women he passed. Beneath the padded coat his shoulders looked as wide as a team of yoked oxen.
Dummy followed in the shuffling, half-crouching gait of a prize fighter stalking his opponent. He looked constantly to both sides and over his shoulder, using his eyes in place of ears.
The young man joined the people waiting for the bus around the corner. He puffed his cigarette rapidly, made erratic, meaningless gestures and stared into the women's faces.
Dummy loitered in front of a jewelry store next to the corner. The window was filled with watches, atop price tags giving the credit terms. He saw the reflection of the bus when it approached 116th Street.
It was a green Fifth Avenue bus, a Number Two. It came up Fifth Avenue to the north end of Central Park, turned over to Seventh Avenue, and passed through the middle of Harlem.
Dummy waited until it had almost finished loading, then dashed around the corner and hopped aboard.
The young man had stayed up front. Dummy took a seat in the back and looked out of the window.
The Theresa Hotel Grill looked busy, but the hotel entrance was dead; not even the doorman was on duty, and the sports who held up the walls later in the day had not yet awakened. The big two-faced clock on the opposite corner in front of the credit jeweler's said six minutes after nine.
Along the way the RKO movie theater was closed, the churches were closed, the bars were closed, the pool rooms were closed, the undertakers were closed. Hotel entrances looked dead; a trickle of shoppers patronized the various food stores. Only the greasy spoons were doing good business.
Across 145th Street, Seventh Avenue passed between two housing developments, the Rockefeller-built Dunbar Apartments and the slum clearance Federal Housing Project. They looked dead, too.
At 155th Street the bus turned west onto the end of the bridge over the Harlem River and passed high above one of Father Divine's Heavens on the roof of which, in giant white letters, was the word peace. Then it turned north into the winding strip of Edgecombe Drive, overlooking the flats along the river bank.
Dummy heard the bell ring, and, as the bus slowed down for the stop at 157th Street, he saw the young man go down the stairs. He let the young man alight; then, just before the door closed, he jumped up to follow as though he'd forgotten his stop. The young man recognized him; Dummy was known to everyone in the Harlem underworld.
But Dummy didn't give the young man a glance. He waited for the bus to drive on and cut across the street.
Only one side of the Drive was built up; the other was a steep rocky park descending to the flats, on which were built the Polo Grounds and a new housing development.
Without hesitating, Dummy entered the ornate lobby of the Roger Morris Apartment House, better known as 555. In its day it had been a very pretentious apartment dwelling for upper income whites, but now it was occupied for the most part by successful colored racketeers, jazz musicians, madames and current prize fighters.
He knew that, when the young man had come this far, he was coming here. And he knew there would be nothing to arouse the young man's suspicions in his coming here, too. He stood in the hall, talking in sign language to the dumb porter, whose hero he was. The young man came in and saw them talking. His face burst into its sudden moronic grin, and he made some eccentric gestures with his hands as though to join in the conversation. The two mutes ignored him.
He went back to the elevators and went upstairs.
Dummy and the porter talked about prize fighting. The porter leaned on his mop and let the water stand on the floor. A young woman, passing as a model or a showgirl, came from the elevator and had to walk through the dirty soapy water in her fragile pink shoes. She complained with shocking vulgarity, and the porter told her with gestures what she could do. Dummy went on saying that with a few weeks training he'd be in shape to take on the Cuban Kid.
The young man came down accompanied by a middle-aged man equally as tall but slimmer, with a pale tan ascetic-looking face. He was dressed in a tropical worsted suit of slate blue, black and white shoes, a dull ivory- colored shirt and a tie and matching display handkerchief the color of tarnished silver.
'Who are they?' Dummy asked his friend.
'The slick is a payoff man for the Tia Juana numbers house,' the porter said. 'I haven't ever seen the starker before.' Then he added, 'The slick is called Slick.'
With his hands Dummy said, 'I'll be hearing you,' and moved off.
