The real cool killers cjagdj-2

by Chester Himes

  13

  He parked directly in front of the Dew Drop Inn and pushed Ready through the door. On first sight it looked just as he had left it; the two white cops guarding the door and the colored patrons celebrating noisily. He ushered Ready between the bar and the booths, toward the rear. The varicolored faces turned toward them curiously as they passed. But in the last booth he noticed an addition. It was crowded with teenagers, three school boys and four school girls, who hadn't been there before. They stopped talking and looked at him intently as he and Ready approached. Then at sight of the bull whip all four girls gave a start and their young dark faces tightened with sudden fear. He wondered how they'd got past the white cops on the door. All the places at the bar were taken. Big Smiley came down and asked two men to move. One of them began to complain. "What for I got to give up my seat for some other niggers." Big Smiley thumbed toward Grave Digger. "He's the man." "Oh, one of them two." Both rose with alacrity, picked up their glasses and vacated the stools, grinning at Grave Digger obsequiously. "Don't show me your teeth," Grave Digger snarled. "I'm no dentist. I don't fix teeth. I'm a cop. I'll knock your teeth out." The men doused their grins and slunk away. Grave Digger threw the bull whip on top of the bar and sat on the high bar stool. "Sit down," he ordered Ready, who stood by hesitantly. "Sit down, Goddamn it." Ready sat down as though the stool were covered with cake icing. Big Smiley looked from one to another, smiling warily. "You held out on me," Grave Digger said in his thick cottony voice of smoldering rage. "And I don't like that." Big Smiley's smile got a sudden case of constipation. He threw a quick look at Ready's impassive face, found nothing there to reassure him, then fell back on his cut arm which he carried in a sling. "Guess I must be runnin' some fever, Chief, 'cause I don't remember what I told you." "You told me you didn't know who Galen was looking for in here," Grave Digger said thickly. Big Smiley stole another look at Ready, but all he got was. a blank. He sighed heavily. "Who he were looking for? Is dat what you ast me?" he stalled, trying to meet Grave Digger's smoldering hot gaze. "I dunno who he were looking for, Chief." Grave Digger rose up on the bar stool rungs as though his feet were in stirrups, snatched the bull whip from the bar and slashed Big Smiley across one cheek after another before Big Smiley could get his good hand moving. Big Smiley stopped smiling. Talk stopped suddenly along the length of the bar, petered out in the booths. In the vacuum that followed, Lil Green's voice whined from the jukebox:

  "Why don't you do right

  Like other mens do…"

  Grave Digger sat back on the stool, breathing hard, struggling to control his rage. Veins stood out in his temples, growing out of his short-cropped kinky hair like strange roots climbing toward the brim of his misshapen hat. His brown eyes laced with red veins generated a steady white heat. The white manager, who'd been working the front end of the bar, hastened down toward them with a face full of outrage. "Get back," Grave Digger said thickly. The manager got back. Grave Digger stabbed at Big Smiley with his left forefinger and said in a voice so thick it was hard to understand, "Smiley, all I want from you is the truth. And I ain't got long to get it." Big Smiley didn't look at Ready any more. He didn't smile. He didn't whine. He said, "Just ask the questions, Chief, and I'll answer 'em the best of my knowledge." Grave Digger looked around at the teenagers in the booth. They were listening with open mouths, staring at him with popping eyes. His breath burned from his flaring nostrils. He turned back to Big Smiley. But he sat quietly for a moment to give the blood time to recede from his head. "Who killed him?" he finally asked. "I don't know, Chief." "He was killed on your street." "Yas suh, but I don't know who done it." "Do Sissie and Sugartit come in here?" "Yas suh, sometimes." Out of the corners of his eyes Grave Digger noticed Ready's shoulders begin to sag as though his spine were melting. "Sit up straight, God damn it," he said. "You'll have plenty of time to lie down if I find out you've been lying." Ready sat up straight. Grave Digger addressed Big Smiley. "Galen met them in here?" "Naw suh, he met Sissie in here once but I never seen him with Sugartit." "What was she doing in here then?" "She come in here twice with Sissie." "How'd you know her name?" "I heard