Dancing Aztecs Page 15

  “But the trooper.”

  “Angela, to tell you the truth, I think the interracial business and the mobster business would have done it for me, anyway. But the Zachary George connection didn’t hurt.”

  “So they let you go.”

  “I posted a bond, by check, but it won’t come to anything. The mobsters didn’t want to press charges or make any waves, and the cops didn’t want to listen to the interracial couple, so I’m home free.”

  “You coming back now?”

  “No, it isn’t that late, and I’ve only done one of my four names. Two of them are on Long Island, I’ll try them tonight and come home after that”

  “Good luck,” she said.

  “That’s what I’ve got, all right,” he agreed, and hung up, and back in the station wagon he studied his list. One of the three remaining names was at an address way over in New Jersey, but the other two were relatively handy to Mel’s home:

  Ben Cohen

  27–15 Robert Moses Drive

  Glen Cove

  Wylie Cheshire

  58 Ridge Road

  Deer Park

  Ben Cohen? No, not first Mel was ready for a quiet interlude, something safe and easy. Wylie Cheshire, that was the one. There was something comfortingly civilized, sedately English about that name. Deer Park. Wylie Cheshire.

  WHEN ALL AT ONCE …

  The Adventures of Frank and Floyd in the Ghetto

  A SERIES OF BLACKOUTS

  1

  From Floyd’s list:

  Leroy Pinkham

  119 West 122nd St.

  Leroy, he say, “Buhbuh.”

  Buhbuh, he say, “Yuh?”

  “Lu dah cah.”

  “Wuh cah?”

  “Dah cah.”

  Buhbuh, he look at that car, he see two white men inside there in that car. “Huh,” he say.

  Leroy, he say, “Dah cah, it been rowndeh block befoah.”

  Buhbuh, he say, “Yeh?”

  Leroy, he say, “Kewbee cops?”

  Buhbuh, he say, “Nah.”

  Buhbuh and Leroy, they sitting on the stoop out front Leroy’s house. It after eight o’clock, but not dark yet. Leroy’s Mama and Leroy’s sister Rose and Leroy’s other sister Ruby, they at the church, practicing with the choir. Leroy’s other sister Reeny, she to the movies with her boyfriend, and Leroy’s big brother Luther, he in the Army. Nobody in Leroy’s house. Leroy, he don’t like to be in there by himself, so him and his best buddy Buhbuh, what also goes to Liberation High, they out on the stoop talking about the astronauts, until Leroy, he see that car.

  Now they don’t talk about nothing for a while, and then Leroy, he grin and say, “Man, I dig that Chi-neez food.” Him and Buhbuh, they ate in a restaurant today for almost the first time ever, and they both of them they really dug it Chinese restaurant, regular restaurant where you sit down and they’s waiters and everything. Him and Buhbuh got to go there cause they helped out with some bunch of people that Miss Tower was working with. Miss Tower, she their favorite teacher at Liberation High, cause they is both got the hots for her. That Miss Tower, she got some beautiful ass, but she don’t go for none of that shit at all. She a goddam virgin. But pretty to look at.

  Liberation High, that something else. It for guys like Leroy and Buhbuh, what dropped out of school and now is like nineteen, twenty, and they ain’t getting nowhere. So they can go back to this school, and it ain’t like no regular school with bad-ass teachers and dumb subjects and all. It special for older guys what are smart and what want to get theyselves an education. Already they been fourteen graduates from Liberation High gone to City College.

  So today Leroy and Buhbuh, they got to go to this real Chinese restaurant, with Miss Tower and this whole bunch a people, and they ate up a damn storm. So now Leroy and Buhbuh, they talk about that food at that Chinese restaurant until Leroy, he say, “Dere it go again.”

  Buhbuh, he say, “Wuh?”

  “Dah cah.”

  Buhbuh, he look and see that car, and it the same mother-fucking car as the last time, with them same two mother-fucking white men inside there Buhbuh, he say, “Muthuh-fuckuh.”

  “Cops,” say Leroy.

  “Yuh,” say Buhbuh.

  They watch that car go down round the corner, and then they talk about a movie they seen on television, with monsters and vampires in it They talk about that until Leroy, he say, “Lu dah.”

  Buhbuh, he say, “Wuh?”

