A thickset, swarthy, black-haired man wearing a navy blue straw hat with a fluted gray silk band, Polaroid sunglasses in a heavy black frame, a charcoal-gray suit of shantung silk, white silk shirt and knitted maroon tie, sat behind the wheel of a shiny black MGA sports car with white-wall tires. He was a precinct detective sergeant.
Rows of even white teeth showed in his heavily tanned face at sight of her.
“How’s tricks, Sister H?” he greeted in a jovial voice.
She rested her black-gloved hands on the door of the car and looked at him questioningly. “Same as usual.” In the bright sunshine, her black straw hat atop the gray wig glittered like a cockroach.
“Are you sure?” His voice was insinuating.
“Now what do you mean by that?”
“I just came from the station,” he said. “As soon as I got the reader I came straight to see you. It’s the least I could do for an old friend.”
She looked at the dark green lens of his sunglasses, trying to see his eyes, but she only saw her own reflection. She felt trouble coming on and looked across the street to see if they were being watched.
The villa opposite was the only other house in the block. It was occupied by a large Italian family, but they were so accustomed to seeing the sergeant’s flashy car parked in front of Sister Heavenly’s, and to all the other strange goings-on in that house, they paid it no attention. At the moment none of the brood was in sight.
“Let’s finish with the bullshit,” Sister Heavenly said.
“Finished,” he agreed. “There was a shotgun killing took place down near the French Line dock at about half past six this morning,” he went on, watching her expression sharply from behind his trick glasses, but her expression didn’t change.
“It seems that a man standing on the sidewalk was shotgunned to death by a man sitting in a parked car. They found a derringer with a silencer attached on the sidewalk near the victim. It had recently been fired. Homicide figures the man with the derringer tried to gun the man in the car and got himself shotgunned instead. This sort of rod is a professional’s tool. Anyway, the killer got away,” he added offhandedly, waiting for her reaction.
She didn’t show any reaction. All she said was, “What’s that mean to me?”
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 Pinky 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 Pinky 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 amp; H that should have been there were gone.