BILL and his wife returned to the St. George in the whitening darkness just before the dawn. Isabelle had fallen asleep almost right away, her arms around him. But he couldn’t sleep. He felt crushed, lost in sleepless caves echoing of Heney, the Heney oratory at the Hotel Maurice, the Heney directives in Suite 23 of the Hotel Pennston, the Heney jokes in the cab that had carried them to the reception from the brownstone where all the patrons were madams, the Heney instructions to meet Darton Saturday afternoon at three o’clock. Blue clean light fingered into the room. Saturday morning had come, was coming. He couldn’t endure staying in bed any more.
He dressed quietly, his eyes on Isabelle. But she never stirred. He wrote her a brief note on the desk: “Isa, I’ll phone you at noon. Don’t worry. Everything’ll be fine. Bill.” As he signed his name, a pang tore through him.
Downstairs in the street he lurched into a white tiled coffee pot on Clark Street, sitting down at the U-shaped counter. “Toast and black coffee,” he told the counterman. “Scrambled eggs. Give me the coffee now.” A big man in a cap took the stool next to his.
“Hello, Gus,” the big man said to the counterman. “Cold for spring, ain’t?”
“Yeah. Warm up later.”
“That’s what I said to a friend of mine. He just got married. Old as me, he is, and he’s already complaining his wife’s cold. His wife’s got a boy in the Army. I said: What you expect with a son in the Army? Shell warm up after the war. Give them time, I said, the weather and the women.”
The counterman laughed. Bill breakfasted hurriedly, rushed out to the street. It was Saturday! he thought. This was an important day, he foresaw. At three o’clock he would meet Darton. And tomorrow was Sunday. Then Monday. Where would he be a week from Monday? Where?
For hours, Bill wolfed up and down the early morning streets, wandering in a great eccentric circle that always brought him back to the skyscrapers on Montague Street. He wasn’t thinking, he wasn’t planning. Again, he fled, this time into the Spanish and Armenian neighborhood on Atlantic Avenue. His bloodshot eyes fixed on Spanish bodegas, Syrian bakeries, men, women with baby carriages and he saw nothing. Onwards, he walked, into the department stores below Court House Square, among thousands of women shoppers entering and coming out of Namm’s, Loeser’s, Abraham and Strauss’s, and he was lost and homeless, retracking his path through all the cities of his life, the city of flophouses, the city of department stores, the city of gaudy movie houses became Atlanta, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Easton, Pa., Slagtown, Pa. The two New Yorks of his life built themselves side by side in his consciousness, the New York of the depression period when he had been a rent collector, and this New York of Harlem and Brooklyn Heights. Christ, he moaned pitying himself; Christ, what am I going to do? He was finished, he, a real American whose people’d founded the country. He was finished. Oh, God damn the organization!
On and on he walked, still escaping somebody, still running from somebody, lost in cities of real estate men and brokers, in cities of dock wallopers on their way to the piers and workers on their way to the factories under the bridges, in cities of bailiffs and lawyers, in cities of shopping women. His twisted face was haggard, his lips mean and wolfish.
Towards eleven o’clock, Bill was in Big Boy Bose’s house in Harlem. He had just sat down. Big Boy seemed as if he had been in his room forever, not moving a muscle, since the first time Bill had called on him. Big Boy’s suit was blue, this morning, his silk shirt, white. On the wooden table, his pearl grey Stetson looked as if just out of a showcase, Misty-eyed, Bill glanced at the round black face. It was featureless to him, a black spinning disk. “That stink bomb job was fine,” he said.
“I ain’t seen you in a long time.”
“Busy. Too busy. About the cop?”
“What about the cop?”
“I spoke to Dent. Dent said you don’t know what you’re going to do.”
“He did?”
“Dent said you’d do him Monday.”
“Maybe. Maybe if I get a chance at him.”
“A chance?”
“What I said.”
“I don’t understand, Big Boy,” Bill said in a mild voice. His smile broadened. He wanted to please Big Boy. He wanted nothing more out of life than to please Big Boy.
“Can’t you read?” Big Boy said insolently. “I hear there’s a heap of white schools where they teach you the A B C.”
“I get you,” Bill said. “This newspaper stuff. I get you. The cops must be all over Harlem. This girl’s started something.”
“There’s a cop for every five people in Harlem.”
“Too risky trying for the cop? I guess so. Big Boy, I’ll give you a tip. Be careful. The dicks are covering you.”
“When ain’t they? I’ll give you a tip. Don’t touch that copper. That copper’s red hot. He’s walking careful. He knows Harlem’s sore at him. His trigger finger’s curly like an eel. That bastard can shoot, too.” In his blue suit, Big Boy seemed like a night club master of ceremonies. His white teeth smiled a master of ceremonies smile.
“Dent thinks the article in the colored newspapers has something to do with it.”
“Do with what?”
Bill hesitated. Christ, what did he have to lose! “With you cooling on the cop.”
“That Clair article? I read it. That’s no news to me. Not the first time those Jesus Christer colored preach to obey the law.”
They gazed at each other, the huge Negro and the white man. “You look you ain’t slept in a week,” Big Boy said.
“I was out last night.” Bill coughed up a laugh. “Out with the wife.”
“A man needs his ten hours good sleep. Sometimes, I figure I got three shifts, dicks, shadowing me. But my sleep’s my sleep. Not the first time they shadow me.” He shrugged his massive shoulders like a business man relating an inconvenience.
“That why’s the cop alive?”
“I operate a long time with the white dicks after me. I operate white dick or no white dick.” He smiled. “I tell you that cop’s red hot. He’s a stool pigeon. He’s got dicks watching him all the time. One of my boys try for him, and wham!”
Bill’s hands tightened on his knees. “You’re right. We’ve got to be careful. You and me — We’ve got to be careful. You and me, we’ve never seen each other. No more chances for us, Big Boy. Nothing doing! I’m going to forget I ever came here. I never came here. You never saw me!”
“What you driving at?”
“We never saw each other. That’s the best out. I won’t talk about you. You won’t talk about me.” Bill glared at the spinning disk. The disk was laughing. “What’s so funny?”
“You don’t trick me, white man.”
“I’m not trying to trick you — ”
“You can go and talk to the Commissioner of Police. You can’t do nothing to me. I get my housekeeper to swear you never been here. I swear you never been here. Chappie, he never saw you. Aden, he never hear of you — ”
“Big Boy — ”
Big Boy lifted a silencing hand. “What you?” he asked contemptuously. “Me, the whole town know me. That’s nothing new. God damn papers after me all the time. Like anybody big, I always got lil craps try to frame me.”
“Big Boy, you don’t understand — ”
“I understand you.”
“Honest to Christ, you didn’t get me!” And a crazy smile, false and thin and trembling glued to his lips.
