Cotton comes to Harlem cjagdj-6

by Chester Himes

  From down the street came the booming blast of two shots as Coffin Ed fired into the concrete wall, followed by his voice, like an echo, "Count off!"

  The mob preparing for the attack on the parade fell back. People in Harlem believed Coffin Ed and Grave Digger would shoot a man stone cold dead for crossing an imaginary line. Those who didn't believe it didn't try it.

  But Colonel Calhoun kept right ahead across 130th Street without looking about. When he came to the invisible line, Grave Digger shot off his hat. The Colonel slowly took the cheroot from his mouth and looked at Grave Digger coldly, then turned with slow deliberation to pick up his hat. Grave Digger shot it out of his hand. It flew on to the sidewalk and with slow deliberation, without another glance in Grave Digger's direction, the Colonel walked after it. Grave Digger shot it out into 130th Street as the Colonel was reaching for it.

  The hoodlums in the parade were shuffling about, afraid to advance but taking no chances on breaking and running with those bullets flying about. The young blond man was keeping out of sight at the rear.

  "Squads right!" Grave Digger shouted. Everyone turned but no one left. "March!" he added.

  The hoodlums turned right on 130th Street and shuffled towards Eighth Avenue. They went straight past the Colonel, who stood in the center of the street looking at the holes in his hat before putting it on his head. Midway down the block they broke and ran. The first thing a hoodlum learns in Harlem is never run too soon.

  The mob at 129th Street turned towards Eighth Avenue to head them off, but Coffin Ed drew a line with two bullets ahead of them. "As you were!" he shouted.

  The Colonel stood there for a moment with three bullet holes in his hat, and residents who had come out to see the excitement began to laugh at him. The blond young man caught up with him and they turned back to Seventh Avenue and began walking towards their office, the jeers and laughter of the colored people following them. The Black Muslims had looked but hadn't moved.

  Then the mob herded by Coffin Ed relaxed and started laughing too.

  "Man, them mothers," a cat said admiringly in a loud jubilant voice. "Them mothers! They'll shoot off a man's ass for crossing a line can't nobody see."

  "Baby, you see that old white mother-raper tryna git his hat? I bet the Digger would have taken his head off if he'da crossed that line."

  "I seen old Coffin Filler shoot the fat offen a cat's stomach for stickin his belly 'cross that line."

  They slapped one another on the shouders and fell out, laughing at their own lies.

  The white cops looked at Grave Digger and Coffin Ed with the envious awe usually reserved for a lion tamer with a cage of big cats.

  Coffin Ed joined Grave Digger and they walked to a call box and phoned Lieutenant Bailey.

  "All over for today," Grave Digger reported.

  Bailey gave a sigh of relief. "Thank God! I don't want any riots up here on my tour."

  "All you got to worry about now are some killings and robberies," Grave Digger said. "Nothing to worry the comissioner."

  Bailey hung up without commenting. He knew of their feud with the commissioner. Both of them had been suspended at different times for what the commissioner considered unnecessary violence and brutality. He knew also that colored cops had to be tough in Harlem to get the respect of colored hoodlums. Secretly he agreed with them. But he wasn't taking any sides.

  "Well, now we're back to cotton," Coffin Ed said as they walked back towards their car.

  "Maybe you are; I ain't," Grave Digger said. "All I want to do is go out and break some laws. Other people have all the fun."

  "Damn right. Let's put five bucks on a horse."

  "Hell, man, you call that breaking the law? Let's take the ladies to some unlicensed joint run by some wanted criminal and drink some stolen whisky."

  Coffin Ed chuckled. "You're on," he said.

  17

  The telephone rang at 10.25 a.m. Grave Digger hid his head beneath the pillow. Stella answered it sleepily. A brisk, wide-awake and urgent voice said, "This is Captain Brice. Let me speak to Jones, please."

  She pulled the pillow from over his head. "The captain," she said.

  He groped for the receiver, experimentally opening his eyes. "Jones," he mumbled.

  He listened to the rapid staccato voice for three minutes. "Right," he said, tense and wide-awake, and was getting out of the bed before he hung up the receiver.

