For love of Imabelle

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.

Gus’s Cadillac was parked directly in front of a huge warehouse that had been converted into a Peace Heaven by Father Divine. The word PEACE appeared in huge white letters on each side of the gabled roof, and could be seen only by looking down from the bridge. It had later been abandoned and was now sealed in darkness.

“I’d sure hate to be here alone,” Jackson said.

“Don’t worry, son, we got you covered,” Grave Digger reassured him. He locked Gus’s Cadillac and put the key into his pocket.

“Okay, Bud, get your hat and let’s get going,” Coffin Ed said to Gus.

Gus picked up his hat, straightened it out and put it on. His face had already swollen so much that his eyes were almost closed.

“Just act as if nothing happened,” Grave Digger ordered.

“That ain’t going to be easy to do,” Gus complained.

“Bud, you’d better make it good, easy or not.”

“Well, coppers, here we go,” Gus said.

He led them down a narrow dark alleyway beside the abandoned Heaven to a small wooden shack on the bank of the river. It was painted a dark, dull green but looked black at night. There were two shuttered windows on the side visible from the walk, and a heavy wooden door at the front. No light showed from within; no sound was heard but the distant chug-chug of tug boats towing garbage scows down the river and out to the sea.

Coffin Ed motioned to Gus with his pistol.

Gus rapped a signal on the door. He rapped at such length that Coffin Ed tensed. The slight click of his pistol being cocked shattered the silence like a giant firecracker exploding, causing Jackson to jump halfway out of his skin.

Suddenly a Judas window opened in the black door. Jackson’s heart tried to fly out of his mouth. Then he found himself looking directly into an eye staring from the Judas window. He couldn’t see the eye well enough to recognize it, but it seemed to speak to him.

There was a turning of locks and a drawing of bolts, and the door opened outward.

Now Jackson could see the eye and its mate plainly. A high-yellow sensual face was framed in the light of the door. It was Imabelle’s face. She was looking steadily into Jackson’s eyes. Her lips formed the words, “Come on in and kill him, Daddy. I’m all yours.” Then she stepped back, making space for him to enter.

Her words shocked Jackson. He crossed himself involuntarily. He wanted to speak to her but he couldn’t get the handle to his voice. He looked at her pleadingly, tried to swallow and couldn’t make it, then stepped into the room.

It was a single room, about the size of a two-car garage. There were two shuttered windows on each side and another door at the rear, which was locked and bolted. It might have been a foreman’s office or a timekeeper’s bureau for some firm operating on the river.

To one side of the rear door were a large flat-topped desk and a swivel chair. Two cheap overstuffed chairs, three straight-backed wooden chairs, ashstands, a glass-topped cocktail table, a tin filing-cabinet, and a phony cardboard safe covered with black canvas so that only the bottom half of the dial could be distinguished in the dim light in the corner, had obviously been added as props by the confidence gang. This was to create an atmosphere of luxuriousness and comfort to impress the suckers while they were being trimmed. Light came from a floor lamp between the armchairs, a ceiling lamp in a glass globe, and a green shaded desk-lamp.

Looking past Imabelle, Jackson saw Hank sitting behind the desk, his yellow face looking corpse-like in the green upper glow from the desk-lamp.

Jodie sat on a campstool beside the back door, dressed in high laced boots and dungarees. His straightened hair was gray with dust. All he needed was a scabby burro to give the illusion of coming down a mountain trail loaded with gold nuggets.

Slim sat in a straight-backed chair against the wall beside the desk, wearing over his suit a long khaki duster like those worn by mad scientists in low-budget horror motion pictures. The legend U.S. Assayer was embroidered on the chest.

At sight of Jackson all three sat bolt upright and stared.

Before anyone could move, Grave Digger put his foot against Gus’s back and shoved him into the room with such force that he catapulted across the floor and rammed headfirst into Jackson’s back. Jackson was knocked forward into Jodie just as Jodie was rising from his campstool. Jodie was pinned against the wall.

