Coffin Ed dropped c.h.i.n.k's gun back into the drawer. "Listen, punk--" he began, but Grave Digger cut him off.

"After all, Ed, be easy on the boy. You can see these two yellow people are not Negroes like you and me."

But Coffin Ed was too angry to go for the joke. He kept on talking to c.h.i.n.k. "You're out on bail as a material witness. We can pull you in any time we wish. We're trying to give you a break, and all we get from you is a lot of cute c.r.a.p. If you don't want to talk to us here we can take you down and talk to you in the Pigeon Nest."

"You mean if I object to your pushing me around in my own house you can take me down to the precinct station and push me around there," c.h.i.n.k said venomously. "That's how you got to look like Frankenstein's monster, pushing people around."

Coffin Ed's acid-burned face went hideous with rage. Before c.h.i.n.k had finished speaking he had taken two steps and knocked him spinning across the yellow-covered bed. He had his long barreled pistol in his hand and was moving in to pistol-whip c.h.i.n.k when Grave Digger grabbed him by the arms from behind.

"This is Digger," Grave Digger said in a quick pacifying voice. "This is Digger, Ed. Don't hurt the boy. Listen to Digger, Ed."

Slowly Coffin Ed's taut muscles relaxed, as the murderous rage drained out of him.

"He's a mouthy punk," Grave Digger went on. "But he's not worth killing."

Coffin Ed stuck his pistol back into the holster, turned and left the room without uttering a word, stood for a moment in the corridor and cried.

When he returned c.h.i.n.k was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking sullen and smoking a cigarette.

Grave Digger was saying, "If you're lying about the knife, son, we're going to crucify you."

c.h.i.n.k didn't reply.

Coffin Ed said thickly, "Answer."

c.h.i.n.k replied sullenly, "I don't know nothing about the knife."

Grave Digger didn't look at his partner, Coffin Ed. Doll Baby had backed over to the far corner of the bed and was sitting on its edge as though expecting it to explode underneath her any moment.

Coffin Ed asked her suddenly, "What racket were you and Vat scheming?"

She jumped as if the bed had blown up as expected.

"Racket?" she repeated stupidly.

"You know what a racket is," Coffin Ed hammered. "As many rackets as you've been up with in your lifetime."

"Oh, you mean did he have a hype?" She swallowed. "Val didn't do nothing like that. He was a square--well, what I mean is he was straight."

"How did you two lovebirds expect to live? On your salary as a chorus girl or were you intending to do a little hustling on the side?"

She was too scared to act indignant, but she protested meekly. "Va! was a gentleman. Johnny was going to stake him to ten grand to open a liquor store."

c.h.i.n.k turned his head about and gave her a look of pure venom. But the two detectives just stared at her, and suddenly became completely still.

"Did I say something?" she asked with a frightened look.

"No, you didn't," Grave Digger lied. "You told us that before." He flicked a glance at Coffin Ed.

c.h.i.n.k said quickly, "That's something she dreamed up."

Coffin Ed said flatly, "Shut up."

Grave Digger said casually, "What we're trying to find out is why. Johnny's too tight a gambler for a deal that tricky."

"After all, Vat was Dulcy's brother," Doll Baby argued stupidly. "And what's tricky about opening a liquor store?"

"Well, first of all, Val couldn't get a license," Grave Digger explained. "He did a year in the Illinois state reformatory, and New York state doesn't grant liquor store licenses to ax-cons. Johnny's an ex-con himself, so he couldn't get the license in his own name. That means they'd have to bring a third party as a front to get the license and operate the business in his name. The profits would be split too thin, and neither Johnny nor Val would have any legal way of collecting."

Doll Baby's eyes had stretched as big as saucers during this explanation. "Well, he swore to me that Dulcy was going to get the dough for him, and I know he wasn't lying," she said defensively. "I had him hooked."

