The picker turned to look at him. In proffle his jaw stuck out from his muscle-roped neck like a pressing iron, and his flat-nosed face and sloping forehead slanted back at a thirty-degree angle.

"Oh, that there chicken," he said. "Well, suh, that there chicken belongs to Missus Klein."

"Why ain't it got a tag on it then?"

"Well, suh, she don't know whether she gonna take it or not. She ain't come back for it yet."

"All right, then," the young man said peevishly. "Get on with your work. Just don't stand there--we got these orders to fill."

The picker turned and his arms began working like locomotive driving rods. He began again to sing to himself. He hadn't seen the two detectives standing just inside the doorway.

Grave Digger gestured toward the door with his head. Coffin Ed nodded. They slipped out silently.

Mr. Goldstein deserted a customer for a moment as they pa.s.sed through the front room. "I'm glad you didn't arrest Ibsen," he said, washing his hands with air. "He's a good worker and an honest man."

"Yeah, we noticed how much you trust him," Coffin Ed said.

They got in their car, drove two doors down the street, parked again and sat waiting.

"I'll bet a pint of rye he gets it," Grave Digger said.

"h.e.l.l, what kind of bet is that?" Coffin Ed replied. "That boy has stole so many chickens from those Goldsteins he's one quarter chicken himself. I'll bet he could steal a chicken out of the egg without cracking the sh.e.l.l."

"Anyway, we're going to soon see."

They almost missed him. The picker left by the back door and came out into the street from a narrow walk ahead of them.

He was wearing a big loose-fitting olive drab canvas army jacket with a ribbed cotton collar and a drawstring at the bottom, and his nappy head was covered with a GI fatigue cap worn backward, the visor hanging down the back of his neck. In that getup his iron jaw was more prominent. He looked as though he had tried to swallow the pressing iron and it had sunk between his bottom teeth underneath his tongue.

He went over to Lexington Avenue and started uptown, staggering slightly but careful not to b.u.mp into anyone, and whistling the rhythm of _Rock Around The Clock_ in high, clear notes.

The detectives followed in their car. When he turned east on 119th Street, they pulled ahead of him, drew in to the curb and got out, blocking his path.

"What you got there, Iron Jaw?" Grave Digger asked. Iron Jaw tried to get him into focus. His large muddy eyes slanted upward at the edges and had a tendency to look out from opposite corners. When finally they focused on Grave Digger's face they looked slightly crossed.

"Why don't you folks leave me alone," he protested in his whisky-thick voice, swaying slightly. "I ain't done nothing."

Coffin Ed reached out quickly and pulled his jacket zipper open almost to the bottom. Smooth black shiny skin gleamed from a muscular hairless chest. But, down near the stomach, black and white feathers began.

The chicken lay cradled in the warm nest at the bottom of the jacket, its yellow legs crossed peacefully like a corpse in a casket, and its head tucked out of sight underneath its outer wing.

"What are you doing with that chicken then?" Coffin Ed asked. "Nursing it?"

Iron Jaw looked blank. "Chicken, suh. What chicken?"

"Don't give me that cornfed Southern bull," Coffin Ed warned him. "My name ain't Goldstein."

Grave Digger reached down with his index finger and lifted the chicken's head from beneath the wing.

"This chicken, son."

The chicken c.o.c.ked its head and gave the two detectives a startled look from one of its beady eyes, then it turned its head completely about and looked at them from its other eye.

"Looks like my mother-in-law whenever I have to wake her up," Grave Digger said.

All of a sudden the chicken started squawking and flapping about, trying to get out of its nest.

"Sounds like her, too," Grave Digger added.

The chicken got a footing on Iron Jaw's belly and flew toward Grave Digger, flapping its wings and squawking furiously, as though it resented the remark.

Grave Digger speared at it with his left hand and caught hold of a wing.

Iron Jaw pivoted on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet and took off, running down the center of the street. He was wearing dirty canvas rubber-soled sneakers, similar to those worn by Poor Boy, and he was running like a black streak of light.

Coffin Ed had his long barreled nickel-plated pistol in his hand before Iron Jaw had started to run, but he was laughing so hard he couldn't cry halt. When he finally got his voice he yelled, "Whoa, Billy-boy, or I'll blast you!" and fired three rapid shots into the sky.

