The Heat's On

by Chester Himes

  “But Benny discarded that too. He had investigated Pinky along with Gus, and he had him cased as a pure halfwit, incapable of handling that much H; he wouldn’t know what to do with it. She argued that Pinky had the habit and maybe he took it for personal use. But Benny’s lookout had seen Pinky leave here when he went to put in the false fire alarm, and he couldn’t have concealed a handkerchief in ragged clothes he was wearing. And he hasn’t been back here since.

  “Then she remembered Sister Heavenly’s visit. She told him that Sister Heavenly was Pinky’s aunt, and that she sold decks of heroin under the guise of a faith healing racket. Then Benny remembered his lookout reporting that Sister Heavenly had left here shortly after the trunk was picked up. He conceded that maybe she was right, maybe Sister Heavenly was the connection, and maybe Pinky had hijacked the bundle. That would be just like a halfwit.

  “They took her down to the car and all of them drove up to the Bronx to look for Sister Heavenly. But by the time they got there the house had been blown up and Sister Heavenly had disappeared. But they found out about Uncle Saint and they saw the Lincoln. It was one of Benny’s guards whom Uncle Saint had shot over by the French Line dock and they began putting two and two together.”

  “We made a line on that,” the homicide lieutenant said. “We tied it all together after Sister Heavenly’s body was identified by the boy, Wop. And we already had a report on the car from an officer stationed at the Lincoln Tunnel.”

  “Yeah. Well, they figured Sister Heavenly had already gotten the bundle and had blown up the house to kill Uncle Saint and destroy her tracks—”

  “It was just the old joker trying to crack her safe,” the homicide lieutenant said drily. “The experts made it.”

  “Yeah, it wasn’t long before they dug that too. Benny had kept lookouts on this house all day, and one of them remembered Sister Heavenly nosing around here after Digger was shot. So Benny figured by that she hadn’t made the connection. After then they concentrated on finding Pinky.”

  “We kept a line on all of you after that,” the homicide lieutenant said. “No need of going into detail now.”

  “There’s just one question I’d like to ask,” the T-man said. “How was it they didn’t spot you, Ed, when you planted your bag on top the elevator?”

  “They saw me all right, but they didn’t make me. You see, I didn’t come in here. I went to the second house from here and went up to the roof and crossed over. I dropped the bag from the top access to the elevator shaft. Besides which I was wearing painter’s coveralls and carrying the small bag inside of a large paint-smeared bag the last painters had left in my house. And when I went back outside the same house I’d entered, I was carrying the same big bag.”

  “All that is well and good and you deserve credit for it,” the narcotics lieutenant said. “But where in the hell is the junk?”

  The T-man said to Coffin Ed, “You’re the only one here who knew Pinky. Do you think he’s capable of that?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Coffin Ed said. “I figure him for a halfwit too. But so was Al Capone.”

  “All that this proves is one thing,” the narcotics lieutenant said. “That this case is not finished; not by a damn sight. Not with a fortune in heroin floating around.”

  “For us it’s just begun,” the T-man said.

  “I’ve got a hunch we’ll find it,” Coffin Ed said.

  “A hunch? What hunch?” the homicide lieutenant asked.

  “If I told you, you’d laugh.”

  “Laugh!” the homicide lieutenant exploded angrily. “Laugh! With eleven people whom we know of already dead from this one caper, and five kilos of pure poison loose in New York City, and we haven’t even scratched the bottom of it. Laugh? What the hell’s the matter with you? What’s your hunch? Let’s hear it.”

  “I’ve got a hunch that Gus is coming back and then we’ll find out where it’s at.”

  In the dead silence which followed, the detectives could feel their hackles rise. They stared at him wih blank, deadpan expressions.

  Finally the T-man said, “Well, at least no one is laughing.”

  23

  The dick stationed on the front door came in and said, “A Railway Express truck just pulled up out front. I think they’re delivering something here.”

  “Get back and keep out of sight,” the homicide lieutenant said quickly.

  “If it’s what I think, we ought to clean up here,” Coffin Ed said.

  The detectives looked at him curiously, but they did as he suggested. Quickly they moved the table and chairs back into the janitor’s flat and then split into two groups. Some remained there and the others rushed to the other end of the corridor and stationed themselves in the laundry.

  Ears were pressed to the closed doors, listening for footsteps. But after the faint sounds made by the opening and closing of the front door, the silence was prolonged.

  Then they heard a faint rap on the basement floor, followed by a slight scraping sound as though some small object had been place there stealthily.

