Street. Thomas was inside having supper, his bus-girl friend hovering around his table, both of them laughing and wisecracking.
I felt a little better until a cop came over and asked what I was doing. He was an old cop, with a red-veined white face and a lousy set of false teeth. When he talked just the lower part of his mouth moved. I told him I was waiting for a friend and he said I couldn't double-park on Twenty-third Street, didn't I know that? I said I was sorry and started the Jaguar and he asked for my license. If he had a cellophane head I couldn't have seen his little bird brain working any clearer: a coloured man in an expensive car —S.O.P.—it must be a stolen heap. I showed him my license and registration, praying Thomas didn't look out the window and see me.
The cop grunted, “I'll give you a ticket the next time I catch you double-parking,” as he handed my license back.
“I don't doubt that you will.”
“Get fresh and I'll give you a ticket right now!”
“Who's 'fresh'? You said something and I answered you,” I said, crawling slightly, all the anger I'd felt at Mrs. James welling up in me.
He took out his notebook, muttered, “I'll just take down your name and license number, smart guy. Be sure I remember it.” His lower lip was moving like a ventriloquist's dummy.
I shut up; no point in talking myself into a ticket. When he finished scribbling I asked, “Can I go now?”
Another grunt: “Yeah.”
I found a parking space over on Ninth Avenue and walked back to take a plant across the street from the cafeteria, telling myself I was a dummy to talk to the cop; if he saw me now it might start another verbal fight.
Thomas took his time eating and I was getting hungry myself. Finally he and Miss Burns checked their watches and he walked out and up to his room. I stopped at the corner, where I could keep an eye on his house without being conspicuous. He came out at seven, wearing a shirt and tie under his windbreaker, his blond hair carefully brushed. He picked up his girl in front of the cafeteria and they went across the street and into a movie.
I phoned Kay but Barbara said she wasn't in and I left a message that everything was under control. Bobby didn't ask any questions. I phoned Sybil to ask if she wanted to eat Chinese food. She said she'd already eaten but would have supper waiting for me, and to bring in some beer.
After circling Sybil's place several times in even larger circles, I found a parking space, brought in a couple bottles of High Life. Sybil gave me a plate of reheated stew with gummy rice, garlic bread, and salad. She had her hair up in curlers, which I hate, but otherwise she was in a good mood, didn't even mention the P.O. once. I kept thinking about Mrs. James and I told Sybil about it and she said, “What can you expect from poor Negroes?” Only she didn't say Negroes and I got boiling and she sat on my lap, kissing me slowly and asking between each kiss, “What's the matter with my big Touie?”
Of course it was corny as the devil, but it worked. I looked at Sybil's pretty face, and I thought about the TV job and wondered what I had to be angry about.
After I washed the dishes we drank the beer and watched TV, then played gin while waiting for the fights to come on. About eleven, right after the news, as we were settling down to watch a late movie, an English one, the phone rang. Sybil said it was for me. Ollie said, “Knew where to find you, old man. Look, you just got a phone call from a woman named Miss Robbens. She said it was very important I reach you at once. I told her I could find you and she said to give you this message: you're to meet her in Tutt's room, inside the room, at exactly midnight.”
“In the room? Ollie, sure you have that straight, inside the room?”
“You too? I'm going to resign as your private secretary. Look, I wrote the message down and she even had me repeat it over the phone. She sounded excited, kept asking if I could reach you for sure. I told her not to worry, I'd carry it to you. Got it, sleuth? Exactly midnight in Tutt's room. Doesn't give you much time.”
“Yes. You're certain I'm to go into the room?”
Ollie sighed. “Told you I wrote it down, repeated it back to her. I'm reading it now. You straight, old man?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Ollie.”
I hung up and dialed Kay. Barbara answered, sounding half asleep. She told me Kay was out, that she hadn't seen her since morning. Then she suddenly asked, with new life in her voice, “Touie, haven't you seen Kay tonight?”
I said no and hung up. As I put on my tie and shoes, Sybil asked, “What's up?”
“I don't know.”
“You look worried.”
“I sure am. Something's happened on this Madison Avenue TV deal, something I don't understand.” I kept thinking that if Kay wanted me to meet her in Thomas' room, the secret must be out and the whole damn publicity deal off—and I was off the case too.
“If you were in the P.O., you wouldn't have to go chasing off in the middle of the night or—”
“Not now, honey,” I said, kissing her good night. “Maybe I'll be back.”
