Chester Himes - For love of Imabelle

“In the — in the trunk,” she stammered.

It was hot in the small room high up on the twenty-second floor of the granite-faced county building far downtown in City Center. Pink-shirted young Assistant DA John Lawrence, who had been assigned to conduct the interrogation, sat behind a large flat-topped green steel desk, his blond crew-cut hair shining with cleanliness in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun.

Jackson sat on the edge of a green leather chair across from him, dirty and disheveled and shades blacker than he ever looked in Harlem. Grave Digger sat sidewise on the wide window ledge, looking across Manhattan Island at an ocean liner going down the Hudson River, headed for the Narrows and Le Havre. A court stenographer sat at the end of the desk with a stylo poised over his notebook.

For a moment motion was suspended.

Lawrence had just finished questioning Jackson. Suddenly he stirred. He wiped the sweat from his freckled face, combed his manicured fingernails through his hair, and shifted his athletic shoulders in the Brooks Brothers gray flannel suit.

He had read Grave Digger’s report over twice before he had begun his interrogation. He had read the report from the 95th Street precinct. The trunk containing Slim’s body had been reported by a Fifth Avenue bus driver who had noticed it lying open in the street. The police had found Slim’s body, bearing twenty stab-wounds, wrapped in a blanket weighted with rocks, and had taken it to the morgue.

The bodies of Hank and Jodie had also been taken to the morgue. They had been identified by fingerprints as the men wanted in Mississippi for murder.

The apartment on Upper Park Avenue had been investigated. All it had revealed as evidence had been a quantity of fool’s gold piled on the coal in the coalbin.

He had listened for two hours to the unfolding of the saga of the high-yellow woman and the trunk full of solid gold ore with increasing stupefaction. Still he did not believe he had heard it all correctly.

He stared at Jackson with a look of awed incredulity.

“Whew!” he whistled softly.

He and the court stenographer exchanged glances.

Grave Digger didn’t look around.

“Any questions you want to ask, Jones?” Lawrence asked with a note of appeal.

Grave Digger turned his head.

“What for?”

Lawrence looked back at Jackson and said helplessly, “And you insist, to the best of your knowledge, that the trunk contained gold ore and nothing else?”

Jackson mopped his own shining black face with a handkerchief almost the same color.

“Yes, sir, I’d swear to it on a stack of Bibles. As many times as I have seen it.”

“You also state, to the best of your knowledge, that the Perkins woman had already left the scene — the area — when your brother—” He consulted his notes. “— er, Sister Gabriel, was murdered.”

“Yes sir. I’d swear to it. I had looked all over for her and she was gone.”

Lawrence cleared his throat.

“Had gone, yes. And you still contend that she — the Perkins woman, was held by this gang — this man Slim — against her will.”

“I know she was,” Jackson declared.

“How can you be so certain about that, Jackson? Did she tell you that?”

“She didn’t have to tell me, Mr. Lawrence. I know she was. I know Imabelle. I know she wouldn’t have taken up with those people without their making her. I know my Imabelle. She wouldn’t do anything like that. I’d swear to it.”

Grave Digger kept looking at the river.

Lawrence studied Jackson covertly, pretending he was reading his notes. He had heard of gullible colored people like Jackson, but he had never seen one in the flesh before.

“Ahem! And you insist that she had nothing to do with the gang’s cheating you out of your money?”

“No sir. Why would she do that? It was as much her money as it was mine.”

Lawrence sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s any need of asking, but it’s a matter of form. You don’t want to prefer charges against her, do you?”

“Prefer charges against her? Against Imabelle? What for, Mr. Lawrence? What’s she done?”

Lawrence closed his notebook decisively and looked over at Grave Digger. “What’s city got on him, Jones?”

Grave Digger turned back, but still didn’t look at Jackson.

“Reckless driving. Destruction of property. Some of it is covered by the automobile insurance. And resisting arrest.”

“Are you going to take him?”

Grave Digger shook his head. “His boss has already gone his bail.”

Lawrence stared at Grave Digger.

“He has!” Jackson exclaimed involuntarily. “Mr. Clay? He’s gone my bail? He hasn’t got any warrant out for my arrest?”

Lawrence turned to stare at Jackson.

“He stole five hundred dollars from his boss,” Grave Digger said. “Clay swore out a warrant for his arrest but late this morning he withdrew the charge.”

Lawrence ran his fingers through his clipped hair again.

“All of these people sound as though they’re raving crazy,” he muttered, but when he noticed the stenographer taking down his words he said, “Never mind that.” He looked at Grave Digger again. “What do you make of it?”

Grave Digger shrugged slightly. “Who knows?”

Lawrence stared at Jackson. “What have you got on your boss?”

Jackson fidgeted beneath the stare and mopped his face to hide his confusion. “I ain’t got nothing on him.”

“Shall I hold him as a material witness?” Lawrence appealed again to Grave Digger.

“What for? Witness against whom? He’s told all he knows, and he’s not going anywhere.”

Lawrence let out his breath. “Well, you’re free to go, Jackson. The county has nothing on you. But I advise you to contact all those claimants immediately — those people whose property you destroyed. Get them squared up before they press charges.”

“Yes sir, I’m going to do that right away.”

He stood up, then hesitated, fiddling with his chauffeur’s cap.

“Have any of you-all heard anything from my woman — where she’s at or anything?”

All three of them turned again to stare at him. Finally Lawrence said, “She’s being held.”

“She is? In jail? What for?”

They stared at him in an unbelieving manner. “We’re holding her for questioning,” Lawrence finally said.

“Can I see her? Talk to her, I mean?”

“Not now, Jackson. We haven’t talked to her yet ourselves.”

“When do you think I’ll be able to see her?”

“Pretty soon, perhaps. You don’t have to worry about her. She’s safe. I advise you to get about squaring up those claimants as soon as you can.”

“Yes sir. I’m going to see Mr. Clay right now.”

When Jackson had left, Lawrence said to Grave Digger, “It’s pretty well established that Jackson is as innocent as a lamb, don’t you think?”

“Sheared lamb,” the court stenographer put in.

Grave Digger grunted.

“Have you had any news on your partner, Jones?” Lawrence asked.

“I was by the hospital.”

“How is he?”

“They said he would see, but he’d never look the same.”

Lawrence sighed again, squared his shoulders and assumed a look of grim determination. He pressed a button on his desk, and when a cop poked his head in from the corridor, he said, “Bring in the Perkins woman.”

Imabelle wore the same red dress, but now it looked bedraggled. The side of her face where Grave Digger had slapped her had flowered into deep purple streaked with orange.

She gave Grave Digger a quick look and shied away from his calculating stare. Then she took the seat facing Lawrence, started to cross her legs but thought better of it and sat with her knees pressed together, her back held rigid, on the very edge of the seat.