cops was dressed in cops’ uniforms. Of course I ain’t had no way of knowing whether they was cops or not. Naturally I wasn’t going to ask to see their shields. All I know is what I seen, and they-”
Coffin Ed was thinking fast. He cut the joker off. “Colored men?”
“Two of ’em was. One was a white man.”
Heistmen impersonating cops. He was trying to remember when was the last time that was worked in Harlem. Generally that was a big-time deal.
“What did he look like?”
“Look like? Who look like?”
He had been concentrating so hard on trying to put the puzzle together that he had forgotten the joker. His gaze came back in hard focus.
“The white man. Don’t start getting cute.”
“It was just like I say, boss, he looked like a cop. You know how it is, boss,” he added slyly, giving Coffin Ed a confidential wink. “All these white cops look just alike.”
Under ordinary circumstances Coffin Ed would have passed that one by; the color angle worked just about the same on the force as it did in private life. He had played the “all us is black folks together” line himself on entering. But he wasn’t in the mood for comic patter.
“Listen, punk, this ain’t funny, this is murder,” he said.
“Don’t look at me, boss, I ain’t done it,” the joker said, throwing up his hands in comic pantomime as though to ward off a blow.
He didn’t really expect a blow, but he got one. Coffin Ed’s fists parted his hands and popped him in the left eye, and he sailed off the stool to join the other joker on the floor.
The customers began to mutter. He was getting their full attention now, and they were squirming into life.
The next joker in line was standing up. He was a big, rough-looking black man in a leather jacket and a cowskin fez. But suddenly he felt too big for the situation and was trying unsuccessfully to make himself smaller.
Coffin Ed measured him with bloodshot eyes. “Do you belong to the league, too?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“League? Nawsuh, boss. I mean if it’s the wrong league I sure don’t belong to it.”
“The know-nothing league.”
“Not me, boss.” The big joker showed Coffin Ed a mouthful of teeth as proof that he didn’t belong to any league, unless it was the dentist’s league. “I ain’t scairt to tell the truth. I’ll tell you everything I seen, I swear ’fore God. ’Course, that ain’t much, but-”
“You saw two men get shot to death.”
”Heard it, boss. I wasn’t in no position to see.”
“Three men masqueraded as cops-”
“I ain’t seen but two, boss.”
“Robbed a man in broad view right outside of this joint-”
“I couldn’t swear to it, boss; I didn’t seen that.”
“What did they get?”
“ Get? ” The joker acted as though he were unfamiliar with the word.
“Take?”
“Take? If they took anything, boss, I ain’t seen it. I thought they was just a mess of cops doing their dirty work.”
Coffin Ed flipped.
He looped a right hook to the big joker’s solar plexus, saw his mouth balloon with air. The cowskin fez flew from the big joker’s head as he jackknifed forward. Coffin Ed caught him back of the neck with a loose, pulling grip, jerked his head down and uppercut him in the face with his right knee. It was a good gimmick; the knee was supposed to smash the joker’s nose and fill his head with shooting stars. It worked nine times out of ten. But the big joker had his mouth open from the solar plexus punch, and his teeth crashed into Coffin Ed’s kneecap like the jaws of a bear trap.
Coffin Ed grunted with pain as his leg went stiff and clutched the back of the big joker’s leather jacket to keep from going down. The big joker butted him in the belly in a blind panic, trying to escape. Coffin Ed went down on his back, clinging to the leather jacket; and the big joker plunged forward over him, headed for the door. Coffin Ed pulled at the leather jacket in a choking rage. The jacket turned wrong side out, imprisoning the joker’s arm and halting the forward plunge of his shoulders. But the rest of him kept on going, and he turned in a somersault and landed on his back. Coffin Ed reared up on his shoulders, made a half spin and kicked the big Joker on the side of the jaw from topside, down. The big joker shuddered and passed out.
Coffin Ed clutched the rim of the bar and pulled to his feet, favoring his game leg. He looked about for the next man in line. But there wasn’t any line.
The customers had crowded to the back of the room and were beginning to panic. Knives lashed, and they were pushing and threatening one another.
The white cop at the back door was shouting, “Get back! Get away from me or I’ll shoot!”
Slowly and deliberately, Coffin Ed drew the long-barreled, nickel-plated. 38 revolver from its shoulder holster.
“Now I want some straight answers from you minstrel-show comedians,” he said in a voice that grated on the nerves.
Someone let out a womanish scream.
Grave Digger came in from the street. Without taking a second look he opened his big mouth and shouted at the top of his voice: “Straighten up!” Before his big voice bounced from the walls he had his big nickel-plated revolver, the twin of Coffin Ed’s, out in his hand, in plain sight of everyone arrested by his voice.
Coffin Ed relaxed. A grim smile played about the edges of his scarred lips.
“Count off!” he bellowed in a voice to match Grave Digger’s.
For good measure they fired four shots into the newly decorated ceiling.
Everybody froze. Not a whisper was heard. No one dared breathe.
Coffin Ed had killed a man for breaking wind. Grave Digger had shot both eyes out of a man who was holding a loaded automatic. The story was in Harlem that these two black detectives would kill a dead man in his coffin if he so much as moved.
The next moment cops of all descriptions erupted from the street. The Homicide crew had arrived and they invaded in force; a lieutenant and two detectives with their pistols out, a third detective with a submachine gun. The precinct lieutenant, Anderson, followed, with Haggerty at his heels and two uniformed cops bringing up the rear.
“What’s this? What’s happening? What gives?” the Homicide lieutenant shouted harshly.
“Just them two cowboys from the Harlem Q. ranch rounding up a passel of rustlers,” Haggerty cracked.
“Jesus Christ,” Anderson said, as though gasping. “Use a little discretion, men. With what’s already happened you’ll have us filling our pants.”
“We’re just trying to get some sense out of these people,” Grave Digger said.
The lieutenant from Homicide stared at him in popeyed amazement. “You-you mean all you’re trying to do is make these witnesses talk?”
“It works,” Grave Digger said,
“It quiets them,” Coffin Ed added, “You’ll notice it has a soothing effect on their nerves.”
All eyes turned toward the quiet, passive people crowded toward the rear.
“Well, I’ll be God-damned,” the Homicide lieutenant said. “Now I’ve seen everything.”
“Naw you ain’t,” Haggerty said. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
“The wagon’s here. We’re going to take these people to the station for questioning,” Anderson said.
“Give us fifteen minutes with them first,” Grave Digger requested.
In the brief silence that followed, the head bartender said, “Don’t let ’em close us up, Chief-I’ll tell you all about it.”
Eyes swung in his direction. He was a well-fed, intelligent-looking man of about thirty-five, who could have
