'How'd you like to escape?' Grave Digger asked.
'I'd like it fine,' she said. 'How'd you like to lay me? Both of you. At the same time.'
'Where?' Coffin Ed asked.
'How is the question,' Grave Digger said.
'Here,' she said. 'And let me worry about how.'
'All joking aside — ' Grave Digger began again, but she cut him off.
'I'm not joking.'
'All sex aside then. Do you know Deke's hideout?'
'If I knew I wouldn't tell you,' she said. 'Anyway, not for nothing.'
'We'll clear you,' he said.
'Shit,' she said. 'You can't clear your own mother-raping selves, much less me. Anyway, I don't know it,' she added.
'Can you find it?'
A sly look came into her eyes. 'I could find it if I was out.'
'I'm reading your mind,' Grave Digger said.
'And it don't read good,' Coffin Ed said.
The sly look went out of her eyes. 'I can't find him from here, and that's for sure.'
'That's for sure,' Grave Digger agreed.
They stared at one another. 'What's in it for me?' she asked.
'Freedom, maybe,' he said. 'When we get Deke we're going to drop the load on him. His two boys are going to fry for cop killing and we're going to fry him for killing Mabel Hill. And you get the ten per cent reward from the eighty-seven grand if we find it.'
They watched the thoughts reflected in her eyes and Coffin Ed said, 'Steady, girl. If you try to cross us there won't be room enough for you in the world. We'll hunt you down and kill you.'
'And don't think you'll be lucky enough to get shot,' Grave Digger added. His lumpy unshaven face looked sadistic from behind the stabbing light, like the vague shadow of a monster's. 'Want me to spell it out?'
She shuddered. 'And if I don't find him?'
He chuckled. 'We'll arrest you for escaping.'
She was consumed with sudden rage. 'You dirty mother-rapers,' she mouthed.
'Better to be dirty than dumb,' Coffin Ed said. 'Are you on?'
She blushed beneath her rainbow color. 'If I could only rape you, you dirty bastard.'
'You can't. So are you on?'
'I'm on,' she said. 'You son of a bitch, you knew it all the time.' After a moment she added, 'Maybe if I don't find Deke you'll rape me.'
'You'll have a better chance if you find him,' he said.
'I'll find him,' she promised.
18
'Make yourself into a black woman and don't ask any questions,' Grave Digger said. 'You'll find everything in there you'll need — make-up, clothes and some money. Don't worry about the dye; it'll come off.'
He turned on the bright lights and he and Coffin Ed went out and locked the door behind them. She found the mirror and went to work. Coffin Ed stood outside the door and listened for a time; he didn't think she'd yell and try to draw attention, but he wanted to make sure. Satisfied she was tending to the business, he went upstairs and waited for Grave Digger to come with the keys to the bullpen. They went inside and interrogated the sullen prisoners until they found a young black woman about Iris's size and age, named Lotus Green. They filled out a card on Lotus, then took her down to the Pigeons' Nest for further questioning.
'What you want with me?' she protested. 'I done tole you everything I know.'
'We like you,' Coffin Ed said.
She shocked the hell out of him by blowing coy. 'You got to pay me,' she said. 'I don't do it with strangers for nothing.'
'We ain't strangers by now,' he said.
He stood outside, listening to her explain why he was still a stranger while Grave Digger went inside to get Iris. She was ready, a fly black woman in a cheap red dress.
'These shit-skin sandals are too big,' she complained.
'Watch your language and act dignified,' Grave Digger said. 'You're a churchwoman named Lotus Green and you hope to go back to Africa.'
'My God!' she exclaimed.
He took her out past the real Lotus while Coffin Ed took the real Lotus inside.
'We're going to put you in the bullpen and when the officer comes for Lotus Green you come out with him,' Grave Digger instructed. 'Just act sullen and don't answer any questions.'
'That won't be hard,' she said.
Coffin Ed locked the real Lotus in the place of Iris, assuring her that he was going to get some money, and joined Grave Digger. They went to the captain's office and asked permission to take out Lotus Green, one of the Back-to-Africa group.
'She saw where the woman went who was robbed that night, but she doesn't know the number,' Grave Digger explained. 'And that woman might have seen all the hijackers.'
The captain suspected some kind of trick. Furthermore he wasn't interested in the hijacking, he just wanted Deke. But it put him on the spot.
'All right, all right,' he snapped. 'I'll send for her and you can take her from my office. Just don't forget your assignment.'
'It's all the same thing,' Grave Digger said. 'Here's the report on her,' and gave him the card.
They went back to see the head jailer. 'We're going to try Iris once more and if she doesn't give we're going to leave her in the dark for a spell. We'll fix it so she can't hurt herself and don't get edgy if someone hears her screaming. She won't be hurt.'
'I don't know what you fellers do down there and I don't want to know,' the jailer said.
'Right,' Grave Digger said and they went down and stood outside the bullpen. When they saw a jailer taking Iris, disguised as Lotus, to the captain's office, they went downstairs and got the real Lotus Green and took her back to the bullpen.
'I waited and I waited,' she complained.
'What else could you do?' Coffin Ed said and they went back upstairs to the captain's office and walked out of the station with Iris between them. They got into their car and drove off.
'We're on our own now,' Coffin Ed said.
'Yeah, we've jumped into the fire,' Grave Digger agreed.
'Well, little sister, where do you want to get out?' Coffin Ed asked the black woman on the back seat.
'Let me out on the corner,' she said.
'What corner?'
'Any corner.'
They pulled to the curb on Seventh Avenue and 125th opposite the Theresa Hotel. They wanted all the stool pigeons in the neighborhood to see her getting out of their car. They knew no one would recognize her, but they were marking her for themselves — just in case.
'This is what you do,' Coffin Ed said, turning about to face her. 'When you contact Deke — '
' If I contact Deke,' she cut in.
He looked at her for a moment and said, 'Just don't try getting cute because we sprung you. That ain't going to make any difference if you try a double-cross.'
She didn't answer.
He said, 'When you contact Deke, just say you know where the bale of cotton is.'