Following close behind, Grave Digger shouted, “Straighten up!”

Coffin Ed sealed up the open doorway with his cocked .38 and echoed, “Count off!”

Slim jumped to his feet with his hands elevated. Hank sat frozen with his hands on the desk top. Momentarily shielded from the detectives’ guns by Jackson’s body, Jodie punched Jackson twice, hard, in the belly.

Jackson grunted and grabbed Jodie by the throat. Jodie kneed Jackson in the groin. Jackson backed painfully into Gus. Gus grabbed Jackson by the shoulder to keep from falling, but Jackson thought Gus was trying to hold him and twisted violently from his grip.

In a blind rage, Jodie whipped out his his switchblade knife and slashed open the sleeve of Jackson’s overcoat.

“Drop it!” Grave Digger shouted.

Red-eyed with pain and fury, Jackson kicked Jodie on the shin as Jodie drew back the knife to stab at him again.

Imabelle saw the poised knife and screamed, “Look out, Daddy!”

Her scream was so piercing that everyone except the two detectives ducked involuntarily. It even scratched the casehardened nerves of Grave Digger. His finger tightened spasmodically on the hair trigger of his pistol and the explosion of the shot in the small room deafened everyone.

Gus had ducked into the line of fire and the .38 bullet penetrated his skull back of the left ear and came out over the right eye. As he fell dying, Gus made one more grab at Jackson, but Jackson leaped aside like a shying horse, and Jodie grappled with him.

Jackson clutched Jodie’s wrist and tried to swing him about into Grave Digger’s reach, but Jodie outpowered him and backed Jackson toward Grave Digger instead.

Taking advantage of the commotion, Hank snatched up a glass of acid sitting on the desk. The acid had been used to demonstrate the purity of the gold ore, and Hank saw his chance to throw it into Coffin Ed’s eyes.

Imabelle saw him and screamed again, “Look out!”

Everybody ducked again. Jackson and Jodie butted heads accidentally. By dodging, Slim came between Coffin Ed and Hank just as Hank threw the acid and Coffin Ed shot. Some of the acid splashed on Slim’s ear and neck; the rest splashed into Coffin Ed’s face. Coffin Ed’s shot went wild and shattered the desk-lamp.

Slim jumped backward so violently he slammed against the wall.

Hank dropped behind the desk a fraction of a second before Coffin Ed, blinded with the burning acid and a white-hot rage, emptied his pistol, spraying the top of the desk and the wall behind it with .38 slugs.

One of the bullets hit a hidden light-switch and plunged the room into darkness.

“Easy does it,” Grave Digger shouted in warning, and backed toward the door to cut off escape.

Coffin Ed didn’t know the lights were out. He was a tough man. He had to be a tough man to be a colored detective in Harlem. He closed his eyes against the burning pain, but he was so consumed with rage that he began clubbing right and left in the dark with the butt of his pistol.

He didn’t know it was Grave Digger who backed into him. He just felt somebody within reach and he clubbed Grave Digger over the head with such savage fury that he knocked him unconscious. Grave Digger crumpled to the floor at the same instant that Coffin Ed was asking in the dark, “Where are you, Digger? Where are you, man?”

For a moment the speechless dark was filled with violent commotion. Bodies collided in a desperate race for the door. There was the sound of crashing objects and shattering glass as the floor lamp and cocktail table were overturned and trampled.

Then Imabelle screamed again, “Don’t you cut me!”

A rage-thickened voice spluttered, “I’ll kill you, you double-crossing bitch.”

Jackson lunged toward the sound of Imabelle’s voice to protect her.

“Where are you, Digger? Speak up, man,” Coffin Ed yelled, groping in the dark. Despite the unendurable pain, his first duty was to his partner.

“Let her alone, she ain’t done it,” another voice said.

A furious struggle broke out between Jodie and Slim. Jackson realized that one of them thought Imabelle had ratted to the cops and was trying to kill her. The other one objected. He couldn’t tell which was which.

