The Heat's On (9 page)

He shrugged. “Nobody can get any sense out of it. You see, there’re a lot of conflicting descriptions of both the car and the killer. All they could get for certain about the car is that it was a black low-slung limousine, but no one knew the make. But there was one guy who described the killer as a little dried-up darky with gray kinky hair who was wearing a chauffeur’s uniform; and he can’t be shaken.”

“Well, now ain’t that lovely!” Sister Heavenly exclaimed in disgust.

“You ain’t just saying it,” Angelo agreed. “Don’t make any sense at all. But one thing is for sure. The car is marked. It seems the victim had a friend in a car parked behind the killer’s. When this friend saw his buddy shot down he opened up with an automatic and put some holes in the back of the killer’s car. That’s the lead homicide is following.”

She chewed over that for a time. “How about this second gunman?” she asked. “Did he get away too?”

“Nope. That’s where the killer got lucky. While this second party was following the killer’s car he drove in front of a truck and was run over and killed too.”

A veil dropped over Sister Heavenly’s old blue-rimmed ocher eyes as her mind worked furiously. “Did anybody make them?” she asked.

“Not yet,” he said. “But they had all the marks of professionals, and they ain’t going to be hard to identify.”

“All right,” she conceded finally. “I got the message. What’s it worth?”

He took a small black cheroot from a black leather case which he carried in his breast pocket and slowly applied a flame from a solid gold Flaminaire lighter imported from France. It looked as though he were doing a takeoff on a private eye.

Finally he said, “Well, Sister H, seeing as how your nephew Pithy is wanted too for putting in that false fire alarm last night, I figure for the two of them together, fifteen C’s ain’t too much. And while you’re at it, you better give me next month’s sugar at the same time. With all this shooting going on, who knows where we’ll be by then.”

“Two G’s!” she exploded. “Hell, you can have ‘em both right now. They ain’t worth that much to me.”

He blew out a cloud of smoke and grinned at her. “You didn’t get the message. Homicide is going to wonder what it’s all about. They ain’t going to bite on the idea that one old darky chauffeur dreamed it up — and nobody else, if you get what I mean.”

She didn’t argue. There was no use.

“Let’s see if I’ve got that much,” she said and turned back toward the house.

“Look good and look fast,” he called after her.

She halted and her body stiffened.

“You know this is a lamster’s hangout up here in these sticks,” he said. “And I’m the authority on it. People are going to be asking me questions pretty damn soon, and I got to know how to answer.”

She resumed walking, her long skirts catching in the weeds again as she went around the side of the house. The tethered nanny goat was bleating for water and she stopped for a moment to untie it. Then she kept on through the blistered garden, trampling over the withered vegetables indiscriminately, and looked into the garage. One glance at the Lincoln was enough.

“Who did he think he was fooling,” she murmured to herself, then added half aloud, “Anyway, I was damn right.”

She returned to the house and entered her bedroom.

Uncle Saint and Pithy had disappeared.

She knelt before the chest of drawers, took out her bunch of keys and selected one and unlocked the bottom drawer. The front of the drawer swung down on hinges, revealing a built-in safe. She spun the dial and opened a small, rectangular door. Then she selected another key and opened an inner compartment which was stuffed with packets of banknotes. She took two packets from the top, closed and locked all three doors and left the room.

A tall, emaciated colored man flashily dressed in a Palm Beach suit and a hard straw hat with a red band stood beside the door. She quickly slipped the money inside of her dress.

“I ain’t got no Heavenly Dust now, Slim,” she said. “Come back later.”

“I need it,” he insisted.

“Well, I ain’t got it,” she snapped impatiently, brushing past him toward the side walk.

He followed reluctantly. “When you gonna have it?”

“At one o’clock,” she said over her shoulder.

He looked at his watch. “It ain’t but nine-thirty now. That’s three hours and a half,” he whined, following her into the street.

“Beat it,” she snarled.

He looked from her to the detective sitting in the car. Angelo turned his head slightly and made a motion with his thumb. Slim hastened down the street. Angelo watched him in the rearview mirror until he turned into a path across a vacant lot.

“It’s clear now,” he said.

Sister Heavenly took the packets of banknotes from inside her dress and placed them in his hand. He counted them carefully without looking up or taking any precaution at concealment. Each packet contained ten one-hundred-dollar notes. Negligently he slipped them into his inside coat pocket.

