'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.'
22
Tuesday passed. Colonel Calhoun and his nephew had disappeared. So had Grave Digger and Coffin Ed. The entire police force was searching for them. The panel truck had been found abandoned beside the cemetery at 155th Street and Broadway, but no trace of their whereabouts. Their wives were frantic. Lieutenant Anderson had personally joined in the search.
But they had simply ditched the panel truck and limped over to the Lincoln Hotel on St Nicholas Avenue, operated by their old friend, took adjoining rooms and went to bed. They had slept around the clock.
Now it was Wednesday morning, and they had come down to the precinct station in a taxi, wearing bedroom slippers on bandaged feet, to turn in their report.
At sight of them the captain turned purple. He looked on the verge of an apoplectic stroke. He wouldn't speak to them, wouldn't look at them again. He gave orders for them to wait in the detectives' room and telephoned the
