The next afternoon Fatty was working on the engine of the Great Chadwick Six as Big Soap watched over his shoulder. Fatty tightened the last spark plug in place, then clipped the distributer cap on. “This ain’t a Great Chadwick,” he announced.
“How do you know?”
“These are Ford parts,” he said. “A Ford distributor won’t fit on a Chadwick Six. The Ford cap is smaller. Get in. I’ll drive.”
Big Soap leaped into the back seat while Fatty hopped into the driver’s seat. He turned the key and the old engine fired, belching forth a cloud of black smoke.
“Put it in gear,” Big Soap wailed. He clapped his hands twice, clap clap, and said gaily, “Home, Charles!”
“Very funny. It won’t go in gear.” Fatty cut the motor, then glanced in the mirror as Big Soap relaxed in the back, stretching a long muscled arm across the seat. “Soap, you wanna make some dough?”
“No, Fatty. I wanna wander the earth spreading joy and love. Of course I wanna make some dough.”
“I got a job for us.”
“Doing what?”
“Connecting a water pipe on the Hill.”
“Is it illegal?”
“Not really. We’re just pulling an old pipe off another and connecting it to city water. Everybody pays for city water. So it’s not technically illegal. But we gotta do it at night.”
“If it’s just connecting to the city line, why not get the city to do it?”
“On the Hill? You kidding?”
“How deep do we gotta dig?” Big Soap asked.
“Not much. Just pull off a cover, go down, and disconnect one pipe and connect it to another. Then put the cover back.”
“Connecting live water lines is wet work.”
“You wanna make money or not?”
“Just so you know, Fatty, I’m making good dough at the Dohler plant.”
“How much?”
“Three dollars and fifty cents a week.”
“What you doing over there, stuffing ballot boxes?”
“Firing furnaces.”
“They gonna bump up your dough soon?”
“When they’re ready.”
Fatty nodded, tapping the ancient dashboard of the old car. There it is, he thought bitterly. Big Soap gets fired from one job, gets hired elsewhere, his mother cusses him out in front of his friends, the Irish over at the Empire Fire Company make him yank one hundred feet of wet hose to the top of their tower while they sit around drinking beer, and he’s still happy to work for nothing. The moron.
“You’ll make ten times that in three hours. And I’ll add Rusty to the job.”
“If Rusty’s coming, it must not be easy.”
“You want the job or not?”
“You ain’t said how much.”
“Thirty-five dollars for you.”
Big Soap whistled. “That sounds like robbery. Is it a bank?”
“What do I look like, a thief? It’s a simple plumbing job, Soap. Pull off the manhole cover. Go down a well. Move a Y valve to the six-inch feed from the reservoir. Connect another line to it. Climb out. Close the manhole cover. That’s it. I done it a hundred times.”
“Whose house is it for?”
“It’s not a house. It’s on the lot over at Hayes and Franklin. Where the public faucet is.”
Big Soap frowned. “Ain’t that where the Clover Dairy is?”
“It’s across the street from the Clover Dairy.”
“It’s for them?”
“No.”
“Who’s it for then?”
“I can’t say. But they’re paying long dollars. You want the job or not?”
Big Soap thought a moment. “Thirty fish is a lot of fish. How long will it take?”
“A couple hours.”
“That doesn’t sound too hard. What you need Rusty for?”
“Backup. The manhole cover on the well is old cement. If we break it, Rusty can fix it up, make it look like the original. He’s good with mortar and cement stuff.”
“You need water to mix cement, Fatty.”
“We’ll use water from the pipe we’re working with.”
“What we gonna mix the cement with?”
“I got that old gas-powered cement mixer behind the jook.”
“That hunk of junk? You can’t run that thing at night. It sounds like a bullhorn. It’ll wake up the whole Hill.”
“It’s got a hand crank, too.”
“Which works fine if you’re Tarzan.”
“Rusty will oil it up. He knows how to work that stuff. Or we’ll use a wheelbarrow. Rusty can color the cement just right to make it look like the kind the city uses.”
