Deacon King Kong(40)

“Soup ain’t here yet!” someone said loudly.

“I gotta open for business,” Joaquin said over his shoulder. He disappeared through the front door, followed by his band.

“He ain’t worried about no business,” Sausage grumbled. “He wants to be inside when the shooting starts.”

“What shooting?”

Several people shoved past Sportcoat and Hot Sausage, forming a sloppy line beneath Joaquin’s window. Slowly, reluctantly, Joaquin opened the window and stuck his head out. After peering both ways to make sure the coast was clear, he began taking number bets.

Sportcoat nodded at the window and said to Hot Sausage, “You gonna play today?”

“Sport, get the hell outta here and back ins—”

“Sausage!” a shrill voice hollered. “Are you gonna raise the flag or not?” Sausage had been interrupted by the high-pitched yammer of Miss Izi, who strode up with her hands folded across her chest, followed by Bum-Bum and Sister Gee. “We been waiting at the bench for a half hour. Where’s the doughnuts? Did you know Soup Lopez is back?”

Sausage pointed to the sign over the building entrance. “Where you been? Alaska?”

Miss Izi looked at the sign, then back at Sausage, until her gaze slipped over to Sportcoat and she blinked in surprise.

“Oh, papi. What you doing here?”

“Nothing.”

“?Papi, olvidaste lo que le hiciste a ese demonio Deems? Su banda de lagartos te va a rebanar como un plátano. You got to leave, papi.”

Sister Gee stepped forward and said evenly to Sportcoat, “Deacon, the police came by the church asking for you.”

“I’mma find that Christmas money, Sister. I told the pastor I’m gonna and I’m gonna.”

“They wasn’t fretting about that. They was asking about somebody named Thelonius Ellis. You know him?”

Sausage had taken a seat on the top step of the building entrance when the women arrived. From his seat on the step, Sausage looked up, stunned, and then blurted, “What they want me for? I didn’t shoot Deems!”

At the mention of “Deems,” there was a pregnant silence. Several people standing in line to play numbers slipped away before placing their bets. The rest of the people stood in anxious silence, staring straight ahead, number papers in hand, edging forward, one eye in the direction of the flagpole where Deems worked, pretending not to have heard anything. This was juicy indeed, juicy enough to risk your life over but not juicy enough to get involved.

“I didn’t know Thelonius Ellis was your name,” Sister Gee said to Hot Sausage. “I thought you was Ralph, or Ray . . . something or other.”

“What difference do it make?”

“Makes a big difference,” she said, exasperated. “It makes me out to be a liar to the police.”

“You can’t be a liar ’bout what you don’t know,” Hot Sausage said. “The Bible says Jesus had many names.”

“Well golly, Sausage, where’s it say in the Bible that you’re Jesus?”

“I ain’t said I was Jesus. I said I ain’t stuck with just one name.”

“Well, how many names you got?” Sister Gee demanded.

“How many do a colored man need in this world?”

Sister Gee rolled her eyes. “Sausage, you never said nothing about having no other name. I thought your real name was Ray Olen.”

“You mean Ralph Odum, not Ray Olen. Ralph Odum. Same thing. It don’t matter. That’s not my real name nohow. Ralph Odum’s the name I gived to Housing when I come on staff twenty-four years ago. Ellis is my real name. Thelonius Ellis.” He shook his head, pursing his lips. “Now the police want me. What I done?”

“They don’t want you, Sausage. They want the Deacon here. I reckon they called your name thinking you was him.”

“Well there it is,” Hot Sausage fumed at Sportcoat, sucking his teeth. “You done pulled me into the swill again, Sport.”

“What are you talking about?” Sister Gee asked.

But Hot Sausage ignored her. Boiling, he glared at Sportcoat. “Now the cops is hunting me. And Deems is hunting you! You happy?”

“This projects is going down!” Miss Izi exclaimed. “Everybody’s hunting everybody!” She tried to sound disconsolate but instead sounded almost happy. This was high-grade gossip. Delicious. Exciting. The numbers players still in line who were listening shifted lustily, edging closer to the conversation, almost gleeful, their ears wide open, waiting for the next tidbit.

“How did this happen?” Sister Gee asked Sausage.

“Oh, I bought an old Packard back in fifty-two. I wasn’t following the Ten Commandments back in them days, Sister. I had no license or papers or nothing when I come to New York, on account of I hoisted a shot, a sip, and a nip of spirits from time to time in them days. I bought that car and let Sport here register the dang thing for me. Sport’s good at talking to white folks. He went down to motor vehicles with my birth certificate and got the license and all the papers and everything. One colored looks just like another down there. So . . .”

He removed his hat and wiped his head, glancing up at Sportcoat. “We keeps the license and switches off. One week he holds it. The next week I holds it. Now the cops is holding me to judgment on account of Sportcoat.” Sausage barked at Sportcoat, “Somebody who seen you drop Deems in the plaza must’ve seen you beating it to my boiler room and told the cops.” Then he said to Sister Gee, “They looking for him—with my name. Why I got to be burdened with his note? Only wrong I done to him is to place a bet.”