He ran out of breath.

“Did you get the license?”

“License!” He looked as though Coffin Ed had abused his mother. “What would I be doing getting their license? They looked like straight cops when they drove up, and for all I know they might just as well be straight cops.”

“Cops!” Coffin Ed stiffened.

“And when they took off I was lying on the floor like everybody else.”

“You said they were cops!”

“I don’t mean they actually was cops,” the joker amended hastily. “I figure you would know if they was real sure enough cops. All I means is they looked like cops.”

“In uniform?” Coffin Ed was taut as a crane cable, and his voice came in a rasping whisper.

“How else would I know if they looked like cops. I don’t mean you, suh,” the joker hastened to add with an ingratiating smile. “Everybody around here knows you is the man, no matter what you wears. All I means is these cops was dressed in cops’ uniforms. Of course I ain’t had no way of knowing whether they was cops or not. Naturally I wasn’t going to ask to see their shields. All I know is what I seen, and they—”

Coffin Ed was thinking fast. He cut the joker off. “Colored men?”

“Two of ’em was. One was a white man.”

Heistmen impersonating cops. He was trying to remember when was the last time that was worked in Harlem. Generally that was a big-time deal.

“What did he look like?”

“Look like? Who look like?”

He had been concentrating so hard on trying to put the puzzle together that he had forgotten the joker. His gaze came back in hard focus.

“The white man. Don’t start getting cute.”

“It was just like I say, boss, he looked like a cop. You know how it is, boss,” he added slyly, giving Coffin Ed a confidential wink. “All these white cops look just alike.”

Under ordinary circumstances Coffin Ed would have passed that one by; the color angle worked just about the same on the force as it did in private life. He had played the “all us is black folks together” line himself on entering. But he wasn’t in the mood for comic patter.

“Listen, punk, this ain’t funny, this is murder,” he said.

“Don’t look at me, boss, I ain’t done it,” the joker said, throwing up his hands in comic pantomime as though to ward off a blow.

He didn’t really expect a blow, but he got one. Coffin Ed’s fists parted his hands and popped him in the left eye, and he sailed off the stool to join the other joker on the floor.

The customers began to mutter. He was getting their full attention now, and they were squirming into life.

The next joker in line was standing up. He was a big, rough-looking black man in a leather jacket and a cowskin fez. But suddenly he felt too big for the situation and was trying unsuccessfully to make himself smaller.