The Real Cool Killers Part 17

"He just say Sissie's boy friend, some boy they call Sheik, arrange it for him and he pay Sheik. Then he wanted Sheik to arrange for the other one but Sheik couldn't do it."

"What was the other one called? The one he and you were looking for?"

"He call her Sugart.i.t. She was Sissie's girl friend. He'd seen 'em walking together down Seventh Avenue one time after he'd whipped Sissie."

"Where did you find her?"

"We didn't find her, I swear 'fore--"

"Does your girl know them?"

"I didn' hear you."

"Your girl, does she know them?"

"Know who, boss?"

"Either Sissie or Sugart.i.t."

"Naw suh. My gal's a pro and them is just chippies. I recollect him saying one time they all belonged to a kid gang over in that section. 1 means them two chippies and Sheik. He say Sheik was the chief."

"What's the name of the gang?"

"He say they call themselves the Real Cool Moslems. He thought it were funny."

"Did you listen to the news on the radio tonight?"

"You mean what it say 'bout him getting croaked? Naw suh, I was lissening to the Twelve-Eighty Club. Reba tole me 'bout it. She were lissening. That were just 'fore you come. She were telling me when the doorbell rang. She say the big Greek's croaked over on Lenox Avenue and I say so what."

"You said before that lots of people might have killed him if they'd known about him. Who?"

"All I meant was some of those gal's pas. Like Sissie's or some of 'em. He might have been hanging 'round over there looking for Sugart.i.t again and her pa might have got hep to it some kind of way and been layin' for him and when he seed him coming down the street might have lowered the boom on 'im."

"You mean slipped up behind him?"

"He were in his car, warn't he?"

"How about the Moslems -- the kid gang?"

"Them! What they'd wanta do it for? He was money in the street for them."

"Who's Sugart.i.t's father?"

"You mean her old man?"

"I mean her father."

"How am I gonna know that, boss? I ain't never heard of her 'fore he talk 'bout her."

"What did he say about her?"

"Just say she was the gal for him."

"Did he say where she lived?"

"Naw, suh, he just say what I say he say, boss, I swear 'fore G.o.d."

"You stink. What are you sweating so much for?"

"I'se just nervous, that's all."

"You stink with fear. What are you scared of?"

"Just naturally scared, boss. You got that big pistol and you mad at everybody and talkin' 'bout killin' me and all that. Enough to make anybody scared."

"You're scared of something else, something in particular. What are you holding out?"

"I ain't holding nothing out. I done tole you everything I know, I swear boss, I swears on everything that's holy in this whole green world."

"1 know you're lying. I can hear it in your voice. What are you lying about?"

"I ain't lying, boss. If I'm lying I hope G.o.d'll strike me dead on the spot."

"You know who her father is, don't you?"

"Naw suh, boss. I swear. I done tole you everything I know. You could whup me till my head is soft as clabber but I couldn't tell you no more than I'se already tole you."

"You know who her father is and you're scared to tell me.

"Naw suh, I swear--"

"Is he a politician?"

"Boss, I --"

"A numbers banker?"

"I swear, boss--"

"Shut up before I knock out your G.o.dd.a.m.ned teeth."

He mashed the starter as though tromping on Ready's head. The motor purred into life. But he didn't slip in the clutch. He sat there listening to the softly purring motor in the small black nondescript car, trying to get his temper under control.

Finally he said, "If I find out that you're lying I'm going to kill you like a dog. I'm not going to shoot you, I'm going to break all your bones. I'm going to try to find out who killed Galen because that's what I'm paid for and that was my oath when I took this job. But if I had my way I'd pin a medal on him and I'd string up every G.o.dd.a.m.ned one of you who were up with Galen. You've turned my stomach and it's all I can do right now to keep from beating out your brains."

12.

The reception room of the Harlem Hospital, on Lenox Avenue ten blocks south from the scene of the murder, was wrapped in a midnight hush.

It was called an interracial hospital; more than half of its staff of doctors and nurses were colored people.

A graduate nurse sat behind the reception desk. A bronzeshaded desk lamp spilled light on the hospital register before her while her brown-skinned face remained in shadow. She looked up inquiringly as Grave Digger and Ready Belcher approached, walking side by side.

