by Ed Lacy
I drove along 125th Street, found an empty space, dropped a dime in the meter. One-twenty-fifth is something like a small-town main street; wait long enough and you must see somebody you know. I'd hardly got my pipe going when two clowns rushed over to the Jag, said, “Touie! How's every little thing?”
“I'm just here,” I said, shaking hands, wondering who they were. Turned out we'd been in the army together. I left the Jag and took them into Frank's, bought beers, and made a lot of small talk about that magic land—old times. I left after the second beer, drove back to 13151 Street, pressed the bell five times.
A small but spry-looking coffee-brown woman opened the door a moment later. Her face was old and her hands work-worn, but her eyes were young and she had an excited way of talking, gushing like an eager young thing. When I asked, “Mrs. James?” she said, “You must be the Chicago man Esther said was just here, my cousin Jane's friend. How is she? I keep meaning to write her but... Excuse me, step inside.”
The narrow hallway was in need of paint, a thready carpet ran up the wooden steps—a firetrap. We seemed to be alone and I said, “I don't know your cousin, Mrs. James,” and flashed my badge. “Ducking payment on that stove-refrigerator is the same thing as stealing.”
She seemed to age in a split second, to shrivel up as she fell against the wall—as if I'd socked her in the stomach. Her face was a sickly brown, and then her eyes got angry and she pulled herself together, was really boiling. “Why you goddam lousy stoolie! The 'man' downtown can always manage to find one of our folks to be a Judas! I never—”
“Cut that talk,” I snapped, both of us keeping our voices low, hers a hiss.
“Why?” she asked, sticking her thin face forward. “Why should I keep still? You going to hit me? Try it; I'll be the last brown woman you ever lay a hand on!”
“Mrs. James, take it easy. I'm only doing my job. Stop all the big talk about the 'man' and anybody threatening you. If you ran a store and somebody tried a skip on you, you'd be the first to raise the roof. Listen to me, you're a decent, hard-working woman, and I know you wouldn't think of stealing, but—”
“Stealing? That damn company is the crook! I paid $320 for that kitchen combination, plus interest and handling charges. Fifty dollars down and twenty a month. Now you listen to me! A month—one month, mind you—after I bought the combination I see the exact same thing in Macy's for $140! What do you think of that? I go down to the company and damn if they ain't selling it for $260 themselves. Well, I made up my mind I work too hard for my money to give it away. I've paid them f 150, plus their lousy charges, and that's all they're going to get!”
“Mrs. James, why do you get involved in these installment deals? It's always cheaper to buy anything outright from a big store.”
“You talk like you have a paper head I Where am I ever going to get $140 all at one time? I got to buy on installment. You think I have anything to spare on that little salary they pay me at the hospital? Talk sense, boy!”
I felt both lousy and angry—mad at her. Most of these installment joints make their money playing the poor for suckers. I was sore at her for being so dumb; she probably could have gone to a big department store and still bought the damn thing on time. But somehow it always turns out that the people who can afford to pay the least end up paying the most. Still, that wasn't my business. I said, “Look, Mrs. James, let's both of us talk some sense. You don't have to tell me how hard you work, that you're probably overpaying for your room, your food, and everything else. But nobody twisted your arm to make you buy this kitchen combination. Sure, you made a bad deal, but you're a grown woman and you signed a contract. I don't have to tell you the law is on their side. They can come up today and yank the combination out and you haven't a legal peep. It's a mess, but you got yourself into it with your eyes open. Now, you'd better decide what you're going to do—lose everything or get up to date on your payments.” The words had a rotten taste as I mouthed them.
She began to weep, hard tiny tears. “A person tries to live decent, get a little joy out of life and—”
“A punk sticking somebody up with a gun can say the same thing.”
“I'm not a crook! Don't you dare call me that. I never did a dishonest thing in my life! You... you... big black bastard!” Her wet eyes were glaring fiercely at me as she said, “There, I never called anybody that before— may God cut out my tongue—but I say it to you, you with a skin as dark as mine!”
I couldn't have felt worse if she'd spit in my face. I mumbled, “Lady, I'm only doing my job, a routine—”
“Job? Is it your job to torture and help swindle your own people? 'Man' downtown gets the pie and you croak about a job and take the crumbs. All right, tell 'em I'll send a money order tomorrow, get up on my payments. Now get out of my sight!”
“How much do you still owe?”
“About f 170. Get out of here, I said I'll pay.”
“How much can you pay today?”
“What you want, my blood?”
“Goddammit, stop the dramatics! I'm trying to help you. Maybe I can get them to make a settlement.”
“Well, even though I didn't intend to pay, I've been saving the payment money. I suppose I could give them a hundred dollars by the end of the week.”
“Is there a phone here?”
She nodded down the hall. There was a pay phone behind the steps. I phoned Bailey, told him, “Ted, I'm with Mrs. James. She's strictly a deadbeat. Ill and out of a job. I doubt if she'll be able to work for months. She owes $170 but thinks she can borrow $100 from a friend, if they'll settle. Otherwise, you'll have to take the combination back, and it's in rough shape. The hundred is all the dough she has in the world, all she can raise. I'd advise taking it. She can bring it down in a day or two.”