Grave Digger was hampered by the chicken and was late with his pistol, which was identical with Coffin Ed's. Then he had to clip the chicken in the head to save it for evidence. When he finally looked up he was just in time to see Coffin Ed shoot the fleeing Iron Jaw in the bottom of the right foot.

The .38 caliber slug caught in the rubber sole of Iron Jaw's canvas sneaker and ripped it from his foot. His foot sailed out from underneath him, and he slid along the pavement on his rump. His flesh hadn't been touched, but he thought he'd been shot.

"They kilt me!" he cried. "The police has shot me to death!"

People began to collect.

Coffin Ed came up, swinging his pistol at his side, and looked at Iron Jaw's foot.

"Get up," he said, yanking him to his feet. "You haven't been scratched."

Iron Jaw tested his foot on the pavement and found that it didn't hurt.

"I must be shot somewhere else," he argued.

"You're not shot anywhere," Coffin Ed said, taking him by the arm and steering him back to their car.

"Let's get away from here," he said to Grave Digger. Grave Digger looked about at the curious people crowding about. "Right," he said.

They put lion Jaw between them on the front seat and the dead chicken on the back seat and drove east on 119th Street to a deserted pier on the East River.

"We can get you thirty days in the cooler for chicken stealing or we can give you back your chicken and let you go home and fry it," Grave Digger began. "It just depends on you."

Iron Jaw looked slantwise from one detective to the other.

"I don't know what y'all means, boss," he said.

"Listen, son," Coffin Ed warned. "Cut out that uncle tomming. Save it for the white folks. It doesn't have any effect on us. We know you're ignorant, but you're not that stupid. So just talk straight. You understand?"

"Ya.s.suh, boss."

Coffin Ed said, "Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Who was riding with Johnny Perry when he drove down 132nd Street this morning just before Poor Boy robbed the A and P store manager?" Grave Digger asked. Iron Jaw's eyes stretched. "I don't know what you all is talking about, boss. I was dead asleep in bed all morning 'til I went to work."

"Okay, son," Grave Digger said. "If that's your story that'll cost you thirty days."

"Boss, I swear to G.o.d--" Iron Jaw began, but Coffin Ed cut him off, "Listen, punk, we've already got Poor Boy tagged for the job and are holding him for the morning court. He said you were standing in a doorway on 132nd Street just off of the Avenue, so we know you were there. We know that Johnny Perry drove past on 132nd Street while you were standing there. We're not trying to stick you for the robbery. We've already got you on chicken stealing. All we want to know is who was riding with Johnny Perry."

Sweat glistened on Iron Jaw's sloping, flat-featured face. "Boss men, I don't want no trouble with that Johnny Perry. I'd just as leave take my thirty days."

"There's not going to be any trouble," Grave Digger a.s.sured him. "We're not after Johnny. We're after the man who was with him."

"He stuck Johnny up and got away with two grand," Grave Digger improvised, taking a shot in the dark.

Iron Jaw whistled. "I thought there was something funny," he admitted.

"Didn't you notice that the man had a gun stuck in Johnny's side when they drove past?" Grave Digger said.

"Naw suh, I didn't see the gun. They drove up and parked just 'fore the corner, and the top was up and I couldn't see no gun. But I thought there was something funny 'bout them stopping right there as if they didn't want n.o.body to see 'em."

Grave Digger and Coffin Ed exchanged looks across Iron Jaw's stupid expression.

"Well, that pins that down," Grave Digger said. "He and Val had parked on 132nd Street before Poor Boy robbed the A and P store manager." He addressed his next question to Iron Jaw. "Did they get out of the car together or did Val get out alone?"

"Boss, I ain't seen no more that what I just told you, I swear to G.o.d," Iron Jaw declared. "When Poor Boy cut out with that poke, with that cop and that white man chasing him, there was a man looking out a window, and when they turned the corner it seemed like he tried to look around the corner to see where they was going, and the next thing I seed he was falling through the air. So I just naturally took off up Seventh Avenue, 'cause I didn't want to be there when the cops got there and started asking a lot of questions."

"You didn't notice how badly he was hurt?" Grave Digger persisted.

"Naw suh, I just figured he was dead and gone to Jesus," Iron Jaw said. "And it warn't like as if I was a big shot like Johnny Perry. If the cops found me there they was just liable as not to claim I pushed him out the window."

"You make me sad, son," Grave Digger said seriously. "Cops are not that bad."

