Strivers Row (60 page)

“Hey!” he called out, getting up from his seat and starting to stagger up the aisle of the rattling, shaking bus. Not wanting to offer any disrespect, but at a loss for what he should call him.

“Hey! Hey, you! Sir!”

Somehow, the little man still didn't turn around, or give any sign that he had heard him, though Malcolm did not see how that could be so. For that matter, none of the dozing passengers awakened, either, and when he got up toward the front, Malcolm could see that the bus driver himself was asleep, his arms cosseting his head against the wheel. He realized vaguely that he should be alarmed by this, but the bus seemed to be lurching steadily forward, and he stayed focused on where Elijah was sitting, just in front of him. He kept going until at last he was able to grasp the metal handle on the back of his seat, pulling himself the last couple of feet toward him. Even daring, then, to reach out his hand and tap the man lightly on his shoulder, barely breathing his name.

“Elijah?”

The little man turned around in his seat then, looking Malcolm straight in the face, his eyes boring into Malcolm's so intensely that he took a step backward, grasping the seat across the aisle for support. Elijah's jaw dropped open then, sounds pouring suddenly out in a strangely loud, abrasive, white voice.

“Fort Lee! Fort
Lee!
”

Malcolm whipped his head up from his lap, realizing he was still sitting in his original seat. He stumbled on up the aisle, his eyes fixed on the front seat—but there was no sign of the little man, or anyone else there now. He tripped on off the bus, locating the usual I-tie bagman in the usual place, right by the shelter. Only this time, to his shock, when he handed over his slips, the I-tie handed him a bag in return.

“What's this?” Malcolm asked, confused. There had never been a return package for him before, and this one felt much heavier than the airy bag of policy player hopes he had just handed over.

“For your boss,” the bagman told him. He was the same man who had deigned to speak to him before, Malcolm thought—his voice equally contemptuous now. He turned and walked back up the stairs that led to the highway overpass without another word— leaving Malcolm to weigh the bag in his hand.

He stood there for a moment, dumbfounded, then the bennies kicked in and he began to walk quickly away. Wondering if he had been set up for something, half-expecting a patrol-car siren to come blaring down on him at any moment. Ready to ditch the bag by the curb at a moment's notice, feeling safe enough to look in it only when he was situated, deep in the back of the bus. He unfolded it gingerly even then—keeping his head up, facing the Manhattan skyline, as if the bag held nothing more important than his lunch. Only when he had it all the way opened did he take a deep breath, force an expression of casual boredom onto his face, and look down into the bag. Nodding when he did, despite the way his heart was jumping, confirming that it was filled with what he had dreaded and suspected all along:
money.

He crumpled the top of the bag closed, and looked hastily back up. Half-expecting to see a plainclothesman, or a couple of uniforms stepping toward him even now from their places of concealment, somewhere on the bus. Telling himself that he wouldn't even open the bag again, would just leave it on his seat when the bus got back to Manhattan, as if it had nothing to do with him.

But looking around him, Malcolm saw that, as usual, there was nobody on the bus, save for the same few stragglers—a defense-plant worker or two, back from his shift; a couple of older cleaning ladies, returning from their Jersey jobs. Slowly, his hands trembling, he lowered the paper bag to his lap, and opened it up again. But there was no mistaking it. The bag was filled with money—fat bricks of money, wrapped with rubber bands; money that looked as if it had been handled and folded and turned over a thousand times. Most of the bills smaller denominations, tens and finiffs and ones, but so many wads of it that he knew there must be hundreds, maybe even several thousand dollars, right there.

He closed it once more as the bus trundled back into its bay at the 175th Street station. Telling himself that Archie must have set him up, that somehow he must have found out about him and Miranda, and that as soon as he stepped foot off the bus, a couple of big, white cops would be right behind him.

