An evil chuckle came over the wire. “I’m the man who can help him get his money back-for a split,” the voice said.
She tried to think, but she didn’t know where to start. “You’d better call Casper at the hospital,” she said.
“You call him, sugar pie. I’ve called six times and can’t get through to him. So you do it, honey chile.”
“What shall I tell him?” she asked, then added viciously, “Redneck.”
“I’ll make your li’l neck red if I get hold of you,” the voice said, then added, “just tell him what I told you, and if he wants to do business, he better take my call.”
She remembered what Casper had told her about keeping her lip buttoned up. If she did the wrong thing, he’d be furious. She didn’t know what to do.
“It can keep, can’t it?” she said.
“Keep until when?”
“Until he gets out the hospital.”
“When will that be?”
“When?” She felt trapped. “I don’t know when. Ask at the hospital.”
“You ain’t doing him no good, baby doll,” the voice taunted. “He ain’t going to like it when he finds out what he’s missed.”
“All right, sonofabitch!” she flared. “I’ll call him and you call me back.”
“What good is that going to do? I got to do business with him. And it ain’t going to keep. If Casper wants to lie in the hospital with his head underneath the pillow, that’s just going to be his bad luck. And I’ll figure out some other way to get my split.”
Her mind exploded with vulgarity, as it always did when she felt cornered.
“For chrissakes, call back after eight o’clock,” she said exasperatedly. “I don’t know what the hell-”
She didn’t get a chance to finish it. A soft click sounded from the other end, and the line went dead. She sat staring at the receiver. She began trembling again. Scare went through her like acid.
“Now what the hell did I say?” she wondered.
It was twenty minutes past six when the telephone rang.
A proper male voice answered. “H. Exodus Clay’s Funeral Parlor. Good evening. May we be of service to you?”
“This is the Pinkerton Detective Agency,” the voice said at the other end. “Leave me speak to the boss.”
It was a Southern voice with a Mississippi accent. It was a white man’s voice.
The attendant said, “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”
A moment later Clay’s querulous voice came on the line, “What is it now?”
“This is the Pinkerton Detective Agency,” the voice repeated.
“You said that before,” Clay snapped. “This is my funeral parlor. Now let’s get on.”
“We are sending three men up to your place to guard the ambulance you’re sending for Mister Holmes,” the voice informed him.
During the past hour, the voice had repeated the same words to sixteen other ambulance services and funeral homes in Harlem without the desired result. But this time the voice struck pay dirt.
“It’s not an ambulance I’m sending,” Clay said tartly. “It’s a hearse.”
A chuckle came over the wire. “That’s just the right thing,” the voice said. “What time are you sending it?”
“Casper has arranged for his own guards,” Clay replied with a note of racial pride in his thin, peevish voice. “We’re all local people up here. We don’t need any big-time race-track detectives with machine guns just to go a few blocks down the street. Inform your employers that it’s already covered.”
“That’s mighty fine,” the voice said. “But we’ve been employed by the national party. We’ll cover the coverers.”
“Well, you’d better hurry then. It’ll leave here in half an hour.”
“That’ll work out fine,” the voice said. “We won’t interfere with any of the arrangements; we’ll keep in the background. You don’t even have to mention us.”
“You needn’t worry about that,” Clay said sarcastically. “I don’t get paid to advertise the Pinkertons.”
With that rejoinder he clapped down the receiver.
There was a traffic jam on the Brooklyn Bridge.
A trailer truck had skidded on a spot of slick ice caused by the overheated radiator of a passenger car that had passed a short time previously, and sideswiped a passenger bus.
There were no casualties, but the truck bumper had gored a hole in the side of the bus and it took time to get them apart.
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed sat in the stalled line of cars and fumed. They had the feeling that time was rushing past like a maniac with a knife and they were caught barefooted with their hands tied. They couldn’t back out, couldn’t squeeze through; they couldn’t abandon the car on the bridge and walk.
Roman sat in the back in his sailor’s suit, white cap stuck on the back of his head and his manacled hands in his lap.
Grave Digger looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes past six. The snow was coming down.
“I’d rather be bit in the rear by a boa constrictor than sitting here waiting for something to happen, and I can’t even guess what,” he complained bitterly.
“All I’m waiting to happen is for them to get those wrecks apart,” Coffin Ed grated.
It was three minutes past seven when they turned into East 19th Street from Third Avenue and began looking for the house.
They had no trouble finding it. It had a four-story yellow brick-veneer front, with candy-striped awnings at all the upper windows sagging with snow. The first-floor lounge had a wide picture window overlooking a three-foot strip of lawn. The window curtains were a translucent pale-blue silk, behind which the silhouettes of people moved in a frantic saraband. Black steps led up to a door covered with a plate of blackened bronze set in a white frame. In the upper panel was a knocker that looked vaguely obscene; overhead was a carriage lamp.
Coffin Ed drove past and parked three houses beyond. In unison they turned about and looked at Roman.
“We want you to go in that, house back there and ask for Junior Ball,” Grave Digger lisped.
“I didn’t understand you,” Roman said.
“Let me talk,” Coffin Ed said to Grave Digger.
Grave Digger waved him ahead.
Coffin Ed repeated the order.
“Yes, sir,” Roman said, then asked, “What do I say to him if he’s there?”
“He ain’t there,” Coffin Ed said. “He’s dead. They know he’s dead, but you’re not supposed to know. You just got off shipboard and you came looking for him at this address that he gave you last time your ship was in.”
“I’m supposed to be one of those?”
“That’s right.”
“What do I do when they tell me he’s dead?”
“They’re not going to tell you. They’re going to invite you in and ask you to wait; they’ll tell you they expect Junior to arrive any minute.”
“What do I do while I’m waiting?”
“Hell, boy, where have you been all your life? It’s a pansy crib. They’ll find things for you to do.”
“I don’t go for that stuff,” Roman. muttered.
“What kind of square are you? This ain’t the docks. These are high-brows. Who do you think you’re going to find in a hundred-thousand-dollar house a block away from Gramercy Square? They’re going to try to make you, but they’re going to test you first. You just sit there and drink your cocktails and look embarrassed-”
“That ain’t going to be hard.”
“Act like you’re waiting for Junior. Then, after about five minutes, start looking impatient. Let your eyes rove around. Then ask whoever you’re talking to what time will Baron be in.”
“Baron!” Roman sat up straight. “Mister Baron? The man who sold me my car? Is he going to be in there?”