“I got you the first time I seen you. You aim for a riot. You, South!”
“Big Boy, please. Please. Aden’ll prove — ”
“Lord give me my own eyes,” Big Boy said. All of his bulk seemed to freeze, the eyes freezing tight to Bill’s face. Finished! Bill thought in frenzy. The blood streamed into Bill’s face; a torrent was smashing in him; his head was smashed by that torrent and he gaped at Big Boy’s eyes. Eyes, he raved; the black bastard’s eyes, the eyes! Heney’s, Hayden’s, the eyes …
“Eyes,” he muttered aloud.
“Don’t come here again,” Big Boy said. “Go home and sleep it off.”
In the street, the finger was still pointing at him, and behind the finger were two black pupils. The pupils floated on glassy whitish surfaces streaked with tiny red lines. Now, Bill knew with a drumming conviction that they were all pointing the finger at him. It was a long finger. Maybe, who could tell, as long as a building, a skyscraper. It was everywhere, that finger, and they were all pointing, Big Boy, Hayden, Isabelle. Yes, Isabelle! Why had she gone off with Hayden at the reception? Maybe Hayden had recruited her into the organization and she’d sworn the oath. The oath …
He saw a bright avenue with Negroes in bright spring clothes. He saw a cab and stepped into it. He slumped into the seat. Who had ordered the driver where to go? Himself? Who had said: “Get to Brooklyn. Across the bridge.” Across what bridge? Who had said: “across the bridge”? Maybe there wasn’t one of him but two? That sometimes happened in life. Everybody knew that. He gazed at his hands and counted them carefully. One hand, two hands. He lifted his hands close to his face and counted. One. Two. He placed his hands on his knees. “Two,” he said aloud. “I’m two. This is dumb.”
The cab rolled south and he stared out of the window. Nothing was one. Houses were two. People were two. He covered his eyes with his palms and almost sobbed. All the others, yes. But not Isabelle! Yet, Isabelle had done this to him …
Slowly, he came to himself as the cab slanted down on the Brooklyn cobblestones. He was like a man after a drunk. He was flooded with self-recriminations. That was what was wrong with him. That was why he was on the spot. He had been too easy going. Easy going in the organization. Easy going with Isabelle. She’d wasted his energies. It’d been a ticklish job, this Harlem job, and he’d wasted himself squabbling with her. Hadn’t she been in his head all the time? Hadn’t he eaten his heart out because of her? Oh, damn her, damn her!
“Here we are,” said the cab driver. “Over the bridge.”
Bill called out Darton’s address. The cab spun into high gear. Bill leaned back. Christ, he had to look out for himself. No one else would. He was on the spot but maybe it wasn’t as much of a spot as he had thought talking to Big Boy. Dent was no hot head. Dent was cool and if Dent said that Aden’d keep Big Boy in line, he could rely on it. Damn the nigger. Damn them all. Damn Isabelle. And suddenly the last connective tissue between Isabelle and himself seemed to snap. There was a snapping sensation inside of him. Damn her! he thought and he was relieved. The sensation was strange; again, he felt that there were two of him, two Bills of different sizes. It was as if he were whittling down, mutilating into smallness the Bill who had loved Isabelle; smaller, smaller, small as a toy, a tiny man-trinket; the whittler was larger and larger and larger. And one Bill was gone. All that was left was a man with burn scars riding in a cab to meet another man with a brown pompadour. All that was left was a beautiful woman who was living with him at the Hotel St. George.
At the Wheelock Printing Company, in the small rear room where he and Darton and Baumgartner had eaten sandwiches and drunk beer, Bill reported his conversation with Big Boy Bose. It wasn’t an accurate report. He glossed over his own fears. Outside the room, he heard the printing presses thumping. Darton had listened, smiling, one big knuckled hand on the table, the other clasped around the back of his neck.
“I’ve just come from Harlem,” Bill said. “I only stopped off to phone my wife.” His tone was hearty and exaggeratedly masculine as if he were saying: Wives are a nuisance. “I wanted you to meet her. But I didn’t see you at the reception.”
“Receptions make me sick. Besides, I was busy as hell. Leaflets to run off. The Governor’s not easy to please. I looked up Aden. I have to see Aden again today. Bill, it’s your impression that Big Boy might sing?” He slapped his hand down on the table, laughed. “I can see you and Dent in the coop.”
“What’s so God damn funny?”
“Not you so much. With that mug of yours, you wouldn’t stand out from the rank and file mug. But Dent without his stiff collar.” He chuckled.
“Did I tell you where I had to go for the Governor?”
“That’s enough! I don’t give a damn!”
Bill stared. This wasn’t the Darton who had bellowed over a bottle of beer. “Okay, let’s forget it, Lester.”
“I had a phone call from the Governor this morning.” Darton’s voice was self-righteous as if he still hadn’t forgiven Bill’s attempt to gossip.
“About what?”
“The girl.”
“What’s the decision?”
“It’s up to me.”
“Have you decided?”
“Not yet.”
“The Governor certainly relies on your judgment. I suppose he feels a God damn extrovert like yourself would choose the right horse.” He had inserted the God damn to tone down his flattery.
“What would you do?”
“Get rid of her.”
“You would?”
“She’s the Jew’s girl, don’t forget. She’s a nigger lover.”
“Hayden’s idea was ingenious. Let her escape to sob it out to the press.”
“Too ingenious. It’s like his over-reliance on the niggers, on Bose. That was ingenious, too.”
“Just the same — ” Darton began to speak as if explaining the ingredients in two similar but different chemical formulae. He analyzed both plans. It was his opinion that the maximum sensation would be aroused by the rape-escape plan. It would be more effective propaganda, too, because it would have a longer life in the public mind. He urged Bill to consider the elements in this plan carefully. Here was a girl who believed in race equality, a volunteer at the Harlem Equality League. Another Joan of Arc, Darton commented sarcastically. And what was the result? She had been kidnapped by her nigger friends and held in a dark room for days, in constant fear of her life and, Darton grinned, her honor. Her honor would be attended to in the customary way, Darton continued. Then, the girl, exhausted, probably tearful, her clothes torn, would be set free. She could be driven back to the city and tossed out on some dark street. What would the girl do? What would any girl do, even a Red, even a nigger lover? Rape was an eternal human situation, a melodrama of victim and villain, Darton said, and all women, no matter what their beliefs would behave in the same way. The physical and psychical shock would be approximately the same. All women would get in touch with their nearest of kin. In this case, the girl would probably get in touch with the boy friend and her mother. Both the mother and the cop would notify the police. Hadn’t Miller himself scuttled to the police? Hadn’t their contact in the Department reported that Miller was prepared to cooperate, to do anything if the Department went all out in Buckles hunt? Yes, the girl would go to the police. The story would break. It would be wonderful propaganda for years to come. Where the stupid public would forget about a murder-rape as soon as the next murder-rape occurred, (Darton reminded Bill that the herd mind was a collective mind; it wasn’t retentive.) they would never forget, or at least not forget so soon, the story of the white girl who had stood up for the blacks and had been betrayed and raped by them. For years, people would say, and Darton’s voice now changed from its mid-western flatness into a mocking imitation of a New York City accent. “You can’t trust a nigger. Looka that girl. You know who. She was a Red and she was for the niggers. Wanted them to be good as us and looka what happened. kidnapped her. They lay her. That’s all any nigger wants all the time, anyway. A white woman. Would’ve killed her, too, but they got scared. Too much publicity so they let her go. Shows you you can’t trust a nigger.’
