Cotton Comes to Harlem (7 page)

“Oh, don’t I know it.”

“In fact, they will do everything to stop me.”

“What makes white folks like that?”

“We must not think
why
they are like that. We must accept it as a fact and go ahead and outwit them and beat them at their own game. And I might need your help, Mrs Hill.”

“Oh, Reverend O’Malley, I’m so glad to hear you say that. I understand just what you mean and I’ll do everything in my power to help you track down those foul murderers and get our money back.”

Thank God for squares, O’Malley thought as he said, “I have utmost confidence in you, Mrs Hill. We both have the same aim in view.”

“Oh, Reverend O’Malley, your confidence is not misplaced.”

He smiled at her stilted speech but he knew she meant it.

“The main thing is for me to stay free of the police while we conduct our own investigation. The police must not know of my whereabouts or that we are working together to bring these foul murderers to justice. They must not know that I have communicated with you or that I will see you.”

“I won’t mention your name,” she promised solemnly.

“Do you expect them to return tonight?”

“I’m sure they’re not coming back.”

“In that case I will come to your house in an hour and we will make that our headquarters to launch our investigation. Will that be all right?”

“Oh, Reverend O’Malley, I’m thrilled to be doing something to get revenge — I mean to see those white murderers punished — instead of just sitting here grieving.”

“Yes, Mrs Hill, we shall hunt down the killers for God to punish and perhaps you will draw your shades before I come.”

“And I’ll turn out the lights too so you won’t have to worry about anyone seeing you.”

“Turn out the lights?” For a moment he was startled. He envisioned himself walking into a pitch-dark ambush and being seized by the cops. Then he realized he had nothing to fear from
Mrs Hill. “Yes, very good,” he said. “That will be fine. I will telephone you shortly before arriving and if the police are there you must say, ‘Come on up,’ but if you are alone, say, ‘Reverend O’Malley, it’s all right.’ ”

“I’ll do just that,” she promised. He could hear the excitement in her voice. “But I’m sure they won’t be here.”

“Nothing in life is certain,” he said. “Just remember what to say when I telephone — in about an hour.”

“I will remember; and good-bye now, until then.”

He hung up. Sweat was streaming down his face. He hadn’t realized until then it was so hot in the booth.

He found the big men’s room and ordered a shower. Then he undressed and gave his suit to the black attendant to be pressed while he was taking his shower. He luxuriated in the warm needles of water washing away the fear and panic, then he turned on cold and felt a new life and exhilaration replace the fatigue.…
The indestructible Deke O’Hara
, he thought gloatingly.
What do I care about eighty-seven grand as long as there are squares?

“Your suit’s ready, daddy,” the attendant called, breaking off his reverie.

“Right-o, my man.”

Deke dried, dressed, paid and tipped the attendant and sat on the stand for a shoeshine, reading about the robbery and himself in the morning
Daily News.
The clock on the wall read 2.21 a.m.

Mrs Hill lived uptown in the Riverton Apartments near the Harlem River north of 135th Street. He knew she would be waiting impatiently. He was very familiar with her type: young, thought herself good-looking with the defensive conceit with which they convinced themselves they were more beautiful than all white women; ambitious to get ahead and subconsciously desired white men, hating them at the same time because they frustrated her attempts to get ahead and refused to recognize her innate superiority over white women. More than anything she wanted to escape her drab existence; if she couldn’t be middle class and live in a big house in the suburbs she wanted to leave it all and go back to Africa, where she just
knew
she would be important. He didn’t care for the type, but he knew for these reasons he could trust her.

He went out to the ramp to get a taxi. Two empty taxis with white drivers passed him; then a colored driver, seeing his predicament, passed some white people to pick him up. The white policeman supervising the loading saw nothing.

“You know ain’t no white cabby gonna take you to Harlem, man,” the colored driver said.

“Hell, they’re just losing money and ain’t making me mad at all,” Deke said.

The colored driver chuckled.

Deke had him wait at the 125th Street Station while he phoned. The coast was clear. She buzzed the downstairs door the moment he touched the bell and he went up to the seventh floor and found her waiting in her half-open doorway. Behind her the apartment was pitch dark.

