Cotton comes to Harlem cjagdj-6

by Chester Himes

  The workman went inside and walked up to Colonel Calhoun's desk and took off his cap. "Colonel," he said, "I'm just the man you wanna see. My name is Josh."

  The Colonel gave him the customary cold-eyed appraisal, sitting reared back in his chair as though he hadn't moved. The blond young man stood beside him.

  "Well, Josh, what can you do for me?" the Colonel asked, showing his dentures in a smile.

  "I can get you a bale of cotton," Josh said.

  The tableau froze. The Colonel was caught in the act of returning the cheroot to his lips. The blond young man was caught in the act of turning to look out towards the street. Then, deliberately, without a change of expression, the Colonel put the cheroot between his lips and puffed. The blond young man turned back to stare wordlessly at Josh, leaning slightly forward.

  "You want a bale of cotton, don't you?" Josh asked.

  "Where would you get a bale of cotton, my boy?" the Colonel asked casually.

  "We got one in the junkyard where I work."

  The blond young man let out his breath in a disappointed sigh.

  "A junk man sold it to us just this morning," Josh went on, hoping to get an offer.

  The blond young man tensed again.

  But the Colonel continued to appear relaxed and amiable. "He didn't steal it, did he? We don't want to buy any stolen goods."

  "Oh, Uncle Bud didn't steal it, I'm sure," Josh said. "He must of found it somewheres."

  "Found a bale of cotton?" The Colonel sounded sceptical.

  "Must have," Josh contended. "He spends every night traveling 'bout the streets, picking up junk what's been lost or thrown away. Where could he steal a bale of cotton?"

  "And he sold it to you this morning?"

  "Yassuh, to Mr Goodman, that is; he owns the junkyard, I just work there. But I can get it for you."

  "When?"

  "Well, ain't nobody there now. We close at noon on Sat'day and Mr Goodman go home; but I can get it for you tonight if you wants it right away."

  "How?"

  "Well, suh, I got a key, and we don't have to bother Mr Goodman; I can just sell it to you myself."

  "Well," the Colonel said and puffed his cheroot. "We'll pick you up in my cah at the 125th Street railroad station at ten o'clock tonight. Can you be there?"

  "Oh, yassuh, I can be there!" Josh declared, then hesitated. "That's all right, but how much you going to pay me?"

  "Name your own price," the Colonel said.

  "A hundred dollars," Josh said, holding his breath.

  "Right," the Colonel said.

  10

  Iris lay on her sofa in the sitting-room reading Ebony magazine and eating chocolate candy. She had been under twenty-four-hour surveillance since the hijacking. A police matron had spent the night in her bedroom while a detective had sat up in the sitting-room. Now there was another detective there alone. He had orders not to let her out of his sight. He had followed her from room to room, even keeping the bathroom door in view after having removed the razor blades and all other instruments by which she might injure herself.

  He sat facing her in an overstuffed chair, leafing through a book called Sex and Race by W. G. Rogers. The only others books in the house were the Bible and The Life of Marcus Garvey. Sex and Race didn't interest him. Garvey didn't interest him either. He had read the Bible, at least all he needed to read.

  He was bored. He didn't like his assignment. But the captain thought that sooner or later Deke was going to try to contact her, or she him, and he was taking every precaution. The telephone was bugged and the operators alerted to trace all incoming calls; and there was a police cruiser with a radio-telephone parked within thirty seconds' distance down the street, manned by four detectives.

  The captain wanted Deke as bad as people in hell want ice water.

  Iris threw down the magazine and sat up. She was wearing a silk print dress and the skirt hiked up, showing smooth yellow thighs above tan nylon stockings.

  The book fell from the detective's hands.

  "Why the hell don't you just arrest me and have it done with?" she flared in her vulgar husky voice.

  Her voice grated on the detective's nerves. And her vulgar sensuality bothered him. He was a home-loving man with a wife and three children, and her perfumed voluptuous body with its effluvium of sex outraged his sensibilities. His puritanical soul felt affronted by this aura of sex and his perverse imagination filled him with a sense of guilt. But he had himself well under control.

