Free All Shot Up by Chester Himes Page A

ain’t even hit her.”
    Roman stood in the street, thinking it over. Mister Baron stood beside him, watching his expression.
    “All right, get in the car,” Roman said.
    Mister Baron got back into the car.
    Roman began talking through the window. “You know this neighborhood—”
    “Get in the car yourself,” Sassafras said.
    He got back into the front seat and continued addressing Mister Baron. “Where would they likely go with my car? It ain’t like as if they could hide it.”
    “God only knows,” Mister Baron said. “Let the police find it; that’s what they get paid for.”
    “Let me give it some thought,” Roman said.
    “How much thought you going to give it?” Sassafras said.
    “I tell you what,” Roman said. “You go and phone the police and tell ’em it’s your car. Then, if they find it, I’ll show ’em my bill of sale.”
    “That’s fine,” Mister Baron said. “Can I get out now?”
    “Naw, you can’t get out now. I’m going to take you to a telephone, and when you get through talking to the police we’re going to keep on looking ourselves. And I ain’t going to let you go until somebody finds it.”
    “All right,” Mister Baron said. “Just as you say.”
    “Where is there a telephone?”
    “Drive down the street to Bowman’s Bar.”
    He drove down to the end of St. Nicholas Place. Edgecombe Drive circles in along the ridge of the embankment overlooking Broadhurst Avenue and the Harlem River valley, and cuts off St. Nicholas Place at the 155th Street Bridge. Below, to one side of the bridge, is the old abandoned Heaven of Father Divine with the faded white letters of the word PEACE on both sides of the gabled roof. Beyond, on the river bank, is the shack where the hood threw acid into Coffin Ed’s face that night three years ago, when he and Grave Digger closed in on their gold-mine pitch.
    One side of Bowman’s was a bar, the other a restaurant. Next to the restaurant was a barbershop; up over the bar was a dance hall. All of them were open; a crap game was going in back of the barbershop, a club dance in the hail upstairs. But not a soul was in sight. There was nothing in the street but the cold, dark air.
    Roman double-parked before the plate-glass front of the bar. Venetian blinds closed off the interior.
    “You go with him, Sassy,” he said. “Don’t let him try to get away with nothing.”
    “Get away with what?” Mister Baron said.
    “Anything,” Roman said.
    Sassafras accompanied Mister Baron into the bar. Roman couldn’t tell which one of them swished the more. He was looking through the right side window, watching them, when suddenly he noticed two bullet holes in the window. He had been in the Korean war and learned the meaning of the sudden appearance of bullet holes. He thought some one was shooting at him, and he ducked down on the seat and grabbed his pistol. He lay there for a moment, listening. He didn’t hear anything, so he peered cautiously over the ledge of the door. No one was in sight. He straightened up slowly, holding the pistol ready to shoot if an enemy appeared. None appeared. He looked at the bullet holes more closely and decided they had been there all along. He felt sheepish.
    It occurred to him that some one in the car had been in a gunfight. No doubt those phony cops. He turned about to examine the other side to see where the bullets had gone. There were two holes about a foot apart in the ceiling fabric above his head. He got out and looked at the top. The bullets had dented it but hadn’t penetrated. They must be in the lining of the ceiling, he thought.
    He turned on the inside light and looked about the floor. He found seven shiny brass jackets of .38 caliber cartridges sprinkled over the matting.
    It had been some fight, he thought. But the full meaning didn’t strike him right away. All he could think of at the moment was how those bastards had taken his car.
    He put his pistol back on the seat beside him and sat there