'I know he doesn't,' Sugar said. 'That's why he wants me to treat him.'
'I don't get that,' the janitor said frankly. 'You is a baby doctor and a man wants you to treat him who ain't got no babies.'
'I treat people so they can get babies,' Sugar explained patiently. 'If a man has lost his potency and can't make any babies, I give him massages with my magic oil. One massage is enough to start him going.' Reaching down through the decollete of the nightgown, he extracted the bottle of sweet oil from his jacket pocket.
'You got on regular clothes underneath,' the janitor observed, his diminishing suspicions increasing again.
'Of course I have on regular clothes,' Sugar said. 'This gown is my doctor's uniform.'
'Oh,' the janitor said. That appeared to satisfy him.
'This oil,' Sugar went on to explain, 'is made from the fat of the tails of bull kangaroos mixed with the essence of the productive organs of lions. It will make you hop like a kangaroo and roar like a lion. After three massages any man of any age will become a father.'
The janitor's eyes popped with interest and amazement.
Sugar pinned a stare on him. 'Are you a father?' he demanded.
'I got grown children,' the janitor stammered guiltily. 'I'm sixty-four years old. But my wife, she got two young kids by her first husband.'
'You are an old man,' Sugar said, tapping him on the chest with his forefinger to drive home the point. 'You got a young wife. You are in trouble, mister.'
'You telling me, doctor,' the janitor said. 'You don't know what trouble is.'
Sugar poked him in the ribs. 'After you have had three massages with this magic oil, your troubles will be over. She won't look at another man. You will have her eating out of your hand.'
The janitor giggled gleefully. 'He he. Wouldn't that be something?'
Sugar looked sympathetic but said regretfully, 'I'm afraid I won't have time for you this morning, as much as I would like to help you.'
'Oh,' the janitor said, wilting disappointedly.
'I have to treat Mr. Clayborne, and I have other patients,' Sugar explained.
'You don't have to worry about Mr. Clayborne,' the janitor said with rising spirits. 'He's dead.'
'Dead!' Sugar exclaimed in amazement. 'When did he die? How did it happen? I talked to him just yesterday, and he looked in fine health, other than he couldn't make babies.'
'He was stabbed to death last night,' the janitor informed him. 'Right over there in them bushes,' he added, pointing toward the park.
Sugar glanced at the clump of bushes in the park and shuddered. 'It's a pity,' he said. 'Such a fine man. He would have made a good father.' Sighing, he added, 'Well, in that case I will take you in his place.'
The janitor hesitated. 'The only thing is I got to get my morning chores done first, and that takes some time. If you don't mind waiting, I will pay you-'
Sugar cut him off with an impatient gesture. 'I do not charge for my services,' he said with asperity. 'My patients give me whatever they can afford. But I can not give you a treatment later on. This magic only works during the first hour of the day, and tomorrow I am going on to Philadelphia.' He turned to the girl and said, 'Come on, Mamba, we can't keep our other patients waiting.'
'Wait a minute, doctor,' the janitor begged. 'I'll just leave those chores if you'll give me a treatment.'
Sugar hesitated with reluctance. 'Well,' he finally conceded. 'If there is no delay.'
'Oh, there won't be no delay,' the janitor promised eagerly. 'If you-all will just follow me.'
He led them along the alley beside the building and through a side doorway into a whitewashed basement corridor. Overhead were asbestos-covered steam pipes, and on each side were freshly painted green doors to the various basement rooms.
Before one of the doors he said, 'Can you-all wait here a minute, doctor, while I get the keys? I don't want my wife to know about it.'
He went around a corner, and they heard him opening the door to his living quarters. A woman's sleepy voice said crossly, 'Is you just got to make so much noise and wake up the children?' They heard a door close softly, and he reappeared with a brass ring the size of a knitting hoop, containing all the master keys.
He unlocked the door, and they entered a storeroom filled with trunks, packing cases and a few odd items of furniture belonging to the tenants.
'Make a place to lie down,' Sugar directed.
The janitor put two steamer trunks end to end and dusted them off.
'Remove your overalls and underwear,' Sugar directed.
'You mean take them off?' the janitor asked.
'How do you expect me to massage you with them on?' Sugar asked.
The janitor looked embarrassed. 'With her here?'
'She's seen a lot of bare backsides,' Sugar said.
Giggling from embarrassment, the janitor slipped off the shoulder braces of his overalls and let them fall to his ankles. He was wearing boxer-type shorts with red roses on a purple background. He let these fall to his ankles also, keeping his back turned to the girl; then he lay on his stomach across the trunks.
The girl watched these proceedings in a stolid, unsmiling, unblinking amazement.
Sugar poured oil on the leathery skin and began massaging. He mumbled sounds, which the janitor believed to be magic words of an African language.
The janitor had placed the key ring on the dusty top of a nearby dressing table.
After a few minutes, Sugar said, 'My assistant will continue while I go wash my hands. Where is there a wash basin I can use?'
'Hand me my keys, doc,' the janitor said without moving. He separated one and gave the ring back to Sugar. 'This is for the boiler room; it's the third door to the right. You'll find everything you want there.'
Sugar took the keys and motioned for the girl to begin massaging the janitor's back, She took over and began rubbing stolidly back and forth like a Spanish peasant washing clothes on a stone slab.
Sugar left the room. He was grateful to the janitor for giving him the keys; otherwise he would have had to take them. He found the door to the boiler room, unlocked it and entered. He stayed long enough to take off the nightgown and towel and put them in the furnace. Then he found his way up to the ground floor and continued up to the second floor by means of the front stairs. He took his time trying the various keys until he found one that unlocked the door to the apartment formerly occupied by Rufus. The door opened on a small hallway that connected the two front rooms and a bathroom to one side. Rufus had done well by himself, Sugar thought.
He went through the sitting room, opened the front window and looked up and down the street. A few early risers were up and about; but it didn't take long to catch a moment when the street was clear. He tossed the keys so that they fell directly in front of the entrance. Then he closed the window and drew the curtains.
He wondered how long it would take the janitor to discover he'd been tricked. As for the girl, if no one stopped her she would keep on rubbing until the skin came off.
He began to search.
13
The keys were lying in the street.
It's a trap, Dummy thought automatically. Nobody could go to a joint looking for some way to get in and find the keys lying at his feet. Life wasn't that easy.
But if the police thought he would fall into their trap, they didn't know Dummy. He looked quickly up and down the street, trying to spot the stake-out. But he didn't see anyone who looked like a dick. Two women who couldn't be anything but housemaids were trudging toward the bus stop; a late worker was hurrying toward the subway kiosk on 110th Street.
Dummy didn't believe that Grave Digger and Coffin Ed would be that crude; so it must be the Homicide men playing around. Well, he would play around, too.
