The real cool killers

14

Two uniformed white cops standing guard on a dark rooftop were talking. "Do you think we'll find him?" "Do I think we'll find him? Do you know who we're looking for? Have you stopped to think for a moment that we're looking for one colored man who supposedly is handcuffed and seven other colored men who were wearing green turbans and false beards when last seen. Have you turned that over in your mind? By this time they've got rid of those phony disguises and maybe Pickens has got rid of his handcuffs too. And then what does that make them, I ask you? That makes them just like eighteen thousand or one hundred and eighty thousand other colored men, all looking alike. Have you ever stopped to think there are five hundred thousand colored people in Harlem — one half of a million people with black skin. All looking alike. And we're trying to pick eight out of them. It's like trying to find a cinder in a coal bin. It ain't possible." "Do you think all these colored people in this neighbourhood know who Pickens and the Moslems are?" "Sure they know. Every last one of them. Unless some other colored person turns Pickens in he'll never be found. They're laughing at us." "As much as the chief wants that coon, whoever finds him is sure to get a promotion," the first cop said. "Yeah, I know, but it ain't possible," the second cop said. "If that coon's got any sense at all he would have filed those cuffs in two a long time ago." "What good would that do him if he couldn't get them off?" "Hell, he could wear heavy gloves with gauntlets like — Hey! Didn't we see some coon wearing driving gauntlets?" "Yeah, that halfwit coon with the pigeons." "Wearing gauntlets and a ragged old overcoat. And a coal black coon at that. He certainly fits the description." "That halfwitted coon. You think it's possible he's the one?" "Come on! What are we waiting for?"