From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…

The joint was jammed with colored people who’d seen the big white man die, but nobody seemed to be worrying about it.

The jukebox was giving out with a stomp version of “Big-Legged Woman.” Saxophones were pleading; the horns were teasing; the bass was patting; the drums were chatting; the piano was catting, laying and playing the jive, and a husky female voice was shouting:

“… you can feel my thigh But don’t you feel up high.”

Happy-tail women were bouncing out of their dresses on the high bar stools.

Grave Digger took a deep breath and said in a voice gone thick and cottony again, “Ready, if you don’t tell me what I want to know, you’d better get yourself one of those prayers. Because I’m going to take you over to 129th Street near the Harlem River. You know where that is? It’s a deserted jungle of warehouses and junk yards beneath the New York Central bridge.”

“Yare, I know where it’s at.”

“And I’m going to pistol whip you until your own whore won’t recognize you again. And if you try to run, I’m going to let you run fifty feet and then shoot you through the head for attempting to escape. You understand me?”

His gaze lit on Sugartit who was sitting in the straight-backed chair and staring with a fixed expression at what appeared to be a gunny sack filled with huge lumps of coal lying in the middle of the bed.

“What’s in that sack?” he asked suspiciously.

For an instant no one replied.

Then Choo-Choo said, “Just some coal.”

“On the bed?”

“It’s clean coal.”