Outside, Slick and the starker separated. Slick got into an olive green Chrysler New Yorker hardtop and drove off south. The starker walked down the corner and stood waiting for the bus.
Dummy walked the short block up the incline to St. Nicolas Avenue and caught the faster Number Three Fifth Avenue bus and was down on 116th Street waiting for the starker. He had resumed his seat on the stool behind the pushcart watermelon stand, and was watching a customer sink his grinning teeth into a quarter of bright red, black-seeded, ice-cold watermelon, when the starker walked rapidly from Seventh Avenue and re-entered the hotel.
Then suddenly Dummy's roving gaze picked up the debonair figure of Slick lounging before the entrance to Sweet Prophet's Temple across the street. Dummy got up, crossed the street and sat on the front stool of a lunch counter, where he could command a view of the whole sidewalk. He pointed to a grill-plate covered with roasting hot dogs. The counter-girl served him one off the front, put it in a bun and slid him the mustard. He then pointed to a shiny nickel-plated juice machine, and the girl drew him a glass of pale yellow liquid called lemon squeeze. He sat there, munching his hot dog in his tongueless mouth and sipping the cold chemical-tasting drink, while watching Slick out of the corners of his eyes.
He noticed that Slick was watching the entrance of the hotel across the street under the pretense of being interested in Sweet Prophet's press clippings, which were on display under glass in the Temple entrance.
Following Slick's gaze, Dummy saw that the starker had reappeared in the hotel entrance, smoking a cigarette. From the way he held the cigarette, pinched between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand, and sucked at it, Dummy knew it was a marijuana cigarette. The starker was watching the entrance to the stairs that led to Sweet Prophet's private quarters, while Slick watched him. There was an intentness about both of them that caused Dummy to wonder.
Suddenly the starker tipped his beaver hat to nothing. Slick stepped quickly from the shadowed entrance of the Temple into the bright sunshine. As he passed the entrance to Sweet Prophet's quarters, a legal size Manila envelope slipped from beneath his coat and fluttered to the sidewalk. He walked a few steps further and paused with his left hand on the handle of a parked car while he fumbled in his pockets with his right hand, as though searching for the keys. No one was close by at the moment, and seemingly no one but Dummy noticed the lost envelope. Nevertheless, the starker kept his gaze riveted on it.
At that moment a buxom colored woman emerged from Sweet Prophet's entrance and stepped from the sidewalk. She stopped for a moment to adjust her tight-fitting cotton print dress more sedately over her corseted figure. She looked like a sister who would say 'Amen' at the drop of a hat. The pious expression on her face fought a losing battle with a flaunting pride; her soul was saved, and she knew it. Beneath a bare, hamsized, dull black arm she carried a flat, black, narrow attache case. Her hostile gaze roved over the street scene disapprovingly; then she got astride her dignity and started off.
Her sharp eye lit on the Manila envelope. She started to pass it, but something she saw written on it made her hesitate. She peered with drawn brows, her lips moving slightly as she read. Then suddenly her whole demeanor underwent a complete change. Greed replaced the pious expression on her face. Her dignity gave way to stealth. She looked about furtively to see if she was being watched, then bent over quickly to adjust her shoe. In doing so, the attache case slipped from beneath her arm and fell directly on top of the envelope, completely hiding it. When she had finished adjusting her shoe and had straightened up with the case, the envelope had disappeared.
Once more the starker tipped his hat to the bright hot sunshine.
Slick turned quickly away from the parked car and approached the woman from the rear.
'I beg your pardon, madame, but I just dropped that envelope,' he said politely. 'It must have slipped from my pocket while I was putting away my wallet.'
The woman looked as offended as though he had said, 'Hi, baby, how about a date?' She drew up to her full fat height and said sharply, 'What envelope? What are you talking about?'
They were standing in profile, and Dummy could read their lips. He swallowed with a sound like a dog gulping meat.
