Chester Himes - The crazy kill

Gigolo's body began to jerk more violently. "What's a man going to do? You folks keeps me scared. If anybody finds out I'm stooling for you I be scared to shake my head." He was referring to a story they tell in Harlem about two jokers, in a razor fight and one says, Man, you ain't cut me, and the other one says, if you don't believe I done cut you, just shake you head and it goin' to fall off.

"The heroin isn't going to keep your head on any better," Coffin Ed warned.

On the way out, he said to the old lady who'd let them in, "Cut down on Gigolo, Ma, he's getting so hopped he's going to blow his top one day."

"Lawd, I ain't no doctor," she complained. "I don't know how much they needs. I just sells it if they got the money to pay for it. You know, I don't use that junk myself."

"Well, cut down anyway," Grave Digger said harshly. "We're just letting you run because you keep our stool pigeons supplied."

"If it wasn't for these stool pigeons you'd be out of business," she argued. "The cops ain't goin' to never find out nothing if don't nobody tell 'em."

"Just put a little baking soda in that heroin, and don't give it to them straight," Grave Digger said. "We don't want these boys blind. And let us out this hole, we're in a hurry."

She shuffled down the black dark hall with hurt feelings and opened the three heavy locks on the front door without a sound.

"That old crone is getting on my nerves," Grave Digger said as they climbed into their car.

"What you need is a vacation," Coffin Ed said. "Or else a laxative."

Grave Digger chuckled.

They drove over to 137th Street and Lenox Avenue, on the other side from the Savoy Ballroom, climbed a narrow flight of stairs beside the Boll Weevil Bar to the AceyDeucey poolroom on the second floor.

A small space at the front was closed off by a wooden counter for an office. A fat, bald-headed brown-skinned man, wearing a green eyeshade, a collarless silk shirt and a black vest adorned with a pennyweight gold chain, sat on a high stool behind the cash register on the counter and looked over the six pool tables arranged crosswise down the long, narrow room.

When Grave Digger and Coffin Ed appeared at the top of the stairs, he greeted in a low bass voice usually associated with undertakers. "Howdy do, gentlemen, how is the police business this fine summer day?"

"Booming, Acey," Coffin Ed said, his eyes roving over the lighted tables. "More folks getting robbed, slugged and stabbed to death in this hot weather than usual."

"It's the season of short tempers," Acey said.

"You ain't lying, son," Grave Digger said. "How's Deucey?"

"Resting as usual," Acey said. "Far as I heard."

Deucey was the man he had bought the business from, and he had been dead for twenty-one years.

Grave Digger had already spotted their man down at the fourth table and led the way down the cramped aisle. He took a seat at one end of the table and Coffin Ed took a seat at the other.

Poor Boy was playing a slick half-white pool shark straight pool, twenty-no-count, for fifty cents a point, and was already down forty dollars.

The balls had been racked for the start of a new game. It was Poor Boy's break and he was chalking his cue stick. He looked slantwise from one detective to the other and chalked his stick for so long the shark said testily, "Go head and break, man, you got enough chalk on that mother-raping stick to make a fifteen-cushion billiard shot."

Poor Boy put his cue ball on the marker, worked his stick back and forth through the circle of his left index finger and scratched. He didn't tear the velvet, but he made a long white stripe. His cue ball trickled down the table and tapped the racked balls so lightly as to barely loosen them.

"That boy looks nervous," Coffin Ed said.

"He ain't been sleeping well," Grave Digger replied.

"I ain't nervous," the shark said.

He broke the balls and three dropped into pockets. Then he settled down and ran a hundred without stopping, going from the break seven times, and when he reached up with his cue stick and flipped the century marker against the other ninety-nine on the line overhead, all the other games had stopped and jokers were standing on the table edges to get a look.

"You ain't nervous yet," Coffin Ed corrected.

The shark looked at Coffin Ed defiantly and crowed, "I told you I wasn't nervous."

When the rack man put the paper sack holding the stakes on the table, Coffin Ed got down from his seat and picked it up.

"That's mine," the shark said.

Grave Digger moved in behind, putting both the shark and Poor Boy between himself and Coffin Ed.

"Don't start getting nervous now, son," he said. "We just want to look at your money."

"It ain't nothing but plain United States money," the shark argued. "Ain't you wise guys never seen no money?"

Coffin Ed upended the bag and dumped the contents onto the table. Dimes, quarters and half dollars spilled over the green velvet, along with a roll of greenbacks.

"You ain't been in Harlem long, son," he said to the shark. "He ain't goin' to be here long either," Grave Digger said, reaching out to flip the roll of greenbacks apart from the silver money. "There's your roll, son," he said. "Take it and find yourself another town. You're too smart for us country hicks in Harlem." When the shark opened his mouth to protest, he added roughly, "And don't say another God-damned word or I'll knock out your teeth."

The shark pocketed his roll and melted into the crowd. Poor Boy hadn't said a word.

Coffin Ed scooped up the change and put it back into the paper sack. Grave Digger touched the slim black boy on his T-shirted shoulder.

"Let's go, Poor Boy, we're going to take a ride."

Coffin Ed made an opening through the crowd. Silence followed them.

They put Poor Boy between them in the car and drove around the corner and parked.

"What would you rather have?" Grave Digger asked him. "A year in the Auburn state pen or thirty days in the city jail?"

Poor Boy looked at him slantwise through his long muddy eyes. "What you mean?" he asked in a husky Georgia voice.

"I mean you robbed that A and P store manager this morning."

"Naw suh, I ain't even seen no A and P store this morning. I made that money shining shoes down at the 125th Street Station."

Grave Digger hefted the sack of silver in his hand. "It's over a hundred dollars here," he said.

"I was lucky pitching halves and quarters," Poor Boy said. "You can ask anybody who was round there this morning."

"What I mean, son," Grave Digger explained, "is that when you steal over thirty-five dollars that makes it grand larceny, and that's a felony, and they give you one to five years in the state stir. But if you cooperate, the judge will let you take a plea to petty larceny and save the state the cost of a jury trial and appointing state lawyers, and you get off with thirty days in the workhouse. It depends on whether you want to cooperate."

"I ain't stole no money," Poor Boy said. "It's like what I done said, I made this money shining shoes and pitching halves."

"That's not what Patrolman Harris and that A and P store manager are going to say when they see you in that line-up tomorrow morning," Grave Digger said.

Poor Boy thought that over. Sweat started beading on his forehead and in the circles underneath his eyes, and oily beads formed over the surface of his smooth flat nose.

"Cooperate how?" he said finally.

"Who was riding with Johnny Perry when he drove down Seventh Avenue early this morning, just a few minutes before you made your sting?" Grave Digger asked.

Poor Boy blew air from his nose as though he'd been holding his breath. "I ain't seen Johnny Perry's car," he said with relief.

Grave Digger reached down and turned on the ignition and started the motor.