Read Online Blind Man With a Pistol by Chester Himes - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Chester Himes
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Detective and Mystery Stories, Police, Police Procedural, African American police, African American, Police - New York (State) - New York, Harlem (New York; N.Y.), Johnson; Coffin Ed (Fictitious character), Jones; Grave Digger (Fictitious character)
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people, even though two of the uniforms were clerical, was connected with Black Power.
When they had taken their respective seats again, Doctor Moore spoke into the speaking-tube, "Drive to the Center, B," then as he glanced at the back of the chauffeur's head, corrected himself: "I believe you're C, aren't you?"
The front seat wasn't partitioned off and the chauffeur turned his head slightly and said, "Yes, sir, B's dead."
"Dead? Since when?" Doctor Moore sounded mildly surprised.
"It's more than two months now."
Doctor Moore leaned back against the cushions and sighed. "Life is fleeting," he observed sadly.
Nothing more was said until they arrived at their destination. It was a middle-class housing development on upper Lenox Avenue, a large U-shaped red-brick apartment building seventeen storeys high. The front garden was so new the grass hadn't sprouted and the freshly planted trees and shrubbery looked withered as from a drought. There was a children's playground in its center with the slides and seesaws and sand-boxes so new they looked abandoned, as though no children lived there.
Across Lenox Avenue, on the West Side, toward Seventh Avenue, were the original slums with their rat-ridden, cold water flats unchanged, the dirty glass-fronted ground floors occupied by the customary supermarkets with hand-lettered ads on their plate-glass windows reading: "Fully cooked U.S. Govt. Inspected SMOKED HAMS 55c lb.... Secret Deodorant ICE-BLUE 79c.. .. California Seedless GRAPES 2 lbs 49c. .. . Fluffy ALL Controlled Suds 3 lbs pkg. 77c.... KING CRAB CLAWS lb 79c.... GLAD BAGS 99c." Delicatessens advertising: "Frozen Chitterlings and other delicacies". . . . Notion stores with needles and buttons and thread on display.... Barbershops. . . . Smokeshops.... Billboards advertising: _Whiskies, beers_. . . . "HARYOU".... _Politicians running for Congress_. . . . "BEAUTY FAIR by CLAIRE: WIGS, MEN'S HAIR PIECES, 'CAPILISCIO'".... Funeral Parlors.... Nightclubs. . . . "_Reverend Ike; 'See and hear this young man of God; A Prayer For The Sick And All Conditions in Every Service; COME WITH YOUR BURDENS LEAVE WITH A SONG_'". . . . Black citizens sitting on the stoops to their cold-water flats in the broiling night.. . . Sports ganged in front of bars sucking marijuana.... Grit and dust and dirt and litter floating idly in the hot dense air stirred up by the passing of feet. That was the side of the slum dwellers. The ritzy residents across the street never looked their way.
The black Cadillac limousine drew to the curb in front of the unfinished lawn. Miraculously the banner across the back which had previously proclaimed BLACK POWER now read: BROTHERHOOD. The two black-coated, black-capped men in front got out first and stood flanking the rear door. Away from the motley crowd at 135th Street and Seventh Avenue, with that quiet, pretentious apartment building in the background, they looked larger, tougher, infinitely more dangerous. The bulges beneath their leather coats on the left sides were more pronounced. There, on the quiet, shady side of the old, wide, historic slum street, they looked unmistakably like bodyguards. The well-dressed people coming and going from and to the apartment entrance gave them a wide berth. But no resentment was shown. They were familiar. Doctor Moore was a noted personage. The residents held him in high esteem. They admired his efforts at integration; they commended his nonviolent, reasonable approach. When Doctor Moore himself alighted, standing between his two clerics, passing residents tipped their hats and smiled obsequiously.
"You boys come with me," he said.
He walked briskly into the building with his retinue at his heels. There were both confidence and authority in his bearing, like that of a man with a purpose and a will to achieve it. Residents passing through the foyer bowed. He
When they had taken their respective seats again, Doctor Moore spoke into the speaking-tube, "Drive to the Center, B," then as he glanced at the back of the chauffeur's head, corrected himself: "I believe you're C, aren't you?"
The front seat wasn't partitioned off and the chauffeur turned his head slightly and said, "Yes, sir, B's dead."
"Dead? Since when?" Doctor Moore sounded mildly surprised.
"It's more than two months now."
Doctor Moore leaned back against the cushions and sighed. "Life is fleeting," he observed sadly.
Nothing more was said until they arrived at their destination. It was a middle-class housing development on upper Lenox Avenue, a large U-shaped red-brick apartment building seventeen storeys high. The front garden was so new the grass hadn't sprouted and the freshly planted trees and shrubbery looked withered as from a drought. There was a children's playground in its center with the slides and seesaws and sand-boxes so new they looked abandoned, as though no children lived there.
Across Lenox Avenue, on the West Side, toward Seventh Avenue, were the original slums with their rat-ridden, cold water flats unchanged, the dirty glass-fronted ground floors occupied by the customary supermarkets with hand-lettered ads on their plate-glass windows reading: "Fully cooked U.S. Govt. Inspected SMOKED HAMS 55c lb.... Secret Deodorant ICE-BLUE 79c.. .. California Seedless GRAPES 2 lbs 49c. .. . Fluffy ALL Controlled Suds 3 lbs pkg. 77c.... KING CRAB CLAWS lb 79c.... GLAD BAGS 99c." Delicatessens advertising: "Frozen Chitterlings and other delicacies". . . . Notion stores with needles and buttons and thread on display.... Barbershops. . . . Smokeshops.... Billboards advertising: _Whiskies, beers_. . . . "HARYOU".... _Politicians running for Congress_. . . . "BEAUTY FAIR by CLAIRE: WIGS, MEN'S HAIR PIECES, 'CAPILISCIO'".... Funeral Parlors.... Nightclubs. . . . "_Reverend Ike; 'See and hear this young man of God; A Prayer For The Sick And All Conditions in Every Service; COME WITH YOUR BURDENS LEAVE WITH A SONG_'". . . . Black citizens sitting on the stoops to their cold-water flats in the broiling night.. . . Sports ganged in front of bars sucking marijuana.... Grit and dust and dirt and litter floating idly in the hot dense air stirred up by the passing of feet. That was the side of the slum dwellers. The ritzy residents across the street never looked their way.
The black Cadillac limousine drew to the curb in front of the unfinished lawn. Miraculously the banner across the back which had previously proclaimed BLACK POWER now read: BROTHERHOOD. The two black-coated, black-capped men in front got out first and stood flanking the rear door. Away from the motley crowd at 135th Street and Seventh Avenue, with that quiet, pretentious apartment building in the background, they looked larger, tougher, infinitely more dangerous. The bulges beneath their leather coats on the left sides were more pronounced. There, on the quiet, shady side of the old, wide, historic slum street, they looked unmistakably like bodyguards. The well-dressed people coming and going from and to the apartment entrance gave them a wide berth. But no resentment was shown. They were familiar. Doctor Moore was a noted personage. The residents held him in high esteem. They admired his efforts at integration; they commended his nonviolent, reasonable approach. When Doctor Moore himself alighted, standing between his two clerics, passing residents tipped their hats and smiled obsequiously.
"You boys come with me," he said.
He walked briskly into the building with his retinue at his heels. There were both confidence and authority in his bearing, like that of a man with a purpose and a will to achieve it. Residents passing through the foyer bowed. He
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