“Pretty soon you’ll be turning in this heap for a Jaguar,” Sister Heavenly said sarcastically.

“You ain’t just kidding,” he replied.

The high-powered motor roared into life. She watched him back the car at high speed into the first cross street, turn and speed away.

Pinky had the key, she thought. But the question was how to get it out of him.

Instead of returning to the kitchen she went on to the rabbit hutch to see if Pinky had taken another speedball in her absence. The buck rabbit was huddled in a corner of his cage, watching her with terrified eyes. She dragged him out by the ears and removed the stopper from his rectum. The three capsules of C & H that should have been there were gone.

No wonder he was talking so strange, she thought. He must be leaping and flying.

She put the buck back into his cage and walked slowly toward the kitchen, carrying the stopper in her hand.

I’ll just play it dumb, she decided, and see what those speedballs tell him to do next.

The house didn’t have a basement. It had been built by Italian immigrants unused to the cold winters of the Bronx and who didn’t have sufficient money for such a luxury.

Sister Heavenly’s bedroom and the kitchen composed one half of the house. The other half was composed of a large front parlor that was kept shuttered and closed and a small back bedroom which Sister Heavenly had converted into a bathroom.

The stairway to the attic led up from the kitchen and took up part of the short front hall, which, like the parlor, was never used. The bottom of the stairway which extended into the kitchen was detachable.

When Sister Heavenly returned to the kitchen she spoke apparently to no one: “You can come out now, he’s gone.”

The bottom of the stairs moved slowly out into the kitchen, revealing an access to a dugout beneath the house.

Pinky’s head appeared first. His kinky white hair was covered with cobwebs. On his battered face, ranging in colors from violent purple to bilious yellow, was a look of indescribable stupidity. His shoulders were too large for the opening and he had to put one arm through first and perform a series of contortions. He looked like some unknown monster coming out of hibernation.

The next thing that appeared was Uncle Saint’s shotgun, which seemed to drag Uncle Saint behind it.

Pinky shoved the staircase back into place and then stood close to Uncle Saint as though for spiritual comfort.

Neither of them met Sister Heavenly’s scornful gaze.

She couldn’t restrain from taunting: “You two innocents are acting mighty strange for people with clear consciences.”

“Ain’t no need of going looking for trouble,” Uncle Saint said sheepishly.

Sister Heavenly consulted her old-fashioned locket-watch. “It’s quarter to ten. How about all us going down to the dock and seeing Gus and Ginny off?”

If she had exploded a bomb filled with ghosts, she couldn’t have gotten stranger reactions.

Uncle Saint had a sudden heart attack. His eyes rolled back in his head and three inches of tongue fell suddenly from the corner of his dirty-looking mouth. He clutched his heart with his left hand and reeled toward his bunk, taking good care to hold on to the shotgun with his right hand.

Simultaneously Pithy had an epileptic fit. He fell to the floor and had convulsions, contortions and convolutions. His muscles jumped and jerked and quivered as he thrashed about on the floor. Foam sprayed from his mouth.

Sister Heavenly backed quickly from the danger zone of flying legs and arms and took up a position behind the stove.

Pinky’s eyes were set in a fixed stare; his spine stiffened, his legs jerked spasmodically, his arms flailed the air like runaway windmills.

Sister Heavenly stared at him in admiration. “If I had known you could throw wingdings like that I could have been using you all along as a sideline to faith healing,” she said.

Seeing that Pithy was stealing the show, Uncle Saint sat up. His eyes were popping and his jaw was working in awe.

“I’d have never thunk it,” he muttered to himself.

Sister Heavenly looked at him. “How’s your heart attack?”

He avoided her gaze. “It was just a twinge,” he said sheepishly. “It’s already let up.”

He thought it was a good time to get out and let Pithy carry on. “I’ll go start the car,” he said. “We might have to take him to the doctor.”

“Go ahead,” Sister Heavenly said. “I’ll nurse him.”

Uncle Saint hastened off toward the garage, still carrying his loaded shotgun. He raised the hood and detached the distributor head, then began to work the starter.

Sister Heavenly could hear the starter above the gritting sounds of Pinky’s teeth and realized immediately that Uncle Saint had disabled the car.

She waited patiently.

Pinky’s convulsions eased and his body turned slowly rigid. Sister Heavenly stepped over and looked into his staring eyes. The pupils were so distended his eyes looked like red-hot metal balls.