  “Dem cops.”

  Buhbuh, he look, and them two white men from the car, they walking on the sidewalk, and they coming this way. Buhbuh, he say to Leroy, “I din do nuthin.”

  “Well, I sure as shit din do nuthin.”

  “So, wuh the fuck?”

  So the two white men, who isn’t anyway cops but is Frank and Floyd, they comes along and nods at Leroy and Buhbuh with quick nervous little smiles, and then they goes up the stoop and into the building, and Leroy and Buhbuh, they look at one another, and Buhbuh, he say, “Who dey aftuh?”

  So they talk about that, all the different people in the building, while Frank and Floyd, they go upstairs and find the Pinkham apartment, and they walk right in ’cause Leroy, he don’t never lock the door, ’cause if you lock the door when the place empty the junkies, they gone think you got something in there and they gone bust the door down. So Frank and Floyd, they go in and split up to search the apartment for the golden statue, and when they meet again at the front door they is both found it.

  Frank, he say, “What the hell is that?”

  Floyd, he say, “It’s the goddam statue. What’s that?”

  And Frank, he say, “Shit. We better take them both.”

  Meanwhile, Leroy and Buhbuh downstairs, they been thinking and wondering, and they figure what the fuck, it Leroy’s house, ain’t it? They can go in the goddam house, can’t they? They can see what’s going on, can’t they? So they go in the house and up the stairs and they don’t see nothing, and when they going by Leroy’s door it open and the cops come out with the two statues Leroy and Buhbuh got today at that restaurant. And Leroy, he say, “Wuh duh fuck?”

  And the cops, they begin to yell and holler and wave their arms, and one of them accidental hits the statue against the side by the door, and the statue’s head, it fall off. And the other one, he yell, “Forget it! That ain’t it!” And he hit the other statue against the wall and he head don’t fall off, and the two white men both stare at the statue with big eyes, and then they push past Leroy and Buhbuh and run downstairs, with the statue that didn’t get broken.

  And Buhbuh, he yell, “You come back here, my statue!” And he take off down them stairs after them sons bitches.

  And Leroy, he run down after Buhbuh.

  And all the way down the stairs, them white men, they yelling real loud, “We got it! We got it!”

  And down on the sidewalk, Buhbuh, he catch up with them, and he grab the one’s arm and he try get the statue back, and they fight this way and that on the widewalk while lots a people on the block, they decide they been outside long enough, maybe they gone amble on inside now, see what’s on the TeeVee. And then the white man, he hit Buhbuh across the nose with the statue, and this time the statue’s head do come off, and the white man yell, real real loud, “Well, shit! Here, goddam it!” And he shove the statue in Buhbuh’s hand, and him and the other white man, they turn around and they run their asses right outa that block.

  And Leroy, he shake his fist and yell after them, “Fuckin cops!” Because in Harlem the cops, they don’t got much reputation.

  2

  From Floyd’s list:

  F. Xavier White

  211 Riverside Drive

  Maleficent is always in a bad temper when she’s dieting, and she’s always dieting, so she’s always in a bad temper. However, being in a bad temper always makes her break her diet, so besides being on a diet and in a bad temper Maleficent is also always gaining weight. As F. Xavier said about her recently, behind her ample back, “N
ext thing you know, I’ll have to get that woman license plates.”

  But even Maleficent, no matter how fat or bad-tempered or hungry she might become, knows there are times to be quiet and permit someone else the center of the stage, and one of those times is right now, so when F. Xavier, with his oily unctuous smile showing every blessed one of his huge capped teeth, makes the introductions, saying, “Mr. Jonesburg, I’d like you to meet my wife, Maleficent; sweetheart, this is Mr. Jeremiah Jonesburg,” Maleficent doesn’t respond with any of her usual rude tricks at all. Instead, she smiles sweetly and even does something that might be a curtsy—if is isn’t an earthquake—and all she says is, “Pleased, I’m shoo-uh.”

  Mr. Jeremiah “Bad Death” Jonesburg smiles, with his mouth open, revealing some nightmare version of Ali Baba’s cave. Gold and ivory intermixed, with spaces where removals have already taken place, and all guarded by the dragon of his thick, yellow-stained, scabby red tongue. This ugliness smiles, and says, “Hello, fat mama.”

