Spitting blood and crying with rage, the West Indian scrambled to
his feet. For a moment he stood in front of the store gesticulating
furiously and jabbering shrill threats and unintelligible curses. Then
abruptly he stopped and took himself off.
King Solomon Gillis, mildly puzzled, watched him from Tony’s doorway.
‘I jess give him a li’l shove,’ he said to himself, ’an’ he roll’ clean
’cross de sidewalk.’ And a little later, disgustedly, ‘Monkey-chaser!’
he grunted, and went back to his sweeping.
‘Well, big boy, how y’ comin’ on?’
Gillis dropped his broom. ‘Hay-o, Mouse. Wha’ you been las’ two-three
days?’
‘Oh, around. Gettin’ on all right here? Had any trouble?’
‘Deed I ain’t--’ceptin’ jess now I had to throw ’at li’l jigger out.’
‘Who? The monk?’
‘M-hm. He sho’ Lawd doan like me in his job. Look like he think I stole
it from him, stiddy him tryin’ to steal from me. Had to push him down
sho’ ’nuff ’fo I could git rid of ’im. Den he run off talkin’ Wes’
Indi’man an’ shakin’ his fis’ at me.’
‘Ferget it.’ Uggam glanced about. ‘Where’s Tony?’
‘Boss man? He be back direckly.’
‘Listen--like to make two or three bucks a day extra?’
‘Huh?’
‘Two or three dollars a day more’n what you’re gettin’ already?’
‘Ain’ I near ’nuff in jail now?’
‘Listen.’ King Solomon listened. Uggam hadn’t been in France for
nothing. Fact was, in France he’d learned about some valuable French
medicine. He’d brought some back with him,--little white pills,--and
while in Harlem had found a certain druggist who knew what they were
and could supply all he could use. Now there were any number of people
who would buy and pay well for as much of this French medicine as Uggam
could get. It was good for what ailed them, and they didn’t know how to
get it except through him. But he had no store in which to set up an
agency and hence no single place where his customers could go to get
what they wanted. If he had, he could sell three or four times as much
as he did.
King Solomon was in a position to help him now, same as he had helped
King Solomon. He would leave a dozen packages of the medicine--just
small envelopes that could all be carried in a coat pocket--with King
Solomon every day. Then he could simply send his customers to King
Solomon at Tony’s store. They’d make some trifling purchase, slip him a
certain coupon which Uggam had given them, and King Solomon would wrap
the little envelope of medicine with their purchase. Mustn’t let Tony
catch on, because he might object, and then the whole scheme would go
gaflooey. Of course it wouldn’t really be hurting Tony any. Wouldn’t it
increase the number of his customers?
Finally, at the end of each day, Uggam would meet King Solomon some
place and give him a quarter for each coupon he held. There’d be at
least ten or twelve a day--two and a half or three dollars plumb extra!
Eighteen or twenty dollars a week ‘Dog-gone!’ breathed Gillis.
‘Does Tony ever leave you here alone?’
‘M-hm. Jess started dis mawnin’. Doan nobody much come round ’tween ten
an’ twelve, so he done took to doin’ his buyin’ right ’long ’bout dat
time. Nobody hyeh but me fo’ ’n hour or so.’
‘Good. I’ll try to get my folks to come ’round here mostly while Tony’s
out, see?’
‘I doan miss.’
‘Sure y’ get the idea, now?’ Uggam carefully explained it all again. By
the time he had finished, King Solomon was wallowing in gratitude.
‘Mouse, you sho’ is been a friend to me. Why, ’f ’t hadn’ been fo’
you--’
‘Bottle it,’ said Uggam. ‘I’ll be round to your room tonight with
enough stuff for tomorrer, see? Be sure’n be there.’
‘Won’t be nowha’ else.’
‘An’ remember, this is all jess between you ’n me.’
‘Nobody else but,’ vowed King Solomon.
Uggam grinned to himself as he went on his way. ‘Dumb Oscar! Wonder how
much can we make before the cops nab him? French medicine--Humph!’
V
Tony Gabrielli, an oblate Neapolitan of enormous equator, wabbled
heavily out of his store and settled himself over a soap box.
Usually Tony enjoyed sitting out front thus in the evening, when his
helper had gone home and his trade was slackest. He liked to watch the
little Gabriellis playing over the sidewalk with the little Levys and
Johnsons; the trios and quartettes of brightly dressed, dark-skinned
girls merrily out for a stroll; the slovenly gaited, darker men, who
eyed them up and down and commented to each other with an unsuppressed
‘Hot damn!’ or ‘Oh no, now!’