“We can’t roll that mixer down the Hill if it’s full of cement, Fatty. It’s too heavy.”
“Rusty will mix the cement while you and I fix the pipes—if the cover breaks when we pull it off, which it probably won’t because we’ll be careful, okay? It’ll be a snap.”
“You sure Rusty’s in?”
“Why would I say he was in if he wasn’t?”
Big Soap, sitting in the back seat, nodded, peered up at the blue sky overhead, absently lost in thought, then said, “Fatty, the front door of the dairy is right at Franklin Street.”
“There’s two more doors on the Hayes Street side.”
“They get going at four in the morning at the dairy.”
“It’s Memorial Day weekend, Soap. The Antes parade. Speeches, barbecue, beer, fireworks. Every business in town’s closed.”
“All the same. They probably got a watchman at the dairy, and he’ll be looking out.”
“The watchman’ll be at Antes House having fun with the parade and fireworks like everybody else. I know him. He’s colored,” Fatty said.
“Then he won’t be at the parade,” Big Soap said. “I don’t know one colored that goes to that parade.”
“It’s Reverend Spriggs.”
Big Soap paused a moment, thinking, then said, “Ain’t Snooks your pastor?”
“He ain’t my pastor,” Fatty said. “He’s the pastor.”
“I didn’t know Snooks worked as a watchman,” Big Soap said. “Father Vicelli runs our church full-time.”
Fatty dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “Anytime this town needs a Negro to stand around at celebrations and eat and look happy, they call Snooks. That’s his real job.”
“That don’t sound like a bad job,” Big Soap said. He looked up over Fatty’s shoulder. “Uh-oh.”
Fatty spun around to follow Big Soap’s gaze to see Paper at the front grill of the car, hands on her hips.
Seeing her standing amid the junk in his yard, her yellow dress swishing about in the breeze, the sunlight bouncing off her smooth brown face, made him feel as if he were in a room full of warm marshmallows. His heart felt as light as that of a four-year-old.
“C’mere,” she said, waving him over with an impatient swipe in the air.
He climbed out of his convertible by standing on the seat, stepping over the windshield onto the hood, and jumping off, landing next to her, whereupon she grabbed his elbow and spun him around so their backs were to Big Soap.
“Haven’t you ever heard of the early bird?” she said.
“No. But I heard of the wriggling worm.”
“You was supposed to go by to see Nate this afternoon to figure out what time to run him out to Hemlock Row. He wants to move. Tonight.”
Fatty felt a sudden urge to confess, to tell Paper he’d accepted another job, one that involved a huge payoff with little risk, that would provide him—maybe even them, if there was a them, which he hoped there was—with some real money.
“Tonight?” he sputtered. “I got things to do tonight.”
“What kind of things?”
“A job come up.”
“You can sell icebreakers at your jook tomorrow. It’s all set. Just get down to the theater. Nate needs you to help him move some drums and parade stuff to Antes House before he leaves out.”
“I thought I was supposed to drive him over to Hemlock Row. Nobody said nothing about volunteering me to haul cotton for Doc Roberts’s parade. And nobody said nothing about me doing all that today.”
“Just play along, would you? It’s a lot of drums and parade stuff.”
“There’s plenty folks around to help Nate. Why’s he want me?”
“Because you’re the only one on the Hill who can come up with something big enough to bring all them instruments in one big swoop on short notice. Otherwise he’ll be hauling that stuff back and forth all day. He ain’t got all day. He’s got to get moving tonight.”
“Why?”
“Miggy set him up with the Egg Man. Tonight.”
“Why can’t the white folks haul their own stuff for their parade? They allergic to work?”
“Get down there and ask Nate yourself.”
“Can you tell him I can’t make it, Paper?”
Paper leaned on the hood coolly and reached out to touch his face gently. “Be good, Fatty. I know you can.”
As a nod to the Jewish community, the John Antes Historical Society every year allowed Moshe’s All-American Dance Hall and Theater the privilege of storing in its vast basement their assorted drums and parade supplies used for the annual Memorial Day parade and fireworks display. Seventeen snare drums, eight tom-toms, four huge bass drums, eighteen drum harnesses, banners, floats, two miniature fire trucks, platform materials, and other assorted paraphernalia for the parade dignitaries, which included Doc Roberts and several city council members.