  "What is it?" she asked in a tiny voice, frightened and alarmed as she always was when these morning summonses came.

  "Deke's escaped. Two officers killed." He had put on his shorts and undershirt and was pulling up his pants.

  She was out of the bed and moving towards the kitchen. "You want coffee?"

  "No time," he said, putting on a clean shirt.

  "Nescafe," she said, disappearing into the kitchen.

  With his shirt on he sat on the side of the bed and put on clean socks and his shoes. Then he went into the bathroom and washed his face and brushed his short kinky hair. Without a shave his dark lumpy face looked dangerous. He knew how he looked but it couldn't be helped. He didn't have time for a shave. He put on a black tie, went into the bedroom and took his holstered pistol from a hook in the closet. He laid the pistol on the dresser while he strapped on his shoulder sling and then picked it up and spun the cylinder. It always carried five shells, the hammer resting on a empty chamber. The shades were still drawn, and the long nickel-plated revolver glinting in the subdued light from three table lamps looked as dangerous as himself. He slipped it into the greased holster and began stuffing his pockets with the other tools of his trade: a leather-covered buckshot sap with a whalebone handle, a pair of handcuffs, report book, flashlight, stylo, and the leather-bound metal snap case made to hold fifteen extra shells he always carried in his leather-lined side coat-pocket. They also kept an extra box or two of shells in the glove compartment of their official car.

  He was standing at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, when Coffin Ed blew for him. Stella tensed. Her smooth brown face grew strained.

  "Be careful," she said.

  He stepped around the table and kissed her. "Ain't I always?" he said.

  "Not always," she murmured.

  But he was gone, a big, rough, dangerous man in need of a shave, clad in a rumpled black suit and an old black hat, the bulge of a big pistol clearly visible on the heart side of his broad-shouldered frame.

  Coffin Ed looked the same; they could have been cast from the same mold with the exception of Coffin Ed's acid-burned face that was jerking with the tic that came whenever he was tense.

  Yesterday, Sunday afternoon, it had taken forty-five minutes to get to Harlem. Today, Monday morning, it took twenty-two.

  Coffin Ed said only, "The fat is in the fire."

  "It's going to burn," Grave Digger said.

  Two white officers had been killed and the precinct station looked like headquarters for the invasion of Harlem. Official cars lined the street. The commissioner's car was there, and cars of the chief inspector, the chief of Homicide, the medical examiner and a D.A.'s assistant. Police cruisers from downtown, from Homicide, from all the Harlem precincts, were scattered about. The street was closed to civilian traffic. There was no place inside for all the army of cops and the overflow stood outside, on the sidewalks, in the street, waiting for their orders.

  Coffin Ed parked in the driveway of a private garage and they walked to the station house. The brass was assembled in the captain's office. The lieutenant on the desk said, "Go on in, they want to see you."

  Heads turned when they entered the office. They were stared at as though they were criminals themselves.

  "We want Deke O'Hara and his two gunmen, and we want them alive," the commissioner said coldly without greeting. "It's your bailiwick and I'm giving you a free hand."

  They stared back at the commissioner but neither of them spoke.

  "Let me give them the picture, sir," Captain Brice said.

  The com
missioner nodded. The captain led them into the detectives' room. A white detective got up from his desk in the corner and gave the captain a seat. Other detectives nodded to Grave Digger and Coffin Ed as they passed. No one spoke. They nodded back. They kept the record straight. There was no friendship lost between them and the other precinct detectives; but there was no open animosity. Some resented their position as the aces of the precinct and their close associations with the officers in charge; others were envious; the young colored detectives stood in awe of them. But all took care not to show anything.

  Captain Brice sat behind the desk and Grave Digger perched a ham on the edge as usual. Coffin Ed drew up a straight-backed chair and sat opposite the captain.

