engine had been installed in the delivery truck, and it might be traced. They copied the licence and engine numbers on the off-chance of finding some garage that had serviced it, but they knew it was unlikely.
The curious crowd that had collected had begun to drift away. The harness cops guarding the wrecks until the police tow trucks carried them off looked extremely bored. The rain hadn't slackened the heat; it had only increased the density. The detectives could feel the sweat trickling down their bodies beneath their wet clothes.
It was getting late and they were impatient to get on to the trail of Deke, but they didn't want to overlook anything so they examined the truck inside and out with their hand torches.
The indistinct lettering: FREYBROS. INC. Quality Meats, 173 West 116th Street, showed faintly on the outside panels. They knew there wasn't any such thing as a meat provision firm at that address.
Then suddenly, as he was flashing his light inside, Coffin Ed said, 'Look at this.'
From the tone of his voice Grave Digger knew it was something curious before he looked. 'Cotton,' he said. He and Coffin Ed looked at each other, swapping thoughts.
Caught on a loose screw on the side panel were several strands of cotton. Both of them climbed into the truck and examined it carefully at close range.
'Unprocessed,' Grave Digger said. 'It's been a long time since I've seen any cotton like that.'
'Hush, man, you ain't never seen any cotton like that. You were born and raised in New York.'
Grave Digger chuckled. 'It was when I was in high school. We were studying the agricultural products of America.'
'Now what can a meat provision company use cotton for?'
'Hell, man, the way this car is powered. you'd think meat spoiled on the way to the store — if you want to think like that.'
'Cotton,' Coffin Ed ruminated. 'A mob of white bandits and cotton — in Harlem. Figure that one out.'
'Leave it to the fingerprinters and the other experts,' Grave Digger said, jumping down to the pavement. 'One thing is for sure, I ain't going to spend all night looking for a mother-raping sack of cotton — or a cotton picker either.'
'Let's go get Early Riser's buddy,' Coffin Ed said following him.
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed were realists. They knew they didn't have second sight. So they had stool pigeons from all walks of life: criminals, straight men and squares. They had their time and places for contacting their pigeons well organized; no pigeon knew another; and only a few of those who were really pigeons were known as pigeons. But without them most crimes would never be solved.
Now they began contacting their pigeons, but only those on the petty-larceny circuit. They knew they wouldn't find Deke through stool pigeons; not that night. But they might find a witness who saw the white men leave.
First they stopped in Big Wilt's Small's Paradise Inn at 135th Street and Seventh Avenue and stood for a moment at the front of the circular bar. They drank two whiskies each and talked to each other about the caper.
The barstools and surrounding tables were filled with the flashily dressed people of many colors and occupations who could afford the price for air-conditioned atmosphere and the professional smiles of the light-bright chicks tending bar. The fat black manager waved the bill on the house and they accepted; they could afford to drink freebies at Small's, it was a straight joint.
Afterwards they sauntered towards the back and stood beside the bandstand, watching the white and black couples dancing the twist in the cabaret. The horns were talking and the saxes talking back.
'Listen to that,' Grave Digger said when the horn took eight on a frenetic solo. 'Talking under their clothes, ain't it?'
Then the two saxes started swapping fours with the rhythm always in the back. 'Somewhere in that jungle is the solution to the world,' Coffin Ed said. 'If we could only find it.'
'Yeah, it's like the sidewalks trying to speak in a language never heard. But they can't spell it either.'
'Naw,' Coffin Ed said. 'Unless there's an alphabet for emotion.'
'The emotion that comes out of experience. If we could read that language, man, we would solve all the crimes in the world.'
'Let's split,' Coffin Ed said. 'Jazz talks too much to me.'
'It ain't so much what it says,' Grave Digger agreed. 'It's what you can't do about it.'
They left the white and black couples in their frenetic embrace, guided by the talking of the jazz, and went back to their car.
'Life could be great but there are hoodlums abroad,' Grave Digger said, climbing beneath the wheel.
'You just ain't saying it, Digger; hoodlums high, and hoodlums low.'
They turned off on 132nd Street beside the new housing development and parked in the darkest spot in the block, cut the motor and doused the lights and waited.
The stool pigeon came in about ten minutes. He was the shinyhaired pimp wearing a white silk shirt and green silk pants who had sat beside them at the bar, with his back turned, talking to a tan-skinned blonde. He opened the door quickly and got into the back seat in the dark.
Coffin Ed turned around to face him. 'You know Early Riser?'
'Yeah. He's a snatcher but I don't know no sting he's made recently.'
'Who does he work with?'
'Work with? I never heard of him working no way but alone.'
'Think hard,' Grave Digger said harshly without turning around.
'I dunno, boss. That's the honest truth. I swear 'fore God.'
'You know about the rumble on 137th Street?' Coffin Ed continued.
'I heard about it but I didn't go see it. I heard the syndicate robbed Deke O'Hara out of a hundred grand he'd just collected from his Back-to-Africa pitch.'
That sounded straight enough so Coffin Ed just said, 'Okay. Do some dreaming about Early Riser,' and let him go.
'Let's try lower Eighth,' Grave Digger said. 'Early was on shit.'
'Yeah, I saw the marks,' Coffin Ed agreed.
Their next stop was a dingy bar on Eighth Avenue near the corner of 112th Street. This was the neighborhood of the cheap addicts, whisky-heads, stumblebums, the flotsam of Harlem; the end of the line for the whores, the hard squeeze for the poor honest laborers and a breeding ground for crime. Blank-eyed whores stood on the street corners swapping obscenities with twitching junkies. Muggers and thieves slouched in dark doorways waiting for someone to rob; but there wasn't anyone but each other. Children ran down the street, the dirty street littered with rotting vegetables, uncollected garbage, battered garbage cans, broken glass, dog offal — always running, ducking and dodging. God help them if they got caught. Listless mothers stood in the dark entrances of tenements and swapped talk about their men, their jobs, their poverty, their hunger, their debts, their Gods, their religions, their preachers, their children, their aches and pains, their bad luck with the numbers and the evilness of white people. Workingmen staggered down the sidewalks filled with aimless resentment, muttering curses, hating to go to their hotbox hovels but having nowhere else to go.
'All I wish is that I was God for just one mother-raping second,' Grave Digger said, his voice cotton-dry with rage.
'I know,' Coffin Ed said. 'You'd concrete the face of the mother-raping earth and turn white folks into hogs.'
'But I ain't God,' Grave Digger said, pushing into the bar.
The bar stools were filled with drunken relics, shabby men, ancient whores draped over tired laborers drinking ruckus juice to get their courage up. The tables were filled with the already drunk sleeping on folded arms.
No one recognized the two detectives. They looked prosperous and sober. A wave of vague alertness ran through the joint; everyone thought fresh money was coming in. This sudden greed was indefinably communicated to the sleeping drunks. They stirred in their sleep and awakened, waiting for the moment to get up and cadge another drink.
