Cotton comes to Harlem

21

The dance floor of the Cotton Club stood on a platform level with the tops of the tables and also served as a stage for the big floor-shows presented. At the back were curtained exits into the wings which contained the dressing-rooms.

When Grave Digger and Coffin Ed peered from behind the curtains to one of the wings, they saw the club was filled with well-dressed people, white and colored, sitting about small tables with cotton-white covers, their eyes shining like liquid crystals in faces made exotic by candlelight.

A piano was playing frenetically, a saxophone wailing aphrodisiacally, the bass patting suggestively, the horn demanding and the guitar begging. A blue-tinted spotlight from over the heads of the diners bathed the almost naked tan body of Billie in blue mist as she danced slowly about a bale of cotton, her body writhing and her hips grinding as though making easy-riding love. Spasms caught her from time to time and she flung herself against the bale convulsively. She rubbed her belly against it and she turned and rubbed her buttocks against it, her bare breasts shaking ecstatically. Her wet red lips were parted as though she were gasping, her pearly teeth glistened in the blue light. Her nostrils quivered. She was creating the illusion of being seduced by a bale of cotton.

Dead silence reigned in the audience. Women stared at her greedily, enviously, with glittering eyes. Men stared lustfully, lids lowered to hide their thoughts. The dance quickened and people squirmed. Billie threw her body against the cotton with mad desire. Bodies of women in the audience shook uncontrollably from compulsive motivation. Lust rose in the room like miasma.

The act was working to a climax. Billie was twisting her body and rolling her hips with shocking rapidity. She worked completely around the bale of cotton, then, facing the audience, flung her arms wide apart and gave her hips a final shake. "Ohhh, daddy cotton!" she cried.

Abruptly the lights came on and the audience went wild with applause. Billie's smooth voluptuous body was wet with sweat. It gleamed like a lecher's dream of hot flesh. Her breasts were heaving, the nipples pointing like selecting fingers.

"And now," she said, slightly panting when the applause died down, "I shall auction this bale of cotton for the actors' benefit fund." She smiled, panting, and looked down at a nervous young white man with his girl at a ringside table. "If you're scared, go home," she challenged, taunting him with a movement of her body. He reddened. A titter arose. "Who'll bid a thousand dollars?" she said.

Silence fell.

From two tables back someone said in a level southern drawl, "One thousand."

Eyes pivoted.

A lean-faced white man with long silvery hair, a white moustache and goatee, wearing a black frock coat and black string bow, sat at a table with a young blond white man wearing a white tuxedo jacket and a Dubonnet-coloured bow.

"The mother-raper," Coffin Ed said.

Grave Digger gestured for silence.

"A gentleman from the Old South!" Billie cried. "I'll bet you're a Kentucky Colonel."

The man stood up, tall and stately, and bowed. "Colonel Calhoun, at your service, from Alabama," he drawled.

Someone in the audience clapped. "A brother of yours, Colonel," Billie cried delightedly. "He's attracted by this cotton too. Stand up, brother."

A big black man stood up. The colored people in the audience roared with laughter.

"What you bid, brother rat?" Billie asked.

"He bids fifteen hundred," a voice cried jubilantly.

"Let him bid for himself," Billie snapped.

"I don't bid nothing," the man said. "You just asted me to stand up, is all."

"Well, sit down then," Billie said.

The man sat down self-consciously.

"Going," Billie said. "Going. This fine bale of natural-grown Alabama field cotton going for one thousand — and maybe I'll go with it. Any other bids?"

Only silence came.

"Cheapskates," Billie sneered. "You're going to close your eyes and imagine it's me, but it ain't going to be the same. Last chance. Going, going, gone. And look how many actors will benefit." She winked brazenly, then said, "Colonel Calhoun, suh, come forward and take possession of it."

"Of what?" some wit cracked.

"Guess, you idiot," Billie sneered.

The Colonel arose and went forward to the platform, a tall, straight, confident white man, and handed Billie ten one-hundred-dollar bank notes. "I deem it an honor, Miss Billie, to purchase this cotton from a beautiful nigra girl who might also be from those happy lands — "

"Not me, Colonel," Billie interrupted.

"— and in so doing benefit many deserving nigra actors," the Colonel finished.

There was a scattering of applause.

Billie ran and pulled handfuls of cotton from the bale and the Colonel tensed momentarily, but as quickly relaxed when she came running back and showered the strands of cotton on to his silvery head.

"I hereby ordain you as King of Cotton, Colonel," she said. "And may this cotton bring you wealth and fame."

