Blind Man With a Pistol (26 page)

     
"Hell, Ed, you got to realize times have changed since we were sprites. These youngsters were born just after we'd got through fighting a war to wipe out racism and make the world safe for the four freedoms. And you and me were born just after our pappies had got through fighting a war to make the world safe for democracy. But the difference is that by the time we'd fought in a jim-crow army to whip the Nazis and had come home to our native racism, we didn't believe any of that shit. We knew better. We had grown up in the Depression and fought under hypocrites against hypocrites and we'd learned by then that whitey is a liar. Maybe our parents were just like our children and believed their lies but we had learned the only difference between the homegrown racist and the foreign racist was who had the nigger. Our side won so our white rulers were able to keep their niggers so they could yap to their heart's content about how they were going to give us equality as soon as we were ready."

     
"Digger, let them tell it it's harder to grant us equality than it was to free the slaves."

     
"Maybe they're right, Ed, maybe they ain't lying this time."

     
"They lying all right, and that's for sure."

     
"Maybe. But what saves colored folks our age is we ain't never believed it. But this new generation believes it. And that's how we get riots."

     
Lieutenant Anderson could tell by the first look at them when they came to work that they weren't in a very cooperative state of mind, so he sent them over to the bookstore to check out the Black Muslims.

     
"Why the Black Muslims?" Grave Digger wanted to know.

     
"If somebody was to shit on the Street you white folks would send for the Black Muslims," Coffin Ed grated.

     
"Jesus Christ!" Anderson complained. "Once upon a time you guys were cops -- and maybe friends: now you're black racists."

     
"It's this assignment. You hadn't ought to have put us on this assignment. You ought to know more than anyone else we're not subtle cops. We're tough and heavy-handed. If we find out there's some joker agitating these young people to riot, and we find out who it is, and if we find him, we're gonna beat him to death --"

     
"We can't have that!"

     
"And you can't have that."

     
"Just see what you can learn," Anderson ordered.

     
It was a Black-Art bookstore on Seventh Avenue dedicated to the writing of black people of all times and from all places. It was in the same category of black witchcraft, black jazz and Black Nationalism. It was run by a well-known black couple with some black people helping out and aside from selling books by black people to black people it served as a kind of headquarters for all the black nationalist movements in Harlem.

     
There were books everywhere. The main store, entered from Seventh Avenue, had books lining both walls, books back to back in chest-high stalls down the center of the floor. The only place there weren't any books was the ceiling.

     
"If I had read all these books I wouldn't be a cop," Coffin Ed said.

     
"Just as well, just as well," Grave Digger said enigmatically.

     
Mr Grace, the short black proprietor, greeted them. "What brings the arm of the law to this peaceful place?"

     
"Not you, Mr Grace -- you're the cleanest man in Harlem as far as the law is concerned," Grave Digger said.

     
"Must have friends on high," Coffin Ed muttered.

     
Mr Grace heard him. "That I have," he conceded, whether by way of threat or confirmation they couldn't tell. "That I have."

     
"We thought you could help us talk to Michael X, the minister of the Harlem Mosque," Grave Digger explained.

     
"Why don't you go to the Mosque?" Mr Grace asked.

     
"You know what they think about cops," Grave Digger said. "We're not trying to stir up trouble. We're trying to simmer it down."

     
"I don't know if I can help you," Mr Grace said. "The last time I saw Michael X was about a week ago, and he said he was dropping out of sight for a time: the CIA were sniffing around. But he might see you. Just what do you want with him?"

     
"We just want to ask him if he knows anything about someone stirring up these chickenshit riots. The boss thinks there's some one person behind it, and he thinks Michael X might know something about it."

     
"I doubt if Michael X knows anything about that," Mr Grace said. "You know they blame him for everything bad that happens in Harlem."

     
"That's what I told the boss," Coffin Ed said.

     
Mr Grace looked doubtful. "I know you men don't agree with that. At least I don't think so. You've been on the Harlem scene too long to attribute all the anti-white feelings here to the Black Muslims. But I don't know where he is."

     
They knew very well that Mr Grace kept in contact with Michael X, wherever he was, and that he acted as Michael X's seeing eye. But they knew there wasn't any way to push him. They could go down and burst into the Mosque with force, but they couldn't find Michael X and the only reason they wouldn't lose their jobs was because police officialdom hated the Black Muslims so much. It would be too much like taking advantage of their "in" with whitey. So all they could do was appeal to Mr Grace.

     
"We'll talk to him right here if he'll come here," Grave Digger said. "And if you don't trust us we'll give you our pistols to hold."

     
"And you can have all the witnesses you want on hand," Coffin Ed said. "And anybody can say anything they want."

     
"All we want is just to get a statement from Michael X that we can take back to the boss," Grave Digger elaborated, knowing Michael X's vanity. "Me and Ed don't believe none of this shit, but Michael X can state it better than we can."

     
Mr Grace knew that Michael X would welcome the opportunity to state the position of the Black Muslims to the police through two black cops he could trust, so he said, "Come into the Sanctum and I'll see if I can locate him."

     
He led them to a room in back of the bookstore which served as his office. There was a flat-topped desk in the center covered with open books, surrounded by dusty stacks of books and cartons of items, many of which they couldn't identify. Aluminum containers for reels of film were scattered among objects which might have been used by African witch doctors or worn by African warriors: bones, feathers, headgear, clothing of a sort, robes, masks, staffs, spears, shields, a carton of dusty manuscripts in some foreign script, stuffed snakes, sets of stones, bracelets and anklets, and chains and leg-irons used in the slave trade. The walls were literally covered with signed photographs of practically all famous colored people from the arts and the stage arid the political arena, both here and abroad, and unsigned photographs and portraits of all the black people connected with the abolitionist movement and various legendary African chiefs who had opposed or profited from black slavery. In that room it was easy to believe in a Black World, and black racism seemed more natural than atypical.

