Grave Digger and Coffin Ed exchanged looks.
'Did he score with any other chippy?' Coffin Ed asked.
'Didn't nobody say, boss. Anyway, he left.'
'You're not much good,' Coffin said harshly.
'I do the best I can, boss.'
'Yeah, if you get caught peddling marijuana to teenagers, you get life under the new Federal law,' Grave Digger said. 'You know that, don't you?'
'I knows it, boss, but I ain't peddling no weed.'
'All right, get out-you stink,' Coffin Ed said.
The stoolie got from the car as though it had caught on fire.
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed looked at one another.
'What do you make of it?' Grave Digger asked.
'From here it looks like some punk found some stage money and is trying to have a ball on it,' Coffin Ed said.
'Yeah, but that's such an old gag for a town like Harlem.'
'You know, Digger, Harlem's full of squares,' Coffin Ed said.
'Maybe this punk is a square himself,' Grave Digger mused. 'But we should look into the play just the same-when we get time.'
'Right now I want to hear somebody talk about a Jew,' Coffin Ed said.
'Right,' Grave Digger said, and started up the car.
The next message was a blank. It came from a slap-happy wino whose claim to fame was that once he had fought on the card at Madison Square Garden as a heavyweight. True, he had only been a four-rounder in the prelims and nobody had ever heard of him before or since, but he had been there.
He started out of the Braddock Bar over on Eighth Avenue, saw the dicks' car coming and ducked back in.
'Shall we pass him?' asked Grave Digger, who was driving.
'We haven't got much time,' Coffin Ed admitted. 'But sometimes out of the mouths of fools comes the solid tip.'
Grave Digger smiled to himself.
They waited for the wino. He didn't keep them waiting. He approached their car as if he didn't care who saw him, opened the back door without waiting for Coffin Ed and crawled up on the seat. His foul breath filled the car with the smell of stockyards.
'Spit it out and scram,' Coffin Ed said brutally. 'You are suffocating us.'
'You want to know who stuck up that United Cigar store?' the wino asked.
'Who?' Coffin Ed grated.
'Me,' the wino said jubilantly, and started laughing like hell.
Coffin Ed was out of the car, big feet planted on the pavement; he had his gun club-fashion in his hand, the back door open; he reached in, grabbed the ex-pug by the collar of his shirt and was yanking him bodily through the door before Grave Digger realized what was happening.
'Don't hurt him, Ed!' Grave Digger cried. 'Don't hurt him-he's simple-minded.'
Coffin Ed's burn-scarred face was diabolical with fury. But he caught the descending gun butt before it crashed against the wino's skull. He pushed the wino back against the car and slapped him across the mouth.
'You're not funny,' he said in a voice so dangerous it sent cold shivers down Grave Digger's spine.
The ex-pug fainted from terror.
Coffin Ed pushed him to one side with his foot.
'Where is your sense of humor, Ed?' Grave Digger asked.
'I haven't got any,' Coffin Ed admitted as he holstered his revolver and got back into the car. 'They burned it out of me.'
Grave Digger started the car, but Coffin Ed halted him by a touch of the arm.
'What do we do with this punk?'
'Leave him there,' Grave Digger said. 'If he stuck up that cigar store, I'm Cupid.'
Coffin Ed grunted.
'It takes all kinds to make the world, Ed,' Grave Digger added philosophically.
'Yeah? Some of the funny ones are going to quit work,' Coffin Ed said.
They had practically covered their route before they got the last message.
It came from Dummy.
When they saw Dummy duck into the entrance to Sweet Prophet's temple, Grave Digger pulled the battered sedan over the curb and off the street into the exit way beside a chain movie theater. On one side were the double iron doors of the movie house, on the other the brick side wall of the adjoining building.
After a while Dummy showed himself on the sidewalk, walked in that direction-looking on all sides, as was his habit-and suddenly disappeared.
Coffin Ed looked from the darkened car and saw two eyes gleaming beside him in the dark. He opened the back door and Dummy got in.
'What's new?' he asked.
'He can't see in here,' Grave Digger said. 'Let's take him to the station.'
Dummy was squirming about in the back seat, digging out his dirty scratch pad and stub of pencil.
Coffin Ed got into the back seat with him, and Grave Digger backed the car into the street. When they pulled up before the green lights of the precinct station, Dummy scribbled in alarm: is a pinch?
Coffin Ed got his face into the light and said, 'No pinch, just some questions.'
Dummy relaxed and grinned.
They took him to the Pigeon's Nest. He sat on the stool in the spill of white light and imagined he was back in the ring. He looked as happy as a kid with a new toy.
'He'd still fight if they let him,' Grave Digger remarked.
Dummy read his lips and nodded vigorously. He jumped to his feet and began shadowboxing, his gaze pinned on the floor, watching his imaginary opponent's feet.
'Sit down,' Coffin Ed said, but Dummy wasn't watching his lips, and Coffin Ed had to push him back onto the stool.
Grave Digger brought the two straight backed chairs from the corner desk and they sat facing Dummy in the light.
'Get your paper and pencil out,' he said.
Dummy wet the stub in his tongueless mouth and poised the scratch pad on his knee.
'Who killed Rufus?' Grave Digger asked, taking a shot in the dark. He didn't expect an answer, but Dummy was a night bird, and there was always a chance he might know something. mugger, Dummy wrote without hesitation.
Grave Digger took the pad and passed it to Coffin Ed. They exchanged looks. Grave Digger handed back the pad and asked, 'Did you see it?'
Dummy nodded.
'Know him?' Coffin Ed asked.
Dummy shook his head. He drew a circle about his face with his index finger and shook his head again.
'You didn't see his face?'
Dummy nodded.
'Tell us what you saw,' Grave Digger said.
Dummy wrote: rufus drove up / mugger braced him in car / pulled him out / put knife on throat / pushed him toward outhouse / rufus try to run / mugger stab him in back / keep stabbin / rufus down on hands and knees / crawl into the bush / mugger follow / i didn see nobody come out.
The detectives read the scrawled words in amazement.
'Where were you?' Grave Digger asked.
Dummy reached for the pad and wrote: i was hidin in bushes.
'Doing what?' Coffin Ed asked, but Grave Digger held up his hand and said, 'We'll get back to that. Let's find