Darton’s face was beaming approval of his own analysis. “Besides, Bill, if we get rid of the girl, we run the risk of the police or the F.B.I. becoming a real danger. The sensation the press has been working up would force a full inquiry. Good detective work might trace a murder back to Aden’s men, to Aden himself, to the white couple I’ve got out there. We can’t risk killing her.”
Bill thought: Now he’s worrying about Aden; he didn’t worry about Aden when he hinted I blackmail Aden the last time; now he’s on the make; he’s got authority; he’s the gauleiter, the bastard. Bill hadn’t interjected any comments. What was there to say? Darton was in charge, the bastard, the red bastard, spouting a new theory to match his new position. “I guess you’re right,” Bill said.
“I forgot to show you the leaflets.” Darton left the table, walked to the wall. There were piles of green leaflets tied in stacks, a few loose leaflets on the floor. He picked one up, brought it over to Bill. “We printed one hundred thousand of these.”
Bill glanced at the leaflet. “This isn’t the poem that woman read.”
“No. We printed fifty thousand of the poem. Read it.”
“Proud of your work?”
“Read it.”
Bill lowered his head, reading:
PEOPLE OF HARLEM! NEGRO MEN AND WOMEN!
THE QUESTIONABLE (K.K.KUESTIONABLE
kidnapping OF THE WHITE GIRL) SUZY BUCKLES,
FROM THE H.E.L.
IS BEING USED TO WHIP UP A RACE RIOT!!
OUR VERY LIVES ARE IN DANGER, NEGROES!
WE BELIEVE IN LAW AND ORDER
BUT IF WE ARE ATTACKED, RESOLVE TO
DEFEND YOURSELVES!!
This leaflet was signed, “The United Negro Committee.” Bill smiled up into Darton’s face. “The cops won’t let you hand it out. Or the poem either. This calls for an insurrection.”
“That so? We’ll manage. I’ve given Baumgartner full instructions. Aden’s men’ll call for every damn leaflet tonight.”
“How’ll you hand ‘em out? Chuck ‘em from the roof tops?
“They’ll manage. We’ll flood Harlem tonight and tomorrow.”
“I wish you luck.”
“Let’s see Aden. We’ll get my car. First, though, we’ll have some lunch. A good lunch’ll fix you up. Damn you, you look pooped. Didn’t your wife let you alone last night?”
Aden was glad to see them. He was a man of fifty, hooked of nose and thin of nostril, with a black mustache and a pointed short black beard. He wore a round red cap on his grizzled hair. “Come in, gentlemen,” he invited. Bill wondered if Aden was a Mohammedan. He wanted to ask Aden. Christ, he thought; this was the queerest day. Maybe Aden was Haile Selassie; Aden had the same hooked-nosed face as the Lion of Judah, the kike of the kikes.
Aden ushered them into a room with a dozen straight wooden chairs lined against one wall. There was a big mahogany desk without any papers or pencils on it. Framed photographs hung everywhere. Aden pulled two of the chairs forward, then seated himself at the desk.
“You don’t know Bill Johnson by name,” Darton said. “But he’s the contact to Big Boy.”
Aden smiled. “Big Boy has painted your portrait in glowing colors. I should have recognized you, Mr. Johnson.” He spoke with an actor’s flair for the flowering word.
“I hope you have enough influence to calm Big Boy,” Bill said. “I saw Big Boy this morning. He’s really upset.”
“I know. I have sufficient influence.” Aden accented sufficient as an actor might. His red cap no longer seemed so stupid to Bill. The cap, the ringing voice, the bearded Haile-Selassie-ish appearance were, he guessed, useful devices to impress Negroes. The red cap was the color of another life; the ringing voice showed the salvation road.
“He was very upset,” Bill said. “He called me ‘South. You South,’ he said.”
Aden waved a slim black hand. “I would not concern myself with Big Boy’s moods. The bigger the ox the more readily managed.” And he laughed, his teeth very white, his beard seeming pointier than ever.
Darton began to outline the problems brought up by the Buckles girl; the distribution of the leaflets in preparation for Monday. Bill yawned, studied the photographs on the wall behind Aden. They were all photographs of colored men, Gandhi, Juarez, the Mikado, Chiang Kai-shek, Haile Selassie, Frederick Douglass, African princes, Indian maharajahs, Japanese admirals. Bill only recognized Haile Selassie, Gandhi, and Aden’s own photograph. He lit a cigarette, smoked, examined the photographs again and paid no attention to what Darton and Aden were saying.
“Harlem is ready for its day of judgment,” Aden said. Bill began to listen. Aden timed each word. “The Negroes are confused and angry, Mr. Darton. In the main, I approve of your plans. There is one exception.”
“What is that?”
“The matter of the girl. Permitting her to ‘escape’ would be dangerous, insofar as my people are concerned.”
Darton was frowning. “How’s that?”
“Marian Burrow, for example, has lost her morale. The police have intimidated her. If the girl ‘escapes,’ Burrow would be even more unsure of herself. After all, she telephoned us about the girl. Her morale is bad. Miller has spoken to her twice — ”
“What for?” Bill asked. “Damn that Jew!” His mouth was ugly, the lower lip pushing the upper into a crooked line. It was the Jew cop who’d jinxed him all along.
“We’ll give her some money,” Darton said. “Give her enough to get out of the city.”
Aden inclined his head. “I would like to discuss Petrie. As I told you yesterday, Petrie is one of my most devoted followers. Prior to sending him up to the H.E.L., I instructed Petrie carefully. I explained the Buckles girl was a spy, an enemy of the Negro people. Petrie believes me implicitly. He has been with the girl ever since — ”
“We’ll give him a bonus, too,” Darton interrupted.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Mr. Darton, you don’t understand. Petrie believes this girl is a dangerous enemy. If I consent to release her, he will be puzzled — ”
“Look at it this way,” Darton argued. “We get rid of the girl. Then what? Every detective in town and the F.B.I.’ll be on our necks. Why can’t you tell Petrie that we have to secure ourselves? He’s been out there. He’s seen the white couple I’ve got there. He must have doubts as it is — ”
“No,” Aden said. “I explained to him that the white couple were good whites.”