"We'd like to let you take your chicken and go home and have your pleasure," Coffin Ed said. "But Valentine Haines was stabbed to death this morning, and we've got to hold you as a material witness."

"Ya.s.suh," Iron Jaw said stoically. "That's what I mean."

14.

It was ten-fifteen at night when Grave Digger and Coffin Ed finally got around to calling on c.h.i.n.k Charlie.

First they'd had a foot race with a young man peddling skinned cats for rabbits. An old lady customer had asked for the feet, had become suspicious and called the police when told that they were nub-legged rabbits.

Then they'd had to interview two matronly Southern schoolteachers, living in the Theresa Hotel and taking summer courses at New York University, who had given a man posing as the house detective their money to put in the hotel safe.

They parked in front of the bar at 146th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue.

c.h.i.n.k had a room with a window in the fourth-floor apartment on St. Nicholas Avenue. He had chosen the black and yellow decor himself and had furnished it in modernistic style. The carpet was black, the chairs yellow, the day bed had a yellow spread, the combination television-record player was black trimmed with yellow, the small table-model refrigerator was black on the outside and yellow on the inside, the curtains were black-andyellow striped, and the dressing table and chest of drawers were black.

The record player was stacked with swing cla.s.sics, and Cootie Williams was doing a trumpet solo in Duke Ellington's _Take The A Train_. A ten-inch revolving fan on the sill of the open window blew in exhaust fumes, dust, hot air and the sound of loud voices from the congregation of wh.o.r.es and drunks in front of the bar down below.

c.h.i.n.k was standing in the glow of the table lamp in front of the window. His sweat-slick oily yellow body was clad in blue nylon boxer-type shorts. The fringe of a large purple-red scar, left by an acid burn, showed on his left hip above his blue shorts.

Stripped to her black nylon bra.s.siere, black sheer nylon panties and high-heeled red shoes, Doll Baby was practicing her chorus routine in the center of the floor. She had her back to the window and was watching her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. A tray of dirty dishes containing leftovers from the chili bean and stewed chitterling dinners they'd ordered from the bar restaurant rested on the table top, cutting her reflection in half just below the panties, as though she might have been served without legs along with the other delicacies. The outline of three heavy embossed scars running across her b.u.t.tocks were visible beneath the sheer black panties.

c.h.i.n.k was looking at them absently as they jiggled in front of his vision.

"I don't get it," he was saying. "If Val really thought he was going to get ten G's from Johnny and wasn't just bulling you--."

She flared up. "What the h.e.l.l's got into you, n.i.g.g.e.r. You think I can't tell when a man's talking straight?"

She had told c.h.i.n.k about her interview with Johnny, and they were trying to think up some angle to put the squeeze on him.

"Sit down, can't you!" c.h.i.n.k shouted. "How the h.e.l.l can I think--"

He broke off to stare at the door. Doll Baby stopped dancing in the middle of a step.

The door had opened quietly, and Grave Digger had come into the room. While they were staring, he went quickly across to the window and drew the shade. Coffin Ed stepped inside, closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. Both wore their hats pulled low over their eyes.

Grave Digger turned and sat on the edge of the window table beside the lamp.

"Well, go on, son," he said. "What's the only way to figure it?"

"What the h.e.l.l do you mean by breaking into my room like this?" c.h.i.n.k said in a choking voice. His yellow face was diffused with rage.

The window curtain beating against the fan guard made so much noise Grave Digger reached over and turned the fan off.

"What was that, son?" he asked. "I didn't hear you."

"He's beefing because we didn't knock," Coffin Ed said. Grave Digger spread his hands. "Your landlady said you had company, but we figured it was too hot for you to be engaged in anything embarra.s.sing."

c.h.i.n.k's face began to swell. "Listen, you cops don't scare me," he raved. "When you cross that threshold without a warrant I consider it as breaking and entering like two burglars, and I can take my pistol and blow your brains out."

"That's not the right att.i.tude for a man first on the scene of a murder," Grave Digger said, standing erect.

Coffin Ed crossed the floor, pulled open the top drawer, dug beneath a stack of handkerchiefs and brought out a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber pistol.

"And I've got a permit for it," c.h.i.n.k shouted.

"Sure," Coffin Ed conceded. "Your white folks down at the club where you work as a whisky jerker got it for you."

"Yeah, and I'm going to have them take care of you two n.i.g.g.e.r cops," c.h.i.n.k threatened.