Free A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes

Gus Parsons to bring in the suckers blindfolded.”
    “Where did you make them?”
    “At Big Kathy’s. Morgan and Walker were there tonight.”
    “Fill it in, fill it in,” Grave Digger said harshly.
    “I got a brother named Jackson, works for Exodus Clay. They took him for fifteen C’s on The Blow. His old lady, Imabelle, tricked him into it, then she ran away with the slim stud.”
    “She’s up with the gold-mine pitch?”
    “Must be.”
    “What are they using for gold ore?”
    “They got a few phony rocks.”
    Grave Digger turned to Coffin Ed. “We can take them at Big Kathy’s.”
    “I got a better plan,” Goldy said. “I’m goin’ to load Jackson with a phony roll and let Gus Parsons contact him. Gus’ll take him in to their headquarters and you-all can follow them.”
    Grave Digger shook his head. “You just said they took Jackson on The Blow.”
    “But Gus wasn’t with them. Gus don’t know Jackson. By the time Gus finds out his mistake you’ll have the collar on them all.”
    Grave Digger and Coffin Ed exchanged looks. Coffin Ed nodded.
    “Okay, Bud, we’ll take them tomorrow night,” Grave Digger said, then added grimly, “I suppose you’re your brother’s beneficiary.”
    “I’m just tryin’ to help him, that’s all,” Goldy protested. “He wants his woman back.”
    “I’ll bet,” Coffin Ed said.
    They let Goldy out of the car and drove off.
    “Isn’t there a warrant out for Jackson?” Coffin Ed remarked.
    “Yeah, stole five hundred dollars from his boss.”
    “We’ll take him too.”
    “We’ll take them all.”
    The next afternoon when Jackson had finished eating, Goldy gave him a fill-in on the gang’s setup and told him his plan to trap them.
    “And here’s the bait.”
    He made a huge roll out of stage money, encircled it with two bona fide ten-dollar bills, and bound it with an elastic band. That was the way jokers in Harlem carried their money when they wanted to big-time. He tossed it onto the table.
    “Put that in your pocket, Bruzz, and you’re goin’ to be one big fat black piece of cheese. You’re goin’ to look like the biggest piece of cheese them rats ever seen.”
    Jackson looked at the phony roll without touching it.
    He didn’t like any part of Goldy’s plan. Anything could go wrong. If there was a rumpus the detectives might grab him and let the real criminals go, like that phony marshal had done. Of course, these were real detectives. But they were colored detectives just the same. And from what he’d heard about them they believed in shooting first and questioning the bodies afterward.
    “Course if you don’t want your gal back—” Goldy prodded.
    Jackson picked up the phony roll and slipped it into his side pants-pocket. Then he crossed himself and knelt beside the table on the floor. Devoutly bowing his head, he whispered a prayer.
    “Dear Lord in heaven, if You can’t see fit to help this poor sinner in his hour of need, please don’t help those dirty murderers either.”
    “What are you prayin’ for, man?” Goldy said. “Ain’t nothin’ can happen to you. You goin’ to be covered.”
    “That’s what I’m worrying about,” Jackson said. “I don’t want to get covered too deep.…”

10
    The Braddock Bar was on the corner of 126th Street and Eighth Avenue, next door to a Negro-owned loan and insurance company and the Harlem weekly newspaper.
    It had an expensive-looking front, small English-type windows with diamond-shaped leaded panes. Once it had claimed respectability, had been patronized by the white and colored businessmen in the neighborhood and their respectable employees. But when the whorehouses, gambling clubs, dope dens had taken over 126th Street to prey on the people from 125th Street, it had gone into bad repute.
    “This bar has gone from sugar to shit,” Jackson muttered to himself when he arrived there at seven o’clock.
    The cold snowy February night was already getting liquored up.
    Jackson