“Good whites?”
Aden smiled. “As you and Mr. Johnson are good whites.”
“Come again,” Darton said.
“We regard Hitler as a good white man. I am fond of Hitler.” Aden’s teeth gleamed in his black beard. He held up one hand above the desk. “Any white man who can arouse the whites to slay each other in such quantities must win my friendship.” The face wasn’t stately now, the eyes were predatory. “If only another Hitler arises after this war, I predict that the colored peoples of the world will come into their own. And it will not be necessary for a colored leader to cooperate with good white men like yourself, Mr. Darton, or your friend.” He folded both arms across his chest. He had made his point and he knew it. Bill was sickened. He couldn’t trust himself to look at Aden. Christ! he thought; the South had the one tried-and-true patent for treating all these niggers. So that was what this nigger in a red hat was praying for. More Hitlers, more white wars, until the day came when the niggers’d raise the banner of a nigger world. The whole damn organization was crazy; Hayden was playing with T.N.T. Use-the-blacks-to-destroy-the-blacks was T.N.T.; God knew there was only one way, the Ku Klux way: To wipe out the niggers like the black rats they were. To smash them everywhere. In Japan. In India. In the U.S.A. Burn them out. Reduce them before it was too late.
Darton was saying, “I see your point. But the girl’s release will get us the kind of propaganda that you want. As I see it, her story in the press will be a setback to all those whites and Negroes agitating for Negro and white unity — ”
“I oppose such unity!” Aden said angrily. “Of course! Negroes must learn that the Ten Commandments of the white man, the Thou-Shall-Nots were put over on them as part of the Uncle Tom religious plot to hold them in slavery. He who kills the most gets the most.”
“For the time being,” Darton said. “We agree on this unity question. We’re fellow travellers.” And he grinned.
“When would you release the girl?”
“Tomorrow. Sunday. In time for Monday’s headlines. There’s no argument between us about the money. Why not send Petrie a wire? Let him come here. Johnson and I will drive out — ”
He pulled copies of the two leaflets from his pocket and gave them to Aden. “Your men can pick up the bundles at the shop. Any time tonight.”
Aden fingered the leaflets but he didn’t read them. “Otherwise,” Darton said. “I’m not going to see you for awhile. At least, not until after the riot. I may repeat myself but you understand — ”
For the first time Aden spoke nervously. “The riot — Many Negroes will be hurt — ” He no longer was acting.
“Negroes must learn that he who kills the most gets the most,” Darton quoted but in so low a voice Bill hardly heard him. Darton’s eyes were glowing brighter than a drunkard’s. His hairy hands seemed a-crawl with energy. They weren’t still a minute. They tapped on the desk. They closed into fists.
They unclenched. They knotted and dropped at his sides, lifted to his knees. Bill was fascinated by those hands. Those hands had somehow lifted Monday into the room. Those muscular hands, it seemed to Bill, had already put the stolen trinket in the Negro boy’s fingers, had already choked the cry of anger out of the Negro customers, had already smashed the first plate glass. “I may repeat myself but you will understand. The 1935 riot was unplanned. The hearse was the crowning coincidence — ”
“I’m not sure of the hearse,” Aden said.
Bill listened, staring at Darton’s ceaselessly moving hands. This long day, this long day, Bill thought.
“I’ve thought it over,” Aden was saying. “A half dozen of my people in the store will be enough.”
They rehearsed the details. Two of Aden’s followers would locate a Negro child unaccompanied by anyone. They would seize the child and shout that they had caught him stealing. When the assistant manager, or the manager appeared, they would give him the candy that they would claim the child had stolen. The manager would believe the two adults. “The initial action,” Darton said, “is simple. The manager leads the kid away. Your people begin to yell that a Negro kid’s being attacked. The store’ll be wrecked in a half hour. The time should be as close to noon as possible.”
“I’m not sure of the hearse,” Aden said again. “I’m against a hearse. I’m against pickets. There are too many police in Harlem. Any hearse — pickets would be arrested.”
“We can cut the pickets. And I can manage the hearse without your help.”
“How?”
“I’ll hire a hearse to drive up and down One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Street. Money’ll fix the undertaker.”
“You risk having the undertaker later describe the man to whom he rented his hearse,” Aden reminded him.
“It’s worth the risk. Your followers are going to work up hundreds of Negroes in the store. I want them to see the hearse when they leave the store. Your followers will yell the hearse has come for the boy. It’s an important detail. We need it to set our riot off. How much money do you need?”
“Three thousand.”
Bill gazed at Darton’s living hands. Only the hands were real to him, the fingers long and powerful, the brown hairs curling like tiny grasses on the wrists. Only the hands were real. The details of the riot, the arguments, the photographs on the walls, the red cap — these were all properties as unreal as the bills Darton was now counting out on the desk.
“Aden has a one track mind,” Darton said to Bill as they walked down Lenox Avenue. “He’ll do anything to stop nigger-white unity. He wants a riot as much as us. A riot’s rehearsal for the global race war that’ll follow this war. That’s his opinion.”
“He’s dangerous. It’s dangerous using these bastards.”
“Perhaps.”
“What’s his background?”
“He began as an African nationalist. ‘Africa for the Africans.’ In 1934 he met the Filipino, De Guzman. De Guzman’s in jail now but he was fairly effective as Filipinos go.”
“Never heard of him.”
“De Guzman worked for the Jap Black Dragon Society. He organized the Pacific Movement of the Eastern World here in the states. Hell, let’s forget it. Bill, do you ever get depressed? I do sometimes. Suppose all our work ends up with the world’s niggers and yellows on top? Hell! Let’s drive out to Long Island and see our girl friend.” He laughed suddenly, immoderately. “Have you seen her picture in the papers? It’s an attractive bitch.”
“Are you — ”
“Think I’d let a nigger rape a white woman?”
But Darton took his time about getting started. “We’ll wait a few hours until Aden’s nigger gets his telegram and blows out. How about a drink?” They went into a bar on Seventh Avenue. The bartender was a Negro, the customers were all Negroes. Hostile eyes followed the two white men. Darton led the way to a red leather booth in the rear. They sat down, empty booths on both sides. Darton whispered. “Every white face belongs to a detective in one of these places. Unless you wear a brassiere.”
“What’s the idea anyway?”
Darton roared. “The hell with you.”
“You’re crazy.” Bill’s nerves stretched thinner with excitement. This was the reckless Darton whom he had talked to the night he had called for the valerian bombs. He blinked at the Negro waiter marching up to them.
“What’ll it be?” the waiter asked.
“Rye highball, ginger ale,” Darton said.
“Same.” As the waiter left, Bill added, “Why did you come here? Don’t hand me any of our highbrow explanations either.”
