worked completely around the bale of cotton, then, facing the audience, flung her arms wide apart and gave her hips a final shake. 'Ohhh, daddy cotton!' she cried.
Abruptly the lights came on and the audience went wild with applause. Billie's smooth voluptuous body was wet with sweat. It gleamed like a lecher's dream of hot flesh. Her breasts were heaving, the nipples pointing like selecting fingers.
'And now,' she said, slightly panting when the applause died down, 'I shall auction this bale of cotton for the actors' benefit fund.' She smiled, panting, and looked down at a nervous young white man with his girl at a ringside table. 'If you're scared, go home,' she challenged, taunting him with a movement of her body. He reddened. A titter arose. 'Who'll bid a thousand dollars?' she said.
Silence fell.
From two tables back someone said in a level southern drawl, 'One thousand.'
Eyes pivoted.
A lean-faced white man with long silvery hair, a white moustache and goatee, wearing a black frock coat and black string bow, sat at a table with a young blond white man wearing a white tuxedo jacket and a Dubonnet- coloured bow.
'The mother-raper,' Coffin Ed said.
Grave Digger gestured for silence.
'A gentleman from the Old South!' Billie cried. 'I'll bet you're a Kentucky Colonel.'
The man stood up, tall and stately, and bowed. 'Colonel Calhoun, at your service, from Alabama,' he drawled.
Someone in the audience clapped. 'A brother of yours, Colonel,' Billie cried delightedly. 'He's attracted by this cotton too. Stand up, brother.'
A big black man stood up. The colored people in the audience roared with laughter.
'What you bid, brother rat?' Billie asked.
'He bids fifteen hundred,' a voice cried jubilantly.
'Let him bid for himself,' Billie snapped.
'I don't bid nothing,' the man said. 'You just asted me to stand up, is all.'
'Well, sit down then,' Billie said.
The man sat down self-consciously.
'Going,' Billie said. 'Going. This fine bale of natural-grown Alabama field cotton going for one thousand — and maybe I'll go with it. Any other bids?'
Only silence came.
'Cheapskates,' Billie sneered. 'You're going to close your eyes and imagine it's me, but it ain't going to be the same. Last chance. Going, going, gone. And look how many actors will benefit.' She winked brazenly, then said, 'Colonel Calhoun, suh, come forward and take possession of it.'
'Of what?' some wit cracked.
'Guess, you idiot,' Billie sneered.
The Colonel arose and went forward to the platform, a tall, straight, confident white man, and handed Billie ten one-hundred-dollar bank notes. 'I deem it an honor, Miss Billie, to purchase this cotton from a beautiful nigra girl who might also be from those happy lands — '
'Not me, Colonel,' Billie interrupted.
'— and in so doing benefit many deserving nigra actors,' the Colonel finished.
There was a scattering of applause.
Billie ran and pulled handfuls of cotton from the bale and the Colonel tensed momentarily, but as quickly relaxed when she came running back and showered the strands of cotton on to his silvery head.
'I hereby ordain you as King of Cotton, Colonel,' she said. 'And may this cotton bring you wealth and fame.'
'Thank you,' the Colonel said gallantly. 'I'm sure it will,' and then signalled to the stage door opposite Grave Digger and Coffin Ed. Two ordinary-looking colored workmen came forward with a hand truck and took the bale of cotton away.
Grave Digger and Cotton Ed hurried towards the street, limping like soul-brothers with duck feet. The truckmen brought out the bale of cotton and put it in back of an open delivery truck, and the Colonel followed leisurely and spoke to them and got into his black limousine.
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed were already in their panel truck parked a half-block back.
'So he found his car,' Coffin Ed remarked.
'One gets you two it was never lost.'
'That's a sucker's bet.'
When the truck drove off they followed it openly. It went up Seventh Avenue and drew to the curb in front of the Back-to-the-Southland office. Grave Digger drove past and turned into the driveway of a repair garage, closed for the night, and Coffin Ed got out and began picking the lock of the roll-up door as though he worked there. He was working at the lock when the Colonel's limousine pulled up behind the truck across the street and the Colonel got out and looked about. He got the lock open and was rolling up the door by the time the Colonel had unlocked the door to his own office and the truckmen began easing the bale of cotton down onto the sidewalk. Grave Digger drove the panel truck into the strange garage and cut the lights and got out beside Coffin Ed. They stood in the dark doorway, checking their pistols, and watched the truckmen wheel the bale of cotton into the brightly lighted office and drop it in the center of the floor. They saw the Colonel pay them and speak to the blond young man, and when the truckmen left, the two of them spoke briefly again and the blond young man returned to the limousine while the Colonel turned out the lights and locked the door and followed him.
When they drove off, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed hurried across the street, and Coffin Ed began picking the lock to the Back-to-the-Southland office while Grave Digger shielded him.
'How long is it going to take?' Grave Digger asked.
'Not long. It's an ordinary store lock but I got to get the right tumbler.'
'Don't take too long.'
The next moment the lock clicked. Coffin Ed turned the knob and the door came open. They went inside and locked the door behind them and moved quickly through the darkness to a small broom closet at the rear. It was hot in the closet and they began to sweat. They kept their pistols in their hands and their palms became wet. They wanted to talk but were afraid to risk it. They had to let the Colonel get the money from the bale of cotton himself.
They didn't have long to wait. In less than fifteen minutes there was the sound of a key in the lock. The door opened and two pairs of footsteps entered and the door closed.
They heard the Colonel say, 'Pull down the shades.'
They heard the sounds of the shades covering the front windows and the door being pulled to the bottom and latched. Then there was the click of the light switch and the keyhole in the closet had sudden dimensions.
'Do you think that'll be enough?' a voice questioned. 'Anyone can see there's a light on inside.'
'There's no risk, son, everything is covered,' the Colonel said. 'Let's don't be too secretive. We pay the rent here.'
There was the sound of the bale of cotton being shifted, probably being turned over, Grave Digger thought.
'Just give me that knife and keep the bag ready,' the Colonel said.
Grave Digger felt in the darkness of the closet for the doorknob, and squeezed it hard and pulled it. But he waited until he heard the sound of the knife cut into the bale of cotton before turning it. Soundlessly he opened the door a crack and released the knob with the same caution.
Now through the crack they could see the Colonel engrossed in his work. He was cutting through the cotton with a sharp hunting knife and pulling out the fibers with a double-pronged hook. The blond young man stood to one side, watching intently, holding open a Gladstone bag. Neither looked around.
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed breathed silently through their mouths as they watched the hole grow larger and deeper. Loose cotton began piling up on the floor. The Colonel's face began sweating. The blond young man looked increasingly anxious. A frown appeared between his eyes.
'Have you got the right side?' he asked.
