Free Blind Man With a Pistol by Chester Himes Page A

out who killed him?"
          "You can take his prints, of course," Coffin Ed said.
          The sergeant looked at him with narrowed eyes, as though suspecting him of needling. Of course they were going to take the body's fingerprints and all other Bertillon measurements needed in identification, as the detective well knew, he thought angrily.
          "Anyway, it wasn't with a woman," the assistant M.E. said, reddening uncontrollably. "At least in a normal way."
          Everyone looked at him, as though expecting him to say more.
          "Right," the sergeant concurred, nodding knowingly. But he would have liked to ask the assistant M.E. how he knew.
          Then suddenly Grave Digger said, "I could have told you that from the start."
          The sergeant reddened so furiously his freckles stood out like scars. He had heard of these two colored detectives up here, but this was the first time he had seen them. But he could already tell that a little bit of them went a long way; in other words, they were getting on his ass.
          "Then maybe you can tell me why he was killed, too," he said sarcastically.
          "That's easy," Grave Digger said with a straight face. "There are only two reasons a white man is killed in Harlem. Money or fear."
          The sergeant wasn't expecting that answer. It threw him. He lost his sarcasm. "Not sex?"
          "Sex? Hell, that's all you white people can think of, Harlem and sex -- and you're right, too!" he went on before the sergeant could speak. "You'r right as rain. But sex is for sale. And all the surplus they give away. So why kill a white sucker for that? That's killing the goose that lays the golden egg."
          Color drained from the sergeant's face and it became white from anger. "Are you trying to tell me there are no sex murders here?"
          "What I said was there were no white men killed for sex," Grave Digger said equably. "Ain't no white man ever that involved."
          Color flowed back into the sergeant's face, which was changing color under his guilt complexes like a chameleon. "And no one ever makes a mistake?" He felt compelled to argue just for the sake of arguing.
          "Hell, sergeant, every murder's a mistake," Grave Digger said condescendingly. "You know that, it's your business."
          Yes, these black sons of bitches were going to take a lot of getting along with, the sergeant thought, as he grimly changed the conversation.
          "Well, maybe I should have asked do you know who killed him?"
          "That ain't fair," Coffin Ed said roughly.
          The sergeant threw up his hands. "I give up."
          Including the patrol-car cops, most of whom were white, there were fifteen white officers gathered about the body, and in addition to Grave Digger and Coffin Ed, four colored patrol-car cops. All laughed from relief. It Was a touchy business when a white man was killed in Harlem. People took up sides on racial lines, regardless of whether they were police officers or not. No one liked it, but all were involved. It was personal to them all.
          "Anything else you want to know?" the assistant M.E. asked.
          The sergeant looked at him sharply to see if he was being sarcastic. He decided he was innocent. "Yeah, everything," he replied, waxing loquacious. "Who he is? Who killed him? Why? Most of all I want the killer. That's my job."
          "That's your baby," the assistant M.E. said. "By tomorrow -- or rather this morning -- we'll give you the physiological details. Right now I'm going home." He filled out a DOA tag, which he tied to the right big toe of the body, and podded to the drivers of the police hearse. "Take itto the morgue."
          The homicide sergeant stood absently watching the body loaded, then looked slowly about from the idle car cops to the congregated black people. "All right, boys," he ordered. "Take them all in."
          The homicide