But when he did get off, there was nothing more than a few pigeons in sight, bobbing about in the shadows of the bus station, making their endless genuflections in pursuit of pretzel scraps, and old hot-dog rolls. The bus driver only yawning at him—slouched in his seat, his face revealing none of the added tension or excitement to be expected from an impending bust. Malcolm took a deep breath and ran down the steps of the bus, ready for whatever was to come. But there was still nothing. The driver shutting the doors impatiently behind him with a whoosh of air, pulling his bus around for the next, meandering loop through the suburban villages of Bergen County. Malcolm even took the added precaution of descending a different, distant flight of stairs from where all the other passengers had gotten off. Padding as quietly as possible down onto the main concourse of the bus station—where there was only the usual midday quiet; a few GIs lugging their bags, the same Jersey matrons returning after a day of shopping in the City.

He hurried down from the station, walking as fast as he could without running to the apartment he had lit on for the moment— three basement rooms on West 147th Street, between St. Nicholas and Convent Avenues. Taking even more precautions than usual when he went in, checking under the bed and listening for any sound of trouble. Everything was quiet, even silent—a sultry, Harlem, Friday afternoon in the summer—but he couldn't take any chances, did not even dare to pull the money out of the bag long enough to count it.

Instead, he looked around the rooms for someplace to hide the stash, but he knew that this wouldn't do, either. Sammy had told him the tenant in the back basement apartment, just behind his wall, was one of the biggest dealers in Harlem. Malcolm had been proud to be living in such proximity, even if he had never seen the man. But he had already noticed a steady trickle of junkies coming down the stairs to his apartment, past his own windows, and he knew he couldn't possibly leave so much money here.

He pulled out a money belt he had bought from Sammy, shoving the wads of money into it as quickly as he could. Forcing it closed around his waist, under the band of his trousers—hoping the bulges of money wouldn't mess up the line of his suit too badly. Only then did he feel it was safe enough to go out again, carting nearly every cent he had around on his person. Now all he had to worry about was West Indian Archie.

For the next two days he had stayed in motion. Driving constantly back and forth between Sammy's apartment and midtown. Volunteering for one job after another, asking Sammy if there wasn't something else he could do, until Sammy began to scrutinize him more carefully.

“You all right, Mr. High Pockets?” he asked.

“I'm cool, I'm cool!” Malcolm tried to assure him.

“Yeah? 'Cause you flippin' an' you ain't floppin'. You flappin' an' you ain't flyin' at
all
.”

“I'm solid!” he cried—not daring to tell Sammy what was up, afraid he would just as soon turn him into Archie on speculation.

“Yeah? Well then, come in here, young lane. You might as well have a snort,” he said, ushering him into his kitchen.

He brought out some cocaine and cut it on a mirror on the kitchen table—his own stash, Malcolm noticed, uncut with the regular heavy dosage of talcum powder for the square shufflers. He invited Malcolm to do a line, then two more. Looking him over thoughtfully the whole time, gently prodding him to talk. Ushering him out of his apartment only after offering up a final snort, and letting Malcolm score a new bottle of bennies on credit.

“'Member, Nome. I'se you friend. You got anyt'ing troublin' you, you come to ol' Sammy,” he said as he let him out the front door, tapping his back affectionately.

“You know I will. You a good friend,” Malcolm said, as sincerely as he was able—thinking now that somehow Sammy knew, that he must have noticed the money belt bulging beneath his pants. Sure now that he would put the word out on The Wire.

He had not dared to go back to his rented rooms at all after that. He made sure to always keep himself out in public, meeting his steers in front of the Astor Hotel, on the busiest corner in Times Square, or sitting in a crowded barroom when he wasn't working for the moment. Going down to visit a white actor on the East Side he had sold sticks to, when he could not bear to go without a bath any longer. Meanwhile, he kept his ear glued to The Wire, too—much as he dreaded what he might hear. Trying to discover as discreetly as possible if Archie was after him, if he even knew his money was gone yet. Having to do it subtly—noticing how the faces of old friends and connections grew quietly interested the more he talked.