For the next fifteen minutes the detectives questioned c.h.i.n.k and her about Val's and Dulcy's past life, but came up with nothing new. As they turned to leave, Grave Digger said, "Well, baby, we don't know what game you're playing, but if what you say is true, you've just about cleared Johnny of suspicion. Johnny's hot-headed enough to kill anybody in a rage, but Val was killed with coldblooded premeditation. And, if he was trying to shake Johnny down for ten grand, that would be the same as if Johnny left his name on the murder. And Johnny ain't the boy for that."

"Well how about that!" Doll Baby protested. "I give you a reason for Johnny to have done it and you turn around and say that proves he didn't do it."

Grave Digger chuckled. "Just goes to show how stupid cops are."

They went out into the hall and closed the door behind them. Then, after talking briefly with the landlady, they went down the hail, left by the front door and closed that door behind them.

Neither c.h.i.n.k nor Doll Baby spoke until they heard the landlady locking and bolting the front door. But the detectives had merely stepped outside, then had turned quickly and reentered the flat. By the time the landlady was bolting the front door they had stationed themselves in front of c.h.i.n.k's bedroom door and were listening through the thin wooden panel.

The first thing c.h.i.n.k said, jumping to his feet and turning on Doll Baby furiously, was, "Why in the G.o.dd.a.m.ned h.e.l.l did you tell 'em about the ten grand, you G.o.d-d.a.m.ned idiot?"

"Well for Christ's sake," Doll Baby protested loudly. "Do you think I wanted them think I was goin' to marry a mother-raping beggar?"

c.h.i.n.k grabbed her by the throat and yanked her from the bed. The detectives glanced at each other when they heard her body thud against the carpeted floor. Coffin Ed raised his eyebrows interrogatingly but Grave Digger shook his head. After a moment they heard Doll Baby saying in a choked voice, "What the h.e.l.l you trying to kill me for, you mother-raper?"

c.h.i.n.k had released her and had gone to the refrigerator for a bottle of beer.

"You've let the mother-raper out the trap," he accused.

"Well, if he didn't kill him, who did?" she said. Then she caught the expression on his face and said, "Oh."

"Whoever killed him it don't make no diflerence now," he said. "What I want to know is what he had on Johnny?"

"Well, I've done told you all I know," she said.

"Listen, b.i.t.c.h, if you're holding out on me--" he began, but she cut him off with, "You're holding out on me more than I'm holding out on you. I ain't holding out nothing."

"If you think I'm holding out anything, you had better just think it and not say it," he threatened.

"I ain't going to say nothing about you," she promised, and then complained, "Why the h.e.l.l do you and me have to argue? We ain't trying to find out who killed Val, is we? All we're trying to do is shake Johnny down for a stake." Her voice began getting confidential and loving. "I'm teffing you, honey, all you've got to do is keep pressing him. I don't know what Val had on him, but if you keep pressing him he's got to give."

"I'm going to press him all right," c.h.i.n.k said. "I'm going to keep pressing him until I test his mother-raping nerve."

"Don't test it too hard," she warned. "Cause he's got it."

"That ugly mother-raper don't scare me," c.h.i.n.k said.

"Look what time it is!" Doll Baby exclaimed suddenly. "I gotta go. I'm goin' to be late as it is."

Grave Digger nodded toward the outside door, and he and Coffin Ed tiptoed down the hall. The landlady let them out quietly.

As they were going down the stairs, Grave Digger chuckled. "The pot's beginning to boil," he said.

"All I hope is that we don't overcook it," Coffin Ed replied.

"We ought to hear from Chicago by tomorrow or the day after," Grave Digger remarked. "Find out what they've dug up."

"I just hope it ain't too late," Coffin Ed said.

"All that's missing is just one link," Grave Digger went on. "What it was that Val had on Johnny that was worth ten G's. If we had that we'd have it chained down."

"Yeah, but without it the dog's running loose," Coffin Ed replied.

"What you need is to get good and drunk one time," Grave Digger told his friend.

