Before leaving, they went to the window to case the street. There was the customary array of downtown porters and domestic workers on their way to work. They didn't spot anyone who looked like a detective. But while they were watching they saw the girl come from the alleyway, carrying a pair of overall pants, and start highballing in the direction of 114th Street. A moment later the janitor appeared in his hickory-striped shirt and flowered shorts and took out after her. They disappeared around the corner.
Dummy looked at Sugar and wrote the question, you bring my girl here?
Sugar nodded, without offering any further explanations.
Dummy didn't ask for any; he wrote: you owe me $2.
'I'll pay you,' Sugar said, thinking it was no more than right.
'I ain't got it now, but I'll pay you later.'
They shook hands to seal the agreement.
Sugar left first, whistling nonchalantly as he walked rapidly in the direction of 110th Street.
Dummy remained long enough to give the flat another quick going over; then he paused for a moment in the downstairs vestibule to search the street with his roving gaze. Satisfied, he placed the ring of keys on the sidewalk where he had found them and headed in the opposite direction. He had both hands in his pockets, and he shuffled along looking as innocent as a five-year-old English bulldog who had just killed the neighbor's pedigreed cat.
14
'What time is it?' the bus driver asked the roving checker at the bus stop at 111th Street.
The checker consulted his watch. 'Seventeen minutes and thirteen seconds past seven o'clock,' he said.
The driver synchronized his watch and put the bus in gear.
Sugar had been standing with the people waiting for the bus, but he hadn't got on board. He had been watching to see Dummy leave the building up the street. He had seen him come out, place the keys back on the sidewalk and walk off, but a moment later a woman jostled him, and, when he got the street in focus again, Dummy had vanished. However, he was satisfied that Dummy had gone about his business.
He hastened back toward the house, but a woman tenant on her way to work had beaten him to the keys. She was ringing the super's bell when he arrived.
Dummy watched him from the doorway up the street where he had ducked. He grinned to himself. He figured that Sugar had doubled back to search the flat again; perhaps Sugar had found a likely hiding place and had saved it for a private search. But Dummy was satisfied that the money wasn't there.
He waited until Sugar re-entered the building. Then he kept on his way, this time without hesitating or looking back.
Sugar made as if to pass the woman, then stopped and looked inquiringly at the keys.
'You want to return the super's keys?' he asked.
'I found them in the street,' she said defensively.
'He must have dropped them,' Sugar said. 'I'm just going downstairs. I'll take them to him.'
The woman looked at him suspiciously, but she was late and didn't have time to argue. She handed him the ring grudgingly, saying, 'I hope I'm doing right; I hope you ain't no burglar.' He was about to protest, but she salved her conscience by adding, 'Anyway, I have rung his bell.'
Without replying, Sugar hastened through the basement doorway and descended the stairs. He hadn't seen the janitor return, but it was a risky business.
He found the janitor's wife standing in the open door to their quarters, looking up and down the corridor. She was what he had expected, a loose, ripe, high-yellow woman with cowlike eyes and a petulant expression. Smooth fat arms and mountains of cream-colored flesh showed above the decollete blue rayon nightgown, and black hair hung in long greasy curls about her shoulders.
When she saw it was a man she became coy, more from habit than desire, and asked in a simpering voice, 'Did you ring my bell?'
'Yes, ma'am,' he said politely, letting his gaze rove approvingly over her padded figure. 'I found these keys on the sidewalk out front.'
Her expression changed instantly to one of suspicion. 'Where's he at?'
'The last I saw of him he was chasing some young girl,' Sugar said.
The next instant her face darkened with an evil look. 'I'll fix him,' she threatened. 'Around here chippy- chasing at this hour of the morning.'
'Can I come in?' Sugar asked. 'I want to ask you some questions.'
'Come right on,' she said, merely turning her body to let him pass.
She took up most of the doorway, and in passing he rubbed against her body. It was a pleasure.
At seven-forty-four, Alberta was taken by a matron from the cell that she occupied with two other colored women into the small reception room, where lawyers interviewed their clients and detectives re-examined suspects.
She still wore the maid's uniform, but now it was gray all over, and streaked with black. She had removed the bathing cap, and her straightened hair stuck out in all directions. She looked bone-tired, and her expression was sullen.
The shyster waiting for her knew his way around. He had a degree in law from a colored university in Washington, D.C., and a license to practice in New York State. Most of his business was making bail for prostitutes and racketeers and pleading them guilty if the fine was right. His youthful, grinning black face inspired confidence in most people, but it had the opposite effect on Alberta.
'Slick sent me,' he said.
'Who is you?' she asked.
'I'm his lawyer,' he said.
'What he want?' she asked.
'He said if you will tell him where it is and go halvers, he will get you out when he gets it,' he said.
'I wouldn't be surprised but what he ain't already got it himself,' she said.
'What would he want to make a deal for if he already had it?' he asked.
'Because if he's got it, he's got two murder charges to go along with it,' she said.
'That's just the point,' he said. 'He ain't got it, and you got the two murder charges instead.'
'How can he get me out?' she asked.
'He's got somebody tapped for the killings,' he said.
'What killing?' she asked.
'Both of them,' he said.
'Then he knows who done them,' she said.
'I didn't say that,' he denied. 'I said he can give somebody to the police to satisfy them so they will let you go.'
'I don't want him to do that if the person he's going to accuse ain't guilty,' she said.
'All right then, let's say the person is guilty. Does that satisfy you?' he asked.
'Is it somebody I know?' she asked.
He hesitated. 'He don't know if it's anybody you know or not. He don't know who you know. It's not your man, if that's what you want to know,' he said.
'All right-I'll give him half when I get out if he tells the police who did it,' she bargained slyly.
'You've got to tell him where it is first,' he said.
'You've got to give me time to think,' she said, stalling.
He looked at his watch. 'Listen, woman, you ain't got no time to think,' he said. 'I got to be out of here by eight o'clock, and I'm not coming back, and your case is coming up at ten o'clock.'
'You go back and tell Slick he had better watch himself,' she said. 'God is going to strike him dead like He done those other two.'
