Chapter 26 Chapter Twenty-Three

The police officer at the front door came in to announce, "There's a railroad express wagon just parked up front. I think they're sending something in." "Stay away, don't let them see you," said the deputy captain of the serious crime team brightly. "If it's what I expect, we'd better get this place in order," Ed "Coffin Bucket" said. The detectives looked at him curiously, but followed his advice.They quickly moved the tables and chairs back to the caretaker's suite, and split into two groups.Some stayed where they were, while others rushed to the other end of the hallway and hid in the laundry room to ambush.

They put their ears on the closed door to listen for footsteps.There was a moment of silence, however, after the faint opening and closing of the front door. Then they heard a light knock on the basement door, followed by a rustling and scratching, as if some small object had been secretly placed there. Detectives burst through the door and charged down the hallway with revolvers in hand.They stopped suddenly, as if hitting an invisible wall. A black giant of the darkest complexion they had ever seen—so dark that he looked a deep purple in the bright light—was squatting in front of a large green flat suitcase that hadn't been there before.

What surprised everyone at first was his huge size.He is wearing the uniform of a railway courier, but the coat is too small to be buttoned up, the sleeves only reach the middle of the forearm, and the trousers only reach half the leg; his black and purple feet are wrapped in blue canvas shoes, and the uniform hat is on top Definitely purple on the messy hair. The eyes on Pinky's deep purple face looked back and forth, and then the giant ran. "Stop!" Several voices shouted at the same time. However, it was "Coffin Bucket" Ed who called to stop him: "Surrender, Pinky, you have nowhere to escape."

"Pink boy!" The vice-captain of the serious crime team exclaimed. "My God, is he Pink Boy?" "He dyed himself," Ed "Coffin Bucket" said. "He's actually an albino." "I know everything now," said the Treasury commissioner. "Not yet," Ed "Coffin Bucket" said. The police detectives surrounded Pink Boy, and the deputy captain of the serious crime team put on handcuffs neatly. “Now the truth will come out,” he said. "Let's open this box first," Ed "Coffin Bucket" said. "Give me the key, Pinkie."

"I don't have a key," Pinkie whimpered. "The African took it." "Forget it, let's drive by ourselves." A police officer took an iron bar from the tool room and picked the lock. They lifted the lid, and all they saw was a mess of dirty laundry.But after removing them, a corpse suddenly appeared.It was the corpse of a small gray-haired man with a smart, wrinkled little black face, wearing a clean set of blue denim overalls and hippie black boots. Everyone started talking at the same time. "It's Gus," Ed "Coffin Bucket" said.

"His neck is broken," the Treasury commissioner said. "This is the twelfth person," said the deputy captain of the crime squad. "Maybe there's something under there," one officer said. "Don't be stupid, it's not like Benny Mayson hasn't checked this box," said the deputy captain of the anti-narcotics team. "Is this your hunch?" The deputy captain of the crime squad asked "Coffin Bucket" Ed. "almost." "How did you expect that?" "You'll find out later." The deputy captain of the crime team turned to Pink Boy and said, "Why did you kill him?"

"I didn't kill him," Pinkie denied with a high-pitched whine. "It was the African and the woman who killed him." "Why did you bring him back here?" Ed "Coffin Bucket" asked. "That's why they are punished," he whines. "They killed my dad and they have to be punished." "Coffin Bucket" Ed turned to the deputy captain of the serious crime team. "Here's how I got it: If he knew about the heroin thing, why did he lie and call the fire alarm? He just wanted Gus's wife and the African to be charged with murder."

"They did it," Pink Boy still did not change his words. "I know they did it." "Let's skip this matter for the time being," said the deputy captain of the serious crime team. "The question is, where did you find this suitcase?" "At the dock, they went there to get the suitcase. They were going to take him aboard and throw him overboard so no one would know what happened to him. But I beat them." "This trick is really fraudulent," said the deputy captain of the serious crime team. "Benny saw that there was only one body in the box and sent it to the dock."

