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you mean Sergeant Cranmer, he’s doing some legwork for me. I didn’t know you were a racist.”
    “Goons come in all colors. You’re a prime example of that.”
    “I should be offended,” he said cheerfully. “I’m not. I asked around about you. Stackpole at the News says if you ever murdered anyone you’d probably have a good reason. Alderdyce doesn’t like you much, but he says your word is good, eventually. He claims you’re a good cook and that you like old movies.”
    “Not all old movies,” I put in. “Just some. And I don’t get as much chance to cook my own meals as I used to.”
    “Who gives a damn? You fought in Nam, played cop in the army, took a stab at the police training course here, and dropped out. Why you dropped out is none of my business. The point is, the worst anyone has to say about you is that your mouth is faster than your brains, which I knew going in. Maybe you didn’t kill Jefferson. Maybe you’re just doing your job, like me. But you’re grubby, Walker. You follow a grubby line of work, snooping for grubby people. You know what a grub is? A slimy gray worm that steals food in the dark and shrivels to nothing when the sun shines on it.”
    “Don’t be cagey, Lieutenant. You don’t like me.”
    “You’re starting to shrivel,” he observed. “Right before my eyes.”
    “I’m just doing my job, like you said.”
    “Back off, grub. Otherwise I’ll leak your name to the press as a suspect in the Jefferson murder and you’ll be grouse for every black militant in town, not to mention Phil Montana.” He pulled open the door. “You go first. Arabs hold grudges and I don’t want two murders on this street the same day.”
    The telephone directory had Coral Anthony living on Brainard. It was a solid old structure with an ornate facade blurred with age and a frieze of colored glass across the front, those pieces that remained in place catching the light and throwing it back among the blank spots like the sparkle in a dirty old man’s eye. The dancer’s name stood alone in neatly printed capitals on a yellowed slip of paper taped next to the room number in the foyer. The main door was unlocked. I went on up.
    “Who is it?” drawled a feminine voice in reply to my knock.
    I gave her my name and added: “I’m pushing my card under your door.”
    Halfway through, the card darted from under my propelling finger. I rose.
    “What do you want?”
    “I’m investigating Ann Maringer’s disappearance,” I said. “I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”
    Locks and chains rattled, a lot of them. Finally the door opened about eight inches and I was confronted with a striking aquiline face the color of old gold. She had high cheekbones and large dark eyes with hard black lashes like curry combs and cornrowed hair and a long neck that swept in an uninterrupted line to the division of her breasts, framed in heart shape by the lapels of a red velour robe growing shiny in places. She was nearly as tall as I am. I glanced down and glimpsed golden toes peeping out of flat-heeled slippers. The trip back up to her face was scenic, as the robe clung to her various hills and valleys like a very thin coat of red paint.
    She said, “Like I told the cops, I don’t know nothing about her. She was too stuck up to associate with the likes of us poor niggers.”
    “I caught your act last night,” I said. “You dance like a muleskinner’s whip.”
    “Is that a shot or what?”
    “More like what. I said it to keep you from slamming the door. But I do like the way you move.”
    “You lose.” She started to push the door shut. I leaned against it. Her eyes grew hard, not that they had been soft before.
    “A cop lives in this building. You want me to scream rape?”
    I let my eyes wander past her shoulder. A suitcase lay open on a shabby overstuffed chair behind her, half full of clothing. “Going somewhere?”
    She filled her lungs. I withdrew my shoulder. She hurled the door shut