A Rage in Harlem (6 page)

He stopped in the dice games, the bookie joints, the barbecue stands, the barber shops, professional offices, undertakers’, flea-heaven hotels, grocery stores, meat markets called “The Hog Maw,” “Chitterling Country,” “Pig Foot Heaven.” He questioned dope pushers whom he could trust.

“Have you picked up on a new team, Jack?”

“Pitching what?”

“The Blow.”

“Naw, Sister, that’s for the sticks.”

Some knew him as a man, others thought he was a hophead Sister. It didn’t make any difference to them either way.

He looked at all the faces everywhere he went.

When the coins dropped lightly into his box, he gave out a number, quoting from
Revelation
, “ ‘Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast … and his number is six hundred threescore and six.’ ” Jokers dropped quarters and half-dollars into his box and rushed to the nearest numbers drop to play six-six-six.

He was worn-out by the time he went home to eat supper. He hadn’t got a lead.

Big Kathy and Lady Gypsy were at business. He ate alone and had Mother Goose give him what was left in the pot to take to Jackson.

When Jackson woke up he found himself lying on the couch covered with the two dirty blankets. His joints were stiff as rigor mortis and his head ached like a jack hammer was drilling in his skull. The dim light burnt his eyes like pepper and his mouth was cotton-dry.

He twisted his neck as carefully as though it were made of glass. He saw Goldy sitting at the table in his sloppy black gown but minus his bonnet and wig. A covered pot sat before him on the table. Beside it were a loaf of sliced white bread in oiled-paper wrapping and a bottle half full of whiskey.

The air was blue with smoke and thick with kerosene fumes.
The room was cold.

Goldy sat dreamily blowing on the gold cross he wore about his neck and shining it with a handkerchief gray from dirt.

Jackson threw off the blankets, staggered to his feet, grabbed Goldy’s fat greasy neck between his two black hands, and began to squeeze. Sweat beaded on his black face like pox pimples. His eyes had turned fire-red and looked stark crazy.

Goldy’s eyes popped and his face turned rusty gray. He dropped the cross, grabbed Jackson back of the neck with both hands, jerked down with all his strength, and butted heads with him. The momentum tipped his chair over backward and he went down on his back with Jackson on top of him, both knocked groggy by the butting. The bottle of whiskey fell to the floor without breaking, and rolled beneath the couch.

The blankets had sailed over the kerosene stove and were beginning to sizzle with the smell of burning wool and cotton.

The brothers threshed about the floor, grunting like two hungry cannibals fighting over the missing rib. Finally Goldy got his foot in Jackson’s belly and gave a shove, separating them.

“What’s the matter with you, man,” he panted. “You done blown your top?”

“You doped me!” Jackson wheezed.

The blankets draped over the stove began to burn.

“Now look what you done,” Goldy said, trying to free his left foot from the folds of his gown so he could get up.

Jackson clutched the edge of the table, knocking off the loaf of bread while clambering to his feet, then stepped on it as he lunged for the burning blankets. He snatched up the blankets to throw them outside, but the door was padlocked on the inside.

“Open the door,” he coughed.

The room was black dark with smoke.

“You done made me lose the key,” Goldy accused, scrabbling about the floor on his hands and knees looking for it.

“Goddammit, help me find the key,” he shouted angrily.

Jackson threw the blankets to the floor, and began crawling about helping Goldy search for the key.

“What do you lock the door for all the time?” he complained.

“Here it is,” Goldy said.

Getting to his feet to unlock the door he stepped on the bread also.

Jackson kicked the blankets into the hallway.

“You’re going to be found dead locked up in here someday,” he said.

“You ain’t got the brains you were born with,” Goldy said, pushing Jackson aside to get through to the store for water to throw onto the smoking blankets.

Afterwards he tore up a carton and gave Jackson a piece of cardboard to help fan the smoke from the room, bellyaching the while, “Here I is, putting myself out to help you just because you is my brother, and there you is, trying to kill me first thing.”

“How are you trying to help me,” Jackson grumbled while he fanned the smoke. “I come to you for help and you give me a mickey finn.”

“Aw, man, eat your dinner and shet up.”

Jackson picked up the squashed loaf of bread and straightened it out, then sat at the table and lifted the lid of the pot. It was half-filled with boiled pig’s feet, black-eyed peas and rice.