"Thank you," the Colonel said gallantly. "I'm sure it will," and then signalled to the stage door opposite Grave Digger and Coffin Ed. Two ordinary-looking colored workmen came forward with a hand truck and took the bale of cotton away.

Grave Digger and Cotton Ed hurried towards the street, limping like soul-brothers with duck feet. The truckmen brought out the bale of cotton and put it in back of an open delivery truck, and the Colonel followed leisurely and spoke to them and got into his black limousine.

Grave Digger and Coffin Ed were already in their panel truck parked a half-block back.

"So he found his car," Coffin Ed remarked.

"One gets you two it was never lost."

"That's a sucker's bet."

When the truck drove off they followed it openly. It went up Seventh Avenue and drew to the curb in front of the Back-to-the-Southland office. Grave Digger drove past and turned into the driveway of a repair garage, closed for the night, and Coffin Ed got out and began picking the lock of the roll-up door as though he worked there. He was working at the lock when the Colonel's limousine pulled up behind the truck across the street and the Colonel got out and looked about. He got the lock open and was rolling up the door by the time the Colonel had unlocked the door to his own office and the truckmen began easing the bale of cotton down onto the sidewalk. Grave Digger drove the panel truck into the strange garage and cut the lights and got out beside Coffin Ed. They stood in the dark doorway, checking their pistols, and watched the truckmen wheel the bale of cotton into the brightly lighted office and drop it in the center of the floor. They saw the Colonel pay them and speak to the blond young man, and when the truckmen left, the two of them spoke briefly again and the blond young man returned to the limousine while the Colonel turned out the lights and locked the door and followed him.

When they drove off, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed hurried across the street, and Coffin Ed began picking the lock to the Back-to-the-Southland office while Grave Digger shielded him.

"How long is it going to take?" Grave Digger asked.

"Not long. It's an ordinary store lock but I got to get the right tumbler."

"Don't take too long."

The next moment the lock clicked. Coffin Ed turned the knob and the door came open. They went inside and locked the door behind them and moved quickly through the darkness to a small broom closet at the rear. It was hot in the closet and they began to sweat. They kept their pistols in their hands and their palms became wet. They wanted to talk but were afraid to risk it. They had to let the Colonel get the money from the bale of cotton himself.

They didn't have long to wait. In less than fifteen minutes there was the sound of a key in the lock. The door opened and two pairs of footsteps entered and the door closed.

They heard the Colonel say, "Pull down the shades."

They heard the sounds of the shades covering the front windows and the door being pulled to the bottom and latched. Then there was the click of the light switch and the keyhole in the closet had sudden dimensions.

"Do you think that'll be enough?" a voice questioned. "Anyone can see there's a light on inside."

"There's no risk, son, everything is covered," the Colonel said. "Let's don't be too secretive. We pay the rent here."

There was the sound of the bale of cotton being shifted, probably being turned over, Grave Digger thought.

"Just give me that knife and keep the bag ready," the Colonel said.

Grave Digger felt in the darkness of the closet for the doorknob, and squeezed it hard and pulled it. But he waited until he heard the sound of the knife cut into the bale of cotton before turning it. Soundlessly he opened the door a crack and released the knob with the same caution.

Now through the crack they could see the Colonel engrossed in his work. He was cutting through the cotton with a sharp hunting knife and pulling out the fibers with a double-pronged hook. The blond young man stood to one side, watching intently, holding open a Gladstone bag. Neither looked around.

Grave Digger and Coffin Ed breathed silently through their mouths as they watched the hole grow larger and deeper. Loose cotton began piling up on the floor. The Colonel's face began sweating. The blond young man looked increasingly anxious. A frown appeared between his eyes.

"Have you got the right side?" he asked.

"Certainly, it shows where we opened it," the Colonel said in a controlled voice, but his expression and his haste expressed his own growing anxiety.

The blond young man's breathing had become labored. "You should be down to the money," he said finally.

The Colonel stopped digging. He put his arm into the hole to measure its depth. He straightened up and looked at the blond young man as though he didn't see him. For a long moment he seemed lost in thought.

"Incredible!" he said.

"What?" the blond young man blurted.

"There isn't any money."

The blond young man's mouth flew open. Shock stretched his eyes and he grunted as though someone had hit him in the solar plexus.

"Impossible," he gasped.

Suddenly the Colonel went berserk. He began stabbing the bale of cotton with the hunting knife as though it were human and he was trying to kill it. He slashed it and raked it with the hook. His face had turned bright red and foam collected in the corners of his mouth. His blue eyes looked stone crazy.

"Gawdammit, I tell you there isn't any money!" he shouted accusingly, as though it were the young man's fault.