Normally, the city sent a truck around to pick up the gear. But this year, no truck arrived. Instead, the request for the drums arrived via a high school kid who bore a note to Moshe, asking that the gear be brought over.
Moshe was not at the theater when the note came. He was home not feeling well. Thus, the note was handed to Nate, who could not read, who handed it to Addie, who could, who walked it over to Moshe’s house to deliver the request to Moshe, then returned to the theater, where Nate was backstage preparing for the weekend appearance of the great blues singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
“What’d he say?” Nate asked.
“He was fast sleep. He’s not feeling well. So I didn’t bother him,” Addie said.
“He used to run himself to death to please the white folks round here,” Nate said. “Anyway, we’ll hold him up. We’ll get the drums and stuff there. I’ll still have time to get to Hemlock Row tonight.”
“Hang the parade,” Addie said. “We got our own business to tend to. Let them get their own parade junk.”
“I’ll have time.”
“Who’s gonna fetch that stuff back here after the parade and fireworks is finished?”
Nate waved her off. “It’ll take ’em all night to close up Antes House. I’ll fetch the drums and things in the morning.”
“Not if the police are hunting you.”
“They ain’t gonna be hunting me. ’Cause I’ll be back here.”
Addie was silent. She’d hidden her dread about the whole business at last night’s meeting with Miggy, but as the hours to Nate’s departure drew closer, she’d grown more nervous. “Maybe it’s best to leave Dodo in God’s hands,” she said.
‘He is in God’s hands,” Nate said. “That’s why I’m meeting the Egg Man at Hemlock Row. I’ll tell him what I want. Pay him a few shekels, then let him do the rest. I’ll be back by midnight. So if they find out the boy’s gone and the police come looking for him here, they won’t find him. They’ll find me in bed instead. I ain’t going out there to fetch him, honey. I’m just going to meet the Egg Man. The rest I’ll leave to him and Miggy. You got nothing to worry about.”
At that moment, Addie realized that there was no actual plan laid out that she knew about. Fatty had agreed to drive Nate to Hemlock Row to meet Bullis, the Egg Man, care of Miggy. She couldn’t remember what else she’d actually heard at last night’s meeting beyond that, for Miggy talked in parables and the notion of Dodo at the mercy of that . . . heathen Son of Man drove her ill, not to mention the discovery that Nate, her Nate, was . . . she always knew he had a secret. He said he was from the South. South Carolina was his home, he’d said. But Hemlock Row? She decided she’d take it up later, for there was trouble ahead now. Nate, her Nate, was not going inside that hospital, Dodo or no Dodo.
“My mind’s troubled by some things that was spoken about yesterday,” she said.
“We’ll get to it when we’re done with what’s ahead.”
“Just to be sure. You ain’t going inside that place yourself, is you?”
“I don’t want to go in there,” Nate said dismissively.
She wanted to scream at him that he’d better not go in there, but the sound of horseshoes clopping along Main Street toward the theater interrupted her thoughts. She turned around to look and murmured, “Oh my . . .”
Fatty, the only Negro on the Hill who could on short notice create—or think of—a contraption big enough to carry the assorted paraphernalia for a parade of 350 people, clomped up to the curb in a cart pulled by a mule. Next to him sat Big Soap, grinning.
“Taxi?” Fatty called gaily.
Addie rolled her eyes.
“It’s just a few blocks,” Fatty said.
Nate wasn’t amused, but he led Fatty and Big Soap around to the theater’s stage door, where the three of them hastily piled the gear into the cart, strapped it down with ropes, and set off. Fatty and Nate rode up front. Big Soap rode on the equipment stacked high in the cart’s rear, facing backward, his legs dangling off the back.
As they clunked forward, with Big Soap out of earshot, Fatty got to the problem quickly. “Nate, do you have to meet the Egg Man in Hemlock Row tonight?”
