The real cool killers

Sonny cast a look at the knife and said, "I ain't saying nothing."

"You better not," Sheik said. Then he turned to Inky. "Inky, you take the captive up on the roof and you and him start flying Caleb's pigeons. You, Sonny, when the cops come you tell them your name is Caleb Bowee and you're just trying to teach your pigeons how to fly at night. You got that?"

"Yeah," Sonny said skeptically.

"You know how to make pigeons fly?"

Sonny hesitated. "Chunk rocks at 'em?"

"Hell, nigger, your brain ain't big as a mustard seed. You can't chunk no rocks up there with all those cops about. What you got to do is take this pole and wave the end with the flag at 'em every time they try to light."

Sonny looked at the bamboo pole skeptically. "S'posin' they fly away and don't come back."

"They ain't going nowhere. They just fly in circles trying all the time to get back into the coop." Sheik doubled over suddenly and started laughing. "Pigeons ain't got no sense, man."

The rest of them just looked at him.

Finally Inky asked, "What you want me to do?"

Sheik straightened up quickly and stopped laughing. "You guard the captive and see that he don't escape."

"Oh!" Inky said. After a moment he asked, "What I'm gonna tell the cops when they ask me what I'm doin'?"

"Hell, you tell the cops Caleb is teaching you how to train pigeons."

Inky bent over and started rubbing his shins again. Without looking up he said, "You reckon the cops gonna fall for that, Sheik? You reckon they gonna be crazy enough to believe anybody's gonna be flying pigeons with all this going on all around here?"

"Hell, these is white cops," Sheik said contemptuously. "They believe spooks are crazy anyway. You and Sonny just act kind of simpleminded. They gonna to swallow it like it's chocolate ice cream. They ain't going to do nothing but kick you in the ass and laugh like hell about how crazy spooks are. They gonna go home and tell their old ladies and everybody they see about two simpleminded spooks up on the roof teaching pigeons how to fly at night all during the biggest dragnet they ever had in Harlem. You see if they don't."

Inky kept on rubbing his shin. "It ain't that I doubt you, Sheik, but s'posin' they don't believe it."

"God damn it, go ahead and do what I told you and don't stand there arguing with me," Sheik said, hit by another squall of fury. "I'd take me one look at you and this nigger here and I'd believe it myself, and I ain't even no gray cop."

Inky turned reluctantly and started up the stairs toward the roof. Sonny gave another sidelong look at Sheik's open knife and started to follow.

"Wait a minute, simple, don't forget the pole," Sheik said. "I've told you not to try chunking rocks at those pigeons. You might kill one and then you'd have to eat it." He doubled over laughing at his joke.

Sonny picked up the pole with a sober face and climbed slowly after Inky.

"Come on," Sheik said to Choo-Choo, "open the window and let's get back inside."

Before turning his back and bending to open the window, Choo-Choo said, "Listen, Sheik, I didn't mean nothing by that."

"Forget it," Sheik said.

Sissie and Sugartit were sitting silently side by side on the bed, looking frightened and dejected. Sugartit had stopped crying but her eyes were red and her cheeks stained.

"Jesus Christ, you'd think this is a funeral," Sheik said.

No one replied. Choo-Choo fidgeted from one foot to the other.

"I want you chicks to wipe those sad looks off your faces," Sheik said. "We got to look like we're balling and ain't got a thing to worry about when the cops get here."

"You go ahead and ball by yourself," Sissie said.

Sheik lunged forward and slapped her over on her side. She got up without a word and walked to the window. "If you go out that window I'll throw you down on the street," Sheik threatened.

She stood looking out the window with her back turned and didn't answer.

Sugartit sat quietly on the edge of the bed and trembled.

"Hell," Sheik said disgustedly and flopped lengthwise behind Sugartit on the bed.

She got up and went to stand in the window beside Sissie.

"Come on, Choo-Choo, to hell with those bitches," Sheik said. "Let's decide what to do with the captive."

"Now you're getting down to the gritty," Choo-Choo said enthusiastically, straddling a chair. "You got any plans?"

"Sure. Give me a butt."

Choo-Choo fished two Camels from a squashed package in his sweat shirt roll and lit them, passing one to Sheik.

"This square weed on top of gage makes you crazy," he said.

"Man, my head already feels like it's going to pop open, it's so full of ideas," Sheik said. "If I had me a real mob like Dutch Schultz's I could take over Harlem with the ideas I got. All I need is just the mob."

"Hell, you and me could do it alone," Choo-Choo said.

"We'd need some arms and stuff, some real factory-made heaters and a couple of machine guns and maybe some pineapples."

"If we croaked Grave Digger and the Monster we'd have two real cool heaters to start off with," Choo-Choo suggested.