Native Son - Richard Wright [69]
“I don’t know.”
“You wanted me to tell you; well, I told you. That’s a woman, always. You want to know something, then you run like a rabbit.”
“But we’ll get caught.”
“Not if we do right.”
“But how could we do it, Bigger?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“But I want to know.”
“It’ll be easy.”
“But how?”
“I can fix it so you can pick up the money and nobody’ll bother you.”
“They catch people who do things like that.”
“If you scared they will catch you.”
“How could I pick up the money?”
“We’ll tell ’em where to leave it.”
“But they’ll have police watching.”
“Not if they want the gal back. We got a club over ’em, see? And I’ll be watching, too. I work in the house where they live. If they try to doublecross us, I’ll let you know.”
“You reckon we could do it?”
“We could have ’em throw the money out of a car. You could be in some spot to see if they send anybody to watch. If you see anybody around, then you don’t touch the money, see? But they want the gal; they won’t watch.”
There was a long silence.
“Bigger, I don’t know,” she said.
“We could go to New York, to Harlem, if we had money. New York’s a real town. We could lay low for awhile.”
“But suppose they mark the money?”
“They won’t. And if they do, I’ll tell you. You see, I’m right there in the house.”
“But if we run off, they’ll think we did it. They’ll be looking for us for years, Bigger….”
“We won’t run right away. We’ll lay low for awhile.”
“I don’t know, Bigger.”
He felt satisfied; he could tell by the way she looked that if he pushed her hard enough she would come in with him. She was afraid and he could handle her through her fear. He looked at his watch; it was getting late. He ought to go back and have a look at that furnace.
“Listen, I got to go.”
He paid the waitress and they went out. There was another way to bind her to him. He drew forth the roll of bills, peeled off one for himself, and held out the rest of the money toward her.
“Here,” he said. “Get you something and save the rest for me.”
“Oh!”
She looked at the money and hesitated.
“Don’t you want it?”
“Yeah,” she said, taking the roll.
“If you string along with me you’ll get plenty more.”
They stopped in front of her door; he stood looking at her.
“Well,” he said. “What you think?”
“Bigger, honey. I—I don’t know,” she said plaintively.
“You wanted me to tell you.”
“I’m scared.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“But we ain’t never done nothing like this before. They’ll look everywhere for us for something like this. It ain’t like coming to where I work at night when the white folks is gone out of town and stealing something. It ain’t….”
“It’s up to you.”
“I’m scared, Bigger.”
“Who on earth’ll think we did it?”
“I don’t know. You really think they don’t know where the girl is?”
“I know they don’t.”
“You know?”
“Naw.”
“She’ll turn up.”
“She won’t. And, anyhow, she’s a crazy girl. They might even think she’s in it herself, just to get money from her family. They might think the Reds is doing it. They won’t think we did. They don’t think we got enough guts to do it. They think niggers is too scared….”
“I don’t know.”
“Did I ever tell you wrong?”
“Naw; but we ain’t never done nothing like this before.”
“Well, I ain’t wrong now.”
“When do you want to do it?”
“Soon as they begin to worry about the gal.”
“You really reckon we could?”
“I told you what I think.”
“Naw; Bigger! I ain’t going to do it. I think you….”
He turned abruptly and walked away from her.
“Bigger!”
She ran over the snow and tugged at his sleeve. He stopped, but did not turn round. She caught his coat and pulled him about. Under the yellow sheen of a street lamp they confronted each other, silently. All about them was the white snow and the night; they were cut off from the world and were conscious only of each other. He looked at her without expression, waiting. Her eyes were fastened fearfully and distrustfully upon his face. He held his body in an attitude that suggested that he was delicately balanced upon a hair-line, waiting