“Member of the First Baptist Church,” Jackson said.
“You don’t have to tell me, Jackson, I could see right from the start that you were a church member. That’s how I knew you were an honest man.”
He stopped beside a lavender-colored Cadillac. “Here’s my car.”
“The real-estate business must be good,” Jackson said, climbing into the front seat beside Gus.
“You can’t always tell by a Cadillac, Jackson,” Gus said as he pushed the starter button and shifted the hydromatic clutch. “All you need these days to buy a Cadillac is a jalopy to turn in for a down payment, and then dodge the installment collector.”
Jackson laughed and glanced into the rear-view mirror. He noticed a small black sedan turn the corner and fall in behind them. Then after a moment a taxi drew suddenly to the curb where they had left Goldy.
“When I get the first payment from my mine shares I’m going to buy me one of these.”
“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, Jackson. Mr. Morgan hasn’t sold you any shares yet.”
Suddenly, when they had rounded the corner at St. Nicholas Avenue, heading north, Gus drew to the curb and stopped. Jackson noticed the black sedan turn the corner, slow down, then drive on. It was followed at a short distance by a taxi. Gus didn’t notice. He had taken a black hood from the glove compartment.
“Sorry, Jackson, but I’ve got to blindfold you,” he said. “You just slip this over your head. You understand, Mr. Morgan and the prospector have got a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold ore in their office and they can’t take any chances of being robbed.”
Jackson hesitated. “It’s not that, Mr. Parsons. It’s just that, well, you see, I got all this money on me—”
Gus laughed. “Call me Gus, Jackson. And don’t hesitate to say what you mean.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Gus, but—”
“I understand, Jackson. You just met me and you don’t know me from the man in the moon. Here, take my gun if it makes you feel any safer.”
“Well, it’s not that I don’t feel safe with you, Gus—” Jackson said, taking the gun and slipping it into his righthand overcoat pocket. “It’s just that—”
“Say no more about it, Jackson,” Gus said as he pulled the hood down over Jackson’s head. “I know just how an honest man like you feels in this situation. But it can’t be helped.”
With the hood over his head, Jackson was suddenly scared. He put his hand on the gun for reassurance and silently prayed that Goldy knew what he was doing.
He heard the motor purr and the car move. It turned corner after corner. He tried to estimate their direction, but they turned so many corners he became confused.
Half an hour later the car slowed down and stopped. Jackson had no idea where he was.
“Well, here we are, Jackson, safe and sound,” Gus said. “Nothing has happened to you. You just keep your mask on a little while longer and we’ll be inside of the office, face to face with Mr. Morgan. You just give me my pistol now; you won’t need it any more.”
Jackson felt the sweat break out on his head and face beneath the mask. The street was silent. There were no sounds of approaching cars. If Gus had lost the detectives and Goldy, who were supposed to be following, then he was in trouble.
He reached for the pistol with his right hand and with his left hand jerked off the mask. All he had time to see was the quick movement of Gus’s hand that had been resting on the steering wheel, before Gus’s fist exploded on his nose, filling his vision with dripping wet stars. He put his head down and rammed toward Gus like a fat bull, trying to pin Gus down with his bulk and draw the pistol at the same time. But Gus jabbed him in the windpipe with the point of his right elbow and clutched his wrist in a steel grip before he could get the pistol from his pocket. The dripping wet stars in Jackson’s vision turned into blood-red balloons the size of watermelons.
12
The black sedan came up so fast it skidded to a stop slantwise, and the two big loose-jointed colored detectives wearing shabby gray overcoats and misshapen snap-brim hats hit the pavement on each side in a flatfooted lope.
At the same moment Goldy’s taxi pulled to the curb and parked a block down the street, but Goldy didn’t get out.
When the two detectives converged on the flashy Cadillac they had their long-barreled nickel-plated pistols in their hands. Coffin Ed opened the door and Grave Digger hauled Gus to the pavement.
“Get your God-damned hands off me,” Gus snarled, throwing a looping right-hand punch at Grave Digger’s face.
Grave Digger pulled back from the punch and said, “Just slap him, Ed.”
Coffin Ed slapped Gus on the cheek with his open palm. Gus’s tight-fitting hat sailed off and he spun toward Grave Digger, who slapped him on the other cheek and spun him back toward Coffin Ed. They slapped him fast, from one to another, like batting a Ping-pong ball. Gus’s head began ringing. He lost his sense of balance and his legs began to buckle. They slapped him until he fell to his knees, deaf to the world.
Coffin Ed grabbed the collar of his overcoat to keep him from falling on his face. He knelt limply between them with his bare head lolling forward. Grave Digger lifted his chin with the barrel of his pistol. Coffin Ed looked at Grave Digger over Gus’s head.
“Tender?”
“Any more tender and he’d be chopped meat,” Grave Digger said.
“This boy wasn’t educated right.”
Jackson hadn’t moved from his seat while the detectives were working on Gus, but suddenly he opened the far door and got out on the sidewalk, hoping he could get away unnoticed.
“Hold on, Bud, we’re not finished with you yet,” Grave Digger called.
“Yes, sir,” Jackson said meekly. “I was just getting ready to see what you wanted me to do.”
“We still have to get inside the joint.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s get this boy together, Ed.”
Coffin Ed lifted Gus to his feet and put a pint bottle of bourbon into his hand. Gus took a drink and choked, but his ears popped and he could hear again. His legs were still wobbly, as though he were punch-drunk.
Coffin Ed took the bottle and slipped it back into his overcoat pocket. “Do you want to cooperate now?” he asked Gus.
“I ain’t got no choice,” Gus said.
“That’s not the right attitude.”
“Easy, Ed,” Grave Digger cautioned. “We’re not through with this boy yet. He’s got to get us inside.”
“That’s what I mean,” Coffin Ed said, looking about at his surroundings. “It’s a hell of a place to make a pitch on a con game.”
“They picked it for the getaway. They figure it’s hard to get them cornered here.”
“We’ll see.”
Overhead was the 155th Street Bridge, crossing the Harlem River from Coogan’s Bluff on Manhattan Island to that flat section of the Bronx where the Yankee Stadium is located. The Polo Grounds loomed in the dark on a flat strip between the sheer bluff and the Harlem River. The iron stanchions beneath the bridge were like ghostly sentinels in the impenetrable gloom. A spur of the Bronx elevated line crossed the river in the distance connecting with the station near the Stadium gates.
It was a dark, deserted, dismal section of Manhattan, eerie, shunned and unpatrolled at night, where a man could get his throat cut in perfect isolation with no one to hear his cries and no one brave enough to answer them if he did.