In the meantime Lafala was pronounced officially better and thus due to leave the hospital. In a sense he was not a patient only, but technically also a prisoner held for deportation to the port that he had left clandestinely.
And one morning an official of the shipping company appeared in the ward and announced to Lafala that he had orders to ship him back to that port.
“And what about my case?” Lafala asked.
“That will be settled on the other side.”
“But the immigration officials?”
“They know all about it. You’re discharged from the hospital and out of their hands now and we’ll be getting into more trouble if we don’t take charge of you and take you back where you stowed away from.”
It was the international usage. . . .
Lafala said he would like to see his lawyer.
“All right, we’ll see about that for you.”
His little bundle of clothes was brought. He dressed and was lifted into a waiting taxi-cab and whisked away.
The nurse had stood by in helpless agitation. Frantically now she rushed to the telephone to call the lawyer, only to learn that he knew nothing of Lafala’s being sent away. The lawyer got busy in a hurry. He got out an injunction to prevent Lafala’s sailing before his case was settled. He looked up which of the company’s ships was sailing and likely to take Lafala. He did not telephone the company’s office, but sent someone to see, without asking, if Lafala was there. He was not, so the lawyer instituted a search and finally found the helpless black on the company’s pier. He snatched him up and the game was won.
“I’ll squeeze something more out of the company for this,” he said, “or I’ll get this straight into the papers. And when I get your money, I’ll see that you don’t go back to the port you stowed away from, for you never can tell what they might do to you there.”
That night Lafala slept in the lawyer’s apartment. The following afternoon he was at the lawyer’s office when Black Angel walked in.
“See youse looking better,” Black Angel said, his features glowing with a large smile.
“Feeling better, too,” Lafala grinned back.
“And you’ll soon be walking bettah, so that the chippies meeting you in the street will jest think youse got a sprain ankle.”
“Why not take him up among your folks tonight and show him a good time? He needs it after so many months in the hospital,” the lawyer said with a wink.
The lawyer advanced Lafala some money. But Black Angel had money of his own and it appeared to Lafala that he was very much in the lawyer’s confidence. Lafala was curious and Black Angel explained that he was due to get his runner’s reward from the lawyer, about five hundred dollars more or less, according to the final amount obtained in damages.
That evening for the first time Lafala had a glimpse of the life of Harlem. In the basement kitchen and dining room of Black Angel’s house a woman was preparing a feast for Black Angel and Lafala. It was a big dinner of celery soup, fricassée chicken and mashed potatoes. After the dinner Black Angel gave a party in his room for Lafala.
“Ise got a buddy working for a big bootlegger,” he said, “and I’m gwine have him heah tonight wif some good liquor. You can play the phonograph theah, if youse tired waiting befoh I git back.”
Lafala cushioned his butt of a body in an old Morris chair1 and biting off the point of a cigar, he lit it.
Black Angel returned with a brown girl and a bottle of gin. A little later his buddy appeared with two girls, a dark-brown with rouge in her cheeks that gave her an exotic maroon color and a lemon-colored one. He deposited a package on the chiffonier, which contained two bottles of gin and two bottles of wine.
“Gwina make a little cabaret a this heah joint foh you special benefit,” Black Angel assured Lafala.
The buddy made a strong punch. Black Angel started the phonograph.
“Don’t think no affliction of you’self that you kaint dance as we do,” said Black Angel to Lafala. “Ef you kaint dance on the floor, you can dance in the bed.”
While they were dancing somebody knocked on the door and another girl entered, a warm satin-skinned mahogany brown.
“One plus, gotta do some figuring,” muttered Black Angel. He introduced the girl. And now Lafala had two girls, one on each side entertaining him when the others danced. He was the center of the show, with Black Angel and his buddy replenishing the glasses. He was pitied and praised and beamed upon and his stumps of legs were fondled and caressed as if they were honeysticks. It was a great evening for Lafala. Black Angel had taken care all right that the company should know that there was a fortune in Lafala’s misfortune. . . .
Said Black Angel to the lawyer when they met again, “I done gave him a sweet souvenir a high life, boss, and he sho’ will remember it all them days that he’s gwine spend chasing chimpangees when he scootles back to jungle-land.”