Uncle Saint came in and said the car wouldn’t start.

“You stay here and look after Pithy, I’ll take a taxi to the docks,” Sister Heavenly decided.

“I’ll put some ice on his head,” Uncle Saint said and began fiddling about in the refrigerator.

Sister Heavenly didn’t answer. She picked up her black beaded bag and black-and-white striped parasol and went out of the back door.

She didn’t have a telephone. She paid for police protection and protected herself from other hazards and her business was strictly cash and carry. So she had to walk to the nearest taxi stand.

Outside she opened the parasol, went around the house by the path through the weeds, and set out walking down the middle of the hot dusty road.

Crouching like an ancient Iroquois, still carrying the loaded shotgun in his right hand, Uncle Saint skulked from corner to corner of the house, watching her. She kept straight on down the street in the direction of White Plains Road without looking back.

Satisfied that she was not coming back, he returned to the kitchen and said to the rigid epileptic on the floor, “She’s gone.”

Pinky jumped to his feet. “I got to get out of here,” he whined.

“Go ahead. What’s stopping you?”

“Looking like I am. The first cop sees me gonna stop me, and I is wanted anyway.”

“Git your clothes off,” Uncle Saint said. “I’ll fix that.”

He seemed possessed with an urgency to be alone.

Sister Heavenly kept to the road until she knew she couldn’t be seen from the house, then she turned over to the next street and doubled back.

The house nearest to hers on the same side of the street was in the next block. It was owned by an old Italian couple who lived alone. They were good friends of Sister Heavenly. The man ran a provision house and was away from home during the day.

When Sister Heavenly called, his wife was in the kitchen, straining and bottling wine.

Sister Heavenly asked permission to sit in the attic. She often did this. There was a side window in the attic which offered a clear view of her own house, and whenever she found it necessary to check up on Uncle Saint she sat there watching for an hour or two. The old couple had even provided her with a rocking-chair.

Sister Heavenly climbed the stairs to the attic and, after opening the shutters, settled into her chair.

It was hot enough in the attic to roast a goose, but that didn’t bother Sister Heavenly. She liked heat and she never perspired. She sat rocking gently back and forth, watching the front and back of her own house at the end of the adjoining block.

An hour later Uncle Saint said to Pithy, “You is dry enough, put on some clothes and git.”

Pinky didn’t have a change of clothes in the house and he was more than twice the size of Uncle Saint. The black pants and T-shirt he had taken off were bloodstained and filthy.

“Where am I gonna git some clothes?” he asked.

“Look in the souvenir trunk,” Uncle Saint said.

The souvenir trunk sat beneath a small dormer window in the attic.

“Take a chisel, it’s locked,” Uncle Saint added as Pinky started ascending the stairs.

There wasn’t any chisel in the kitchen and Uncle Saint wouldn’t go to the garage to get one. Pithy couldn’t go because he was buck naked, so he took the poker for the stove.

It was an old-fashioned steamer truth with a domed lid and was bound with wooden hoops. Sunshine slanted on the dustcovered top and when Pinky began prying at the old rusty lock, dust motes filled the air like glittering confetti. All of the windows had been closed after the night’s performance to keep out the heat and now the sweaty odor of the dancers lingered in the blazing heat. Pinky began to sweat. Sweat drops splattered in the dust like drops of ink.

“Hey, this stuff is coming off,” he called down to Uncle Saint in a panic.

“That’s just the excess,” Uncle Saint reassured him. “The main part ain’t coming off.”

With sudden haste, Pinky levered the poker and the lock flew apart. He raised the lid and looked into the trunk.

The souvenir trunk was where Sister Heavenly kept various garments left by her former lovers when they had lammed. Pinky rummaged about, holding up pants and shirts and cotton drawers with back flaps. Everything was too small. Evidently Sister Heavenly hadn’t counted any giants amongst her lovers. But finally Pinky came across a pair of peg-top Palm Beach pants which must have belonged to a very tall man at least. He squeezed into a pair of knee-length cotton drawers and pulled the peg-top trousers over them. They fitted like women’s jodhpurs. He looked about until he found a red jersey silk shirt worn by some sharp cat in the early 193 Os. It stretched enough for him to get it on. None of the shoes were possible, so he closed the trunk and went down to the kitchen and put on his same old blue canvas sneakers.