“Ain’t nothin’ but hoppin’ john,” Goldy said.

“I like hoppin’ john, all right,” Jackson replied.

Goldy closed the door and padlocked it again. Jackson gave him a disapproving look. Goldy found the bottle of whiskey beneath the couch and poured Jackson a slug. Jackson looked at it suspiciously. Goldy gave him an evil look.

“You wouldn’t even trust our mama, would you?” he said, taking a swallow to show it wasn’t doped.

Jackson took a drink and grimaced.

“Do you make this stuff yourself?”

“Man, quit beefing. You ain’t givin’ me no money to buy you no good whiskey, so drink that and shet up.”

Jackson began to eat with an aggrieved expression. Goldy cooked a C and M speedball and banged himself with quiet savor.

“I called your landlady,” he said finally. “Imabelle ain’t come back.”

Jackson stopped eating in the middle of a chew. “I got to go out and find her.”

“Naw, you ain’t, unless you want to get arrested by the first cop you run into. Your boss has got a warrant out for you.”

Sweat started forming on Jackson’s face. “That don’t make no difference. She might be in trouble.”

“She ain’t in no trouble. You the one what’s in trouble.”

Jackson dropped a polished foot-bone atop the pile on the table, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked at
Goldy with the deadly indignation of a puritan.

“Listen, if you think I’m going to set here after being cheated out of my money and kidnapped out of my woman, you got another think coming. She’s my woman. I’m going to look for her too.”

“Take a drink and relax. You can’t find her tonight. Let’s give this business a little thought.”

He poured Jackson another drink. Jackson looked at it with distaste then downed it with a gulp and gasped.

“What kind of thought?”

“That’s what I want to know. Just what kind of things has your woman got in that trunk besides clothes?”

Jackson blinked. The food and the whiskey and the close air in the small tight room were making him sleepy.

“Heirlooms.”

“Come again.”

Jackson’s thoughts were growing fuzzy and he suspected Goldy of trying to trick him.

“Copper pots and pans and bowls,” he shouted angrily. “Stuff that was given to her when she got married.”

“Copper pots! Pans and bowls!” Goldy looked at him incredulously. “You want me to believe that her and that slim man has gone off somewhere to cook?”

Jackson was so sleepy he could barely keep his eyes open.

“Just leave her trunk alone,” he mumbled belligerently. “If you want to help, just help me find her, and leave her things alone.”

“That’s all I’m tryin’ to do, Bruzz,” Goldy protested. “Just tryin’ to help you find your gal-friend. But I don’t know yet what I’m looking for.”

Jackson was too sleepy to reply. He stretched out on the couch and went to sleep instantly.

“The stuff was too strong,” Goldy muttered to himself.

By keeping Jackson doped half the time and scared the other half, Goldy held him prisoner in the room. Every day he told Jackson he was working on a lead and promised him definite news by
evening. But it was three days later before he got his first real lead.

The three Black Widows were having breakfast when Big Kathy said, “There was a con man called Morgan in my place last night. He was big-mouthing to my girls about how he was going to make a fortune by the lost-gold-mine pitch. You think he’s one of them you’re looking for?”

Goldy became alert. “Could be. What kind of a stud was he?”

“The con-man type, half-sized and sharp but not flashy, a smooth money-talker but stingy, cat-eyed, about forty. And he looked dangerous.”

“He is dangerous.”

“He’s one then?”

“The front man. How’re they goin’ to work it?”

“He didn’t say. When Teena tried to dig him he clammed up and got his ashes hauled and beat it.”

“Did she find out where they’re making their pitch?”

“Naw, he acted as if he’d talked too much already.”

“He’ll be back,” Goldy said philosophically.

“Yeah, that girl plays ’em for the long haul.”

That evening after Jackson had finished the pot of pig’s ears, collard greens and okra Goldy had taken him, and Goldy had had his evening bang, Goldy said casually, “I heard today there’s a man just come to Harlem who’s found a real lost gold-mine somewheres.”

Suddenly Jackson began trembling and sweat popped from his head and face like showers of rain.

“A gold-mine?”

“That’s what I said. A real lost gold-mine. And the word is out that they got a trunk full of gold ore to prove it.” He peered at Jackson through narrowed eyes. “Does that mean anything to you, Bruzz?”

