He didn't reply, because a man living up to his notices bad stopped him with his belly. He resembled the balloon that had discovered stratosphere, but hundreds of degrees hotter. He wore an old-fashioned white silk shirt without the collar, fastened about the neck with a diamondstudded collar b.u.t.ton, and black alpaca pants; but his legs were so large they seemed joined together, and his pants resembled a funnel-shaped skirt. His round brown head, which could have pa.s.sed for a safety balloon in case his stomach burst, was clean-shaven. Not a hair showed above his chest--either on his face, nostrils, ears, eyebrows or eyelashes--giving the impression that his whole head had been scalded and sc.r.a.ped like the carca.s.s of a pork.

"How's it going to chafe us, pops?" he asked, sticking out a huge, spongy hand. His voice was a wheezing whisper.

"n.o.body knows 'til the deal goes down," Johnny said. "Everybody's just peeping at their hole cards now."

"The betting comes next." He looked down, but his felt-slippered feet, planted on the sawdust-covered floor, were hidden from his view by his belly. "I sure hate to see Big Joe go."

"Lost your best customer," Johnny said, rejecting the consolation.

"You know, Big Joe never ate nothing here. He just come in to gape at the chippies and beef about the cooking." Fats paused, then added, "But he was a man."

"Hurry up, Johnny, for G.o.d's sake," Dulcy called from across the room. "The funeral starts at two, and it's almost near one o'clock." She had kept on her sun gla.s.ses and looked strictly Hollywoodish in her pink silk dress.

The room was small, its eight square kitchen tables covered with white-and-red checked oilcloth planted in the inch of fresh, slightly damp sawdust covering the floor.

Dulcy sat at the table in the far corner, flanked by Alamena and the attorney.

"I'll let you go eat," Fats said. "You must be hungry."

"Ain't I always?"

The sawdust felt good beneath Johnny's rubber-soled shoes, and he thought fleetingly of how good life had been when he was a simple plough boy in Georgia, before he'd killed a man.

The cook stuck his head through the opening from the kitchen where the orders were filled and called, "Hiyuh, pops.', Johnny waved a hand.

Three other tables were occupied by men and women in the trade. It was strictly a hangout for the upper-cla.s.s Harlem hustlers, those in the gambling and prost.i.tution professions, and none others were allowed. Everybody knew everybody else, and all the diners greeted Johnny as he pa.s.sed.

"Sad about Big Joe, pops."

"You can't stop the deal when the dealer falls."

n.o.body mentioned Val. He'd been murdered, and n.o.body knew who did it. It was n.o.body's business but Johnny's, Dulcy's and the cops's; and everybody was letting it strictly alone.

When Johnny sat down the waitress came with the menu, and Pee Wee brought in a big gla.s.s pitcher of lemonade, with slices of lemons and limes and big chunks of ice floating about in it.

"I want a Singapore Sling," Dulcy said.

Johnny gave her a look.

"Well, brandy and soda then. You know good and well that ice-cold drinks give me indigestion."

"I'll have iced tea," the attorney said.

"You get that from the waitress," Pee Wee said.

"Gin and tonic for me," Alamena said.

The waitress came with the silver, gla.s.ses and napkins, and Alamena gave the attorney the menu.

He started to grin as he read the list of dinners:

Today's Special -- Alligator tail & rice Baked Ham -- sweet potatoes & succotash Chitterlings & collard greens & okra Chicken and drop dumplings -- with rice or sweet potatoes Barbecued ribs Pig's feet a la mode Neck bones and lye hominy

(Choice of hot biscuits or corn bread)

SIDE DISHES.

Collard greens -- okra -- black-eyed peas & rice -- corn on the cob -- succotash -- sliced tomatoes and cuc.u.mbers

DESSERTS.

Homemade ice cream -- deep-dish sweet potatoe pie -- peach cobbler -- watermelon -- blackberry pie

BEVERAGES.

Iced tea -- b.u.t.termilk -- sa.s.safras-root tea -- coffee

But he looked up and saw the solemn expressions on the faces of the others and broke off.

"I haven't had breakfast as yet," he said, then to the waitress, "Can I have an order of brains and eggs, with biscuits?"

"Yes, sir."

"I want some fried oysters," Dulcy said.

"We ain't got no oysters. It ain't the month for 'em." She gave Dulcy a sly, sidewise look.

"Then I'll take the chicken and dumplings, but I don't want nothing but the legs," Dulcy said haughtily.

