The professor looked about at the silent group. 'What's the verdict?'
'Let's get on to the next house,' the sergeant said. 'If I'm here when this punk comes to I'll probably be the next one to get suspended.'
'Can we leave the building now?' Sissie asked.
'You two girls can come with us,' the sergeant offered.
Sheik groaned and rolled over.
'We can't leave him like that,' she said.
The sergeant shrugged. The cops passed into the next room. The sergeant started to follow, then hesitated.
'All right, I'll fix it,' he said.
He took the girls out on the fire escape and got the attention of the cops guarding the entrance below.
'Let these two girls pass!' he shouted.
The cops looked at the girls standing in the spotlight glare.
'Okay.'
The sergeant followed them back into the room.
'If I were you I'd get the hell away from this punk fast,' he advised, prodding Sheik with his toe. 'He's headed straight for trouble, big trouble.'
Neither replied.
He followed the professor out of the flat.
Granny sat unmoving in the rocking chair where they'd left her, tightly gripping the arms. She stared at them with an expression of fierce disapproval on her puckered old face and in her dim milky eyes.
'It's our job, Grandma,' the sergeant said apologetically.
She didn't reply.
They passed on sheepishly.
Back in the front room, Sheik groaned and sat up.
Everyone moved at once. The girls moved away from him. Sonny began taking off the heavy overcoat. Inky and Choo-Choo bent over Sheik and, each taking an arm, began helping him to his feet.
'How you feel, Sheik?' Choo-Choo asked.
Sheik looked dazed. 'Can't no copper hurt me,' he muttered thickly, wobbling on his legs.
'Does it hurt?'
'Naw, it don't hurt,' he said with a grimace of pain. Then he looked about stupidly. 'They gone?'
'Yeah,' Choo-Choo said jubilantly and cut a jig step. 'We done beat 'em, Sheik. We done fooled 'em two ways sides and flat.'
Sheik's confidence came back in a rush. 'I told you we was going to do it.'
Sonny grinned and raised his clasped hands in the prizefight salute. 'They had me sweating in the crotch,' he confessed.
A look of crazed triumph distorted Sheik's flat, freckled face. 'I'm the Sheik, Jack,' he said. His yellow eyes were getting wild again.
Sissie looked at him and said apprehensively, 'Me and Sugartit got to go. We were just waiting to see if you were all right.'
'You can't go now — we got to celebrate,' Sheik said.
'We ain't got nothing to celebrate with,' Choo-Choo said.
'The hell we ain't,' Sheik said. 'Cops ain't so smart. You go up on the roof and get the pole.'
'Who, me, Sheik?'
'Sonny then.'
'Me!' Sonny said. 'I done got enough of that roof.'
'Go on,' Sheik said. 'You're a Moslem now and I command you in the name of Allah.'
'Praise Allah,' Choo-Choo said.
'I don't want to be no Moslem,' Sonny said.
'All right, you're still our captive then,' Sheik decreed. 'You go get the pole, Inky. I got five sticks stashed in the end.'
'Hell, I'll go,' Choo-Choo said.
'No, let Inky go, he's been up there before and they won't think it's funny.'
When Inky left for the pole, Sheik said to Choo-Choo, 'Our captive's getting biggety since we saved him from the cops.,'
'I ain't gettin' biggety,' Sonny declared. 'I just want to get the hell outen here and get these cuffs off'n me without havin' to become no Moslem.'
'You know too much for us to let you go now,' Sheik said, exchanging a look with Choo-Choo.
Inky returned with the pole and, pulling the plug out of the end joint, he shook five cigarettes onto the table top.
'A feast!' Choo-Choo exclaimed. He grabbed one, opened the end with his thumb, and lit up.
Sheik lit another.
'Take one, Inky,' he said.
Inky took one.
Everybody put on smoked glasses. 'Granny will smell it if you smoke in here,' Sissie said. 'She thinks they're cubebs.' Choo-Choo mimicked Granny: 'Ah wish you chillens would stop smokin' them coo-bebs 'cause they make a body feel moughty funny in de head.' He and Sheik doubled over with laughter. The room stank with the pungent smoke. Sugartit picked up a stick, sat on the bed and lit it. 'Come on, baby, strip,' Sheik urged her. 'Celebrate your old man's flop by getting up off of some of it.' Sugartit stood up and undid her skirt zipper and began going into a slow striptease routine. Sissie clutched her by the arms. 'You stop that,' she said. 'You'd better go on home before your old man gets there first and comes out looking for you.' In a sudden rage, Sheik snatched Sissie's hands away from Sugartit and flung her across the bed. 'Leave her alone,' he raved. 'She's going to entertain the Sheik.' 'If her old man's really Coffin Ed you oughta let her go on home,' Sonny said soberly. 'You just beggin' for trouble messin' round with his kinfolks.' 'Choo-Choo, go to the kitchen and get Granny's wire clothesline,' Sheik ordered. Choo- Choo went out grinning. When he saw Granny staring at him with such fierce disapproval, he said guiltily, 'Pay no 'tention to me, Granny,' and began clowning. She didn't answer. He tiptoed with elaborate pantomime to the closet and took out her coil of clothesline. 'Just wanna hang out the wash,' he said. Still she didn't answer. He tiptoed close to the chair and passed his hand slowly in front of her face. She didn't bat an eyelash. His grin widened. Returning to the front room, he said, 'Granny's dead asleep with her eyes wide open.' 'Leave her to Gabriel,' Sheik said, taking the line and beginning to uncoil it. 'What you gonna do with that?' Sonny asked apprehensively. Sheik made a running loop in one end. 'We going to play cowboy,' he said. 'Look.' Suddenly he threw the loop over Sonny's head and pulled on the line with all his strength. The loop tightened about Sonny's neck and jerked him off his feet. Sissie ran toward Sheik and tried to pull the wire from his hands. 'You're choking him,' she said. Sheik knocked her down with a backhanded blow. 'You can let up on him now,' Choo-Choo said. 'We got 'im.' 'Now I'm gonna show you how to tie up a mother-raper to put him in a sack,' Sheik said.
11
Grave Digger halted on the sidewalk in front of the yellow frame house next door to the Knickerbocker. It had been partitioned into offices and all of the front windows were lettered with business announcements. 'Can you read that writing on those windows?' Grave Digger asked Ready Belcher. Ready glanced at him suspiciously. 'Course I can read that writing.' 'Read it then,' Grave Digger said. Ready stole another look. 'Read what one?' 'Take your choice.' Ready squinted his good eye against the dark and read aloud, '_Joseph C. Clapp, Real Estate and Notary Public_.' He looked at Grave Digger like a dog who has retrieved a stick. 'That one?' 'Try another.' He hesitated. Passing car lights played on his pockmarked black face, brought out the white cast in his bad eye and lit up his flashy tan suit. 'I haven't got much time,' Grave Digger warned. He read, '_Amazing 100-year-old Gypsy Bait Oil-Makes Catfish Go Crazy_.' He looked at Grave Digger again like the same dog with another stick. 'Not that one,'