“Oh, Reverend O’Malley, I was worried,” she greeted him. “I thought the police had got you.”

He smiled warmly and patted her hand as he passed to go inside. She closed the door and followed him and for a moment they stood in the pitch dark of the small front hall, their bodies slightly touching.

“We can have some light,” he said. “I’m sure it’s safe enough.”

She clicked switches and the rooms sprang into view. The shades were drawn and the curtains closed and the apartment was just as he had imagined it. A living-room opening through a wide archway to a small dining-room with the closed door of the kitchen beyond. On the other side a door opening to the bedroom and bath. The furniture was the polished oak veneer featured in the credit stores that tried to look expensive, and to one side of the living-room was a long sofa that could be let out into a bed. It had already been let out and the bed made up.

She saw him looking and said apologetically, “I thought you might want to sleep first.”

“That was very thoughtful of you,” he said. “But first we must talk.”

“Oh, yesss,” she agreed jubilantly.

The only surprise was herself. She was a really beautiful woman with a smooth brown oval face topped by black curly hair that came in natural ringlets. She had sloe eyes and a petite turned-up nose with very faint black down on her upper lip. Her mouth was wide, generous, with rose-tinted lips and a sudden smile showing even white teeth. Wrapped in a bright blue silk negligee which showed all her curves, her body looked adorable.

He sat at the small round table which had been pushed to one side when the bed was made and indicated her to sit opposite. Then he began speaking to her with pontifical solemnity and seriousness.

“Have you prepared for John’s funeral?”

“No, the morgue still has his body but I’m hoping to get Mr Clay for the undertaker and have the funeral in your — our church — and for you to preach the funeral sermon.”

“Of course, Mrs Hill, and I hope by then to have our money back and turn an occasion of deep sorrow also into one of thanksgiving.”

“You can call me Mabel, that’s my name,” she said.

“Yes, Mabel, and tomorrow I want you to go to the police and find out what they know so we can use it for our own investigation.” He smiled winningly. “You’re going to be my Mata Hari, Mabel — but one on the side of God.”

Her face lit up with her own brilliant, trusting smile. “Yes, Reverend O’Malley, oh, I’m so thrilled,” she said delightedly, involuntarily leaning towards him.

Her whole attitude portrayed such devotion he blinked. My God, he thought, this bitch has already forgotten her dead husband and he isn’t even in his coffin.

“I’m so glad, Mabel.” He reached across the table and took one of her hands and held it while he looked deeply into her eyes. “You don’t know how much I depend on you.”

“Oh, Reverend O’Malley, I’ll do anything for you,” she vowed.

He had to exercise great restraint. “Now we will kneel and pray to God for the salvation of the soul of your poor dead husband.”

She suddenly sobered and knelt beside him on the floor.

“O Lord, our Saviour and our Master, receive the soul of our dear departed brother, John Hill, who gave his life in support of our humble aspiration to return to our home in Africa.”

“Amen,” she said. “He was a good husband.”

“You hear, O Lord, a good husband and a good, upright and honest man. Take him and keep him, O Lord, and have mercy and kindness to his poor wife who must remain longer in this vale of tears without the benefit of a husband to fulfil her desires and quench the flames of her body.” ’

“Amen,” she whispered.

“And grant her a new lease on life, and yes, O Lord, a new man, for life must go on even out of the depths of death, for life is everlasting, O Lord, and we are but human, all of us.”

“Yes,” she cried. “Yes.”

He figured it was time to cut that shit out before he found himself in bed with her and he didn’t want to confuse the issue — he just wanted his money back. So he said, “Amen.”

“Amen,” she repeated, disappointedly.

They arose and she asked him if she could fix him anything to eat. He said he wouldn’t mind some scrambled eggs, toast and coffee, so she took him into the kitchen and made him sit on one of the padded tubular chairs to the spotless masonite tubular table while she went about preparing his snack. It was a kitchen that
went along with the rest of the apartment — electric stove, refrigerator, coffee maker, eggbeater, potato whipper and the like; all electric — compactly arranged, brightly painted and superbly hygienic. But he was entranced by the curves of her body beneath the blue silk negligee as she moved about, bent over to get cream and eggs from the refrigerator, turned quickly here and there to do several things at once; and the swinging of her hips when she moved from stove to table.

