Going toward St Nicholas Avenue, 137th Street became residential. It was nearing the dinner hour and the smell of cooking seeped into the street and mingled with the smell of heat and motorcar exhaust. Half-clad people lounged in the doorways, sat on the stoops; naked black torsos gleamed in the sunshine on the upper windows; women"s long fried hair glistened and grease trickled down their necks.
Anything was welcome that broke the monotony.
When Coffin Ed yelled to the youth, "Halt!" everyone perked up.
The youth began to run. He kept to the sidewalk, dodging the people in his path.
Coffin Ed drew Grave Digger"s pistol from his belt because it hampered his running. But he didn"t dare fire the customary warning shot into the air. He couldn"t afford to draw the cops. It was the first time he found himself trying to avoid the cops. But it wasn"t funny.
He ran in a long-gaited, flat-footed, knee-straining lope, as though his feet were sinking into the concrete. The light rubbersoled shoes helped, but the heavy artillery weighed him down, and each step set off explosions in his head.
The thin agile youth ran in a high-stepping, light-footed, ground-eating sprint, ducking and dodging between the people pouring into the street.
Sides were taken by the enthusiastic spectators.
"Run, buster, run!" some shouted.
"Catch "im, daddy!" others echoed.
"Look at them n.i.g.g.e.rs picking "em up and putting "em down," a big fat lady crowed jubilantly.
"Dig the canon, Jack!" a weedhead exclaimed as Coffin Ed ran past.
Two jokers jumped from a parked car at the corner of St Nicholas Avenue and split in an effort to catch the fleeing youth. They didn"t have anything against him; they just wanted to join in the excitement.
The youth ducked to the right and one of the jokers lunged at him like a baseball catcher trying to stop a wild pitch. The youth bent low and went underneath the outstretched hand, but the other joker stuck out his foot and tripped him.
The youth skidded forward on his hands and elbows, sc.r.a.ping off the skin, and Coffin Ed closed in.
Now the two jokers decided to take the youth"s part. They turned toward Coffin Ed grinning confidently and one said in a jocular voice, "What"s the trouble, daddy-o?"
Their eyes popped simultaneously. One saw the nickel-plated revolver and the other saw Coffin Ed"s face.
"Great G.o.damighty, it"s Coffin Ed!" the first one whispered. How the people up and down that noisy street heard him is one of those mysteries. But suddenly everybody started drawing in. The two jokers took off, running in opposite directions.
By the time Coffin Ed had reached down and grabbed the youth by the back of his neck and yanked him to his feet, the street was deserted save for heads peeking furtively around corners.
Coffin Ed took the youth by the arm and turned him around. He found himself looking into a pair of solid black eyes. He had to fight down the impulse to take Grave Digger"s pistol and start beating the punk across the head.
"Listen to me, snake-eyes," he grated in a constricted voice. "Walk back to the car ahead of me. And if you run this time I"m going to shoot you in the spine."
The boy walked back in that high-stepping, cloud-treading gait that marijuana gives. Blood was dripping from his skinned elbows. Silence greeted them along the way.
They crossed Eighth Avenue and stopped beside the car. The dog was gone.
"Who got it?" Coffin Ed asked in a voice that seemed to come from a dried-up throat.
The youth glanced at the tic in Coffin Ed"s face and said, "Sister Heavenly."
"You"re sure it wasn"t Pinky?"
"Nossuh, "twere Sister Heavenly."
"All right, fine, you know the family. Go around and get inside on the front seat and we"re going away where we won"t be disturbed and talk."
The youth started to obey but Coffin Ed reached out again and took him by the arm. "You want to talk, don"t you, sonny?"
The youth glanced again at the tic in Coffin Ed"s face and choked, "Yessuh."
18.
"It"s here," Sister Heavenly told her red-eyed chauffeur.
He pulled the Mercury to the curb beside a red-painted fireplug in front of the Harlem Hospital, cut the motor and reached behind his car for the marijuana b.u.t.t. There were s.p.a.ces to park in front and behind.
"Pull away from this fireplug, you lunatic," Sister Heavenly said. "You want the cops to nab you?"
