Teena looked at the Sister of Mercy curiously. She had discovered by accident that Big Kathy was a man, but she didn’t know anything definite about Goldy.
“What’s her story?” she asked impudently.
“You’re drinking too much,” Big Kathy said. “You’d better be sober when you get to work, and you’d better not miss.”
“I ain’t goin’ to miss,” Teena said sullenly.
As soon as she’d returned to the sitting room, Big Kathy went in and stopped the wrestling match.
“Let’s call it a draw.”
“Let ’em finish!” Jodie shouted. “I got my money up.”
“Take it down then,” Big Kathy said harshly. “I said it’s a draw.”
The wrestlers were on the point of exhaustion and glad to quit.
Jodie took down the money from the girl who was holding the bet and pushed his way toward the outside door. Big Kathy let him out.
Teena took Hank to a room.
Goldy stretched out on Big Kathy’s bed, but he was too tense to sleep. He was too worried about whether the gold ore was real. He believed Jackson, but he wanted to be sure.
Big Kathy sat in one of the plastic-covered armchairs, skirt drawn up above his big lumpy knees, reading the society page of a Negro weekly newspaper and commenting from time to time about friends of his who were mentioned.
They had a long wait. It was after midnight before Teena knocked softly.
“Come in,” Big Kathy said.
“Whew!” Teena whistled, flopping into the other chair. “He talked my ear off.”
Goldy sat up on the edge of the bed and leaned forward. “Did he want you to go in with them?”
“Hell, no! That stingy son of a bitch! He was tryin’ to sell me some shares.”
“Then you struck,” Big Kathy said.
“I got everything but where they’re making the pitch.”
Goldy looked disappointed. “That was one of the main things.”
“I did my best, but he wouldn’t give.”
“All right,” Big Kathy said. “Let’s have what you got.”
“It’s just the old lost-gold-mine pitch. The one they call Walker is supposed to be the prospector who accidentally discovered the lost gold mine in Mexico. It’s the biggest and richest gold mine he’s ever seen in all his years of prospecting, and all that bullshit.”
“Let’s hear it anyhow,” Goldy said.
Teena threw him another calculating look.
“Well, Walker’s afraid he’d be killed if he even so much as mentioned finding the mine. And naturally the only man he can trust to tell about it is Mr. Morgan, who’s a big-time financier from Los Angeles. Mr. Morgan’s known all over the West Coast for backing big business-deals and has got a reputation from coast to coast for being honest.”
She started giggling.
“Go on,” Big Kathy said roughly.
“Well, what prospector Walker needed was thousands of dollars’ worth of tools and equipment and stuff and about a hundred miners to work for him. And besides that he’s got to get a permit from the Mexican government to work the mine, which is going to cost a hundred thousand dollars just by itself.
“So the first thing Mr. Morgan does is engage the services – that’s what he said – engage the—”
“Get on with the story,” Big Kathy said.
“Engage the services of a gold assayer from the Federal Bureau of Assayers. I ain’t seen that one, but they call him Goldsmith.”
She began giggling again but a look from Big Kathy stopped her.
“Well, all three of them, Walker and Morgan and Goldsmith, was supposed to have gone to Mexico to investigate the mine. But when Mr. Morgan found out how big it was he knew he couldn’t swing the deal alone. There were billions of dollars’ worth of gold in the mine and it’d take half a million dollars to mine it right. Morgan said he could have financed it through his bank – he told me this straight to my face – but he didn’t want the white folks to get control of it and take all the profits. So he decided to organize a corporation and sell stock just to colored folks. They’re going all over the whole United States selling stock at fifty dollars a share; and to give themselves time to make a load they’re telling everybody it’ll take six months to get the mine in operation and another three or four months before it starts paying off.”
She stopped and lit a cigarette, then looked from one to the other. “Well, that’s it.”
