Blind Man with a Pistol

by Chester Himes

  “You kidding, aren’t you?” His voice was a shocked whisper.

  “I’m not kidding,” the sergeant said. “His throat was cut.”

  “I was just by there yesdiddy morning.”

  “You’re going back this morning. Now! Put your clothes on. And give me that gun.”

  Covey moved in a daze, handing over the pistol docilely as he might have passed a plate. He looked stunned. “It ain’t possible,” he kept muttering to himself.

  But sight of the bloody furnished room changed that quickly to rage. “Them mother-rapers upstairs know about it,” he raved. “You couldn’t cut a man down here without them hearing him scream.”

  They took him upstairs and confronted him with each of the three couples. Other than the vilest language that he had ever heard, the sergeant learned nothing new. Covey couldn’t shake the tenants’ story that they hadn’t heard anything, and they couldn’t shake his that he hadn’t known about the room.

  “Let’s make an experiment,” the sergeant said. “Ted, you and this man — what’s your name? Stan. You and Stan go down in the basement and yell, and the rest of us will stand in each of the rooms up here and see if we can hear you.”

  Putting their ears to the floor they could hear faintly in the middle room, occupied by Socrates and Poon Hoover, but they doubted if they could hear lying in the bed, although they didn’t try. But they couldn’t hear in the front and back rooms, nor in the kitchen which they tried too. But they could hear quite clearly in the hall and strangely enough they could hear in the john.

  “Well, that narrows it down to everybody who was awake in the whole of Harlem,” the sergeant said disgustedly. “You people go back to bed.”

  “What you want us to do with this one?” the white detectives who were flanking Covey asked.

  “Hell, we’ll take him on back and call it a day. None of these people can get anywhere, and maybe by tomorrow my brains won’t be so fuzzy.”

  When Covey had disappeared through the entrance of the Cozy Flats, Coffin Ed got out of the car beside Grave Digger, and called, “Hey, wait a minute; I left my sound meter in your flat.” But Covey didn’t hear him.

  “Go and get it,” Grave Digger said. “I’ll wait for you.”

  The white detectives looked at each other curiously. They hadn’t seen Coffin Ed’s sound meter either. But it wasn’t anything to work up a sweat about; they all wanted to get home. But the sergeant wanted to have a word with the colored precinct detectives before he turned in so the fingerprint crew drove off and left him with his two disgruntled assistants, the photographer, Ted, and his driver, Joe.

  Coffin Ed had been slightly surprised to find Covey’s hall door unlocked, but he didn’t hesitate. He went down silently and opened the door of Covey’s bed-sitting-room without knocking and went inside.

  Covey was leaning back in his desk chair with a wide, taunting grin. “I knew you’d follow me, you old fox. You thought you’d catch me telephoning. But I don’t know nothing ’bout this business. I’m as clean as a minister’s dick.”

  “That’s too mother-raping bad,” Coffin Ed said, his burn-scarred face twitching like a French version of the jerk, as he moved in with his long nickel-plated, head-whipping pistol swinging in his hand. “Your ass pays for it.”

  Grave Digger didn’t want to talk to the sergeant at that moment, so he radio-phoned Lieutenant Anderson at the precinct station.

  “It’s me, Digger.”

  “What’s new?”

  “Count me ninety seconds.”

  Without another word, Anderson began, “One, two, three.…” Not too fast, not too slow. At “… ninety …”, Grave Digger slid across the seat and got out on the sidewalk and went towards the entrance of the Cozy Flats, loosening his pistol as he went.

  “Hey …” the sergeant called, but he made as though he didn’t hear him and went through the entrance and down the front hall.

  When he entered Covey’s bedroom, he found him lying sideways across the bed, a red bruise aslant his forehead, his left eye shut and bleeding, his upper lip swollen to the size of a bicycle tire, and Coffin Ed atop him with a knee in his solar plexus, choking him to death.

  He clutched Coffin Ed by the back of the collar and pulled him back. “Leave him able to talk.”

  Coffin Ed looked down at the swollen bloody face beneath him. “You want to talk, don’t you, mother?”

  “Rented to a business man — salesman — nice man —” Covey gasped. “Nice — wanted place to rest — afternoons — John Babson — nice man.…”

  “White man?”

  “Seal brown. Brown-colored man.…”

  “What’s his pet name?”

  “Pet name — pet name —”

  “His loving name, mother-raper?”

  “I — tole you — all … I know.…”

  Coffin Ed drew back his right fist as though he would hit him and his left hand flew to his mouth. Hitting at him from beyond, from where he was standing at the head of the bed, with the long heavy barrel of his pistol, Grave Digger struck with such force he knocked the back of his hand into his mouth so hard that when he pulled it away screaming, three of the front teeth that Coffin Ed had loosened previously, were embedded in the carpal bones of his hand. “Jesus Baby!” he gasped.