"Fireplug?" He turned his head and stared. "I didn"t seen it."
Nonchalantly he shifted into gear and pulled up a s.p.a.ce.
"Watch my dog and don"t let n.o.body steal it," Sister Heavenly said and got out.
She didn"t hear him mutter "Who"d want it?" She went across the street to a gla.s.s-fronted, white-trimmed surgical supply store.
They were getting ready to close but she told the white clerk it was urgent.
She ordered a large package of absorbent cotton, an eightounce bottle of chloroform, a scalpel, elbow-length rubber gloves, a full-length rubber ap.r.o.n, a rubber sheet, and a large enamel basin.
"You forgot the forceps," the clerk said.
"I don"t need any forceps," she said.
The clerk looked her up and down. She was still carrying her parasol along with her beaded bag, but it was closed. He wanted to be sure to remember her in case of an investigation.
"You ought to leave these things to the hospitals," he said seriously. "There"re hospitals in the city where they"ll do it if it"s necessary."
He thought she was planning to perform an abortion. She dug him.
"It"s _my_ daughter," she said. "I"ll do it myself."
He shrugged and wrapped up the bundle. She paid him and left.
When she returned to the Mercury, the dog was whining, either from thirst or hunger. She got in and put the bundle on the floor and stroked the b.i.t.c.h"s head. "It won"t be long now," she said gently.
She had her chauffeur drive her to a fleabag hotel on 125th Street, a block distant from the 125th Street railroad station, and wait for her while she went inside.
A gla.s.s-paneled door hanging askew permitted a hazardous entry into a long, narrow hail with a worn-out linoleum floor and peeling wallpaper, smelling of male urine, wh.o.r.e stink, stale vomit and the cheapest of perfume. What was left on the wallpaper was decorated with graffiti that would have embarra.s.sed the peddlers of obscene pictures in Montmartre.
At the back, underneath the staircase, was a scarred wooden counter barricading a padded desk chair behind which hung a letter box holding identical dime store skeleton keys. A hotel bell stood on the counter; above it on the wall was a pushb.u.t.ton with the legend NIGHT BELL.
No one was in sight.
Sister Heavenly slapped her gloved palm on the hotel bell. No sound came forth. She picked it up and looked underneath. The clapper was missing. She leaned her thumb on the night bell. Nothing happened. She took the handle of her parasol and banged the side of the hotel bell. It sounded like a fire truck.
A long time later a man emerged from a half-door in the dark recess behind the desk chair. He was a middle-aged brownskin man with a face full of boils, a head full of tetter, and glazed brown eyes. He had a thick, fat, powerful-looking torso; his collarless shirt was open showing a chest covered with thick nappy hair.
He limped forward, his heavy body moving sluggishly, and put his hands on the counter.
"What can I do for you, madame?" he said in the voice of a baritone singer. His diction was good and his enunciation distinct.
Sister Heavenly was past being surprised by anything.
"I want a quiet room with a safe lock," she said.
"All of our rooms are quiet," he said. "And you are as safe here as in the lap of Jesus."
"You have a vacancy?"
"Yes, madame, we have vacancies all the time."
"I"ll bet you do," she said. "Just a minute while I go get my luggage."
She went out and paid off her chauffeur and took the dog by the leash and her bundle by the string. When she returned, the proprietor was waiting at the foot of the stairs.
He had an atrophied leg, evidently from polio, and he looked like a spider climbing the stairs. Sister Heavenly followed patiently behind him.
From behind a door on the second floor came loud voices raised in argument: "Who you talking to, you blue-gum n.i.g.g.e.r!"
"You better shut up, you p.i.s.s-colored wh.o.r.e. . . ."
From behind another came the sound of pots and pans banging around and the smell of boiling ham hocks and cabbage.
From a third the sound of bodies crashing against furniture, objects falling to the floor, feet scuffling, panting grunts and a woman"s voice shrilling, "Just wait "til I get loose--"
The proprietor limped slowly ahead without giving the slightest notice as though he were stone-deaf.
They ascended slowly to the third floor and he opened a door with one of the ten-cent skeleton keys and said, "Here you are, madame, the quietest room in the house."