Darton poked his forefinger into Bill’s chest. “We must identify ourselves with the tempo of the times we live in.”
Bill laughed. “I never heard rape called tempo before.”
“We’ll go out to Long Island — ”
“Leave me out.”
The waiter returned with a tray. He was a tall Negro with a freckled yellowish skin. He fixed their drinks, eased away. Darton resumed the conversation. “I don’t like to drive alone. You’re coming! Why don’t you want to come?”
“For what?”
“Haven’t you seen her picture?”
Bill nodded.
Darton smiled. “You’ve got morals, my friend. A wife. That’s it.”
“No.”
“Did I ever tell you about my trip to Germany? I learned something. One must be careful. One can never be too careful. But once in awhile, blow the damn lid. In Germany I saw the most careful men, leaders, generals whirling like tops. Not always. But once in awhile. It’s necessary if one is to grow.” He clinked his highball glass against Bill’s.
“What the hell do you mean, grow?”
“What kind of society do we want?”
“I don’t see the point of all this crap.”
“After the war or wars, how are you going to fit into the new world order if you’re not prepared?”
“Prepared by rape?”
“You’re naïve. I told you you were a God damned American fool. I’m right. You’ve still got traces of American morality. That’s why you’re hanging back about coming with me. It’s your God damned American sportsmanship. As for morality, I’m for it but it should be directed to those above us. Never to those below. Waiter!” he bawled. “Two more highballs.”
“I haven’t finished mine.” Bill glanced at Darton. He was almost choking with an unendurable tension. The trip to Long Island, the scheduled rape, the scheduled headlines, the scheduled riot — all seemed to be but a few footsteps away. If he strained his eyes, he would be able to see Monday, he felt; and even beyond Monday. Christ, what a day, what a crazy day.
“Where was I?” Darton stared at the waiter walking away from their table. “Oh yes. We can learn one thing out of the past. The feudal knights honored their lords but to the serf hordes below, they were hell on wheels. They used their serfs as we use our machines. They used the serf bitches as casually as we breathe in air. If you take a deep breath would you call that raping the air? The air doesn’t matter.”
Absorbed, Bill listened. Darton’s explosive words blasted through into the days ahead. What Darton was saying made sense. Strength always made sense. Darton was strong. Darton was right. A man had to be strong for the future. Even sitting here in this Negro bar, surrounded by Negroes was meaningful. And Darton, leaning on both elbows, spilled out his ideas. He declared to Bill that he was fastidious; the jackal races disgusted him; the Roumanian fascists, for example, who had hung Jews by their throats on hooks in the slaughterhouses were disgusting. The German High Command approached the problem of master race and lesser race scientifically. After all, Darton said, the masses of German soldiers were ordinary people, bakers, clerks, mechanics. They had to be taught like schoolboys that they were the master race. Hitler not only manufactured ersatz products. He manufactured ersatz men. That was where his genius was truly shown. He made new men. Murder, rape, pillage were the A.B.C.’s. Bill asked what was the difference then between the Roumanians and the Germans? Darton replied that there was all the difference in the world. The Roumanians didn’t plan; the Germans did. The German High Command pitted their ersatz men on one side, obedient vassals of the leaders, against the masses of serfs on the other side. The Germans were systematically taught contempt for all other peoples.
“Don’t talk so loud,” Bill warned.
“Why not? They’d only think I was drunk.” Darton pounded the table. “You need a year in jail — ”
“Go to hell.”
“You’re too yellow. ‘Don’t talk so loud.’ Don’t do this — ”
“You lousy Red.”
“One more drink and we’ll get out.”
“You won’t be able to drive.”
“Only time I can’t drive is when I’m asleep. One more drink. You and me, two stags. Two stags and one little bitch.”
They picked up Darton’s car and drove across the Queensboro Bridge. Below, the East River was streaking with violet light. Tugs and coal barges slid on the twilight waters. Darton curved down the ramp into industrial Queens; factories like huge boxes were massed one next to the other. He stepped on the gas and they wheeled out to the highway. “Who’s the couple out with the girl?” Bill asked, belching. His stomach felt sour, his eyes hot.
“Couple of Germans.”
“Born in Germany?”
“Born here.”
“Bundists?”
“Look at that God damned truck. He won’t get over.”
They passed the truck. “You’ll get a ticket.”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“We can learn from the Germans — ”
“Heil,” Bill mocked.
“Take the Hartmans — ”
“Who are they?”
“My Bundists. They were undercover even when the Bund had camps all over the country. The Gestapo kept people like the Hartmans in reserve.”
“Reserve for what?”
“In case of war between Germany and us. They didn’t expect war but they were prepared for it anyway.”
They were driving on a flat land between lots and rows of two-story houses. “Who are your Hartmans loyal to? Hitler or the organization?”
“Don’t be so stinkingly patriotic. Hitler’s cause is our cause.”
“Mussolini’s?”
“His, too.”
“How about the Japs, you Comintern bastard?”
“You bastard, quit red-baiting me! I was a Red once. So what.”
“So was Mussolini.” Bill pressed his hand against his stomach. He dug his fingers into the layer of fat underneath his shirt and belched again. He became silent as the miles piled up on the meter. But Darton rambled on endlessly. They sped through the small towns of eastern Long Island and Darton switched on his headlights. White stars sharpened in the black sky. They entered a big town, slowed up on Main Street, crawling behind rows of cars towards a red beacon hanging over a cross-street. In front of the big chain stores, the haberdasheries, the Saturday night cars were parked between diagonal white lines.
“Where are we?” Bill asked.
“Patchogue.”
“We getting close?”
“Yeh.”
Bill looked out on sidewalks of people in their light clothes. He thought that it was spring, the best time in the year, the time when a man wanted to be with a woman, with Isabelle…. Slowly, the car moved out of town. Bill breathed in the spring night as if he had just dropped down on earth out of a winter sky. They roared by a duck farm. Hitch-hiking soldiers from Camp Upton walked west towards the far away city of New York. Darton cut off the highway into streets of summer bungalows. The bungalows scattered out and they travelled through third growth woods on an asphalt road. The asphalt was gone and the road was sandy.
“Here we are,” Darton said. The head lights shone on a two-story summer house. A door opened in the house; a long square of yellow light leaped across the ground. It was as if the house had switched on its own headlight. Bill blinked. “There’s Hartman,” Darton said to Bill. A man was coming through the door. “Don’t speak above a whisper or she’ll hear us.” Darton pointed to the second story. Hartman approached and Darton waved.
They went inside. Bill rubbed his eyes. Hartman was a tall middle-aged man with a round face and he looked like a storekeeper except for his clothes. He was wearing a light green sport sweater and cream-colored slacks. He led them into the living room where a middle-aged woman was standing, standing and smiling like a butler welcoming the master back from a trip. “Hello, Mrs. Hartman,” Darton said to her.
