Chester Himes - All shot up

“Then somebody knew about the payoff beforehand,” Grave Digger said. “You can’t organize a heist like that in that length of time.”

“Not even in a day,” Coffin Ed said. “These men were pros; and you can’t get pros like ordering groceries. They might have had their uniforms, but they’d have to lift a car-”

“It hasn’t even been reported as stolen yet,” Anderson cut in.

“I got a notion these guns were from out of town,” Coffin Ed went on. “No local hoods would choose 125th Street for a caper like that. Not that block of 125th Street. They couldn’t depend on the weather to drive the ground-hogs in their holes; and normally on a Saturday night that block, with all its bars and restaurants, would be jumping with pedestrians. They had to be somebody who didn’t know this.”

“That doesn’t help us much,” Anderson said. “If they’re from out of town, they’re long gone by now.”

“Maybe,” Grave Digger said. “Maybe not. If it wasn’t for this hit-and-run business, I might buy it.”

Anderson gave him a startled look.

“What the hell, Jones; you can’t think there’s a tie-in.”

Coffin Ed grunted.

“Who knows,” Grave Digger said. “There is something specially vicious about both those capers, and there ain’t that many vicious people running loose in Harlem on a night as cold as this.”

“My God, man, you can’t think that hit-and-run was done deliberately.”

“And then in both instances pansies were croaked,” Grave Digger went on. “Accidents just don’t happen to those people like that.”

“The hit-and-run driver couldn’t have possibly known his victim was a man,” Anderson argued.

“Not unless he knew who he was and what racket he was pulling,” Grave Digger said.

“What racket was he pulling?”

“Don’t ask me. It’s just a feeling I got.”

“Hell, man, you’re going mystical on me,” Anderson said. “How about you, Johnson. Do you go along with that?”

“Yep,” Coffin Ed said. “Me and Digger have been drinking out the same bottle.”

“Well, before you get too drunk with that mysticism, let me fill you in with the latest facts. The two patrolmen, Stick and Price, who thought it was a joke to report they’d been knocked down by a homemade flying saucer, have admitted they were hit by a run-away automobile wheel coming down Convent Avenue. Does that give you any ideas?”

Grave Digger looked at his watch. It said five minutes to four.

“Not any that won’t keep until tomorrow,” he said. “If I start talking to my old lady about automobile tires, as fat as she’s getting, I’m subject to losing my happy home.”

When Roman came to the castle standing in the fork, where St. Nicholas Place branches off from St. Nicholas Avenue, he stood on the brake.

Sassafras sailed headfirst into the windshield, and Mister Baron’s unconscious figure rolled off the back seat and plumped onto the floor.

“Which way did they go?” Roman asked, reaching for the. 45 revolver that lay on the seat between them.

Sassafras straightened up, rubbing her forehead, and turned on him angrily. “You asking me? I ain’t seen which way they went. They might have went downtown for all I know.”

“I seen them turn uptown,” he argued, his cocked gray eyes seeming to peer down both streets at once.

“Well, make up your mind,” she said in her high, keening voice. “They didn’t go into the castle, that’s for sure. And you can’t set here in the middle of the street all night.”

“I wish I had the mother-raper who built that castle there in the middle of Harlem,” Roman said as though it were responsible for his losing sight of the Cadillac.

“Well, you ain’t got him, and you better get out the middle of the street before someone comes along and claims you has stolen this Buick.”

“We has, ain’t we?” Roman said.

The bump had revived Mister Baron, and they could hear him groaning down on the floor behind them. “Oh God… Oh Jesus Christ… Those dirty bastards…”

Roman slipped the car in gear and drove slowly down between the rows of brick-fronted apartment buildings on St. Nicholas Place.

The castle, somebody’s brainstorm at the turn of the century, stood at 149th Street; above were the better-class residences for the colored people of Harlem. Roman was unfamiliar with this part of town, and he didn’t know which way to turn.

Mister Baron gripped the back of the front seat and pulled himself to his knees. His long, wavy hair hung down over his forehead; his eyes rolled loosely in their sockets.

“Let me out,” he said, moaning. “I’m going to be sick.”

Roman stopped the car in front of a red brick building with a fluted facade. Big new cars lined the curbs.

“Shut up!” he said, “if it hadn’t been for you, I never would have run off after hitting that old lady.”

Mister Baron’s mouth ballooned, but he held it back, “I’m going to be sick in the car,” he blubbered.

“Let him out,” Sassafras said. “If you’d listened to me, none of this would have happened.”

“Get out, man,” Roman shouted. “You want me to lift you?”

Mister Baron opened the curbside door and polled to his feet. He staggered groggily toward a lamppost. Roman jumped from the other side and followed him.

Mister Baron clung to the post and heaved. Steam rose as though he were spouting boiling water. Roman backed away.

“Jesus Christ in heaven,” Mister Baron moaned.

Roman let him finish and clutched him by the arm. Mister Baron tried weakly to free himself.

“Let me go-I got to make a phone call,” he said.

“You ain’t going nowhere until I find my car,” Roman muttered, pushing him toward the Buick.

Mister Baron pulled back, but he could scarcely stand. His head was filled with shooting pains, and his vision wouldn’t focus. “Fool, how can I help you find your car if you won’t let me telephone? I want to call the police and report that it’s been stolen.” His voice sounded desperate.

“Naw, you don’t; you ain’t telling the police nothing,” Roman said, pushing him into the back of the car and slamming the door. He went around the car and climbed back beneath the wheel. “You think I want to get arrested?”

“Those weren’t real police, you idiot,” Mister Baron said.

“I know they weren’t police. You think I’m a fool? But what am I going to tell the sure enough police about hitting that old lady?”

“You didn’t hurt that old lady. I looked back once when you were driving off and saw her getting up.”

Roman stared at Mister Baron while that sunk in. Sassafras turned about to look at Mister Baron, too. The two of them, suddenly staring and immobile-he with his Davy Crockett coonskin cap and she with the tasseled red knitted cap topping her long, black face-looked like people from another world.

“You knew I didn’t hurt her, and you kept egging me to run away.” Roman’s thick Southern voice sounded dangerous.

Mister Baron fidgeted nervously. “I was going to stop you, but before I could say anything those bandits drove up and took advantage of the situation.”

“How do I know you ain’t in with ’em?”

“What for?”

“They stole my car. How do I know you ain’t had ’em do it?”

“You’re a fool,” Mister Baron cried.

“He ain’t such a fool,” Sassafras said.

“Fool or not, I’m going to hold on to you until I find my car,” Roman told Mister Baron. “And, if I don’t find it, I’m going to take my money ’way from you.”

Mister Baron started laughing hysterically. “Go ahead and take it. Search me. Beat me up. You’re big and strong.”