was wrapped in a midnight hush. It was called an interracial hospital; more than half of its staff of doctors and nurses were colored people. A graduate nurse sat behind the reception desk. A bronzeshaded desk lamp spilled light on the hospital register before her while her brown-skinned face remained in shadow. She looked up inquiringly as Grave Digger and Ready Belcher approached, walking side by side. 'May I help you,' she said in a trained courteous voice. 'I'm Detective Jones,' Grave Digger said, exhibiting his badge. She looked at it but didn't touch it. 'You received an emergency patient here about two hours ago; a man with his right arm cut off.' 'Yes?' 'I would like to question him.' 'I will call Dr. Banks. You may talk to him. Please be seated.' Grave Digger prodded Ready in the direction of chairs surrounding a table with magazines. They sat silently, like relatives of a critical case. Dr. Banks came in silently, crossing the linoleum-tiled floor on rubber-soled shoes. He was a tall, athletic-looking young colored man dressed in white. 'I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Jones,' he said to Grave Digger whom he knew by sight. 'You want to know about the case with the severed arm.' He had a quick smile and a pleasant voice. 'I want to talk to him,' Grave Digger said. Dr. Banks pulled up a chair and sat down. 'He's dead. I've just come from him. He had a rare type of blood — Type O — which we don't have in our blood bank. You realize transfusions were imperative. We had to contact the Red Cross blood bank. They located the type in Brooklyn, but it arrived too late. Is there anything I can tell you?' 'I want to know who he was.' 'So do we. He died without revealing his identity.' 'Didn't he make a statement of any kind before he died?' 'There was another detective here earlier, but the patient was unconscious at the time. The patient regained consciousness later, but the detective had left. Before leaving, he examined the patient's effects, however, but found nothing to establish his identity.' 'He didn't talk at all, didn't say anything?' 'Oh yes. He cried a great deal. One moment he was cursing and the next he was praying. Most of what he said was incoherent. I gathered he regretted not killing the man whom he had attacked — the white man who was killed later.' 'He didn't mention any names?' 'No. Once he said 'the little one' but mostly he used the word
GB, you want to know something. The Big John hangs out in the Inn. How about that. Just like those old
Romans.
Bee.
Grave Digger folded it again and slipped it into his pocket. 'Is your girl called Bee?' he asked Ready. 'Naw, suh, she called Doe.' 'Do you know any girl called Bee — a school girl?' 'Naw suh.' 'GB?' 'Naw suh.' Grave Digger turned out the pockets of the clothes but found nothing more. He wrapped the bundle and attached the tag. He noticed Ready staring at the number on the tag again. 'Don't let that number catch up with you,' he said. 'Don't you end up with that tag on your fine clothes.' Ready licked his dry lips. They didn't see Dr. Banks on their way out. Grave Digger stopped at the reception desk to tell the nurse he hadn't found anything to identify the corpse. 'Now we're going to look for the Greek's car,' he said to Ready.
They found the big green Cadillac beneath a street lamp in the middle of the block on 130th Street between Lenox and Seventh Avenues. It had an Empire State license number — UG-16 — and it was parked beside a fire hydrant. It was as conspicuous as a fire truck.
He pulled up behind it and parked. 'Who covered for him in Harlem?' he asked Ready. 'I don't know, Mista Jones.' 'Was it the precinct captain?' 'Mista Jones, I — ' 'One of our councilmen?' 'Honest to God, Mista Jones — ' Grave Digger got out and walked toward the big car. The doors were locked. He broke the glass of the left-side wind screen with the butt of his pistol, reached inside past the wheel and unlocked the door. The interior lights came on. A quick search revealed the usual paraphernalia of a motorist: gloves, handkerchiefs, Kleenex, half-used packages of different brands of cigarettes, insurance papers, a woman's plastic overshoes and compact. A felt monkey dangled from the rear view mirror and two medium-sized dolls, a black-faced Topsy and a blonde Little Eva, sat in opposite corners on the back seat. He found the miniature bull whip and a Manila envelope of postcard-sized photos in the right-hand glove compartment. He studied the photos in the light. They were pictures of nude colored girls in various postures, each photo revealing another developed tethnique of the sadist. On most of the pictures the faces of the girls were distinct although distorted by pain and shame. He put the whip in his leather-lined coat pocket, kept the photos in his hand, slammed the door, walked back to his own car and climbed beneath the wheel. 'Was he a photographer?' he asked Ready. 'Yas suh, sometime he carry a camera.' 'Did he show you the pictures he took?' 'Naw suh, he never said nothing 'bout any pictures. I just seen him with the camera.' Grave Digger snapped on the top light and showed Ready the photos. 'Do you recognize any of them?' Ready whistled softly and his eyes popped as he turned over one photo after another. 'Naw suh, I don't know none of them,' he said, handing them back. 'Your girl's not one of them?' 'Naw suh.' Grave Digger pocketed the envelope and mashed the starter. 'Ready, don't let me catch you in a lie,' he said again, letting out the clutch.
13
He parked directly in front of the Dew Drop Inn and pushed Ready through the door. On first sight it looked just as he had left it; the two white cops guarding the door and the colored patrons celebrating noisily. He ushered Ready between the bar and the booths, toward the rear. The varicolored faces turned toward them curiously as they passed. But in the last booth he noticed an addition. It was crowded with teenagers, three school boys and four school girls, who hadn't been there before. They stopped talking and looked at him intently as he and Ready approached. Then at sight of the bull whip all four girls gave a start and their young dark faces tightened with sudden fear. He wondered how they'd got past the white cops on the door. All the places at the bar were taken. Big Smiley came down and asked two men to move. One of them began to complain. 'What for I got to give up my seat for some other niggers.' Big Smiley thumbed toward Grave Digger. 'He's the man.' 'Oh, one of them two.' Both rose with alacrity, picked up their glasses and vacated the stools, grinning at Grave Digger obsequiously. 'Don't show me your teeth,' Grave Digger snarled. 'I'm no dentist. I don't fix teeth. I'm a cop. I'll knock your teeth out.' The men doused their grins and slunk away. Grave Digger threw the bull whip on top of the bar and sat on the high bar stool. 'Sit down,' he ordered Ready, who stood by hesitantly. 'Sit down, Goddamn it.' Ready sat down as though the stool were covered with cake icing. Big Smiley looked from one to another, smiling warily. 'You held out on me,' Grave Digger said in his thick cottony voice of smoldering rage. 'And I don't like that.' Big Smiley's smile got a sudden case of constipation. He threw a quick look at Ready's impassive face, found nothing there to reassure him, then fell back on his cut arm which he carried in a sling. 'Guess I must be runnin' some fever, Chief, 'cause I don't remember what I told you.' 'You told me you didn't know who Galen was looking for in here,' Grave Digger said thickly. Big Smiley stole another look at Ready, but all he got was. a blank. He sighed heavily. 'Who he were looking for? Is dat what you ast me?' he stalled, trying to meet Grave Digger's smoldering hot gaze. 'I dunno who he were looking for, Chief.' Grave Digger rose up on the bar stool rungs as though his feet were in stirrups,