Sissie call her that." "Was Sheik with her when Galen met her?" "You mean with Sissie, when she met the big man? Yas suh." "He paid Sheik the money?" "I couldn't be sure, Chief, but I seen money being passed. I don't know who got it." "He got it. Did they both leave with him?" "You mean both Sheik and Sissie?" "That's what I mean." Big Smiley took out a blue bandana handkerchief and mopped his sweating black face. The four school girls in the booth began going through the motions of leaving. Grave Digger wheeled toward them. "Sit down! I want to talk to you later," he ordered. They began a shrill protest: "We got to get home… Got to be at school tomorrow at nine o'clock… Haven't finished homework… Can't stay out this late… Get into trouble…" He got up and went over to show them his gold badge. "You're already in trouble. Now I want you to sit down and keep quiet." He took hold of the two girls who were standing and forced them back into their seats. "He can't hold you 'less he's got a warrant," the boy in the aisle seat said. Grave Digger slapped him out of his seat, reached down and lifted him from the floor by his coat lapels and slammed him back into his seat. "Now say that again," he suggested. The boy didn't speak. Grave Digger waited for a moment until they had settled down and were quiet, then he returned to his bar stool. Neither Big Smiley nor Ready had moved; neither had looked at the other. "You didn't answer my question," Grave Digger said. "When he took Sissie off Sheik stayed in his seat," Big Smiley said. "What kind of a goddamned answer is that?" "That's the way it was, Chief." "Where did he take her?" Rivers of sweat poured from Big Smiley's face. He sighed. "Downstairs," he said. "Downstairs! In here?" "Yas suh. They's stairs in the back room." "What's downstairs?" "Just a cellar like any other bar's got. It's full of bottles an' old bar fixtures and beer barrels. The compression unit for the draught beer is down there and the refrigeration unit for the ice boxes. That's all. Some rats and we keeps a cat." "No bed or bedroom?" "Naw suh." "He whipped them down there in that kind of place?" "I don't know what he done." "Couldn't you hear them?" "Naw suh. You can't hear nothin' through this floor. You could shoot off your pistol down there and you couldn't hear it up here." Grave Digger looked at Ready. "Did you know that?" Ready began to wilt again. "Naw suh, I swear 'fore — " "Sit up straight, God damn it! I don't want to have to tell you again." He turned back to Big Smiley. "Did he know it?" "Not so far as I know, unless he told him." "Is Sissie or Sugartit among those girls over there?" "Naw suh," Big Smiley said without looking. Grave Digger showed him the pornographic photos. "Know any of them?" Big Smiley leafed through them slowly without a change of expression. He pulled out three photos. "I've seen them," he said. "What're their names?" "I don't know only two of 'em." He separated them gingerly with his fingertips as though they were coated with external poison. "Them two. This here one is called Good Booty, t'other one is called Honey Bee. This one here, I never heard her name called." "What are their family names?" "I don't know none of 'em's square monicker's." "He took these downstairs?" "Just them two." "Who came here with them?" "They came by theyself, most of 'em did." "Did he have appointments with them?" "Naw suh, not with most of 'em, anyway. They just come in here and laid for him." "Did they come together?" "Sometime, sometime not." "You just said they came by themselves." "I meant they didn't bring no boy friends." "Had he known them before?" "I couldn't say. When he come in if he seed any of 'em he just made his choice." "He knew they hung around here looking for him?" "Yas suh. When he started comin' here he was already known." "When was that?" "Three or four months ago. I don't remember 'zactly." "When did he start taking them downstairs?" "'Bout two months ago." "Did you suggest it?" "Naw suh, he propositioned me." "How much did he pay you?" "Twenty-five bucks." "You're talking yourself into Sing-Sing." "Maybe." Grave Digger examined the note addressed to GB and signed Bee that he'd taken from the dead man's effects, then passed it over to Big Smiley. "That came from the pocket of the man you cut," he said. Big Smiley r
