For love of Imabelle

9

Grave Digger and Coffin Ed weren’t crooked detectives, but they were tough. They had to be tough to work in Harlem. Colored folks didn’t respect colored cops. But they respected big shiny pistols and sudden death. It was said in Harlem that Coffin Ed’s pistol would kill a rock and that Grave Digger’s would bury it.

They took their tribute, like all real cops, from the established underworld catering to the essential needs of the people — gamekeepers, madams, streetwalkers, numbers writers, numbers bankers. But they were rough on purse snatchers, muggers, burglars, con men, and all strangers working any racket. And they didn’t like rough stuff from anybody else but themselves. “Keep it cool,” they warned. “Don’t make graves.”

When Goldy got to the Savoy they were just leaving with two studs who’d got into a knife fight about a girl. The stud who’d brought the girl had gotten jealous because she’d danced too much with another stud. What made Coffin Ed and Grave Digger mad was the girl had put these two studs to fighting so she could slip away with a third stud, and these two studs were too simple-minded to see it.

Goldy followed them to the 126th Street precinct station in a taxi.

The big booking-room where the desk sergeant sat behind a fortress-like desk five feet high on the side toward the detective bureau was jampacked with the night’s pick-up.

The patrol-car cops, foot patrolmen, plainclothes dicks all had their prisoners in tow, waiting to book them on the blotter at the desk. The desk sergeant was taking them in turn, writing down their names, charges, addresses, and arresting-officers on the blotter, before turning them over to the jailors who hung waiting in the background.

The small-time bondsmen, white and colored, were hanging about the desk and threading among the prisoners, soliciting business. For a ten-dollar fee they went bail for misdemeanors.

The cops were angry because they’d have to appear in court the next morning during their off-hours to testify against the prisoners they’d arrested. They were impatient to get their prisoners booked so they could go to some of their hangouts and take a nap before quitting time.

A young white cop had arrested a middle-aged drunken colored woman for prostitution. The big rough brown-skinned man dressed in overalls and a leather jacket picked up with her claimed she was his mother and he was just walking her home.

“Gettin’ so a woman can’t even walk down the street with her own natural-born son,” the woman complained.

“Shut up, can’t you?” the cop said irritably.

“Don’t you tell my mama to shut up,” the man said.

“If this whore’s your mama, I’m Santa Claus,” the cop said.

“Don’t you call me no whore,” the woman said, and slammed the cop in the face with her pocketbook.

The cop struck back instinctively and knocked the woman down. The colored man hit the cop above the ear and knocked him down. Another cop let go his own prisoner and slapped the man about the head. The man staggered head-forward into another cop, who slapped him again. In the excitement someone stepped on the woman and she began screaming.

“Help! Help! They’s tramplin’ me!”

“They’s killin’ a colored woman!” another prisoner yelled.

Everybody began fighting.

The desk sergeant looked down from the sanctuary of his desk and said in a bored voice, “Jesus Christ.”

At that moment Coffin Ed and Grave Digger entered with their two prisoners.

“Straighten up!” Grave Digger shouted in a stentorian voice.

“Count off!” Coffin Ed yelled.

Both of them drew their pistols at the same time and put a fusillade into the ceiling, which was already filled with holes they’d shot into it before.

The sudden shooting in the jammed room scared hell out of prisoners and cops alike. Everybody froze.

“As you were!” Grave Digger shouted.

He and Coffin Ed pushed their prisoners through the silent pack toward the desk.

The Harlem hoodlums under arrest looked at them from the corners of their eyes.

“Don’t make graves,” Grave Digger cautioned.

The lieutenant in charge glanced out briefly from the precinct captain’s office behind the desk, but everything was quiet.

Goldy slipped unobtrusively into the room and stood just inside the doorway, stopping all the bail bondsmen who passed him with a jangle of his collection box.

“Give to the Lawd, gentlemen. Give to the poor.”

If there was anything strange about a black Sister of Mercy soliciting in a Harlem precinct police station at one o’clock in the morning, no one remarked it.

