'Go 'round and pay off.'
'What if there isn't any payoff?'
'Just go 'round.'
'Where's your beat?'
''Round here.'
'God damn it, you mean to tell me you write numbers in this neighbourhood and you don't know anything about the Moslems?'
'I swear on my mother's grave, boss, I ain't never heard of no Moslems 'round here. They must not be in this neighbourhood, boss.'
'What time did you leave the house tonight?'
'I ain't never left it, boss. 'We come here right after we et supper and ain't been out since.'
'Stop lying; I saw you both when you slipped back in here a half-hour ago.'
'Naw suh, boss, you musta seen somebody what looks like us 'cause we been here all the time.'
The sergeant crossed to the door and flung it open. 'Hey, Grandma!' he called.
'Hannh?' she answered querulously from the kitchen.
'How long have these boys been in their room?'
'Hannh?'
'You have to talk louder; she can't hear you,' Sissie volunteered.
Sheik and Choo-Choo gave her threatening looks.
The sergeant crossed the middle room to the kitchen door. 'How long have your roomers been back from supper?' he roared.
She looked at him from uncomprehending eyes.
'Hannh?'
'She can't hear no more,' Sissie called. 'She gets that way sometime.'
'Hell,' the sergeant said disgustedly and stormed back to Choo-Choo. 'Where'd you pick up these girls?'
'We didn't pick 'em up, boss; they come here by themselves.'
'You're too goddam innocent to be alive.' The sergeant was frustrated. He turned to the professor: 'What did you find on that punk?'
'This knife.'
'Hell,' the sergeant said. He took it and dropped it into his pocket without a glance. 'Okay, fan this other punk — Justice.'
'I'll do Justice,' the professor punned.
The two cops crossed glances suggestively.
They had dumped out all the drawers and turned out all the boxes and pasteboard suitcases and now they were ready for the bed.
'You gals rise and shine,' one said.
The girls got up and stood uncomfortably in the center of the room.
'Find anything?' the sergeant asked.
'Nothing that I'd even care to have in my dog house,' the cop said.
The sergeant began on the girls. 'What's your name?' he asked Sissie.
'Sissieratta Hamilton.'
'Sissie what?'
'Sissieratta.'
'Where do you live, Sissie?'
'At 2702 Seventh Avenue with my aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Coolie Dunbar.'
'Ummm,' he said, 'And yours?' he asked Sugartit.
'Evelyn Johnson.'
'Where do you live, Eve?'
'In Jamaica with my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Johnson.'
'It's mighty late for you to be so far from home.'
'I'm going to spend the night with Sissieratta.'
'How long have you girls been here?' he asked of both.
'About half an hour, more or less,' Sissie replied.
'Then you saw the shooting down on the Street?'
'It was over when we got here.'
'Where did you come from?'
'From my house.'
'You don't know if these punks have been in all evening or not.'
'They were here when we got here and they said they'd been waiting here since supper. We promised to come at eight but we had to stay help my aunty and we got here late.'
'Sounds too good to be true,' the sergeant commented.
The girls didn't reply.
The cops finished with the bed and the talkative one said, 'Nothing but stink.'
'Can that talk,' the sergeant said. 'Grandma's clean.'
'These punks aren't.'
The sergeant turned to the professor. 'What's on Justice besides the blindfold?'
His joke laid an egg.
'Nothing but his black,' the professor said.
His joke drew a laugh.
'What do you say, shall we run 'em in?' the sergeant asked.
'Why not,' the professor said. 'If we haven't got space in the bullpen for everybody we can put up tents.'
The sergeant wheeled suddenly on Sheik as though he'd forgotten something.
'Where's Caleb?'
'Up on the roof tending his pigeons.'
All four cops froze. They stared at Sheik with those blank shuttered looks.
Finally the sergeant said carefully, 'His grandma said you told her he was working in a bowling alley downtown.'
'We just told her that to keep her from worrying. She don't like for him to go up on the roof at night.'
'If I find you punks are holding out on me, God help you,' the sergeant said in a slow sincere voice.
'Go look then,' Sheik said.
The sergeant nodded to the professor. The professor climbed out of the window into the bright glare of the spotlights and began ascending the fire escape.
'What's he doing with them at night?' the sergeant asked Sheik.
'I don't know. Trying to make them lay black eggs, I suppose.'
'I'm going to take you down to the station and have a private talk with you, punk,' the sergeant said. 'You're one punk who needs talking to privately.'
The professor came down from the roof and called through the window, 'They're holding two coons up here beside a pigeon loft. They're waiting on you.' 'Okay, I'm coming. You and Price hold these punks on ice,' he directed the other cops and climbed out of the window behind the professor.
9
'Get in,' Grave Digger said. She pulled up the skirt of her evening gown, drew the black coat tight, and eased her jumbo hams into the seat usually occupied by Coffin Ed. Grave Digger went around on the other side and climbed beneath the wheel and waited.
'Does I just have to go along, honey,' the woman said in a wheedling voice. 'I can just as well tell you
