“Who’s Mister Baron?” Grave Digger asked.

The bartender turned pleadingly to the white detective. “If I knew, sir, I’d tell them.”

“Don’t appeal to me,” Tombs said. “Half of this is Greek to me.”

“Listen, son,” Coffin Ed said to the bartender. “Don’t make it hard on yourself.”

“But I just know these people from the bar, sir,” the bartender contended. “I don’t know what they do.”

“It’s going to be just too bad,” Grave Digger said. “What you don’t know is going to hang you.”

Again the bartender appealed to the white detective. “Please, sir, I don't want to get mixed up in all this bad business. I’ve got a wife and family.”

The windows of the small, crowded car had steamed over. The face of the detective couldn’t be seen, but his embarrassment was tangible. “Don’t cry to me,” he said harshly. “I didn’t tell you to get married.”

Suddenly the bartender giggled. Emotions exploded. The white detective cursed. Grave Digger banged the metal edge of his hand against the steering wheel. The muscles in Coffin Ed’s face jumped like salt on a fresh wound as he reached across the back of the seat and double-slapped the bartender with his left hand.

Grave Digger rolled down a window.

“We need some air in here,” he said.

The bartender began to cry.

“Give me a fill-in,” the white detective said.

“The one who got killed in the heist and the one we just saw are newlyweds,” Grave Digger said. “This one—” He nodded toward the bartender—“is Snake Hips’ used-to-be.”

“How did you dig that?”

“Just guessing. They’re all just one big club. But you got to know it. It’s like when I was in Paris at the end of the war. All of us colored soldiers, no matter what rank or from what army or division, belonged to the same set. We all hung out at the same joints, ate the same food, told the same jokes, laid the same poules. There wasn’t anything that one of us could do that the whole God-damned shooting party didn’t know about.”

“I see what you mean. But what’s the angle here?”

“We haven’t guessed that far,” Grave Digger admitted. “Probably none. We’re just trying to get all these people in position. And this one is going to help us. Or he’s going to get something even he can’t handle.”

“Not before I get done with him,” the detective said. “My boss man wants him to look at some pictures in the gallery. Maybe he can identify the heistmen—one of them at least.”

“How long do you think that will take?” Coffin Ed asked.

“A few hours, maybe, or a few days. We can’t employ your techniques; all we can do is keep him looking until he goes blind.”

Grave Digger mashed the starter. “We’ll take you down to Centre Street.”

The detective and his witness got out in front of the Headquarters Annex, a loft building across the street from the domed headquarters building.