  The sergeant burst through the door, followed by his wide-eyed assistants. “What the hell” he exclaimed.

  “Fascists!” Covey screamed when he saw the white men. “Racists! Black brutes!”

  “Take this mother-raper before we kill him,” Grave Digger said.

  11

  Captain Brice was waiting for them when they came up from questioning Dick. He sat in his own chair, leaning back with his polished black oxfords atop the desk. With his thick torso encased in a dark blue Brooks Brothers mohair suit, along with his carefully parted hair and knotted blue silk tie, he looked for all the world like a midtown banker just returned from the annual stag party. Anderson sat submissively in the visitor’s chair across the desk from him.

  “How was the champagne, sir?” Grave Digger needled.

  “Not bad, not bad,” Captain Brice replied, not to be outdone. But everyone knew he hadn’t come to the district at three o’clock in the morning just to pass the time of day.

  “Lieutenant Anderson tells me you’ve been interrogating the two star witnesses in that family slaughter on Sugar Hill,” he went on, taking a serious tone.

  “Yes, sir, it was a rejuvenation pitch, but you probably know more about it than we do,” Grave Digger said.

  “Well, there’s nothing new about it. Did you find out where the pitch originated?”

  “Yes, sir, it originated with Christ,” Grave Digger said with a straight face. “But there are a couple of things about this particular shindig up there that need answering.”

  “Let homicide answer them,” Captain Brice said. “You’re precinct men.”

  “Maybe they ought to state it,” Anderson interjected.

  “There’s been too much of that now, interfering in homicide’s business,” Captain Brice said. “It’s given our precinct a bad rep.”

  “I booked them as material witnesses and we’re holding them here until the magistrate’s court sets bail,” Anderson said, standing up for his men. “I had them question the witnesses.”

  Captain Brice decided he didn’t want a run-in with his lieutenant. “All right,” he conceded, turning back to Grave Digger. “What needs answering that homicide doesn’t know?”

  “We don’t know what homicide know,” Grave Digger admitted. “But we’d like to know what’s become of the money.”

  Captain Brice took his feet from the desk and sat up. “What money?”

  Grave Digger reported what his witnesses had said about a Gladstone bag filled with money.

  Captain Brice leaned forward and stared dogmatically, “You can forget about the money. Sam didn’t have any money unless he stole it, and if that’s the case it’ll come out.”

&nbs
p; “Did either of the witnesses actually see the money?” Anderson persisted.

  “No, but both of them believed for other reasons—which I will tell you if you want to hear them—” Anderson shook his head — “that the bag was filled with money,” Grave Digger continued.

  “You can forget the money,” Captain Brice repeated. “Do you think I could have been Captain for this precinct as long as I have and not know who owns what in my bailiwick?”

  “Then what’s happened to the Gladstone bag?”

  “If there was one. You only have the word of two witnesses and they were involved — one his son and the other his daughter-in-law; and now they’re the heirs of his estate if it is found that he had any estate.”

  “If there was a Gladstone bag, it’ll turn up,” Anderson said.

  Captain Brice took a fat cigar from a leather case in his inside pocket. No one offered him a light. They watched him bite off the end and roll the cigar between his lips. They let him search through his pockets until he found a book of paper matches and they watched him light the end of his cigar. Anderson took out his pipe and filled it with the same deliberation but Coffin Ed stepped forward and held a lighted match for him. Captain Brice reddened, but otherwise acted as though he hadn’t noticed. Grave Digger gave his partner a reproachful look. Anderson hid behind a cloud of smoke.

  “What’s the other question?” Captain Brice asked coldly.

  “Who killed Doctor Mubuta?”

  “Goddammit, the chauffeur killed him. Don’t try to make a mystery out of this nigger mess.”

  “Johnson X couldn’t have killed him,” Coffin Ed contradicted, more from the pleasure of contradicting the Captain than from any reasoned conclusion.

  “Homicide is satisfied with him,” Captain Brice stated, trying to avoid an argument with the two colored detectives.

  “They’d be satisfied hanging the rap on anybody called X,” Coffin Ed went on.

  “Anyway, it’s too early to tell,” Grave Digger entered a conciliatory tone. “I suppose homicide is having the fluid analyzed?”

  “That’s obvious,” Anderson said. “I smelt it myself. It’s cyanide.”

  “Not even colored folk’s poison,” Coffin Ed muttered.

  “It served its purpose,” Captain Brice said harshly. “Sam was a pain in the ass.”

  “Fronting for the Syndicate? Why’d you let him? It’s your bailiwick, as you just said,” Grave Digger questioned.

  “He had a licensed loan and mortgage business. He had a legal right to operate as many so-called offices as he wished. There was nothing I could do.”

  “Well, Doctor Mubuta has solved that; now you only got the Syndicate to deal with,” Grave Digger observed.

  Captain Brice banged his fist so hard on his desk top the cigar flew from his fingers and landed on the floor at Coffin Ed’s feet. “Goddamn the Syndicate! I’ll have the numbers out of Harlem before a week’s gone by.”

  Grave Digger looked skeptical.

  Coffin Ed picked up the Captain’s cigar and returned it to him with such elaborate politeness he seemed to be poking fun. The Captain threw his cigar into the spittoon without looking at it. Anderson peered around his smoke screen to see if the land was safe.

  “What you want us to do at night?” Grave Digger asked pointedly, reminding him that the numbers for the most part were a daytime racket.

  “I want you two men to keep on this riot bit that the lieutenant assigned you to,” he said. “You’re my two best men and I want you to clean up this precinct. I feel like the lieutenant that these brush-fire riots are being instigated and I want you to nab the instigator.”

  “Cleanup campaign, eh?” Coffin Ed sneered.

  “It’s about time, isn’t it?” Anderson said.

  Captain Brice looked meditatively at Coffin Ed. “You don’t like it?” he challenged.

  “It’s a job,” Coffin Ed said enigmatically.

  “Why don’t you let us talk to the other witnesses, Captain?” Grave Digger intervened.

  “The D.A.’s got a homicide bureau for his own use in collecting evidence on homicides,” Captain Brice pointed out patiently. “They’re attorneys and detectives and laboratory technicians — the whole shooting lot. What do you think you two precinct detectives can uncover that they can’t?”

  “That very reason. It’s our precinct. We might learn something that wouldn’t mean a damn thing to them.”

  “For instance, who’s the instigator of these chickenshit riots.”

  “Maybe,” Grave Digger said.

  “Well, I’m not going to have it. I know you two guys. You go off cracking heads and shooting people on just a theory, and when it turns out wrong, which is just as liable as not, the commissioner cracks down and the press gets on my ass. It might not bother you two tough customers, maybe you can take it, but it’s a black eye for me. I come up for retirement next year and I don’t want to leave here with a cloud over my head and a couple of trigger-happy dicks subject to shoot anybody anytime. I want to leave a clean precinct when I leave and a disciplined staff willing to take orders and not try to run the goddamn precinct themselves.”

  “You mean you want us to lay off before we discover something you don’t want discovered?” Grave Digger challenged.

  “He means he wants you fellows to lay off status quo before you get all of us into trouble, and yourselves too,” Anderson said.

  Grave Digger gave him a you-too look.

  Captain Brice said, “I mean for you to work on the assignment the lieutenant gave you, and let people better prepared for it handle the homicides. Your assignment is a damn tougher assignment, if you just have to satisfy your yen for being tough, and before you’re finished with it you won’t feel so darned inclined to make trouble.”

  “All right, Captain,” Grave Digger said. “Don’t complain if we come up with the wrong answer.”

  “I don’t want the wrong answer.”

  “The right answer might be the wrong answer.”

  Captain Brice glared at Anderson. “And I’m holding you responsible, Lieutenant.” Then he turned and looked from one detective to the other. “And if you were white men I’d suspend you for insubordination.”

  He couldn’t have said anything which would have infuriated the black detectives more. They understood at last he meant to muzzle them for the duration. It looked like a two-way play. Anderson, their friend, had given them this impossible assignment; all the Captain had to do was follow it up. Anderson was in line when the Captain bowed out, no doubt with his pockets full of loot. There never was a precinct captain who died broke. And it was to his interests as much as to the Captain’s that they didn’t rock the boat.

  “You don’t have no objections to us going and eat?” Grave Digger asked sarcastically. “Plain licensed food?”

  The Captain didn’t answer.

  Anderson glanced at the electric clock on the wall back of the Captain’s desk and said, “Check out while you’re at it.”

  They went upstairs to the detectives’ room and signed out and went out the back exit past the cop on guard and down the stairs into the brick-walled court where the garage was located. Anderson was waiting for them. The courtyard was brightly lit since Deke O’Malley had escaped that way and Anderson looked frail and strangely vulnerable in the vertical glare.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I saw it coming.”

  “You sent it,” Coffin Ed accused flatly.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but it won’t be for long. Have a little patience. The Captain doesn’t want to leave here with the precinct in a turmoil. You can’t blame him.”

  The two black detectives looked at one another. Their short-cropped hair was salted with gray and they were thicker around their middles. Their faces bore the lumps and scars they had collected in the enforcement of law in Harlem. Now after twelve years as first-grade precinct detectives they hadn’t been promoted. Their raises in salaries hadn’t kept up with the rise of the cost o
f living. They hadn’t finished paying for their houses. Their private cars had been bought on credit. And yet they hadn’t taken a dime in bribes. Their entire careers as cops had been one long period of turmoil. When they weren’t taking lumps from the thugs, they were taking lumps from the commissioners. Now they were curtailed in their own duties. And they didn’t expect it to change.