All Shot Up_ The Classic Crime Thriller - Chester Himes [14]
“Not too well. It looked like an ordinary leather-bound sap with a whalebone handle to me.”
“Did he hit him again?”
“No sir, once was enough. Mr. Holmes went down like he was sitting, and the white man took the pigskin bag out of his hand.”
“Who else in the bar here saw this happen?”
“I don’t think anybody else saw it. You see, the customers face this way and only us bartenders face in that direction, and the other bartenders was busy. It wasn’t like they had made any noise. I saw it, but I couldn’t hear a sound.”
“What about Snake Hips? Didn’t he see what was happening, or was he too far gone.”
“He hadn’t been banging, if that’s what you mean. But he was dancing in a slow circle, doing a sort of shake dance, and he had his back to them.”
“But they must have seen him.”
“Must have. But they didn’t pay him no attention. As far as they were concerned, he was harmless as a lamppost.”
“Why didn’t you telephone the police?” Grave Digger asked.
“I didn’t have time. I was going to, but the next thing I knew I heard a shot. A man appeared right outside of this window like he had come from nowhere. When I first heard the shot my first thought was they’d shot Snake Hips—the silly fool—then I saw this man standing there with one of those short bulldog-looking pistols held straight out in his right hand. Then I heard him say in a hard, dry voice, ‘Get ’em up!’”
“You heard him?”
“Yes, sir. You see, he didn’t speak until after he had shot; and at the sound of the shot everybody inside of here went stone quiet.”
“That’s when the two heistmen started shooting,” Coffin Ed surmised.
“No, sir. I don’t know what they did because I wasn’t looking at them no more. But they didn’t start shooting with that man pointing that gun at them. But the cop—man—in the car started shooting. It was dark inside the car, and I could see the orange lashes.”
He ceased polishing the glass for the moment, and his brown face went ashy at the memory.
“Of course the man wasn’t shooting at me, but the gun was pointing this way, and it seemed like I was looking down the barrel. I was scared enough to drop six babies, because it looked like he never was going to stop shooting.” He wiped sweat drops from his ashy face with the polishing towel.
“Eleven-shot automatic,” Coffin Ed said.
“It sounded like more than eleven shots to me,” the bartender contended.
“That’s when you ducked,” Grave Digger said disappointedly, figuring the account was finished,
“That’s when I should have ducked,” the bartender admitted. “Everybody else ducked. But I ran to the front of the bar, trying to get Snake Hips’ attention and call him inside, as if he hadn’t heard all that shooting more than I did. But you don’t know what you’re thinking at a time like that. So I stood there waving my arms while the man in the car ducked out of sight. The white man had fell flat on his stomach when the shooting started, and I don’t think he was hit then, I wasn’t really looking, although I could see him from where I stood; but I was looking at the car, and he must have shot back at the man in the car because I saw two bullet holes suddenly appear in the right front window.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Coffin Ed said.
“Check,” Grave Digger echoed.
“I was still trying to get Snake Hips’ attention,” the bartender admitted. “But he was scared blind. He was just standing there with his arms straight up and his hands shaking like leaves. He was trembling all over and his coat was open, and I knew he must have been cold. I think he was saying—begging rather—for them not to shoot him—”
“Leave Snake Hips,” Coffin Ed said brutally. “What about the other two?”
“Well, they must have begun shooting when the man in the car finished. Maybe they took advantage to get out their guns. When the shooting from the car stopped more shooting was still going on, and I looked over and saw flashes coming from both of their guns. Their pistols looked like the same kind of snub-nosed pistol the man had on the ground. One of them was shooting from his right hand and the other from his left—”
“The white