“How do you do?” Mrs. Hartman said respectfully.
“How have you been, Mrs. Hartman?”
“Very well, thank you Mr. Darton.”
Bill smiled to himself. He thought, the master race had come home to roost.
“Has Petrie gone?” Darton asked. They were all speaking in low voices.
“About an hour ago, Mr. Darton,” Mrs. Hartman said. She was the voice of the pair, Bill realized. He glanced at her more closely. Her faded hair was marcelled; her thin lips seemed faded, too, even under their bright lipstick; she had been pretty but she seemed ugly because she looked as if she had made up her mind to hold onto the appearance of youth as long as she could.
“Was Petrie surprised?” Darton sat down in one of the wickerwork chairs. There were three chairs and a couch on a red straw rug. The living room was square with windows on two sides. The shades were drawn and over the shades, there were print curtains patterned with yellow buttercups and canaries; the buttercups and canaries fluttered inside as the wind slapped against the shades. There was a smell of the sea and a faraway sound of waves splashing.
“Not very much, Mr. Darton,” Mrs. Hartman said. “Mr. Hartman drove him to the station when he received the telegram.”
Darton winked at Bill and turned to the husband. “Eddie, haven’t you anything to say or does the missus say it all?” Mrs. Hartman colored a little, her husband smiled.
“That colored man didn’t say much,” he said. His wife was nodding at each word. “I said good-bye to him but he didn’t say good-bye to me.”
“He didn’t show you the telegram?”
“No.”
“Did he say why he had to leave?”
“No. He wasn’t very sociable, Mr. Darton.”
Darton crossed his legs. “Eddie, you and the missus take in a movie.”
“Yes, Mr. Darton.”
“When shall we come back, Mr. Darton?” the woman asked.
“Around twelve. No, make it one o’clock.”
“Come,” Mrs. Hartman said to her husband. “Mr. Darton if you are hungry, there is food in the kitchen.”
The pair left the living room. Bill shook his head. In this long day, the two Hartmans fitted in like apparitions, two faded and very clean ghosts. Darton winked, jerked one thumb at the ceiling, smiled. They sat there until they heard a car start up outside. Tires scrunched outside and the sound of the motor receded. Darton stood up, unknotted his necktie. He pulled off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves. “How about a drink, sleeping beauty?”
“When you going up?”
“I want it dark.”
“It’s dark as it’ll get.” He stared at Darton’s arms. Darton was swinging them up and down at his sides. His arms like his hands were covered with thick brown hair.
“The windows in her room are shuttered and boarded up,” Darton said. “Her room’s dark.”
“Screw her and let’s get to hell out of here.”
“Don’t rush me, sleeping beauty. You can sleep down here.”
“I’m not rushing you. I don’t give a damn what you do. But I don’t want to hang around here all night.”
“The wife?”
“No.”
“What then?” Darton smiled. “She’s a pretty little whore. Join the party.”
“I don’t care if she’s the prettiest whore on this God damn island.”
Darton laughed. “Has the Governor propositioned you?”
“I thought you’re against joking about the Governor?”
“You should have been a lawyer, a hebe lawyer.”
“You bawled me out today when I just mentioned — ”
“There’s a time and a place.”
“I see. You’re blowing the lid so anything goes.”
Darton grinned. “Right. Sure, you don’t want to — ”
“No. How you going to work it?”
“How does anybody work it?” Darton began to laugh, clapped his hand across his mouth.
“I mean — about getting her back to town?”
“That’s what’s worrying you,” Darton said in an intense whisper. “Damn you, there’s nothing to worry about. Over in that closet, there’s a sack Mrs. Hartman’s sewn. We’ll gag her, tie her up, put her in the sack. Toss her in the back of the car.” The white areas of his eyes widened. “She’ll look like a sack of Long Island potatoes.”
“When do you think we’ll get back?”
“Around two or so.”
“Then what?”
“Let’s have a drink. You need a drink.”
“Then what?”
“Go to hell. We’ll dump her out on some street. In Harlem. Give her a kick in the ass and beat it before she knows what happened. You need a drink, you yellow bastard.”
Bill stared at him. “I don’t like your tone.”
“You need a drink. You’ll spoil all the fun. Damn, quit worrying about that nigger Big Boy. Aden’ll keep him quiet.”
“So you say.”
“You need a damn big drink if you ask me.”
Bill watched Darton stride across the straw rug and out into the kitchen. He shut his eyes for a second, then opened them. On the table in the middle of the room, there were flowers in a green bowl. Against the wall, there was a bridge table and a deck of cards. The walls were bare except for a local calendar. Bill squinted and tried to read the month. The month was … The letters blurred. The month was … November. He smiled to himself. “Now now Mrs. Hartman,” he muttered.
“God damn you all.” Yes, God damn them all, every one of them. His head ached, his eyes seemed full of smoke, his whole body seemed heavier than sleep and he thought of Dent. Poor Dent. He and Dent had been slated to be the suckers; every good plan had its fall guys prepared for in advance. Christ, suppose Big Boy talked? Suppose, he went to jail? Suppose, he died? Went crazy? Who’d care? Nobody. Not even Isabelle. She’d go right on living and she’d marry a Catholic.
He heard Darton whistling in the kitchen. Oh, that bastard Darton! he cursed to himself; the superman, the flash marvel, the wonder fuehrer; they were all wonder fuehrers as long as they didn’t have to take the rap. He heaved out of his chair and walked into the kitchen. Darton was mixing two highballs in a white kitchen on an enameled table and in one hand he had a big meat sandwich.
“I was just coming out,” Darton said cheerfully.
“Didn’t think of making me a sandwich, did you?”
“Go to hell.”
Bill took his drink, and they both returned to the living room. “The girl never saw your stooges?” Bill asked.
“Who? The Hartmans? No, she’s never seen them.”
“How was it done?”
“Petrie brought her to a flat. Told her it was Ellis’ place — ”
“Who’s Ellis?”
“The nigger friend of Miller.”
“Miller? I could kill that kike!”
“Anyway, Petrie and another nigger, the nigger in the flat, chloroformed the bitch, stuck her in that Heydrich sack — ”
“I thought the woman sewed it?”
“Yes, but a Nazi called Heydrich invented it. This Heydrich was no relation to the Heydrich killed in Prague — ”
“What the hell did he invent? A sack?” Bill sipped slowly. His insides were trembling.
“Don’t sneer at it. The Gestapo used the Heydrich sack to smuggle out anti-Nazis escaped to Paris back into Germany.
This was before the war. It’s not an ordinary sack. It’s lightweight. It’s modeled to hold a man snug. Want to see it?”
“No.”
“Isn’t it quiet here? Too quiet for me.” He licked his lips.