  Maleficent winces at that one, and so does F. Xavier, because he knows he’ll pay for it later, but at the moment Maleficent merely goes on smiling, and merely says, “Oh, you. You sure are the one.”

  Jeremiah “Bad Death” Jonesburg is the one, in fact. He’s the Man, the Main Man from 96th to 155th, east side and west. Them Italians downtown shake when they hear the name of Bad Death, because he’s the one run them out, run them right out of Harlem and the whole patch. He’s the meanest, the baddest, the biggest, the toughest, the coolest and the hottest son of a bitch ever to hit the street. Where he walks tombstones grow, and where he sits the sun never shines. His bed is made of politician’s bones, and for lunch he eats policemen’s orphaned children. He picks his teeth with pool cues, and blows his nose on traffic tickets. He wears Datsuns when he roller-skates, and his toilet seat is lined with pussy fur. His hand can crumble bricks, and his piss cuts through solid steel. He stacks his women three at a time like cordwood, and makes love to them all at once. The Queen of England irons his shirts, and his Cadillac runs on Dago blood. When he’s angry bullets melt, and when he smiles trees die. He’s so mean he can’t look in a mirror, for fear he’ll annoy himself. When he speaks transistor radios give up the ghost, and when he farts entire neighborhoods turn into deserts. He is the Man, and nobody forgets it.

  And he has come to F. Xavier White, Harlem’s Finest Mortician (“Your Every Need Anticipated—Service with a Sympathetic Smile”), to make the final arrangements for a funeral. (There’s a rumor that Bad Death also made the initial arrangements for this particular funeral, but that’s a rumor no one mentions in Bad Death’s presence.)

  “Mole Mouth was a friend of mine,” Bad Death says, and nobody disagrees with him. “Now, there’s a lot of funerals take place in this town in a year, but not many of them is the best. What I want for Mole Mouth is the best.”

  “Oh, that’s what you’ll get,” F. Xavier assures him. He smiles a big smile and washes his hands together and says, “You come to the right man, Mr. Jonesburg. I specialize in the best.”

  “Mole Mouth come from down South,” Bad Death continues. “Before he come up here and got himself into business he shouldn’t of got himself into. Now, a lot of Mole Mouth’s family gonna be coming up from Louisiana, Georgia, Arkansas, and I want them to see the best. The best.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Jonesburg.”

  “And,” Bad Death says, “I’ll want them to know it’s the best.”

  “You’ll want a band,” F. Xavier says.

  “The best band.”

  “I wouldn’t inflict on your ear anything but the best band.”

  “That’s right,” Bad Death says. Then he gazes a moment past the simpering bulk of Maleficent, and he says, “Now, the Dagos, in the old days, when one of their big boys got it, his competitors all got together and gave him a big funeral. A special kind of big funeral.”

  “A send-off,” F. Xavier agrees. “That’s what they call it, a send-off.”

  “That’s what we want for Mole Mouth,” Bad Death says. “He was my competitor, and I’m giving him the best funeral, and I want it to be a send-off. Better than any send-off them Dagos ever give anybody. Better than Capone, better than Charlie Brody, better than anything. I want them to see it, and I want them to know it’s the best.”

  “Flowers,” F. Xavier says. “Great big horseshoe wreaths of flowers. Lots of black limousines.”

  “Make ’em white limousines,” Bad Death says.

  “White limousines,” F. Xavier agrees. “And lots of wailing women in black dresses, to throw themselves in the grave. Or, do you want white dresses?”

  “White dresses? This ain’t a wedding, this’s a funeral!”

  “Right you are,” F. Xavier says, nodding and beaming, while perspiration is running like the Oronoco River down the middle of his back. “Black dresses,” he says.

  “Then there’s something else,” Bad Death says. “When a police commissioner or a president or some bastard like that kicks off, they give him a big funeral with uniforms and processions and a lot of bullshit”

  “Horse-drawn hearses,” F. Xavier says, and tentatively adds, “Black horses?”

  “Horses, that’s good,” Bad Death says. He flashes his smile again, and Maleficent quakes. (She’s the only woman on earth who wears form-fitting muumuus, and when she quakes the whole muumuu shimmers, like Jello when the refrigerator door is slammed.) Bad Death says, “But uniforms, too. And big shots.”

