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the pondering and contemplating was not an entity in itself but another facet of the condition, the mass neurosis of the Hip and the individual neurosis of the person named Joe Milani. He might have followed this last train of thought a little further except that somebody coughed, somebody close to him, and his eyes left the spot between the second and third fingers of his right hand and looked upward.
    Into the eyes of Anita Carbone.
     
     
     

Chapter   4
     
     
       Shank was being followed. He heard the pattern of footsteps behind him and saw the familiar figure visible again and then again over his left shoulder. His first reactions were automatic. He stopped abruptly, wheeled, headed across the street and doubled back along the block. As Shank turned he spotted a man wearing a grey overcoat and a droopy felt hat shading the face—the latter dodge not enough to arouse suspicions, but enough to conceal the man’s features adequately.
    The tail was sharp. He continued walking in the same direction about ten paces before he turned and began following Shank once more.
    All right. Shank had a tail. Now he had to keep the tail from realizing that his presence had been detected. If the tail knew Shank were on to him, the whole game would become that much harder. Shank had not decided whether to shake the tail or lead him to the upper reaches of the Bronx; in either case, it would be best to keep the tail in the dark.
    Shank stepped inside the first corner drugstore and moved to the counter to buy cigarettes. Evidently the tail had not yet caught on because Shank could see him through the window as he—Shank—bent down to pick up a coin he managed to drop. Shank also ascertained he had never seen the tail before.
    After lighting a cigarette to make his purchase seem a natural one, Shank left the store and ambled down the street as he thought about the tail. He wondered where the guy had picked him up. Shank had quit the BMT at Union Square. The drugstore was at Broadway and Tenth. This meant the tail had been with him all the way from the meet with Mau-Mau or had just picked him up on the street.
    Shank tended to reject the second possibility. He rarely rode the BMT from Times Square, rarely got off at 14th Street, rarely walked along Broadway. The first possibility struck him as being much more likely. Could the guy have been with him on the subway? It was possible. And if he had been, and if he had seen the meet with Mau-Mau and knew what was happening, there might be trouble. A lot of trouble.
    The Mau-Mau was a middleman, a sort of wholesaler. Most of the marijuana smoked in the United States was raised in Mexico and smuggled across the border. If the shipment were part of a syndicate operation, nobody needed the Mau-Mau. If, on the other hand, the guy who brought it in were a freelance hauling across a pound or two at a time, the Mau-Mau operated. He bought it by the pound and sold it by the ounce to the small pushers, and he profited enough at this to keep up one of the posh pads in one of the posh sections of Harlem.
    About an hour ago the Mau-Mau had laid three ounces of very choice merchandise on Shank in exchange for twenty-five dollars. The three ounces nestled in a small, brown envelope in Shank’s back pocket.
    Which meant that Shank was hotter than a rat in a smoky sewer.
    Shank took a right turn at First Avenue and headed down in the general direction of his room. Stalling for time, he stopped at a candy store on First between Ninth and Tenth, took a seat at the counter and ordered a chocolate egg cream. He had to think through this situation.
    The tail, whoever he was, had not tried to bust Shank while he had been with the Mau-Mau. Maybe the Mau-Mau had the tail bought and the guy was trying to make his quota on small pushers. Maybe the guy was afraid to make a pinch in Harlem. Maybe, for that matter, the guy figured Shank had a heavier bundle at his pad, in which case the tail probably had not the