Above all, he wanted to go down to the Village and see Miranda again. Soon he could think about nothing else but how it would feel to simply caress her, to rest with her. He wanted to go, he knew that she would never give him up—but was too afraid that he might run right into Archie there. He thought about trying to see her at her work, down at the Café Society, but he couldn't seem to figure out when she would be there. Time was beginning to slip away from him, the hours passing in the space of a thought, seconds lingering on interminably. Even the air was beginning to change around him, he thought, the pressure dropping steadily. The sky lowering darkly, visibly—the day becoming steadily hotter and more oppressive.

When it began to rain, at last, he felt relief. Coming back to himself a little. Standing out on the pavement and lifting his head up to receive the tepid water. Hearing a good-hearted laugh or two from all around him, and not minding it in the least—glad to discover that he was back in Harlem, at least, and not downtown.

He tramped up and down through the rain for a while, trying to clear his head. Stamping puddles, shaking his head, not even caring that he was messing up his conk as he tried to get the cobwebs out. Wondering what he was going to do with this money strapped to him—if he could parlay it into some really big score, hit the horses or the numbers, or break a poker game. He would have more than enough to pay West Indian Archie back, with interest, he figured, and soon he was picturing how even Archie would be impressed when Malcolm walked in, telling him coolly how he had doubled his money—

He made his way blindly back up to Sammy's, not quite sure if he had missed some job, or was due for another. He swung by Sugar Hill on his way, circling warily around his latest crib to see if there was anything suspicious. He didn't see anyone—but then, he was no longer sure what he could or could not see. That noisy, evange-list revival still going on up the street, distracting him, making him think he couldn't hear something vital.

He had stopped outside the big white tent for a few minutes. Scowling at the sight of all the excitable Negroes thinking they were saved. Kneeling and praying, with some whooper preacher in a saddle brown suit that perfectly matched the color of his skin, and a mouthful of gleaming, gold teeth. A hustler who would have been spotted for exactly what he was in a New York minute, in Small's Paradise. All the sinners praying with their heads bowed, their hands lifted up to God.

Just as he had watched people praying all his life, for nothing. Just as he had watched her pray, at the Seventh Day Church of God. Sneaking loving looks out the corner of her eye at Mr. Walker, that barber salesman, that congolene dealer standing next to her—

He turned away angrily. Trying to calm himself—trying not to miss anything. Trying to keep from opening the bottle of bennies, now only half full, in his inside jacket pocket. Fearing as he did that just one more might be enough to push him over the edge. Making himself think instead on what Archie had told him:
I am a hustler, boy, that's what I do—

At Sammy's he tried to put a big front on it. Slipping in as coolly as if he had just left, asking casually if Sammy had anything more for him. And Sammy still looking him up and down with interest, nodding his head. Telling him, yeah, sure, and instructing him to meet another steer from downtown, out at the corner, and walk the john in. Malcolm nodded, trying to get a read on Sammy but not quite able to, what with his head pounding once more. The heat already rising again.
Funny how it happened in this City. Not even the rain dispelling it.

He made an effort to concentrate. Trying to picture the white john he was to meet from the familiar nickname Sammy told him.
Doughface
. A picture of a soft, skittery white man in his fifties, with large, moist eyes came to mind—someone who would present no problem. He nodded and smiled at Sammy as normally as he could, then walked out to the corner. The rain slacking off now to passing spits and drizzles, the money belt pressing hotter and heavier than ever against his thighs. Seeing the car coming up already, the sad, paunchy Doughface climbing out. Malcolm mumbled something, some nonsense at him; grinning at him, trying to make him feel safe. And then there he was.

He heard him before he saw him, coming at him from down the sidewalk. Yelling something unintelligible—feeling him before he quite saw him, and freezing there. Leaving the soft, sad-eyed white man in the lurch, his friendly, well-intentioned hand hanging out in the air. Car tires squealed, and Mr. Doughface ran off into the night. Only Malcolm was left standing there, smiling in stupefaction to see who it was. Ready to shake
his
hand, even calling out to him in his relief and recognition that it wasn't Archie, or someone Archie had sent, but only that preacher again, come out of nowhere—

“What
you
doin' here?”