“How’re they selling their stock if you couldn’t find out where they’re making their pitch?” Goldy asked intently.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you about that. They got a contact man called Gus Parsons, or Gus somebody-or-other. He’s working all the plush bars, attending businessmen’s conferences, even going to church festivals, Morgan said, contacting the suckers. Investors, Morgan calls them. Then he takes them to their headquarters blindfolded, in his own car.”
Big Kathy’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Teena.
Goldy kept his intent stare pinned on her.
“How come all that?” he asked.
Teena shrugged. “He said they’re afraid of being robbed.”
“Robbed?” Big Kathy echoed.
“Robbed of what?” Goldy asked.
“He say they got a trunk full of gold ore, whatever that is. He said it was taken from the lost mine, as if anybody’d believe that shit.”
“Do they keep it at their headquarters?” Goldy asked.
There was something in Goldy’s voice that made Big Kathy look at him sharply.
Teena didn’t know what was happening and she began getting scared.
“I don’t know where they keep it. He didn’t say nothing to me about that. All he said to me was they had samples at headquarters to exhibit but if anybody had enough money to invest, they’d show ’em a whole trunk full of pure gold ore.”
Goldy sighed so softly it sounded as though he were crying to himself.
Big Kathy kept staring at him with his eyes full of questions. “You through with Teena?”
Goldy nodded.
“Get out,” Big Kathy said.
As soon as Teena had closed the door, he leaned far over and stared into Goldy’s bowed face.
“Is it true?”
Goldy nodded slowly. “It’s true.”
“How much?”
“Enough for everybody.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Just play dead until after I have got it.”
9
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed weren’t crooked detectives, but they were tough. They had to be tough to work in Harlem. Colored folks didn’t respect colored cops. But they respected big shiny pistols and sudden death. It was said in Harlem that Coffin Ed’s pistol would kill a rock and that Grave Digger’s would bury it.
They took their tribute, like all real cops, from the established underworld catering to the essential needs of the people – gamekeepers, madams, streetwalkers, numbers writers, numbers bankers. But they were rough on purse snatchers, muggers, burglars, con men, and all strangers working any racket. And they didn’t like rough stuff from anybody else but themselves. “Keep it cool,” they warned. “Don’t make graves.”
When Goldy got to the Savoy they were just leaving with two studs who’d got into a knife fight about a girl. The stud who’d brought the girl had gotten jealous because she’d danced too much with another stud. What made Coffin Ed and Grave Digger mad was the girl had put these two studs to fighting so she could slip away with a third stud, and these two studs were too simple-minded to see it.
Goldy followed them to the 126th Street precinct station in a taxi.
The big booking-room where the desk sergeant sat behind a fortress-like desk five feet high on the side toward the detective bureau was jampacked with the night’s pick-up.
The patrol-car cops, foot patrolmen, plainclothes dicks all had their prisoners in tow, waiting to book them on the blotter at the desk. The desk sergeant was taking them
in turn, writing down their names, charges, addresses, and arresting-officers on the blotter, before turning them over to the jailors who hung waiting in the background.
The small-time bondsmen, white and colored, were hanging about the desk and threading among the prisoners, soliciting business. For a ten-dollar fee they went bail for misdemeanors.
The cops were angry because they’d have to appear in court the next morning during their off-hours to testify against the prisoners they’d arrested. They were impatient to get their prisoners booked so they could go to some of their hangouts and take a nap before quitting time.
A young white cop had arrested a middle-aged drunken colored woman for prostitution. The big rough brown-skinned man dressed in overalls and a leather jacket picked up with her claimed she was his mother and he was just walking her home.
“Gettin’ so a woman can’t even walk down the street with her own natural-born son,” the woman complained.
“Shut up, can’t you?” the cop said irritably.
“Don’t you tell my mama to shut up,” the man said.
“If this whore’s your mama, I’m Santa Claus,” the cop said.
“Don’t you call me no whore,” the woman said, and slammed the cop in the face with her pocketbook.
