Free Blind Man With a Pistol by Chester Himes Page B

department always took over investigations of homicide and the highest ranking homicide detective on the scene became the boss. Detectives from the local precinct and patrol-car cops who took instructions either from the precinct captain or a divisional inspector didn't always like this arrangement. But Grave Digger and Coffin Ed didn't care who became boss. "We just get pissed-off with all the red tape," Grave Digger once said. "We want to get down to the nitty-gritty."
          But there were formalities to protect the rights of citizens and they couldn't just light into a group of innocent people and start whipping head until somebody talked, which they figured was the best and cheapest way to solve a crime. If the citizens didn't like it, they ought to stay at home. Since they couldn't do this, they began to walk away.
          "Come on," Coffin Ed urged. "This man will have us picked up next."
          "Look at these brothers flee," Grave Digger noted. "They wouldn't listen to me when I warned them."
          They went only as far as the littered paved square strewed with overflowing garbage cans beside the front stairs to the nearest rooming house where they could watch the operation without being seen. The smell of rotting garbage was nauseating.
          "Whew! Who said us colored people were starving?"
          "That ain't what they say, Digger. They just wonder why we ain't."
          As the first of the onlookers were loaded in the police wagon, other curious citizens arrived.
          "Whuss happening?"
          "Search me, baby. Some whitey was killed, they say."
          "Shot?"
          "Washed away."
          "They got who done it?"
          "You kidding? They just grabbing off us folks. You know how white cops is."
          "Less split."
          "Too late," said a white car cop who thought he dug the soul brother, taking each by the arm.
          "He thinks he's funny," one of the brothers complained.
          "Well, ain't he?" the other admitted, looking expressively at their arms in his grip.
          "Joe, you and Ted bright the power lamps," the sergeant called above the hubbub. "Looks like there's a blood trail here."
          Followed by his assistants with the battery-powered spot lamps, the sergeant stepped down into the garbage-scented courtyard. "I'll need you men's help," he said. "There must be a blood trail here." He had decided to adopt a conciliatory manner.
          People gathered on the adjoining rooming-house steps, trying to see what they were doing. A patrol car drew to the curb, the two uniformed cops in the front seat looking on with interest.
          The sergeant became exasperated. "You officers get these people out the way," he ordered irritably.
          The cops got sullen. "Hey, you folks get over there with the others," one ordered.
          "I lives here," a buxom light-complexioned woman wearing gilt mules and a stained blue nightgown muttered defiantly. "I just got out of bed to see what the noise was all about."
          "Now you know," the homicide photographer said slyly.
          The woman grinned gratefully.
          "Do as you're ordered!"the car cop shouted angrily, stepping to the sidewalk.
          The woman's plaits shook in outrage. "Who you talking to?" she shouted back. "You can't order me off my own steps."
          "You tell 'em sister Berry," a pajama-clad brother behind her encouraged.
          The cop was getting red. The other cop climbed from beneath the wheel on the other side and came around the car threateningly. "What was that you said?" he challenged.
          She looked toward Grave Digger and Coffin Ed for support.
          "Don't look at me," Grave Digger said. "I'm the law too."
          "That's a nigger for you," the woman said scornfully as the white cops marched them off.
          "All right, now bring the light here," the sergeant said, returning