A Rage in Harlem

by Chester Himes

  “Member of the First Baptist Church,” Jackson said.

  “You don’t have to tell me, Jackson, I could see right from the start that you were a church member. That’s how I knew you were an honest man.”

  He stopped beside a lavender-colored Cadillac. “Here’s my car.”

  “The real-estate business must be good,” Jackson said, climbing into the front seat beside Gus.

  “You can’t always tell by a Cadillac, Jackson,” Gus said as he pushed the starter button and shifted the hydromatic clutch. “All you need these days to buy a Cadillac is a jalopy to turn in for a down payment, and then dodge the installment collector.”

  Jackson laughed and glanced into the rear-view mirror. He noticed a small black sedan turn the corner and fall in behind them. Then after a moment a taxi drew suddenly to the curb where they had left Goldy.

  “When I get the first payment from my mine shares I’m going to buy me one of these.”

  “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, Jackson. Mr. Morgan hasn’t sold you any shares yet.”

  Suddenly, when they had rounded the corner at St. Nicholas Avenue, heading north, Gus drew to the curb and stopped. Jackson noticed the black sedan turn the corner, slow down, then drive on. It was followed at a short distance by a taxi. Gus didn’t notice. He had taken a black hood from the glove compartment.

  “Sorry, Jackson, but I’ve got to blindfold you,” he said. “You just slip this over your head. You understand, Mr. Morgan and the prospector have got a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold ore in their office and they can’t take any chances of being robbed.”

  Jackson hesitated. “It’s not that, Mr. Parsons. It’s just that, well, you see, I got all this money on me—”

  Gus laughed. “Call me Gus, Jackson. And don’t hesitate to say what you mean.”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Gus, but—”

  “I understand, Jackson. You just met me and you don’t know me from the man in the moon. Here, take my gun if it makes you feel any safer.”

  “Well, it’s not that I don’t feel safe with you, Gus—” Jackson said, taking the gun and slipping it into his righthand overcoat pocket. “It’s just that—”

  “Say no more about it, Jackson,” Gus said as he pulled the hood down over Jackson’s head. “I know just how an honest man like you feels in this situation. But it can’t be helped.”

  With the hood over his head, Jackson was suddenly scared. He put his hand on the gun for reassurance and silently prayed that Goldy knew what he was doing.

  He heard the motor purr and the car move. It turned corner after corner. He tried to estimate their direction, but they turned so many corners he became confused.

  Half an hour later the car slowed down and stopped. Jackson had no idea where he was.

  “Well, here we are, Jackson, safe and sound,” Gus said. “Nothing has happened to you. You just keep your mask on a little while longer and we’ll be inside of the office, face to face with Mr. Morgan. You just give me my pistol now; you won’t need it any more.”

  Jackson felt the sweat break out on his head and face beneath the mask. The street was silent. There were no sounds of approaching cars. If Gus had lost the detectives and Goldy, who were supposed to be following, then he was in trouble.

  He reached for the pistol with his right hand and with his left hand jerked off the mask. All he had time to see was the quick movement of Gus’s hand that had been resting on the steering wheel, before Gus’s fist exploded on his nose, filling his vision with dripping wet stars. He put his head down and rammed toward Gus like a fat bull, trying to pin Gus down with his bulk and draw the pistol at the same time. But Gus jabbed him in the windpipe with the point of his right elbow and clutched his wrist in a steel grip before he could get the pistol from his pocket. The dripping wet stars in Jackson’s vision turned into blood-red balloons the size of watermelons.

  12

  The black sedan came up so fast it skidded to a stop slantwise, and the two big loose-jointed colored detectives wearing shabby gray overcoats and misshapen snap-brim hats hit the pavement on each side in a flatfooted lope.

  At the same moment Goldy’s taxi pulled to the curb and parked a block down the street, but Goldy didn’t get out.

  When the two detectives converged on the flashy Cadillac they had their long-barreled nickel-plated pistols in their hands. Coffin Ed opened the door and Grave Digger hauled Gus to the pavement.

  “Get your God-damned hands off me,” Gus snarled, throwing a looping right-hand punch at Grave Digger’s face.

  Grave Digger pulled back from the punch and said, “Just slap him, Ed.”

  Coffin Ed slapped Gus on the cheek with his open palm. Gus’s tight-fitting hat sailed off and he spun toward Grave Digger, who slapped him on the other cheek and spun him back toward Coffin Ed. They slapped him fast, from one to another, like batting a Ping-pong ball. Gus’s head began ringing. He lost his sense of balance and his legs began to buckle. They slapped him until he fell to his knees, deaf to the world.

  Coffin Ed grabbed the collar of his overcoat to keep him from falling on his face. He knelt limply between them with his bare head lolling forward. Grave Digger lifted his chin with the barrel of his pistol. Coffin Ed looked at Grave Digger over Gus’s head.

  “Tender?”

  “Any more tender and he’d be chopped meat,” Grave Digger said.

  “This boy wasn’t educated right.”

  Jackson hadn’t moved from his seat while the detectives were working on Gus, but suddenly he opened the far door and got out on the sidewalk, hoping he could get away unnoticed.

  “Hold on, Bud, we’re not finished with you yet,” Grave Digger called.

  “Yes, sir,” Jackson said meekly. “I was just getting ready to see what you wanted me to do.”

  “We still have to get inside the joint.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s get this boy together, Ed.”

  Coffin Ed lifted Gus to his feet and put a pint bottle of bourbon into his hand. Gus took a drink and choked, but his ears popped and he could hear again. His legs were still wobbly, as though he were punch-drunk.

  Coffin Ed took the bottle and slipped it back into his overcoat pocket. “Do you want to cooperate now?” he asked Gus.

  “I ain’t got no choice,” Gus said.

  “That’s not the right attitude.”

  “Easy, Ed,” Grave Digger cautioned. “We’re not through with this boy yet. He’s got to get us inside.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Coffin Ed said, looking about at his surroundings. “It’s a hell of a place to make a pitch on a con game.”

  “They picked it for the getaway. They figure it’s hard to get them cornered here.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Overhead was the 155th Street Bridge, crossing the Harlem River from Coogan’s Bluff on Manhattan Island to that flat section of the Bronx where the Yankee Stadium is located. The Polo Grounds loomed in the dark on a flat strip between the sheer bluff and the Harlem River. The iron stanchions beneath the bridge were like ghostly sentinels in the impenetrable gloom. A spur of the Bronx elevated line crossed the river in the distance connecting with the station near the Stadium gates.

  It was a dark, deserted, dismal section of Manhattan, eerie, shunned and unpatrolled at night, where a man could get his throat cut in perfect isolation with no one to hear his cries and no one brave enough to answer them if he did.

  Gus’s Cadillac was parked directly in front of a huge warehouse that had been converted into a Peace Heaven by Father Divine. The word PEACE appeared in huge white letters on each side of the gabled roof, and could be seen only by looking down from the bridge. It had later been abandoned and was now sealed in darkness.

  “I’d sure hate to be here alone,” Jackson said.

  “Don’t worry, son, we got you covered,” Grave Digger reassured him. He locked Gus’s Cadillac and put the key into his pocket.

&nb
sp; “Okay, Bud, get your hat and let’s get going,” Coffin Ed said to Gus.

  Gus picked up his hat, straightened it out and put it on. His face had already swollen so much that his eyes were almost closed.

  “Just act as if nothing happened,” Grave Digger ordered.

  “That ain’t going to be easy to do,” Gus complained.

  “Bud, you’d better make it good, easy or not.”

  “Well, coppers, here we go,” Gus said.

  He led them down a narrow dark alleyway beside the abandoned Heaven to a small wooden shack on the bank of the river. It was painted a dark, dull green but looked black at night. There were two shuttered windows on the side visible from the walk, and a heavy wooden door at the front. No light showed from within; no sound was heard but the distant chug-chug of tug boats towing garbage scows down the river and out to the sea.

  Coffin Ed motioned to Gus with his pistol.

  Gus rapped a signal on the door. He rapped at such length that Coffin Ed tensed. The slight click of his pistol being cocked shattered the silence like a giant firecracker exploding, causing Jackson to jump halfway out of his skin.

  Suddenly a Judas window opened in the black door. Jackson’s heart tried to fly out of his mouth. Then he found himself looking directly into an eye staring from the Judas window. He couldn’t see the eye well enough to recognize it, but it seemed to speak to him.

  There was a turning of locks and a drawing of bolts, and the door opened outward.

  Now Jackson could see the eye and its mate plainly. A high-yellow sensual face was framed in the light of the door. It was Imabelle’s face. She was looking steadily into Jackson’s eyes. Her lips formed the words, “Come on in and kill him, Daddy. I’m all yours.” Then she stepped back, making space for him to enter.

  Her words shocked Jackson. He crossed himself involuntarily. He wanted to speak to her but he couldn’t get the handle to his voice. He looked at her pleadingly, tried to swallow and couldn’t make it, then stepped into the room.

  It was a single room, about the size of a two-car garage. There were two shuttered windows on each side and another door at the rear, which was locked and bolted. It might have been a foreman’s office or a timekeeper’s bureau for some firm operating on the river.

  To one side of the rear door were a large flat-topped desk and a swivel chair. Two cheap overstuffed chairs, three straight-backed wooden chairs, ashstands, a glass-topped cocktail table, a tin filing-cabinet, and a phony cardboard safe covered with black canvas so that only the bottom half of the dial could be distinguished in the dim light in the corner, had obviously been added as props by the confidence gang. This was to create an atmosphere of luxuriousness and comfort to impress the suckers while they were being trimmed. Light came from a floor lamp between the armchairs, a ceiling lamp in a glass globe, and a green shaded desk-lamp.

  Looking past Imabelle, Jackson saw Hank sitting behind the desk, his yellow face looking corpse-like in the green upper glow from the desk-lamp.

  Jodie sat on a campstool beside the back door, dressed in high laced boots and dungarees. His straightened hair was gray with dust. All he needed was a scabby burro to give the illusion of coming down a mountain trail loaded with gold nuggets.

  Slim sat in a straight-backed chair against the wall beside the desk, wearing over his suit a long khaki duster like those worn by mad scientists in low-budget horror motion pictures. The legend U.S. Assayer was embroidered on the chest.

  At sight of Jackson all three sat bolt upright and stared.

  Before anyone could move, Grave Digger put his foot against Gus’s back and shoved him into the room with such force that he catapulted across the floor and rammed headfirst into Jackson’s back. Jackson was knocked forward into Jodie just as Jodie was rising from his campstool. Jodie was pinned against the wall.

  Following close behind, Grave Digger shouted, “Straighten up!”

  Coffin Ed sealed up the open doorway with his cocked .38 and echoed, “Count off!”

  Slim jumped to his feet with his hands elevated. Hank sat frozen with his hands on the desk top. Momentarily shielded from the detectives’ guns by Jackson’s body, Jodie punched Jackson twice, hard, in the belly.

  Jackson grunted and grabbed Jodie by the throat. Jodie kneed Jackson in the groin. Jackson backed painfully into Gus. Gus grabbed Jackson by the shoulder to keep from falling, but Jackson thought Gus was trying to hold him and twisted violently from his grip.

  In a blind rage, Jodie whipped out his his switchblade knife and slashed open the sleeve of Jackson’s overcoat.

  “Drop it!” Grave Digger shouted.

  Red-eyed with pain and fury, Jackson kicked Jodie on the shin as Jodie drew back the knife to stab at him again.

  Imabelle saw the poised knife and screamed, “Look out, Daddy!”

  Her scream was so piercing that everyone except the two detectives ducked involuntarily. It even scratched the casehardened nerves of Grave Digger. His finger tightened spasmodically on the hair trigger of his pistol and the explosion of the shot in the small room deafened everyone.

  Gus had ducked into the line of fire and the .38 bullet penetrated his skull back of the left ear and came out over the right eye. As he fell dying, Gus made one more grab at Jackson, but Jackson leaped aside like a shying horse, and Jodie grappled with him.

  Jackson clutched Jodie’s wrist and tried to swing him about into Grave Digger’s reach, but Jodie outpowered him and backed Jackson toward Grave Digger instead.

  Taking advantage of the commotion, Hank snatched up a glass of acid sitting on the desk. The acid had been used to demonstrate the purity of the gold ore, and Hank saw his chance to throw it into Coffin Ed’s eyes.

  Imabelle saw him and screamed again, “Look out!”

  Everybody ducked again. Jackson and Jodie butted heads accidentally. By dodging, Slim came between Coffin Ed and Hank just as Hank threw the acid and Coffin Ed shot. Some of the acid splashed on Slim’s ear and neck; the rest splashed into Coffin Ed’s face. Coffin Ed’s shot went wild and shattered the desk-lamp.

  Slim jumped backward so violently he slammed against the wall.

  Hank dropped behind the desk a fraction of a second before Coffin Ed, blinded with the burning acid and a white-hot rage, emptied his pistol, spraying the top of the desk and the wall behind it with .38 slugs.

  One of the bullets hit a hidden light-switch and plunged the room into darkness.

  “Easy does it,” Grave Digger shouted in warning, and backed toward the door to cut off escape.

  Coffin Ed didn’t know the lights were out. He was a tough man. He had to be a tough man to be a colored detective in Harlem. He closed his eyes against the burning pain, but he was so consumed with rage that he began clubbing right and left in the dark with the butt of his pistol.

  He didn’t know it was Grave Digger who backed into him. He just felt somebody within reach and he clubbed Grave Digger over the head with such savage fury that he knocked him unconscious. Grave Digger crumpled to the floor at the same instant that Coffin Ed was asking in the dark, “Where are you, Digger? Where are you, man?”

  For a moment the speechless dark was filled with violent commotion. Bodies collided in a desperate race for the door. There was the sound of crashing objects and shattering glass as the floor lamp and cocktail table were overturned and trampled.

  Then Imabelle screamed again, “Don’t you cut me!”

  A rage-thickened voice spluttered, “I’ll kill you, you double-crossing bitch.”

  Jackson lunged toward the sound of Imabelle’s voice to protect her.

  “Where are you, Digger? Speak up, man,” Coffin Ed yelled, groping in the dark. Despite the unendurable pain, his first duty was to his partner.

  “Let her alone, she ain’t done it,” another voice said.

  A furious struggle broke out between Jodie and Slim. Jackson realized that one of them thought Imabelle had ratted to the cops and was trying to kill her. The other one objected. H
e couldn’t tell which was which.

  He plunged toward the sound of the scuffling, prepared to fight both. Instead he landed in the arms of Coffin Ed. The next moment he was knocked unconscious by a pistol butt laid against his skull.

  “Are you hurt, Digger?” Coffin Ed asked anxiously, stumbling over Grave Digger’s unconscious body in the dark.

  “Are you hurt, man?”

  “Come on, let’s go!” Hank yelled and made a running leap through the doorway.

  Imabelle ran out behind him.

  Suddenly, by unspoken accord, Slim and Jodie stopped fighting to chase Imabelle. But outside, where they could see better, they squared off again. Both had open knives and began slashing furiously at each other, but cutting only the cold night air.

  Behind the house, an outboard motor coughed and coughed again. The third time it coughed the motor caught. Jodie broke away from Slim and ran around the side of the shack. A moment later a boat with an outboard motor roared out into the Harlem River.

  Slim clutched Imabelle by the arm.

  “Come on, let’s scram, they done left us,” he said, pulling her up the alley toward the street.

  Suddenly the night was filled with the screaming of sirens as four patrol cars began converging on the spot. A motorist passing over the 155th Street Bridge had reported hearing shooting on the Harlem River and the cops were coming on like General Sherman tanks.

  Coffin Ed heard them like an answer to a prayer. The furiously burning pain had become almost more than he could bear. He hadn’t reloaded his gun for fear of blowing out his brains. Now he began blowing on his police whistle as though he had gone mad. He blew it so long and loud it brought Jackson back to consciousness.

  Grave Digger was still out.

  Coffin Ed heard Jackson clambering to his feet and quickly reloaded his pistol. Jackson heard bullets clicking into the cylinder slots and felt his flesh crawl.