  Doors were flung open and detectives rushed into the corridor with drawn pistols. They stopped in their tracks as though they had all run into an invisible wall.

  A black giant, so black he looked dark purple in the bright light, the blackest man any of them had ever seen, crouched over a large green steamer trunk that hadn’t been there before.

  It was the giant who inspired their first amazement. He was dressed in the kind of uniform the Railway Expressmen wear, but it was so small on him the coat wouldn’t button, the sleeves ended halfway down the forearms and the pants halfway up the legs. His purple-black feet were encased in blue canvas sneakers, and a uniform cap sat atop kinky hair that was decidedly purple.

  Pink eyes darted this way and that from the black-purple face. And then the giant started to run.

  “Halt!” several voices cried in unison.

  But it was Coffin Ed who stopped him by shouting, “Give up, Pinky. We got you.”

  “Pinky!” the homicide lieutenant exclaimed. “My God, is this Pinky?”

  “He’s dyed himself,” Coffin Ed said. “He’s really an albino.”

  “Now I’ve seen everything,” the T-man said.

  “Not yet,” Coffin Ed said.

  The detectives surrounded Pinky and the homicide lieutenant snapped on the handcuffs.

  “Now we’ll get to the bottom of this,” he said.

  “Let’s open the trunk first,” Coffin Ed said. “Give us the key, Pinky.”

  “I ain’t got it,” Pinky whined. “The African’s got it.”

  “All right, let’s break it open.”

  A dick got a crowbar from the toolroom and pried open the lock.

  When they lifted the lid only a jumble of soiled laundry was at first visible. But after pulling it aside, a corpse was revealed. It was the corpse of a small gray-haired man with a small wrinkled black intelligent-looking face. He wore a suit of spotless clean blue denim coveralls and black hip boots.

  Everyone began talking at once.

  “It’s Gus,” Coffin Ed said.

  “His neck’s been broken,” the T-man said.

  “This makes twelve,” the homicide lieutenant said.

  “Maybe the bundle is underneath,” a dick said.

  “Don’t be silly, Benny Mason’s had this trunk,” the narcotics lieutenant said.

  “Is this your hunch?” the homicide lieutenant asked Coffin Ed.

  “More or less.”

  “How did you figure it?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The homicide lieutenant addressed Pinky. “Why did you kill him?”

  “I din kill ’im,” Pinky denied in his high whining voice. “The African and that woman killed ’im.”

  “Why did you bring him back here?” Coffin Ed said.

  “So they’d be punished, thass why,” he whined. “They killed my pa and they got to be punished.”

  Coffin Ed turned to the homicide
lieutenant. “That’s how I dug it. Why would he put in that false fire alarm if he even knew about the H? He just wants to get Gus’s wife and the African charged with murder.”

  “They done it,” Pinky insisted. “I know they done it.”

  “Let’s skip that for a moment,” the homicide lieutenant said. “The question is where did you find the trunk?”

  “At the dock, where they took it. They was going to take him on the ship and throw him in the ocean so nobody’d ever know what happened to him. But I done beat ’em to him.”

  “That’s a cunning lick,” the homicide lieutenant said. “When Benny saw there was only a corpse inside, he had it delivered to the wharf.”

  “Let’s first find out what he did with the junk,” the T-man said impatiently. “Every minute counts on that angle.”

  “We ought to get to that slowly,” Coffin Ed suggested.

  “The African and the woman are dead, Pinky,” the homicide lieutenant said quietly. “And we know they didn’t do it. So that only leaves you.”

  “Dead? Is they both dead? Sure enough dead?”

  “Dead and gone,” Coffin Ed said.

  “So you may as well tell us why you did it,” the homicide lieutenant said.

  Pinky looked at the corpse for the first time and tears welled in his pink eyes.

  “I didn’t go to do it. I didn’t go to do it, Pa,” he addressed the corpse.

  He looked up first at the homicide lieutenant, then at the circle of blank white faces. Then his gaze came to a rest on the ugly brown face of Coffin Ed. “He was going ’way to Africa and he wouldn’t take me with him. I ast him and I begged him. He was going take that yellow woman and he wouldn’t take me, and I’se his real ’dopted son.”

  “So you killed him.”

  “I din go to kill him. But he made me so mad. I ast him again just ’fore he went out fishing—”

  “Fishing?”

  Everyone became suddenly alert.

  “What time was that?’ the homicide lieutenant asked.

