Chester Himes - The crazy kill

"You didn't notice how badly he was hurt?" Grave Digger persisted.

"Naw suh, I just figured he was dead and gone to Jesus," Iron Jaw said. "And it warn't like as if I was a big shot like Johnny Perry. If the cops found me there they was just liable as not to claim I pushed him out the window."

"You make me sad, son," Grave Digger said seriously. "Cops are not that bad."

"We'd like to let you take your chicken and go home and have your pleasure," Coffin Ed said. "But Valentine Haines was stabbed to death this morning, and we've got to hold you as a material witness."

"Yassuh," Iron Jaw said stoically. "That's what I mean."

It was ten-fifteen at night when Grave Digger and Coffin Ed finally got around to calling on Chink Charlie.

First they'd had a foot race with a young man peddling skinned cats for rabbits. An old lady customer had asked for the feet, had become suspicious and called the police when told that they were nub-legged rabbits.

Then they'd had to interview two matronly Southern schoolteachers, living in the Theresa Hotel and taking summer courses at New York University, who had given a man posing as the house detective their money to put in the hotel safe.

They parked in front of the bar at 146th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue.

Chink had a room with a window in the fourth-floor apartment on St. Nicholas Avenue. He had chosen the black and yellow decor himself and had furnished it in modernistic style. The carpet was black, the chairs yellow, the day bed had a yellow spread, the combination television-record player was black trimmed with yellow, the small table-model refrigerator was black on the outside and yellow on the inside, the curtains were black-and-yellow striped, and the dressing table and chest of drawers were black.

The record player was stacked with swing classics, and Cootie Williams was doing a trumpet solo in Duke Ellington's Take The A Train. A ten-inch revolving fan on the sill of the open window blew in exhaust fumes, dust, hot air and the sound of loud voices from the congregation of whores and drunks in front of the bar down below.

Chink was standing in the glow of the table lamp in front of the window. His sweat-slick oily yellow body was clad in blue nylon boxer-type shorts. The fringe of a large purple-red scar, left by an acid burn, showed on his left hip above his blue shorts.

Stripped to her black nylon brassiere, black sheer nylon panties and high-heeled red shoes, Doll Baby was practicing her chorus routine in the center of the floor. She had her back to the window and was watching her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. A tray of dirty dishes containing leftovers from the chili bean and stewed chitterling dinners they'd ordered from the bar restaurant rested on the table top, cutting her reflection in half just below the panties, as though she might have been served without legs along with the other delicacies. The outline of three heavy embossed scars running across her buttocks were visible beneath the sheer black panties.

Chink was looking at them absently as they jiggled in front of his vision.

"I don't get it," he was saying. "If Val really thought he was going to get ten G's from Johnny and wasn't just bulling you-"

She flared up. "What the hell's got into you, nigger. You think I can't tell when a man's talking straight?"

She had told Chink about her interview with Johnny, and they were trying to think up some angle to put the squeeze on him.

"Sit down, can't you!" Chink shouted. "How the hell can I think-"

He broke off to stare at the door. Doll Baby stopped dancing in the middle of a step.

The door had opened quietly, and Grave Digger had come into the room. While they were staring, he went quickly across to the window and drew the shade. Coffin Ed stepped inside, closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. Both wore their hats pulled low over their eyes.

Grave Digger turned and sat on the edge of the window table beside the lamp.

"Well, go on, son," he said. "What's the only way to figure it?"

"What the hell do you mean by breaking into my room like this?" Chink said in a choking voice. His yellow face was diffused with rage.

The window curtain beating against the fan guard made so much noise Grave Digger reached over and turned the fan off.

"What was that, son?" he asked. "I didn't hear you."

"He's beefing because we didn't knock," Coffin Ed said. Grave Digger spread his hands. "Your landlady said you had company, but we figured it was too hot for you to be engaged in anything embarrassing."

Chink's face began to swell. "Listen, you cops don't scare me," he raved. "When you cross that threshold without a warrant I consider it as breaking and entering like two burglars, and I can take my pistol and blow your brains out."

"That's not the right attitude for a man first on the scene of a murder," Grave Digger said, standing erect.

Coffin Ed crossed the floor, pulled open the top drawer, dug beneath a stack of handkerchiefs and brought out a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 caliber pistol.

"And I've got a permit for it," Chink shouted.

"Sure," Coffin Ed conceded. "Your white folks down at the club where you work as a whisky jerker got it for you."

"Yeah, and I'm going to have them take care of you two nigger cops," Chink threatened.

Coffin Ed dropped Chink's gun back into the drawer. "Listen, punk-" he began, but Grave Digger cut him off.

"After all, Ed, be easy on the boy. You can see these two yellow people are not Negroes like you and me."

But Coffin Ed was too angry to go for the joke. He kept on talking to Chink. "You're out on bail as a material witness. We can pull you in any time we wish. We're trying to give you a break, and all we get from you is a lot of cute crap. If you don't want to talk to us here we can take you down and talk to you in the Pigeon Nest."

"You mean if I object to your pushing me around in my own house you can take me down to the precinct station and push me around there," Chink said venomously. "That's how you got to look like Frankenstein's monster, pushing people around."

Coffin Ed's acid-burned face went hideous with rage. Before Chink had finished speaking he had taken two steps and knocked him spinning across the yellow-covered bed. He had his long barreled pistol in his hand and was moving in to pistol-whip Chink when Grave Digger grabbed him by the arms from behind.

"This is Digger," Grave Digger said in a quick pacifying voice. "This is Digger, Ed. Don't hurt the boy. Listen to Digger, Ed."

Slowly Coffin Ed's taut muscles relaxed, as the murderous rage drained out of him.

"He's a mouthy punk," Grave Digger went on. "But he's not worth killing."

Coffin Ed stuck his pistol back into the holster, turned and left the room without uttering a word, stood for a moment in the corridor and cried.

When he returned Chink was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking sullen and smoking a cigarette.

Grave Digger was saying, "If you're lying about the knife, son, we're going to crucify you."

Chink didn't reply.

Coffin Ed said thickly, "Answer."

Chink replied sullenly, "I don't know nothing about the knife."

Grave Digger didn't look at his partner, Coffin Ed. Doll Baby had backed over to the far corner of the bed and was sitting on its edge as though expecting it to explode underneath her any moment.

Coffin Ed asked her suddenly, "What racket were you and Val scheming?"

She jumped as if the bed had blown up as expected.

"Racket?" she repeated stupidly.

"You know what a racket is," Coffin Ed hammered. "As many rackets as you've been up with in your lifetime."

"Oh, you mean did he have a hype?" She swallowed. "Val didn't do nothing like that. He was a square-well, what I mean is he was straight."