THE MOHAMMEDANS
291
The stairway door opened and one of the policemen appeared.
Simon suddenly flushed red, thinking of what he had been about to say.
He felt that he had disgraced himself and would disgrace himself again.
Before whom? What god or moral law? He knew only the desertion of
his courage which left him no humanity, no hope; he had smiled and
smiled and he was damned forever.
"That black bastard's a real lawyer," said the policeman at the
stairway door. "He won't let us in without a warrant."
"Break in the door and give him the flub·a·dub."
"Well what do you know," said the other. "Wan-ton bru-tality!"
He winked broadly at Simon and walked to the plainclothesmen who
were standing by their sedan. Simon (alas!) made another, feebler
effort to smile. The uniformed man came back and went up the steps
again. He was followed by a plainclothesman.
"If
you had any self-respect, you woulda got the hell out of here
as soon as these boogies come in."
(Upstairs, the policemen blew the lock off the door and advanced
on Wiley Bey who retreated slowly, saying: "Just show me that warrant,
that's my right!" One of the men in uniform swung suddenly, knock–
ing the Negro down. Wiley Bey arose, jerked his bad leg stiff and
crashed his enormous fist into the blueclad chest. The policeman fainted.
The other three began to use their clubs on Wiley Bey, keeping him off
balance, battering him about the room.)
"That is what comes of not taking a white man's word."
"I suppose you're a Mohammedan too."
(Upstairs, the women began to scream.)
"Of course I'm not," said Simon, with a nervous laugh. "My family
has been Presbyterian for six generations."
A second plainclothesman-Simon recognized with terror the young
man he had spoken to in front of Wiley Bey's meeting-came to the hall
door and shouted up for the men to hurry. (The women had stopped
screaming. They were applying cold water to Wiley Bey's face.) One
of the men at the door said:
"What do you say, we take this guy with us too, cap?"
"That's right," said the other. "You can see right off he's a dan·
gerous guy."
The plainclothesman looked at Simon with professional boredom
and said:
"Leave him alone. He's just a crackpot."
On the second floor, the policemen emerged from the apartment,
half-carrying, half-dragging Wiley Bey. The Negro's turban hung down
grotesquely over his bloody face. He was conscious; his eyes met Simon's
as
he passed; he even smiled, with his swollen lips, and said something
indistinct. In general (it seemed to Simon) a quite repulsive air of
triumph and self-satisfaction.
The policeman who had been knocked out came down last; very
pale, he muttered: "That black bastard broke half my ribs." Simon
closed his door, went to the front window, and stood watching them get
into the cars and drive away.
The house was his again.
The idea kept
getting in the way of what he was trying to think.... What was it?
