All Shot Up_ The Classic Crime Thriller - Chester Himes [61]
“They knocked you out, eh?” Coffin Ed said absently.
He and Grave Digger stared at one another.
“We’d better stop by the hospital again,” Coffin Ed suggested. He sounded dispirited and perplexed.
“We’re losing time,” Grave Digger said. “We had better phone.”
Coffin Ed drove around Gramercy Square and stopped in front of a quiet, discreet-looking bar on Lexington. He got out and went inside.
Well-dressed white people were drinking aperitifs in a dim-lighted atmosphere of gold-lined wickedness. Coffin Ed fitted like Father Divine in the Vatican. He didn’t let it bother him.
The bartender informed him with a blank face that they didn’t have a phone. Bar customers on high stools looked at him covertly.
Coffin Ed flashed his shield. “Do that once more and you’re out of business,” he said.
Without a change of expression the bartender said, “In the rear to the right.”
Coffin Ed restrained the impulse to yank him over the bar and hurried back to the telephone booth. A man was coming out; one was waiting to enter. Coffin Ed flashed his shield again and claimed priority.
He got the reception desk at the hospital.
“Mister Holmes is resting and cannot be disturbed,” the cool voice said with a positive accent.
“This is Precinct Detective Edward Johnson on a matter of police business of an urgent nature,” Coffin Ed said.
“I’ll switch you to the supervisor,” the reception nurse said.
The supervising nurse was patient and polite. She said that Mr. Holmes was not feeling well and could not for any reason be disturbed at that time; he had postponed his scheduled press conference until ten o’clock, and the doctor had given him a sedative.
“I can’t say that I believe it, but what can I do?” Coffin, Ed said angrily.
“Precisely,” the supervisor said and hung up.
He phoned Casper’s house. Mrs. Holmes answered. He identified himself. She waited.
“Have you been in contact with Casper?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“He telephoned this afternoon.”
“Not during the past hour?”
“No.”
“Might I ask when he is expected home?”
“He said that he will come home Tuesday evening—if there are no complications.”
He thanked her, hung up and went back to the car.
“I don’t like this,” Grave Digger said.
Coffin Ed drove up Lexington Avenue, going fast, and turned over to Park Avenue at 35th Street, where the traffic moved faster. He skirted Grand Central Station on the upper ramp, skidding on the sharp corners and causing taxi drivers to shout at him.
“If I know Casper he’d get the hell out of that hospital as soon as he could,” he half muttered as he accelerated up the slope toward 50th Street.
“Unless he’s hiding,” Grave Digger offered.
From the back seat Roman said, “If you-all are talking about Mister Holmes, he done already left the hospital.”
The car slewed about and just missed a Lincoln limousine highballing in the middle lane. Coffin Ed pulled over to the curb, easing between two fast-moving cars, and parked at the corner of 51st Street He joined Grave Digger in staring at Roman.
“Leastwise, that’s what them people were saying in that house back there,” Roman added defensively. “He’d phoned one of ’em from the hospital and said he’d be home by eight o’clock—one named Johnny.”
“It’s thirteen minutes to eight now,” Coffin Ed said, looking at his watch. “I’d like to have that supervisor—”
“He fixed her; you know Casper,” Grave Digger said absently.
They were both thinking hard.
“If you were Casper and you wanted to slip out, how would you do it?” Grave Digger asked.
“I ain’t Casper, but I’d hire an ambulance.”
“That’s too obvious. The joint is crawling with newsmen, and, if anybody was laying for him, they’d spot it too.”
“A hearse,” Coffin Ed suggested. “As many people as die in that hospital—”
“Clay!” Grave Digger said, cutting him off.
He looked about; the street was flanked with new skyscraper office buildings and a few remaining impregnable apartment houses.