He plunged toward the sound of the scuffling, prepared to fight both. Instead he landed in the arms of Coffin Ed. The next moment he was knocked unconscious by a pistol butt laid against his skull.

“Are you hurt, Digger?” Coffin Ed asked anxiously, stumbling over Grave Digger’s unconscious body in the dark.

“Are you hurt, man?”

“Come on, let’s go!” Hank yelled and made a running leap through the doorway.

Imabelle ran out behind him.

Suddenly, by unspoken accord, Slim and Jodie stopped fighting to chase Imabelle. But outside, where they could see better, they squared off again. Both had open knives and began slashing furiously at each other, but cutting only the cold night air.

Behind the house, an outboard motor coughed and coughed again. The third time it coughed the motor caught. Jodie broke away from Slim and ran around the side of the shack. A moment later a boat with an outboard motor roared out into the Harlem River.

Slim clutched Imabelle by the arm.

“Come on, let’s scram, they done left us,” he said, pulling her up the alley toward the street.

Suddenly the night was filled with the screaming of sirens as four patrol cars began converging on the spot. A motorist passing over the 155th Street Bridge had reported hearing shooting on the Harlem River and the cops were coming on like General Sherman tanks.

Coffin Ed heard them like an answer to a prayer. The furiously burning pain had become almost more than he could bear. He hadn’t reloaded his gun for fear of blowing out his brains. Now he began blowing on his police whistle as though he had gone mad. He blew it so long and loud it brought Jackson back to consciousness.

Grave Digger was still out.

Coffin Ed heard Jackson clambering to his feet and quickly reloaded his pistol. Jackson heard bullets clicking into the cylinder slots and felt his flesh crawl.

“Who’s there?” Coffin Ed challenged.

His voice sounded so loud and harsh Jackson gave a start and lost his voice.

“Speak up, God damn it, or I’ll blow you in two,” Coffin Ed threatened.

“It’s just me, Jackson, Mr. Johnson,” Jackson managed to say.

“Jackson! Where the hell is everybody, Jackson?”

“They all done got away ’cept me.”

“Where’s my buddy? Where’s Digger Jones?”

“I don’t know, sir. I ain’t seen him.”

“Maybe he’s gone after them. But you stay right where you are, Jackson. Don’t you move a goddam step.”

“No, sir. Is there any kind of way I can help you, sir?”

“No, God damn it, just don’t move. You’re under arrest.”

“Yes, sir.”

I might have known it, Jackson was thinking. The real criminals had gotten away again and he was the only one caught.

He began inching silently toward the doorway.

“Is that you I hear moving, Jackson?”

“No, sir. It ain’t me.” Jackson moved a little closer. “I swear ’fore God.” He inched a little closer. “Must be rats underneath the floor.”

“Rats, all right, God damn it,” Coffin Ed grated. “And they’re going to be underneath the God damn ground before it’s done with.”

Through the open doorway Jackson could see alongside the abandoned Heaven of Father Divine the lights of the patrol cars moving back and forth, searching the street. He listened to the motors whining, the sirens screaming. He felt the presence of Coffin Ed behind him waving the cocked .38 in the pitch darkness of his blind eyes. The shrill, insistent blast of Coffin Ed’s police whistle scraped layer after layer from Jackson’s nerves. It sounded as if all hell had broken loose everywhere, top and bottom, on this side and that, and he was standing there between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Better to get shot running than standing, he decided. He crouched.

Coffin Ed sensed his movement.

“Are you still there, Jackson?” he barked.

Jackson sprang through the open doorway, landed on his hands and knees, and came up running.

“Jackson, you bastard!” he heard Coffin Ed screaming. “Holy jumping Moses, I can’t take this much longer. Can’t the sons of bitches hear? Jackson!” he yelled at the top of his voice.

Three shots blasted the night, the long red flame bursting the black darkness from the barrel of Coffin Ed’s pistol. Jackson heard the bullets crashing through the wooden walls.

