' The what! ' she exclaimed.
'The bale of cotton. And let him take it from there. Then when you get him located, keep him waiting and contact us.'
'Are you sure you mean a bale of cotton?' she asked incredulously.
'That's right, a bale of cotton.'
'And how do I contact you?'
'Call either of these two numbers.' He gave her the telephone numbers of their homes. 'If we're not there, leave a number and we'll call back.'
'Shit on that,' she said.
'All right, then call back in half an hour and you'll be given a number where to contact us. Just say you're Abigail.'
Grave Digger muttered, 'Ed, you're giving us a lot of trouble.'
'What do you suggest that's better?'
Grave Digger thought about it for a moment. 'Nothing,' he confessed.
'Bye-bye then,' Iris said, adding under her breath, 'Blackbirds,' and got out. She walked east on 125th.
Grave Digger eased into the traffic on Seventh Avenue and drove north.
Iris stopped in front of a United Tobacco store and watched their car until it passed from sight. The store had five telephone booths ranged along one wall. Iris chose one quickly and dialed a number.
A cautious voice answered: 'Holmes Radio Repair Shop.'
'I want to talk to Mr Holmes,' Iris said.
'Who's calling?'
'His wife. I just got back.'
After a moment another disguised voice said, 'Honey, where are you?'
'I'm here,' Iris said.
'How'd you get out?'
Don't you wish you knew? she thought. Aloud she said, 'How would you like to buy a bale of cotton?'
There was a long pregnant silence. 'Tell me where you are and I'll have my chauffeur pick you up.'
'Stay put,' she said. 'I'm dealing in cotton.'
'Just don't deal in death,' the voice sounded a deadly warning.
She hung up. When she stepped outside she looked up and down the street. Cars were parked on both sides. Crosstown traffic flowed from the Triborough Bridge headed towards the West Side Highway and the 125th Street ferry and vice versa. There was nothing about the black Ford to set it apart from any other car. It was empty and looked put for some time. She didn't see the two-toned Chevrolet parked down the street. But when she started walking again, she was being tailed.
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed drove their official car, the little black car with the hopped-up engine that was so well known in Harlem, into a garage on 155th Street and left it for a tune-up. Then they walked up the hill to the subway and rode the 'A' train down to Columbus Circle at 59th Street and Broadway.
They walked over to the section of pawnshops and secondhand clothing stores on Columbus Avenue and went into Katz's pawnshop and bought black sunglasses and caps. Grave Digger chose a big checkered cap called the 'Sportsman' while Coffin Ed selected a red, long-billed fatigue cap modelled after those worn by the Seabees during the war. When they emerged, they looked like two Harlem cats, high off pot.
They walked up Broadway to a car rental agency and selected a black panel truck without any markings. The rental agent didn't want to trust them until they put down a large deposit. He took it and grinned, figuring them for Harlem racketeers.
'Will this jalopy run?' Grave Digger asked.
'Run!' the agent exclaimed. 'Cadillacs get out of its way.'
'Damn right,' Coffin Ed said. 'If I owned a Cadillac I'd get out of its way too.'
They got in and drove it back uptown.
'Now I know why the world looks so vague to weedheads,' Grave Digger said from behind the wheel.
'Too bad there isn't any make-up to disguise us as white,' Coffin Ed said.
'Hell, I remember when old Canada Lee was made up as a white man, playing on Broadway in a Shakespearean play; and if Canada Lee could look like a white man, I'm damn sure we could.'
The mechanic at the garage didn't recognize them until Grave Digger flashed his sheld.
'I'll be a mother,' he said, grinning. 'When I saw you coming I locked the safe.'
'Just as well,' Grave Digger said. 'You never know who's in a panel truck.'
'Ain't it the truth?' the mechanic said.
They had him take their radio-telephone from their official car and install it temporarily in the truck. It took forty-five minutes and Coffin Ed called home. His wife said no one named Abigail had called either her or Stella, but the precinct station had been calling every half-hour trying to get in touch with them.
'Just tell them you don't know where we are,' Coffin Ed said. 'And that's the truth.'
When they left the garage they were able to pick up all the police calls. All cars had been alerted to contact them and order them back to the station. Then the cars were instructed to pick up a slim black woman wearing a red dress, named Lotus Green.
Coffin Ed chuckled. 'By this time that yellow gal has damn sure got that dye off, much as she hates being black.'
'And she ain't wearing that cheap red dress, either,' Grave Digger added.
They drove over to a White Rose bar at the corner of 125th and Park Avenue, across the street from the 125th Street railroad station, and parked behind a two-toned Chevrolet. Ernie was sitting in a shoeshine stand outside the bar, facing Park. The sign on the awning read: AMERICAN LEGION SHOE SHINE. Two elderly white men were shining colored men's shoes. Across the avenue, seen between the stanchions of the railroad trestle, was another shoeshine, its awning proclaiming: FATHER DIVINE SHOE SHINE. Two elderly colored men were shining white men's shoes.
'Democracy at work,' Coffin Ed said.
'Down to the feet.'
'Down at the feet,' Coffin Ed corrected.
Ernie saw them go into the bar but gave no sign of recognition. They stood at the bar like two cats having a sip of something cold to dampen their dry jag, and ordered beer. After a while Ernie came in and squeezed to the bar beside them. He ordered a beer. The white barman put down an open bottle and a glass. Ernie wasn't looking when he poured it and some sloshed on to Grave Digger's hand. He turned and said, 'Excuse me, I wasn't looking.'
'That's what's on all them tombstones,' Grave Digger said.
Ernie laughed. 'She's at Billie's, the dancer, on 115th Street,' he said under his breath.
'Don't pay no 'tention to me, son, I was just joking,' Grave Digger said aloud. 'Stay with it.'
The bartender was passing. He looked from one to the other. Stay with it, he thought. Stay with what? As long as he'd been working in Harlem, he had never learned these colored folks' language.
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed finished their beers and ordered two more and Ernie finished his and went out. Coffin Ed used the bar phone and telephoned his home. There had been no call from Abigail, but the precinct station had been calling regularly. The bartender was listening furtively but Coffin Ed hadn't said a word. Then finally he said, 'Stay with it.' The bartender started. Nuts, he thought looking vindicated.
They left their beers half finished and went around the corner and sat in their truck.
'If we could tap the phone,' Coffin Ed said.
'She's not going to phone from there,' Grave Digger said. 'She's too smart for that.'
'I just hope she don't get too mother-raping smart to live,' Coffin Ed said.
Billie was alone when Iris knocked with the brass-hand knocker on the black and yellow lacquered door. She opened the door on the chain. She was wearing yellow chiffon lounging slacks over a pair of black lace pants and a long-sleeved white chiffon blouse fastened at the cuffs with turquoise links. She might as well have been naked. Her slim, bare, dancer's feet had bright red lacquered nails. As always she was made up as though to step before the
