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.” He tapped the pad with his pencil.“That’s why they phone us, white as well as black.”“Have you spoken to any of these Italian bar owners?”“To all of them.”“I meant have you seen any of them to talk to?”“Only Mr.Leone of Leone’s Bar.He was here at two o’clock.”“What did he have to say?”“Mr.Leone threatened me.He said I ought to stop ‘the bad colored’.” Clair grinned unhappily.And Sam, even though his nerves were tingling and the blood had rushed into his head, noticed that grin and fleetingly sympathized.Clair, too, was a scapegoat.“We ought to see every one of these men, Mr.Clair.There’s a connection between these disturbances and the leaflets.The first leaflet attacks, to quote from memory, ‘Wop Bar Owners Who Won’t Hire Negroes’.”“I knew you would think that.”“What else can you think? The first leaflet has two anti-Italian references.”“I warned you not to jump to conclusions, Mr.Miller.”“Eleven bars! The timing! It isn’t only one or two bars.But eleven.That’s disturbance organized.That’s fascism!”“You do not understand Harlem,” Clair reproved him gently.“In addition you are minimizing the possibility of an accidental connection between the disturbances and the leaflets.How can you be positive that there is a direct causative connection? Please let me continue, Mr.Miller.I think that what I have to say may be of help.First of all, there has long existed a great deal of animosity on the part of many Negroes against the Italian-owned bars, who in the majority of cases do not hire Negroes.Many Negro trade union leaders, many ministers have spoken against this practice.Both of Harlem’s newspapers, The People’s Advocate only recently, have exposed these bars and their anti-Negro labor policy.Now, Mr.Miller, would you call these people and these newspapers fascistic? Let us not bandy that epithet so casually.”“I see your point.But eleven grills.Would you mind if I copied your list? I’d like to talk to these people.” As Clair hesitated, Sam realized that this man with the Phi Beta key from Harvard still didn’t trust him completely.He was still a Harlem cop who had killed a Negro only one week ago.Blood was strong, as his father had raved last Monday night, and this white man who wasn’t a white man had no faith in him.“I don’t blame you for being worried about me, Mr.Clair.All you know about me is that Johnny Ellis was once a friend of mine.But I’m still a cop on leave of absence.You don’t know whether I’m on the level and I don’t know how to convince you.All I can say is trust me a little.As for these grills, I’d like to investigate them.I promise not to do anything without your okay.” Still Clair was silent.The late afternoon light poured through the window, flowing down the yellow enamel of Clair’s pencil.“Mr.Clair, it isn’t easy for me to come to you in the first place.It isn’t easy for me to do what I’m doing.A cop has a strong sense of discipline.It isn’t easy to be doing something no other cop has done.It isn’t easy to go after something that you can’t even see.”“All right,” said Clair.“Copy my list.I’ll see you in the morning, Miller.” It was the first time he had discarded the “Mr.”Sam wrote down the addresses of the bars, stood up, said goodnight and shut the door behind him.“Goodnight,” he said to Marian Burrow.“One minute, Sam,” she said easily, smiling.He paused, feeling giddy.The partition divided not only two offices but two emotional whirlpools and now it was as if he had plunged, without taking a breath, deep into the thoughts he had been thinking about her and had almost forgotten.“Yes?”“I neglected to tell you when you came in.A Miss Buckles phoned while you were out.Said to be sure and ring her at her office.Said she’d be expecting your call.” The black eyes confronted him, one corner of the red mouth dimpling up slyly into the rounded cheek.“You can use the phone here.”“Thanks.I’m busy.Goodnight.” Descending the stairs, he tried to come to some definite opinion about Marian Burrow.Was she on the make? Or was she just friendly? If she’d been a white girl would he have thought her on the make? But she wasn’t a white girl.Suddenly he realized that he knew nothing about Negroes as human beings like himself.Absolutely nothing.All he had known were the statistics of a people: So many lynched.So many millions in tenements and cabins.So many in the spot news: Robeson, Yergan, Wright, Davis, Randolph, Louis.But what went on inside their hearts? They were like the inhabitants of a city he had never seen, a city read about, and now he had come to the gates.Downstairs, on One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth, he stared at the passing Negroes, stirred by a tremendous groping curiosity.What were they all thinking of, hoping for, praying for?He went into an ice-cream parlor, phoning Johnny at his place of work (for he had promised to ring Johnny about how he had made out with Clair) and then Suzy.He arranged to meet both of them in front of Grant’s Bar on Times Square.Johnny was working over-time and he told Sam that eight o’clock suited him fine; Sam told Suzy to go on home but she said he wasn’t getting rid of her as he had on Sunday; her voice was anxious when he mentioned the Italian bars; she said he ought to be careful.Sam hung up finally, rushing out of the ice-cream parlor.He could have picked some better mid-way point than Times Square, he thought.But it was too late now.He walked west, never noticing the white faces in the going-home crowds, the Harlem Finns and Swedes, the Irish, Italians, Jews [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]