The Big Gold Dream

4

On the south side, Harlem is bounded by 110th Street. It extends west to the foot of Morningside Heights, on which Columbia University stands. Manhattan Avenue, a block to the east of Morningside Drive, is one of the corner streets that screen the Harlem slums from view. The slum tenements give way suddenly to trees and well-kept apartment buildings, where the big cars of the Harlem underworld are parked bumper to bumper. Only crime and vice can pay the high rents charged in such borderline areas. That's where Rufus lived.

Sugar climbed the stairs of a modern brick building at the corner of 113th Street and knocked at the door of a secondfloor apartment.

Rufus answered. He had shed his green silk jacket, but was still wearing the pants along with the pink sport shirt.

"I want to talk to you," Sugar panted menacingly.

"I got a woman inside," Rufus said. "Let's go in the park."

They went down to the street and crossed to the small triangular park formed by the converging of Morningside Drive and Manhattan Avenue at 112th Street. Across the Drive was the rocky incline of Morningside Park, filled with Sunday picnickers. They sat on a green wooden bench.

"Look here, nigger, I told you just to take the television set," Sugar said accusingly.

"You told me she had some money hid there somewhere," Rufus contended. "I searched the place and I didn't find nothing."

"Hell, do you think I didn't search it before I came for you?"

"I heard she dropped dead," Rufus said. "I had to get something for my trouble."

"You didn't have no right to take the furniture-that was mine," Sugar stated.

"If she had anything, she didn't hide it in that furniture," Rufus said. "You can take it from me, man; I have searched too many of these places to miss."

"She had something hidden there, all right," Sugar contended. "I'll bet my life on it."

Rufus looked skeptical. "You know she didn't have much sense. An ignorant woman like her always hides everything in the mattress. And there wasn't nothing in that mattress."

"She had sense enough to fool both of us so far," Sugar reminded him.

"Then she must have hid it somewhere else," Rufus said.

"Where else could she have hid it?" Sugar persisted.

"How in the hell would I know? I wasn't living with her. You was," Rufus said. "And as far as that goes, you ain't got any proof that she ever had anything."

"Oh, I got proof enough," Sugar said. "Besides which, she gave herself away."

"How?"

"Never mind how-that's my little secret."

"You mean because she locked you out of the house last night?" Rufus asked.

"Naw, man, hell, she done that lots of times before," Sugar admitted, but he didn't feel that it was necessary to explain to Rufus the source of his suspicions. He had the feeling that Rufus was smarter than he was, and he didn't want to give him too much to go on. "If you knew her as well as you claim to, you would know she must have got hold of something in order to get religion suddenly," he added.

Rufus looked thoughtful. "Maybe you're right," he conceded. "I'll go through her junk again, piece by piece."

"Where is it at?" Sugar demanded.

"I ain't saying," Rufus replied. "You got your little secret; I got mine."

"All right, man, just don't get yourself hurt."

"Hell, man, I trusted you; now you got to trust me."

"I trust you-. I am just telling you, is all. It's halvers."

"I know it's halvers, man. If I find it, you'll get your half, all right."

"Just remember this is worth your life, man," Sugar threatened.

"You talk like a mugger," Rufus complained aggrievedly. "You don't have to threaten me, man."

"I ain't threatening you," Sugar denied. "I'm just advising you. Don't try nothing funny."

Rufus stood up. "I'm going, man, I got a chick waiting."

"Just don't get careless and find yourself dead," Sugar called after him.