Chester Himes - The real cool killers

"Man, if I had my heater I bet I could shoot that sergeant down there dead between the eyes," he said. The cigarette was stuck to his bottom lip and dangled up and down when he talked.

"What I'd rather have me is one of those hard-shooting long-barreled thirty-eights like Grave Digger and Coffin Ed have got," Choo-Choo said. "Them heaters can kill a rock. Only I'd want me a silencer on it and I could sit here and pick off any mother-raper I wanted. But I wouldn't shoot nobody unless he was a big shot or the chief of police or somebody like that."

"You're talking about rathers, what you'd rather have; me, I'm talking about facts," Sheik said, the cigarette bobbing up and down.

"What you're talking about will get you burnt up in Sing-Sing if you don't watch out," Choo-Choo said.

"What you mean!" Sheik said, jumping to his feet threateningly. "You're going to make me throw your ass off this fire escape."

Choo-Choo jumped to his feet, too, and backed against the rail. "Throw whose ass off where? This ain't Inky you're talking to. My ass ain't made of chicken feathers."

Inky scrambled to his feet and stepped between them. "What about the captive, Sheik?" he asked in alarm.

"Damn the captive!" Sheik raved and whipped out a bone-handled knife, shaking open the six-inch blade with the same motion.

"Don't cut 'em!" Inky cried.

He knocked Inky into the iron steps with a back-handed slap and grabbed a handful of Choo-Choo's sweat shirt collar.

"You blab and I'll cut your mother-raping throat," he said.

Violence surged through him like runaway blood.

Choo-Choo's eyes turned three-quarters white and a feverish sweat popped out on his dark brown skin.

"I didn't mean nothing, Sheik," he whined desperately, talking low. "You know I didn't mean nothing. A man can talk 'bout his rathers, can't he?"

The violence receded but Sheik was still gripped in a murderous compulsion.

"If I thought you'd pigeon I'd kill you."

"You know I ain't gonna pigeon, Sheik. You know me better than that."

Sheik let go of his collar. Choo-Choo took a deep sighing breath.

Inky straightened up and rubbed his bruised shin. "You done made me lose the stick," he complained.

"Hell with the stick," Sheik said.

"That's what I mean," Sonny said. "This here gage they sells now will make you cut your own mamma's throat. They must be mixing it with loco weed or somethin'."

"Shut up!" Sheik said, still holding the open knife in his hand. "I ain't gonna tell you no more."

Sonny cast a look at the knife and said, "I ain't saying nothing."

"You better not," Sheik said. Then he turned to Inky. "Inky, you take the captive up on the roof and you and him start flying Caleb's pigeons. You, Sonny, when the cops come you tell them your name is Caleb Bowee and you're just trying to teach your pigeons how to fly at night. You got that?"

"Yeah," Sonny said skeptically.

"You know how to make pigeons fly?"

Sonny hesitated. "Chunk rocks at 'em?"

"Hell, nigger, your brain ain't big as a mustard seed. You can't chunk no rocks up there with all those cops about. What you got to do is take this pole and wave the end with the flag at 'em every time they try to light."

Sonny looked at the bamboo pole skeptically. "S'posin' they fly away and don't come back."

"They ain't going nowhere. They just fly in circles trying all the time to get back into the coop." Sheik doubled over suddenly and started laughing. "Pigeons ain't got no sense, man."

The rest of them just looked at him.

Finally Inky asked, "What you want me to do?"

Sheik straightened up quickly and stopped laughing. "You guard the captive and see that he don't escape."

"Oh!" Inky said. After a moment he asked, "What I'm gonna tell the cops when they ask me what I'm doin'?"

"Hell, you tell the cops Caleb is teaching you how to train pigeons."

Inky bent over and started rubbing his shins again. Without looking up he said, "You reckon the cops gonna fall for that, Sheik? You reckon they gonna be crazy enough to believe anybody's gonna be flying pigeons with all this going on all around here?"

"Hell, these is white cops," Sheik said contemptuously. "They believe spooks are crazy anyway. You and Sonny just act kind of simpleminded. They gonna to swallow it like it's chocolate ice cream. They ain't going to do nothing but kick you in the ass and laugh like hell about how crazy spooks are. They gonna go home and tell their old ladies and everybody they see about two simpleminded spooks up on the roof teaching pigeons how to fly at night all during the biggest dragnet they ever had in Harlem. You see if they don't."

Inky kept on rubbing his shin. "It ain't that I doubt you, Sheik, but s'posin' they don't believe it."

"God damn it, go ahead and do what I told you and don't stand there arguing with me," Sheik said, hit by another squall of fury. "I'd take me one look at you and this nigger here and I'd believe it myself, and I ain't even no gray cop."

Inky turned reluctantly and started up the stairs toward the roof. Sonny gave another sidelong look at Sheik's open knife and started to follow.

"Wait a minute, simple, don't forget the pole," Sheik said. "I've told you not to try chunking rocks at those pigeons. You might kill one and then you'd have to eat it." He doubled over laughing at his joke.

Sonny picked up the pole with a sober face and climbed slowly after Inky.

"Come on," Sheik said to Choo-Choo, "open the window and let's get back inside."

Before turning his back and bending to open the window, Choo-Choo said, "Listen, Sheik, I didn't mean nothing by that."

"Forget it," Sheik said.

Sissie and Sugartit were sitting silently side by side on the bed, looking frightened and dejected. Sugartit had stopped crying but her eyes were red and her cheeks stained.

"Jesus Christ, you'd think this is a funeral," Sheik said.

No one replied. Choo-Choo fidgeted from one foot to the other.

"I want you chicks to wipe those sad looks off your faces," Sheik said. "We got to look like we're balling and ain't got a thing to worry about when the cops get here."

"You go ahead and ball by yourself," Sissie said.

Sheik lunged forward and slapped her over on her side. She got up without a word and walked to the window. "If you go out that window I'll throw you down on the street," Sheik threatened.

She stood looking out the window with her back turned and didn't answer.

Sugartit sat quietly on the edge of the bed and trembled.

"Hell," Sheik said disgustedly and flopped lengthwise behind Sugartit on the bed.

She got up and went to stand in the window beside Sissie.

"Come on, Choo-Choo, to hell with those bitches," Sheik said. "Let's decide what to do with the captive."

"Now you're getting down to the gritty," Choo-Choo said enthusiastically, straddling a chair. "You got any plans?"

"Sure. Give me a butt."

Choo-Choo fished two Camels from a squashed package in his sweat shirt roll and lit them, passing one to Sheik.

"This square weed on top of gage makes you crazy," he said.

"Man, my head already feels like it's going to pop open, it's so full of ideas," Sheik said. "If I had me a real mob like Dutch Schultz's I could take over Harlem with the ideas I got. All I need is just the mob."

"Hell, you and me could do it alone," Choo-Choo said.

"We'd need some arms and stuff, some real factory-made heaters and a couple of machine guns and maybe some pineapples."

"If we croaked Grave Digger and the Monster we'd have two real cool heaters to start off with," Choo-Choo suggested.

"We ain't going to mess with those studs until after we're organized," Sheik said. "Then maybe we can import some talent to make the hit. But we'd need some dough."