Grave Digger pushed open the closet door and stepped into the room, his long-barreled, nickel-plated. 38 revolver leveled on the Colonel's heart and glinting deadly in the bright light.

"That's just too mother-raping bad," he said and Coffin Ed followed him.

The Colonel and the young man froze, suspended in motion. Their eyes mirrored shock. The Colonel was the first to regain his composure. "What does this mean?" he asked in a controlled voice.

"It means you're under arrest," Grave Digger said.

"Arrest? For preparing a bale of cotton to exhibit during our rally tomorrow?"

"When you hijacked the Back-to-Africa meeting you hid the money in this bale of cotton during your getaway, then lost it. We wondered what made this bale of cotton so important."

"Nonsense," the Colonel said. "You're having a pipe dream. If you think I had anything to do with that robbery, you go ahead and arrest me and I'll sue you and the city for false arrest."

"Who said for robbery?" Coffin Ed said. "We're arresting you for murder."

"Murder! What murder?"

"The murder of a junkyard laborer named Joshua Peavine," Grave Digger said. "That's where the cotton fits in. He took you to Goodman's junkyard looking for this cotton and you had him murdered."

"I suppose you're going to have this Goodman identify this cotton," the Colonel said sarcastically. "Don't you know there are seven hundred million acres of cotton just like this?"

"Cotton is graded," Grave Digger said. "It can be identified. There were fibers from this bale of cotton left in Goodman's junkyard where the boy was murdered."

"Fibers? What fibers?" the Colonel challenged.

Grave Digger stepped to the pile of cotton on the floor and picked up a handful and held it out to the Colonel. "These fibers."

The Colonel paled. He still held the knife and hook in his hands but his body was controlled with great effort. The blond young man was sweating and trembling all over.

"Drop the gadgets, Colonel," Coffin Ed said, motioning with his gun.

The Colonel tossed the knife and hook into the hole in the bale of cotton.

"Turn around and walk over and put your hands to the wall," Coffin Ed went on.

The Colonel looked at him scornfully. "Don't be afraid, my boy, we're unarmed."

The tic came into Coffin Ed's face. "And just don't be too mother-raping cute," he warned.

The white men read the danger in his face and obeyed. Grave Digger frisked them. "They're clean."

"All right, turn around," Coffin Ed ordered.

They turned around impassively.

"Just remember who're the men here," Coffin Ed said.

No one replied.

"You were seen picking up the laborer, Joshua, by the side of the 125th Street railroad station just before he was murdered," Grave Digger continued from before.

"Impossible! There was only a blind man there!" the blond young man blurted involuntarily.

With a quick violent motion the Colonel turned and slapped him.

Coffin Ed chuckled. He drew a photograph from his inside pocket and passed it to the Colonel. "The blind man saw you — and took this picture."

The Colonel studied it for a long moment, then handed it back. His hand was steady but his nostrils were white along the edges. "Do you believe a jury would convict me on this evidence?" he said.

"This ain't Alabama," Coffin Ed said. "This is New York, and this colored man has been murdered by a white man in Harlem. We have the evidence. We'll give it to the Negro press and all the Negro political groups. When we get through, no jury would dare acquit you; and no governor would dare pardon you. Get the picture, Colonel?"

The Colonel had turned white as a sheet and his face looked pinched. Finally he said, "Every man's got his price, what's yours?"

"You're lucky to have any teeth left by now, or even dentures," Grave Digger said. "But you asked me a straight question, and I'll give you a straight answer. Eighty-seven thousand dollars."

The blond young man's mouth popped wide open again and he flushed bright red. But the Colonel only stared at Grave Digger to see if he was joking. Then disbelief came to his face, and finally astonishment.

"Incredible! You're going to give them back their money?"

"That's right, the families."

"Incredible! Is it because they are nigras and you're nigras too?"

"That's right."

"Incredible!" The Colonel looked as though he had got the shock of his life. "If that's true, you win," he conceded. "What will it buy me?"

"Twenty-four hours," Grave Digger said.

The Colonel kept staring at him as though he were a fourheaded baby. "And will you really keep your bargain?"

"That's right. A gentleman's agreement."

A flicker of a smile showed at the corners of the Colonel's mouth.

"A gentleman's agreement," he echoed. "I'll give you a cheque drawn on the committee."

"We're going to wait right here behind drawn shades until the banks open in the morning and you send and get the cash," Grave Digger said.

"I'll have to send my assistant here," the Colonel said. "Will you trust him?"

"That ain't the question," Grave Digger said. "Will you trust him? It's your mother-raping life."