“Where did Petrie sleep?”
“Outside the kitchen. He gave her her meals.”
“She’s seen him then?”
“Only the first day.”
“She’s heard his voice.”
“God damn you, quit croaking! There isn’t a newspaper in the damn house.”
“What do you want with a newspaper?”
“None in the kitchen either. None in the Hartman room.”
“What do you want with a paper?”
“To read about my girl friend. It’d be a real thrill. I wish I had a photograph.” He was rubbing his knee with his hand. “One of the newspapers dug up a photo of her in a bathing suit.” Darton’s eyes were moist. His lips were moist. “I wish I had it here. A real thrill — To see how she’s built — That bathing suit showed her tits — Her thighs. She has slim thighs. Must do a lot of dancing — ” His wet eyes gleamed. “Say what you want — there’s a true beauty in force. In direct naked force.”
Bill was silent. Silent, he sat hypnotized by Darton’s restless hands.
“I should have brought a newspaper,” Darton was saying. “They cross their legs together — ” It was so still in the house, Bill heard the night birds. Darton’s hands pushed out to either side. “Pull their legs apart. I wish I had that picture.” He jumped up from his chair, rushed into the kitchen, returning with the bottle of rye.
“Why don’t you go up?” Bill asked, holding out his glass for Darton to pour the rye in. “Let’s get out of here.”
“The kick’s in approaching a woman by degrees.” Darton took a big drink, spluttered, sat down. “She’s up there. Young. Waiting. She must’ve heard us down here. Her heart’s beating. Her tits rising up and down. Her glands working. Her skin’s covered with sweat.”
Bill gulped down his rye and Darton lurched across the rug to refill his glass. Bill took a deep drink. His entrails began to burn. “Yes,” he muttered. “You’re right. Strength.”
“How about it?”
“How about what?”
“Her. There’s room for you.”
“No.”
“She won’t know. Your wife — ”
“Hell with Isabelle!”
“So that’s her name? A nice name. What’s she look like?”
“Why the hell do you want to know?”
“They all look the same anyway in their skins.”
“Damn you, you bastard.”
“No offense.”
“Damn you and damn her. She’s a bitch.”
“They’re all bitches.”
“You’re right. Can’t trust a woman.” Jagged memories of Isabelle, of the other women he had lived with in his life, Madge, Dixie, leaped into his heated brain; all the long-legged bouncing women.
“Come with me.”
“Too tired. Didn’t sleep last night.”
“Isabelle’s keeping you straight.”
Bill hawhawed. The rye had filled his veins as if with new blood. “Do what you want, Lester, huh? No damn shoeclerk! No laws. Not for us, Lester. Not for us. For the herd, huh. Not for us. She comes back, we lay her too.”
“Who?”
“The Hartman bitch.”
“No.”
“Why not? See what she’s got left.”
“She’s too old,” Darton laughed.
“That’s not the idea.”
“What’s not the idea?”
“See if her face can change.”
“Change?”
“Marcelled on like her wig. What’s below?”
Darton unlaced his shoes, kicked them off. “Bill, you’re a nut.”
“Force her. Rape her.”
“No, you wouldn’t have to rape her.”
Bill threw up his arm and hand in the fascist salute. He wallowed in thick bursting laughter.
“You nut!” Darton said.
“That’s all you’d need. Give her the high sign, the Nazi whore. Right on the good old signal button, the ersatz whore. Wow.”
“Suzy’ll fight,” Darton said. “She’s the cop’s girl.”
“The kike’s,” Bill exclaimed breathlessly. “Hayden made me ring the kike. I was a nigger. Hayden made me be a nigger. Is that right? I’m a white man. Talk like a nigger. He doesn’t care. Me, a nigger!”
“Oh, shut up.”
Bill stared at Darton’s stocking feet and he began to laugh. “Nigger feet. Nigger feet.”
“What’s so funny?”
“You. You’re a nigger in nigger feet.” He was enthralled by a new thought. He was a nigger and he was a white man. Both. Darton, too. Nigger and white man. Both. “We go up. Lay her. Two niggers in black faces,” he laughed. “Tomorrow, two white men reading it in paper.” The new thought glittered in him. There was a Bill, dark in the night, dark in the rooms of the night, a Negro in the night, darker than any Negro, black inside and out, black, so black. “That’s the way to be strong!” he cried. He watched Darton stand up; Darton was holding a key between his fingers. Bill staggered to his feet, smiling. Before him, he didn’t see a man with brown hair and hairy forearms. He saw force; it was like seeing the force that had dropped into the city like a bomb out of the sky, like a delayed-action bomb exploding day after day and that would explode again finally, terrifically on Monday. Darton was that force and he was that force. He was enjoying the living sensations the rye had given him; he was thinking of the pleasure to be torn out of the cop’s girl in the upstairs room.
“You don’t need your jacket,” Darton said. “Take it off.” Bill obeyed. “Nor your necktie. She might grab it.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“Come on.” Darton switched off the light in the living room and ascended the flight of stairs. The wooden stairs creaked. Bill listened to the stairs and he started to mutter to himself: “Creak, creak, creak.” Christ, it was dark. It was nigger dark, niggers … “Creak, creak.” Bill felt the last stair flattening out under his soles. It was the landing.
“Here we come!” Darton shouted. “Hey, white gal, git yourself ready!” Bill laughed at Darton’s ‘Negro’ voice. Derisively Bill called. “Creak, creak.” He saw a shape pounce on him out of the blackness. A hand seized his arm. Darton whispered, “I’m first. And shut up, you drunken bastard! Shut up!” Bill followed Darton along the wall and heard a clickety-click sound and guessed it was Darton’s key hitting at the lock. He heard the door creak open and slid his hand along the wall. Suddenly, his hand seemed to drop into a hole. He inched into the doorway, strained to see. And saw. A huge black block. And heard. “Where you, white gal? Commere.” That was Darton’s ‘Negro’ voice. Bill laughed and said, “Creak creak.” And heard the girl’s voice. “Let me alone.” And running feet — the girl’s? Darton’s? And out of the huge black block, a shape hit into him. Bill yelled, “Who’s that?” “Let me out.” It was the girl. Her fists thumped against his face and chest. He fumbled for her arms. “I got her!” he cried.
