All Shot Up_ The Classic Crime Thriller - Chester Himes [70]
The customary metropolitan roar was muffled to an eerie silence by sixteen inches of snow.
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed were in the captain’s office in the Harlem Precinct station, talking over the case with their friend and superior officer, Lieutenant Anderson.
Grave Digger sat with one ham perched on the edge of the captain’s desk, while Coffin Ed leaned against a corner radiator in the shadow.
“We know he did it,” Grave Digger lisped. “But what can you do?”
Veins throbbed in Anderson’s temples, and his pale-blue eyes looked remote.
“How did you figure the tie-in between Baron’s racket and Casper’s caper?” Anderson asked.
Grave Digger chuckled.
“It was easy,” Coffin Ed said. “There wasn’t any.”
“We were just lucky,” Grave Digger admitted. “It was just like she said; she guessed it.”
“But you uncovered her,” Anderson said.
“That’s where we were lucky,” Coffin Ed replied.
“What was her racket?”
“Maybe we’ll never know for sure, but we figure it like this,” Coffin Ed explained. “Leila Baron knew this salesman, Herman Rose. Casper bought his Cadillac from there. When she met Roman and found out he had saved up sixty-five hundred dollars to buy a car, she got Rose to come in with her and Junior Ball—or Black Beauty if you want to call him that—on a deal to trim him. Rose provided the car; he probably has a key to the place; he’s been there long enough, and he’s trusted. And he also acted as notary public. Then his part was finished. Baron was going to take Roman down that deserted street where Black Beauty, masquerading as an old woman, was going to fake being hit. They had no doubt worked out some way to get the car back from Roman and keep the money, too; we’ll never know exactly unless she tells us. Probably she planned to scare him into leaving the country.
“Anyway, these hoods masqueraded as cops turned into the street as they were making their own getaway in time to see the whole play. They saw the Cadillac knock the old woman down; they saw the old woman getting up. They knew immediately it was a racket, and they decided on the spur of the moment to use it for their own purposes. They could get another car, which wouldn’t be reported as stolen, and pick up some additional money too. So they hit the phony victim deliberately to kill.”
“They wouldn’t have had to do that,” Anderson said. “They could have got the Cadillac and the money anyway.”
“They were playing it safe. With the phony victim really killed, no one could go to the police. They could use the Cadillac as long as they wanted without fear of being picked up.”
“Vicious sonsofbitches,” Anderson muttered.
“That was how we got the idea that the cases were connected,” Grave Digger said. “There was an extraordinary viciousness about both capers.”
“But why did they take the car back to the dealer’s?” Anderson wondered.
“It was the safest thing to do when they finished with it,” Coffin Ed contended. “The dealer’s name and address were on a sticker in the rear window. Roman and his girl just didn’t notice it.”
Anderson sat for a time, musing.
“And you don’t think his wife was connected in any way with his caper?” he asked.
“It doesn’t figure,” Grave Digger said. “She hates him.”
“She’d have tipped the police if she had known about it in advance,” Coffin Ed added.
“She tried to give us a lead, but we didn’t pick it up,” Grave Digger admitted. “When she sent us down to Zog Ziegler’s crib. She figured that somebody down there would probably know about it, and we could find it out without her telling us.”
“But we figured she was tipping us on Baron, and we missed it,” Coffin Ed said.
“But she helped you to save him in the end,” Anderson said. “How do you figure that?”
“She didn’t want him taken by those hoodlums who had knocked her out and robbed her,” Grave Digger said.
“Besides, she might still think Casper is a great man,” Coffin Ed said.
“He is a great man,” Grave Digger said. “According to our standards.”
Anderson took his pipe from his side coat pocket and cleaned it with a small penknife over