ead the note carefully, his lips spelling out each word. His breath came out in a sighing sound. "Then he must be a relation of her," he said. "You didn't know that?" "Naw suh, I swear 'fore God. If I knowed that I wouldn't 'ave chopped him with the axe." "What exactly did he say to Galen when he started toward him with the knife?" Big Smiley wrinkled his forehead. "I don't 'member 'zactly. Something 'bout if he found a white mother-raper trying to diddle his little gals he'd cut his throat. But I just took that to mean colored women in general. You know how our folks talk. I didn't figure he meant his own kin." "Maybe some other girl's father had the same idea with a pistol," Grave Digger suggested. "Could be," Big Smiley said cautiously. "So evidently he's the father and he's got more girls than one." "Looks like it." "He's dead." Big Smiley's expression didn't change. "I'm sorry to hear it." "You look like it. Who went your bail?" "My boss." Grave Digger looked at him soberly. "Who's covering for you?" he asked. "Nobody." "I know that's a lie but I'm going to pass it. Who was covering for Galen?" "I don't know." "I'm going to pass that lie too. What was he doing here tonight?" "He was looking for Sugartit." "Did he have a date with her?" "I don't know. He said she was coming by with Sissie." "Did they come by after he'd left?" "Naw suh." "Okay, Smiley, this one is for keeps. Who is Sugartit's father?" "I don't know none of 'em's kinfolks nor neither where they lives, Chief, like I told you before. It didn't make no difference." "You must have some idea." "Naw suh, it's just like I say, I never thought about it. You don't never think 'bout where a gal lives in Harlem, 'less you goin' home with her. What do anybody's address mean up here?" "Don't let me catch you in a lie, Smiley." "I ain't lying, Chief. I went with a woman for a whole year once and never did know where she lived. Didn't care neither." "Who are the Real Cool Moslems?" "Them punks! Just a kid gang around here." "Where do they hang out?" "I don't know 'zactly. Somewhere down the street." "Do they come in here?" "Only three of 'em sometime. Sheik — I think he's they leader — and a boy called Choo-Choo and the one they call Bones." "Where do they live?" "Somewhere near here, but I don't know 'zactly. The boy what keeps the pigeons oughtta know. He lives a coupla blocks down the street on t'other side. I don't know his name but he got a pigeon coop on the roof." "Is he one of 'em?" "I don't know for sure but you can see a gang of boys on the roof when he's flying his pigeons." "I'll find him. Do you know the ages of those girls in the booth?" "Naw suh, when I ask 'em they say they're eighteen." "You know they're under age." "I s'pect so but all I can do is ast 'em." "Did behave any of them?" "Only one I knows of." Grave Digger turned and looked at the girls again. "Which one?" he asked. "The one in the green tam." Big Smiley pushed forward one of the three photos. "She's this one here, the one called Good Booty." "Okay, son, that's all for the moment," Grave Digger said. He got down from the stool and walked forward to talk to the manager. As soon as he left, without saying a word or giving a warning Big Smiley leaned forward and hit Ready in the face with his big ham-sized fist. Ready sailed off the stool, crashed into the wall and crumpled to the floor. Grave Digger looked down in time to see his head disappearing beneath the edge of the bar, then turned his attention to the white manager across from him. "Collect your tabs and shut the bar; I'm closing up this joint and you're under arrest," he said. "For what?" the manager challenged hotly. "For contributing to the delinquency of minors." The manager sputtered, "I'll be open again by tomorrow night." "Don't say another God damned word," Grave Digger said and kept looking at him until the manager closed his mouth and turned away. Then he beckoned to one of the white cops on the door and told him, "I'm putting the manager and the bartender under arrest and closing the joint. I want you to hold the manager and some teenagers I'll turn over to you. I'm going to leave in a minute and I'll send back the wagon. I'll take the bartender with me." "Right, Jones," the cop said, as happy as a kid with a new toy. Grave Digger walked back to the rear. Ready was down on the floor on his hands and knees, spitting out blood and teeth. Grave Digger looked at him and smiled grimly. Then he looked up at Big Smiley who was licking his bruised knuckles with a big red tongue. "You're under arrest, Smiley," he said. "If you try to escape, I'm going to shoot you through the back of the head." "Yas suh," Big Smiley said, Grave Digger shook a customer loose from a plasticcovered chair and sat astride it at the end of the table in the booth, facing the scared, silent teenagers. He took out his notebook and