Jackson churned his knees in a froth of panic, trying to get greater speed from his short black legs. It pumped sweat from his pores, steam cooked him in his own juice, squandered his strength, upset his gait, but didn’t increase his speed. In Harlem they say a lean man can’t sit and a fat man can’t run. He was trying to get to the other side of the old brick warehouse that had been converted into Heaven but it seemed as far off as the resurrection of the dead.

Behind him three more shots blasted the enclosing din, inspiring him like a burning rag on a dog’s tail. He couldn’t think of anything but an old folk song he’d learned in his youth:

His foot slipped on a muddy spot and he sailed head-on into the old wooden loading-dock at the back of the reconverted Heaven, invisible in the dark. His fat-cushioned mouth smacked into the edge of a heavy floorboard with the sound of meat slapping on a chopping block. Tears of pain flew from his eyes.

As he jumped back, licking his bruised lips, he heard the clatter of policemen’s feet coming around the other side of the Heaven.

He crawled up over the edge of the dock like a clumsy crab escaping a snapping turtle. A ladder was within reach to his right, but he didn’t see it.

Overhead the 155th Street Bridge hung across the dark night, strung with lighted cars slowing to a stop as passengers craned their necks to see the cause of the commotion.

A lone tugboat towing two empty garbage-scows chugged down the Harlem River to pick up garbage bound for the sea. Its green and red riding lights were reflected in shimmering double-takers on the black river.

Jackson felt hemmed in on both sides; if the cops didn’t get him the river would. He jumped to his feet and started to run again. His footsteps boomed like thunder in his ears on the rotten floorboards. A loose board gave beneath his foot and he plunged face forward on his belly.

A policeman rounding the other side of the Heaven, coming in from the street, flashed his light in a wide searching arc. It passed over Jackson’s prone figure, black against the black boards, and moved along the water’s edge.

Jackson jumped up and began to run again. The old folk song kept beating in his head:

The tricky echo of the river and the buildings made his footsteps sound to the cops as coming from the opposite direction. Their lights flashed downriver as they converged in front of the wooden shack.

“God damn it, in here,” Jackson heard Coffin Ed’s roar.

“Coming,” he heard the quick reply.

“Somebody’s getting away,” Jackson heard another voice shout. He put his feet down and picked them up as fast as he could, but it took him so long to get to the end of the dock he felt as if he’d turned stark white from old age and had withered half away.

From the corners of his white-walled eyes he saw the policemen’s lights swinging back up the river, slowly closing in. And he didn’t have anywhere to hide.

Suddenly he went off the edge of the dock without seeing it. He was running on wooden boards and the next thing he knew he was running on the cool night air. The next moment he was skidding into a puddle of muck. His feet went out from underneath him so fast he turned a complete somersault.

The lights passed along the platform overhead and swung back along the river’s edge. He was shielded by the dock, safe for the moment in the shadows.

A passageway loomed to his left, a narrow opening between the brick walls of the Heaven and the corrugated zinc walls of an adjoining warehouse. Far down, another lifetime away, was a narrow rectangle of light where it came out into the street. He made for it, slipped in the muck, caught himself on his hands, and ran the first ten yards bear-fashion.

He straightened up when he felt the ground harden under his feet. He was in a narrow passageway; he had entered it so fast he was stuck before he knew it. He thrashed and wriggled in a blind panic, like a black Don Quixote fighting two big warehouses singlehanded; he got himself turned sideways, and ran crab-like toward the street.

The alley was clogged with tin cans, beer bottles, water-soaked cardboard cartons, pieces of wooden crates, and all other manner of trash. Jackson’s shins took a beating; his overcoat was scraped by both walls as he propelled his fat body through the narrow opening, running in a strange sidewise motion, right foot leaping ahead, left foot dragging up behind.

He couldn’t get that damn’ song out of his mind. It was like a ghost haunting him: