“Check the trunk for what?”
Behind them the patrol-car cops were pushing back the crowd.
“Get back, get back!”
The gray had left Jackson’s face and he had begun to sweat again. He wiped the sweat from his face, dabbing at his red-veined eyes with the dirty handkerchief.
“I didn’t understand you, boss.”
Bums and prostitutes and working johns and loiterers and the night thieves and bindle stiffs and blind beggars and all the flotsam that floated on the edges of the station like dirty scum on bog water were jostling each other, drawn by the word of a cut-throat corpse, trying to get a look to see what they were missing.
“I said what does he want to check the trunk for?”
“For Chicago. He’s going to Chicago tonight and he wanted to check his trunk now so when he got his ticket he wouldn’t be bothered with it,” Jackson said gaspingly.
The white detective snapped shut his notebook.
“I don’t believe a God-damned word of that bullshit.”
“It could be true,” the colored detective said. “One driver might have brought in the corpse and left it in the hearse for a moment and this driver—”
“But God damnit, who’s checking a trunk at this time of night?”
The colored detective laughed. “This is Harlem. His boss might have the trunk stuffed with hundred-dollar bills.”
“Well, I’ll soon find out. You hold him. If he got the corpse legitimately, it was released by the homicide bureau.” He looked about, over the heads of the crowd. “Where the hell’s that patrol car? I’m going to contact the precinct station.”
Suddenly Jackson could see the electric chair and himself sitting in it. If they took him to the precinct station they’d find out about Slim and his gang. And they’d find out about Coffin Ed getting blinded and Grave Digger getting hurt, maybe killed. They’d find out about the gold ore and about Goldy, and about him stealing the five hundred dollars and stealing the hearse too. They’d find out that Goldy was his brother and they’d figure that Goldy was trying to steal his woman’s gold ore. And they’d figure he’d cut Goldy’s throat. And they’d burn his black ass to a cinder.
“I’ve seen the order,” he said, inching toward the sidewalk. “It was on the front seat, but I didn’t know who it was for.”
“Order?” the white detective snapped. “Order for what?”
“Order for the body. We get an order from the police to take the body. I saw it right there on the front seat.”
“Well, God damnit, why didn’t you say so? Let’s see it.”
Jackson went to the front of the hearse and opened the door. He looked on the bare seat.
“It was right here,” he said.
He crawled halfway into the driver’s compartment on his hands and knees, groping behind the seat, looking on the floor. He heard the old Cadillac motor turning over softly. He inched half of his rump onto the seat to lean over and look into the glove compartment. His elbow touched the gear lever and knocked it over to drive, but the motor purred softly and the car didn’t move.
“It was right here just a minute ago,” he repeated.
Now both detectives stood on the sidewalk by the door, eying him skeptically.
“Contact precinct and inquire about a recent homicide,” the white detective called to a patrol-car cop. “Colored man impersonating a nun got his throat slashed. See if the body was released. Get the name of the undertaker.”
“Right-o,” the cop said, hurrying off to his two-way radio.
Jackson got all of his rump onto the seat in order to search on top of the sunshades where a stack of papers were shelved.
“It was right here, I saw it.”
He put his right hand on the wheel to steady himself to get a better look. Suddenly, with his left hand he slammed the door shut; he put his whole weight down on the gas treadle.
The old Cadillac motor was the last of the ’47 models with the big cylinder-bore and had enough power to pull a loaded freight train.
The deep-throated roar of the big-bored cylinders sounded like a four-motor stratocruiser gaining altitude as the big black hearse took off.
Pedestrians were scattered in grotesque flight. A blind man jumped over a bicycle trying to get out of the way.
There was a nine-foot gap between a big trailer-truck going east toward the bridge and a taxi going west on 125th Street. Jackson put the hearse in a straight line across the street and it went through that nine-foot hole so fast it didn’t touch, straight down the narrow lane of Park Avenue beside the iron stanchions of the overhead trestle. The gearshift was clumping as it climbed into second, third, and hit the supercharger.
Pistols went off around the station like firecrackers on a Chinese New Year’s day.
The soft mewling yowl of the patrol car sounded and swelled swiftly into a raving scream as the first of the patrol cars leaped into pursuit. It headed straight toward the side of the big trailer-truck as the cop tried to calculate the speed; he calculated wrong and skidded as he tried to turn. The patrol car went into the big, high, corrugated-steel trailer broadside, tried to go underneath it, was flipped back into the street, and spun to a stop with the front wheels bent out of use.
The two other patrol cars were just beginning to whine. Over and above the din of noise was the big jubilant crowing of Big Fats.
“What did I tell you? Can’t trust no fat man! That little fat mother-raper done cut his own mama’s throat from ear to ear!”
21
Grave Digger stood over the prone figure of Imabelle in a blind rage. That acid-throwing bastard’s woman, trying to play cute with him. And his partner, Coffin Ed, was in the hospital, maybe blinded for life. The air was electric with his rage.
He was wearing Coffin Ed’s pistol along with his own. He had it in his hand without knowing he had drawn it. He had his finger on the hair-trigger, and it was all he could do to keep from blowing off some chunks of her fancy yellow prat.
Two harness cops, passing through the booking room, turned tentatively in his direction to restrain him, saw the pistol trembling in his hand, then drew up in silent amazement.
Two patrol cops bringing in three drunken prostitutes stopped, staring wide-eyed. The loud cursing voices of the prostitutes were cut off in mid-sentence. They seemed to shrink bodily, stood suspended in cowed postures, became sober on the spot.
Everyone in the room thought Grave Digger was going to kill Imabelle.
The silence lasted until Imabelle scrambled hastily to her feet and glared at Grave Digger with a rage equal to his own.
“What the hell’s the matter with you, cop?” she shouted.
She was in such a fury she forgot to pull down her skirt and brush the dust from her clothes.
“If you open your mouth once more—” Grave Digger began.
“Easy does it,” the desk sergeant said, cutting him off.
Imabelle’s left cheek was bright red and swelling. Her hair was disarranged. Her eyes were cat-yellow, her mouth a mangled scar in a face gone bulldog ugly.
The harness cops looked at her sympathetically.
Grave Digger controlled himself with an effort. His motions were jerky as he holstered the pistol. His tall, lank frame moved erratically, like a puppet on strings. He couldn’t trust himself to look at her again. He turned toward the desk sergeant.
“What’s the rap on this woman?” His voice was thick.
“Cuttin up a man over at the 125th Street station.”
“Bad?”
“Naw. A colored worker who lives back of the station in the bucket says she slashed him.”
Grave Digger finally turned back and looked at Imabelle as if to question her, then changed his mind.
“They took him to Harlem Hospital to get stitched,” the desk sergeant added. “They’ll bring him in shortly to prefer charges.”