but cops.'
'Where they at now?' Sheik asked.
'They're everywhere, but right now they's taking the house two doors down. They got all kinds of spotlights turned on the front of the house and cops is walking around down the street with machine guns. We better hurry if we're going to move the prisoner.'
'Keep cool, fool,' Sheik said. 'Take a look at the roof.'
'Praise Allah,' Choo-Choo said, backing away on his hands and knees.
'Get out of that coat and shirt,' Sheik ordered Sonny.
When Sonny had stripped to his underwear shirt, Sheik looked at him and said, 'Nigger, you sure are black. When you was a baby your mama must'a had to chalk your mouth to tell where to stick it.'
'I ain't no blacker than Inky,' Sonny said defensively.
'I ain't in that,' Inky said.
Sheik grinned at him derisively. 'You didn't have no trouble, did you, Inky? Your mama used luminous paint on you.'
'Come on, man, I'm getting cold,' Sonny said.
'Keep your pants on,' Sheik said. 'Ladies present.'
He hung Sonny's coat with his own clothes on the wire line behind the curtain and threw the shirt in the corner. Then he tossed Sonny an old faded red turtle-necked sweater.
'Pull the sleeves down over the irons and put on that there overcoat,' he directed, indicating the old army coat he'd taken from the janitor.
'It's too hot,' Sonny protested.
'You gonna do what I say, or do I have to slug you?'
Sonny put on the coat.
Sheik then took a pair of leather driving gauntlets from his pasteboard suitcase beneath the bed and handed them to Sonny, too.
'What am I gonna do with these?' Sonny asked.
'Just put them on and shut up, fool,' Sheik said.
He then took a long bamboo pole from behind the bed and began passing it through the window. On one end was attached a frayed felt New York Giants pennant.
Choo-Choo came down the fire escape in time to take the pole and lean it against the ladder.
'Ain't no cops on this roof yet but the roof down where they's shaking down is lousy with 'em,' he reported.
His face was shiny with sweat and the whites of his eyes had begun to glow.
'Don't chicken out on me now,' Sheik said.
'I just needs some pot to steady my nerves.'
'Okay, we're going to blow two now.' Sheik turned to Sonny and said, 'Outside, boy.'
Sonny gave him a look, hesitated, then climbed out on the fire-escape landing.
'Let me come, too,' Sissie said.
Sugartit sat up with sudden interest.
'I want both you little jailbaits to stay right here in this room and don't move,' Sheik ordered in a hard voice, then turned to Inky, 'You come on, Inky, I'm gonna need you.'
Inky joined the others on the fire escape. Sheik came last and closed the window. They squatted in a circle. The landing was crowded.
Sheik took two limp cigarettes from the roll of his sweatshirt and stuck them into his mouth.
'Bombers!' Choo-Choo exclaimed. 'You've been holding out on us.'
'Give me some fire and less of your lip,' Sheik said.
Choo-Choo flipped a dollar lighter and lit both cigarettes. Sheik sucked the smoke deep into his lungs, then passed one of the sticks to Inky.
'You and Choo-Choo take halvers and me and the captive will split this one.'
Sonny raised both gloved hands in a pushing gesture. 'Pass me. That gage done got me into more trouble now than I can get out of.'
'You're chicken,' Sheik said contemptuously, sucking another puff. He swallowed back the smoke each time it started up from his lungs. His face swelled and began darkening with blood as the drug took hold. His eyes became dilated and his nostrils flared.
'Man, if I had my heater I bet I could shoot that sergeant down there dead between the eyes,' he said. The cigarette was stuck to his bottom lip and dangled up and down when he talked.
'What I'd rather have me is one of those hard-shooting long-barreled thirty-eights like Grave Digger and Coffin Ed have got,' Choo-Choo said. 'Them heaters can kill a rock. Only I'd want me a silencer on it and I could sit here and pick off any mother-raper I wanted. But I wouldn't shoot nobody unless he was a big shot or the chief of police or somebody like that.'
'You're talking about rathers, what you'd rather have; me, I'm talking about facts,' Sheik said, the cigarette bobbing up and down.
'What you're talking about will get you burnt up in Sing-Sing if you don't watch out,' Choo-Choo said.
'What you mean!' Sheik said, jumping to his feet threateningly. 'You're going to make me throw your ass off this fire escape.'
Choo-Choo jumped to his feet, too, and backed against the rail. 'Throw whose ass off where? This ain't Inky you're talking to. My ass ain't made of chicken feathers.'
Inky scrambled to his feet and stepped between them. 'What about the captive, Sheik?' he asked in alarm.
'Damn the captive!' Sheik raved and whipped out a bone-handled knife, shaking open the six-inch blade with the same motion.
'Don't cut 'em!' Inky cried.
He knocked Inky into the iron steps with a back-handed slap and grabbed a handful of Choo-Choo's sweat shirt collar.
'You blab and I'll cut your mother-raping throat,' he said.
Violence surged through him like runaway blood.
Choo-Choo's eyes turned three-quarters white and a feverish sweat popped out on his dark brown skin.
'I didn't mean nothing, Sheik,' he whined desperately, talking low. 'You know I didn't mean nothing. A man can talk 'bout his rathers, can't he?'
The violence receded but Sheik was still gripped in a murderous compulsion.
'If I thought you'd pigeon I'd kill you.'
'You know I ain't gonna pigeon, Sheik. You know me better than that.'
Sheik let go of his collar. Choo-Choo took a deep sighing breath.
Inky straightened up and rubbed his bruised shin. 'You done made me lose the stick,' he complained.
'Hell with the stick,' Sheik said.
'That's what I mean,' Sonny said. 'This here gage they sells now will make you cut your own mamma's throat. They must be mixing it with loco weed or somethin'.'
'Shut up!' Sheik said, still holding the open knife in his hand. 'I ain't gonna tell you no more.'
Sonny cast a look at the knife and said, 'I ain't saying nothing.'
'You better not,' Sheik said. Then he turned to Inky. 'Inky, you take the captive up on the roof and you and him start flying Caleb's pigeons. You, Sonny, when the cops come you tell them your name is Caleb Bowee and you're just trying to teach your pigeons how to fly at night. You got that?'
'Yeah,' Sonny said skeptically.
'You know how to make pigeons fly?'
Sonny hesitated. 'Chunk rocks at 'em?'
'Hell, nigger, your brain ain't big as a mustard seed. You can't chunk no rocks up there with all those cops about. What you got to do is take this pole and wave the end with the flag at 'em every time they try to light.'
Sonny looked at the bamboo pole skeptically. 'S'posin' they fly away and don't come back.'
'They ain't going nowhere. They just fly in circles trying all the time to get back into the coop.' Sheik doubled
