"Split!" one of the Arabs hissed. "Here's the things." "The monsters," another chimed. "Keep cool, fool," the third admonished. "They got nothing on us." The two tall, lanky, loose-jointed detectives hit the pavement in unison, their nickel-plated. 38 specials gripped in their hands. They looked like big-shouldered plowhands in Sunday suits at a Saturday night jamboree. "Straighten up!" Grave Digger yelled at the top of his voice. "Count off!" Coffin Ed echoed. There was movement in the crowd. The morbid and the innocent moved in closer. Suspicious characters began to blow. Sonny and his two friends turned startled, pop-eyed faces. "Where they come from?" Sonny mumbled in a daze. "I'll take him," Grave Digger said. "Covered," Coffin Ed replied. Their big flat feet made slapping sounds as they converged on Sonny and the Arabs. Coffin Ed halted at an angle that put them all in line of fire. Without a break in motion, Grave Digger closed on Sonny and slapped him on the elbow with the barrel of his pistol. With his free hand he caught Sonny's pistol when it flew from his nerveless fingers. "Got it," he said as Sonny yelped in pain and grabbed his numb arm. "I ain't-" Sonny tried to finish but Grave Digger shouted, "Shut up!" "Line up and reach!" Coffin Ed ordered in a threatening voice, menacing them with his pistol. He sounded as though his teeth were on edge. "Tell the man, Sonny," Lowtop urged in a trembling voice, but it was drowned by Grave Diggers's thundering at the crowd: "Back up!" He lined a shot overhead. They backed up. Sonny's good arm shot up and his two friends reached. He was still trying to say something. His Adam's apple bobbed helplessly in his dry wordless throat. But the Arabs were defiant. They dangled their arms and shuffled about. "Reach where, man?" one of them said in a husky voice. Coffin Ed grabbed him by the neck, lifted him off his feet. "Easy, Ed," Grave Digger cautioned in a strangely anxious voice. "Easy does it." Coffin Ed halted, his pistol ready to shatter the Arab's teeth, and shook his head like a dog coming out of water.