The three steep flights of stairs led to a long dimly lit hall with eight flanking doors. It was the fourth floor, and that was as high as the stairway went.
Sugar ran to the grimy front window and looked down on the street. Dummy was nowhere in sight. The detectives' car had disappeared, too. He walked slowly back to the other end and joined the girl, who was huddling in the corner. There was something screwy about this business, he was thinking. It was moving too fast. Too much was happening for Alberta's money to have been a secret.
"He lives in there," the girl whispered, pointing toward a warped door showing yellow light about the edges.
Sugar smelt the sharp scent of marijuana coming through the cracks.
"Who?"
"The man I was talking about with all the money."
The door had been fitted with a staple and hasp; it had shrunk so much that the cheap Warder lock was useless.
"If anyone with a lot of money lives in there, he ought to have his head examined," Sugar said absently.
"It ain't his," she said. "He stole it."
"Shut up and let me think," Sugar said.
The only way it made sense was for Dummy to be looking for the money, too, he thought; or how would he know so much about what had happened? And then, as he chewed over that, the whole picture clicked suddenly in his mind.
It all hung on the murder of the Jew. If the Jew hadn't been killed, it might have figured that whoever killed Rufus got the money. But it stood to reason that whoever killed the Jew had already sounded Rufus and was convinced he didn't have it. So he figured the Jew must have it. Because whoever it was must have been someone who had heard Alberta blabbing about her dream at the baptism. All kinds of hustlers hung around Sweet Prophet's activities, hoping some of the Prophet's money would fall off. And then this joker, whoever he was, would have found out where Alberta lived and beat it over there to burglarize the house. But he, Sugar, had got there first; then, after he had left, Rufus had come; and the Jew had arrived while Rufus was still there and had moved all the furniture. So this joker must have been watching from the street, waiting for a chance to break in, and when he saw the furniture being moved he knew somebody had already got the money. So the logical thing had been to sound Rufus first.
But after he had killed the Jew and hadn't found the money, he figured that Rufus had outsmarted him. So he laid for Rufus.
But by that time Rufus had been warned by the killer's first approach, and he wouldn't be carrying the money around on him. It was ten to one he had hidden it in his own flat, Sugar realized. He had very likely already found it by the time the Jew arrived. Suddenly Sugar understood the reason Rufus decided to sell all the furniture to the Jew-he had already found the money and used that stupid play to cover it up. Rufus must have been laughing at Sugar when they met yesterday afternoon. Yeah, he had been so cute he had gotten himself killed, Sugar thought maliciously.
And now the fact that Dummy had begun to look for it, too, meant that it hadn't been found. Dummy wasn't the kind to waste his efforts on wild-goose chases. It would be just like Dummy to know who killed Rufus and why he was killed-if he hadn't done it himself.
"Come on," he said to the girl.
"Where you going?" she asked.
"What do you care," he said. "You ain't got no other place to go, have you?"
She followed him docilely, relieved at being told what to do. She had never done anything on her own initiative in her life.
He paused in the entrance of the hotel to look up and down the street. No one in sight.
"Where did Dummy go?" he asked.
"How do I know?" she replied stolidly.
"Come on."
She started to walk along with him, but he stopped her.
"You're subject to get arrested for prostitution walking with me," he said. "And I don't want to get picked up, either. So you go ahead, turn down Seventh to a Hundred Twelfth Street and go over to Eighth Avenue. Wait for me on the corner."
She started off without a word. He followed at a distance, but when she turned into the dark side street he kept on down Seventh Avenue to a once pretentious apartment house in the middle of the block.
Mammy Stormy had a six-room apartment on the top floor, where she gave parties for domestic workers every weekend. They began Saturday night and ended Monday morning. She sold food and drinks, and cut the blackjack game. She called them "house rent" parties because, supposedly, they were for the purpose of paying her rent, but she lived from them.
Back during the depression of the 1930's, everyone who had a house threw these parties to pay their rent. However, most had quit the practice as industrial jobs opened to colored people and the pay for domestic work increased. But Mammy Stormy had kept right on; she hadn't missed one for the past twenty-eight years.
She never left the apartment. She weighed close to four hundred pounds, and she didn't trust elevators and couldn't navigate the stairs. She hadn't worn anything but nightgowns and felt slippers for a decade.
Sugar found her sitting in an ancient armchair in the kitchen, fanning herself with an undertaker's fan. Sweat flowed like a waterfall down her smooth black face. A pot of white beans and chitterlings simmered on the coal-burning stove. Dirty dishes were stacked everywhere; empty bottles were strewn about the floor.
