“His neck’s been broken,” the T-man said.
“This makes twelve,” the homicide lieutenant said.
“Maybe the bundle is underneath,” a dick said.
“Don’t be silly, Benny Mason’s had this trunk,” the narcotics lieutenant said.
“Is this your hunch?” the homicide lieutenant asked Coffin Ed.
“More or less.”
“How did you figure it?”
“You’ll see.”
The homicide lieutenant addressed Pinky. “Why did you kill him?”
“I din kill ‘im,” Pinky denied in his high whining voice. “The African and that woman killed ‘im.”
“Why did you bring him back here?” Coffin Ed said.
“So they’d be punished, thass why,” he whined. “They killed my pa and they got to be punished.”
Coffin Ed turned to the homicide lieutenant. “That’s how I dug it. Why would he put in that false fire alarm if he even knew about the H? He just wants to get Gus’s wife and the African charged with murder.”
“They done it,” Pinky insisted. “I know they done it.”
“Let’s skip that for a moment,” the homicide lieutenant said. “The question is where did you find the trunk?”
“At the dock, where they took it. They was going to take him on the ship and throw him in the ocean so nobody’d ever know what happened to him. But I done beat ‘em to him.”
“That’s a cunning lick,” the homicide lieutenant said. “When Benny saw there was only a corpse inside, he had it delivered to the wharf.”
“Let’s first find out what he did with the junk,” the T-man said impatiently. “Every minute counts on that angle.”
“We ought to get to that slowly,” Coffin Ed suggested.
“The African and the woman are dead, Pinky,” the homicide lieutenant said quietly. “And we know they didn’t do it. So that only leaves you.”
“Dead? Is they both dead? Sure enough dead?”
“Dead and gone,” Coffin Ed said.
“So you may as well tell us why you did it,” the homicide lieutenant said.
Pinky looked at the corpse for the first time and tears welled in his pink eyes.
“I didn’t go to do it. I didn’t go to do it, Pa,” he addressed the corpse.
He looked up first at the homicide lieutenant, then at the circle of blank white faces. Then his gaze came to a rest on the ugly brown face of Coffin Ed. “He was going ‘way to Africa and he wouldn’t take me with him. I ast him and I begged him. He was going take that yellow woman and he wouldn’t take me, and I’se Iis real ‘dopted son.”
“So you killed him.”
“I din go to kill him. But he made me so mad, last him again just ‘fore he went out fishing—”
“Fishing?”
Everyone became suddenly alert.
“What time was that?’ the homicide lieutenant asked. “‘Bout half past ‘leven. He put on his high boots and got his line and net and went eel fishing. Thass what made me so mad. He’d ruther go eel fishing in the black dark than lissen to me. So I waited and when he come back I ast him again. And he tole me to go away and leave him alone. He say he was too busy to lissen to foolishness.”
“Had he caught any eels?”
“He caught five big black eels. I don’t know how he done it so fast but he had ‘em in his fishnet. He must ‘ave caught ‘em before and left ‘em in the river ‘cause they was all stone dead.”
“How big were they?”
“Big eels. ‘Bout two — three pounds, I reckon.”
“Eel skins stuffed with heroin. Waterproof. That’s a clever dodge,” the T-man said. “Only a Frenchman would think of it.”
“What was he doing when you talked to him the last time?” the homicide lieutenant kept hammering gently.
“He were looking in his trunk for somepin. He had it open looking in and last him once more to take me with him and he tole me to get the hell away from him. I just ‘tended to shake him a little and make him lissen and ‘fore I knowed it his neck broked.”
“And you put his body in the trunk and covered it with soiled clothes from the laundry and brought it out here in the hall, then you went and put in the false fire alarm so you could accuse his wife and the African of his murder.”
“They was guilty in they heart,” Pinky said. “They was going to kill ‘im for his treasure map if it weren’t for the accident. I heered ‘em say they was going to kill ‘im. I swear ‘fore God.”
“Map! You knew about the map?”
“I seen it just ‘fore he went fishing. He tole me it showed where a big mess of treasure was buried in Africa and made me promise not to tell nobody ‘bout it.”
The detectives looked at one another.
“Did his wife and the African know about it?” the homicide lieutenant asked.
“Must ‘ave. Thass why they was going to kill ‘im.” The homicide lieutenant turned to Coffin Ed. “Do you believe that?”
“No, he’s making it up to justify something.”
“Let’s get back to the eels,” the T-man put in. “Now just where were the eels when you talked to him, Pinky?”
“They were on the floor ‘side the trunk where he drop ‘em when he come in.”
“What did you do with them?”
“I figure if I left ‘em there somebody’d know he’d done already come back from fishing.”
“Yes, yes. But what did you do with them?”
“Them dead eels? I just threw ‘em away.”
“Yes-yes-yes; but threw them away where?”
“Where? I just threw ‘em in the ‘cinerator. It was full of paper and trash and I just threw ‘em in there and set it on fire.”
The T-man became hysterical and had to be beat on the back. “A three-million-dollar fire!” Tears streamed from his eyes.
Pinky stared at him. “They weren’t nothing but stone-dead eels,” he whined. “They didn’t even look fit to eat.”
The detectives roared with laughter as though that was the funniest thing they had ever heard.
Pinky looked as though his feelings were hurt.
Coffin Ed asked curiously, “Why wouldn’t he take you to Africa with him, Pinky? Was it because of your habit?”
“Twarn’t ‘cause of my habit. He didn’t mind that. He said! was too white. He said all them black Africans wouldn’t like colored people white as I is, and they’d kill me.”
“I wonder what the court is going to make of that?” the homicide lieutenant said.
Charges were dismissed against Coffin Ed.
After coming from the magistrate’s court, he and his wife stopped by the hospital to see Grave Digger. He was out of danger, but he was resting and couldn’t be seen.
Leaving the hospital they ran into Lieutenant Anderson, who was on his way to see Grave Digger too.
They told him how he was, and the three of them went to a little French bar over on Broadway in the French section.
Coffin Ed had a couple of cognacs to keep down his high blood pressure. His wife looked at him indulgently. She settled for a Dubonnet while Anderson had a couple of Pernods to keep Coffin Ed company.
Coffin Ed said, “What hurts me most about this business is the attitude of the public toward cops like me and Digger. Folks just don’t want to believe that what we’re trying to do is make a decent peaceful city for people to live in, and we’re going about it the best way we know how. People think we enjoy being tough, shooting people and knocking them in the head.”
His wife patted the back of his big calloused hand. “Don’t worry about what people think. Just keep on doing the best you can.”
To change the subject, Anderson said encouragingly, “It’s going to mean something to the commissioner that you helped clean up this case.”
“The thing I’m happiest about,” Coffin Ed said, “is that Digger is still alive.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHESTER HIMES was born in Missouri in 1909. He began writing while serving a prison sentence for a jewel theft and published just short of twenty novels before his death in 1984. Among his best-known thrillers are Cotton Comes to Harlem, The Real Cool Killers, and The Heat’s On, all available from Vintage.