Chester Himes - The crazy kill

"How did you two lovebirds expect to live? On your salary as a chorus girl or were you intending to do a little hustling on the side?"

She was too scared to act indignant, but she protested meekly. "Val was a gentleman. Johnny was going to stake him to ten grand to open a liquor store."

Chink turned his head about and gave her a look of pure venom. But the two detectives just stared at her, and suddenly became completely still.

"Did I say something?" she asked with a frightened look.

"No, you didn't," Grave Digger lied. "You told us that before." He flicked a glance at Coffin Ed.

Chink said quickly, "That's something she dreamed up."

Coffin Ed said flatly, "Shut up."

Grave Digger said casually, "What we're trying to find out is why. Johnny's too tight a gambler for a deal that tricky."

"After all, Val was Dulcy's brother," Doll Baby argued stupidly. "And what's tricky about opening a liquor store?"

"Well, first of all, Val couldn't get a license," Grave Digger explained. "He did a year in the Illinois state reformatory, and New York state doesn't grant liquor store licenses to ex-cons. Johnny's an ex-con himself, so he couldn't get the license in his own name. That means they'd have to bring a third party as a front to get the license and operate the business in his name. The profits would be split too thin, and neither Johnny nor Val would have any legal way of collecting."

Doll Baby's eyes had stretched as big as saucers during this explanation. "Well, he swore to me that Dulcy was going to get the dough for him, and I know he wasn't lying," she said defensively. "I had him hooked."

For the next fifteen minutes the detectives questioned Chink and her about Val's and Dulcy's past life, but came up with nothing new. As they turned to leave, Grave Digger said, "Well, baby, we don't know what game you're playing, but if what you say is true, you've just about cleared Johnny of suspicion. Johnny's hot-headed enough to kill anybody in a rage, but Val was killed with cold-blooded premeditation. And, if he was trying to shake Johnny down for ten grand, that would be the same as if Johnny left his name on the murder. And Johnny ain't the boy for that."

"Well how about that!" Doll Baby protested. "I give you a reason for Johnny to have done it and you turn around and say that proves he didn't do it."

Grave Digger chuckled. "Just goes to show how stupid cops are."

They went out into the hall and closed the door behind them. Then, after talking briefly with the landlady, they went down the hall, left by the front door and closed that door behind them.

Neither Chink nor Doll Baby spoke until they heard the landlady locking and bolting the front door. But the detectives had merely stepped outside, then had turned quickly and re-entered the flat. By the time the landlady was bolting the front door they had stationed themselves in front of Chink's bedroom door and were listening through the thin wooden panel.

The first thing Chink said, jumping to his feet and turning on Doll Baby furiously, was, "Why in the Goddamned hell did you tell 'em about the ten grand, you God-damned idiot?"

"Well for Christ's sake," Doll Baby protested loudly. "Do you think I wanted them think I was goin' to marry a mother-raping beggar?"

Chink grabbed her by the throat and yanked her from the bed. The detectives glanced at each other when they heard her body thud against the carpeted floor. Coffin Ed raised his eyebrows interrogatingly but Grave Digger shook his head. After a moment they heard Doll Baby saying in a choked voice, "What the hell you trying to kill me for, you mother-raper?"

Chink had released her and had gone to the refrigerator for a bottle of beer.

"You've let the mother-raper out the trap," he accused.

"Well, if he didn't kill him, who did?" she said. Then she caught the expression on his face and said, "Oh."

"Whoever killed him it don't make no diflerence now," he said. "What I want to know is what he had on Johnny?"

"Well, I've done told you all I know," she said.

"Listen, bitch, if you're holding out on me-" he began, but she cut him off with, "You're holding out on me more than I'm holding out on you. I ain't holding out nothing."

"If you think I'm holding out anything, you had better just think it and not say it," he threatened.

"I ain't going to say nothing about you," she promised, and then complained, "Why the hell do you and me have to argue? We ain't trying to find out who killed Val, is we? All we're trying to do is shake Johnny down for a stake." Her voice began getting confidential and loving. "I'm telling you, honey, all you've got to do is keep pressing him. I don't know what Val had on him, but if you keep pressing him he's got to give."

"I'm going to press him all right," Chink said. "I'm going to keep pressing him until I test his mother-raping nerve."

"Don't test it too hard," she warned. "Cause he's got it."

"That ugly mother-raper don't scare me," Chink said.

"Look what time it is!" Doll Baby exclaimed suddenly. "I gotta go. I'm goin' to be late as it is."

Grave Digger nodded toward the outside door, and he and Coffin Ed tiptoed down the hall. The landlady let them out quietly.

As they were going down the stairs, Grave Digger chuckled. "The pot's beginning to boil," he said.

"All I hope is that we don't overcook it," Coffin Ed replied.

"We ought to hear from Chicago by tomorrow or the day after," Grave Digger remarked. "Find out what they've dug up."

"I just hope it ain't too late," Coffin Ed said.

"All that's missing is just one link," Grave Digger went on. "What it was that Val had on Johnny that was worth ten G's. If we had that we'd have it chained down."

"Yeah, but without it the dog's running loose," Coffin Ed replied.

"What you need is to get good and drunk one time," Grave Digger told his friend.

Coffin Ed rubbed the flat of his hand down his acidburned face. "And that ain't no lie," he said in a muffled voice.

It was 11:32 o'clock when Johnny parked his fishtail Cadillac on Madison Avenue near the corner and walked down 124th Street to the private staircase that led to his club on the second floor.

The name Tia Juana was lettered on the upper panel of the black steel door.

He touched the buzzer to the right of the doorknob once lightly, and an eye appeared immediately in the peephole within the letter u in the word Juana. The door swung open into the kitchen of a three-room flat.

A mild-mannered, skinny, bald-headed, brown-skinned man wearing starched khaki pants and a faded purple polo shirt said, "Tough, Johnny, two deaths back to back."

"Yeah," Johnny said. "How's the game going, Nubby?"

Nubby fitted the cushioned stump of his left arm, which was cut off just above the wrist, into the cup of his right hand and said, "Steady. Kid Nickels is running it."

"Who's winning?"

"I ain't seen. I been taking bets on the harness races for tonight at Yonkers."

Johnny had bathed, shaved and changed into a light green silk suit and a rose crepe shirt.

The phone rang and Nubby reached for the receiver on the paybox on the wall, but Johnny said, "I'll take it."

Mamie Pullen was calling to ask how Dulcy was.

"She's knocked herself out," Johnny said. "I left Alamena with her."

"How are you, son?" Mamie asked.

"Still kicking," Johnny said. "You get your sleep and don't worry 'bout us."

When he hung up Nubby said, "You look beat, boss. Why don't you just take a look about and cut back to the nest. Us three oughta be able to run it for one night."

Johnny turned toward his office without replying. It was located in the outer of the two bedrooms situated to the left of the kitchen. It contained an old-fashioned roll top desk, a small round table, six chairs and a safe. The room across from it, equipped with a big deal table, was used as a spare gambling room.