King Solomon Gillis stands in a daze, blinking back the blinding shafts of the sun. He has just arrived back on the surface of the planet after being sped through the underground at terrifying speed. Gillis stands in Penn Station in New York while the sounds of the workers that make the trains on time create a hum of buzzing activity all around. Left and right, up and down, back and forth are nothing but black faces in the big city. King Solomon Gillis is in Harlem.
He has arrived here on the run from North Carolina where he probably just barely escaped being lynched for having shot a white man. Harlem was the only logical destination because everything he’d ever heard about it was all suggested the same thing: it was the only place in America where a black man’s rights could not be denied and the law protected his privileges. He could be safe in Harlem and protected from the consequences of his crime back home in a way that he could not anywhere else. Heck, Harlem even had black men who were cops!
While taking in this most of unusual of sights, Gillis is approached by a “little, sharp-faced yellow man” who has sized him up as a stranger and wants to know if he needs any help. Gillis shows him a piece of paper with an address on it and the man gives him directions then stands watching as Gillis—his attention distracted by a woman in garish colored stockings—collides with an applecart, spilling fruit all over the sidewalk. The little man laughs, writes down the address he saw on the paper Gillis handed him, and thinks to himself, “Guess you’re the shine I been waitin’ for.” Meanwhile, as Gillis follows the directions the man has given him, he muses about helpful he was to a stranger, but is also wracked by the idea that he has seen the man somewhere before. Then he looks at the card the guy had given him which identifies him as Mouse Uggam and Gillis realizes he does know the man.
Later, Mouse meets with porter-turned-cabaret-owner Tom Edwards to tell him about the dumb kid fresh from Dixie. The two conspired to bring Gillis into the confidence of Mouse. Meanwhile, that night Gillis sits in a stifling room smaller than a chicken coop and dreams about the girl in the green stockings and the amazing sight of black policemen.
The story of his flight from North Carolina becomes the topic the next time he meets up with Mouse. Mouse tells him he would be a hero to any black man in Harlem, but Gillis swear it was just an accident. Mouse advises him to keep that part secret now. A mighty thunder that Gillis can only associated with policemen arrive at his door, but he opens it to reveal just a little man in a silk shirt speaking with a Jamaican accent presenting him with a bill for nearly four dollars worth of apples. Gillis denies buying any apples and appeals to Mouse to explain the incident with the applecart. An argument over the facts of the incident and how it is that the store own could know everything about a man who literally just got into town concludes with accusations involving racist epithets and the suggestion by Mouse that Gillis just found himself a job. Gillis is apprehensive about “stealing” the Jamaican’s job and confesses that his great desire is to become a policeman so he can put all the white folks in jail. But in the meantime he decides to jump on the opportunity offered.
Gillis gets the job, the Jamaican gets angry at being fired and Mouse comes up with a plan to increase his earnings by as much as three dollars a day on top of what the grocer pays. Mouse, it seems, had spent some time in France where he learned about this impressive medicine they have which they sell in the form of little white pills. Lots of people knew about the benefits of the medicine, but it isn’t sold in America so they are dependent upon getting it from France which they can only do through the connections of Mouse. A deal is settled upon: Mouse gives the pills to Gillis and then tells his customers where to find him and when Gillis is transacting their grocery business, Gillis could furtively wrap the pills up with their purchases. The only catch was that owner of the grocery—guy named Tony—never caught on because even though he was losing nothing in the deal, he might still object.
Tony Gabrielli soon felt something was off with his new hire. Gillis was hard-working, had proven himself to be honest and got along with the customers fine, but still there was something not quite the same ever since he started working. Where the mornings always had a dependable down time where things could be tended to, nowadays that slack time had become pronouncedly busy, leaping from three or four to as many as fifteen in the past few days. Stranger still, the sales figures for fifteen customers barely registered more than it was for four customers. Tony laid out a plan to secretly keep an eye on the store and see if Gillis were overcharging or short-charging and pocketing the profit, but that proved untrue. Tony was washing his hands and trying to figure what was going on when two white men—also strange—showed up behind him and asked his name.
The men asked Tony to set them up and when he asked if they meant liquor, their response was confusing. Coke and milk he understood, but what was dope? After pressing Tony a little more which brought only more confusion, they finally revealed themselves as cops and threatened him with twenty years in jail. At first, Tony really didn’t understand what was going on, but then it all came together and he told them his suspicions about the new man he’d hired and the strange changes taking place ever since.
Later, in the cabaret run by Tom Edwards, Gillis’ eyes nearly pop out of his head as he spots the girl with the green stockings. He confesses again that the only two things he wants in life is to become a policeman and to meet that girl. Mouse passes a packet of the white pills to him under the table, but the money transaction takes place above, in plain view. Two men who saw this sight were sitting at a table watching. Two white men. And suddenly these two white men are standing in front of Mouse and Gillis. When Gillis admits to his name, he is arrested on charged of violation of the law against selling narcotics. Mouse is asked if he knows Gillis and he says he never saw before in his life until tonight. When the cops mentioned the passing of something beneath the table, Mouse tells them Gillis offered some medicine to help him with his trouble sleeping and then indicates he’s probably got more in his pocket. the cop reaches into his pocket and withdraws an envelope containing packet after packet of pills. Telling Mouse he’ll make an excellent witness, they prepare to make their arrest.
Throughout this whole exchange, however, the attention of Gillis has not been on the cops, but all the way across the cabaret to the table where the girl with the green stockings has been sitting with her escort. He is trying to kiss her and she is resisting the effort. At this sight, Gillis jumps up and energetically moves to come to the girl’s rescue, but the cops see his movement only as an attempt to make an escape. A fight breaks out, Mouse eyes the door offering his route for escape, and Gillis puts on a majestic show of power and strength against the white detectives. As one goes down, he turns around to take on the other again, only to find himself standing face to face with not a detective, but a uniformed officer. A black uniformed officer. Gillis releases the tension in his body, lets his arms go slack and his shoulders hunch, thinking once again that Harlem even has back policemen.
