All Shot Up Read Online Free PDF Page B

men get shot to death.”
    ”Heard it, boss. I wasn’t in no position to see.”
    “Three men masqueraded as cops—”
    “I ain’t seen but two, boss.”
    “Robbed a man in broad view right outside of this joint—”
    “I couldn’t swear to it, boss; I didn’t seen that.”
    “What did they get?”
    “ Get? ” The joker acted as though he were unfamiliar with the word.
    “Take?”
    “Take? If they took anything, boss, I ain’t seen it. I thought they was just a mess of cops doing their dirty work.”
    Coffin Ed flipped.
    He looped a right hook to the big joker’s solar plexus, saw his mouth balloon with air. The cowskin fez flew from the big joker’s head as he jackknifed forward. Coffin Ed caught him back of the neck with a loose, pulling grip, jerked his head down and uppercut him in the face with his right knee. It was a good gimmick; the knee was supposed to smash the joker’s nose and fill his head with shooting stars. It worked nine times out of ten. But the big joker had his mouth open from the solar plexus punch, and his teeth crashed into Coffin Ed’s kneecap like the jaws of a bear trap.
    Coffin Ed grunted with pain as his leg went stiff and clutched the back of the big joker’s leather jacket to keep from going down. The big joker butted him in the belly in a blind panic, trying to escape. Coffin Ed went down on his back, clinging to the leather jacket; and the big joker plunged forward over him, headed for the door. Coffin Ed pulled at the leather jacket in a choking rage. The jacket turned wrong side out, imprisoning the joker’s arm and halting the forward plunge of his shoulders. But the rest of him kept on going, and he turned in a somersault and landed on his back. Coffin Ed reared up on his shoulders, made a half spin and kicked the big Joker on the side of the jaw from topside, down. The big joker shuddered and passed out.
    Coffin Ed clutched the rim of the bar and pulled to his feet, favoring his game leg. He looked about for the next man in line. But there wasn’t any line.
    The customers had crowded to the back of the room and were beginning to panic. Knives lashed, and they were pushing and threatening one another.
    The white cop at the back door was shouting, “Get back! Get away from me or I’ll shoot!”
    Slowly and deliberately, Coffin Ed drew the long-barreled, nickel-plated .38 revolver from its shoulder holster.
    “Now I want some straight answers from you minstrel-show comedians,” he said in a voice that grated on the nerves.
    Someone let out a womanish scream.
    Grave Digger came in from the street. Without taking a second look he opened his big mouth and shouted at the top of his voice: “Straighten up!” Before his big voice bounced from the walls he had his big nickel-plated revolver, the twin of Coffin Ed’s, out in his hand, in plain sight of everyone arrested by his voice.
    Coffin Ed relaxed. A grim smile played about the edges of his scarred lips.
    “Count off!” he bellowed in a voice to match Grave Digger’s.
    For good measure they fired four shots into the newly decorated ceiling.
    Everybody froze. Not a whisper was heard. No one dared breathe.
    Coffin Ed had killed a man for breaking wind. Grave Digger had shot both eyes out of a man who was holding a loaded automatic. The story was in Harlem that these two black detectives would kill a dead man in his coffin if he so much as moved.
    The next moment cops of all descriptions erupted from the street. The Homicide crew had arrived and they invaded in force; a lieutenant and two detectives with their pistols out, a third detective with a submachine gun. The precinct lieutenant, Anderson, followed, with Haggerty at his heels and two uniformed cops bringing up the rear.
    “What’s this? What’s happening? What gives?” the Homicide lieutenant shouted harshly.
    “Just them two cowboys from the Harlem Q. ranch rounding up a passel of rustlers,” Haggerty cracked.
    “Jesus Christ,” Anderson said, as