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was looking at two of Jo-Jo’s brothers. There was a girl behind them. The girl was pretty. The boys were not.
    ‘Take off,’ one of the blond boys said.
    ‘My mother said get lost,’ the second giant said.
    I had the pistol in my belt. I did not even show it this time. The two boys looked about as dumb as Swede, and they did not have his forty-odd years of learning that caution pays. They had not had all the long, hard years to develop doubts. They would not hesitate. I turned without a word and went.
    I left them all there in that gaudy sewer of a living room, standing in a line like a firing squad. The boys and Swede were all broad grins. My back going away without a fight made them feel big and strong. The women were not grinning. The ruined face of the mother was as stony as ever above that expensive black dress. As I reached the door I glanced back and saw the old woman already talking hard to Swede.
    Then I saw the girl. She had to be Jo-Jo’s sister. I saw her eyes watching me. I had the sudden impression that she was the only one of them who was not completely happy to see my back.

Chapter 6
    In the hot summer nights of New York 4 a.m. is the bad time. The bars and clubs close at 4 a.m., and then there is no more escape from the heat and no more escape from the troubles that follow a solitary man. Four o’clock in the morning is that final moment of truth – the time when there is nowhere else to go but home. If a man has a home.
    For me, though, 4 a.m. is one of the good times. When the bars and clubs close Marty has time for me. I often find myself waiting with the last sad drunks for four o’clock. They wait with fear, and I wait with anticipation. It gives me an edge. It makes me feel smug. We are all human. I have somewhere to go, and the wait until 4 a.m. is long. I had a lot of time to consider what I had learned. I did not even feel much like drinking, but the Riviera Tavern was air-conditioned. So I drank slow beers while I waited and considered.
    I knew no more than when Petey had come to my office about where Jo-Jo was or why. But it did look like Jo-Jo was really missing and not just on vacation. The Olsens were not surprised at the thought that I was not the only one looking for Jo-Jo. The only apparent reason for Jo-Jo to be wanted was that he knew something about Stettin and that he was afraid for his life. Would a man who had only mugged a cop and left him alive then risk the chair by killing a witness? Would the mugger turn assault into murder? You’re damned right he would. It’s one thing to commit a crime without murder when you expect to get away with it and another thing to face a sure prison term if you leave a witness alive.
    Yet I did not like the answer that Jo-Jo had witnessed the mugging of Stettin.
    It was not enough. In Chelsea the best kid in the world has it from the cradle that a man does not fink to the police, does not get involved, does not see what he should not see. (Not just in Chelsea these days, either. Nobody gets involved, nobody sees, everybody turns and walks away.) How different could Jo-Jo be? If he were so different that he rejected the entire code of Chelsea, then the simple act was to go to the police. He had not gone to the police, and he had vanished, and there had to be more than the witnessing of a mugging. But what? What was so very special and dangerous about Stettin’s mugging? If that was the problem at all.
    Four o’clock came at last, and we were all sent out into the night. My fellow last-ditch drinkers shuffled off slowly to reluctant destinations or to no destination at all. To some alley or doorway where they could hide until the bars opened again.
    I walked briskly, I felt smug, I was sober, and Marty should be home by now. And I continued to think about the Olsens. They were worried. But not about Jo-Jo. I was certain of that. They were worried about themselves. As if they were in some kind of collective trouble. I did not think it was