“No, you don't, don't you break into my sleep—I have to make time tomorrow. I'm going shopping before I go into work.”
“Then I'll phone you on the job, as usual.”
It was eleven eighteen when I started for my car, then hailed a cab on Broadway. I wouldn't have time to play hide and seek with a parking space downtown. I got out my notebook—Thomas-Tutt had room 3 in apartment 2F. Damn, if I was off the case I'd have to give back part of the retainer and I had less than fifty bucks on me. Although Kay had said a minimum of a month. Of course I didn't have to give back a dime, legally, but I wanted to retain Kay's good will. If there was a snafu, why call me to his room? Kay could phone me the deal was off and that would be that. Or did going to his room mean I was still working? Or ...
I sat up straight as the cowboy at the wheel cut into the highway on two wheels. This could only mean one thing— Thomas had taken a powder! Sure, Kay had found out— somehow—he'd flown the coop, and I was up the creek. Me and my big detective agency, couldn't even handle a simple shadow job. But hell, she'd told me herself I only had to check on him twice a day until his case was televised. He was taking his girl to the movies a few hours ago, unless he was smarter than he looked. Thomas wasn't getting ready to run. And how would Kay know? Or was she having somebody else check on Thomas too? And on me?
I paid the cabbie off on the corner. It was still seven minutes before midnight. The house and the block were quiet. I stood in front of the house for a moment. Why exactly at midnight? Two middle-aged stinking winos came out of the house, gave me the usual look, but with bleary-eyed trimmings. As I went up the few steps to the doorway, they wobbled down the street, glancing back at me and mumbling something.
I stood outside 2F, a dim and crummy hallway smelling of stale food and various human stinks. Harlem didn't have a monopoly on lousy houses. I tried the doorknob; it wasn't locked. Another hallway, narrower, hotter, with rooms opening off it. There was a dirty metal “3” on the door nearest the main door. I listened and didn't hear a thing, but there was light coming through the crack under the door. I rapped gently, waited a few seconds, turned the knob and the door opened.
I suppose as soon as I saw the messed-up room I knew the score. Only I couldn't quite believe it.
It was a small room, with only a bed and a metal dresser —all the drawers out and ransacked. Thomas seemed to be sleeping in bed, covers pulled up over his head. I had a sudden, sickening hunch the person in bed might be Kay. Closing the door, I stepped over Thomas' pants and wind-breaker on the floor, and then I saw the wet blood on the gray pillow. There was a large pair of bloody pliers on the floor.
Pulling back the covers I saw the back of Thomas' head bashed in. He was face down, blood all over his head and shoulders, blood still wet. It was even splattered on the cheap-pink painted wall behind the bed.
I stood there like a dummy, still holding the cover with my fingertips, knowing I had to think damn fast, and afraid of what I was thinking. I didn't have to be a detective to know what all this meant.
Maybe I stood there a few seconds, even a few minutes. There were footsteps on the stairs, at the outside door. In the back of my mind, the only part that was thinking clearly, I expected them. I dropped the blanket as the door flew open—a thick-faced white cop stood there. He wasn't expecting a body but when he saw the bloody bed his gun flew out of his heavy blue overcoat pocket like his hand was on springs. His deep voice said, “Keep your hands in sight, up, you black sonofabitch! Got you dead to rights.” Maybe it was my imagination but I thought he sounded almost happy— thinking of promotion.
What I'd known since I first got Ollie's call came into sharp focus: I'd been had, been set up for this from the go. Now my mind was clear and racing—the cops would learn about the fight in the coffeepot when they checked at the school, the beat cop in Brooklyn would remember me, so would the fat cop who wanted to give me a ticket at supper-time. And the winos seeing me enter the house a few minutes ago. I'd been had but tight.
I held my hands up, shoulder high. The cop was alone, probably the beat cop. Exactly at midnight. The timing was so simple, a phone call to the precinct at five to midnight saying there was trouble in room 3, apartment 2F, and the post cop catching me.
He was staring at me, waiting for me to say something. I didn't bother making words. It boiled down to a white cop and black me, and he had the “difference” in his hand. I'd look silly trying to explain... all I could do was stand very still.
In that split second something my old man used to say rushed through my mind. “A Negro's life is dirt cheap because he hasn't any rights a white man must respect. That's the law, the Dred Scott Decision, son. Always remember that.”
I was remembering; any move on my part and I'd be dead.
“Why don't you robbing bastards stay up in Harlem where you belong instead of