A blackjack game was in progress in the dining room, but the players were just marking time. Other half-drunk, satiated, sleepy people wandered about the other rooms, waiting for daylight and time to go to work.
The smell of food made Sugar's stomach crawl, but he didn't have the price of a dish.
"Dummy sent me," he told Mammy Stormy.
"What do he want now?" she asked.
"His ears hurt him; he wants you to send him some sweet oil," Sugar said.
"Lord, why don't he do something about his ears," she said.
"Do what?" he asked.
That stumped her.
"Look in the bathroom in the medicine cabinet and you'll find the sweet oil," she said. "And tell him don't bring none of his chippy whores into my house."
"I'll tell him," he said.
He found the bottle marked sweet oil, but while he was there he noticed one of her rose-colored nylon nightgowns hanging up to dry. That gave him an idea. He took down the nightgown, took a yellow-orange-and white-striped bath towel from the rack, rolled them into a bundle and hid them beneath his coat. He left the house by way of the parlor, and didn't see Mammy Stormy again.
It was dawn when he came out onto the street. The girl was waiting on the corner where he had told her to wait. They went toward Manhattan Avenue.
In the middle of the block he stopped in a tenement hallway, removed the label from the bottle of sweet oil and slipped the nightgown over his clothes. Then he tied the towel about his head like a turban. The girl stared at him open-mouthed. She was either too tired or too stupid to laugh.
"What is that for?" she asked.
"Never mind," he told her. "You just keep your mouth shut no matter what I do, and don't laugh."
But the garish ensemble was too much even for Harlem. The crew of a garbage truck making its last round froze in openmouthed amazement as he approached.
"Great God Almighty, another prophet!" one of them ejaculated.
The girl started to giggle, but Sugar snapped at her. "Shut up!"
They found the janitor of the apartment where Rufus had lived taking in the garbage cans. He put the empty can down and wiped his hand across his eyes. His lips moved as he mumbled something to himself.
He was a big, slow-motioned man with a dark leathery face. Short kinky hair fringed a bald bead decorated with a crescent-shaped scar. He wore faded blue demin overalls and a hickory-striped shirt, all neatly washed and pressed. His big misshapen feet were encased in dirt-splotched canvas sneakers. His faded brown eyes gave the impression of a mind that was even slower than his body.
"I'm looking for a gentleman by the name of Mister George Clayborne," Sugar said.
The janitor stared at him stupidly. "What you want him for?" he asked with unconscious rudeness.
"I have an appointment with him," Sugar said.
"Is that so," the janitor said, scratching the scar on his head. "Who is you?"
"I'm a doctor," Sugar said. "This is my daughter and assistant."
The janitor looked at the skinny anemic girl with the cheap torn dress, then back at Sugar's outlandish garb.
"A doctor," he echoed with disbelief. "I ain't never seen a doctor what looks like you, nor an assistant what looks like her, neither."
"I am an African doctor," Sugar said with dignity.
"Oh," the janitor said, looking relieved. "I wondered where you came from wearing them night clothes." He appeared satisfied by the explanation, but he wanted it clarified. "I suppose you is one of them witch doctors."
Sugar drew himself up and gave the impression of being offended. "I am not a witch doctor," he rebuked. "There are other kinds of doctors in Africa besides witch doctors. I am a baby doctor."
"Oh," the janitor said, looking suspicious again. "Mr. Clayborne didn't have no babies."
"I know he doesn't," Sugar said. "That's why he wants me to treat him."
"I don't get that," the janitor said frankly. "You is a baby doctor and a man wants you to treat him who ain't got no babies."
"I treat people so they can get babies," Sugar explained patiently. "If a man has lost his potency and can't make any babies, I give him massages with my magic oil. One massage is enough to start him going." Reaching down through the decollete of the nightgown, he extracted the bottle of sweet oil from his jacket pocket.
"You got on regular clothes underneath," the janitor observed, his diminishing suspicions increasing again.
"Of course I have on regular clothes," Sugar said. "This gown is my doctor's uniform."
"Oh," the janitor said. That appeared to satisfy him.
"This oil," Sugar went on to explain, "is made from the fat of the tails of bull kangaroos mixed with the essence of the productive organs of lions. It will make you hop like a kangaroo and roar like a lion. After three massages any man of any age will become a father."
The janitor's eyes popped with interest and amazement.
Sugar pinned a stare on him. "Are you a father?" he demanded.
"I got grown children," the janitor stammered guiltily. "I'm sixty-four years old. But my wife, she got two young kids by her first husband."
"You are an old man," Sugar said, tapping him on the chest with his forefinger to drive home the point. "You got a young wife. You are in trouble, mister."
"You telling me, doctor," the janitor said. "You don't know what trouble is."