  "I just take orders, ma'am," he said mildly. "Any time you want to go to the station of your own accord I'll take you."

  "Shit," she said, looking at him with disgust.

  He was a tall, balding, redheaded, middle-aged man with a slight stoop. A small dried face between huge red ears gave him a monkeyish look and his white skin was blotched with large brown freckles. He was a plain-clothes precinct detective and he looked underpaid.

  Iris examined him appraisingly. "If you weren't such an ugly mother-raper at least we could pass time making love," she said.

  He was beginning to suspect that was the reason the captain had chosen him for the assignment and he felt slightly piqued. But he just grinned and said, jokingly, "I'll put a sack over my head."

  She started to grin and then looked suddenly caught. Her face mirrored her thoughts. "All right," she said, getting up.

  He looked alarmed. "I was just joking," he said foolishly.

  "I'll go undress and you come in with nothing showing but your eyes and mouth."

  He grinned shamefacedly. "You know I couldn't do that."

  "Why not?" she said. "You ain't never had nobody like me."

  Red came out in his face as though it had caught fire. He looked like a small boy caught in a guilty act. "Now, ma'am, you got to be sensible; this surveillance ain't going to last for ever — "

  She turned quickly on her high heels and started towards the kitchen. Her walk was exaggerated, like that of a prostitute soliciting trade. But he had to follow her, cursing his instincts which kept defying his will.

  She searched in the pantry, paying him no attention. He felt a slight trace of trepidation, fearing she might come out with a gun. But she found what she wanted, a brown paper sack. She turned and tried to put it over his head, but he jumped back and warded her off as though she held a live rattlesnake.

  "I just wanted to try it for size," she said, trying it on her own head instead. "What are you anyway, a pansy?"

  He was incensed by her allusion to his masculinity, but he consoled himself with the thought that in different circumstances he'd ride that yellow bitch until she yelled quits.

  She switched past him, looking at him through the corners of her eyes and brushing him lightly with her hips. Then she deliberately shook her buttocks and waved the sack over her head like a dare and went into the bedroom.

  He debated whether to follow her. This bitch was getting on his nerves, he told himself. She wasn't the only one who could make love, hell, his wife — He stopped that thought; that wasn't going to get him anywhere. Finally he gave in and followed her. Orders were orders, he told himself.

  He found her with a pair of nail scissors in her hand, cutting eyeholes in the paper sack. He felt his ears burning. He looked about the room for a telephone extension, but didn't see any. Against his will he watched her cut out a place for his mouth. Unconsciously his vision strayed to her wide luscious mouth. She licked her lips and stuck out the tip of her tongue.

  "Now, ma'am, this has gone far enough," he protested.

  She acted as though she hadn't heard, measuring his head with her eyes. Then she cut out a place for his ears, saying, "Big ears, big you-know-what." His ears burned as though on fire. For a moment she stood looking at her handiwork. He looked too.

  "You've got to breathe, haven't you, baby?" she cooed and cut out a place for his nose.

  "Now you come out of here and sit down and behave yourself," he said, trying to sound stern, but his voice was thick
with tongue.

  She went over to the small record player against the wall and put on a slow sexy blues number and stood for a moment weaving her body tantalizingly, snapping her fingers.

  "I'll have to use force," he warned.

  She swung around and threw open her arms and advanced on him. "Come on and force me, daddy," she said.

  He turned his back and stood in the doorway. She stood before the mirror and took off her ear-rings and necklace and ran her fingers through her hair, whistling a low accompaniment to the music, seemingly paying him no attention. Then she took off her dress.

  He turned around to see what she was doing and damn near jumped out of his skin. "Don't do that!" he shouted.

  "You can't stop me from undressing in my own bedroom," she said.

  He went over and snatched up the dressing-table chair and planted it in the doorway and plopped himself down with an air of determination. "All right, go ahead," he said, turning his profile towards her so he could watch her for mischief through the corners of his eyes.