Jackson looked suddenly sick, as though he’d swallowed a live bullfrog and it was trying to hop back out of his throat. He wiped the sweat from his ashy face and looked at Goldy through sick eyes.

“Goldy, listen, that gold ore doesn’t really belong to Imabelle. That’s the only reason I haven’t said anything about it. It belongs to her husband. She’s got to give every ounce of it back whenever she gets her divorce or he’ll send her to the penitentiary. She told me.”

“So that’s it, Bruzz.” Goldy leaned back in his chair and
regarded his brother with rapt contemplation. “So that’s it. That’s what she’s got in her trunk. You’ve been holding out on me, Bruzz.”

“I ain’t been holding out. I just didn’t want you to get no ideas because that gold ore don’t belong to her. I wouldn’t even touch an ounce of it myself, no matter how hard up I was.”

“How much is it, Bruzz? Can’t be all that much or you wouldn’t be losin’ all your money on The Blow trying to get it raised and then stealin’ money from your boss.”

“That ain’t got nothing to do with it. It’s just that it doesn’t belong to her. Do you think I’d steal some of it for myself and risk her getting sent to the penitentiary?”

“Naw, I know you wouldn’t do that, Bruzz. You is too honest. But just how much is it?”

“There’s two hundred pounds and eleven ounces.”

Goldy whistled and his eyes popped out like skinned bananas. “Two hundred pounds! Jumping Jesus! You’ve seen it, ain’t you? You’ve really seen it?”

“Of course I’ve seen it. Lots of times. We used to take some of it out and put it on the table and sit there with the door locked and look at it. She never tried to hide it from me.”

Goldy sat staring at his brother as though he couldn’t remove his gaze.

“What does it look like, Bruzz?”

“It looks like gold ore. What do you think it looks like?”

“Can you see the pure gold?”

“Sure you can see the pure gold. There’re layers of gold running through the rocks.”

“What kind of layers? Thin layers or thick layers?”

“Thick layers. What do you think? There’s as much gold as there is rock.”

“Then there’s about a hundred pounds of pure gold, you’d say?”

“About that.”

“A hundred pounds of pure gold.” Goldy blew on his gold cross and began polishing it dreamily.

“Bruzz, listen to me. If that gold ore is the real stuff, solid eighteen-carat gold, your gal is in real trouble. If it ain’t, then she’s working with ’em and done helped them to trim you. Ain’t no two ways about it.”

“I’ve been tellin you they’re holding her prisoner. Been telling
you all the time,” Jackson said indignantly. “Do you think she’d be toting around a trunk full of gold ore if it wasn’t real eighteen-carat solid gold?”

“I ain’t thinking nothing. I’m asking you. Do you know for sure that gold ore is solid eighteen-carat?”

“I know for sure,” Jackson stated solemnly. “It’s real gold ore, as pure as it was dug out of the ground. That’s why I’m so worried.”

“That’s all I want to know.”

Goldy knew that his brother was a square, but he figured that even a five-cornered square ought to be able to tell pure gold that has come straight out of the ground.

“Do you know where I can get a pistol?” Jackson asked suddenly.

Goldy stiffened. “A pistol? What you goin’ to do with a pistol?”

“I’m going out of here and get my woman and her gold ore. I ain’t going to set here no longer and wait on you.”

“Man, listen to me. Those studs is wanted in Mississippi for killing a white man. Those studs is dangerous. All you’d do with a pistol is get yourself killed. What good are you goin’ to be to your woman when you is dead?”

“I’m not going to fight them fair,” Jackson said wildly.

“Man, you has gone raving crazy. You don’t even know where they is at.”

“I’ll find them if I have to search every hole in Harlem.”

“Man, Saint Peter himself don’t know where every hole is at in Harlem. I’ve seen grandpappy rats get so lost in these holes they find themselves shacked up with a sewer full of eels.”

“Then I’ll rob somebody and get some money and hire somebody to help me.”

“Take it easy, Bruzz. I’m goin’ to find them for you. Where is your religion at? Where is your faith? Your time’s comin’, man.”

Jackson wiped his stinging red eyes with his dirty handkerchief.

“It’d better hurry up and come soon,” he said.

They were having a big ball in the Savoy and people were lined up for a block down Lenox Avenue, waiting to buy tickets. The famous Harlem detective-team of Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones had been assigned to keep order.