Alamena raised her eyebrows. She wondered if Doll Baby was shooting at Johnny Perry. "Why don't you ask him, sugar?"

"I don't have to. I can find out from Val."

Alamena smiled evilly. "Be careful, girl. Dulcy's damn particular 'bout her brother's women."

"That bitch! She'd better mind her own business. She's so hot after Chink it's a scandal."

"It's likely to be more than that now Big Joe is dead," Alamena said seriously. A shadow passed over her face.

Once she had been the same type as Doll Baby, but ten years had made a difference. She still cut a figure in the deep purple turtle-neck silk jersey dress she was wearing, but her eyes were the eyes of a woman who didn't care any more.

"Val ain't big enough to handle Johnny, and Chink keeps pressing Dulcy as if he ain't going to be satisfied until he gets himself killed."

"That's what I can't see," Doll Baby said in a puzzled tone of voice. "What's he giving such a big performance for? Unless he's just trying to get Johnny's goat?"

Alamena sighed, involuntarily fingering the collar covering her throat.

"Somebody better tell him that Johnny's got a silver plate in his head and it's sitting too heavy on his brain."

"Who can tell that yellow nigger anything?" Doll Baby said. "Look at him now."

They turned and watched the big yellow man push his way through the crowded room to the door as though enraged about something, then go out and slam the door behind him.

"He's gotta make out like he's mad just because Dulcy went into the crapper to talk to Mamie, when all he's really tryin' to do is get the hell away from her before Johnny comes."

"Why don't you go too and take his temperature, sugar," Alamena said maliciously. "You been holding his hand all evening."

"I ain't interested in that whisky jockey," Doll Baby said.

Chink worked as a bartender in the University Club downtown on East 48th Street. He made good money, ran with the Harlem dandies and could have girls like Doll Baby by the dozen.