     
The ceiling was a stained-glass mosaic, but it was too dark outside to distinguish the pattern. Evidently the room extended into a back courtyard, and no doubt it had some secret exit and access, the detectives thought, as they sat patiently on two spindle-legged overstuffed straight-backed chairs, from some period or other, probably some African period, and listened to Mr Grace dial one wrong number after another under the impression that he was fooling someone.

     
After what he deemed was a suitable lapse of time and a convincing performance, Mr Grace was heard to say: "Michael, I've been trying to locate you everywhere. Coffin Ed and Grave Digger want to talk to you. They're here... . The chief seems to think there's some one person inciting these riots in Harlem, and I thought it'd be a good idea for you to make a statement. . . . They say they don't believe you or the Black Muslims are implicated in any way, but they must have something to tell their chief. . ." He nodded and looked at the detectives: "He says he'll come here, but it'll take him about half an hour."

     
"We'll wait," Grave Digger said.

     
Mr Grace relayed the message and hung up. Then he began showing them various curios from the slave trade, advertisements, pictures of slave ships, of slaves in steerage, of the auction block, an iron bar used as currency in buying slaves, a whip made of rhinoceros hide used by the Africans to drive the slaves to the coast, a branding silver, a cat-o'-nine-tails used on the slaves aboard ship, a pincers to pull teeth -- to what purpose they couldn't tell.

     
"We know we're descended from slaves," Coffin Ed said harshly. "What're you trying to tell us?"

     
"Now you've got the chance, be free," Mr Grace said enigmatically.

     
Michael X was a tall, thin brown man with a narrow intelligent face. Sharp eyes that didn't miss a thing glinted from behind rimless spectacles. He looked like he could be Billie Holiday's kid brother. Mr Grace stood up and gave him the seat behind the desk. "Do you want me to stick around, Michael? Mary-Louise can step in too, if you want." Mary-Louise was his wife: she was taking care of the store.

     
"As you like," Michael X said. He was master of the situation.

     
Mr Grace pulled up another period chair and sat quietly and let him take charge.

     
"As I understand it, headquarters thinks there's one person up here who's inciting these people to riot," Michael X spoke to the detectives.

     
"That's the general idea," Grave Digger said. They didn't expect to get anything: they were just following orders.

     
"There's Mister Big," Michael X said. "He handles the narcotics and the graft and the prostitution and runs the numbers for the Syndicate--"

     
"Mister Sam?" Grave Digger asked, leaning forward.

     
Michael X's eyes glinted behind his polished spectacles. He might have been smiling. It was difficult to tell. "Who do you think you're kidding? You know very well Mister Sam was a flunky."

     
"Who?" Grave Digger demanded.

     
"Ask your boss, if you really want to know," Michael X said. "He knows." And he couldn't be budged.

     
"A lot of people are laying it on the Black Muslims' anti-white campaign," Coffin Ed said.

     
Michael X grinned. He had even white teeth. "They're white, ain't they? Mister Big. The Syndicate. The newspapers. The employers. The landlords. The police -- not you men, of course -- but then you don't really count in the overall pattern. The government. All white. We're not anti-white, we just don't believe 'em, that's all. Do you?"

     
No one replied.

     
Michael X took off his already glistening spectacles. Without them he looked young and immature and very vulnerable: like a young man who could be easily hurt. He looked at them, barefaced and absurdly defiant: "You see, most of us can't do anything that is expected of the American Negro: we can't dance, we can't sing, we can't play any musical instruments, we can't be pleasant and useful and helpful like other brothers because we don't know how -- that's what whitey doesn't want to understand -- that there are Negroes who are not adapted to making white people feel good. In fact," he added laughing, "there are some of us who can't even show our teeth -- our teeth are too bad and we don't have the money to get them fixed. Besides, our breaths smell bad."

     
They didn't want to argue with Michael X; they merely pushed him as to the identity of "Mister Big".

     
But each time he replied smilingly, "Ask your boss, he knows."

     
"You keep on talking like that you won't live long," Grave Digger said.

     
Michael X put on his polished spectacles and looked at the detectives with a sharp-eyed sardonicism. "You think someone is going to kill me?"

     
"People been killed for less," Grave Digger said.

21

     
It was just the blind man didn't want anyone to know he was blind. He refused to use a cane or a Seeing Eye dog and if anyone tried to help him across a street more than likely they'd be rewarded with insults. Luckily, he remembered certain things from the time when he could see, and these remembrances were guides to his behavior. For the most part he tried to act like anyone else and that caused all the trouble.

     
He remembered how to shoot dice from the time that he could see well enough to lose his pay every Saturday night. He still went to crap games and still lost his bread. That hadn't changed.

     
Since he had become blind he had become a very stern-looking, silent man. He had skin the colour and texture of brown wrapping-paper; reddish, unkempt, kinky hair that looked burnt; and staring, milky, unblinking blind eyes with red rims that looked cooked. His eyes had the manacing stare of a heat-blind snake which, along with his stern demeanor, could be very disconcerting.

     
However, he wasn't impressive physically. If he could have seen, anyone would have taken him on. He was tall and flabby and didn't look strong enough to squash a chinch. He wore a stained seersucker coat with a torn right sleeve over a soiled nylon sport shirt, along with baggy brown rants and scuffed and runover army shoes which had never been cleaned. He always looked hard up but he always managed to get hold of enough money to shoot dice. Old-timers said when he was winning he'd bet harder than lightning bumps a stump. But he was seldom winning.