  "Deke was being taken to the magistrate's court," the captain said. "There were thirteen others going. The wagon was drawn up in the back court and we were bringing the prisoners from their cells, handcuffed together two by two as customary. Two officers were standing by, supervising the loading — the driver and his helper — and two jailers were bringing the prisoners from the bullpen through the back door and herding them downstairs to the yard and into the wagon. Deke's Back-to-Africa group had collected in the street out front, a thousand or more. They were chanting, 'We want O'Malley… We want O'Malley,' and trying to break through the front door. They were getting unruly and I sent the extra officers out into the street to herd them to one side and keep order. Then they began getting noisy and started rioting. Some began throwing stones through the front windows and others began battering the gate to the driveway with garbage cans. I sent two men from out back to clear the driveway to the street. When they opened the gates to go out they were mobbed and disarmed and the mob streamed into the driveway. Deke had just come from the back door on his way down the stairs, handcuffed to a suspected murderer, one Mack Brothers, when the mob came in sight and saw him. Six prisoners had already been loaded. Then, from what I've been told by a trusty looking out a jail window — all the officers were out front trying to contain the riot- the jailers slammed and locked the door, leaving the two officers alone with the wagon. And at that moment the two gunmen came up from both sides of the high back wall and shot the two officers dead. The gunmen were dressed in officers' uniforms so at first they didn't attract much attention. Then they jumped down inside, put Deke in the wagon and closed the door and got into the front seat — and took the wagon out of the yard." He stopped and looked at them to see what they would say but they said nothing. So he went on. "Some of the mob had jumped astride the hood and onto the front bumpers and others were running along beside it. They were shouting, 'Make way for O'Malley! Make way for O'Malley!' and they rode the wagon out into the street. The rioters went wild and the officers could only use their saps and billies. They couldn't shoot into those thousand people. The wagon got through. We found it parked a block away around the corner. There must have been a car waiting. They got away. We captured the other prisoners in a matter of minutes."

  "What about the one he was handcuffed to?" Coffin Ed asked.

  "Him too. He was wandering in the street. He had been sapped and the cuffs were still on him."

  "It was organized all right, but it needed luck," Grave Digger said.

  "The mob seemed organized too," the captain said.

  "Probably, but I doubt if there was a connection."

  "More likely some planted agitators. They wouldn't have to know an escape was planned. They might have thought of freeing O'Malley by numbers," Coffin Ed said.

  "A holy crusade," Grave Digger amended.

  The captain looked sour. "We got three hundred of them in the bullpen. You want to talk to them?"

  Grave Digger shook his head. "What are you holding them for?"

  Captain Brice reddened with anger. "Complicity, goddammit. Assisting criminals to escape. Rioting. Accessories to murder. Two officers were killed. And I'll arrest every black son of a bitch in Harlem."

  "Including me and Digger?" Coffin Ed grated, his face jumping like a live snake in a hot fire.

  The captain cooled. "Hell, goddammit, don't be offended," he threw out the left-handed apology. "These goddamned lunatics help in a planned escape without knowing what they're doing and cause two officers to get killed. You ought to be mad too."

  "How mad are you? " Grave Digger asked. He felt Coffin Ed look at him. He nodded slightly. He knew Coffin Ed read his thoughts and agreed.

  "Mad enough for anything," Captain Brice said. "Shoot a few of these hoodlums. I'll cover you."

  Grave Digger shook his head. "The commissioner wants them alive."

  "I'm not talking about them," the captain raved. "Shoot any of these goddamn hoodlums."

  "Take it easy, Captain," Coffin Ed said.

  Grave Digger shook his head warningly. The room had become silent. Everyone was listening. Grave Digger leaned forward and said in a voice only for the captain's ears, "Are you mad enough to let us have Iris, Deke's woman — if she hasn't gone to county?"

  The captain sobered instantly. He looked cornered and annoyed. He wouldn't meet Grave Digger's eyes. "You're asking for too much," he growled. "And you know it," he accused. Finally he said, "I couldn't if I wanted to. Her case is on the docket. I'm responsible to deliver her. If she doesn't appear it's officially an escape."

  "Is she still here?" Grave Digger persisted.

  "Nobody's gone out," the captain said. "All the hearings have been postponed, but that makes no difference."

  Still leaning forward, Grave Digger whispered, "Let her escape."