“Got to. Heading out around seven o’clock.”
“Can it be another night?”
“What’s wrong?”
Fatty looked to see if he could be overheard, though they were atop the cart and out of earshot of everyone. “I got another job,” he said.
“So?”
“It’s for tonight. Just a little job. Can I get you to Hemlock Row a little early? Maybe take you at four. Is that all right?”
“What time would you fetch me after?”
“It’ll be late. About midnight or so.”
Nate frowned. “All right. So long as I’m back by morning.”
“You got someplace to sit tight over at the Row while you wait for me later?”
Nate smirked. “Don’t worry ’bout me out there.”
“I’m sorry, Nate. I’m in a tight spot. I need the dough from this job. It’s a lot of money. But you can count on me.”
It sounded phony even as he said it, and as the cart approached the Antes House at the bottom of Chicken Hill, Fatty glanced beyond the old building, three blocks up the slope, to the Clover Dairy. He decided to fess up.
“Nate, I got a note from my sister yesterday.”
“Glad y’all is speaking again.”
“Somebody passed some money to me through her. They want me to dig up the water pipe across from the Clover Dairy. There’s a Y under there that connects the Jewish church to the faucet well. I’m gonna take it and connect it to the city’s water from the reservoir. The public spigot’s well must be drying up.”
Nate nodded. “All these springs under the Hill are drying out. Too many wells. Water comes out the tap muddy and wrong nowadays. How do you know about pipes under the Hill?”
“I helped my daddy put in a lot of the pipes when I was little. It wasn’t legal back then, but that’s how they did it. Just ran pipes where they could. I guess they don’t wanna go through the town to get it fixed.”
“They don’t wanna pay off crooks, is what it is. Who wrote the note?”
“I don’t know and Bernice didn’t say. But there was a lot of money in that note. And something else was in that note, but I . . . lost part of it.”
“You lost it?”
“There was a second page. I tore it by accident. I found some of it, but the rest . . . it fell behind my jook, and by the time I went back and found it, it was all wet. I couldn’t make it out.”
“None of it?”
“Just something about the railroad men. Union workers . . . Jews . . . and the Pennhurst train. But what all, I don’t know.”
Nate pondered this for a moment, then smiled before he finally spoke. “Mr. Isaac’s running this thing from the back.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Moshe’s got a cousin by the name of Isaac. He’s a deep-pocketed fella from Philly. Theater man. Same business as Mr. Moshe but bigger, three times over. He’s all right then. Was there any money in that note for the railroad people?”
“There was four hundred dollars extra in there taped to that note on that page about the railroad men. I don’t know what it was for.”
“Was that all the money in there?”
“Heck no. There was five hundred dollars for the water main besides the four hundred dollars for the railroad men.”
Nate was silent for a long moment as the clop clop of the mule making his hard journey rung into the street. Finally he said, “You gonna have to surrender that part of it to me. I know it’s a lot of money, but it ain’t meant for you. That’s for Dodo.”
“My ass!” is what Fatty wanted to say. And would have said were it anyone else, were it not Nate Timblin.
When they arrived at the Antes House, Nate dismounted, stepped to the side of the cart, and spoke up to Fatty, who was still in the driver’s seat. “Go home and fetch that four hundred dollars and bring it to Addie at the theater right now. You and Soap walk it over. I’ll unload this stuff here.”
“That’s a lot of dough, Nate.”
“Surrender it, son. It’s gonna bounce back on you one way or the other if you don’t. Somebody’s paying for a service. Your job is to deliver it.”
“What’s the service?”
“I’ll take care of that,” Nate said. “After you give the money to Addie, go on and take care of your business here tonight. I’ll get out to Hemlock Row on my own. I’ll bring your mule and wagon back to your jook when I’m done here.”
If any other man in Pottstown had demanded four hundred free dollars that had landed on his lap and told him to walk home and fetch it and bring it to his wife to boot, Fatty would’ve told them to get lost and cuffed them on the neck and kicked them in the rear as they ran out the door. But Nate Timblin was not any other man. Fatty did as he was told.