The Real Cool Killers Read Online Free

followed him. One put a noose over his head, knocking off his hat, and drew it tight. The other pulled aswitch-blade knife and pressed the point against his side.
    “If you holler you’re dead,” the first one said.
    The Arab leader joined them.
    “Let’s get him away from here,” he said.
    At that moment the patrol cars began to unload. Two harness cops and Detective Haggerty hit the deck and were the first on the murder scene.
    “Holy mother!” Haggerty exclaimed.
    The cops stared aghast.
    It looked to them as though the two colored detectives had the big white man locked in a death struggle.
    “Don’t just stand there,” Grave Digger panted. “Give me a hand.”
    “They’ll kill him,” Haggerty said, wrapping his arms about Grave Digger and trying to pull him away. “You grab the other one,” he said to the cops.
    “To hell with that,” the cop said, swinging his black-jack across Coffin Ed’s head, knocking him unconscious.
    The other cop drew his pistol and took aim at the corpse. “One move out of you and I’ll shoot,” he said.
    “He won’t move; he’s dead,” Grave Digger said to Haggerty.
    “Well, Hell,” Haggerty said indignantly, releasing him. “You asked me to help. How in hell do I know what’s going on?”
    Grave Digger shook himself and looked at the third cop. “You didn’t have to slug him,” he said.
    “I wasn’t taking no chances,” the cop said.
    “Shut up and watch the Arab,” Haggerty said.
    The cop moved over and looked at the Arab. “He’s dead, too.”
    “Holy Mary, the plague,” Haggerty said. “Look after that woman then.”
    Four more cops came running. At Haggerty’s order, two turned toward the woman who’d been shot. She was lying in the street, deserted.
    “She’s alive, just unconscious,” the cop said.
    “Leave her for the ambulance,” Haggerty said.
    “Who’re you ordering about?” the cop said. “We know our business.”
    “To hell with you,” Haggerty said.
    Grave Digger bent over Coffin Ed, lifted his head and put an open bottle of ammonia to his nose. Coffin Ed groaned.
    A red-faced uniformed sergeant built like a General Sherman tank loomed above him.
    “What happened here?” he asked.
    Grave Digger looked up. “A rumpus broke and we lost our prisoner.”
    “Who shot your partner?”
    “He’s not shot, he’s just knocked out.”
    “That’s all right then. What’s your prisoner look like?”
    “Black man, about five eleven, twenty-five to thirty years, one-seventy to one-eighty pounds, narrow face sloping down to chin, wearing light gray hat, dark gray hickory-striped suit, white tab collar, red striped tie, beige chukker boots. He’s handcuffed.”
    The sergeant’s small china-blue eyes went from the big white corpse to the bearded Arab corpse.
    “Which one did he kill?” he asked.
    “The white man,” Grave Digger said.
    “That’s all right, we’ll get him,” he said. Raising his voice, he called, “Professor!”
    The corporal who’d stopped to light a cigarette said, “Yeah.”
    “Rope off this whole goddamned area,” the sergeant said. “Don’t let anybody out. We want a Harlem-dressed Zulu. Killed a white man. Can’t have gotten far ’cause he’s handcuffed.”
    “We’ll get ’im,” the corporal said.
    “Pick up all suspicious persons,” the sergeant said.
    “Right,” the corporal said, hurrying off towards the cops that were just arriving.
    “Who shot the Arab?” the sergeant asked.
    “Ed shot him,” Grave Digger said.
    “That’s all right then,” the sergeant said. “We’ll get your prisoner. I’m sending for the lieutenant and the medical examiner. Save the rest for them.”
    He turned and followed the corporal.
    Coffin Ed stood up shakily. “You should have let me killed that son of a bitch, Digger,” he said.
    “Look at him,” Grave Digger said, nodding toward the Arab’s corpse.
    Coffin Ed stared.
    “I didn’t even know I hit him,” he said as though coming out of a