A lamp with a blue bulb burned on a lowboy, vying with a red-bulbed lamp on the dining table. A small fan atop an oak-stained highboy was stirring up the hot air.
The television screen was dark but the radio was playing. It was tuned to a late record program. The voice of Jimmy Rushing issued from the metallic sounding speaker, singing: “I got that old-fashioned love in my heart.…”
A young black man wearing a soiled white turban and a flowing robe of bright-colored rags sat in the center of the davenport, eating a pork chop sandwich and looking over his shoulder with an animated leer.
Behind him a high-yellow woman was doing a chickentail shuffle around the dining table with a dark Jamaica rum highball in one hand. She was wearing a garment that looked like a bleached flour sack with holes cut out for the arms and head. She was a tall, skinny woman with the high sharp hips of a cotton chopper and the big loaded breasts of a wet nurse. As she shuffled barefooted on the pile of rugs, her bony knees poked out the sack in front while her sharp shaking buttocks poked it out in the back like the tail feathers of a laying hen. Up above, her breasts poked out the top of the sack like the snouts of two hungry shoats.
She had a long bony face with a flat nose and jutting chin. Masses of crinkly black hair, dripping with oil, hung down to the middle of her back. Her slanting yellow eyes were doing tricks in the African’s direction.
Grave Digger rapped on the window.
The woman gave a start. Liquid sloshed from the glass over the table cover.
The African saw them first. His eyes got white-rimmed.
Then the woman turned and saw them. Her big, wide, cushion-lipped mouth swelled with fury.
“You niggers better get away from that window or I’ll call the police,” she shouted in a flat unmusical voice.
Grave Digger fished a felt-lined leather folder from his side coat pocket and showed his buzzer.
The woman went sullen. “Nigger cops,” she said scornfully. “What you whore-chasers want?”
“In,” Grave Digger said.
She looked at the drink in her hand as though she didn’t know what to do with it. Then she said, “You cain’t come in here. My husband ain’t at home.”
“That’s all right, you’ll do.”
She looked around at the African. He was getting to his feet as though preparing to leave.
“You stay, we want to talk to you too,” Grave Digger said.
The woman jerked her gaze back toward the window. Her eyes were slits of suspicion. “What you want to talk to him for?”
“Where’s the door, woman?” Coffin Ed said sharply. “Let us ask the questions.”
“It’s in the back; where you think it’s at?” she said.
They stood up and went around to the back of the building.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a real cat-eyed woman,” Coffin Ed remarked.
“I wouldn’t have one for my own for all the tea in China,” Grave Digger declared.
“You just ain’t saying it.”
Steps led down to the green-painted basement door. The woman had it open and was waiting for them, arms akimbo.
“Gus ain’t in no trouble, is he?” she asked. She didn’t look worried; she looked downright evil.
“Who is Gus?” Grave Digger asked, stopping on the bottom.
“He’s my husband, the super.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“How would I know? Trouble is your sugar. What would you be doing messing around here at this time of night unless-” She broke off; her slitted yellow eyes became malevolent. “I just hope ain’t none of these grudging-assed white folks has accused us of stealing something, just ’cause we is going to Ghana,” she said in her flat outraged voice. “It’d be just like ’em.”
“Ghana!” Grave Digger exclaimed. “Ghana in Africa? You’re going to Ghana?”
Her expression became suddenly triumphant. “You heard me.”
“Who’s we?” Coffin Ed asked over Grave Digger’s shoulder.
“Me and Gus, that’s who.”
“Let’s go inside and get this straightened out,” Grave Digger said.
“If you think we has stole something, you’re beating up the wrong bush,” she said. “We ain’t took nothing from nobody.”
“We’ll see.”
She wheeled and went down the brightly lighted, white-washed corridor, her square bony shoulders held high and stiff while her hard sharp buttocks wiggled like a tadpole.
A dark green steamer trunk stood against the wall beside the elevator doors. It bore luggage stickers reading: SS QUEEN MARY-CUNARD LINE-Hold.” Both handles were tagged.
The detectives’ interest went up another notch.
The door to the janitor’s suite opened directly into the overstuffed parlor. When they entered, the African was sitting on the edge of a straight-backed chair with the rum highball shaking in his hand.
The radio was silent.
As she turned to close the door, an animal appeared silently in the kitchen doorway.
The detectives felt their scalps twitch.
At first sight it appeared to be a female lion. It was tawny-colored with a massive head, upright ears and lambent eyes. Then a low growl issued from its throat and they knew it was a dog.
Coffin Ed slipped his revolver from its holster.
“She won’t hurt you,” the woman said scornfully. “She’s chained to the stove.”
“Are you taking this animal with you?” Grave Digger asked in amazement.
“It don’t belong to us; it belongs to an albino nigger called Pinky who Gus had around here to help him,” she said.
“Pinky. He’s your son, ain’t he?” Grave Digger needled.
“My son!” she exploded. “Do I look like that nigger’s ma? He’s already older than I is.”
“He calls your husband his father.”
“He ain’t no such thing, even if he is old enough. Gus just found him somewhere and took pity on him.”
Coffin Ed nudged Grave Digger to show him four tan plastic suitcases which had been hidden from their view by the dining table.
“So where is Gus?” Grave Digger asked.
She got sullen again. “I don’t know where he’s at. Out watching the fire up the street, I suppose.”
“He didn’t go out to get a fix, did he?” Grave Digger took a shot in the dark, remembering their prisoner, Jake.
“Gus!” She appeared indignant. “He ain’t got the habit — no kind of habit, unless it’s the churchgoing habit.” She thought for a moment and added, “I guess he must have went to take the trunk from the storage room; I see somebody put in in the hall.”
“Who’s got the habit?” Coffin Ed insisted.
“Pinky’s got the habit. He’s on H.”
“How can he afford it?”
“Don’t ask me.”
Grave Digger let his gaze rest on the nervous African.
“What’s this man doing here?” he asked her suddenly.
“He’s an African chief,” she said proudly.
“I believe you; but that don’t answer my question.”
“If you just must know, he sold the farm to Gus.”
“What farm?”
“The cocoa plantation in Ghana where we is going.”
“Your husband bought a cocoa plantation in Ghana from this African?” Coffin Ed said incredulously. “What kind of racket is this?”
“Show him your passport,” she told the African.
The African fished a passport from the folds of his robe and held it out toward Grave Digger.
Grave Digger ignored it, but Coffin Ed took it and examined it curiously before handing it back.
“I don’t dig this,” Grave Digger confessed, removing his hat to scratch his head. “Where’s all this money coming from? Your husband can afford to buy a cocoa plantation in Ghana on a superintendent’s salary, and his helper can afford a heroin habit.”
“Don’t ask me where Pinky gets his money from,” she said. “Gus got his on the legit. His wife died and left him a tobacco farm in North Carolina and he sold it.”
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed looked at one another with raised brows.