In the course of re-reading a novel by the best detective noir writer you never heard of—Chester Himes, creator of the baddest detective team north of 125th Street and south of the Bronx, Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson—I ran across mention of another all-timer you probably never heard of: blues singer Lil Green.
Update! Below the fold, a little excursion into the world of Grave Digger and Coffin Ed.
Grave Digger sat back on the stool, breathing hard, struggling to control his rage. Veins stood out in his temples, growing out of his short-cropped kinky hair like strange roots climbing toward the brim of his misshapen hat. His brown eyes laced with red veins generated a steady white heat.
The white manager, who’d been working the front end of the bar, hastened down toward them with a face full of outrage.
“Get back,” Grave Digger said thickly.
The manager got back.
Grave Digger stabbed at Big Smiley with his left forefinger and said in a voice so thick it was hard to understand, “Smiley, all I want from you is the truth. And I ain’t got long to get it.”
Big Smiley didn’t look at Ready any more. He didn’t smile. He didn’t whine.
He said, “Just ask the questions, Chief, and I’ll answer ’em the best of my knowledge.”
Grave Digger looked around at the teenagers in the booth. They were listening with open mouths, staring at him with popping eyes. His breath burned from his flaring nostrils. He turned back to Big Smiley. But he sat quietly for a moment to give the blood time to recede from his head.
“Who killed him?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know, Chief.”
“He was killed on your street.”
“Yas suh, but I don’t know who done it.”
“Do Sissie and Sugartit come in here?”
“Yas suh, sometimes.”
Out of the corners of his eyes Grave Digger noticed Ready’s shoulders begin to sag as though his spine were melting.
“Sit up straight, God damn it,” he said. “You’ll have plenty of time to lie down if I find out you’ve been lying.”
Ready sat up straight.
Grave Digger addressed Big Smiley. “Galen met them in here?”
“Naw suh, he met Sissie in here once but I never seen him with Sugartit.”
“What was she doing in here then?”
“She come in here twice with Sissie.”
…
Big Smiley took out a blue bandana handkerchief and mopped his sweating black face.
The four school girls in the booth began going through the motions of leaving. Grave Digger wheeled toward them.
“Sit down! I want to talk to you later,” he ordered.
They began a shrill protest: “We got to get home…Got to be at school tomorrow at nine o’clock…Haven’t finished homework … Can’t stay out this late…Get into trouble…”
He got up and went over to show them his gold badge. “You’re already in trouble. Now I want you to sit down and keep quiet.”
He took hold of the two girls who were standing and forced them back into their seats.
“He can’t hold you ’less he’s got a warrant,” the boy in the aisle seat said.
Grave Digger slapped him out of his seat, reached down and lifted him from the floor by his coat lapels and slammed him back into his seat.
“Now say that again,” he suggested.
The boy didn’t speak.
Of course he didn’t. Not if he knew what was good for him, he didn’t. From The Real Cool Killers, part 2 of Himes’s Harlem Cycle of short novels–all damned good stuff for any fan of the noir sub-genre.
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I remember the old Seventies movie Cotton comedy to Harlem with those characters I can’t remember the name of the sequel.