"Yes'm."

"Baked ham for me," Alamena said.

"Yes'm." She looked at Johnny with calf-eyed love. "The same as always, Mr. Johnny?"

He nodded. Johnny's breakfast, which never varied, consisted of a heaping plate of rice, four thick slices of fried salt pork, the fat poured over the rice, and a pitcher of blackstrap sorghum mola.s.ses to pour over that. With this came a plate of eight Southern-style biscuits an inch and a half thick.

He ate noisily without talk. Dulcy had drunk three brandy-and-sodas and said she wasn't hungry.

Johnny stopped eating long enough to say, "Eat anyway."

She picked at her food, watching the faces of the other diners, trying to catch s.n.a.t.c.hes of their conversation.

Two people got up from a far table. The waitress went over to clear their places. c.h.i.n.k walked in with Doll Baby.

She had changed into a fresh pink linen backless dress, and wore huge black-tinted sun gla.s.ses with pink frames.

Dulcy stared at her with liquid venom. Johnny drank two gla.s.ses of ice-cold lemonade.

The room filled with silence.

Dulcy stood up suddenly.

"Where you going?" Johnny asked.

"I want to play a record," she said defiantly. "Do you have any objections?"

"Sit down," he said tonelessly. "And don't be so mother-raping cute."

She sat down and bit off another fingernail. Alamena fingered her throat and looked down at her plate.

"Tell the waitress," she said. "She'll play it."

"I was going to play that platter of Jelly Roll Morton's, _I Want A Little Girl To Call My Own_."

Johnny raised his face and looked at her. Rage started leaping in his eyes.

She picked up her drink to hide her face, but her hand trembled so she spilled some on her dress.

Across the room Doll Baby said in a loud voice, "After all, Val was my fiance."

Dulcy stiffened with fury. "You're a lying b.i.t.c.h!" she yelled back.

Johnny gave her a dangerous look.

"And if the truth be known, he was just knifed to keep me from having him," Dolly Baby said.

"He'd already had a bellyful of you," Dulcy said.

Johnny slapped her out of her seat. She spun into the corner of the wall and crumpled to the floor.

Doll Baby let out a high shrill laugh.

Johnny spun his chair about on its hind legs.

"Keep the b.i.t.c.h quiet," he said.

Fats waddled over and put his bloated hand on Johnny's shoulder.

Pee Wee came from behind the bar and stood in the entrance.

Silently, Dulcy got back into her chair.

"Keep her quiet your G.o.d-d.a.m.ned self," c.h.i.n.k said.

Johnny stood up. Chairs sc.r.a.ped as everybody moved away from c.h.i.n.k's table. Doll Baby jumped up and ran into the kitchen. Pee Wee moved toward Johnny.

"Easy, pops," Pee Wee said.

Fats waddled quickly over to c.h.i.n.k's table and said, "Get her out. And don't you never come in here no more neither. Taking advantage of me like that."

c.h.i.n.k stood up, his yellow face flushed and swollen. Doll Baby came from the kitchen and joined him. As he left, walking high-shouldered and stiff-kneed, he said to Johnny, "I'll see you, big shot."

"See me now," Johnny said tonelessly, starting after him.

The scar on his forehead had swollen and come alive.

Pee Wee blocked his path.

"That n.i.g.g.e.r ain't worth killing, pops."

Fats gave c.h.i.n.k a push in the back.

"Punk, you're lucky, lucky, lucky," he wheezed. "Git going before your luck runs out."

Johnny looked at his watch, giving c.h.i.n.k no more attention.

"We gotta go, the funeral's already started," he said.

"We all is coming," Fats said. "But you go on ahead 'cause you is the number two mourner."

9.

Heat shimmered from the big black shiny Cadillac hea.r.s.e parked before the door to the store-front church of the Holy Rollers at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 143rd Street. A skinny little black boy with big white shining eyes touched the red hot fender and s.n.a.t.c.hed back his hand.

The black painted windows of what had been a super market before the Holly Rollers took it over reflected distorted images of the three black Cadillac limousines, and of the big flashy cars strung out behind the big c.o.c.ky hea.r.s.e like a line of laying hens.

People of many colors, clad in garb of all descriptions, their burr heads covered with straw hats of every shape, crowded about for a glimpse of the Harlem underworld celebrities attending Big Joe Pullen's funeral. Black ladies carried bright-colored parasols and wore green eyeshades to protect them from the sun.