"Let's first ask him what he did with that batch of drugs," the special commissioner of the Ministry of Finance said impatiently. "Everything depends on that." "We'd better take it step by step," Ed "Coffin Bucket" suggested. "Both the African and the woman are dead, Pinky," said the vice-captain of the serious crimes team calmly. "And we know they didn't kill anyone. So it's just you." "Dead? Both of them are dead? Are they really dead?" "Really dead," Ed "Coffin Bucket" said.

"So, maybe you can tell us why you killed someone," said the vice-captain of the major crimes unit. Pink Boy looked at the corpse for the first time, and tears welled up in his red eyes. "I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to, Dad," he said to the body. He raised his eyes to look first at the deputy captain of the serious crimes team, then at the white faces surrounding him, and then his eyes finally fell on the ugly brown face of "Coffin Bucket" Ed. "He wanted to go to Africa, but he didn't take me. I begged him all the time, but he wanted to take that light brown woman instead of me. I'm his adopted son."

"So you killed him." "I didn't mean to, he drove me crazy. I begged him again before he went fishing—" "fishing?" Everyone became alert instantly. "What time was that?" asked the vice-captain of the crime squad. "It was around eleven-thirty. He put on his high boots and took his line and reel to go fishing for eels. That's why I was mad. He'd rather go fishing in the dark than listen to I said. So I waited for him to come back and begged him again. Instead he told me to fuck off and leave him alone, saying he was too busy to listen to stupid things." "Did he catch an eel?" "He caught five eels. I don't understand how he caught them so quickly, but they were in his creel. He must have caught them first and then put them in the river because they were all dead gone." "How big are they?" "It's a big eel, maybe two or three pounds, I think." "Eel skin stuffed with heroin and waterproof. It's a brilliant move," said the Treasury Commissioner. "Only a Frenchman would want that." "The last time you spoke to him, what was he doing?" The deputy captain of the serious crime team continued to ask gently. "He was looking for something in the suitcase. He opened it to find it, I begged him to take me away many times, but he told me to fuck off and get as far away from him as possible. I just wanted to shake him and let him go Listen to me, but when I found out, his neck was already broken." "So you put his body in this suitcase, cover it with dirty clothes from the laundry room, and lift it out in the hallway, and then you go and call the fake fire alarm to accuse his wife and African of murder killed him." "There's something wrong with them," Pinkie said. "If it hadn't been for an accident, they would have killed him for the treasure map. I heard them say they would kill him, I swear to God." "Maps! Do you know maps?" "I had seen it before he went fishing. He told me that the map showed the location of a large number of treasures in Africa, and told me to keep it secret and never tell anyone." The detectives looked at each other. "Does his wife and the Africans know about this?" asked the vice-captain of the Serious Crime Squad. "You must know, that's why they want to kill him." The deputy captain of the crime team turned to "coffin bucket" Ed. "Do you believe?" "No, he's just making up a story to rationalize something." "Let's get back to those eels," interposed the Treasury commissioner. "Where were the eels when you talked to him, Pinky?" "As soon as he came in, he put them on the floor next to that suitcase." "What do you do with them?" "I knew if he left them there, people would know he was back from fishing." "Yes, yes, but what did you do with them?" "You mean the dead eels? I threw them away." "Yes, yes, where did you throw them?" "Where? I threw them into the incinerator. It was full of waste paper and rubbish, so I threw them in and set them on fire." The special commissioner of the Ministry of Finance fell into hysteria, and others had to pat him on the back to calm him down. "A fire worth three million dollars!" He burst into tears. Pinkie stared straight at him. "Those are just dead eels," he whined. "It's not even good to eat." The detectives burst out laughing like it was the funniest thing they've ever heard in their lives. Pink Boy has an emotionally hurt expression. "Coffin Bucket" Ed asked curiously: "Why doesn't he want to take you to Africa, Pinkie? Is it because you have a drug addiction?" "It's not because of my drug addiction, he doesn't care about it. He said I was too white, said black Africans don't like black people with white skin like me, they will kill me." "I really doubt that any court can understand this case?" said the deputy captain of the serious crime team.