  She tilted the dressing-table mirror so he could see her reflection, then pulled up her slip over her head. Now her creamy yellow body was clad only in a thin black strapless bra and tiny black pants trimmed with lace, over a garter belt.

  "If you're scared, go home," she taunted.

  He gritted his teeth and continued to look away.

  She took off her bra and pants and stood facing the mirror, cupping her breasts in her hands and gently caressing her teaties. With only the garter belt and nylon stockings and high-heeled shoes, she looked more nude than were she stark-naked. She saw him peeping at her reflection in the mirror, and began doing things with her stomach and hips.

  He swallowed. From the neck up he was blindly furious; but from the neck down he was on a live wire edge. His insides were a battleground for his will and his lust, with his organs suffering the consequences. Whole areas of his body seemed on fire. The fire seemed breaking through his skin. Centipedes were crawling over his testicles and ants were attacking his phallus. He squirmed in his seat as it became more and more unbearable; his pants were too tight; his coat was too small; his head was too hot; his mouth was too dry.

  With a flourish like a stripteaser removing her G-string, she took off one shoe and tossed it into his lap. He knocked it violently aside. She took off the other shoe and tossed it into his lap. He caught himself just in time to keep from grabbing it and biting it. She stripped off her stockings and garter belt and approached him to drape them about his neck.

  He came to his feet like a Jack-in-the-box, saying in a squeaky voice, "This has gone far enough."

  "No, it hasn't," she said and moved into him.

  He tried to push her away but she clung to him with all strength, pushing her stomach into him and wrapping her legs about his body. The odor of hot-bodied woman, wet cunt and perfume came up from her and drowned him.

  "Goddamned whore!" he grated, and backed her to the bed. He tore off his coat, mouthing, "I'll show you who's a pansy, you hot-ass slut."

  But at the last moment he regained enough composure to go hang his holstered pistol on the outside doorknob out of her reach, then he turned back towards her.

  "Come and get it, pansy," she taunted, lying on the bed with her legs open and her brown-nippled teats pointing at him like the vision of the great whore who lives in the minds of all puritanical men.

  He stripped the zipper of his pants getting them off; popped the buttons from his shirt. When he was nude he tried to dive into her like into the sea, but she fought him off.

  "You got to put on your sack first," she said, snatching it up from the floor and pulling it down over his head backwards by mistake. "Oop!" she cried.

  Blinded momentarily, his hands flew up to tear it off, but she snatched it off first and slipped it on him the right way, so that only his eyes, mouth, nose and ears were showing.

  "Now, baby, now," she cried.

  At that moment the telephone rang.

  He jumped out of bed as though the furies had attacked him, his lust going out like a light. In his haste he knocked over the chair in the doorway, bruising his shins, and slammed into the doorjamb. Curses spewed from his gasping mouth like geysers of profanity. His lank white body with stooped shoulders and reddish hair moved awkwardly and looked as though it had just come from the grave.

  With a quick lithe motion she opened a secret compartment in the bed-table, snatched up the receiver of the telephone extension, and cried, "Help!" then quickly hung up.

  In his haste he didn't hear her. He reached the telephone in the sitting-room and said breathlessly, "Henderson speaking," but the connection had been broken. She could hear him jiggling the receiver as she slipped on a sport coat and snatched up a pair of shoes. "Hello, hello," he was still shouting when she went barefooted from the bedroom, locking the door behind her and taking the key, on back to the kitchen and went barefooted out of the house by the service door.

  "Your party has hung up," came the cool voice of the telephone operator.

  He realized instantly the call had come from the police cruiser parked down the street. Panic exploded in his head as he realized he didn't even have his pistol. He ran naked back to the bedroom, snatched his pistol from the doorknob and tried to open the door. He found it locked. He became frantic. He couldn't risk shooting off the lock, he might hit her. The detectives from the cruiser would be there any instant and he'd catch hell. He had to get into the goddamned room. He tried breaking in, but it was a strong door with a good lock and his shoulder was taking a beating. He had forgotten the paper sack over his head.

