killed him and ate him in the place of the fatted calf.”

“Yes, but just don’t let that happen to our prodigal son,” Anderson warned them unsmilingly.

At that instant the telephone rang. Lieutenant Anderson picked up the receiver.

A big happy voice said, “
Captain?
”

“
Lieutenant.
”

“Well, who ever you is, I just want to tell you that the earth has busted open and all hell’s got loose over here,” and he gave the address where the Back-to-Africa rally had taken place.

“And then Jesus say, ‘John, the only thing worse than a two-timing woman is a two-timing man.’ ”

“Jesus say that? Ain’t it the truth?”

They were standing in the dim light directly in front of the huge brick front of the Abyssinian Baptist Church. The man was telling the woman about a dream he’d had the night before. In this dream he’d had a long conversation with Jesus Christ.

He was a nondescript-looking man with black and white striped suspenders draped over a blue sport shirt and buttoned to old-fashioned wide-legged dark brown pants. He looked like the born victim of a cheating wife.

But one could tell she was strictly a church sister by the prissy way she kept pursing up her mouth. One could tell right off that her soul was really saved. She was wearing a big black skirt and a lavender blouse and her lips pursed and her face shone with righteous indignation when he said:

“So I just out and asked Jesus who was the biggest sinner; my wife going with this man, or this man going with my wife, and Jesus say: ‘How come you ask me that, John? You ain’t thinking ’bout doing nothing to them, is you?’ I say, ‘No, Jesus, I ain’t gonna bother ’em, but this man, he’s married just like my wife, and I ain’t going to be responsible for what might break out between him and his wife,’ and Jesus say, ‘Don’t you worry, John, there’s always going to be some left.’ ”

Suddenly they were lit by a flash of lightning, which showed up a second man on his knees directly in back of the fascinated church sister. He held a safety razor blade between his right thumb and forefinger and he was cutting away the back of her skirt with such care and silence she didn’t suspect a thing. First, holding the skirt firmly by the hem with his left hand, he split it in a straight line up to the point where it began to tighten over her buttocks. Then he split her slip in the same manner. After which, holding the right halves of both skirt and slip firmly but gently between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, he cut out a wide half-circle down through the hem and carefully removed the cutout section and threw it carelessly against the wall of the church behind him. The operation revealed one black buttock
encased in rose-colored rayon pants and the bare back of one thick black thigh showing above the rolled top of a beige rayon stocking. She hadn’t felt a thing.

“ ‘Anyone who commits adultery, makes no difference whether it be man or woman, breaks one of my Father’s commandments,’ Jesus say: ‘Makes no difference how good it is,’ ” John said.

“Amen!” the church sister said. Her buttocks began to tremble as she contemplated this enormous sin.

Behind her, the kneeling man had begun to cut away the left side of her skirt, but the trembling of her buttocks forced him to exercise greater caution.

“I say to Jesus, ‘That’s the trouble with Christianity, the good things is always sinful,’ ” John said.

“Lawd, ain’t it the truth,” the church sister said, leaning forward to slap John on the shoulder in a spontaneous gesture of rising joy. The cutout left side section of the skirt and slip came off in the kneeling man’s hand.

Now revealed was all the lower part of the big wide rose-encased buttocks and the backs of two thick black thighs above beige stockings. The black thighs bulged in all directions so that just below the crotch, where the torso began, there was a sort of pocket in which one could visualize the buttocks of some man gripped as in a vice. But now, in that pocket, hung a waterproof purse suspended from elastic bands passing up through the pants and encircling the waist.

With breathless delicacy but a sure touch and steady hand, as though performing a major operation on the brain, the kneeling man reached into the pocket and began cutting the elastic band which held the purse.