The cop struck back instinctively and knocked the woman down. The colored man hit the cop above the ear and knocked him down. Another cop let go his own prisoner and slapped the man about the head. The man staggered head-forward into another cop, who slapped him again. In the excitement someone stepped on the woman and she began screaming.
“Help! Help! They’s tramplin’ me!”
“They’s killin’ a colored woman!” another prisoner yelled.
Everybody began fighting.
The desk sergeant looked down from the sanctuary of his desk and said in a bored voice, “Jesus Christ.”
At that moment Coffin Ed and Grave Digger entered with their two prisoners.
“Straighten up!” Grave Digger shouted in a stentorian voice.
“Count off!” Coffin Ed yelled.
Both of them drew their pistols at the same time and put a fusillade into the ceiling, which was already filled with holes they’d shot into it before.
The sudden shooting in the jammed room scared hell out of prisoners and cops alike. Everybody froze.
“As you were!” Grave Digger shouted.
He and Coffin Ed pushed their prisoners through the silent pack toward the desk.
The Harlem hoodlums under arrest looked at them from the corners of their eyes.
“Don’t make graves,” Grave Digger cautioned.
The lieutenant in charge glanced out briefly from the precinct captain’s office behind the desk, but everything was quiet.
Goldy slipped unobtrusively into the room and stood just inside the doorway, stopping all the bail bondsmen who passed him with a jangle of his collection box.
“Give to the Lawd, gentlemen. Give to the poor.”
If there was anything strange about a black Sister of Mercy soliciting in a Harlem precinct police station at one o’clock in the morning, no one remarked it.
Coffin Ed and Grave Digger got their prisoners booked immediately and handed them over to the jailor. The captain wanted to keep them in the street, not tied up all night in the station.
When they left, Goldy climbed into the back of their small black sedan and left with them. They parked the car in the dark on 127th Street and Grave Digger turned around.
“All right, what’s the tip about the frogs?”
“ ‘Blessed is he that watcheth—’ ” Goldy began quoting.
Grave Digger cut him off. “Can that Bible-quoting crap. We let you operate because you’re a stooly, and that’s all. And don’t you forget, we know you, Bud.”
“Know everything there is to know about you,” Coffin Ed added. “And I hate a goddam female impersonator worse than God hates sin. So just give, Bud, give.”
Goldy dropped his pose and talked straight.
“There’s three con men operating here that’s wanted in Mississippi on a murder rap.”
“We know that much already,” Grave Digger said. “Just give us the monickers they’re using and tell us where they’re holed up.”
“Two of them go as Morgan and Walker. I don’t know the slim stud’s handle. And I don’t know where they’re holed up. They’re working the lost-gold-mine pitch and they’re using a shill named Gus Parsons to bring in the suckers blindfolded.”
“Where did you make them?”
“At Big Kathy’s. Morgan and Walker were there tonight.”
“Fill it in, fill it in,” Grave Digger said harshly.
“I got a brother named Jackson, works for Exodus Clay. They took him for fifteen C’s on The Blow. His old lady, Imabelle, tricked him into it, then she ran away with the slim stud.”
“She’s up with the gold-mine pitch?”
“Must be.”
“What are they using for gold ore?”
“They got a few phony rocks.”
Grave Digger turned to Coffin Ed. “We can take them at Big Kathy’s.”
“I got a better plan,” Goldy said. “I’m goin’ to load Jackson with a phony roll and let Gus Parsons contact him. Gus’ll take him in to their headquarters and you-all can follow them.”
Grave Digger shook his head. “You just said they took Jackson on The Blow.”
“But Gus wasn’t with them. Gus don’t know Jackson. By the time Gus finds out his mistake you’ll have the collar on them all.”
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed exchanged looks. Coffin Ed nodded.
“Okay, Bud, we’ll take them tomorrow night,” Grave Digger said, then added grimly, “I suppose you’re your brother’s beneficiary.”