A window looked down on 125th Street. It was the rush hour. The roar of the traffic poured in. Directly below was a White Rose bar. A jukebox was blasting and the loud strident voice of Screaming Jay Hawkins was raised in song. From the room next door came the blaring of a radio tuned up so loud the sound was frayed.
The room contained a single bed, straight-backed chair, chest of drawers, six eight-penny nails driven into a board on the inner wall to serve as a clothes closet, a chamber pot, and a washbasin with two taps.
Sister Heavenly went across the room and tried the taps. The cold water ran but the hot water tap was dry.
"Who wants hot water in this weather?" the proprietor said, carefully touching his face with a dirty handkerchief.
"I"ll take it," SisterHeavenly said, tossing her bundle onto the bed.
"That will be three dollars, please," the proprietor said.
She gave him three dollars in small change.
He thanked her and snapped the inside bolt back and forth suggestively and limped off.
She closed the door, locked it on the inside, and snapped the bolt. Then she laid her bag and parasol on the bed beside the bundle, removed her hat and wig, sat on the side of the bed and took off her shoes and stockings. When she stood up she was baldheaded and barefooted.
The dog began to whine again.
"In just a moment, honey," she said.
She took out her pipe, loaded it with the finely ground stems of marijuana and lit it with her gold-plated lighter. The dog laid its head in her lap and she stroked it gently as she sucked the smoke deep into her lungs.
Someone knocked on the door and a slick, ingratiating voice said, "Hey Jack, I hears you, man. Leave me blow a little with you. This is old Playboy."
Sister Heavenly ignored him. After a while the disgruntled voice said, "I hopes the man catches you, stingy mother-raper."
Sister Heavenly finished her pipe and put it away. Then she rolled up her skirt, exposing her thin bird"s legs, and pinned it above her knees. She peeled off her silk gloves and put on the rubber ones; and hooked the long rubber ap.r.o.n over her head and fastened it securely behind.
She took the package of cotton, the bottle of chloroform and the chair and sat in front of the open window.
"Here, Sheba," she called.
The dog came and nuzzled her bare feet. She hooked the handle of the leash onto the lower half of the sash lock, tore off a swab of cotton, saturated it with chloroform and held itto the dog"s nose. The dog reared back and broke off the lock. She chased it across the room and stuck the saturated cotton inside the nose of the muzzle. The dog gave a long pitiful howl and broke for the window. She grabbed the end of the chain leash and swung the dog around just before it jumped, then quickly she grabbed the open bottle of chloroform and poured it over the dog"s nose. The howling stopped. The dog gasped for breath and settled slowly to the floor, legs extended stiffly front and back. Its lips drew back, exposing clenched teeth, its eyes became fixed; it shuddered violently and lay still.
Quickly she spread the rubber sheet in the center of the floor and placed the enamel basin on it. She dragged the dog and laid its head in the basin and cut its throat with the scalpel. Then she lifted it by the rear legs and let it bleed.
She dumped the blood into the washbasin, turned on the water and left it running. She brought the enamel basin back and began to disembowel the carca.s.s.
It was b.l.o.o.d.y, dirty, filthy work. She opened the stomach and split the intestines. She was nauseated beyond description. Twice she vomited into the filth. But she kept on.
Down below, the jukebox blasted; next door the radio blared. Strident voices sounded from the street; horns blared in the jammed traffic. Colored people swarmed up and down the sidewalks; the bars were packed; people stood in line in front of the cafeteria across the street.
The hot poisonous air inside of the room, stinking of blood, chloroform and dog-gut, was enough to suffocate the average person. But Sister Heavenly stood it. There wasn"t anything she wouldn"t do for money.
When finally she had convinced herself there wasn"t anything inside of the dog but blood and filth, she threw the scalpel into the carca.s.s and said, "Well, that"s lovely."
She crawled to the window, put her arms on the ledge, and sucked in the hot, stinking outside air.
Then she stood up, took off the b.l.o.o.d.y ap.r.o.n and spread it over the b.l.o.o.d.y carca.s.s, peeled off her gloves and dropped them beside it. The rubber sheet was covered with blood and filth and some had run off onto the linoleum floor.