She frowned, but this time not prettily. “It is possible,” she conceded. “Although I can’t see why Junior should have been mixed up in any kind of racket. He was doing well in his own field; he didn’t need anything. And I still don’t understand how this man, Baron, can help you find the scum who robbed Casper.”

“He got a good look at them, for one thing,” Coffin Ed said. “He talked to them; he knows their voices.”

“And we have a hunch he knew them from before,” Coffin Ed said. “He talked to them; he knows their voices.”

“And we have a hunch he knew them from before,” Grave Digger added.

She sighed theatrically. “I’ve gotten used to a lot of strange things with my husband in politics,” she said. “But all this terrible, horrible violence is too much for me.” A tremor ran over her body, making all of it shake.

Grave Digger licked his swollen lips. He was thinking about some of the lonely women about town he hadn’t stopped in to see lately.

She knew what he was thinking and gave him a quick up-from-under look, her big brown eyes stark naked for an instant; then she turned her face away and looked into the fire, and her expression became sad.

“I’d better not catch him on a dark street,” Grave Digger lisped in a voice so thick it was blurred.

She whirled about and stared at him. “Oh!” The red light on her face seemed to be reflected from somewhere underneath the brown of her skin. “I thought you said—” She thought he’d said, “I’d better not catch you on a dark street.” She was flustered for a moment. It made her furious with herself.

“I’ve helped you all I can,” she said abruptly. She began trembling in earnest. “Please go. I can’t stand any more of this.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. She looked even more desirable than with her brassy manner.

Coffin Ed stood up and tapped Grave Digger on the shoulder. Grave Digger came out of his trance with a start.

“Just one more thing,” Coffin Ed said. “Do you know if Junior saw your husband last night?”

“I don’t know. Don’t ask me anything else,” she said tearfully. “All I know is what I’ve read in the newspapers. I haven’t talked to Casper. He’s still in a coma. And I don’t know—” She stopped as though struck by a sudden thought, then said, “And if you’re so interested in Junior’s business, go down on Nineteenth Street and talk to his associate, Zog Ziegler. He ought to know.”

For an instant the two detectives were held in an imperceptible rigidity, as though listening for a sound to be repeated that had come from fax away.

“Zog Ziegler,” Coffin Ed repeated in a flat voice. “Do you know his address.”

“Somewhere on East Nineteenth Street,” she said. “Just go down and look. You’ll know the house when you see it.”

She sounded hysterically anxious for them to leave.