But when she sat down opposite him she was too self-conscious to talk. A slow blush rose beneath her smooth brown skin, giving her a sun-kissed look. The snack was excellent, crisp bacon, soft scrambled eggs, firm brown toast with a veneer of butter. English marmalade and strong black espresso coffee with thick cream.

He kept the conversation going on the merits of her late husband and how much he would be missed by the Back-to-Africa movement; but he was slowly getting impatient for her to go to bed. It was a relief when she stacked the dishes in the sink and retired to her bedroom with a shy good-night and a wish that he sleep well.

He waited until he felt she was asleep and cracked her door soundlessly. He listened to the even murmur of her breathing. Then he turned on the light in the living-room so he could see her better. If she had awakened he would have pretended to be searching for the bathroom, but she was sleeping soundly with her left hand tight between her legs and her right flung across her exposed breasts. He closed the door and went to the telephone and dialed a number.

“Let me speak to Barry Waterfield, please,” he said when he got an answer.

A sleepy male voice said evilly, “It’s too damn late to be calling roomers. Call in the morning.”

“I just got in town,” Deke said. “Just passing through — I’m leaving on the 5.45 for Atlanta. I got an important message for him that won’t keep.”

“Jussa minute,” the voice said.

Finally another voice came on the line, harsh and heavy with suspicion. “Who’s there?”

“Deke.”

“Oh!”

“Just listen and say nothing. The police are after me. I’m holed up with the wife of our boy, John Hill, who got croaked.” He gave the telephone number and address. “Nobody knows I’m here but you. And don’t call me unless you have to. If she answers tell her your name is James. I’ll brief her. Stay out of sight today.
Now hang up.”

He listened to the click as the phone was hung up, then waited to see if the line was still open and someone was eavesdropping. Satisfied, he hung up and went back to bed. He turned out the light and lay on his back. A thousand thoughts ran though his mind. He banished them all and finally went to sleep.

He dreamed he was running through a pitch-dark forest and he was terrified and suddenly he saw the moon through the trees and the trees had the shapes of women with breasts hanging like coconuts and suddenly he fell into a pit and it was warm and engulfed him in a warm wet embrace and he felt the most exquisite ecstasy —

“Oh, Reverend O’Malley!” she cried. Light from the bedroom shone across her body, clad only in a frilly nightgown, one ripe brown breast hanging out. She was trembling violently and her face was streaked with tears.

He was so shocked seeing her like this after his dream he leapt from bed and put his arm about her trembling body, wondering if he had attacked her in his sleep. He could feel the warm firm flesh move beneath his hand as she sobbed hysterically.

“Oh, Reverend O’Malley, I’ve had the most terrible dream.”

“There, there,” he soothed, pulling her body to his. “Dreams don’t mean anything.”

She drew away from him and sat on his bed with her face cupped in her hands, muffling her voice. “Oh, Reverend O’Malley, I dreamed that you were hurt terribly and when I came to your rescue you looked at me as though you thought I had betrayed you.”

He sat down beside her and began gently stroking her arm. “I would never think you had betrayed me,” he said soothingly, counting the soft gentle strokes of his hand on the smooth bare flesh of her arm, thinking, any woman will surrender within a hundred strokes. “I believe in you utterly. You would never be the cause of hurt to me. You will always bring me joy and happiness.”

“Oh, Reverend O’Malley, I feel so inadequate,” she said.

Gently, still counting the trokes of his hand on her arm, he pushed her back and said, “Now lie down and try not to blame yourself for a silly dream. If I get hurt it will be God’s will. We must all bow to God’s will. Now repeat after me: If Reverend O’Malley gets hurt, it will be God’s will.”

“If Reverend O’Malley gets hurt, it will be God’s will,” she repeatedly dutifully in a low voice.

“We must all bow to God’s will.”

“We must all bow to God’s will.”

With his free hand he opened her legs.

“God’s will must be served,” he said.

“God’s will must be served,” she repeated.

“This is God’s will,” he said hypnotically.