A Rage in Harlem (23 page)

“Yes sir.”

“You took it when?”

“When I left him in Mississippi. He was playing around with another woman and when I left I just up and took it and brought it to New York. I knew they couldn’t work the racket without it.”

“I see. And when he found you at Billie’s he threatened you.”

“He didn’t have to. He just said, ‘I’m gonna take you back and we’re gonna rook that nigger you been living with.’ Hank and Jodie was there too. Hank was all hopped up and in that mean dreamy way he has when he’s hopped and Jodie was gaged on heroin and kept snapping that knife open and shut and looking at me as if he’d like to cut my throat. And Slim, he was half-drunk. And Hank said they were going to take the gold ore and start operating right here in New York. There wasn’t nothing for me to say. I had to do it.”

“All right. Then you contend that you participated under duress. That they forced you on threat of death to work with them in their racket?”

“Yes sir. It was either that or get my throat cut. There was no two ways about it.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“What could I say to the police? They hadn’t done nothing then. And I didn’t know they were wanted in Mississippi for murder. That happened after I’d gone.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police after they had cheated Jackson out of fifteen hundred dollars?”

“It was the same thing. I didn’t know then that Jackson had got hep that he’d been beat. If I’d gone to the police then and Jackson hadn’t preferred charges, the cops would have just let them go. And they’d have killed me then for sure. I didn’t know then about Jackson’s brother. I just knew that Jackson himself was a square and he couldn’t help me none.”

“All right. But why didn’t you go to the police after they’d thrown acid into Detective Johnson’s face?”

She glanced fleetingly in the direction of Grave Digger, and drew into herself. Grave Digger was staring at her with a fixed expression of hate.

“I didn’t have any chance,” she said in a pleading tone of voice. “I would have, but I couldn’t. Slim was with me all the time until we got home. Then after Hank and Jodie came down the river in that motorboat they rented, they got out underneath the railroad bridge and came straight to the place where Slim and me was at. Then there wasn’t any use of thinking about going.”

“What happened there?”

Sweat filmed her bruised face beneath their concentrated stares.

“Well, you see, Jodie thought I’d ratted to the police, until Slim showed him where I couldn’t have ratted. I hadn’t never had no chance. Jodie was gaged and evil and if it hadn’t been for Hank, Jodie and Slim would have got to fighting again. Hank was the only one carried a gun, and he put his gun on Jodie and stopped him. Then Jodie wanted him and Hank to take the gold ore and lam and leave me and Slim there. Slim said they couldn’t take the gold ore without taking him and me too. Then Hank said he agreed with Jodie. They couldn’t take Slim on account of the acid burns on his neck and face. The cops could identify him too easy. They’d put two and two together and know just who he was. Hank said for Slim to hole up somewhere until his face got healed and they’d send for him, but meantime they’d take the gold ore. Slim said nobody was taking his gold ore, he didn’t give a damn what they did. Then before Hank could stop him Jodie had stuck him in the heart and kept sticking him until Hank said, ‘Let up, God damn it, or I’ll kill you.’ But by then Slim was dead.”

“Where were you when all this was happening?”

“I was there, but I couldn’t do nothing. I was scared to death that Jodie was going to start sticking me too. He would have if Hank hadn’t stopped him. He was like a crazy man.”

“But why did they put the body in the trunk?”

“They wanted to get rid of it to keep from having another murder rap hanging on them in New York. Hank said he knew where they could get some more fool’s gold in California. So they just left enough in the trunk to weight it down and threw the rest in the coalbin. They were planning to drop the trunk into the Harlem River. Hank said he was going to get a truck to move it and Jodie was supposed to stand downstairs and keep on the lookout. I was supposed to scrub the blood off the floor. I was too
scared to think about leaving with Jodie standing downstairs. I didn’t know he had gone with Hank until Jackson and his brother came to take the trunk.”

Lawrence rubbed his chin angrily, trying to get the picture into focus. His eyes seemed out of focus too.

“Just where did you fit into their plans?”

“They were going to take me with them. I was scared they were going to take me out and kill me on the road somewhere.”

“But you had already gotten away by the time they returned and killed Goldy?”

“Yes sir. I didn’t know anything about that.”

“Why didn’t you notify the police then?”

“I was planning to. I was going down to the police station and tell the first policeman I saw. But that man attacked me before I had even gotten there, and before I had a chance to say anything the police had rushed me off to jail for just trying to protect myself.”

Lawrence paused to study the report again.

“I told Detective Jones where to find Hank and Jodie just as soon as I got a chance,” she added.

Lawrence blew out a sighing breath. “But you induced your boy-friend, Jackson, and his brother – er, Sister Gabriel – to move the trunk containing Slim’s body without telling them what was in it?”

“No sir, I didn’t induce them. They had their minds made up to take it and I was afraid if I told them they’d stay there trying to get the gold ore and let Hank and Jodie come back and find them and there’d be more killing. I knew Jackson believed it was real gold ore and I could see his brother believed it too. I figured the best thing was to let them take the trunk and get away as fast as they could. Then they’d be gone before Hank and Jodie got back.”

“You said that Jodie was standing downstairs as a lookout.”

“That’s what I thought at first, but when Jackson and his brother came upstairs I knew Jodie must have gone with Hank. I figured that after they’d gotten away safe I could tell the police about everything and wouldn’t anybody else get hurt.”

Lawrence looked over at Grave Digger. “Do you believe that?”

“No. She saddled Jackson and Goldy with the body and planned to lam on the first train leaving town. She didn’t give a damn what happened to any of them.”

