"Himes, Chester - A Rage In Harlem" - читать интересную книгу автора (Himes Chester)

"You could have a little mercy," he said. "Just a little of the milk of human mercy. I've done lost all my money in this deal already. Ain't that punishment enough? Do I have to go to jail too?"
"Jackson, you're not the first man I've arrested for a crime. Suppose I'd let off everybody. Where would I be then? Out of a job. Broke and hungry. Soon I'd be on the other side of the law, a criminal myself."
Jackson looked at the marshal's hard brown face and mean, dirty eyes. He knew there was no mercy in the man. As soon as colored folks got on the side of the law, they lost all Christian charity, he was thinking.
"Marshal, I'll pay you two hundred dollars if you let me off," he offered.
The marshal looked at Jackson's wet face.
"Jackson, I shouldn't do this. But I can see that you're an honest man, just led astray by a woman. And being as you're a colored man like myself, I'm going to let you off this time. You give me the two hundred bucks, and you're a free man."
The only way Jackson could get two hundred dollars this side of the grave was to steal it from his boss. Mr. Clay always kept two or three thousand dollars in his safe. There was nothing Jackson hated worse than having to steal from Mr. Clay. Jackson had never stolen any money in his life. He was an honest man. But there was no other way out of this hole.
"I ain't got it here. I got it at the funeral parlor where I work."
"Well, that being the case, I'll drive you there in my car, Jackson. But you'll have to give me your word of honor you won't try to escape."
"I ain't no criminal," Jackson protested. "I won't try to escape, I swear to God. I'll just go inside and get the money and bring it out to you."
The marshal unlocked Jackson's handcuffs and motioned him ahead. They went down the four flights of stairs and came out on Eighth Avenue, where the apartment house fronted.
The marshal gestured toward a battered black Ford.
"You can see that I'm a poor man myself, Jackson."
"Yes, sir, but you ain't as poor as me, because I've not only got nothing but I've got minus nothing."
"Too late to cry now, Jackson."
They climbed into the car, drove south on 134th Street, east to the corner of Lenox Avenue, and parked in front of the _H. Exodus Clay Funeral Parlor_.
Jackson got out and went silently up the red rubber treads of the high stone steps; entered through the curtained glass doors of the old stone house, and peered into the dimly lit chapel where three bodies were on display in the open caskets.
Smitty, the other chauffeur and handyman, was silently embracing a woman on one of the red, velvet-covered benches similar to the ones on which the caskets stood. He hadn't heard Jackson enter.
Jackson tiptoed past them silently and went down the hall to the broom closet. He got a dust mop and cloth and tiptoed back to the office at the front.
At that time of afternoon, when they didn't have a funeral, Mr. Clay took a nap on the couch in his office. Marcus, the embalmer, was left in charge. But Marcus always slipped out to Small's bar, over on 135th Street and Seventh Avenue.
Silently Jackson opened the door of Mr. Clay's office, tiptoed inside, stood the dust mop against the wall and began dusting the small black safe that sat in the corner beside an old-fashioned roll-top desk. The door of the safe was closed but not locked.
Mr. Clay lay on his side, facing the wall. He looked like a refugee from a museum, in the dim light from the floor lamp that burned continuously in the front window.
He was a small, elderly man with skin like parchment, faded brown eyes, and long gray bushy hair. His standard dress was a tail coat, double-breasted dove-gray vest, striped trousers, wing collar, black Ascot tie adorned with a gray pearl stickpin, and rimless nose-glasses attached to a long black ribbon pinned to his vest.
"That you, Marcus?" he asked suddenly without turning over.
Jackson started. "No sir, it's me, Jackson."
"What are you doing in here, Jackson?"
"I'm just dusting, Mr. Clay," Jackson said, as he eased open the door of the safe.
"I thought you took the afternoon off."
"Yes sir. But I recalled that Mr. Williams' family will be coming tonight to view Mr. Williams' remains, and I knew you'd want everything spic and span when they got here."
"Don't overdo it, Jackson," Mr. Clay said sleepily. "I ain't intending to give you a raise."
Jackson forced himself to laugh.
"Aw, you're just joking, Mr. Clay. Anyway, my woman ain't home. She's gone visiting."
While he was speaking, Jackson opened the inner safe door.
"Thought that was the trouble," Mr. Clay mumbled.
In the money drawer was a stack of twenty-dollar bills, pinned together in bundles of hundreds.
"Ha ha, you're just joking, Mr. Clay," Jackson said as he took out five bundles and stuck them into his side pants-pocket.
He rattled the handle of the dust mop while closing the safe's two doors.
"Lord, you just have to forgive me in this emergency," he said silently, then spoke in a loud voice, "Got to clean the steps now."
Mr Clay didn't answer.
Jackson tiptoed back to the broom closet, put away the cloth and mop, tiptoed silently back toward the front door. Smitty and the woman were still enjoying life.
Jackson let himself out silently and went down the stairs to the marshal's car. He palmed two of the hundred-dollar bundles and slipped them through the open window to the marshal.
The marshal held them down between his legs while he counted them. Then he nodded and stuck them into his inside coat-pocket.
"Let this be a lesson to you, Jackson," he said. "Crime doesn't pay."


2

As soon as the marshal drove off, Jackson started running. He knew that Mr. Clay would count his money the first thing on awakening. Not because he suspected anybody would steal it. There was always someone on duty. It was just a habit. Mr. Clay counted his money when he went to sleep and when he woke up, when he unlocked his safe and when he locked it. If he wasn't busy, he counted it fifteen to twenty times a day.
Jackson knew that Mr. Clay would begin questioning the help when he missed the five hundred. He wouldn't call in the police until he was dead certain who had stolen his money. That was because Mr. Clay believed in ghosts. Mr. Clay knew damn well if ever the ghosts started collecting the money he'd cheated their relatives out of, he'd be headed for the poor house.
Jackson knew that next Mr. Clay would go to his room searching for him.