“For chrissake, don’t bother me now,” Casper said roughly, wiping the tears from his cheeks with the back of his hand. “I’m busy as all hell.”

The nurse left in a huff.

“All right, goddammit, he was a mother-raping pansy called Black Beauty,” Casper said to Coffin Ed. “So what?”

“His straight moniker is Junior Ball,” Coffin Ed replied. “This morning at nine-thirty o’clock your wife, Missus Holmes, appeared at the morgue and identified the body and has requested it be released to her for burial.”

Casper gave no sign of outrage or surprise or any of the other emotions they might have expected. He began looking gutter-mean. He spat out shreds of wet tobacco and said in a hard, street-fighter’s voice, “So what! If his name was Junior Ball, he was her cousin.”

“What we want to know is, why would a trio of bandits who had just robbed you of fifty grand run down your wife’s cousin and kill him?” Coffin Ed said.

“How in the mother-raping hell would I know?” Casper said. “And if you think she knows then ask her.”

“We’re going to ask her all right,” Grave Digger lisped.

“Then go, goddammit, and do it!” he shouted, his face turning a vivid apoplectic shade of bright purple-black. “And don’t get so mother-raping cute. I’ll have you out dredging the Gowanus Canal.”

“Don’t lose your temper, boss—at your age you might have a stroke,” Grave Digger lisped.

Casper harnessed his rage with an effort. His breath came out in a long, hard sigh. He threw the partly smoked cigar on the floor and picked up another one without looking. His hands trembled as he lit it.

“All right, boys, let’s cut out the crap,” he said in a conciliatory voice. “You know what I mean. I don’t want my wife’s name mixed up in a scandal.”

“That’s what we figured,” Coffin Ed said.

“And don’t forget I got you boys your jobs,” he stated.

“Yeah, you and our army records—” Grave Digger began.

“Not to mention our marks of eighty-five and eighty-seven percent in our civil service examinations,” Coffin Ed supplemented.

Casper took the cigar from his teeth and said, “All right, all right, so you think you can’t be hurt.” He spread his hands. “I don’t want to hurt you. All I want is those mother-raping bandits caught with the minimum of publicity.” He sucked smoke into his lungs and let it dribble from his wide, flat nostrils. “And you wouldn’t suffer any if these mother-rapers turned up dead.” He gave them a half-lidded conniving look.

“That’s the way we got it figured, boss,” Coffin Ed said.

“What the hell do you mean, by that?” Casper flared again.

“Nothing, boss. Just that dead men don’t talk, is all,” Coffin Ed said.

Casper didn’t move. He stared from one to the other through obsidian eyes. “If you’re insinuating what I think, I’ll break you both,” he threatened in a voice that sounded very dangerous.

For a moment there was only the sound of labored breathing in the room. The sound of muted footsteps came from the corridor. Down on a nearby street some halfwit was racing a motor.