stylo and wrote down their names, addresses, numbers of the public schools they attended, and their ages. The oldest was a boy of seventeen. None of them admitted knowing either Sissie, Sugartit, the big white man Galen, or anyone connected with the Real Cool Moslems. He called the second cop away from the door and said, "Hold these kids for the wagon." Then he said to the girl in the green tam who'd given her name as Gertrude B. Richardson. "Gertrude, I want you to come with me." One of the girls tittered. "You might have known he'd take Good Booty," she said. "My name is Beauty," Good Booty said, tossing her head disdainfully. On sudden impulse Grave Digger stopped her as she was about to get up. "What's your father's name, Gertrude?" "Charlie." "What does he do?" "He's a porter." "Is that so? Do you have any sisters?" "One. She's a year younger than me." "What does your mother do?" "I don't know. She don't live with us." "I see. You two girls live with your father." "Where else we going to live?" "That's a good question, Gertrude, but I can't answer it. Did you know a man got his arm cut off in here earlier tonight?" "I heard about it. So what? People are always getting cut around here." "This man tried to knife the white man because of his daughters." "He did?" She giggled. "He was a square." "No doubt. The bartender chopped off his arm with an axe to protect the white man. What do you think about that?" She giggled again, nervously. "Maybe he figured the white man was more important than some colored drunk." "He must have. The man died in Harlem Hospital less than an hour ago." Her eyes got big and frightened. "What are you trying to say, mister?" "I'm trying to tell you that he was your father." Grave Digger hadn't anticipated her reaction. She came up out of her seat so fast that she was past him before he could grab her. "Stop her!" he shouted. A customer wheeled from his bar stool into her path and she stuck her fingers into his eye. The man yelped and tried to hold her. She wrenched from his grip and sprang towards the door. The white cop headed her off and wrapped his arms about her. She twisted in his grip like a panic-stricken cat and clawed at his pistol. She had gotten it out the holster when a colored man rushed in and wrenched it from her grip. The white cop threw her onto the floor on her back and straddled her, pinning down her arms. The colored man grabbed her by the feet. She writhed on her back and spat into the cop's face. Grave Digger came up and looked down at her from sad brown eyes. "It's too late now, Gertrude," he said. "They're both dead." Suddenly she began to cry. "What did he have to mess in it for?" she sobbed. "Oh, Pa, what did you have to mess in it for?"

  14

  Two uniformed white cops standing guard on a dark rooftop were talking. "Do you think we'll find him?" "Do I think we'll find him? Do you know who we're looking for? Have you stopped to think for a moment that we're looking for one colored man who supposedly is handcuffed and seven other colored men who were wearing green turbans and false beards when last seen. Have you turned that over in your mind? By this time they've got rid of those phony disguises and maybe Pickens has got rid of his handcuffs too. And then what does that make them, I ask you? That makes them just like eighteen thousand or one hundred and eighty thousand other colored men, all looking alike. Have you ever stopped to think there are five hundred thousand colored people in Harlem — one half of a million people with black skin. All looking alike. And we're trying to pick eight out of them. It's like trying to find a cinder in a coal bin. It ain't possible." "Do you think all these colored people in this neighbourhood know who Pickens and the Moslems are?" "Sure they know. Every last one of them. Unless some other colored person turns Pickens in he'll never be found. They're laughing at us." "As much as the chief wants that coon, whoever finds him is sure to get a promotion," the first cop said. "Yeah, I know, but it ain't possible," t
he second cop said. "If that coon's got any sense at all he would have filed those cuffs in two a long time ago." "What good would that do him if he couldn't get them off?" "Hell, he could wear heavy gloves with gauntlets like — Hey! Didn't we see some coon wearing driving gauntlets?" "Yeah, that halfwit coon with the pigeons." "Wearing gauntlets and a ragged old overcoat. And a coal black coon at that. He certainly fits the description." "That halfwitted coon. You think it's possible he's the one?" "Come on! What are we waiting for?"

