Chester Himes - All shot up

A chuckle came over the wire. “That’s just the right thing,” the voice said. “What time are you sending it?”

“Casper has arranged for his own guards,” Clay replied with a note of racial pride in his thin, peevish voice. “We’re all local people up here. We don’t need any big-time race-track detectives with machine guns just to go a few blocks down the street. Inform your employers that it’s already covered.”

“That’s mighty fine,” the voice said. “But we’ve been employed by the national party. We’ll cover the coverers.”

“Well, you’d better hurry then. It’ll leave here in half an hour.”

“That’ll work out fine,” the voice said. “We won’t interfere with any of the arrangements; we’ll keep in the background. You don’t even have to mention us.”

“You needn’t worry about that,” Clay said sarcastically. “I don’t get paid to advertise the Pinkertons.”

With that rejoinder he clapped down the receiver.

There was a traffic jam on the Brooklyn Bridge.

A trailer truck had skidded on a spot of slick ice caused by the overheated radiator of a passenger car that had passed a short time previously, and sideswiped a passenger bus.

There were no casualties, but the truck bumper had gored a hole in the side of the bus and it took time to get them apart.

Grave Digger and Coffin Ed sat in the stalled line of cars and fumed. They had the feeling that time was rushing past like a maniac with a knife and they were caught barefooted with their hands tied. They couldn’t back out, couldn’t squeeze through; they couldn’t abandon the car on the bridge and walk.

Roman sat in the back in his sailor’s suit, white cap stuck on the back of his head and his manacled hands in his lap.

Grave Digger looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes past six. The snow was coming down.

“I’d rather be bit in the rear by a boa constrictor than sitting here waiting for something to happen, and I can’t even guess what,” he complained bitterly.

“All I’m waiting to happen is for them to get those wrecks apart,” Coffin Ed grated.

It was three minutes past seven when they turned into East 19th Street from Third Avenue and began looking for the house.

They had no trouble finding it. It had a four-story yellow brick-veneer front, with candy-striped awnings at all the upper windows sagging with snow. The first-floor lounge had a wide picture window overlooking a three-foot strip of lawn. The window curtains were a translucent pale-blue silk, behind which the silhouettes of people moved in a frantic saraband. Black steps led up to a door covered with a plate of blackened bronze set in a white frame. In the upper panel was a knocker that looked vaguely obscene; overhead was a carriage lamp.

Coffin Ed drove past and parked three houses beyond. In unison they turned about and looked at Roman.

“We want you to go in that, house back there and ask for Junior Ball,” Grave Digger lisped.

“I didn’t understand you,” Roman said.

“Let me talk,” Coffin Ed said to Grave Digger.

Grave Digger waved him ahead.

Coffin Ed repeated the order.

“Yes, sir,” Roman said, then asked, “What do I say to him if he’s there?”

“He ain’t there,” Coffin Ed said. “He’s dead. They know he’s dead, but you’re not supposed to know. You just got off shipboard and you came looking for him at this address that he gave you last time your ship was in.”

“I’m supposed to be one of those?”

“That’s right.”

“What do I do when they tell me he’s dead?”

“They’re not going to tell you. They’re going to invite you in and ask you to wait; they’ll tell you they expect Junior to arrive any minute.”

“What do I do while I’m waiting?”

“Hell, boy, where have you been all your life? It’s a pansy crib. They’ll find things for you to do.”

“I don’t go for that stuff,” Roman. muttered.

“What kind of square are you? This ain’t the docks. These are high-brows. Who do you think you’re going to find in a hundred-thousand-dollar house a block away from Gramercy Square? They’re going to try to make you, but they’re going to test you first. You just sit there and drink your cocktails and look embarrassed-”

“That ain’t going to be hard.”

“Act like you’re waiting for Junior. Then, after about five minutes, start looking impatient. Let your eyes rove around. Then ask whoever you’re talking to what time will Baron be in.”

“Baron!” Roman sat up straight. “Mister Baron? The man who sold me my car? Is he going to be in there?”

“We don’t know. He might; he might not. If you see him when you go in, you just grab him and yell for help.”

“I won’t need no help,” Roman declared.

“Yes, you will,” Coffin Ed said. “Because we don’t want him hurt. You just grab him and hold on to him and start yelling.”

“What if he tries to draw a pistol on me?” Roman wanted to know.

“If you hold him tight enough he’ll forget it.”

“I’s ready if you is,” Roman said.

“Okay,” Coffin Ed said. “We’re going to back up and park next door. When you hear me blowing on the horn one time long and twice short, you come on out.”

”Yes, sir, but I sure hope to see Mister Baron before that.”

“So do we, so do we,” Coffin Ed said.

Grave Digger leaned over the back of the seat, unlocked the handcuffs about Roman’s wrists and removed them.

“Okay, go ahead,” he said. “Just remember one thing. You might run, but you can’t hide.”

“I ain’t going to run,” Roman said.

They watched him walking in his rolling sailor’s gait back to the bronze door and stand looking at the knocker as though he didn’t know what to do with it. They saw him knock on the door with his knuckles.

“He must have never left his ship,” Coffin Ed observed.

Grave Digger grunted.

They saw the door open; a moment later they saw him go inside; they saw the door close. Coffin Ed started the motor and backed up the car.

A black Cadillac limousine with scarcely any metal trimmings was parked on 134th Street, a few doors down from Clay’s Funeral Parlor, on the opposite side of the street. It might have been a funeral car judging from its somber appearance.

The motor was idling, but it couldn’t be heard. The defroster was on, the lights were off. The windshield wipers clicked back and forth.

George Drake sat behind the wheel, cleaning his fingernails with a tiny, gold-handled penknife. He was an ordinary-looking colored man of indeterminate age. Even the expensive dark clothes he wore looked ordinary on him. His only distinguishing features were his slightly popping eyes. He didn’t look bored; he didn’t look impatient; he didn’t look patient. He looked as though waiting for someone was his job.

Big Six sat beside him, picking his teeth with a worn whalebone toothpick. He looked enormous in a bright-tan belted polo coat and wide-brimmed black velour hat pulled low over his eyes. His pock-marked face looked oversized; he had big gaps between big stained teeth.

A white drunk staggered past in the ankle-deep snow. A dark felt hat, mashed out of shape as though he had stepped on it in the snow, was stuck precariously on the back of his head. Thick, coarse, straight black hair was plastered back from a forehead as low as that of the Missing Link. The blue-white face with its beetle-brows, high cheekbones, coarse features and wide, thin-lipped mouth looked part Indian. A dark blue overcoat smeared with snow on one side flagged open, showing a wrinkled, double-breasted, unstylish blue serge suit.

The drunk stopped suddenly, opened his trousers and began urinating on the right front fender of the Cadillac, teetering back and forth.