'I been robbed!' she screamed. 'I been swindled. That black son of a bitch has done beat me out of all my Christian money!'
It required the efforts of two bank guards to subdue her and send her to the police station to tell her story.
Dummy stole quietly away.
16
At ten o'clock, Alberta was arraigned before the Municipal Court and bound over to the Grand Jury. Her bail was set at $2,500. No one was there to go her bail.
She was transferred downstairs from the city prison to the county prison. They are both in the same building, because Manhattan is a county as well as one of the boroughs of New York City.
She was mugged and fingerprinted, and her Bertillon measurements were taken. Then she was put in a cell with a light yellow sloppy-looking woman serving a year and a day for shoplifting.
'The top bunk, dearie,' the yellow woman said.
Alberta climbed up into the top bunk and lay down.
'What's your rap, dearie?' the yellow woman asked.
'I ain't got any rap,' Alberta muttered.
'What are you down for, then?'
'I ain't down for nothing.'
'That ain't going to get you nowhere, dearie, acting like that. You've got your mouth stuck out a country mile.'
'What if I is,' Alberta said.
The yellow woman laughed maliciously. 'You'll get used to it, dearie. I've been down so long that down don't worry me.'
'I want to see my preacher,' Alberta said.
'Who is your preacher, dearie?'
'Sweet Prophet.'
'That old hustler.'
'Don't talk like that about my preacher,' Alberta said.
'He ain't no preacher,' the yellow woman said. 'He's a pimp.'
Alberta got down from her bunk and stood over the yellow woman. Her face was puffed up, and she looked threatening.
'You take that back,' she demanded.
The yellow woman sized her up. 'All right, dearie, I was wrong,' she said. 'Have you got any money?'
'I got fifty dollars,' Alberta said.
'You have, honey!' the yellow woman exclaimed in a sugary voice. 'You got fifty bucks. Why, honey, you just give me half of it and I'll get word to your preacher.'
'How are you going to do that?' Alberta asked suspiciously.
'It's easy. You just got to grease the right palm. What's the old-er-prophet's phone number?'
'I don't know.'
'Well, it don't make any difference, if he's in the book. You just give me the money and relax.'
'I ain't got nothing but ten-dollar bills,' Alberta said.
'Well, just give me thirty dollars,' the yellow woman said. 'It ain't going to break you.'
Alberta fished three ten-dollar bills from her brassiere and handed them to the yellow woman.
'If he don't come, I want my money back,' she said.
'I can't do no business like that, honey,' the yellow woman said as she stuffed the bills into the toe of her shoe. 'Use your head. All I can do is to get word to him; if he don't come, it won't be my fault.'
Alberta gave in. 'All right. Maybe he won't have time to come, but just tell him to get me out of here.'
'I'll sure tell him that, honey,' the yellow woman promised.
She raked her tin cup across the bars, then lay on the floor and writhed and screamed.
Shortly, a big Irish matron appeared.
'I got the cramps,' the yellow woman gasped. 'I feel like I'm dying.'
'All right, just relax,' the Irish matron said. 'If you ain't died yet from the cramps, you won't die now. I'll call Mrs. Ball to take you to surgery.'
When the matron left, the yellow woman winked at Alberta and said, 'You got to learn that if you're in here for any length of time. The only thing they'll take you to surgery for right away is the cramps. After you get there, then you can make any connections you want.'
'I just want to see my preacher,' Alberta said. 'He'll tell me what to do.'
17
Sugar Stonewall was in the courtroom when Alberta was bound over. It was safe enough. Half of the spectators were colored people who looked just like him. Still, he was tense.
He had begged his subway fare downtown. Now he stopped a colored woman in the corridor and asked, 'Lady, can you give me fifteen cents to get uptown? I just ain't got no money.'
She fished a subway token from her purse and handed it to him without looking up.
He stopped on the way out and drank from the fountain. Water wouldn't nourish him, he knew, but it helped to weight his empty stomach down.
He walked over to Broadway and caught the A express train, transferred to a local at 125th Street and rode back to 116th Street.
It was about eleven o'clock when he arrived at the tenement on 118th Street where Alberta had her flat.
The big black woman hanging out of the front window on the ground floor was beginning to show signs of wear. The sun was on that side of the street, and her eyes blinked sleepily in the sunshine, but she was still hanging on with grim determination.
Sugar tried to slip past her, but she opened her eyes and caught him.
'I thought you'd be in jail by now,' she said by way of greeting.
'Why don't you leave me alone, woman,' he muttered.
'I ain't doing nothing to you,' she said, taking offense. 'It ain't none of my business what you people do.'
He entered the hall without replying. He kept going, up to the roof, and paused for a moment at the top of the fire escape to case the windows on the other side of the back court. Most of the windows were wide open, and housewives were visible doing their Monday morning chores. The weekly washings were strung on pulley lines from one building to another, crisscrossing one below the other down the narrow pit to the bottom. The graveled tar of the flat, burning hot roof was soft beneath his feet.
Finally he relaxed. He was on familiar ground. The heat bubbling from the tarred roof, the smell of cooking collard greens and pork and the jarring clash of colors on the lines of Monday wash put him at his ease.
He went down the fire escape and tried the window. A woman watched him from the kitchen window across the courtyard, but she had seen him in the flat often enough to know him. The shades were drawn and the window was locked, but he had long before prepared for such an emergency. A tiny hole was chipped in the window glass just above the catch, and a rusty tenpenny nail was wedged in the corner between the window frame and sill, where he had left it.
He opened the catch, raised the window and went inside, slipping beneath the shade. The woman across the way lost interest and returned to her chores when she didn't hear any sounds of fighting.