But tonight Tony was troubled. Something was wrong in the store;
something was different since the arrival of King Solomon Gillis. The
new man had seemed to prove himself honest and trustworthy, it was
true. Tony had tested him, as he always tested a new man, by apparently
leaving him alone in charge for two or three mornings. As a matter
of fact, the new man was never under more vigilant observation than
during these two or three mornings. Tony’s store was a modification of
the front rooms of his flat and was in direct communication with it by
way of a glass-windowed door in the rear. Tony always managed to get
back into his flat via the side street entrance and watch the new man
through this unobtrusive glass-windowed door. If anything excited his
suspicion, like unwarranted interest in the cash register, he walked
unexpectedly out of this door to surprise the offender in the act.
Thereafter he would have no more such trouble. But he had not succeeded
in seeing King Solomon steal even an apple.
What he had observed, however, was that the number of customers that
came into the store during the morning’s slack hour had pronouncedly
increased in the last few days. Before, there had been three or four.
Now there were twelve or fifteen. The mysterious thing about it was
that their purchases totaled little more than those of the original
three or four.
Yesterday and today Tony had elected to be in the store at the time
when, on the other days, he had been out. But Gillis had not been
overcharging or short-changing; for when Tony waited on the customers
himself--strange faces all--he found that they bought something like a
yeast cake or a five-cent loaf of bread. It was puzzling. Why should
strangers leave their own neighborhoods and repeatedly come to him
for a yeast cake or a loaf of bread? They were not new neighbors.
New neighbors would have bought more variously and extensively and
at different times of day. Living near by, they would have come in,
the men often in shirtsleeves and slippers, the women in kimonos,
with boudoir caps covering their lumpy heads. They would have sent in
strange children for things like yeast cakes and loaves of bread. And
why did not some of them come in at night when the new helper was off
duty?
As for accosting Gillis on suspicion, Tony was too wise for that.
Patronage had a queer way of shifting itself in Harlem. You lost your
temper and let slip a single ‘_nègre_.’ A week later you sold your
business.
Spread over his soap box, with his pudgy hands clasped on his
preposterous paunch, Tony sat and wondered. Two men came up,
conspicuous for no other reason than that they were white. They
displayed extreme nervousness, looking about as if afraid of being
seen; and when one of them spoke to Tony it was in a husky, toneless,
blowing voice, like the sound of a dirty phonograph record.
‘Are you Antonio Gabrielli?’
‘Yes, sure.’ Strange behavior for such lusty-looking fellows. He
who had spoken unsmilingly winked first one eye then the other, and
indicated by a gesture of his head that they should enter the store.
His companion looked cautiously up and down the Avenue, while Tony,
wondering what ailed them, rolled to his feet and puffingly led the way.
Inside, the spokesman snuffled, gave his shoulders a queer little
hunch, and asked, ‘Can you fix us up, buddy?’ The other glanced
restlessly about the place as if he were constantly hearing
unaccountable noises.
Tony thought he understood clearly now. ‘Booze, ’ey?’ he smiled.
‘Sorry--I no got.’
‘Booze? Hell, no!’ The voice dwindled to a throaty whisper. ‘Dope.
Coke, milk, dice--anything. Name your price. Got to have it.’
‘Dope?’ Tony was entirely at a loss. ‘What’s a dis, dope?’
‘Aw, lay off, brother. We’re in on this. Here.’ He handed Tony a piece
of paper. ‘Froggy gave us a coupon. Come on. You can’t go wrong.’
‘I no got,’ insisted the perplexed Tony; nor could he be budged on that
point.
Quite suddenly the manner of both men changed. ‘All right,’ said the
first angrily, in a voice as robust as his body. ‘All right, you’re
clever, You no got. Well, you will get. You’ll get twenty years!’
‘Twenty year? Whadda you talk?’
‘Wait a minute, Mac,’ said the second caller. ‘Maybe the wop’s on the
level. Look here, Tony, we’re officers, see? Policemen.’ He produced a
badge. ‘A couple of weeks ago a guy was brought in dying for the want
of a shot, see? Dope--he needed some dope--like this--in his arm. See?
Well, we tried to make him tell us where he’d been getting it, but he
was too weak. He croaked next day. Evidently he hadn’t had money enough
to buy any more.
‘Well, this morning a little nigger that goes by the name of Froggy was
brought into the precinct pretty well doped up. When he finally came
to, he swore he got the stuff here at your store. Of course, we’ve just
been trying to trick you into giving yourself away, but you don’t bite.
Now what’s your game? Know anything about this?’
Tony understood. I dunno,’ he said slowly; and then his own problem
whose contemplation his callers had interrupted, occurred to him.
‘Sure!’ he exclaimed. ‘Wait. Maybeso I know somet’ing.’
‘All right. Spill it.’
‘I got a new man, work-a for me.’ And he told them what he had noted
since King Solomon Gillis came.
‘Sounds interesting. Where is this guy?’
‘Here in da store--all day.’
‘Be here tomorrow?’
‘Sure. All day.’
‘All right. We’ll drop in tomorrow and give him the eye. Maybe he’s our
man.’
‘Sure. Come ten o’clock. I show you,’ promised Tony.