  “Liberation High has a marching band,” F. Xavier says. “With uniforms.”

  “That’s not the band. Not the band we were talking about before.”

  “No. no, this is another band. The first band’ll be real down home Dixie.”

  “Two bands. Hmmmm.” Bad Death strokes his chin—it makes a raspy noise—and considers that. “I like it,” he decides. “Snappy uniforms?”

  “Four colors.”

  “Good. And what about big shots?”

  F. Xavier has spent the last half-minute thinking about that, and growing increasingly desperate, because of course most true big shots—mayors or baseball players, for instance—wouldn’t be caught dead at a funeral like this. But there has to be an answer, and so F. Xavier keeps smiling and keeps thinking, and Bad Death just keeps looking at him.

  The fact is, F. Xavier actually does know a lot of big shots of various kinds, a lot of different people in the community. To become director of Harlem’s Premier Funeral Parlor, which has always been his dream, he has deemed it advisable to associate himself with all sorts of local organizations and activities. (The Open Sports Committee, for instance.) Over the years, he has come to be on at least nodding terms with everybody from Congressman Rangel himself to Bad Death Jonesburg here, and surely some of those contacts could now be made useful.

  Congressman Rangel? No. Not a chance.

  How about the Open Sports Committee? Oscar Russell Green, Wylie Cheshire … those were certainly notable names, even if not exactly big shots. He could call upon their recent sense of camaraderie, remind them if necessary of the automobiles he unstintingly provided during their long struggle. His smile suddenly becoming much more confident, F. Xavier says, “I’ll get them for you, Mr. Jonesburg. I can’t give you an exact list right this minute, but I assure you you’ll be satisfied.”

  “I better be,” Bad Death says.

  “Then there’s the question of a chorus,” F. Xavier says, hurrying along.

  “Yes,” says Bad Death, and one of the dozen men that Bad Death has stationed around the outside of the funeral parlor walks in, raising a hand to catch Bad Death’s eye.

  “A female chorus,” F. Xavier is saying, “in floor-length robes. Black? Or white? Sometimes red can look very—”

  “Just a minute,” Bad Death says, and asks his man, “What’s happening?”

  “Two white men.”

  “Two white men? Where?”

  “Climbing the fire escape in back.”

  “Dagos?�
�

  “Irishmen. We looked in their wallets, and they’re both named McCann.”

  “They still alive?”

  “Oh, sure. They didn’t make no trouble. When we threw the light on them, one of them fainted.”

  “Bring ’em in here,” Bad Death says, and when his man goes away Bad Death shakes his head and says, “Irishmen. Huh.”

  Frank and Floyd (Floyd is the one who fainted), having been roughed up by a lot of mean-looking black men, and then having been locked away in a room with a stack of coffins, are not feeling very rosy. “I don’t know,” Floyd says at one point, “maybe a million dollars isn’t a million dollars.”

  “If it turns out, after we go through all this,” Frank says, “and somebody else found the damn things hours ago, I’m gonna be pissed.”

  “If I’m even around later on to find that out,” Floyd says, “I’ll be so happy I won’t even care. If I ever get back to America, I’ll get down on my knees and kiss the ground.”

  A bunch of the black men come into the room then, and take Frank and Floyd by their various elbows, and walk them away to the room containing Bad Death and F. Xavier and Maleficent. Frank and Floyd don’t know it, but F. Xavier and Maleficent are just as scared as they are that some sort of bloodshed is about to take place.

  Bad Death, whose leadership role is immediately obvious, looks Frank and Floyd up and down and says, “Irishmen. What in hell is a couple Irishmen doing, sneaking around after me?”

  Frank and Floyd blink at him. Frank says, “You?”

  Bad Death gives them his penetrating stare. “What mob you goofs with? You tied up with them Dagos downtown?”

  “We’re fire escape inspectors,” Floyd says, and Frank gives him a disgusted look.

  “You come snuffin’ around Bad Death,” Bad Death tells him, “you in trouble.”

  Frank, who has figured things out by now, gives Bad Death a crooked grin and says, “Come on, Bad Death, you know we’re not with any guinea mob downtown.”