  “ ’Bout half past ’leven. He put on his high boots and got his line and net and went eel fishing. Thass what made me so mad. He’d ruther go eel fishing in the black dark than lissen to me. So I waited and when he come back I ast him again. And he tole me to go away and leave him alone. He say he was too busy to lissen to foolishness.”

  “Had he caught any eels?”

  “He caught five big black eels. I don’t know how he done it so fast but he had ’em in his fishnet. He must ’ave caught ’em before and left ’em in the river ’cause they was all stone dead.”

  “How big were they?”

  “Big eels. ’Bout two — three pounds, I reckon.”

  “Eel skins stuffed with heroin. Waterproof. That’s a clever dodge,” the T-man said. “Only a Frenchman would think of it.”

  “What was he doing when you talked to him the last time?” the homicide lieutenant kept hammering gently.

  “He were looking in his trunk for somepin. He had it open looking in and I ast him once more to take me with him and he tole me to get the hell away from him. I just ’tended to shake him a little and make him lissen and ’fore I knowed it his neck broked.”

  “And you put his body in the trunk and covered it with soiled clothes from the laundry and brought it out here in the hall, then you went and put in the false fire alarm so you could accuse his wife and the African of his murder.”

  “They was guilty in they heart,” Pinky said. “They was going to kill ’im for his treasure map if it weren’t for the accident. I heered ’em say they was going to kill ’im. I swear ’fore God.”

  “Map! You knew about the map?”

  “I seen it just ’fore he went fishing. He tole me it showed where a big mess of treasure was buried in Africa and made me promise not to tell nobody ’bout it.”

  The detectives looked at one another.

  “Did his wife and the African know about it?” the homicide lieutenant asked.

  “Must ’ave. Thass why they was going to kill ’im.”

  The homicide lieutenant turned to Coffin Ed. “Do you believe that?”

  “No, he’s making it up to justify something.”

  “Let’s get back to the eels,” the T-man put in. “Now just where were the eels when you talked to him, Pinky?”

  “They were on the floor ’side the trunk where he drop ’em when he come in.”

  “What did you do with them?”

  “I figure if I left ’em there somebody’d know he’d done already come back from fishing.”

  “Yes, yes. But what did you do with them?”

  “Them dead eels? I just threw ’em away.”

  “Yes-yes-yes; but threw them away where?”

  “Where? I just threw ’em in the ’cinerator. It was full of paper and trash and I just threw ’em in there and set it on fire.”

  The T-man became hysterical and had to be beat on the back. “A three-million-dollar fire!” Tears streamed from his eyes.

  Pinky stared at him. “They weren’t nothing but stone-dead eels,” he whined. “They didn’t even look fit to eat.”

  The detectives roared with laughter as though that was the funniest thing they had ever heard.

  Pinky looked as though his feelings were hurt.

  Coffin Ed asked curiously, “Why wouldn’t he take you to Africa with him, Pinky? Was it because of your habit?”

  “Twarn’t ’cause of my habit. He didn’t mind that. He said I was too white. He said all them black Africans wouldn’t like colored people white as I is, and they’d kill me.”

  “I wonder what the court is going to make of that?” the homicide lieutenant said.

  24

  Charges were dismissed against Coffin Ed.

  After coming from the magistrate’s court, he and his wife stopped by the hospital to see Grave Digger. He was out of danger, but he was resting and couldn’t be seen.

  Leaving the hospital they ran into Lieutenant Anderson, who was on his way to see Grave Digger too.

  They told him how he was, and the three of them went to a little French bar over on Broadway in the French section.

  Coffin Ed had a couple of cognacs to keep down his high blood pressure. His wife looked at him indulgently. She settled for a Dubonnet while Anderson had a couple of Pernods to keep Coffin Ed company.

  Coffin Ed said, “What hurts me most about this business is the attitude of the public toward cops like me and Digger. Folks just don’t want to believe that what we’re trying to do is make a decent peaceful city for people to live in, and we’re going about it the best way we know how. People think we enjoy being tough, shooting people and knocking them in the head.”

  His wife patted the back of his big calloused hand. “Don’t worry about what people think. Just keep on doing the best you can.”

  To change the subject, Anderson said encouragingly, “It’s going to mean something to the commissioner that you helped clean up this case.”

  “The thing I’m happiest about,” Coffin Ed said, “is that Digger is still alive.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHESTER HIMES was born in Missouri in 1909. He began writing while serving a prison sentence for a jewel theft and published just short of twenty novels before his death in 1984. Among his best-known thrillers are Cotton Comes to Harlem, The Real Cool Killers, and The Heat’s On, all available from Vintage.