  Sheik said, "Now all we've got to do is get this motherraper past the police lines and throw him into the river." "Doan do that to me, please, Sheik," Sonny's muffled voice pleaded from inside the sack. "Shhhh," Choo-Choo cautioned. "Chalk the walking Jeffs." The two cops leaned over and peered in through the open window. "Where's that boy who was wearing gloves?" the first cop asked. "Gloves!" Choo-Choo echoed, going into his clowning act like a chameleon changing color. "You means boxing gloves?" The second cop sniffed. "A weed pad!" he exclaimed. They climbed inside. Their gazes swept quickly over the room. The roof reeked of marijuana smoke. Everyone was high. The ones who hadn't smoked were high from inhaling the smoke and watching the eccentric motions of the ones who had smoked. "Who's got the sticks?" the first cop demanded. "Come on, come on, who's got the sticks?" the second cop echoed, looking from one to the other. He passed over Sheik who stood in the center of the floor where he'd been arrested in motion by Choo-Choo's warning and stared at them as though trying to make out what they were; then over Inky who was caught in the act of ducking behind the curtains in the corner and stood there half in and half out, like a billboard advertisement for a movie about bad girls; and landed on Choo-Choo who seemed the most vulnerable because he was grinning like an idiot. "You got the sticks, boy?" "Sticks! You mean that there pigeon stick," Choo-Choo said, pointing at the bamboo pole on the floor beside the bed. "Don't get funny with me, boy!" "I just don't know what you means, boss." "Forget the sticks," the first cop said. "Let's find the boy with the gloves." He looked about. His gaze lit on Sugartit who was sitting in the straight-backed chair and staring with a fixed expression at what appeared to be a gunny sack filled with huge lumps of coal lying in the middle of the bed. "What's in that sack?" he asked suspiciously. For an instant no one replied. Then Choo-Choo said, "Just some coal." "On the bed?" "It's clean coal." The cop pinned a threatening look on him. "It's my bed," Sheik said. "I can put what I want on it." Both cops turned to stare at him. "You're a kind of lippy bastard," the first cop said. "What's your name?" "Samson." "You live here?" "Right here." "Then you're the boy we're looking for. That's your pigeon loft on the roof." "No, that's not him," the second cop said. "The boy we want is blacker than he is and has another name." "What's a name to these coons?" the first cop said. "They're always changing about." "No, the one we want is called Inky. He was the one wearing the gloves." "Now I remember. He was called Caleb. He was the one wearing the gloves. The other one was Inky, the one who couldn't talk." The second cop wheeled on Sheik. "Where's Caleb?" "I don't know anybody named Caleb." "The hell you don't! He lives here with you." "Naw suh, you means that boy what lives down on the first floor," Choo-Choo said. "Don't tell me what I mean. I mean the boy who lives here on this floor. He's the boy who's got the pigeon loft." "Naw suh, boss, if you means the Caleb what's got the pigeon roost, he lives on the first floor." "Don't lie to me, boy. I saw the sergeant bring him down the fire escape to this floor." "Naw suh, boss, the sergeant taken him on by this floor and carried him down on the fire escape to the first floor. We seen 'em when they come by the window. Didn't we, Amos?" he called to Inky. "That's right, suh," Inky said. "They went right past that window there." "What other window could they go by?" "None other window, suh." "They had another boy with 'em called Inky," ChooChoo said. "It looked like they had 'em both arrested." The second cop was staring at Inky. "This boy here looks like Inky to me," he said. "Aren't you Inky, boy?" "Naw suh — " Inky began, but Choo-Choo quickly cut him off: "They calls him Smokey. Inky is the other one." "Let him talk for himself," the first said. The second cop pinned another threatening look on Choo-Choo. "Are you trying to make a fool out of me, boy!" "Naw suh, boss, I'se