John leaned forward and touched her on the shoulder like a spontaneous caress. His voice thickened with suggestion. “But Jesus say, ‘Commit all the ’dultry you want to, John. Just be prepared to roast in hell for it.’ ”

“He-he-he,” laughed the church sister and slapped him again on the shoulder. “He was just kidding you. He’d forgive us for just
one
time,” and she suddenly switched her trembling buttocks, no doubt to demonstrate Jesus’s mercy.

In so doing she felt the hand easing the purse from between her legs. She slapped back automatically before she could begin to turn her body, and struck the kneeling man across the face.

“Mother-raper, you is trying to steal my money,” she screamed, turning on the thief.

Lightning flashed, revealing the thief leaping to one side and the big broad buttocks in rose-colored pants twitching in fury. And
before the sound of thunder was heard, the rain came down.

The thief leapt blindly into the street. Before the church sister could follow, a meat delivery truck coming at blinding speed hit the thief head-on and knocked the body somersaulting ten yards down the street before running over it. The driver lost control as the truck went over the body. The truck jumped the curb and knocked down a telephone pole at the corner of Seventh Avenue; it slewed across the wet asphalt and crashed against the concrete barrier enclosing the park down the middle of the avenue.

The church sister ran toward the mangled body and snatched her purse still clutched in the dead man’s hand, unmindful of the bright lights of the armored truck rushing towards her like twin comets out of the night, unmindful of the rain pouring down in torrents.

The driver of the armoured car saw the rose-encased buttocks of a large black woman as she bent over to snatch something from what looked like a dead man lying in the middle of the street. He was convinced he had d.t.’s. But he tried desperately to avoid them at the speed he was going on that wet street, d.t.’s or not. The armored truck skidded, then began wobbling as though doing the shimmy. The brakes meant nothing on the wet asphalt of Seventh Avenue and the car skidded straight on across the avenue and was hit broadside by a big truck going south.

The church sister hurried down the street in the opposite direction, holding the purse clutched tightly in her hand. Near Lexington Avenue, men, women and children crowded about the body of another dead colored man lying in the street, being washed for the grave by the rain. It lay in a grotesque position on its stomach at right angle to the curb, one arm outflung, the other beneath it. The side of the face turned up had been shot away. If there had been a pistol anywhere, now it was gone.

A police cruiser was parked nearby, crosswise to the street. One of the policemen was standing beside the body in the rain. The other one sat in the cruiser, phoning the precinct station.

The church sister was hurrying past on the opposite side of the street, trying to remain unnoticed. But a big colored laborer, wearing the overalls in which he had worked all day, saw her. His eyes popped and his mouth opened in his slack face.

“Lady,” he called tentatively. She didn’t look around. “Lady,” he called again. “I just wanted to say, your ass is out.”

She turned on him furiously. “Tend to your own mother-raping business.”

He backed away, touching his cap politely, “I didn’t mean no harm, lady. It’s
your
ass.”

She hurried on down the street, worrying more about her hair in the rain than about her behind showing.

At the corner of Lexington Avenue, an old junk man of the kind who haunt the streets at night collecting old paper and discarded junk was struggling with a bale of cotton, trying to get it into his cart. Rain was pouring off his sloppy hat and wetting his ragged overalls to dark blue. His small dried face was framed with thick kinky white hair, giving him a benevolent look. No one else was in sight; everybody who was out on the street in all that rain was looking at the body of the dead man. So when he saw this big strapping lady coming towards him he stopped struggling with the wet bale of cotton and asked politely, “Ma’am, would you please help me get this bale of cotton into my cart, please, ma’am?”

He hadn’t seen her from the rear so he was slightly surprised by her sudden hostility.

“What kind of trick is you playing?” she challenged, giving him an evil look.

“Ain’t no trick, ma’am. I just tryna get this bale of cotton into my cart.”

“Cotton!” she shouted indignantly, looking at the bale of cotton with outright suspicion. “Old and evil as you is you ought to be ashamed of yourself tryna trick me out my money with what you calls a bale of cotton. Does I look like that kinda fool?”