  The captain banged his fist on the desk. "No, goddammit! And that's final."

  "The commissioner wants Deke and the two cop killers," Grave Digger whispered urgently. "You had two nights and a day to find those boys — you and the whole Force. And they weren't found. We're only two men. What do you expect us to do that the whole Force couldn't do?"

  "Well," the captain said, expelling his breath. "Do the best you can."

  "We can find them," Grave Digger kept on. "But you got to pay for it."

  "I'll speak to the commissioner," the captain said, starting to rise.

  "No," Grave Digger said. "He'll only say no and that will be the end of it. You've got to make the decision on your own."

  The captain sat down. He thought for a moment, then looked up into Grave Digger's eyes. "How bad do you want Deke yourself?" he asked.

  "Bad," Grave Digger said.

  "If you can get her out of here without my knowledge, take her," the captain said. "I won't know anything about it. If you get caught, take the consequences. I won't cover for you."

  Grave Digger straightened up. Veins stood out on his temples and his neck had swelled like a cobra's. His eyes had turned blood-red. He was so mad the captain's image was blurred in his vision.

  "I wouldn't do this for nobody but my own black people," he said in a voice that was cotton dry.

  He wheeled from the desk and Coffin Ed fell in beside him and they walked fast out of the room and softly closed the door behind them.

  They got their official car from the garage and drove up to Blumstein's Department Store on 125th Street and went into the women's department. Grave Digger bought a bright red dress, size 14, a pair of dark tan lisle stockings and a white plastic handbag. Coffin Ed bought a pair of gilt sandals, size 7, and a hand mirror. They put their packages into a shopping bag and drove up to Rose Murphy's House of Beauty on 145th Street, near Amsterdam Avenue, and bought some quick-action black skin dye and some make-up for a black woman and a dark-haired wig. They put these into their shopping bag and returned to the precinct station.

  All the brass had left but the chief inspector in charge of homicide. They had nothing to say to him. Many of the police cruisers had been assigned to special detail and had gone about their business. But the street was still closed and heavily guarded and no one was permitted to enter the block or leave any of the buildings without police scrutiny.

  Grave Digger parked in front of the station house and he
and Coffin Ed went inside, carrying their shopping bag. They kept on through the booking room and past the captain's office and the detectives' room until they came to the head jailer's cubicle at the rear.

  "Send Iris O'Malley down to the interrogation room and give us the key," Grave Digger said.

  The jailer reached out languidly for the order.

  "We haven't got any order," Grave Digger said. "The captain's too busy to write orders at this time."

  "Can't have her 'less you got an order," the jailer insisted.

  "She'll keep," Grave Digger said. "It just holds up the investigation, that's all."

  "Can't do it," the jailer said stubbornly.

  "Then give us the key to the bullpen," Coffin Ed said. "We'll start in the Back-to-Africa group."

  "You know I can't do that either 'less you got an order," the jailer protested. "What's the matter with you fellows today?"

  "Hell, where have you been, man?" Grave Digger said. "The captain's busy, can't you understand that?"

  The jailer shook his head. He didn't want to be the cause of any escapes.

  "Call the captain for goddamn's sake," Coffin Ed grated. "We can't just stand here and argue with you."

  The jailer got the captain's office on the intercom, and asked if he should let Jones and Johnson interview the Back-to-Africa group in the bullpen.

  "Let them see who they goddamn want," the captain shouted. "And don't bother me again."

  The jailer looked crestfallen. Now he was anxious to co-operate to keep in their good graces. "You want to see Iris O'Malley first or afterwards?" he asked.

  "Well, we'll just see her first," Grave Digger said.

  The jailor gave them a key and called his underling on the tier where Iris was celled and instructed him to take her down to the "Pigeons' Nest".

  They were there waiting when the jailer brought her in and left, and they locked the door behind him. They put her on the stool and turned on the battery of lights. Her scratches were healing and the swelling was almost gone from her face but her skin was still the colors of the rainbow. Without make-up her eyes were sexless and ordinary. She wore a dark blue denim uniform but without a number, since she hadn't been bound over to the grand jury.