Coffin Ed and Grave Digger got their prisoners booked immediately and handed them over to the jailor. The captain wanted to keep them in the street, not tied up all night in the station.

When they left, Goldy climbed into the back of their small black sedan and left with them. They parked the car in the dark on 127th Street and Grave Digger turned around.

“All right, what’s the tip about the frogs?”

“ ‘Blessed is he that watcheth—’ ” Goldy began quoting.

Grave Digger cut him off. “Can that Bible-quoting crap. We let you operate because you’re a stooly, and that’s all. And don’t you forget, we know you, Bud.”

“Know everything there is to know about you,” Coffin Ed added. “And I hate a goddam female impersonator worse than God hates sin. So just give, Bud, give.”

Goldy dropped his pose and talked straight.

“There’s three con men operating here that’s wanted in Mississippi on a murder rap.”

“We know that much already,” Grave Digger said. “Just give us the monickers they’re using and tell us where they’re holed up.”

“Two of them go as Morgan and Walker. I don’t know the slim stud’s handle. And I don’t know where they’re holed up. They’re working the lost-gold-mine pitch and they’re using a shill named Gus Parsons to bring in the suckers blindfolded.”

“Where did you make them?”

“At Big Kathy’s. Morgan and Walker were there tonight.”

“Fill it in, fill it in,” Grave Digger said harshly.

“I got a brother named Jackson, works for Exodus Clay. They took him for fifteen C’s on The Blow. His old lady, Imabelle, tricked him into it, then she ran away with the slim stud.”

“She’s up with the gold-mine pitch?”

“Must be.”

“What are they using for gold ore?”

“They got a few phony rocks.”

Grave Digger turned to Coffin Ed. “We can take them at Big Kathy’s.”

“I got a better plan,” Goldy said. “I’m goin’ to load Jackson with a phony roll and let Gus Parsons contact him. Gus’ll take him in to their headquarters and you-all can follow them.”

Grave Digger shook his head. “You just said they took Jackson on The Blow.”

“But Gus wasn’t with them. Gus don’t know Jackson. By the time Gus finds out his mistake you’ll have the collar on them all.”

Grave Digger and Coffin Ed exchanged looks. Coffin Ed nodded.

“Okay, Bud, we’ll take them tomorrow night,” Grave Digger said, then added grimly, “I suppose you’re your brother’s beneficiary.”

“I’m just tryin’ to help him, that’s all,” Goldy protested. “He wants his woman back.”

“I’ll bet,” Coffin Ed said.

They let Goldy out of the car and drove off.

“Isn’t there a warrant out for Jackson?” Coffin Ed remarked.

“Yeah, stole five hundred dollars from his boss.”

“We’ll take him too.”

“We’ll take them all.”

The next afternoon when Jackson had finished eating, Goldy gave him a fill-in on the gang’s setup and told him his plan to trap them.

“And here’s the bait.”

He made a huge roll out of stage money, encircled it with two bona fide ten-dollar bills, and bound it with an elastic band. That was the way jokers in Harlem carried their money when they wanted to big-time. He tossed it onto the table.

“Put that in your pocket, Bruzz, and you’re goin’ to be one big fat black piece of cheese. You’re goin’ to look like the biggest piece of cheese them rats ever seen.”

Jackson looked at the phony roll without touching it.

He didn’t like any part of Goldy’s plan. Anything could go wrong. If there was a rumpus the detectives might grab him and let the real criminals go, like that phony marshal had done. Of course, these were real detectives. But they were colored detectives just the same. And from what he’d heard about them they believed in shooting first and questioning the bodies afterward.

“Course if you don’t want your gal back—” Goldy prodded.

Jackson picked up the phony roll and slipped it into his side pants-pocket. Then he crossed himself and knelt beside the table on the floor. Devoutly bowing his head, he whispered a prayer.

“Dear Lord in heaven, if You can’t see fit to help this poor sinner in his hour of need, please don’t help those dirty murderers either.”

“What are you prayin’ for, man?” Goldy said. “Ain’t nothin’ can happen to you. You goin’ to be covered.”

“That’s what I’m worrying about,” Jackson said. “I don’t want to get covered too deep...”