Ted said he'd check and phone me back. I told him to make it fast, to remind the company they'd already made a profit on the deal, that the combination was now selling for half of what they had charged her.
I lit my pipe and waited in the narrow hallway, neither of us talking. Mrs. James stared at me with sullen eyes, hating my guts, my good clothes. It was four seventeen. Fooling around with this two-bit case would make me miss Thomas.
Ted called back, said it was okay. He wanted to speak to the old lady and she told him she'd have the money in the mail by the end of the week. “Yes, yes. I understand. Positively. Yes!”
When she hung up, slamming the receiver down, I said, “Now, Mrs. James, when you pay make certain to get a receipt saying 'paid in full.' Or if you mail in the money, get a check from a bank and write on the back of it, 'Final and full payment for kitchen combination, as per agreement.' Next time you buy anything on time, think what you're doing first, and don't start whining afterward.”
“You, get out! You've done your 'job!'”
“I went out on a limb for you, saved you seventy bucks, Mrs. James.”
“You waiting for a tip?”
“Of course not, but at least, well... I did my best for you. I mean, I understand the spot you're in, we're all in.”
“Thank you. Thanks for nothing!”
I shrugged, put on my hat, and headed for the door. She-stood at the edge of the steps, still looking at me as if I were something a dog had dropped. I walked out, slamming the door hard, drove downtown. Traffic was heavy and it was after five when I reached the freight company. Cursing, I drove toward Brooklyn and the welding school, changed my mind, double-parked in front of the cafeteria on Twenty-third Street. Thomas was inside having supper, his bus-girl friend hovering around his table, both of them laughing and wisecracking.
I felt a little better until a cop came over and asked what I was doing. He was an old cop, with a red-veined white face and a lousy set of false teeth. When he talked just the lower part of his mouth moved. I told him I was waiting for a friend and he said I couldn't double-park on Twenty-third Street, didn't I know that? I said I was sorry and started the Jaguar and he asked for my license. If he had a cellophane h
ead I couldn't have seen his little bird brain working any clearer: a coloured man in an expensive car —S.O.P.—it must be a stolen heap. I showed him my license and registration, praying Thomas didn't look out the window and see me.
The cop grunted, “I'll give you a ticket the next time I catch you double-parking,” as he handed my license back.
“I don't doubt that you will.”
“Get fresh and I'll give you a ticket right now!”
“Who's 'fresh'? You said something and I answered you,” I said, crawling slightly, all the anger I'd felt at Mrs. James welling up in me.
He took out his notebook, muttered, “I'll just take down your name and license number, smart guy. Be sure I remember it.” His lower lip was moving like a ventriloquist's dummy.
I shut up; no point in talking myself into a ticket. When he finished scribbling I asked, “Can I go now?”
Another grunt: “Yeah.”
I found a parking space over on Ninth Avenue and walked back to take a plant across the street from the cafeteria, telling myself I was a dummy to talk to the cop; if he saw me now it might start another verbal fight.
Thomas took his time eating and I was getting hungry myself. Finally he and Miss Burns checked their watches and he walked out and up to his room. I stopped at the corner, where I could keep an eye on his house without being conspicuous. He came out at seven, wearing a shirt and tie under his windbreaker, his blond hair carefully brushed. He picked up his girl in front of the cafeteria and they went across the street and into a movie.
I phoned Kay but Barbara said she wasn't in and I left a message that everything was under control. Bobby didn't ask any questions. I phoned Sybil to ask if she wanted to eat Chinese food. She said she'd already eaten but would have supper waiting for me, and to bring in some beer.
After circling Sybil's place several times in even larger circles, I found a parking space, brought in a couple bottles of High Life. Sybil gave me a plate of reheated stew with gummy rice, garlic bread, and salad. She had her hair up in curlers, which I hate, but otherwise she was in a good mood, didn't even mention the P.O. once. I kept thinking about Mrs. James and I told Sybil about it and she said, “What can you expect from poor Negroes?” Only she didn't say Negroes and I got boiling and she sat on my lap, kissing me slowly and asking between each kiss, “What's the matter with my big Touie?”
Of course it was corny as the devil, but it worked. I looked at Sybil's pretty face, and I thought about the TV job and wondered what I had to be angry about.
After I washed the dishes we drank the beer and watched TV, then played gin while waiting for the fights to come on. About eleven, right after the news, as we were settling down to watch a late movie, an English one, the phone rang. Sybil said it was for me. Ollie said, “Knew where to find you, old man. Look, you just got a phone call from a woman named Miss Robbens. She said it was very important I reach you at once. I told her I could find you and she said to give you this message: you're to meet her in Tutt's room, inside the room, at exactly midnight.”
“In the room? Ollie, sure you have that straight, inside the room?”
“You too? I'm going to resign as your private secretary. Look, I wrote the message down and she even had me repeat it over the phone. She sounded excited, kept asking if I could reach you for sure. I told her not to worry, I'd carry it to you. Got it, sleuth? Exactly midnight in Tutt's room. Doesn't give you much time.”