just tryin' a help." "Let up on him," the first cop said. "These coons are jagged on weed; they're not strictly responsible." "Responsible or not, they'd better be careful before they get some lumps on their heads." The first cop noticed Sissie standing quietly in the corner, holding her hand to her bruised cheek. "You know them, Caleb and Inky, don't you girl?" he asked her. "No sir, I just know Smokey," she said. Suddenly Sonny sneezed. Sugartit giggled. The cop wheeled toward the bed, looked at the sack and then looked at her. "Who was that sneezed?" She put her hand to her mouth and tried to stop laughing. The cop turned slightly pinkish and drew his pistol. "Someone's underneath the bed," he said. "Keep the other covered while I look." The second cop drew his pistol. "Just relax and no one will get hurt," he said calmly. The first cop got down on his hands and knees, holding his cocked pistol ready to shoot, and looked underneath the bed. Sugartit put both hands over her mouth and bit into her palm. Her face swelled with suppressed laughter and tears flowed down her cheeks. The cop straightened to his knees and braced himself on the edge of the bed. There was a perplexed look on his red face. "There's something funny going on here," he said. "There's someone else in this room." "Ain't nobody here but us ghosts, boss," Choo-Choo said. The cop threw him a look of frustrated fury, and started to his feet. "By God, I'll — " His voice dried up when he heard the choking sounds issuing from inside the sack. He jumped upward and backward as though one of the ghosts had sure enough groaned. Leveling his pistol, he said in a quaking voice, "What's in that sack?" Sugartit burst into hysterical laughter. For an instant no one spoke. Then Choo-Choo said hastily, "Hit's just Joe." "What!" "Hit's just Joe in the sack." "Joe!" Gingerly, the cop leaned over, holding his cocked pistol in his right hand, and with his left untied the cord closing the sack. He drew the top of the sack open. Popping eyes in a gray-black face stared up at him. The cop drew back in horror. His face turned white and a shudder passed over his big solid frame. "It's a body," he said in a choked voice. "All trussed up." "Hit ain't no body, hit's just Joe," Choo-Choo said, not intending to play the comic. The second cop hastened over to look. "It's still alive," he said. "He's choking!" Sissie cried and ran over and began loosening the noose about Sonny's neck. Sonny sucked in breath with a gasp. "My God, what's he doing in there?" the first cop asked in amazement. "He's just studying magic," Choo-Choo said. He was beginning to sweat from the strain. "Magic!" The second cop noticed Sheik inching toward the window and aimed his pistol at him. "Oh no, you don't," he said. "You come over here." Sheik turned and came closer. "Studying magic!" the first cop said. "In a sack?" "Yas suh, he's trying to learn how to get out, like Houdini." Color flooded back into the cop's face. "I ought to take him in for indecent exposure," he said. "Hell, he's wearing a sack, ain't he," the second cop said, amused by his own wit. Both of them grinned at Sonny as though he were a harmless halfwit. Then the second cop said suddenly, "It ain't possible! There can't be two such halfwits in the whole world." The first cop looked closely at Sonny and said slowly, "I believe you're right." Then to the others at large, "Get that boy out of that sack." Sheik didn't move, but Choo-Choo and Inky hastened over and pulled Sonny out while Sissie held the bottom of the sack. The cops stared at Sonny in awe. "Looks like barbecued coon, don't he?" the first cop said. Sugartit burst into laughter again. Sonny's black skin had a gray pallor as though he'd been dusted over lightly with wood ash. He was shaking like a leaf. The second cop reached out and turned him around. Everyone stared at the handcuff bracelets clamped about each wrist. "That's our boy," the first cop said. "Lawd, suh, I wish I'd gone home and gone to bed," Sonny said in a moaning voice. "I'll bet you do," the cop said. Sugartit couldn't stop laughing.