IT WAS ENOUGH TO MAKE PHILANDER Jackson give up mugging. It certainly was enough to make Piggy Smith and Dice Martin stop walking again and to make Boom Boom Bosely look for some form of employment which did not require the use of his hands.
Not that Boom Boom had ever held a job, and but for brief stints at the Auto-Quicki-Car-Shine, neither had Philander, Piggy or Dice.
Now they all had a legitimate excuse for welfare. This did not comfort them in the emergency room of the Fairoaks Hospital where Piggy blamed Philander for gross stupidity by calling him mother this and mother that. Dice was not about to blame anyone. He had not quite seen what had happened. And Boom Boom was too preoccupied with groaning to blame anyone. If one could decipher his unintelligible mumblings, he might be led to believe that Boom Boom was blaming his wrists for hurting so much.
This was unfair to Boom Boom’s wrists. Any wrists would hurt after the bones had been crushed into blood-soaked pumice.
But how was Philander to know? it had looked too good to be true. Two white men standing alone in the heart of the ghetto just before the bars were closing, and those two honkies were grooving on a tape recording of some cat talking funny, real funny.
And Philander, Piggy, Dice and Boom Boom jiving cool and out of bread, man. Those two Charlies were a gift, man. A stone gift. Especially the skinny old one.
So Philander, Piggy, Boom Boom and Dice, just cool, man, made the scene.
“Evenin’, folks,” Philander had said.
The skinny old Charlie glanced briefly at the crew, then back to the other dude he was rapping with.
“Ah said evenin’ folks,” Philander said.
“Evening,” said Boom Boom, Dice and Piggy.
“Uh, yes. Good evening,” said the skinny honkey with a briefcase. He didn’t look shook at all.
“You all got a penny,” asked Philander.
And then the younger honkey said:
“Go suck a watermelon.”
“Wha you say?”
“I said, go suck a watermelon. This isn’t the welfare office.”
“Oh, you come down real badass, man. You know where you is?”
“The monkey house at the zoo?”
“You grin, you in. That gonna mean grape to you, Charlie.”
Then the older Charlie spoke. “Look. We don’t want any trouble. Just leave us alone and you won’t be harmed.”
Piggy laughed. Dice grinned. Philander chuckled and Boom Boom brought out the little piece he had been packing. The pistol gleamed in the street light as if the metal were sweating.
“Ah kill a honkey as soon as ah look at him,” said Boom Boom.
“He a badass. A real badass,” said Philander confidentially to the two Charlies.
“Ah kill them mothers fore they was born,” said Boom Boom. “Ah waste them good.”
“Better pump some grape his way, boys,” said Philander. “He a mean mother.”
And then, surprisingly, the younger white man spoke to the older as if Philander, Piggy, Dice and Boom Boom with his piece were not there.
“All right, it’s settled. The general will be first tonight and then I’ll check with you in the morning. I’m bringing Chiun up. I don’t feel as sharp as I should.”
“All right,” said the older Charlie. “But now I imagine you understand why it’s so important we are involved in this. Everyone else has been compromised because they’re known.”
“I’ve got bad news for you,” said the younger honkey. Boom Boom looked at Philander and shrugged. Dice and Piggy both pointed index fingers at their heads and circled them indicating the honkies were crazy. Standing in the middle of Washington’s Harlem, four bloods with a piece looking to waste them, and these two loose ends were talking compromise this and set-up that as if they were going to make it out in one piece.
“Bad news,” said the younger honkey. “Somebody knows something. I was jumped in Miami. We’re not totally clean anymore; we’ve been tapped somewhere along the line.”
The old geezer put his hand to his mouth. “There’s only one other person who… ”
“That’s right,” said the young looney.
“My God,” said the old skinny honkey. “I hope it doesn’t mean what I think it means.”
Then Boom Boom mumbled a curse and pushed the revolver in the younger honkey’s face.
“You guys bugged about something, man,” said Boom Boom. “Maybe I ain’t coming down too clear, But this is a holdup.”
“Okay,” said the younger one. “How much you want?” Sweet as you please, he said that.
“How much you got?” asked Boom Boom.
“I’ll give you guys a hundred apiece. And well call it even.”
“Fifty,” said the old honkey with the briefcase.
“Make it a hundred. Why not,” said the younger screwball. “Fifty doesn’t go far these days.”
“A hundred here, a hundred there. It all mounts up. Make it seventy-five.”
“Okay. Seventy-five,” said the younger honkey.
“Can ah get involved in this heah thing?” said Boom Boom, waving the gun wider because obviously someone was missing something. “This is mah holdup and ah got a right to say what ah’s gonna get.”
“Seventy-five be all right with you?” asked the younger honkey.
“No,” said Boom Boom.
“No way,” said Piggy and Dice. “We wants it all. Everything you got. That briefcase too.”
“Well, sorry,” said the younger honkey and then it all happened very fast. Boom Boom was shrieking and jumping up and down, shaking his hands which flopped as though attached to his arms only by loose rubber bands.
Piggy and Dice were on the ground, their legs stiff and then Philander thought he saw the flash of a white hand in the street light, but he could not be perfectly sure. He was still seeing the flash come at him when someone told him he was now in the hospital emergency room and everything was all right.