“I’m just tryin’ to help him, that’s all,” Goldy protested. “He wants his woman back.”
“I’ll bet,” Coffin Ed said.
They let Goldy out of the car and drove off.
“Isn’t there a warrant out for Jackson?” Coffin Ed remarked.
“Yeah, stole five hundred dollars from his boss.”
“We’ll take him too.”
“We’ll take them all.”
The next afternoon when Jackson had finished eating, Goldy gave him a fill-in on the gang’s setup and told him his plan to trap them.
“And here’s the bait.”
He made a huge roll out of stage money, encircled it with two bona fide ten-dollar bills, and bound it with an elastic band. That was the way jokers in Harlem carried their money when they wanted to big-time. He tossed it onto the table.
“Put that in your pocket, Bruzz, and you’re goin’ to be one big fat black piece of cheese. You’re goin’ to look like the biggest piece of cheese them rats ever seen.”
Jackson looked at the phony roll without touching it.
He didn’t like any part of Goldy’s plan. Anything could go wrong. If there was a rumpus the detectives might grab him and let the real criminals go, like that phony marshal had done. Of course, these were real detectives. But they were colored detectives just the same. And from what he’d heard about them they believed in shooting first and questioning the bodies afterward.
“Course if you don’t want your gal back—” Goldy prodded.
Jackson picked up the phony roll and slipped it into his side pants-pocket. Then he crossed himself and knelt beside the table on the floor. Devoutly bowing his head, he whispered a prayer.
“Dear Lord in heaven, if You can’t see fit to help this poor sinner in his hour of need, please don’t help those dirty murderers either.”
“What are you prayin’ for, man?” Goldy said. “Ain’t nothin’ can happen to you. You goin’ to be covered.”
“That’s what I’m worrying about,” Jackson said. “I don’t want to get covered too deep.…”
10
The Braddock Bar was on the corner of 126th Street and Eighth Avenue, next door to a Negro-owned loan and insurance company a
nd the Harlem weekly newspaper.
It had an expensive-looking front, small English-type windows with diamond-shaped leaded panes. Once it had claimed respectability, had been patronized by the white and colored businessmen in the neighborhood and their respectable employees. But when the whorehouses, gambling clubs, dope dens had taken over 126th Street to prey on the people from 125th Street, it had gone into bad repute.
“This bar has gone from sugar to shit,” Jackson muttered to himself when he arrived there at seven o’clock.
The cold snowy February night was already getting liquored up.
Jackson squeezed into a place before the long bar, ordered a shot of rye, and looked at his neighbors nervously.
The bar was jammed with the lowest Harlem types, pinched-faced petty hustlers, sneak thieves, pickpockets, muggers, dope pushers, big rough workingmen in overalls and leather jackets. Everyone looked mean or dangerous.
Three hefty bartenders patrolled the sloppy floor behind, silently filling shot glasses and collecting coins.
A jukebox at the front was blaring, a whiskey-voice was shouting, “Rock me, daddy, eight to the beat. Rock me, daddy, from my head to my feet.”
Goldy had instructed Jackson to flash his roll as soon as he’d ordered his first drink, but Jackson didn’t have the nerve. He felt that everyone was watching him. He ordered a second drink. Then he noticed that everyone was watching everyone else, as though each one regarded his neighbor as either a potential victim or a stool pigeon for the police.
“Everybody in here lookin’ for something, ain’t they?” the man next to him said.
Jackson gave a start. “Looking for something?”
“See them whores, they’re looking for a trick. See them muggers ganged around the door, they looking for a drunk to roll. These jokers in here are just waiting for a man to flash his money.”
“Seems like I’ve seen you before,” Jackson said. “Your name ain’t Gus Parsons, is it?”
The man looked at Jackson suspiciously and began moving away. “What you want to know my name for?”
“I just thought I knew you,” Jackson said, fingering the roll in his pocket, trying to get up enough courage to flash it.
A Rage in Harlem Page 6
