Free The Heat's On by Chester Himes Page A

motherraping pusher.”
    “It’s just the newspaper pressure. We’re suffering from the customary summer slack in news. It’ll blow over,” Lieutenant Anderson consoled. “The papers are on one of their periodic humanitarian kicks. Don’t worry. Nothing’s coming out of it.”
    “Yeah, humanitarian,” Grave Digger said bitterly. “It’s all right to kill a few colored people for trying to get their children an education, but don’t hurt a motherraping white punk for selling dope.”
    Lieutenant Anderson winced. As accustomed as he was to these two colored detectives’ racial connotations, that one hurt.

8
    Uncle Saint hung about the garage for a long time before he got up enough nerve to enter the house.
    Three of the bullets had made holes which he plugged with putty and sprayed with quick-drying black enamel. But there were two big dents and one long seam atop the left rear fender which couldn’t be concealed. He had no mirror to replace the broken one, so he removed them from both front fenders and sprayed the marks they had left. That didn’t help much either; the bolt holes still remained. The license plates presented no problem. He had several changes of plates, none of which had the legitimate registration number. He put on some Connecticut plates.
    Still he kept fiddling about. Once he thought of painting the whole car another color; or at least the upper half. But finally his jag began thinning out and he got jumpy. He knew he’d have trouble sure as hell with Sister Heavenly if he got too jumpy, so he decided to go inside and have it out.
    She would just have to look after him, he told himself. She had kept him helpless and homeless for twenty-five years and he wasn’t going to jump up and run off by his lonesome just because he was in a little trouble. If he went down he was going to take her with him. It had been her idea anyway, he justified himself. He had just been trying to do her business.
    He slunk up the path toward the house, holding the shotgun cradled in his arm as though stalking an enemy.
    Only the screen door was closed. He became wary. When he poked his head into the kitchen, his eyes popped. Sister Heavenly was sitting at the kitchen table drinking sassafras tea and smoking a pipe of marijuana and looking content with the world. For a brief moment he thought she had gotten it and his head exploded with rage. But the next instant he realized she couldn’t have. He stepped inside and closed the door.
    The kitchen had windows on the side and back but their shutters were closed tight to keep out the heat and the only light came in through the screened back door. The kitchen table, covered with blue-and-white checked oilcloth, sat before the side window. The stove stood against the inside wall and Uncle Saint’s bunk, covered with army blankets, lay beneath the back window.
    Sister Heavenly was dressed as before. She sat sidewise to the table, one leg crossed over the other exposing the ruffles of her petticoats, and her little finger was extended properly as she held the steaming teacup to her lips. Her black beaded bag lay atop the table and her black-and-white striped parasol was propped against the wall beside her.
    A small electric fan atop the refrigerator stirred the reeking scent of marijuana and the fragrant aroma of sassafras tea.
    She regarded Uncle Saint curiously over the rim of the cup.
    “Well, you’re finally back,” she said.
    Uncle Saint coughed. “You see me,” he grunted.
    Pinky sat across the table from Sister Heavenly, his torso looming so high above her he looked like a barrel-chested midget standing in the chair. He looked from one to the other.
    “Did you see Gus?” he asked Uncle Saint in his whining voice.
    “I said I would tell you in a minute,” Sister Heavenly snapped at him.
    Uncle Saint couldn’t make out her game, so he decided to keep his mouth shut. He sat on his bunk, placed the loaded shotgun close beside him, and reached underneath and