Free The Real Cool Killers by Chester Himes Page B

sergeant asked as though struck suddenly by the thought.
    The others stared at her with sudden interest.
    “Ah don’t rightly know, suh. Ah ’spect so though.”
    “How old are you?”
    Her lips moved soundlessly; she seemed to be trying to remember.
    “She must be all of a hundred,” the professor said.
    She couldn’t stop her body from trembling and slowly it got worse.
    “What for you white ’licemen wants with me, suh?” she finally asked.
    The sergeant noticed that she was trembling and said reassuringly, “We ain’t after you, Grandma; we’re looking for an escaped prisoner and some teenage gangsters.”
    “Gangsters!”
    Her spectacles slipped down on her nose and her handsshook as though she had the palsy.
    “They belong to a neighbourhood gang that calls itself Real Cool Moslems.”
    She went from terrified to scandalized. “We ain’t no heathen in here, suh,” she said indignantly. “We be God-fearing Christians.”
    The cops laughed.
    “They’re not real Moslems,” the sergeant said. “They just call themselves that. One of them, named Sonny Pickens, is older than the rest. He killed a white man outside on the street.”
    The darning dropped unnoticed from Granny’s nerveless fingers. The corncob pipe wobbled in her puckered mouth; the professor looked at it with morbid fascination.
    “A white man! Merciful hebens!” she exclaimed in a quavering voice. “What’s this wicked world coming to?”
    “Nobody knows,” the sergeant said, then changed his manner abruptly. “Well, let’s get down to business, Grandma. What’s your name?”
    “Bowee, suh, but e’body calls me Granny.”
    “Bowee. How do you spell that, Grandma?”
    “Ah don’t rightly know, suh. Hit’s just short for boll weevil. My old missy name me that. They say the boll weevil was mighty bad the year Ah was born.”
    “What about your husband, didn’t he have a name?”
    “Ah neber had no regular ’usban’, suh. Just whosoever was thar.”
    “You got any children?”
    “Jesus Christ, sarge,” the professor said. “Her youngest child would be sixty years old.”
    The two cops laughed; the sergeant reddened sheepishly.
    “Who lives here with you, Granny?” the sergeant continued.
    Her bony frame stiffened beneath her faded Mother Hubbard. The corncob pipe fell into her lap and rolled unnoticed to the floor.
    “Just me and mah grandchile, Caleb, suh,” she said in aforced voice. “And Ah rents a room to two workin’ boys; but they be good boys and don’t neber bother nobody.”
    The cops grew suddenly speculative.
    “Now this grandchild, Caleb, Grandma–” the sergeant began cunningly.
    “He might be mah great-grandchile, suh,” she interrupted.
    He frowned, “Great, then. Where is he now?”
    “You mean right now, suh?”
    “Yeah, Grandma, right this minute.”
    “He at work in a bowling alley downtown, suh.”
    “How long has he been at work?”
    “He left right after supper, suh. We gennally eats supper at six o’clock.”
    “And he has a regular job in this bowling alley?”
    “Naw suh, hit’s just for t’night, suh. He goes to school – Ah don’t rightly ’member the number of his new P.S.”
    “Where is this bowling alley he’s working at tonight?”
    “Ah don’t know, suh. Ah guess you all’ll have to ast Samson. He is one of mah roomers.”
    “Samson, yeah.” The sergeant stored it in his memory. “And you haven’t seen Caleb since supper – about seven o’clock, say?”
    “Ah don’t know what time it was but it war right after supper.”
    “And when he left here he went directly to work?”
    “Yas suh, you find him right dar on de job. He a good boy and always mind me what Ah say.”
    “And your roomers, where are they?”
    “They is in they room, suh. Hit’s in the front. They got visitors with ’em.”
    “Visitors?”
    “Gals.”
    “Oh!” Then to his assistants he said, “Come on.”
    They went through the middle room like hounds on a hot scent. The