“Yes. You're certain I'm to go into the room?”
Ollie sighed. “Told you I wrote it down, repeated it back to her. I'm reading it now. You straight, old man?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Ollie.”
I hung up and dialed Kay. Barbara answered, sounding half asleep. She told me Kay was out, that she hadn't seen her since morning. Then she suddenly asked, with new life in her voice, “Touie, haven't you seen Kay tonight?”
I said no and hung up. As I put on my tie and shoes, Sybil asked, “What's up?”
“I don't know.”
“You look worried.”
“I sure am. Something's happened on this Madison Avenue TV deal, something I don't understand.” I kept thinking that if Kay wanted me to meet her in Thomas' room, the secret must be out and the whole damn publicity deal off—and I was off the case too.
“If you were in the P.O., you wouldn't have to go chasing off in the middle of the night or—”
“Not now, honey,” I said, kissing her good night. “Maybe I'll be back.”
“No, you don't, don't you break into my sleep—I have to make time tomorrow. I'm going shopping before I go into work.”
“Then I'll phone you on the job, as usual.”
It was eleven eighteen when I started for my car, then hailed a cab on Broadway. I wouldn't have time to play hide and seek with a parking space downtown. I got out my notebook—Thomas-Tutt had room 3 in apartment 2F. Damn, if I was off the case I'd have to give back part of the retainer and I had less than fifty bucks on me. Although Kay had said a minimum of a month. Of course I didn't have to give back a dime, legally, but I wanted to retain Kay's good will. If there was a snafu, why call me to his room? Kay could phone me the deal was off and that would be that. Or did going to his room mean I was still working? Or ...
I sat up straight as the cowboy at the wheel cut into the highway on two wheels. This could only mean one thing— Thomas had taken a powder! Sure, Kay had found out— somehow—he'd flown the coop, and I was up the creek. Me and my big detective agency, couldn't even handle a simple shadow job. But hell, she'd told me herself I only had to check on him twice a day until his case was televised. He was taking his girl to the movies a few hours ago, unless he was smarter than he looked. Thomas wasn't getting ready to run. And how would Kay know? Or was she having somebody else check on Thomas too? And on me?
I paid the cabbie off on the corner. It was still seven minutes before midnight. The house and the block were quiet. I stood in front of the house for a moment. Why exactly at midnight? Two middle-aged stinking winos came out of the house, gave me the usual look, but with bleary-eyed trimmings. As I went up the few steps to the doorway, they wobbled down the street, glancing back at me and mumbling something.
I stood outside 2F, a dim and crummy hallway smelling of stale food and various human stinks. Harlem didn't have a monopoly on lousy houses. I tried the doorknob; it wasn't locked. Another hallway, narrower, hotter, with rooms opening off it. There was a dirty metal “3” on the door nearest the main door. I listened and didn't hear a thing, but there was light coming through the crack under the door. I rapped gently, waited a few seconds, turned the knob and the door opened.
I suppose as soon as I saw the messed-up room I knew the score. Only I couldn't quite believe it.
It was a small room, with only a bed and a metal dresser —all the drawers out and ransacked. Thomas seemed to be sleeping in bed, covers pulled up over his head. I had a sudden, sickening hunch the person in bed might be Kay. Closing the door, I stepped over Thomas' pants and wind-breaker on the floor, and then I saw the wet blood on the gray pillow. There was a large pair of bloody pliers on the floor.
Pulling back the covers I saw the back of Thomas' head bashed in. He was face down, blood all over his head and shoulders, blood still wet. It was even splattered on the cheap-pink painted wall behind the bed.
I stood there like a dummy, still holding the cover with my fingertips, knowing I had to think damn fast, and afraid of what I was thinking. I didn't have to be a detective to know what all this meant.
Maybe I stood there a few seconds, even a few minutes. There were footsteps on the stairs, at the outside door. In the back of my mind, the only part that was thinking clearly, I expected them. I dropped the blanket as the door flew open—a thick-faced white cop stood there. He wasn't expecting a body but when he saw the bloody bed his gun flew out of his heavy blue overcoat pocket like his hand was on springs. His deep voice said, “Keep your hands in sight, up, you black sonofabitch! Got you dead to ri
ghts.” Maybe it was my imagination but I thought he sounded almost happy—thinking of promotion.
What I'd known since I first got Ollie's call came into sharp focus: I'd been had, been set up for this from the go. Now my mind was clear and racing—the cops would learn about the fight in the coffeepot when they checked at the school, the beat cop in Brooklyn would remember me, so would the fat cop who wanted to give me a ticket at supper-time. And the winos seeing me enter the house a few minutes ago. I'd been had but tight.
I held my hands up, shoulder high. The cop was alone, probably the beat cop. Exactly at midnight. The timing was so simple, a phone call to the precinct at five to midnight saying there was trouble in room 3, apartment 2F, and the post cop catching me.
He was staring at me, waiting for me to say something. I didn't bother making words. It boiled down to a white cop and black me, and he had the “difference” in his hand. I'd look silly trying to explain... all I could do was stand very still.