  The detectives from the cruiser had rushed there post-haste and had let themselves in with a pass-key. Over the telephone they had heard a woman cry for help. God only knew what was going on in there, but they were ready for it. They went into the apartment and spread out, their pistols in their hands. The sitting-room was empty.

  They started through towards the rear. They drew up as though they had run into an invisible wall.

  Down the hall was a buck-naked white man with a paper sack over his head and a holstered pistol in his hand, trying to break down the bedroom door with his bare shoulder.

  No one ever knew who was the first one to explode with laughter.

  Iris went down the service stairway barefooted. The sport coat was a belted wraparound of tan gaberdine and no one could tell she was naked underneath it. At the service exit on St Nicholas Avenue, she slipped into her shoes and peeped out into the street.

  A car stood at the kerb in front of the apartment next door with the motor idling. A smartly dressed woman got out and ran towards the entrance. Iris cased her as an afternoon prostitute or a cheating wife. The man behind the wheel called softly, "Bye now, baby," and the woman fluttered her fingers and ducked out of sight.

  Iris walked rapidly to the car, opened the door and got into the seat the other woman had just vacated. The man looked at her and said, " 'Lo, baby," as though she was the same woman he'd just told good-bye. He was a nice-looking chocolate-brown man dressed in a beautiful gray silk suit, but Iris just glanced at him.

  "Drive on, daddy," she said.

  He steered from the curb and climbed St Nicholas Avenue. "Running to or from? " he asked.

  "Neither," she said and when they came to the church at 142nd Street she said: "Turn left here up to Convent."

  He left-turned up the steep hill past Hamilton Terrace to the quiet stretch of Convent Avenue north of City College.

  "Right here," she directed.

  He right-turned north on Convent and when he came opposite the big apartment house she said, "This is good, daddy."

  "Could be better," he said.

  "Later," she said and got out.

  "Coming back?" he called but she didn't hear him.

  She was already running across the street, up the steps and into the foyer of a big well-kept apartment house with two automatic elevators. One was waiting and she took it to the fourth flo
or and turned towards the apartment at the back of the hall. A serious-looking man wearing black suspenders, a white collarless shirt, and sagging black pants opened the door. He took himself as seriously as a deacon in a solvent church.

  "And what can I do for you, young lady?"

  "I want to see Barry Waterfield."

  "He don't want to see you, he's already got company," he leered. "How 'bout me?"

  "Stand aside, buster," she said, pushing past him. "And quit peeping through keyholes."

  She went straight to Barry's room but the door was locked and she had to knock.

  "Who is it?" asked a woman's voice.

  "Iris. Tell Barry to let me in."

  The door was unlocked and Barry stood to one side wearing only a purple silk dressing-gown. He closed the door behind her. A naked high-yellow woman lay in the bed with the sheet drawn up to her neck.

  Clothes were draped over the only chair so Iris sat on the bed and ignored the naked woman. "Where's Deke?" she asked Barry.

  He hesitated before replying, "He's all right, he's holed up safe."

  "If you're scared of talking then write it," she said.

  He looked uncomfortable. "How'd you get away?"

  "None of your business," she snapped.

  "You're sure you weren't tailed?"

  "Don't make me laugh. If the cops wanted you they'd have had you long ago, stupid as you are. Just tell me where Deke is and let others do the thinking."

  "I'll call him," he said, going towards the door.

  She started to go with him but pressure on her hip stopped her, and she said only, "Tell him I'm coming to see him."

  He went out and locked the door from the outside without answering.

  The woman in the bed whispered quickly, "He's with Mabel Hill in the Riverton Apartments," and gave the street, number and telephone. "I heard Barry talking."

  Iris looked blank. "Mabel Hill. The only Mabel Hill I know vaguely is the Mabel Hill who was married to the John Hill who got croaked."

  "That's the cutie," the woman whispered.

  Iris couldn't control the rage that distorted her face. Barry came in at that moment and looked at her, "What's the matter with you?"