All Shot Up_ The Classic Crime Thriller - Chester Himes [52]
“My God!” Grover sounded really shocked. “They must be crazy. They’re not trying to push you around, are they?”
“Naw, it’s not that. But I don’t like all the innuendo, especially at the beginning of a campaign.”
“You’re right. I’ll telephone the chief inspector and put an end to that. And when they’re arrested we’ll find out where they got their information. But I telephoned you about another matter. I have asked the Pinkerton Agency in New York to keep an eye on you; we don’t want a duplication of this business, and we certainly don’t want anything to happen to you. And they are involved now also, since they lost one of their men.”
“You know I’ll co-operate, Grover. Be glad to. It’s as much to my interest as to anyone’s.”
“That’s what I told them. I asked them to arrange for an ambulance with a guard to take you home when you leave there—unless, of course, you have arranged something else.”
“Naw, I haven’t made any arrangements,” Casper said. “That suits me fine. One of the men phoned from the agency, said you had spoken to them. I told him I’d let him know in advance when I planned to leave.”
“Well, then, it’s all settled.” Grover sounded relieved. “Take care of yourself, Casper. We don’t want anything to happen to you. The Harlem vote is going to be mighty important in this coming election. It might mean the balance that will swing the whole state of New York in our favor.”
“I’m going to take damn good care of myself from now on,” Casper said.
Grover laughed. “Good fellow! Let us know if there is anything we can do for you.”
“Nothing at the moment, Grover. Thanks for everything.”
“Don’t mention it. We’ll be thanking you before it’s done with.”
When they had hung up, Casper lit his cigar and sat smoking it slowly, looking thoughtful.
“It’s in the fire now,” he said to no one, and picked up the receiver again.
“Give me a line, honey,” he said.
He dialed a downtown number.
“Now who can this be?” a voice of indeterminate gender asked with an affected lisp.
“Let me speak to Johnny.”
“Oh, and not with me?”
Casper didn’t answer.
“And who shall I tell him is calling, dear?”
“None of your God-damned business.”
“Oh! You’re rude!”
He heard the receiver dropped on a table-top. After what seemed to him much longer than was necessary, a pleasant male tenor voice said, “Hello, Casper, it couldn’t be anybody but you who’d be so unkind to Zog.”
“I’m going home around eight o’clock,” Casper said “I want you to come up later.”
“I knew they couldn’t hurt you,” Johnny said, and then “How much later?”
“Around ten o’clock. Use your own key and come on in.”
“Will do,” Johnny said.
When Johnny had hung up, Casper jiggled the hook and asked the operator to have the supervising nurse come up to his room.
Chapter 16.
It was past four o’clock when Grave Digger and Coffin Ed got away from Fats’s Down Home Restaurant—just about the time Casper had got finished with the brass.
They hadn’t intended to stay that long. But the place was filled with gamblers and whorehouse madams, all curious about the Casper caper, and they had been fishing themselves, to see what they could pick up about any new jokers in town on a kick binge.
The gamblers hadn’t run across any fresh money; if they had, they wouldn’t admit it. The madams hadn’t come across any mew customers, not with big money, anyway.
“If I had,” one madam confessed, “I’d have handcuffed each of ’em to two girls, and foot-chained ’em to the bed, bad as I need money.”
Pee Wee, the giant black bartender, had fixed them some hot bourbon teas to stave off grippe and pneumonia. Before they had a chance to test what those potent drinks might stave off, they were clutched in the throes of tremendous appetites.
Then Fats had appeared, looking like the scalded and scraped carcass of a hippopotamus, and said he was taking a Smithfield ham out of the oven. That did it.
They ate baked ham and sweet potatoes while Grave Digger held everybody entranced giving a detailed account of the joker getting his head cut off.
By the time they got back outside,