'But not at the same time?'
'No, Sweet Prophet. The Dollar house sent theirs first. They were drawing in Harlem on Saturday and didn't have far to come. A man called Buddy brought it. Then the Monte Carlo house sent theirs next. They were drawing in the Bronx and had farther to come. A man called Bunch Boy brought theirs. And the Tia Juana house sent theirs last because they were drawing away over in Brooklyn. They got a new man called Slick Jenkins who brought theirs.'
'And this Slick Jenkins was the last one to come?' Sweet Prophet asked.
'Yes, Sweet Prophet, but he didn't know I had hit in the other two houses,' Alberta said.
'It stands to reason that he found it out in some way, came back and stole your money, child,' Sweet Prophet declared.
'I don't see how he could have found out,' Alberta contradicted. 'He didn't see the other money because I hid it as soon as I got it, and I didn't tell him nothing.'
'You must have given yourself away in some manner,' Sweet Prophet persisted. 'If this Slick Jenkins is accustomed to paying off big hits, then he is accustomed to the winners hiding their money, and he would know just where to look. You probably left your mattress uncovered when you hid the other money.'
'That's just it, Sweet Prophet, I didn't hide the money in my mattress at first. I cleaned out a lard can and put the money in that and hid it in the refrigerator. I didn't put it in the mattress until after Sugar had come home and I had put him out. I got to thinking it would be safer if I slept on it; but there weren't nobody around when I hid it, and it was still there when I got up yesterday morning because I took out the five hundred dollars to pay for my baptism, and it was there then.'
'Of course, child,' Sweet Prophet said. 'Slick didn't have a chance to steal it until after you had left for the baptism.'
'But what about Rufus and the Jew-man stealing my furniture?' she argued stubbornly. 'What did they do that for if Slick had already stole my money.'
'Just think about one thing at the time,' Sweet Prophet said angrily.
'I'm thinking about it,' she muttered. 'And it don't seem right. He'd be scared to steal the money. The houses wouldn't have no payoff man who stole back the hits; they'd kill him.'
'You said he was a new man.'
'He's just new in Harlem. He was doing the same thing for a house in Chicago before he came here, and he'd know better,' she contended.
Sweet Prophet lost patience. 'Can't you get it through your thick head that he stole your money, woman?' he said angrily. 'There is no other way it could have happened.'
'If you say he stole it, he stole it,' Alberta said, quailing.
'You go to him and tell him to give you your money back,' Sweet Prophet commanded her. 'You tell him that I said so. Tell him that I said I will call down the wrath of heaven on his head if he doesn't give you back your money. Do you know where he lives?'
'Yes, Sweet Prophet, he lives at Five Fifty-five.'
'Then you go up there and get your money back,' he concluded.
'Yes, Sweet Prophet,' she said docilely.
21
'We should have thought of that before,' Grave Digger said.
'It was the Jew who threw us,' Coffin Ed reflected. 'Taking that furniture apart.'
'He's still throwing us,' Grave Digger admitted. 'But first things first.'
'Let's go find her then and lock her up again,' Coffin Ed suggested.
'And fast, before somebody gets hurt,' Grave Digger said.
Fifteen minutes after Alberta had left Sweet Prophet, the detectives' small battered black sedan pulled up before the entrance.
Sweet Prophet was still sitting behind his desk. He still looked like the rising sun. But the lines of weariness on his popeyed countenance had been replaced with a look of fury. He was drinking ice-cold lemonade from a frosted silver pitcher in a cut champagne glass, but the way he gulped it, it didn't seem cold enough to satisfy him.
He greeted the detectives irritably. 'It took you long enough to get here.'
'How did you know we were coming?' Coffin Ed demanded.
Sweet Prophet wiped his face with his yellow silk handkerchief. 'I telephoned for you,' he said.
'We didn't get your call, but here we are,' Grave Digger said. 'What's the beef?'
'My secretary was swindled out of three thousand dollars this morning by a confidence man, right outside of my door, and he hasn't been caught.'
The detectives stood in front of his desk with their hats pushed back on their heads. They stared down at him.
Another woman-the gullible secretary-had been added to the scene since Alberta's departure.
'And I was just trying to help him,' she said.
Grave Digger addressed Sweet Prophet, ignoring her. 'You reported it, didn't you? This morning, I mean.'
'I did,' the secretary said.
'She reported it,' Sweet Prophet hastened to sustain. 'She went to the police right after it happened, but I have just now found out about it.'
'Then you have done all you can do,' Grave Digger said unsympathetically. 'We're after another matter. Why did you go Alberta Wright's bail?'
'That woman! She's the plague of my life!' Sweet Prophet exclaimed in exasperation. 'I did not go her bail. I would not have gone her bail. I do not know how she got out of jail. She thinks I went her bail, and I couldn't very well disillusion her. But whoever did go her bail did not do me any favor.'
The detectives tensed. Coffin Ed's acid-burned face became grimmer, and a vein began throbbing in Grave Digger's temple. Before it had been necessary to find her; now it was urgent.
'That makes it a horse of another color,' Grave Digger said. 'You know she's been robbed?'
'Yes, I know all about it,' Sweet Prophet admitted. 'She came here straight from jail and told me everything.'
'She told you that she hit the numbers for thirty-six thousand dollars.'
'Yes, and you can take it from me that she is as innocent of those killings as I am,' Sweet Prophet said.
'Anybody would be innocent to you with that much money,' Coffin Ed remarked.
'That's for later,' Grave Digger said roughly. 'Where is she now?'
'My God, how do I know?' Sweet Prophet snapped. 'I would imagine she's trying to get her money back, if she's got any sense. After what she told me about the payoff, it was as plain as the nose on your face that one of the payoff men named Slick Jenkins stole her money. I sent her to his house to get it back.'
'You sent her,' Coffin Ed echoed.
The detectives stared at Sweet Prophet incredulously.
'You mean to say you sent her out alone to demand her money from a hoodlum you don't even know, knowing that two men have already been killed about it?' Grave Digger asked, the jugular vein swelling in his neck like corded rope.
'No one is going to hurt that woman,' Sweet Prophet said callously. 'God takes care of children and fools.'
'People will recrucify Jesus Christ for thirty-six grand,' Coffin Ed said harshly.
'You're getting alarmed over nothing,' Sweet Prophet said.
'Leave off!' Grave Digger grated. 'Did she say where Jenkins lives?'
'In the Roger Morris,' Elder Jones volunteered.
'Let's go,' Grave Digger said, striding toward the door, but just before leaving he turned and called to Sweet