"May I help you," she said in a trained courteous voice.

"I'm Detective Jones," Grave Digger said, exhibiting his badge.

She looked at it but didn't touch it.

"You received an emergency patient here about two hours ago; a man with his right arm cut off."

"Yes?"

"I would like to question him."

"I will call Dr. Banks. You may talk to him. Please be seated."

Grave Digger prodded Ready in the direction of chairs surrounding a table with magazines. They sat silently, like relatives of a critical case.

Dr. Banks came in silently, crossing the linoleum-tiled floor on rubber-soled shoes. He was a tall, athletic-looking young colored man dressed in white.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Jones," he said to Grave Digger whom he knew by sight. "You want to know about the case with the severed arm." He had a quick smile and a pleasant voice.

"I want to talk to him," Grave Digger said.

Dr. Banks pulled up a chair and sat down. "He's dead. I've just come from him. He had a rare type of blood -- Type O -- which we don't have in our blood bank. You realize transfusions were imperative. We had to contact the Red Cross blood bank. They located the type in Brooklyn, but it arrived too late. Is there anything I can tell you?"

"I want to know who he was."

"So do we. He died without revealing his ident.i.ty."

"Didn't he make a statement of any kind before he died?"

"There was another detective here earlier, but the patient was unconscious at the time. The patient regained consciousness later, but the detective had left. Before leaving, he examined the patient's effects, however, but found nothing to establish his ident.i.ty."

"He didn't talk at all, didn't say anything?"

"Oh yes. He cried a great deal. One moment he was cursing and the next he was praying. Most of what he said was incoherent. I gathered he regretted not killing the man whom he had attacked -- the white man who was killed later."

"He didn't mention any names?"

"No. Once he said 'the little one' but mostly he used the word _mother-raper_ which Harlemites apply to everybody, enemies, friends and strangers."

"Well, that's that," Grave Digger said. "Whatever he knew he took with him. Still I'd like to examine his effects too, whatever they are."

"Certainly; they're just the clothes he wore and the contents of his pockets when he arrived here." He stood up. "Come this way."

Grave Digger got to his feet and motioned his head for Ready to walk ahead of him.

"Are you an officer too?" Dr. Banks asked Ready.

"No, he's my prisoner," Grave Digger said. "We're not that hard up for cops as yet."

Dr. Banks smiled. He led them down a corridor smelling strongly of ether to a room at the far end where the clothes and personal effects of the emergency and ward patients were stored in neatly wrapped bundles on shelves against the walls. He took down a bundle bearing a metal tag and placed it on the bare wooden table.

"Here you are."

From the adjoining room an anguished male voice was heard reciting the Lord's Prayer.

Ready stared as though fascinated at the number 219 on the metal tag fastened to the bundle of clothes and whispered, "Death row."

Dr. Banks flicked a glance at him and said to Grave Digger, "Most of the attendants play the numbers. When an emergency patient arrives they put this tag with the death number on his bundle and if he dies they play it."

Grave Digger grunted and began untying the bundle.

"If you discover anything leading to his ident.i.ty, let us know," Dr. Banks said. "We'd like to notify his relatives." He left them.

Grave Digger spread the blood-caked mackinaw and overalls on the table. It contained two incredibly filthy one-dollar bills, some loose change, a small brown paper sack of dried roots, two Yale keys and a skeleton key on a rusty key ring, a dried rabbit's foot, a dirty piece of resin, a cheese cloth rag that had served as a handkerchief, a putty knife, a small piece of pumice stone, and a sc.r.a.p of dirty writing paper folded into a small square. The putty knife and pumice stone indicated that the man had worked somewhere as a porter, using the putty to sc.r.a.pe chewing gum from the floor and the pumice stone for cleaning his hands. That didn't help much.

He unfolded the square of paper and found a note on cheap school paper written in a childish hand.

GB, you want to know something. The Big John hangs out in the Inn. How about that. Just like those old Romans.

Bee.

Grave Digger folded it again and slipped it into his pocket.

"Is your girl called Bee?" he asked Ready.

"Naw, suh, she called Doe."

"Do you know any girl called Bee -- a school girl ?"

"Naw suh."

"GB?".