“I just didn’t want to see anybody else get hurt,” Imabelle
protested. “There was enough people killed already.”

“All right, all right,” Lawrence said. “That’s your story.”

“It ain’t no story. It’s the truth. I was going to tell the police everything. But that big black mother – that man attacked me before I had a chance.”

“All right, all right, you’ve told your story.”

Lawrence turned to Grave Digger. “I’ll hold her for complicity.”

“What for? You can’t convict her. She claims they forced her to do it. Jackson will support her contention. He believes it and she knows he believes it. It’s proven they were dangerous men. Who’s left to deny her story? All the witnesses against her are dead, and any jury you find will believe her.”

Lawrence mopped his hot red face.

“How about yours and Johnson’s testimony?”

“Let her go, let her go,” Grave Digger said harshly. He looked as if he were riding the crest of a rage. “Ed and I will square accounts. We’ll catch her uptown some day with her pants down.”

“No, I can’t have that,” Lawrence said. “I’ll hold her in five thousand dollars’ bail.”

Mr. Clay was having his afternoon nap when Jackson arrived. Jackson found the front door open and walked in without knocking. Smitty, the other chauffeur, was whispering with a woman in the dimly lit chapel.

Jackson opened the door to Mr. Clay’s office softly and entered quietly. Mr. Clay lay on the couch, facing the wall. Dressed in his tailcoat attire, his long bushy gray hair floating on the coverlet, parchment-like skin framed by the dark wall, he looked like a refugee from a museum, in the dim light from the floor lamp that burned continuously in the front window.

“That you, Marcus?” he asked suddenly without turning.

“No sir, it’s me, Jackson.”

“Have you got my money, Jackson?”

“No sir—”

“I didn’t think so.”

“But I’m going to pay you back every cent, Mr. Clay – that five hundred dollars I borrowed and that two hundred you advanced me on my salary. Don’t you worry about that, Mr. Clay.”

“I’m not worrying, Jackson. You can put in a claim against the county for the money those hoodlums swindled you out of.”

“I can? Against the county?”

“Yes. They had eight thousand dollars in their possession. But just keep it to yourself, Jackson, just keep it to yourself.”

“Yes sir, I’ll certainly do that.”

“And Jackson—”

“Yes sir?”

“Did you bring back my hearse?”

“No sir. I didn’t know whether I could. I left it parked in front of the station house.”

“Then go get it, Jackson. And hurry back, because there’s work for you to do.”

“You’re going to take me back, Mr. Clay?”

“I haven’t never let you go, Jackson. A good man like you is hard to find.”

“Yes sirree. Will you bury my brother for me, Mr. Clay?”

“I’m in the business, Jackson. I’m in the business. How much insurance did he have?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Find out then, Jackson, and we’ll talk business.”

“Yes sir.”

“How’s that yellow woman of yours, Jackson?”

“She’s fine, Mr. Clay. But she’s in jail right now.”

“That’s too bad, Jackson. But anyway, you know she ain’t cheating on you.”

Jackson forced a laugh. “You’re always joking, Mr. Clay. You know she wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“Not as long as she’s in jail, anyway,” Mr. Clay said sleepily.

“I’m going down to try to see her now.”

“All right, Jackson. See Joe Simpson and have him go her bail – if it’s not too much.”

“Yes sir. Thank you, Mr. Clay.”

Joe Simpson had his office on Lenox Avenue, around the corner. Jackson rode with him back downtown to the county building.

When Assistant DA Lawrence learned that Imabelle was making bail, he sent for Joe Simpson. Grave Digger and the court stenographer had gone, and Lawrence was alone in his office.

“Joe, I want to know who’s going that woman’s bail?” he asked.

Simpson looked at him in surprise.

“Why, Mr. Clay is.”

“Jesus Christ!” Lawrence exclaimed. “What is this? What’s going on here? What have they got on him? They steal his money, wreck his hearse, take advantage of him in every way that’s possible, and he hastens to go their bail to get them out of jail. I want to know why.”

“Two of those fellows had eight thousand dollars on them when they were killed.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Why, I thought you knew how that worked, Mr. Lawrence. The money goes for their burials. And Mr. Clay got their funerals. It’s just like they’ve been drumming up business for him.”

Jackson was in the other wing of the building, waiting in the vestibule, when the jailor brought Imabelle from her cell. He gave a long sighing laugh and took her in his arms. She wriggled closely against the curve of his fat stomach and welded her bruised lips against his sweaty kiss.

Then she drew back and said, “Daddy, we got to hurry and see that old buzzard and get our room back so we’ll have somewhere to sleep tonight.”

“It’s going to be all right,” he told her. “I got my job back. And it was Mr. Clay who went your bail.”

She held him at arms’ length and looked into his eyes.

“And you got your job back too, Daddy. Well ain’t that fine?”

“Imabelle,” he said sheepishly. “I just want to tell you, I’m sorry I lost your trunk full of gold ore. I did the best I could to save it.”

She laughed out loud and squeezed his strong, fat arms.

“Daddy, don’t you worry. Who cares about an old trunk full of gold ore, as long as I got you?”

C
HESTER
H
IMES
was born in Missouri in 1909. He began writing while serving a prison sentence for a jewel theft and published just short of twenty novels before his death in 1984. Among his best-known thrillers are
Blind Man With a Pistol, Cotton Comes to Harlem, The Crazy Kill, The Real Cool Killers
, and
The Heat’s On
, all available from Vintage.