Coffin Ed rubbed the flat of his hand down his acidburned face. "And that ain't no lie," he said in a m.u.f.fled voice.

15.

It was 11:32 o'clock when Johnny parked his fishtail Cadillac on Madison Avenue near the corner and walked down 124th Street to the private staircase that led to his club on the second floor.

The name _Tia Juana_ was lettered on the upper panel of the black steel door.

He touched the buzzer to the right of the doork.n.o.b once lightly, and an eye appeared immediately in the peephole within the letter _u_ in the word _Juana_. The door swung open into the kitchen of a three-room flat.

A mild-mannered, skinny, bald-headed, brown-skinned man wearing starched khaki pants and a faded purple polo shirt said, "Tough, Johnny, two deaths back to back."

"Yeah," Johnny said. "How's the game going, Nubby?"

Nubby fitted the cushioned stump of his left arm, which was cut off just above the wrist, into the cup of his right hand and said, "Steady. Kid Nickels is running it."

"Who's winning?"

"I ain't seen. I been taking bets on the harness races for tonight at Yonkers."

Johnny had bathed, shaved and changed into a light green silk suit and a rose crepe shirt.

The phone rang and Nubby reached for the receiver on the paybox on the wall, but Johnny said, "I'll take it."

Mamie Pullen was calling to ask how Dulcy was.

"She's knocked herself out," Johnny said. "I left Alamena with her."

"How are you, son?" Mamie asked.

"Still kicking," Johnny said. "You get your sleep and don't worry 'bout us."

When he hung up Nubby said, "You look beat, boss. Why don't you just take a look about and cut back to the nest. Us three oughta be able to run it for one night."

Johnny turned toward his office without replying. It was located in the outer of the two bedrooms situated to the left of the kitchen. It contained an old-fashioned roll top desk, a small round table, six chairs and a safe. The room across from it, equipped with a big deal table, was used as a spare gambling room.

Johnny hung up his green coat neatly on a hanger on the wall beside his desk, opened the safe and took out a sheaf of money tied with brown paper tape on which was written: $1,000.

Beyond the kitchen was a bathroom, and then the hallway ran into a large front room the width of the flat with a three-window bay overlooking Madison Avenue. The windows were closed and the curtains drawn.

Nine players sat about a large round-top table, padded with felt and covered with soiled tan canvas, in the center of the room. They were playing a card game called Georgia Skin.

Kid Nickels was shuffling a brand-new deck of cards. He was a short black burr-headed man with red eyes and rough pockmarked skin, wearing a red silk shirt several shades brighter than Johnny's.

Johnny walked into the room, put the sheaf of money on the table and said, "I'll take over now, Kid."

Kid Nickels got up and gave him his seat.

Johnny patted the sheaf of bank notes. "Here's fresh money that ain't got n.o.body's brand."

"Let's hope I latch on to some of it," Bad Eye Lewis said.

Johnny shuffled the cards. Crying Shine, the first player to his right, cut them.

"Who wants to draw?" Johnny asked.

Three players drew cards from the deck, showed them to each other to avoid duplication and put them on the table face down.

Johnny bet them ten dollars each for drawing. They had to call or turn in their cards. They called.

In Georgia Skin the suits--spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds--have no rank. The cards are played by denomination. There are thirteen denominations in the deck, the ace through the king. Therefore thirteen cards may be played.

A player selects a card. When the next card for that denomination is dealt from the deck, the first card loses. Skin players say the card has fallen. It goes into the dead, and can't be played again that deal.

Therefore a player bets that his card does not fall before his opponents' cards fall. If a player selects a seven, and the cards of all other denominations in the deck have been dealt off twice before the second seven shows, that player wins all the bets he has made.

Johnny spun the top card face upward and it dropped in front of Doc, the player who sat across the table from him. It was an eight.

"My hatred," Bad Eye Lewis said.

"I ain't got no hatred unless it be death," Doc said. "Throw down, all you pikers."

The players carried their bets to him.