with a brick to hurl through the plate-glass window. A Back-to-Africa follower grabbed him and took it away. 'None of that, son, we're peaceful,' he said.
'What for?' the youth asked.
The man couldn't answer.
Suddenly the air was filled with the distant wailing of the sirens, sounding at first like the faint wailing of banshees, growing ever louder as the police cruisers roared nearer, like souls escaped from hell.
The first cruiser ploughed through the mob and shrieked to a stop on the wrong side of the street. Two uniformed white cops hit the pavement with pistols drawn, shouting, 'Get back! Get off the street! Clear the street!' Then another cruiser plowed through the mob and shrieked to a stop… Then a third… Then a fourth… Then a fifth. Out came the white cops, brandishing their pistols, like trained performers in a macabre ballet entitled 'If You're Black Get Back'.
The mood of the mob became dangerous. A cop pushed a black man. The black man got set to hit the cop. Another cop quickly intervened.
A woman fell down and was trampled. 'Help! Murder!' she screamed.
The mob moved in her direction, taking the cops with it.
'Goddamned mother-raping shit! Here it is!' a young black man shouted, whipping out his switch-blade knife.
Then the precinct captain arrived in a sound truck. 'All officers back to your cars,' he ordered, his voice loud and clear from the amplifiers. 'Back to your cars. And, folks, let's have some order.'
The cops retreated to their cars. The danger passed. Some people cheered. Slowly the people returned to the sidewalks. Passenger cars that had been lined up for more than ten blocks began to move along, curious faces peering out at the black people crowding the sidewalks.
The captain went over and talked to Bill Davis and the two men with him. 'Only nine persons are permitted on a picket line by New York law,' he said. 'Will you thin these pickets down to nine?'
Bill looked at the elderly men. They nodded. He said, 'All right,' to the captain and thinned out the picket line.
Then the captain went inside the office and approached Colonel Calhoun; he asked to see his licence. The Colonel's papers were in order; he had a New York City permit to recruit farm labor as the agent of the Back-to- the-Southland movement, which was registered in Birmingham, Alabama.
The captain returned to the street and stationed ten policemen in front of the office to keep order, and two police cruisers to keep the street clear. Then he shook hands with Bill Davis and got back into the sound truck and left.
The mob began to disperse.
'I knew we'd get some action from Reverend O'Malley, soon as he heard about all this,' the church sister said.
Her companion looked bewildered. 'What I wants to know,' she asked, 'is we won or lost?'
Inside, the blond young man asked Colonel Calhoun, 'Aren't we pretty well finished now?'
Colonel Calhoun lit a fresh cheroot and took a puff. 'It's just good publicity, son,' he said.
By then it was noon, and the two young colored clerks slipped out the back door to go to lunch.
Later that afternoon one of Mr Goodman's workmen stood in the crowd surrounding the Back-to-Africa pickets, admiring the poster art on the windows of the Back-to-the-Southland office. He had bathed and shaved and dressed up for a big Saturday night and he was just killing time until his date. Suddenly his gaze fell on the small sign in the corner reading: Wanted, a bale of cotton. He started inside. A Back-to-Africa sympathizer grabbed his arm.
'Don't go in there, friend. You don't believe that crap, do you?'
'Baby, I ain't thinking 'bout going south. I ain't never been south. I just wanna talk to the man.'
'Bout what?'
'I just wanna ask the man if them chicken really got legs that big,' he said, pointing to the picture of the chicken.
The man bent over laughing. 'You go 'head and ast him, man, and you tell me what he say.'
The workman went inside and walked up to Colonel Calhoun's desk and took off his cap. 'Colonel,' he said, 'I'm just the man you wanna see. My name is Josh.'
The Colonel gave him the customary cold-eyed appraisal, sitting reared back in his chair as though he hadn't moved. The blond young man stood beside him.
'Well, Josh, what can you do for me?' the Colonel asked, showing his dentures in a smile.
'I can get you a bale of cotton,' Josh said.
The tableau froze. The Colonel was caught in the act of returning the cheroot to his lips. The blond young man was caught in the act of turning to look out towards the street. Then, deliberately, without a change of expression, the Colonel put the cheroot between his lips and puffed. The blond young man turned back to stare wordlessly at Josh, leaning slightly forward.
'You want a bale of cotton, don't you?' Josh asked.
'Where would you get a bale of cotton, my boy?' the Colonel asked casually.
'We got one in the junkyard where I work.'
The blond young man let out his breath in a disappointed sigh.
'A junk man sold it to us just this morning,' Josh went on, hoping to get an offer.
The blond young man tensed again.
But the Colonel continued to appear relaxed and amiable. 'He didn't steal it, did he? We don't want to buy any stolen goods.'
'Oh, Uncle Bud didn't steal it, I'm sure,' Josh said. 'He must of found it somewheres.'
'Found a bale of cotton?' The Colonel sounded sceptical.
'Must have,' Josh contended. 'He spends every night traveling 'bout the streets, picking up junk what's been lost or thrown away. Where could he steal a bale of cotton?'
'And he sold it to you this morning?'
'Yassuh, to Mr Goodman, that is; he owns the junkyard, I just work there. But I can get it for you.'
'When?'
'Well, ain't nobody there now. We close at noon on Sat'day and Mr Goodman go home; but I can get it for you tonight if you wants it right away.'
'How?'
'Well, suh, I got a key, and we don't have to bother Mr Goodman; I can just sell it to you myself.'
'Well,' the Colonel said and puffed his cheroot. 'We'll pick you up in my cah at the 125th Street railroad station at ten o'clock tonight. Can you be there?'
'Oh, yassuh, I can be there!' Josh declared, then hesitated. 'That's all right, but how much you going to pay me?'
'Name your own price,' the Colonel said.
'A hundred dollars,' Josh said, holding his breath.
'Right,' the Colonel said.
10
Iris lay on her sofa in the sitting-room reading Ebony magazine and eating chocolate candy. She had been under twenty-four-hour surveillance since the hijacking. A police matron had spent the night in her bedroom while a detective had sat up in the sitting-room. Now there was another detective there alone. He had orders not to let her out of his sight. He had followed her from room to room, even keeping the bathroom door in view after having removed the razor blades and all other instruments by which she might injure herself.
He sat facing her in an overstuffed chair, leafing through a book called Sex and Race by W. G. Rogers. The only others books in the house were the Bible and The Life of Marcus Garvey. Sex and Race didn't interest him. Garvey didn't interest him either. He had read the Bible, at least all he needed to read.
