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glanced down the row of shot glasses and beer mugs lined up along the bartop and ordered a grasshopper.
    “Saint James Infirmary” growled to a finish. While the bartender, without taking his eyes off his customer, assembled the primarily green ingredients, McReary left the stool, punched a nickel into the Rock-Ola, and scowled in delight when he found Bessie Smiths “Gimme a Pigfoot (and a Bottle of Beer).” He wanted to meet the man who had that juke route. As he made his way back to the bar through Bessie’s wailing opening, he heard a voice in the crowd say, “Holy shit!”
    He paid for the neon-colored cocktail, counting out an inordinate number of pennies and no tip; that guaranteed no interference from behind the bar when he started getting his head kicked in. He could feel the stare the redneck on his right was giving him out the corner of his left eye as he raised his glass. The lumpy-looking number on his left was glaring down at his beer with both broken-nailed hands wrapped around the mug.
    “Here’s to Eleanor Roosevelt!” said McReary, and drank.
    Zagreb watched the sweep hand on the face of his Wittnauer pass the twelve. He turned to nod at Canal just as the first glass broke inside Rumrunner’s.
    Canal didn’t wait for the nod. He chunked down the door handle, sprinted when he hit the sidewalk, unlocked the police call box on the corner, and called for the wagon. The others meanwhile were moving toward the door of the beer garden.
    By now more glass had broken inside and the music had stopped—whether because the plug was jerked or because of a direct assault on the front of the machine had yet to be determined.
    The fighting inside was not general, after the manner of a Hollywood Western saloon brawl, with customers slinging punches at whoever wandered into their path and stunt doubles jackknifing off balconies. A crowd had gathered near the end of the bar, where McReary and a narrow-gauged party in a leather vest and cowboy boots run-down at the heels were on their feet, circling each other in a cleared section of floor.
    Baldy’s dour expression told Zagreb he was enjoying himself. The shitkicker had his back arched and his fists up, neither guarding his face. McReary, in a crouch, face concealed behind his hands, kept his weight on the balls of his feet and pivoted quickly whenever his back was turned to the bulky fellow seated on a stool with his elbows behind him on the bar, minimizing the latter’s opportunity to attack from ambush. There was a dark spot on McReary’s right temple, a sickly green puddle on the bar and pieces of broken glass winking on the floor in front of the rail. He had taken the first blow.
    Just as Zagreb and Burke moved in, McReary ducked a shoulder, feinted with his left, and when the redneck stepped back to avoid it, resting his weight on his heels, the officer stepped forward and connected with his right, a short jab straight from the shoulder that struck the point of the other’s chin with a sound like ice cracking. The skinny towhead took two steps backward and shook his head. Then his jaw dropped, his eyes went out of focus, and he teetered forward, falling in a long clean uninterrupted arc onto his face on the hardwood floor. Zagreb felt the impact through the soles of his shoes. Then the pile of bulk seated at the bar came down off his stool and slung a ham fist into the side of McReary’s neck from behind.
    The punch lacked momentum. Burke, who had had his eye on the fellow from the start, had stepped in just as the skinny man fell and drove his left forearm into the bulky man’s throat as he hit McReary. His windpipe collapsed. He wheezed to force air into his lungs, his face bug-eyed and terrified; by then Burke’s other hand was coming out of his own coat pocket. Brass gleamed as he pistoned his fist into the man’s mouth. Blood geysered.
    McReary, dazed by the blow to his neck, grasped at the bar for support. Zagreb turned his back to the officer