“Look out now, I don’t go for that stuff.”

“You don’t go for that stuff. You goddam chicken-crap square.”

“You’re going to make me hit you.”

“Hit me! Come on and hit me.” Mister Baron thrust his womanish face toward Roman’s lowering scowl. “See if you can knock sixty-five hundred dollars out of me.”

“I don’t have to. I can just throw you down and take it.”

“Throw me down and take it! Wouldn’t I love that!”

Sassafras put in her bit. “You ain’t going to love what he’s going to take ’cause it’s just going to be money.”

“Goddammit, where were you two squares when those bandits knocked me out and robbed me?” Mister Baron asked.

“Knocked you out?” Roman said stupidly.

“Is that what was the matter with you?” Sassafras echoed.

“And they robbed you? Of my money?”

“It was my money,” Mister Baron corrected. “The car was yours, and the money was mine.”

“Jesus Christ,” Roman said. “They took the car and the money.”

“That’s right, square. Are you going to let me go and make that phone call now?”

“Naw, I ain’t. I going to take you out and search you. I might be a square, but I ain’t trusted you from the start.”

“That’s fine,” Mister Baron said, and started to get out onto the sidewalk.

But Roman reached back, grabbed him and forced him out into the street. Then he got out and started shaking him down.

“Be careful, Roman,” Sassafras said. “Somebody might come by here and think you is robbing him.”

“Let ’em think what they want,” Roman said, turning Mister Baron’s pockets inside out.

“Do you want me to undress?” Mister Baron asked.

Roman finished with his pockets and felt through his clothes; then ran his hands over Mister Baron’s body, up and down his legs and underneath his arms.

“He ain’t got it on him,” he conceded.

But he wasn’t satisfied. He searched the back of the Buick.

“It ain’t there, either.” He took off his coonskin cap and rubbed his short, curly hair back and forth. “If I catch those mother-rapers I going to kill ’em,” he said.

“Let him telephone,” Sassafras said. “He said you ain’t hurt the old lady, and I is ready to swear you ain’t even hit her.”

Roman stood in the street, thinking it over. Mister Baron stood beside him, watching his expression.

“All right, get in the car,” Roman said.

Mister Baron got back into the car.

Roman began talking through the window. “You know this neighborhood—”

“Get in the car yourself,” Sassafras said.

He got back into the front seat and continued addressing Mister Baron. “Where would they likely go with my car? It ain’t like as if they could hide it.”

“God only knows,” Mister Baron said. “Let the police find it; that’s what they get paid for.”

“Let me give it some thought,” Roman said.

“How much thought you going to give it?” Sassafras said.

“I tell you what,” Roman said. “You go and phone the police and tell ’em it’s your car. Then, if they find it, I’ll show ’em my bill of sale.”