And you can’t set here in the middle of the street all night.”
“I wish I had the mother-raper who built that castle there in the middle of Harlem,” Roman said as though it were responsible for his losing sight of the Cadillac.
“Well, you ain’t got him, and you better get out the middle of the street before someone comes along and claims you has stolen this Buick.”
“We has, ain’t we?” Roman said.
The bump had revived Mister Baron, and they could hear him groaning down on the floor behind them. “Oh God… Oh Jesus Christ… Those dirty bastards…”
Roman slipped the car in gear and drove slowly down between the rows of brick-fronted apartment buildings on St. Nicholas Place.
The castle, somebody’s brainstorm at the turn of the century, stood at 149th Street; above were the better- class residences for the colored people of Harlem. Roman was unfamiliar with this part of town, and he didn’t know which way to turn.
Mister Baron gripped the back of the front seat and pulled himself to his knees. His long, wavy hair hung down over his forehead; his eyes rolled loosely in their sockets.
“Let me out,” he said, moaning. “I’m going to be sick.”
Roman stopped the car in front of a red brick building with a fluted facade. Big new cars lined the curbs.
“Shut up!” he said, “if it hadn’t been for you, I never would have run off after hitting that old lady.”
Mister Baron’s mouth ballooned, but he held it back, “I’m going to be sick in the car,” he blubbered.
“Let him out,” Sassafras said. “If you’d listened to me, none of this would have happened.”
“Get out, man,” Roman shouted. “You want me to lift you?”
Mister Baron opened the curbside door and polled to his feet. He staggered groggily toward a lamppost. Roman jumped from the other side and followed him.
Mister Baron clung to the post and heaved. Steam rose as though he were spouting boiling water. Roman backed away.
“Jesus Christ in heaven,” Mister Baron moaned.
Roman let him finish and clutched him by the arm. Mister Baron tried weakly to free himself.
“Let me go-I got to make a phone call,” he said.
“You ain’t going nowhere until I find my car,” Roman muttered, pushing him toward the Buick.
Mister Baron pulled back, but he could scarcely stand. His head was filled with shooting pains, and his vision wouldn’t focus. “Fool, how can I help you find your car if you won’t let me telephone? I want to call the police and report that it’s been stolen.” His voice sounded desperate.
“Naw, you don’t; you ain’t telling the police nothing,” Roman said, pushing him into the back of the car and slamming the door. He went around the car and climbed back beneath the wheel. “You think I want to get arrested?”
“Those weren’t real police, you idiot,” Mister Baron said.
“I know they weren’t police. You think I’m a fool? But what am I going to tell the sure enough police about hitting that old lady?”
“You didn’t hurt that old lady. I looked back once when you were driving off and saw her getting up.”
Roman stared at Mister Baron while that sunk in. Sassafras turned about to look at Mister Baron, too. The two of them, suddenly staring and immobile-he with his Davy Crockett coonskin cap and she with the tasseled red knitted cap topping her long, black face-looked like people from another world.
“You knew I didn’t hurt her, and you kept egging me to run away.” Roman’s thick Southern voice sounded dangerous.
Mister Baron fidgeted nervously. “I was going to stop you, but before I could say anything those bandits drove up and took advantage of the situation.”
“How do I know you ain’t in with ’em?”
“What for?”
“They stole my car. How do I know you ain’t had ’em do it?”
“You’re a fool,” Mister Baron cried.
“He ain’t such a fool,” Sassafras said.
“Fool or not, I’m going to hold on to you until I find my car,” Roman told Mister Baron. “And, if I don’t find it, I’m going to take my money ’way from you.”
Mister Baron started laughing hysterically. “Go ahead and take it. Search me. Beat me up. You’re big and strong.”
“I worked a whole year for that money.”
“You worked a whole year. And you saved up sixty-five hundred dollars-”
“That’s nearmost every penny I made. I went without eating to save that money.”
“So you could buy a Cadillac. You weren’t satisfied with an ordinary Cadillac. You had to buy a solid gold Cadillac. And I’m the-the-I’m the one who sold it to you. For a thousand dollars less than list price. Ha ha ha! You had it twenty minutes and let somebody steal it-”
“What’s the matter with you, man? You going crazy?”
“Now you want your money back from me. Ha ha ha! Go ahead and start hitting me. Take it out of my skin. If that don’t satisfy you, throw me down and rape me.”
“Look out now, I don’t go for that stuff.”
“You don’t go for that stuff. You goddam chicken-crap square.”
“You’re going to make me hit you.”
“Hit me! Come on and hit me.” Mister Baron thrust his womanish face toward Roman’s lowering scowl. “See if you can knock sixty-five hundred dollars out of me.”
“I don’t have to. I can just throw you down and take it.”
“Throw me down and take it! Wouldn’t I love that!”
Sassafras put in her bit. “You ain’t going to love what he’s going to take ’cause it’s just going to be money.”
“Goddammit, where were you two squares when those bandits knocked me out and robbed me?” Mister Baron asked.
“Knocked you out?” Roman said stupidly.
“Is that what was the matter with you?” Sassafras echoed.
“And they robbed you? Of my money?”
“It was my money,” Mister Baron corrected. “The car was yours, and the money was mine.”
“Jesus Christ,” Roman said. “They took the car and the money.”
“That’s right, square. Are you going to let me go and make that phone call now?”
“Naw, I ain’t. I going to take you out and search you. I might be a square, but I ain’t trusted you from the start.”
“That’s fine,” Mister Baron said, and started to get out onto the sidewalk.
But Roman reached back, grabbed him and forced him out into the street. Then he got out and started shaking him down.
“Be careful, Roman,” Sassafras said. “Somebody might come by here and think you is robbing him.”
“Let ’em think what they want,” Roman said, turning Mister Baron’s pockets inside out.
“Do you want me to undress?” Mister Baron asked.
Roman finished with his pockets and felt through his clothes; then ran his hands over Mister Baron’s body, up and down his legs and underneath his arms.
“He ain’t got it on him,” he conceded.
But he wasn’t satisfied. He searched the back of the Buick.
“It ain’t there, either.” He took off his coonskin cap and rubbed his short, curly hair back and forth. “If I catch those mother-rapers I going to kill ’em,” he said.
“Let him telephone,” Sassafras said. “He said you ain’t hurt the old lady, and I is ready to swear you ain’t even hit her.”
Roman stood in the street, thinking it over. Mister Baron stood beside him, watching his expression.
“All right, get in the car,” Roman said.