Sugar poked him in the ribs. "After you have had three massages with this magic oil, your troubles will be over. She won't look at another man. You will have her eating out of your hand."
The janitor giggled gleefully. "He he. Wouldn't that be something?"
Sugar looked sympathetic but said regretfully, "I'm afraid I won't have time for you this morning, as much as I would like to help you."
"Oh," the janitor said, wilting disappointedly.
"I have to treat Mr. Clayborne, and I have other patients," Sugar explained.
"You don't have to worry about Mr. Clayborne," the janitor said with rising spirits. "He's dead."
"Dead!" Sugar exclaimed in amazement. "When did he die? How did it happen? I talked to him just yesterday, and he looked in fine health, other than he couldn't make babies."
"He was stabbed to death last night," the janitor informed him. "Right over there in them bushes," he added, pointing toward the park.
Sugar glanced at the clump of bushes in the park and shuddered. "It's a pity," he said. "Such a fine man. He would have made a good father." Sighing, he added, "Well, in that case I will take you in his place."
The janitor hesitated. "The only thing is I got to get my morning chores done first, and that takes some time. If you don't mind waiting, I will pay you-"
Sugar cut him off with an impatient gesture. "I do not charge for my services," he said with asperity. "My patients give me whatever they can afford. But I can not give you a treatment later on. This magic only works during the first hour of the day, and tomorrow I am going on to Philadelphia." He turned to the girl and said, "Come on, Mamba, we can't keep our other patients waiting."
"Wait a minute, doctor," the janitor begged. "I'll just leave those chores if you'll give me a treatment."
Sugar hesitated with reluctance. "Well," he finally conceded. "If there is no delay."
"Oh, there won't be no delay," the janitor promised eagerly. "If you-all will just follow me."
He led them along the alley beside the building and through a side doorway into a whitewashed basement corridor. Overhead were asbestos-covered steam pipes, and on each side were freshly painted green doors to the various basement rooms.
Before one of the doors he said, "Can you-all wait here a minute, doctor, while I get the keys? I don't want my wife to know about it."
He went around a corner, and they heard him opening the door to his living quarters. A woman's sleepy voice said crossly, "Is you just got to make so much noise and wake up the children?" They heard a door close softly, and he reappeared with a brass ring the size of a knitting hoop, containing all the master keys.
He unlocked the door, and they entered a storeroom filled with trunks, packing cases and a few odd items of furniture belonging to the tenants.
"Make a place to lie down," Sugar directed.
The janitor put two steamer trunks end to end and dusted them off.
"Remove your overalls and underwear," Sugar directed.
"You mean take them off?" the janitor asked.
"How do you expect me to massage you with them on?" Sugar asked.
The janitor looked embarrassed. "With her here?"
"She's seen a lot of bare backsides," Sugar said.
Giggling from embarrassment, the janitor slipped off the shoulder braces of his overalls and let them fall to his ankles. He was wearing boxer-type shorts with red roses on a purple background. He let these fall to his ankles also, keeping his back turned to the girl; then he lay on his stomach across the trunks.
The girl watched these proceedings in a stolid, unsmiling, unblinking amazement.
Sugar poured oil on the leathery skin and began massaging. He mumbled sounds, which the janitor believed to be magic words of an African language.
The janitor had placed the key ring on the dusty top of a nearby dressing table.
After a few minutes, Sugar said, "My assistant will continue while I go wash my hands. Where is there a wash basin I can use?"
"Hand me my keys, doc," the janitor said without moving. He separated one and gave the ring back to Sugar. "This is for the boiler room; it's the third door to the right. You'll find everything you want there."
Sugar took the keys and motioned for the girl to begin massaging the janitor's back, She took over and began rubbing stolidly back and forth like a Spanish peasant washing clothes on a stone slab.
Sugar left the room. He was grateful to the janitor for giving him the keys; otherwise he would have had to take them. He found the door to the boiler room, unlocked it and entered. He stayed long enough to take off the nightgown and towel and put them in the furnace. Then he found his way up to the ground floor and continued up to the second floor by means of the front stairs. He took his time trying the various keys until he found one that unlocked the door to the apartment formerly occupied by Rufus. The door opened on a small hallway that connected the two front rooms and a bathroom to one side. Rufus had done well by himself, Sugar thought.
He went through the sitting room, opened the front window and looked up and down the street. A few early risers were up and about; but it didn't take long to catch a moment when the street was clear. He tossed the keys so that they fell directly in front of the entrance. Then he closed the window and drew the curtains.
He wondered how long it would take the janitor to discover he'd been tricked. As for the girl, if no one stopped her she would keep on rubbing until the skin came off.
He began to search.