“Hold onto the bitch!” Darton yelled. Bill felt as if the girl had doubled in size in his grip as Darton bumped into them, ramming her against him. “Commere, gal. Just want a lil fun.” A scream — the girl’s. Bill felt her unseen hands clutch at his shirt. He pushed her away and felt a torment of resentment; it was as if he were waiting for the Governor at the establishment in Brooklyn; Christ, what was he, Darton’s pimp…. He heard them scuffling inside the room, heard another scream, heard heavy breathing, heard another scream. The blackness tore open in his brain and fitfully illuminated, Suzy Buckles’ black and white newspaper pictures glimmered behind his eyes, a face with wide cheekbones, and he saw Isabelle’s face, and her face was another black and white newspaper face and he thought that Darton would rape Isabelle, too, if he could. He heard a thump as if somebody’s fist had slugged into a pillow and Darton’s voice. “You bit me! I’ll beat hell out of you!” And a scream rising sharp and thin, and Darton. “Want me to knock you out! Quit fighting!” And another thump, and another scream, thinner than the one before. He stood in the doorway and he felt as if he had known the girl in the room a long time. He heard her panting. She was winded. It was a sound like the breathing of a horse galloped up a long hill, a horse beaten by a wild rider. Then distinctly, he heard her. “I’ll kill myself if you don’t — I’ll kill myself — let me alone!” And he heard. “She means it! Stop!” And slowly realized the voice was his own. His insides gushed up and he puked.
A shape blundered into him, a shape smelling of sweat, with a breath all hot and liquory. The door slammed. Darton bit out. “What you yelling for?”
“That girl’ll kill herself.”
“She won’t.”
“Want her to kill herself? Go on back.”
“She won’t.”
“Did you — ”
“Not yet. The bitch’s strong.”
“Go on back and screw her, she’ll kill herself.”
“No. You bastard.”
“I had to tell you. Screw her, she’ll kill herself. She won’t go to the cops.”
“Come on downstairs.”
They walked down the stairs. Bill was grinning. What a bastard Darton was, he thought; right in the middle of it, about to … and he’d broken right out of it like a trained seal, like the Hartmans, broken out of it. “You’re not human,” Bill growled inaudibly. “Hayden says she lives. You and Hayden. The plan. Human, you’d’ve screwed her, plan or no plan, even if she’d killed herself — ”
‘What are you saying?”
“You’re not human.”
“You’re crazy. Damn, where’s the light?”
Bill was blinded by the lightning shooting out of the bulbs. The table, the flowers in the green bowl flowed in the light, condensed, became fixed, solid. He looked at Darton. Darton’s shirt clung to his body. Half of the shirt buttons had been ripped off. His hairy matted chest was as thick as a coal heaver’s. “She cut your face,” Bill said.
“Where?”
“Your chin, nose.”
“Get me a drink, you.” Darton dropped into a chair.
Bill poured rye into a glass and gave it to Darton. Darton drank. “She fought, the bitch!” Darton said frowning. “I thought — a man — in there.”
Bill sank down on the couch. He didn’t know why he had shouted at Darton to stop. Why? Christ, why? He wanted to explain to Darton. But what was there to explain?
“She’s soft. Soft and small,” Darton was saying.
“Why don’t you go back and lay her?”
“I would’ve if you hadn’t stopped me. Why did you?”
“I told you.” But he hadn’t told Darton. Was it hate at being Darton’s assistant, Darton’s God damn pimp and pratt boy? Was it Darton’s wisecracks about Isabelle? Isabelle, oh Christ! It was Isabelle, he felt; they’d take her away from him, Hayden and Darton; they’d take her away from him and he wouldn’t have her any more; he’d be in jail and they’d be on the outside. Oh, no! something said in the back of his brain. Creak! it said with infinite stealthiness as if a mouse were in the back of his brain and the mouse was watching everything and laughing at everything.
“If she kills herself where’s our story?” Darton was saying.
“She’s not raped so where’s your story?” And the mouse in the back of his brain said ‘Creak!’ and Bill almost laughed.
“I pulled her dress off, her slip. She took a damn good beating.”
“Not raped, not raped.”
“Why don’t you take a fling at her?”
“Me?”
“Sure.”
“I’m sick. I puked.”
“Die, damn you! Die! There’s a possibility — ”
“What possibility?”
“What the hell’s the matter with you, you moron, you bastard! There’s the possibility she kills herself. The way she fought. If I — The fanatic bitch. She might kill herself. It’s happened before. There’s an even chance she might. Do we want that?”
“You’re the boss.” Bill smiled a distorted smile. “You’re the fuehrer.”
“Die!”
“It’s your decision.”
“We want her to spiel how the niggers kidnapped her — ”
“And wanted to rape her,” Bill interrupted, “but got cold feet at the last minute. That’s not as good a story as she gets it. You can still give it to her. Maybe she won’t kill herself. Nobody likes to die. She might mean it now but afterwards she’d reconsider. Killing herself because she got screwed — stupid.” He realized Darton was staring at him and he laughed. “Would you kill yourself? No, you wouldn’t. That takes strength, real strength. Real guts to kill yourself. Puff. Wipe yourself out. What’ve you got so far? What’ve the papers got? Girl kidnapped by niggers. Fights the niggers on good old Saturday night. You know the kikes celebrate Saturday night? They say lechayem. Her dress comes off. Torn off by you, you lust maddened nigger. Darton in nigger feet, who gets cold feet.” He laughed wildly.
“You disgusting fool.”
Bill rolled to his feet, picked up the bowl of flowers from the table and flung it at Darton. Darton ducked. The bowl smashed against the wall. “Bill!” Darton bellowed. “You maniac!” Bill didn’t look at him, his eyes on the shattered pieces of the bowl.
“All that matters is strength,” he said clearly.
“You maniac!”
“Okay. Don’t call me a fool again.”
“Oh, go to hell.”
“You’ve got a good story,” Bill said as if nothing had happened. “The nigger got cold feet for a good reason. The whole city’s boiling up against the niggers. They’d catch him if he raped her and’d lynch him to the Empire State. But that still isn’t half as good as the other stories. Almost a lay’s no good. Not the real McCoy. That’ll let the public down. Was she layed or wasn’t she layed? That’s what gets the public.”
“Go lay her yourself. If she kills herself — You wouldn’t take the responsibility, would you?” Darton pressed his hand against his head. “She kills herself and there would be an investigation. It’s too dangerous — ”
“Live dangerously, you used to say in the old days.”
“Go to hell, you maniac! Her kidnapping’s a nation-wide story right now. If she kills herself, every law enforcement agency would be after us. Bill, listen to me! Bill, I’m your superior. Bill, I want you to sober up, you disgusting fool. Sober up or I will be compelled to report your actions to the organization.”
Bill looked at him and saw Darton as he was: Passionless and cold. Darton’s free talk over beer and whiskey was just that — talk. Darton was cold, cold as Hayden. Bill lowered his eyes, thinking of Hayden, the desk-sitter, the mathematician, the maker of blue prints. Darton was only another kind of Hayden. “Ersatz,” he mumbled. “Ersatz.” He raised his eyes to Darton. “Shall we lay her? What’ll work out best for the organization?” And he laughed uproariously. “I’m Hayden, too,” he said. He lifted his hands in front of him. They were ersatz, he thought.